Smoked Chicken and Potato Ragout (by Biggs)

I decided to try another 'easy but impressive' BBC meal tonight but ran into trouble at the supermarket. They didn't have any spatchcock or quails or even little chickens that the recipe called for. I finally went with the smallest chicken I could find but when I got to the checkout I discovered it was smoked and therefore pre-cooked. But, it as too late to turn back.

I heated the smoked chicken on a bed of potato ragout and served dinner with snow peas. The ragout was bacon lardons, potatoes and mushrooms stewed in beer. The recipe called for wine but we only had beer. The other thing I added was porcini salt. I recently bought Dan some smoked salt and he, in return, gifted me some porcini salt. I was a bit gun shy so probably didn't add enough but teamed with some fresh parsley it was pretty great.

The chicken was odd.

Katsu Curry (by G)

I don't know what prompted me to make Katsu Curry. It just popped into my head that it would be a good combination with thick udon noodles.

There are two ways to make Katsu, use a packet, or do it from scratch. In the interests of making an effort I made mine from scratch. I started out by lightly frying some onions and browing some beef chunks dusted in flour. Then added garlic, ginger, curry powder, tomato paste, some bay leaves, red wine, carrots, potatoes and mushrooms and left all of that to simmer for a while. I was a bit dubious that this dinner would actually taste like anything at this point - it was pretty watery and bland. The key is the roux.

The roux in this case ia a mix of butter and flour flavoured with some more curry powder, some garam marsala and (if the urge strikes you) cayenne pepper (I left it out). The roux definitely added more curry flavour and thickened everything up nicely.

Oh, yeah - there are some other wacky crap you add at the end. A grated apple (though I used a pear), some milk and some worcestershire sauce.

I was pretty pleased with the combination of the glossy curry with the slippery thick noodles. I managed to make about 3 times the quantity required so I think it will feature as leftovers some time in the near future.

Peppered Steak with Parsley Potatoes (by Biggs)

G is trying hard to try harder with dinner so I thought I should to. But, I'm still me (ie/ very lazy) so decided to search "easy but impressive recipes". The BBC Good Food website had thought of this concept before me it seems so I'm going to slowly work my way through the meals they have compiled.

I chose this one because I have a giant bag of potatoes available so it only involved buying some steak and watercress. Unfortunately the watercress only came in miniature form but I pushed on and mixed the tiny herbs with some grain mustard and balsamic vinegar.

The potatoes were boiled, fried then baked.....thrice cooked being the perfect amount of cook on a potato. They were then topped with most of G's parsley garden.

For the steak I peppered it then cooked it to perfection. Easy but impressive, yes?

Mizu (by Biggs)

Tonight was our monthly family dinner night where G and I go out for dinner, eat too much, drink too much but have a jolly good time.

We headed to Mizu, a local Japanese restaurant. We ate everything. Beef, that took a while to warm up to room temperature. Nice crispy takoyaki. Pork gyoza. A saki tasting platter. Nicely crusted prawns. Chicken kaarage. Eel.....cause I love eel. Salmon. And, sashimi.

The waitress couldn't help but notice out appitite for booze....and specifically sake. Our dedication in fact resulted in a personal invitation to a sake tasting evening. We signed up wholeheartedly!

Enchiladas (by Biggs)

A big couple of days at work and I flew in from Townsville with only enough time for a quick beer before I had to get started on dinner.

I chose one of those Mexican meals in a box which in fact only came with corn tortillas and a sauce. I mixed the sauce through some pork mince with onion, a grated zucchini, a couple of chilies and some paprika.

The mix was rolled into the tortillas, topped with the leftover mince well as sour cream and cheese then baked for a while. The cheese didn't crisp up so G suggested the grill. Man, that thing is amazing. Crisped it up in no time.

I served it with salad only because I had a bag of lettuce in the fridge.....not a memorable salad.

Jane's Pizza Roll (by G)

This is my second attempt at a classic from my childhood - unfortunately this version was not righ either. There does not appear to be a complete recipe on the internet and I have misplaced the Gabriel Gate cookbook that it comes from (which I think may actually belong to Biggs).

