Showing posts with label Delicious Mains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Delicious Mains. Show all posts
I am sure loving being able to feed my pasta loving heart to it's content. Not having anyone to please other than myself, I can cook pasta every night of the week if I want to, not that I would . . . variety is the spice of life!
Another ingredient I really love is tomatoes. I could eat them right out of the can and have sometimes feasted on a dish of cold chopped tomatoes and a slice of buttered bread. That is heaven to me.
Today I cooked myself a little pasta dish for two from a cookery book I have entitled, Clodagh's Kitchen Diaries by Clodagh McKenna. She is an Irish writer. You might say she is the Martha Stewart of Ireland.
This is one of the few books I was able to bring over with me from the UK. It is written on a monthly theme and is filled with lovely recipes that are quite simply delicious.
The true simplicity of this one really caught my eye. First of all it contains very few ingredients, bonus!
Second two of the major ingredients are tomatoes and pasta, double bonus! Oh, and there is bacon in there as well. TRIPLE BONUS!
Bucatini All'Amatriciana is a wonderful testimony to the Italian capacity to be able to cook something delicious from very few and simple ingredients. Making the most of what they have been given in every way.
Simply delicious, Bucatini All'Amatriciana derives its name from the small town of Amatrice which is found about an hour northeast of Rome, Italy. Visiting Italy was always on my bucket list of things to do that never got done while I was close enough to do them, so will remain a dream now.
I had always wanted to go but my husband didn't want to go because he said he didn't like Italian Food. He hated pizza and pasta and could not be convinced that they eat a lot more than just those things in Italy. His loss I guess.
Unfortunately mine too, but thank goodness I am a fairly competent cook, so whilst I may not actually be able to feast my eyes upon the physical beauty of Italy, I can at least enjoy some of her tastes!
Bucatini is one of the pasta's that I love. It is long like Spaghetti, but is a bit thicker and has a hollow center, much like macaroni does!
It is a pasta that I love to use, and works beautifully with a sauce like this. It has the capacity to hug the sauce and that is what you want in a pasta, and why certain pasta shapes are particular to certain sauces!
Traditionally this sauce will be made with Guanciali or Pancetta. Guanciali (pronounced Gwan-cha-lay) is an Italian type of cured meat made from the cheeks or jowls of the pig.
It has a much richer and sweeter flavor than pancetta or bacon. Those both come from the belly of the pig. The cheek or jowls of the pig have more intramuscular fat which has more flavor and tenderness.
Having said that, I could find neither one when I was at the shops the other day and so today have had to make do with bacon, which worked fine. At least taste-wise anyways! Italians might shake their heads at me in disgust!
I just happened to have some really thick (and I mean thick) streaky bacon in the freezer. Did you know that one easy way to freeze your bacon it to take it out of the package and roll each slice into a roll. Place onto a baking sheet and freeze and then pop into an airtight container.
It is really easy to then take out just as much as you require when you need it. Its also very easy to chop from frozen. In fact frozen bacon chops a whole lot easier than thawed bacon.
I know its a bit of a cheat using bacon, but one has to do what one has to do. I have not found pancetta in the shops here yet, but live in hope.
You will want to use really good tomatoes for the sauce also. I used to use Cirio tomatoes when I was in the UK. They were the best,
Here I am not sure what is the best. There have really only been two types/brands available in the shop other than the store brand or no name brand.
Trust me when I tell you that when it comes to tomatoes and cooking, you want to always use the very best ones that you can afford to buy. It really does matter.
And it really does show when it comes down to flavor. The flavor of good tinned tomatoes speaks for itself.
I have also been unable to find really good Parmesan or Pecorino cheese that hasn't already been grated. (Yes, it is a really small place.) What I wouldn't give for a nice big hunk of whole Parmesan.
Maybe I just don't know where to look. I've been shopping at the Independent or Foodland in town for the most part, or the Super Store every now and then.
I haven't really been to Sobey's. Perhaps they have more to choose from. I think I am going to check them out next time and see.
In any case, this turned out really well and tastes delicious. That's what truly counts.
The Bucatini I bought online via Amazon. You can get a lot in the way of food stuffs via Amazon. I was really spoilt in the UK, most things arrived pretty much overnight if you had Prime delivery.
Here it is usually a week or so, depending. Mind you Covid has a lot to do with that I have heard.
Food deliveries from shopping online from all sorts of suppliers worked well in the UK, but it is a really small country. I could get frozen fish/meats, poultry, cheeses, etc. all within a few days and in impeccable condition. Just one of the things I shall miss.
One thing I didn't have over there however was family, and being here where my family lives, being close enough to be able to spend time with some of them, more than makes up for me not having certain ingredients, etc. A competent cook can always improvise and I do!
I consider myself pretty lucky in that I was able to live over there in the U.K. and have my palate stretched and now I am able to be here with my loved ones and share some of that stretched palate with them as best as I can.
Its a win/win situation really. Anyways, do make this pasta dish. Its spicy with chili, but not something that you can't control. Its truly delicious! Trust me on this!
