Fritters

Sweetcorn fritters

For lunch today we had sweetcorn fritters. They freeze well so these were ones that I'd made a couple of weeks ago with ingredients I already had. I can't remember where the recipe originated from as its scribbled on a bit of paper but it must be at least thirty years old! It calls for cheddar cheese but I use whatever we have kicking around after a market. This time it was our Old Sheb.


Another favourite fritter recipe is courgette and feta, which we tend to live on in the summer when there's a glut of courgettes  and plenty of fresh herbs.We use our own cows milk feta in them. The original recipe is a Claudia Roden one from her book Arabesque. Over the years I have adapted it and now use gram (chickpea) flour in them, which makes them gluten free!

Sweetcorn Fritters

225g frozen sweetcorn

110g wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 large egg

225ml milk

1tblsp onion finely chopped

75g cheddar cheese coarsely grated

sunflower oil for frying

Cook the sweetcorn for 4 minutes in boiling water. Drain and cool.

In a bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, egg and milk to a smooth batter.

Add the onion, cheese and cold sweetcorn. Stir well to mix.

Leave the batter for 15 minutes to thicken.

 

Using a heavy non-stick frying pan, gently heat a little of the oil.
Use 1 tablespoon of batter for each fritter. Cook the fritters on one side for 2 minutes until crisp and golden, then turn them with a palette knife or fish slice and cook the other side for another 2 minutes. Add more oil as necessary to fry the rest of the fritters.

Drain on kitchen paper.


We prefer them warm. If they have been frozen just pop them into a hot oven for 10 minutes to heat through.






Courgette and feta fritters

These can be eaten hot or cold and they also freeze well, although being extremely moorish they don't always get as far as the freezer!

1 onion finely chopped

500g courgettes finely chopped

3 large eggs

splash milk

110g gram (chickpea) flour

black pepper

2-3 sprigs of mint chopped

2-3 sprigs dill chopped

100g feta mashed with a fork

sunflower oil

Fry the onion in 1-2 tablespoons of oil over a medium heat until soft, add the courgette and cook until soft stirring regularly .

 

In a bowl whisk the flour and eggs and add a splash of milk if the batter looks a bit thick.
Stir in the pepper, herbs, feta and cooked courgettes and onions.

Film a non-stick frying pan with oil and heat.

On a medium heat fry 1-2 tablespoons of the mixture for 2-3 minutes until golden. Turn over with a palette knife or fish slice and fry for 2-3minutes. Add more oil as necessary to fry the rest of the fritters.
Drain on Kitchen paper.

Red Dragon Pie

After mentioning red dragon pie in my http://supportinglocal.blogspot.com blog several people have asked for the recipe.


It contains aduki beans which are known as red dragons!


I have googled it and seen that there are many variations but this is the recipe that we have used for a good many years


125g aduki beans soaked over night, drained and boiled until tender (45 mins) or tin of aduki beans, drained


1tblsp olive oil
1 onion finely chopped
1 red pepper, cored, seeded and chopped into strips
1tsp paprika
1 tblsp sun dried tomato paste
2 tblsp (or 2 sachets) brown miso
1 tblsp soy sauce
150ml water


2 large potatoes boiled and mashed with 1tblsp milk


Soften the onion in the oil, covered until tender. Add the red pepper and paprika and fry covered for 5 minutes.
Add the tomato paste, miso, soy sauce  and water. Simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the aduki beans.
Turn into an ovenproof dish and top with the mashed potato.
Bake in the oven 200C for 25 mins.


We sometimes leave out the mashed potato and have it with jacket potatoes or rice so you don't need to cook it in the oven!

Rick Stein's India

We own a lot of cook books, infact a ridiculous number, too many to fit on the shelves, so they are piled all over the place....... by the bed, on the sofa, on the floor. Some that we haven't used for a while are consigned to two spare rooms. You'd think then that we didn't need anymore.

Wrong!!! You can never have enough cook books!

For Christmas Chris had Rick Stein's India and already we have made several recipes from it.
I have five (from what I can see) other books by Rick which have all been well used over the years. I like the way he gives a little tale about each recipe at the start, where he was when he tasted it or how he came by it. I can hear his voice as I read it.

Two days after Christmas we made vegetable makhanawala to give us a break from meat and all the rich food. Although it was before we started our year without supermarkets, all the ingredients were
in the fridge, freezer and cupboard. It was delicious and so easy to cook.

