American

Simple Southern Fried Chicken Recipe

‘Ome Made The Chicken Went Down To Georgia, Perfect For Southern Fried Chicken!

You just can’t beat the flavour of Southern Fried Chicken. The Chicken Went Down To Georgia Rub-a-Dub-Rub takes all the flavours of the American South, blends them together to give a seasoning that can be added to flour (or a gluten free substitute) which is perfect for coating drumsticks, thighs or wings to fry or bake for lovely crispy pieces of chicken. Or you can just use it to rub in to chicken, pork, prawns or vegetables before grilling, roasting, frying or of course barbecuing.

You can buy ‘Ome Made The Chicken Went Down To Georgia here

Of course you don’t have to use our seasoning. There are plenty of recipes out there for you to make your own or use your favourite shop bought.

If you don’t fancy frying the chicken first you can of course just bake it in the oven, it won’t be quite as crispy though and it quite often goes a little soggy on the bottom. It still tastes great though!

Cook More Than You Need!

We always cook more SFC than what we need. Cold SFC is perfect sliced and put in a wrap with a drizzle of hot sauce and mayonnaise or just with a bit of salad. Perfect for The Kids school pack up.

What To Serve Your Chicken With.

I like to serve Southern Fried Chicken with either chips and salad or savoury rice and salad, with mayonnaise or even garlic mayo.

Occasionally I will use boneless chicken breasts, sliced in half through the middle, so they’re not too thick, for SFC. These go great in a bread bun with salad, mayonnaise and hot sauce or ketchup if you want something a bit tamer.

If you like Southern Fried Chicken you may enjoy this easy recipe for spicy beef chilli

BBQ Short Ribs

So one Friday I get a call from Mick the Butcher… “Jez” (Yeah, I know it’s Jerome or ‘Ome, I’ve never been a Jez but then Mick is Mike so I guess we’re even!) “I’ve got some Highland short ribs in d’ya want ’em?”

It turns out that a restaurant had ordered them but then decided at the last minute to change their mind, more fool them… what a treat!

The beast that the ribs hailed from came from a very well looked after herd of Highland Cross (Cross as in crossed with another breed not a bit ticked off… although if they knew what was coming I’m sure they’d be pretty livid!) cattle that reside about ten minutes walk from our house. Well you can’t get much more local than that!

If you have never cooked short ribs at first glance they seem particularly fatty. However you have to remember that these tasty hunks of meat need slow cooking at a temperature that allows the fat to render down and flavour the rest of the meat before being given a blast on a high heat to crisp up the remaining fat.

When it comes to cooking big chunks of meat I have to admit that the Americans seem to have it right. So, dry rub of spices, seasoning, sugar and herbs it is before a last minute glaze of something slightly sweet and spicy… I just know that the kids are going to get messy for this tea time!

The best thing to have with these ribs is a nice side of chips… or fries if you want to be really Americanised, salad and a nice vinegary ‘slaw’ to cut through the richness of the meat. We even had a squirt of tomato ketchup to finish it off, to be fair it went really well!

BBQ Short Rib Of Beef

I used 4.5 Kilo of ribs which would feed 8 hungry people. They do heat up quite well so if you have any left over you could always freeze until needed or you could halve the amount if you wanted to do less.

Dry Rub

2 tablespoon paprika

2 teaspoon smoked paprika (If you have it)

2 teaspoon chilli powder

1 tablespoon ground cumin

2 tablespoon Muscavado sugar (or dark brown or molasses)

2 teaspoons of salt

a good grind of black pepper

1 tablespoon dried oregano

Mix all the ingredients together and then rub into the ribs using your hands. The ribs can then be left to marinate up to 24 hours.

To cook preheat the oven to 220°C/428°F (slightly less if using a fan oven).

Place the ribs on a rack in a large roasting dish. Cover with a double layer of foil and then place in the oven. Turn the temperature down to165°C/330°F (145°C/290°F if using fan assisted oven).