The internet was able to point me in the right direction with regards to fillings (though not quantities). Into this version went spring onions, green olives, strasbourg (the recipe calls for salami but Mum always used this bland, pale meat substitute and it goes very well), mozarella cheese, tomato paste, worcestershire sauce and dried oregano.

First off I didn't make enough bread dough so the crust was very thin and hard to contain the ingredients in. Secondly, I added too much tomato paste - it overpowered all the other ingredients. Despite these setbacks I am edging ever closer to a correct Jane's Pizza roll recipe.

 

Chicken Wings and Squid (by Biggs)

I'm in Townsville for work today. After a 12 hour day it's sometimes difficult to leave the hotel room to seek food. The air-conditioned cool anonymity of a hotel room with a comfy bed and room service was pretty tempting. But, last time I was in Townsville I learnt about this brewery just as I was leaving so didn't want to miss the chance to give it a go.

I wasn't super hungry so thought a couple of starters would be the way to go. One probably would have been enough...and if I was to choose one it would have definitely been the chicken wings. They were good and savoury. The squid was good too until it went cold. Then it was very very weird.

Scandinavian Seafood Platter (by Biggs)

I've wanted to cook a lobster for a while now so, this morning, I headed to Frank's Oysters in Woolloongabba to pick one up. Alas, Frank had 'gone fishin'' so wasn't around to service my needs. The seafood monger down the road didn't have any fresh lobster so I settled for some prawns instead and changed the plan.

I thought about doing a glorious seafood platter of fried goods but after a quick search I discovererd this little number. I'm up for any excuse for some smoked salmon.

The platter involved garlic prawns mixed with some dill, a slice of smoked salmon, a salad of pickled cucumber and a mustardy potato salad with capers. Dinner was served with a side of mayonnaise and rye bread. G commented that the bread almost tasted like fruit cake and he wasn't too far wrong. Other than that dinner was quite good.

Bacon and Cheese Roll (by G)

I was expecting it to rain so I planned a wholesome rainy day meal for today. Just some home baked bread, grilled bacon, two types of cheese (gouda and Swiss) and some tomato (because I had it)... and a hash brown.

I was originally going to have a side of chips, then I discovered they sell hash browns in packets now - I was going to serve the hash browns on the side until I discovered they were the same size as the bread.

Unfortunately the rain did not come to the party - and I didn't load the rolls up with enough bacon.  I also forgot that I was going to add some fried eggs to the rolls, probably a good thing I forgot - that could have become messy.

Mac and Cheese (by Biggs)

It's quite wet in Queensland at the moment and G suggested a rainy day meal might be in order. My favourite rainy day meal is mac and cheese so I picked up the required accoutrements on the way home from work....some mac and some cheese. There was also bacon, onion, garlic and parsley.

This was a good one. And a big one too so there's plenty left over for the upcoming rainy weekend.  Happy days!

Caramel Pork and Bread (by G)

This was a bit of a slap dash meal based on a Lao Caramel Pork recipe. Biggs had planned to be at work late and I had only limited time to cook so I decided it didn't really matter much what I had for dinner as I would be the only one to eat it. As it turned out Biggs was home, but I thing I delivered something fairly edible.

I fried some pork sirloin to get some colour on it, then cut it into cubes and simmered it in a broth of soy sauce, fish sauce, vegetable stock, red chilli, garlic and ginger. Towards the end I added some boiled eggs and coriander and served the whole lot on a bed of mixed lettuce leaves and with a side of homemade bread.

I was very concerned about the pork most of the way through the cooking time because it was sandshoe tough - somehow, however, just as it was time to serve, it became tender and delicious.  This is down to luck because I recipe I loosely based this meal on called for 3 times the cooking time (also a lot of other things I did not have time to do).

All in all, a very creditable meal in a hurry.

Sausage Casserole (by Biggs)

G has been asking for sausages for a while now and, based on current budgetary constraints, I thought it was a fine idea.

I looked up sausage recipes on the interwebs and all the usual suspects were there - curried, devilled, toad in the hole. Then I noticed an Australian Women's Weekly sausage casserole recipe that sounded suitably average.

It was sausages cooked up in a mix of onions, vegetable stock, tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Suddenly that sounds pretty gross, and the photo is awfully grey, but, dinner was good.

