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Portuguese One Pot Chicken.

It was a Saturday. Something strange had happened. I fancied something other than curry for tea! Not sure Kit was so impressed with this idea!

However not all was lost…

I still wanted that hit of spice!

We were going to be having curry. We had bought 3 chickens especially. To be honest I think the thought of taking the meat off 3 birds was not appealing to me on this particular day. I think a bout of ‘Can’t be arsed’ had come over me!

As well as three chickens I had also put a load of chickpeas into soak the night before so I had to incorporate those in some way.

I had been making some seasonings a couple days previously and knew that I had some surplus ‘Ome Made Portuguese Rub-a-Dub-Rub. And that was all the inspiration I needed! “One Pot Portuguese Chicken”.

One Pot Portuguese Chicken

This really is a simple recipe and whilst it’s cooking you can go about and enjoy your day rather than slaving over a hot stove.

You don’t have to use three chickens! The recipe below is for one. You can also use whatever vegetables you fancy.

You will need;

One Large Chicken
165g dried chick peas (soaked overnight, boiled for 10 minutes and drained)
4 large potatoes quartered
4 large carrots cut into chunks
1 large onion sliced
2 bulbs garlic chopped
roughly 120g mushrooms sliced
1 1/2 teaspoons ‘Ome Made Portuguese Rub-a-Dub-Rub (or Piri-Piri seasoning or mix up a little paprika, cumin and chilli) mixed with a little oil to make a paste.
Roughly 1 1/2 litres chicken Stock (you could use a little less and add a glass of red wine or as we did a splash of Port!)
4 tomatoes chopped
Big handful of fresh coriander chopped
Seasoning to taste

Method

Take a large roasting pan or anything oven proof that all your ingredients will fit in. Put all the ingredients except the chicken, spice mix, stock, tomatoes and coriander in your roasting pan. pour over the stock so that it almost but not quite covers your vegetables.

Rub the spice mixture all over your chicken and place it on top of your vegetables. Cover the whole pan with a couple layers of tin foil and place in a preheated oven at 170°C/150°C fan/gas mark 3 for 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

Take out of the oven. Turn the oven up to 220°C/200°C Fan/ Gas Mark 7. Remove the tin foil and stir in the tomato and fresh coriander. Check for seasoning. Place the pan back in the oven for approximately 30 minutes for the chicken skin to crisp and colour a little.

Remove from the oven and let sit for twenty minutes. The chicken will just fall off the bone. Try serving with some steamed rice and some good crusty bread.

Bao saúde

Cup of Chai?

We started drinking Chai a good year ago now. Not proper Indian Chai but the well known brand, tea bag variety.

Recently however the well known brand that we used decided to re-brand their packaging, putting less tea bags in and charging more. Meaning our bag of Chai cost more than twice as much!

Now we like Chai but paying 25p a bag seemed a bit much! Sod it I thought I’ll make my own!

D’ya know what? It’s dead easy. The only downside is you have to strain the tea before drinking but to be fair thats not that much of a hardship!

You can also customise your blend to your own taste.

I roughly ground some cinnamon, star anise, cloves and cardamoms which I then add to some loose black tea in a teapot and let infuse for 5 minutes. That’s it done, all you have to do is strain the Chai as you pour it out and add milk and sugar to taste.

If I had had any to hand I would have added a little dried ginger (not ground though as that would be too powdery).

If you want to give it a go here are the amounts I used;

4 sticks of cinnamon, 6 star anise, 8 cloves and 5 cardamom pods

Pulse the above in a coffee or spice grinder so they are roughly ground, you don’t want a fine powder.

Use roughly 1/4 teaspoon of this mixture with one teaspoon of tea per mug of Chai.

At some point I will have a go at brewing a proper Indian Masala Chai. For this the whole spices are simmered in the water with the tea before milk and probably a little too much sugar is added.

Here is how Rick Stein recommends doing it in his excellent book Rick Stein’s India.