The ribs can now be left to cook for 6 hours.

Sweet Chilli Glaze

50ml of vinegar (white wine or cider)

50ml water

2 tablespoon caster sugar

1 teaspoon chilli powder (or more if you like a real kick!)

dash of ‘Ome Made Chilli Sauce (or your favourite hot sauce)

1 tablespoon Tomato Ketchup

pinch of salt/pepper

1 teaspoon (about 1 clove) of crushed garlic

Put all the ingredients into a saucepan, bring to a boil and simmer gently for 20 minutes

Once the ribs have finished their slow cooking take out of the oven and turn the oven temperature up to a high heat (alternatively the ribs can be finished on a BBQ or can be left to cool and finished off another day)

Take the foil off the ribs and using a pastry brush give the ribs a good coating of glaze all over.

Put back in the oven (or on a BBQ) for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes take out of the oven again, give another coating of glaze and cook for a further 20 minutes after which the ribs should look shiny, sticky and slightly charred, if not cook for a little longer.

Once finished leave the ribs for ten minutes or so before serving, you don’t want to take the roof of your mouth off while eating… the ribs can be like the food equivalent to Napalm!

Oh… and make sure you have a hose ready to clean the kids down with afterwards!

‘Ome-Made Pizza

So, I was going to do a post on pizzas at some point but not necessarily now… and then I get a tweet from someone saying they tried following my pizza recipe but it didn’t quite turn out right?

Right, so which pizza recipe was that then because I don’t recall putting one on here!

Maybe they were looking at someone else’s site?

No worries though! “I’ll put a fail safe recipe on the blog for you” I tweeted back.

So here is my guide to making a basic pizza, that’s a piece of bread topped with tomato sauce and cheese, I’ll save the poncey ones for later!

We will start with the pizza base. You can make a pizza base from a basic bread recipe. So if you have a favourite bread recipe that you are comfortable with try using that first. Otherwise give this one a go.

Pizza Base recipe (enough for 3 medium or two large pizzas)

You will knead… sorry need!

500g Strong white bread flour (you simply can’t use plain flour, well you can but it will go crumbly round the edges, soggy in the middle and just won’t be right!)
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoon dried yeast (or 1 x 7g sachet)
1 ½ teaspoon sugar
1 ½ table spoon olive oil (or sunflower/vegetable oil if you have no olive)
320ml/½ pint lukewarm water

Method

in a jug or bowl add your sugar and yeast to the water. give a quick mix and leave for 10 – 15 minutes (it should start to foam and bubble, if it doesn’t your water was possibly too hot, your yeast is old or your water is too cold. Don’t be tempted to dissolve your salt in the water as salt will kill the yeast)
in a large bowl (use a larger bowl than what you think… Trust me!) mix your flour and salt and then drizzle your oil in.
make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in your yeast/water mixture. Pull in some of the flour into the liquid to form a thick paste and then leave for another 10-15 minutes to allow the mixture to ‘Sponge’.
Now mix in the rest of the flour. You should end up with a nice smooth dough. If the mix looks too dry add a little bit of water. If the mixture looks too wet and is sticky add a little more flour at a time until it you get a nice consistency.
You now have to knead the dough. Sprinkle a work surface and the dough with either bread flour or even better fine ground semolina (semolina gives a lovely silky finish). Put the dough on the work surface, hold the near edge of the bread with one hand and with the other push the dough away from you. The idea is that you are ‘stretching’ the mixture. At first the dough will pull apart but after 5 minutes or so the mixture will become more elastic as the gluten develops. If the mixture is still sticky keep sprinkling with flour (or semolina)
when you have a nice stretchy dough knead it into a nice smooth ball rub some oil over the surface put back into the bowl and either cover the bowl with a clean tea towel or cling film. The dough now needs to rise for about an hour.