Bucatini All'Amatriciana
Yield: 2
Cook time: 20 MinTotal time: 20 Min
A delicious example of what can be done with a few simple ingredients. How spicy you make it is up to you. I find 1/2 tsp of the chili flakes to be more than ample, but I am a bit of a wimp.
Ingredients
- 2 slices of thick streaky bacon, chopped (Pancetta and guanciale are more traditional)
- 1 small red onion, peeled and minced
- 1/2 to 1 tsp dried chili flakes
- 1 (14 ounce/400g) tin of whole unpeeled tomatoes, undrained
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 6 ounces (150g) bucatini or other long pasta
- 1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
- 2 ounces (50g) pecorino cheese, grated, plus extra to serve
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to the boil.
- Sauté the chopped bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, until crisp and golden brown. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and set aside. Leave the fat in the pan. Add the onions to the pan and sauté over low heat until softened without browning, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add a generous amount of black pepper and the chili flakes. Cook for about 20 minutes until fragrant, then add the undrained tomatoes and the sugar. Simmer for about 10 minutes, breaking up the tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon. The sauce should be starting to thicken at the end of that time.
- Drop your bucatini into the boiling salted water and cook just to al dente, according to the package directions. Drain well, reserving about 1/2 cup (120ml) of the cooking water.
- Add the bacon, pasta and reserved cooking water to the tomatoes. Taste and adjust seasoning as required with some salt. Simmer gently, stirring continuously, for a minute or two until the sauce starts to coat the pasta slightly.
- Stir in the olive oil and cheese. Stir well to combine. Serve with extra cheese on the side and plenty of crusty bread!
I don't always eat high fat hedonistic food. Sometimes I actually do try to eat healthy. Well, most of the time I do, it just doesn't look like that on here!
Today for my dinner I made myself a lush creamy chicken and avocado salad, with the creamy bit meaning the avocado. I adore avocado.
Not only is this low in carbs and keto friendly, but it is also totally gluten free for those who cannot tolerate gluten. If you rein in the dressing, it is also low in fat and I think totally Diabetic friendly.
Tender, perfectly cooked pieces of chicken sit atop a salad composed of mixed salad leaves, creamy avocado, and rehydrated sun dried tomatoes. Crisp pepitas or sunflower pumpkin seeds as you may know them, make for a tasty and crispy garnish.
You begin by marinating a boneless skinless chicken breast in a simple mixture of garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and some seasoning.
I cut the chicken breast through the middle horizontally, which really helps to ensure a tender finish when cooking.
Because it is thinner it doesn't take quite as long to cook it and still get it nicely browned. It also stays nice and moist that way.
I used sun dried tomatoes that have not been preserved in oil or in water. I buy them in a little tub at the farm market behind my house. They are really tasty and very easy to rehydrate by putting them in a cup and adding some boiling water.
Just leave them to plump up for a few minutes and then drain. I pat them dry after.
You can snip them up with a pair of kitchen scissors, or leave them as they are. I just left them as they were.
I love avocado. I used to be able to buy them frozen in the UK. They were excellent. I think I will start buying them up when they are on offer and freezing them when I can.
Make sure your avocado is ripe. Ripe avocados will have a dark green to nearly black skin, and should yield slightly when lightly pressed.
You should not be able to leave an indentation that stays and they shouldn't feel mushy. A ripe avocado will also have a pebbly skin rather than a smooth one.
There is nothing so lush and rich as a ripe avocado, but unripe ones are not very appealing or tasty. Been there, done that!
I remember ordering a sandwich as what was supposedly a premier sandwich shop in Chester in the UK one time. It was a California club or some such.
It was supposed to have Avocado in it, which it did, very sparse though I have to say. It was not ripe avocado however and was really nasty so I did remove it. Hard and tasteless.
You would think that a shop which specializes in sandwiches would know enough about all of the ingredients they are offering in their sandwiches to get it right!!!
Obviously not. Either that or their staff was not properly trained.
I just used a mix of garden salad leaves here today. Oh how I miss the Baby Gem lettuces from the UK. They were so good.
They looked like little tiny romaine lettuces, but a bit rounder and had a lovely bitter flavor. I could eat them just like apples, they were so good.
I have not seen them here at all. Perhaps this winter I will look for some seeds and possibly plant some next summer. They are my all favorite lettuces.
I used to love making this Baby Gem with Blue Cheese Vinaigrette Salad. It is quite simply my favorite salad. It was from a recipe I found in Good Food magazine a long time ago. Delicious.
But then I am a salad lover full stop and have many favourites.
One thing I love about this one is the pumpkin seeds. I used roasted salted. Because I am naughty like that. You can use just plain roasted if you wish.
They added just a tiny bit of salty crunch. I think if a salad is going to be your main meal for the day, you deserve a bit of salty crunch.
And these have to be much better for you than croutons! So there!
The dressing for this salad is a zesty lime vinaigrette. Its just fresh lime juice, olive oil and seasoning.