Ingredients;

1 black cardamom pod, bruised with a rolling pin

15 green cardamom pods, bruised with a rolling pin

6 cloves

4 black peppercorns

8cm piece of cinnamon stick, broken in 1/2

500ml water

4 tsp black tea leaves (equivalent to about two bags if using bags)

2tsp sugar, plus extra to taste

200ml milk

Method

Put the spices into a saucepan with the water. Bring back to the boil, add the tea and turn down the heat to low and simmer for 7 minutes. Stir in the sugar and milk, bring back to a simmer for 3 minutes. Strain through a fine strainer and serve, adding more sugar to taste.

You could try making the delicious Indian sweet Jalebi to go with your Chai. Mr Stein has a recipe from the same book the above recipe is from.

Right… think I’ll go and make myself a nice cup of Chai!

Cheers!

‘Ome ‘n’ Onion Bread…

OK, It’s actually Roman Onion Bread but that’s just not as catchy!

This is one of my favourite flavoured breads to make and it’s so simple. This bread is great for a lunch or supper or when your entertaining as a tear and share bread. We quite often have it as an accompaniment to antipasti or as our Kids call it ‘Picky tea!’

Fresh rosemary really does taste the best for this. If you haven’t got any growing in your own garden, ask a neighbour as I’m sure someone will have some. Rosemary has to be one of the most common herbs that people have growing in their garden, the sad thing is probably about 90% of those people never use it!

‘Ome ‘n’ Onion Bread.

500g strong white bread flour
A good pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil or olive oil plus extra for drizzling
2 heaped teaspoons dried yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2 large white onions, peeled and finely sliced
1 large sprig of Rosemary leaves removed and roughly chopped (or 1 tbsp dried rosemary)
Salt & Pepper

Dissolve the sugar in roughly 50ml of warm water. Add the yeast and leave to activate for 10 – 15 minutes.

In a large bowl combine the flour and salt and make a well in the middle. Add the oil and the activated yeast mixture. Combine the mixture, adding a little more water if necessary, to form a slightly sticky dough.

On a floured surface work the dough, stretching it away from you to make a pliable, springy dough then knead back to a ball.

Place the dough in an oiled bowel and leave to rise, covered, for an hour. After an hour knock the dough back and leave to rise for another hour (although if you are short of time the dough could be used straight away).

Pre-heat your oven to 230°C gas mark 8.

Oil a heavy baking sheet or shallow, ovenproof tin, it wants to be at least 30 x 40 cm.

Take the dough out of the bowel and give a quick knead. Flatten out the dough with your hands then place on your baking sheet/tin. Flatten, stretch and pull your bread to the shape you want it, It wants to be roughly a couple of cm thick.

Give the dough a little drizzle of oil rub over the surface. Lay the onions on top of the bread leaving a little space around the edge. Drizzle more oil over the onions then sprinkle your rosemary and seasoning over the top.

Place in the oven and bake for 15 – 20 minutes. Take out of the oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes, resisting the urge to pick at the sweet, soft onion. Slice, serve and enjoy!

‘Modern’ Cooking?

So apparently Fusion Food is now a dirty word with those that are in the know… or care! It’s now called ‘Modern cooking’.

So ‘Modern Cooking’ consists of taking flavours from one country and mixing them with another. For instance Korean seems to be a modern trend at the moment along with American style BBQ flavours which means there are a lot of burgers being served with a side of Kimchi at the moment. And why not?

Apparently in China British/Spanish combinations are all the rage!

I personally love experimenting with different flavours and experimenting with spices and herbs so I don’t see it as a particularly bad thing, providing it’s done tastefully and not just for the sake of it. I mean there’s nothing wrong with some Chicken Tikka on top of a pizza if you have some to use up but cook it to go on a pizza especially… erm, NO!

The thing is though what makes using different influences in food ‘Modern’?

Surely cooks and chefs have been doing that for years,decades and even centuries?

