Basque Chicken

With some chicken in the fridge and perusing the net I got inspired by by the "Basque" country of France and Spain and decided to put together my own one-pot version of Basque Chicken. The Basque Country is the name given to the home of the Basque people in the western Pyrenees that spans the border between France and Spain on the Atlantic coast. Consequently some versions of Basque chicken have...

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Hunanese Chopped Salted Chillies

I’ve cooked a lot from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook but I’ve always been missing a vital ingredient: salted chopped chillies. Instead I’ve generally substituted dried chilli flake and /or fresh chilli.  As it is one of my favourite cookbooks I decided enough is enough - the recipe to make homemade salted chopped chillies couldn’t seem any simpler so hey! time to go to...

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Rendang Daging (Beef Rendang)

Rendang is a dish that originated in Indonesia but is also very popular in Singapore and particularly Malaysia. Generally made from beef (rendang daging) but also occasionally chicken, mutton or duck, the meat is slowly cooked in coconut milk and spices, including lemongrass, galangal, chillies and ginger, for several hours until almost all the liquid is gone allowing the meat to absorb the...

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Pan-fried Salmon with Sorrel Sauce

My veg patch is looking a bit sorry for itself at the moment: the peas and broad beans have all been picked, the chilli plants looking a bit sparse due to the lack of actual summer and the beetroot has bolted quite spectacularly (“boltardy” indeed). The sorrel on the other hand is looking incredibly healthy and clearly ripe for a bit of harvesting. Dark green with leaves resembling a cross...

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Braised Veal Chops with Creamy Cabbage

This is adapted from a recipe for braised pork chops with cabbage that I'd read about on the web from someone called Molly Stevens' book All About Braising. I’d not actually heard about her before but found a lot of people on US sites (chowhound and the like - and the book gets 5 stars on amazon.com) were banging on about this particular recipe.. a couple of google searches later, behold I found...

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Hunan Feast

Last weekend, as a thank-you for generally being lovely but for also feeding and medicating the little monsters during my recent Italy trips, I had my friends Steve & Linda over for dinner.  The last time I cooked for them it was back in February for Chinese New Year.  They seemed to enjoy the Sichuan dishes I served up that night so this time I thought I would give them a taste...

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