I probably should have organised some vegetables.....instead I served it with bread.

Chicken Arepas (by G)

I found an awesome and time consuming tortilla recipe recently that I want to try out but, as Biggs was not going to be home I decided to do something else for the time being.

The arepas are home made (as you can tell from the appearance) made from mesa, salt and water. I blitzed the dough according to the exacting proportions provided on the bag of mesa and discovered it was too wet. Rather than correct that I decided to trust the packet, which was a mistake.

The arepa buns were hard to form and fry with such a wet dough but I managed it. The filling is a mix of grilled chicken breast, avocado, habanero, coriander and some mixed herbs and red chilli I had left over from the other night... also some mayonnaise. For some reason I went with a new wasabi mayo from Kewpie - it is very chemically and weird.

With the soggy arepas and weird wasabi filling I was a bit reluctant to try dinner, but it turned out to be delicious. Arepas are one for the list of things to try again and improve upon.

Chicken Parmigiana (by Biggs)

This isn't Golden Chicken! I'm very disappointed that this isn't Golden Chicken. I swore next time I went to Hervey Bay I would have Golden Chicken. What's Golden Chicken you may ask? Golden Chicken is an amazing take away chain shop, if three stores make a chain that is. G and I went through a significant stage of spending our days eating Golden Chicken and playing mini-golf. I have no idea how we had time to do this or money to support such a lifestyle but it was a good time. They had excellent little chicken wings and when you ordered 8 they would give you about 20.

I was in Hervey Bay for work today so was very much looking forward to re-living the glory days. Alas my wish was not fulfilled.

I let Anita know I would be in Hervey Bay and she gave me the very exciting news that our friend Rachada, who lives in New York, would be in town as well so a very rare catch up was arranged. Rach is married to an amazing chef and lives a life of eating in high profile restaurants every evening. She seemed less than impressed with my suggestion of Golden Chicken and cask wine in my hotel room and suggested instead we should have a proper dignified sit down dinner together.

We headed to the classiest place in town - the Beachhouse Bistro. I ordered a very cheese parmy and was supremely satisfied. Even more satisfying was my $5 pint of beer. Regional Queensland sure does have it's positive points.

So good to see you Rach!

Pork Rashers in Quince Paste (by Biggs)

I thought I'd pull out the Pepper cookbook Bonnie got me a while back since it's previously served me well. This recipe caught my eye a while back....probably because of the pork rasher factor.

The pork was cooked in a hot oven regularly being basted in a quince paste glaze. The glaze was meant to be oil, quince paste and lemon but I'd forgotten to buy a lemon. Luckily Bonnie is a very generous friend and had at some stage gifted me a bottle of verjuice....a fine lemon substitute in this situation. The only other thing that was added to the pork was about 6 tables of black pepper. Turns out it was a waste of pepper as you couldn't taste it at all. Dinner was nice though, just not as peppery as one would expect from a pepper recipe.

I think we need to lay off the pepper anyhow because our grinder makes a noise similar to a gerbil being strangled which makes for some fairly traumatic dinner prep.

Nem Lui Hue (by G)

In the spirit go making more of an effort with dinner I give you lemon grass skewers. I saw it on a Luke Nguyen TV show the other day.

The sausages are a mix of beef mince, pork mince, pork skin, pork fat, salt, sugar, pepper and fish sauce. All the pork products came from a bit of pork shoulder that I minced using the food processor, except the skin which I boiled for a little while then finely diced. After moulding them onto lemon grass skewers I cooked them over charcoal.

The bread rolls in the photo that look all professional and shit were made my me (well, mostly the food processor) using fresh yeast. The fresh yeast is supposed to take longer to rise so I made the dough well ahead of time, then discovered it was rising faster than normal if anything. I stuck it in the fridge to stall it a little, then when I was ready I split it into portions, flattened them out, rolled them into roll shapes then let them rise again. I bought a cool curved baking device with lots of little holes in it especially designed to keep the shape and help the bake on long rolls and loaves - it worked spectacularly.

The meat and the bread were excellent (in my opinion) and served with lettuce, herbs and chilli they were almost perfect.