Vegetable Makhanawala



 

 

On New Years Day Chris cooked chicken passanda, potato and cauliflower curry (aloo gobi) and chickpea curry. They were all lovely and as I adore anything with chickpeas, that had to be my favourite one. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo!

I love dal and could eat it at every meal, so I had to try the tarka dal recipe. It was so simple to make ..... just bung everything in and simmer until cooked. I have always used split red lentils in the past and as I didn't have either of the two types that Rick specified I used an out of date pack of split red lentils from the food mountain. It was heaven! Chris then made it, finishing off the pack of red lentils. We had it with seasonal vegetable curry, again all the ingredients were available in the food mountain without having to buy anything although I did substitue the spring cabbage with sprout tops.

 

 Seasonal vegetable curry with tarka dal

 

 

 

The other night I was flicking through this book in bed and came across shami kebabs. These are made with lamb mince and apparently were invented for some toothless bloke. Well I'd taken 500g of lamb mince out of the freezer that night as Chris had requested koftas for supper on Saturday so as I only needed half of it for them I was wondering what to make with the other half. Incidentally the lamb mince is from the lovely  www.partridgefarmtiverton.com 

Not only that but Chris was going to need soft food tonight as he had  an appointment for two fillings at the dentist.

 

I made them on Saturday night as the meat is cooked before they are formed and fried. So I froze half and kept half in the fridge to fry tonight. I found them a bit time consuming to make but it was definately worth it. They were delicious! We had them with dal again but this time with out of date split yellow peas and aloo gobi. Although it was good I actually prefer the dal made with split red lentils.

Shami Kebabs

 





 

The great thing about this book for me is that the recipes are very easy, they have subtle flavours, not harsh like some curries and for the ones that we like the look of we haven't needed to buy any special ingredients, its all been in the cupboard, fridge and freezer.  

 

 





Za'atar chicken

Maneesh flat bread from the freezer

This week we started on the food mountain and along with the fresh veg which we ordered from the village shop we have had delicious meals!

Za'atar chicken with maneesh flatbread, radicchio and home grown corn salad



Such beautiful colours!

 



 



Back in December I googled za'atar chicken and found this wonderful recipe which someone had posted and attributed to one of my favourite food writers, Yotam Ottolenghi. From what I recall she said that she had adapted it slightly from the original. I have also adapted it in that instead of jointing the chicken I've kept it whole. We had it with maneesh flatbread which I had made from a Paul Hollywood recipe a couple of weeks ago and frozen, radicchio and cornsalad. I have also made it before and stuffed the mixture into thinner flatbreads which can be rolled around it.
The only thing I bought was the radicchio, everything else was part of the food mountain.

Recipe for za'atar chicken

1 Chicken (you can joint it or use chicken pieces)
2 red onions thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic crushed
4tbls olive oil
1 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tblsp sumac
1 lemon very thinly sliced (essential to slice thinly)
200ml stock or water
salt and pepper

Slash the chicken to allow the flavours to penetrate and marinade breast side down in the above ingredients overnight in the fridge.

2 tblsp za'atar

Heat oven to 200C

Transfer chicken, (breast side up) and marinade mixture to a roasting tin/tray and sprinkle the za'aar over everything.

Roast until chicken is cooked through

20g butter
50g pine nuts
4tblsp chopped parsley

Heat butter in small frying pan, add pine nuts and cook until golden. Drain on kitchen paper.

Allow chicken to cool then strip meat from the carcass and chop into whatever size you want.
Mix it with the cooked marinade mixture pine nuts and the chopped parsley. Sprinkle with more sumac and za'atar if you like.

We like to serve it with flat bread and salad and a fabulous garlicky yogurt.
Just add several crushed garlic cloves with some olive oil to greek yogurt and stir. It is truly addictive!

 

 

 

 

 

I'm a food hoarder.................

I'm a food hoarder ....

Well that can only be the explanation for this dry store cupboard of mine! I'm ashamed to say that there are packets of the same thing opened, half used, out of date and ........ five different varieties of rice for goodness sake!!!

Then there's the flour and tins cupboard ...... this morning I made bread with wholemeal flour that expired in Feb 2013. Thats not too bad .....however I have chucked out the buckwheat flour, expiry Feb 2009!!!!

I don't think I dare mention the freezer either (full to the brim!)

So not only are we challenging ourselves to give up supermarket shopping in 2014  http://supportinglocal.blogspot.co.uk we are also going to use up this food mountain!


In this blog I hope to share some of my recipes and when I can fathom out how to upload photos other than one at the top of the page you will be able to see delicious food too!