Step 2 Making the tomato/pizza sauce

You will need

2 fat cloves of garlic chopped
1 small onion chopped
100ml/3½fl oz white wine or cider vinegar
3 teaspoon sugar
small tin (140g) tomato puree
1 tin (400g) chopped tomatoes
2 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
pinch of dried thyme
seasoning to taste

Method

Gently fry the garlic and onion ’till soft.
Add the vinegar and sugar, turn up heat and reduce the liquid until it’s a thick syrup.
stir in the tomato paste and fry for a minute.
add all the other ingredients, stir to mix and let cook for 20 minutes.

Assembling The Pizza

Knock back the risen dough (knock the air out of it by giving it a brief knead) and divide the dough into two or three depending on how many pizzas you want to make.
On a work surface dusted with semolina (or flour) flatten a ball of dough into a circle with the palm of your hand. Roll out the dough in a rough circle to just short of the size you want it, it wants to be about 5mm thick for a nice thin crispy pizza. If you want a thicker pizza leave the dough a little thicker.
Place the dough on whatever you are cooking it on. I use either pizza screens (with the holes in) or a good heavy baking sheet is fine. If using a baking sheet grease it with oil and give it a dusting of semolina or flour first.
Pull the dough disk to the shape and size you want. If you have made a nice elastic dough it will keep resisting, push it down onto the sheet gently to help it along.
You are now ready to top. First of all you want your tomato sauce. Put a dollop in the middle and work out towards the edges leaving about 1cm free.
If you are just using Mozzarella cheese (you will need about 500g/1lb in total) the cheese can be put on. If you are topping with anything else then sprinkle a layer of cheese on the pizza before putting your other ingredients on (don’t overload the pizza!) and then finish with some more cheese.
to finish the pizza off give it a grind of black pepper, sprinkle with some dried oregano and then give it a light drizzle of olive oil.
If you like a thicker base allow the pizza to stand for 40 minutes to allow the base to prove again. If you like a thinner and more traditional Italian style base then put in an oven at 220°C/428°F (if using a fan oven lower the temperature to 200°C/392°F).
Give the pizza 12 minutes and then turn and give another 10 – 15 minutes. When golden and bubbling take out the oven. leave for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

I sometimes brush some melted garlic butter over the pizza about 5 minutes before it comes out of the oven. This gives it an amazing finish!

As for toppings? Anything goes. Our favourites are sliced chilli peppers, black olives, chorizo, sliced red onion and thinly sliced mushroom (not too many, they’ll make the pizza soggy). I tend not to put fresh tomato on as again it tends to make the pizza soggy.

You don’t have to use processed, grated mozzarella either. Try tearing strips off fresh mozzarella for the top of your pizza (don’t worry about having areas with no cheese on, we prefer them that way!). Goats cheese makes a lovely topping too, try a goats cheese and rocket topping for a sophisticated touch!

Happy Pizza making and eating!

Venison Chilli

Our Butcher sometimes gets some very nice wild venison in. When he does we always make sure that we get some venison neck in, we usually buy quite a bit for the freezer. Venison neck when cooked long and slow is great. It makes fantastic curries but this was a first for us. I can honestly say though that this chilli was one of the finest I’ve ever tasted!

We put this in the oven at 165 C and then turned it straight down to 115 C and there it stayed for a good eight hours! I don’t see why it couldn’t be cooked for less time on a higher heat though? I would say that at 165 C for four hours would be fine, any less I would expect the venison not to be quite so melt in the mouth.

This recipe gives a medium (to us!) heat level. Although our kids like spicy, too hot and they start to grumble. Kit and myself simply added some ‘Ome-Made Chilli Sauce to ours.

If you can’t get venison neck you could always do this recipe with chuck steak or even beef shin would give a good result. There is no reason why you can’t even stick to the traditional minced beef.

You will notice that the recipe makes a lot but if your going to have the oven on for that amount of time you may as well do extra! It freezes and reheats well so gives some hassle free meals in the future.