Kilkenny Stew and Dumplings (by Biggs)

I bought a Guinness for a friend during after work beers this week which got me thinking that Guinness stew might be a thing. After a quick search I discovered it is most definitely a thing and a thing you can serve with dumplings.

The idea of dumplings really appeals to me but these ones were terrible....dense and dumpy and raw.....basically inedible. Disappointing since I made about 20 of them.

The stew was not much better. I don't know how veges, meat, stock and beef could have gone so wrong but this stew was very reminiscent of the cheap, watery, celery-laden stews of my youth that I hated so much.

Admittedly I did end up using Kilkenny instead of Guinness and appreciate they're very different beers but you won't see me blaming the beer for this disastrous mess.

Chicken and Deli Platter Burger (by G)

I'm going to make a concerted effort to make a concerted effort with dinner from now on, but not tonight. Inspired by the platter the night before I decided to do a deli platter on a burger with chicken.

The chicken was just some pre-cut schnitzel chicken that I griddled up then seasoned with some black salt Biggs gave me for my birthday. The black salt gave the chicken a very odd look.

To a burger bun I then added 4 types of cheese from a cheap cheese platter they sell at the supermarket (cheddar, smoked, Swiss and some kind of pepper cheese), I also added some gypsy ham, two types of salami, tomato slices and a sriracha/Caesar dressing mix (I couldn't find any mayonnaise in the fridge).  Potato royales on the side - what could be better. A lot of things, actually, but it was okay.

Brewer's Platter (by Biggs)

Today is G's Birthday and we have an unspoken agreement to feed each other something delicious or interesting (never both) on our Birthdays. I've had a big work week so I was never likely to cook but know of a brewery down the road that served particularly good platters.

A very generous spread of good things - slow cooked beef and pork, pickles, cheese and potato salad. G sensibly demanded jalapeño hushpuppies.

There was also some beer.

Lamb Cutlets with Cauliflower Cous Cous and Mixed Veg Salad (by G)

I got a box of vegetables delivered last week and have barely used any so I thought I should incorporate some of those in dinner. I simmered the carrot, beans and snow peas separately in salted water and refreshed them in cold water to keep the colour and crunch. To the vegetables I added some tomatoes and olives and a dressing of grain mustard, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, olive marinade and olive oil. There are some anchovies in the fridge - in hindsight I wish I had mixed one of those through to add a little mystique, the vegetables turned out pretty well regardless.

The lamb cutlets were pretty ginormous - probably mid-summer lamb rather than spring lamb. I seasoned them with some cumin salt and griddled them up. The problem with the griddle pan is that it is almost impossible to over cook meat. I think I speak on behalf of Biggs when I say we like our lamb cutlets crispy and overcooked, so I bunged them into a super hot oven to finish them off.

The cous cous was something I saw on Knife Fight the other day. For someone who professes not to like that show very much I sure do lift a lot of ideas from it. The cous cous is just raw cauliflower blitzed in the food processor. The only reason to make it was so that I could use the food processor.

Steak Tortillas (by G)

Biggs was unexpectedly delayed at work and was not home to make my dinner so I tortilla'd on the fly.

I had steak, onion, capsicum and sriracha so I combined all those things with a sizzle.

It's probably a good thing that I used the steak when I did, it was one of the unpleasant, very expensive, shrink wrapped things that I bought prior to Christmas. To counteract the spongy texture I first fried it whole then sliced it thin and fried it at a very high heat with the onion and red capsicum. I added some vegetable stock for flavour and was going to add cheese but decided against it for once - too heavy.

I was fortunate to find three mini tortilla wraps in the freezer to meet the theme. The sriracha was the classic rooster brand, I've had a lot of sriracha brands in the recent past - I don't recall the rooster band being so mild and hard to control. I sure did blob it on there.

Spicy Chicken Tostadas (by Biggs)

Work is a bit discombobulated this week! There are people visiting from interstate, other organisations, colleagues from regional centres and consultants in town for training. I thought at some stage this week I would be involved in hosting a dinner or at least ensuring everyone was fed, watered and back safely in their hotel rooms by bed time. I'd warned G this was the case and I may not be home to cook or eat dinner at some stages through this week.