Think about Christmas. A traditional English Christmas Pudding, Cake or Mince Pie just wouldn’t be the same without a touch of nutmeg and cinnamon. So 300 years ago were chefs and cooks going about saying they were into ‘Modern Cooking’ or ‘fusion food’? I don’t think so.

I think adding new flavours and techniques to classic dishes is great! It’s just the terminology and the way that food writers and chefs go on about it as if they’ve created the wheel!

Anybody is capable of experimenting with food. You might not always get a fantastic result but it’s all good fun and makes food a little more exiting.

Don’t think that it is only the place of Michelin starred chefs to tell you what x & y go with… have a go yourself, the general public have been doing it for years!

What are Your favourite fusion… sorry, modern cooking dishes?

Or have you tried some combinations that really didn’t work?

Let us know, we would love to read your triumphs and disasters!

Eat What You Want… Diet?

We don’t do diets in our house. Or at least I didn’t think we did. Then I Googled ‘diets’ out of interest.

Crikey!

We have the 5:2 diet, Dukan diet, Paleo diet, Atkins diet, Alkaline diet, Cambridge diet, South Beach diet, Slimming World diet, Slim-Fast diet, LighterLife diet, WeightWatchers diet, Rosemary Conley diet and Jenny Craig diet and that’s just for starters

I then Googled ‘Eat what you want diet’. I was surprised to find page after page of differing ‘Eat What You Want Diets’!

Now I have nothing against diets. I’m sure for some people they are the right thing and possibly the only way they will lose weight.

However the people that seem to be on a never ending circle of diets do make me laugh. Because that’s the thing. They do one diet, lose some weight, start eating ‘normally’, put weight back on and then start another diet. And then there’s someone making a lot of money out of these people!
The funny thing is we eat what we want. No. Not the eat all what you want diet. We just eat what we want.

However, we hardly eat any processed food. We don’t eat ready meals… at all (even the microwave has been shut away in the loft!) and if we or the Kids want to have something to eat between meals it’s usually a piece of fruit, not a chocolate bar, bag of crisps or bag of sweets.

We saw a video that someone had posted on You tube. It was a talk by Michael Pollan. If you are interested in food and diet I recommend looking at some of the things he has written.

Michael Pollan Books

One of the things he says is “you can eat as much junk food as you want… as long as you make it yourself”

And it’s a really good train of thought. It’s easy to go and buy chips, pizza, burgers and southern fried chicken from the take-away, you could go every day. However to make these things at home requires time, effort, quite a bit of mess and subsequent cleaning up! Which is why we only have these things occasionally as a treat, even then chips are usually baked in the oven as opposed to deep-fried. Making them yourself also means you don’t get the hidden nasty ingredients in there.

The other thing that Michael Pollan mentions is the amount of sugar, salt, chemicals and hidden fats in processed foods and ready meals. Again something which we don’t really eat.

So it’s funny when you look at the different diets and see that the majority of them say to cut down on processed food and eat more fruit and vegetables.

Well that’s what we do and it’s also what Michael Pollan advocates (although I have given a very simplified version of his advice).

We enjoy food. We cook nearly everything we eat from scratch. We eat fruit. We eat vegetables.

We don’t eat ready meals and we don’t eat a lot of processed food.

We eat what we want… does that mean we’re on a diet? If we are we’ve been on it for over eight years and still enjoying it. Now that must be some diet!

Just please, please don’t give it a name… I would be mortified to Google diets again and find ‘The ‘Ome Made Diet’!

Rebel, Rebel…

Those that know me will know I have always been a bit rebellious. Not for any reason. I just didn’t like doing as I was told or what was expected of me. A rebel without a cause!

These days I still like doing my own thing. Not following the crowd. Not following the latest trends.

Kit is the same and I guess it’s rubbed off on our children too.

And as for commercialism… Grrrr!

The constant bombardment on what we should be buying, wearing, watching, listening and… EATING!

I am very proud of my Kids. They are not constantly demanding we buy them this, that and the other. One Direction? You’ll not hear any of that in our house!