Venison Chilli (makes approximately 12 portions)

1 kilo/2lb Diced venison (or meat of your choice)

500g/1lb dried beans (I used red Kidney beans and pinto beans) soaked over night or couple tins of beans of your choice

4 big fat cloves of garlic, chopped

3 medium onions

3 teaspoons ground cumin

3 teaspoons chilli powder (I used 1 standard hot, 1 new Mexico and 1/2 of bhut jolokia but not everyone has these hanging about in there cupboards)

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 large glass of red wine (or anything else ‘moist’, beer, lager or even cola), don’t forget one for yourself too!

2 tins (280g in total…ish) tomato puree

1 400g tin chopped tomato

2 tablespoon sugar (granulated will do)

3 beef stock cubes or 1 tablespoon beef bouillon or some strong beef stock (approximately 1/2pint/280ml)

50g of seriously dark chocolate (at least 70% but I used 85%)

Plenty of freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste

Method

Drain and rinse the soaked beans put in a pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Boil for ten minutes then drain.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large pan

Fry the garlic and onion until soft

Add the spices and continue to fry for a couple minutes, if they are catching add a splash of water.

Add your meat to the pan and brown, stir in the oregano and season with salt and pepper.

Add your wine or beer (if you haven’t drunk it all yet!) and whack the heat up to reduce the liquid to a nice thick consistency.

Reduce the heat and add your tomato puree and cook for 2 minutes or so now add your tomatoes, sugar, stock cubes (or stock) and par-cooked beans (if using tinned add an hour before serving) and enough water to cover everything + 1/2 inch, bring to the simmer

Break your chocolate up roughly (remembering to taste to check for quality!) and sit on top of the chilli, let it melt slowly before stirring it into the liquid. now put a lid on the pan and put into a pre-heated oven at 165 C/330 F and then turn down to 115 C/240 F where it will stay for eight hours (or less if you decide to cook on a higher temperature, see above)

Go and enjoy the rest of your day knowing that all you have to do for tea now is cook a bit of rice!

Smoked Chicken & Sweetcorn Chowder

So Kit has to go to the emergency eye clinic, turns out she has got viral conjunctivitis, not nice.

Hmmm, was going to be chicken & mushroom lasagne for tea, made with some ‘Ome smoked chicken (done at the same time as the lamb for Easter).Thinking about it though seems as our house is ‘house of the lurg’ at the moment maybe a nice warming smoked chicken & sweetcorn chowder might be in order. There is nothing like a soup made with real chicken stock to kick those pesky virus and bacteria into touch!

Chicken & Sweetcorn Chowder (Serves 4-6)

You will need:

Leftover roast chicken (approximately 300g or two good handfuls, it doesn’t have to be smoked!)

Butter

Flour

Onion

Garlic

Chicken stock (Boil up the bones from the roast chicken if you’ve had time. You want about a pint)

Milk or cream

sweetcorn (frozen or tinned)

Cooked potato (either leftover new potatoes or dice up a large baker and boil for 20 minutes)

Seasoning

Method:

Melt some butter, about 125g, in a pan. Add some chopped garlic (1 or 2 cloves) and some onion (1 medium sized). Fry gently for a couple minutes.

Add a tablespoon of flour to the pan and stir for a minute to help cook the flour out.

Add some stock (if it’s hot it will blend with the flour better and you will void lumps), a bit at a time and keep stirring to make a smooth paste. Once you’re at this stage you should be able to add the rest of the stock with no problems. Keep stirring until the sauce comes to a simmer (if it does go lumpy you can always get the hand blender in there or put in a liquidizer).

Add your chicken and potato and let that heat through for 10 minutes. You can then add the sweet corn and either a couple tablespoons of cream or about 1/4 pint of milk. The soup should be a nice thick consistency, if it’s too thick thin with a bit more stock or milk.

Season with pepper (ground white works best) and salt to taste. I also add a generous pinch of paprika (you could use smoked).

You can add some finely chopped fresh parsley or chervil if you have any.

After ten minutes the Chowder will be ready.

Serve with some nice crusty bread for a lovely comforting meal.