So, I can't say that I hosted any sort of work related dinner tonight but I did bail on making dinner for G last minute to drink beers with Nick and a friend of his. Luckily we bedded down in a city bar that was offering a menu adhering to Tortilla Tuesday requirements.

I went with chicken tostadas, spilt one all over myself, gave the other one to Nick then concentrated on drinking beer. I had serious order envy when I saw the corn on the cob and nachos but life is still okay.

I suspected the tomatoes were a little bit too ripe on the tostadas but the bar lady later admitted to me they were being over-run by fruit-flies for an entirely acceptable reason.....bar staff too drunk to seperate the rotting apples and tomatoes out from the non-rotting ones. This is an acceptable excuse as far as I'm concerned. The place was advertised as a dive bar after all....authentico (that's Spanish for authentic).

Chorizo Lasagne (by G)

I saw Alton Brown making lasagne with sausage meat the other day and it inspired me. I usually make a bolognaise, which take some time. This seemed like a handy shortcut. It also occurred to me that I could use chorizo sausage - which is always a good thing.

This was a real shortcut meal. I deskined and fried the chorizo meat then made a cheese sauce using the chorizo fat, some butter, flour, milk and cheddar. Once that those two steps were completed I just layered it up with a jar of bolognaise sauce and premade fresh lasagne sheets.  The key is the layering meat and bolognaise, then pasta, then cheese sauce, then pasta and repeat.

Biggs commented that the result was very cheesy... that's just as nature intended. It probably had something to do with the packet of parmesan I dumped on the top before baking.

I had intended to make a salad to have with the lasagne but it turned out I had squashed the lettuce I had in the fridge to oblivion. I also discovered that raw vegetables are basically poisonous so we dodged a bullet there. Better to die from the massive amounts of fat in the lasagne than be poisoned by a vegetable.

Instead of salad I overbrowned some garlic bread - it came in a packet.

Pizza (by Biggs)

A couple of years ago we went through a bit of a bad time where we were very regularly having take away pizza every Monday. And when I say bad it was actually pretty good.....but very bad.

Anyhow, there's a bit of a risk we're heading back down that path on the evenings I'm in charge of dinner....starting tonight.

I did at least order pizzas from one of the higher quality local pizza purveyors and it was pretty good. We had a chicken and bacon, a capricciosa, some chicken wings and blue cheese garlic bread. All quite tasty.

I particularly appreciated the convenience of not cooking after a weekend that involved a little more beer than a weekend should.

Pork Knuckle (by G)

I was so excited to make pork knuckle, then did a mediocre job of it (isn't that always the way).  My excuse is that I got some bad advice from the internet. I dusted the knuckles in salt, pepper and some ground coriander then popped them into a shallow beer bath then oven roasted them for 4 hours while I took a nap. After 4 hours I tried to get the crackle going under the grill but that didn't really happen.

The meat was almost fork tender, but not quite - which is the worst kind of fort tender. I think it could have used another couple of hours.

For sides there was sauerkraut from a jar and beetroot from a can. I also roasted up some cubes of potato - I had intended to dust these with garlic powder but it had solidified in the jar so I seasoned them with salt and mustard powder instead.

The best thing about dinner was the small quantity of thick rich gravy that I made from the dehydrated beer and pork drippings from the bottom of the roasting pan.

Friday's New Brisbane Noodle and Rice (by Biggs)

I was at Bonnie's tonight for dinner and it seems her household have really become hooked on New Brisbane Noodle and Rice since we discovered it late last year. It really is great.

I'm not really sure what we had because I stayed well out of the decision making process but it was all fantastic.

I don't have much more to say beyond it being fantastic but do feel I should acknowledge that I missed the cut off for this blog post....this was actually Friday night's dinner. I blame the weekend beer consumption. I'm not promising this won't happen again.

Chicken and Chicken Pasta (by G)

As Biggs was away I decided to use up some of the chicken I had been stock piling to make an unspectacular meal.

 

Roasted chicken drumsticks seasoned with salt and pepper and a pasta of griddled chicken tenders, pasta and the remainder of a jar of mushed up roasted vegetables.