Sure they like their Vans and Converse shoes but at least they are a little alternative.

As for food, well to put it simply… they love it… all of it. They will eat absolutely everything!

However suggest(jokingly) to them that we go for a McDonalds or KFC and we get a resounding NOOOOOO!

We have explained to our children how fast food is made and the type of ingredients that go into it. They have even watched ‘Supersize Me’, they loved it and even demanded to watch it again and again. It really put them off McDonalds.

MissT tucking into a 'Ome Made burger — MissT tucking into a ‘Ome Made burger

The thing is, are we depriving our children? They have home-cooked food on a daily basis. Plenty of fruit. Plenty of vegetables and salad. They have sweet treats occasionally and the odd bag of crisps now and again. If they are hankering for something between meals they usually help themselves from the fruit bowl.

No they don’t eat from fast food establishments but they have freshly made pizza, home-made burgers, kebabs and even Southern style coated chicken. Not to mention the curries complete with pilau rice, popadums, chapattis and Nan bread.

And can they eat! They absolutely love their food. Sometimes they haven’t even finished breakfast before they’re asking “What’s for tea?”

Deprived? I don’t think so!

They are outside a lot too. On scooters, bikes or just larking about. They walk to and from school every day. It’s not far but it all helps. Then there’s the swimming at the weekend and more recently a bit of a run on Saturday mornings (yeah! That one’s killing me!). Yes. They get plenty of exercise.

The thing is, they are a healthy weight, even skinny by todays standards. They look like me when I was younger (Yes I was skinny once!).

So when did not eating a proper balanced diet of home-cooked food and not getting plenty of exercise as a child become the norm?

Well I’m still a rebel because I don’t want myself or any of our family to be normal if that’s what being normal consists of these days.

Maybe now I’m a rebel with a cause!

An Unexpected… Pudding

It was a nice sunny day in the summer holidays. We had said our good-byes a few days before to our child from Belarus that had been staying with us for a few weeks healthy respite. So it was just Us and our Kids. Time to chill out and relax.

Our Kids had been eager to get their bikes out and have a ride around the local park. And that’s exactly what we did!

Off we set along with a bag of stale bread to throw to the ducks.

Our Kids had a good ride, plenty of exercise and fresh air on their bikes and the ducks were well stuffed.

On the way back home we decided to do a bit of foraging. On the way into the heart of the park we had noticed a patch of brambles with a few Blackberries peeking out that maybe warranted further investigation. And I am glad we did. After 30 minutes of scrambling about in the bushes and us shouting the kids “Don’t pick the ones near the ground… a dog may have peed on them!”, we returned home with just short of a kilo of plump, juicy blackberries.

Blackberry crumble seemed like a good idea but then I remembered I had a bit of leftover shortcrust pastry in the fridge but only enough for a base. Hmmm, what to do?

I’m pretty sure someone (Kit!…She has all the good ideas….) mentioned ” Bakewell tart but with blackberries” and there it was. Decision made.

I can’t call it Blackberry Bakewell tart though because to be honest it bears no resemblance to a Bakewell Tart!

So here is my recipe for:-

Blackberry Frangipane Tart.

Ingredients for 1 large or 2 smaller tarts

Shortcrust pastry (500g/1lb) Click the link for a recipe.

Strawberry Jam (enough to coat the bottom of your tart… Ooo er!)

Blackberries (700 – 800g)

Caster sugar for sprinkling over the tart.

For the Frangipane:

100g/4oz butter at room temperature

100g/4oz caster sugar

2 medium eggs, beaten

100g/4oz ground almonds

30g/1oz self raising flour (a traditional frangipane uses plain but I wanted mine to rise into the blackberries)

To Make

Roll out your pastry to about 1/4″ thick and line a well greased flan tin/dish with it.

Slap on a good dollop of strawberry jam and spread to cover the base of the tart.

To make the frangipane cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs and then stir in the ground almonds and flour.