 

I did thing about adding some garlic or onion, maybe even some other vegetables - then I thought, 'Nah, fuck it'... and I was right - it was fine just the way it was. Suitably fine.

Pork and Mango Curry with Puffed Wild Rice (by G)

I had something to do in the evening but still had to provide dinner so I hit on the excellent idea of making something the night before - that something was a pork curry.

Curry is a bit of a loose term because I forgot to add curry paste in the end.  Basically I just fried off some onion, garlic and chilli along with some spices - paprika, cumin, turmeric, garam marsala - then put some colour on the pork (pork rashers cut into cubes on this occasion).

Once the pork looked okay I added some mushed up roasted vegetables from a jar, a diced tomato, along with some vegetable stock and simmered it until the pork was tender and the sauce was thick.

The next night - to finish off the meal - I added some fresh coriander and chunks of mango.  I also puffed some wild rice, something I had seen someone do on 'Knife Fight', and oven baked some naan bread from the Indian store.

I'd have to say, the puffed rice and naan were excellent. For a Pork and Mango curry the curry could have used more mango and curry.

Three Good Things on a Plate....and Pork (by Biggs)

Now, I don't want this title to indicate that pork is not a good thing. Pork is always a good thing. But, I thought I'd give another one of Hugh's Three Good Things on a Plate a crack....and, add pork.

I'd already spent ALL my money on bills and booze this fortnight so wasn't sure how to afford dinner tonight. Then I remembered Hugh's Three Good Things on a Plate. Surely I could afford three things. Especially if I chose the three cheapest things Hugh had on offer - broccoli, eggs and garam masala. I didn't actually have to buy garam masala so I bought budget pork instead.

The sauce was a slow cook of butter, garlic and garam masala. Perfect with eggs....as most things are.

Chicken Tortillas with Nacho Cheese (by G)

No finesse here. A salsa of cucumber, poblano chilli, red chilli and coriander, some lemon juice (I mistakenly thought I had a lime) and some salt. I don't know why I didn't buy a red onion - that would have kicked the salsa up a bit.

The chicken was just chicken tenders seasoned with salt and pepper and griddled. My original intention was to inject the cheese sauce inside the chicken and then crumb the tenders but as soon as I saw the irregular shapes of the chicken pieces I quickly decided that that would not work - it would also have been a lot more work.

To make the cheese sauce I first made a roux of butter and flour (with some paprika) and added butter milk. I bought the butter milk by mistake a couple of days ago but 'waste not want not'.  To the thick white sauce I added some packet cheddar I had in the freezer (a seasonal local product) and the rest of a jar of salsa I had in the fridge.

The sauce didn't have the requisite kick so I added some sriracha... then a different type of sriracha, then some savoury chilli sauce and finally some Mexican tomato sauce - that finally did the trick.

I don't know why we haven't had nacho cheese on tortillas before... hell, I don't know why we haven't had nacho cheese on everything before. This was not a good version but good enough to convince me of the merits of nacho cheese sauce.

Sausage Sizzle (by Biggs)

We had a State Election on Saturday and neither of the polling booths that G and I went to had a sausage sizzle going....a violation of our human rights.

I rectified this tonight with a simple dinner of sausages, fried onions and white bread. I think G did very well not to complain that there were only four sausages on offer to him.

Labskaus (by G)

I saw TVs Rick Stein travel to German on the TV this week. He made some horrendous combination of mashed potato and corned beer called labskaus. I had corned beef and some potatoes and decided I too should make labskaus. It was also my opportunity to try out my new toy - a real food processor.

To get things started I coarsely grated some onion and corned beef in the processor, fried them for a little then added some commercial beetroot from a tin, some stock and a lot of mashed potato (also make in the food processor - with the dough attachment). Then I simmered the vivid looking goop until it had thickened up nicely, then served it - topped with a couple of fried eggs, as is the custom.

For a side I mixed some sauerkraut through a packet coleslaw mix and dressed it with some mayonnaise and Dijon mustard.

I must say, I thought the labskaus had good flavour but a challenging texture. I later discovered I had picked up butter milk from the supermarket instead of regular milk from the supermarket, which would explain why the mashed potatoes turned out so oddly - I had put that down to having made them in a food processor.