Spread the frangipane on top of the jam.

cover the frangipane with the blackberries and sprinkle with caster sugar.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C/gas mark 6 for 40 – 50 minutes.

Let the tart cool for at least 20 minutes before serving. We had ours with some ‘Ome Made vanilla and Strawberry ripple ice cream. The leftover tart was nice cold, straight from the fridge.

I’m writing this and It’s making me realise… we are very, very lucky in this country.

Sometimes I don’t think we realise just how lucky we are?

OHHHH….SHOOT!!!

Apparently it is my fault that we’ve all been poorly since May. All because one dinnertime I pointed out the fact that we are very lucky to have 4 very healthy Kids who at most just get a sniffle every now & then……

Then 3 days later Lil’MrM walked out of school with bright red cheeks.

Hmmmm, Slapped Cheek Syndrome. Not too bad for the kids but HORRENDOUS for adults!

After a few weeks of being ill & still suffering, I thought i’d better get my backside in gear & write a blog. But what to write about?

Well, ‘Ome & me were cooking dinner one day & I emptied a pan full of water down the sink & washed the pan.

‘Ome: ‘NO! NO! NO! I NEEDED THAT!!!’

Me: ‘But you left it by the sink so I thought it was for washing!’ (& thinking ‘IDIOT!’)

He was making Kimchi (pickled cabbage) & i’d chucked away the pickling brine. Well, to me it just looked like water…..

So that got my mind thinking back to all the disasters/accidents we’ve had in the kitchen. The scary thing is that there have been a few.

I remember the time ‘Ome had an all-in-one ‘thing’ in the oven, slow cooking all day. He went to get it out & dropped it. Chicken, veg & LOTS of stock all over the hob, oven & floor.

Then, when MissT was a baby ‘Ome made a lovely spicy chinese soup. He put a bowl full in front of MissT, turned round to ladle ours out & MissT started crying. She’d gone & stuck her hand in the hot soup. We definitely learned a lesson from that incident.

Having an opened bag full of lentils fall out of your kitchen wall cupboard makes for a great activity. ‘Spot The Lentil’ was a favourite pastime in our house for many weeks after.

If you’re saving any meat stock please don’t let me go near it whilst it’s cooling because you can be guaranteed it will end up decorating your worktops & floor in no time. How I managed to do that when I was just doing the washing-up I have no idea. (Are you all noticing who seems to do the washing-up?…)

Blenders are fantastic, useful kitchen gadgets…..if you remember to put the lid on when blending onion, garlic & ginger. ‘Ome walked into the kitchen, gave me a ‘how stoooooopid are you?!’ look & walked out.

I still to this day blame the manufacturers for putting ‘DO NOT RUN THE MIXER UNLESS THIS LID IS FIXED IN POSITION’ on the lid & not the actual blender. See it wasn’t totally my fault….

The ultimate disaster HAS to be ‘Ome’s jelly making skills. Lil’MrM wanted a jelly for his birthday. So, ‘Ome being ‘Ome had to ponce about doing fancy stuff instead of just making a basic jelly.

This involved the blender, pink jelly mixture & ‘Ome rushing as he had to pick our Kids up from school. He remembered to put the lid on but even he himself admits that there may have been a wee bit too much hot pink liquid in the blender.

Apparently the lid was only blown off a bit….but then landed back onto the jelly mixture that had started to fly vertically & therefore making it spray horizontally…360° around the kitchen at a trajectory of 6feet…..

This happened near the beginning of the year & i’m STILL finding pink splodges in places I didn’t even know we had in the kitchen. At least the floor has ceased to be sticky!

I don’t bother buying nice tea-towels anymore. They only catch fire when moving pans & heat diffusers around on the hob. We’ve had to resort to buying the proper heavy duty, full bifta catering types….they burn a bit slower.

At times you may walk into our kitchen & think there’d been a disaster but no… it’s just ‘Ome cooking & our kids are always pointing out ‘Daddy! You’re a messy cooker!’

So there you go, the fun times in our kitchen…..& i’m not even going to mention the day long argument & sulk over a chopping board….

Kit x

‘Ome Made Business…

After 21 years of working in the catering industry as a Chef/Manager I found myself… ‘in between’ jobs, shall we say.

After pondering about working for myself for a few years I decided to take the plunge.

And there it was… ‘Ome Made is officially a Business!

‘Ome Made available for your home!

The Blog is still going to be here with recipes, ramblings and all that but you may have noticed the addition of the Buy ‘Ome Made button on the menu.

So all those things like ‘Ome Made Curry Masala & ‘Ome Made Chilli Sauce and a whole host of other tasty treats are going to be available to buy through the website and through some (initially) local shops. It’s not fully up and running yet but over the coming weeks products will be made available on the website and we will feed you the information of who else is stocking ‘Ome Made produce as it happens. If you are local however we can probably sort you out with various products (Chilli Sauce, Curry Masala, Beetroot Ginger & Chilli Jam, Red Onion Thyme & Chilli Jam in stock) now.

I will leave it at that for now and update you all as the business progresses.

I hope you join us in this exciting journey!

If anybody has ideas for products they would like to see or buy, or anyone is interested in stocking ‘Ome Made products then by all means drop me an email…

Oh… and wish me luck!

‘Ome Made – Food Family Lifestyle

‘Ome Made Kebab

‘Ome Made Kebab

I have been fond of kebabs since my beer swilling teenage years… You could not beat that garlicky, salty meat stuffed into a pita with slice cabbage, grated carrot, raw onion, sliced tomato and cucumber then drizzled with lemon juice, yoghurt & mint and hot chilli sauce after a night out on the beer!

Of course once I had kids, nights out were a thing of the past and a greasy donner kebab became something I’d have once in a blue moon.

And then I noticed that when I was having them I was enjoying them less and less. The meat seemed to have less flavour, you got less salad,yoghurt and mint seemed to not be an option and ask for lemon juice and you got funny looks. And why can’t you get a kebab in a pita anymore?

It seems that a lot of takeaways standards have dropped these days. And to be fair there is a lot of dubious establishments out there selling things they shouldn’t be to make a bigger profit. Not that I want to tar all takeaways with the same brush… there are of course some excellent takeaways out there.

The thing is, sometimes you just fancy a kebab. So it’s handy to be able to make your own.

If I had my way I would have a big rotisserie spit in one corner of the kitchen but I don’t think Kit would approve!

So how do you get something that tastes and has the texture of a Doner meat?

I’ve found the best method is what I refer to as ‘The Big Sausage’ method!

So here’s how you make it;

You will need

1 kilo lamb mince (or beef, or a mixture)

3-4 cloves of crushed garlic

1 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon chilli powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Plenty of black pepper

1/2 tablespoon oil

Put all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. The best way to mix is with your hands, so get in there and give it a good squish. The more like a paste you can get it the better.

Once all the ingredients are well combined get a large sheet of greaseproof paper and a large sheet of tinfoil.

Lay the greaseproof paper on top of the tinfoil and then get your meat mixture and lay it out in a line, round about 12” long. Now mold the meat into a ‘Big Sausage’ shape. Once you have a rough sausage shape you can roll it in the greaseproof paper to get it nice and round and compact. Wrap your ‘Big Sausage’ in the greaseproof and then the tinfoil. Lay the package on a baking sheet or dish (some juices may escape) and put in an oven at about 165°C (145°C for fan assisted)for around 80 – 90 minutes.

The meat will now be cooked. To serve slice the meat thinly and place on a baking sheet before giving it a flash under a hot grill.

The meat can then be served in a pita bread with Turkish Salad, yoghurt and mint and of course a good dollop of chilli sauce (preferably ‘Ome Made!) or as I’ve done here in a gigantic Naan bread which is then rolled up and sliced (and by the way if you wrap it tightly in cling film and put in the refrigerator overnight, it slices really nice and is ideal served cold on a picnic or as pack-up).