Simple. Don't be tempted to use those little squeeze bottles of lime juice. You wouldn't get that same fresh zip that you get from using the real deal. I think you could add a bit of the lime zest as well, which would be nice.
I love the simplicity of the way the chicken is cooked and handled and I loved the nutty crunch of the pumpkin seeds. The richness of the avocado, the sweetness of the tomatoes. I could not improve upon it if I tried.
In short, I quite simply love this salad and I hope that you will too!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Chicken, Avocado & Tomato Salad
Yield: 1
Prep time: 15 MinTotal time: 15 Min
This easy and delicious salad boasts a tangy lime vinaigrette dressing, along with creamy slices of avocado, sweet sun dried tomatoes, crisp pumpkin seeds and perfectly cooked chicken.
Ingredients
For the chicken:
- the juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 TBS light olive oil
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, sliced in half horizontally
For the dressing:
- the juice of one lime
- 3 TBS extra virgin olive oil
- salt and black pepper to taste
For the salad:
- a large handful of mixed salad leaves
- 1 ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
- 8 sun dried tomato halves
- 1 heaped TBS pumpkin seeds
Instructions
- Measure the lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper into a dish along with the garlic. Add the chicken pieces and turn them to coat in the marinade. Set them aside to marinate for about 30 minutes, giving them a swish every now and then.
- Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Add the chicken breasts and cook for about 3 minutes per side, until golden brown. Remove from the heat, cut into slices and then return to the pan and cook for a further 3 to 4 minutes until no longer pink and nicely glazed. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
- While they are cooling place the sundried tomatoes into a jar and cover with boiling water. Leave to sit for 5 minutes and then drain completely and pat dry.
- Whisk together the ingredients for your dressing.
- Put the salad leaves, avocado and sundried tomatoes into a bowl. Toss with about half of the dressing. Then place onto a chilled dinner plate.
- Top with the sliced cooked chicken and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.
- Drizzle with some of the remaining dressing and serve. Save the rest to use as desired.
Tuna Nicoise Salad. I confess I am a huge fan of salads in the summer months. I especially love main dish salads like this one, which is not only a feast for the eyes, but for the tummy as well.
Nicoise Salad or Salad Niçoise as it is also called is a French Salad. It is what is known as a composed salad, somewhat similar to a Cobb salad, with the main difference here being that there is no chicken involved and no bacon either!
This delicious salad comes from Nice, France, which is on the Mediterranean side of France. The side where the Riviera is. So think seafood and sunshine.
One thing which I like about it is that its a salad in which you can totally prepare all of the elements for it ahead of time. This makes it a perfect salad for entertaining as you need only whisk up a dressing and throw things together at the last minute!
The main ingredients for the salad are tuna (of course), boiled potatoes, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, green beans and black olives.
In France they always use tinned tuna. I use tinned tuna, but you can certainly cook fresh tuna steaks in the place of the tinned tuna if you wish. Just make sure you don't overcook them or you run the risk of them tasting like chicken.
And trust me, if you have run to the expense of buying fresh tuna steaks to use in this delicious salad, you don't want it to taste like chicken. One minute per side is all you really need as far as cook time goes.
I always just use tinned tuna myself. I do use a solid albacore tuna however. I never buy any other kind. Its just my preference when it comes to tuna.
An Italian lady stopped me in the grocery store one day while I was buying tuna and told me that I should only ever buy albacore tuna. She said the rest was garbage.
Who am I to argue with experience! I was quite young at the time and she seemed to be quite old. In all truth she was probably younger then than I am now, but hey ho! She knew what she was talking about.
I have never bought anything but Albacore tuna since that day. I know it can seem to be a bit expensive, but at the end of the day, you always get what you pay for.
I like it in water or in oil. The one in oil is infinitely better, but because I am watching my cholesterol these days, I always settle for it in water.
This is a wonderful time of year to enjoy this salad. We are being spoiled right now with an abundance of fresh summer vegetables. Green beans, tomatoes, new potatoes, salad leaves.
Everything is so fresh and local and delicious! It doesn't get much better than this!
I love the wonderful earthy flavors of fresh new potatoes. You don't need to do anything special to them, just wash them really well and pop them into a saucepan of boiling lightly salted water.
10 to 15 minutes later, depending on the size of your potatoes, they are done to perfectly. I like them with the skins on myself. More fiber and that skin is so delicious.
Green beans are in season at the moment and our local ones are beautiful. So are the golden yellow wax beans. I have been feasting on them while I can!!
You want to pick beans for this salad that are not overly large in size. The smaller ones have the best flavor.
I have chosen today to use a mix of salad greens consisting of spinach and baby rocket/agugula. I love the iron earthiness of spinach and I just adore the peppery and meaty punch of rocket leaves!
I eat a lot of rocket, truth be told. I love it in sandwiches, on burgers and all sorts. Trust me when I say a roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo and rocket leaves is a sandwich made in heaven!
I only ever buy free range eggs. If you are lucky enough to have a farm close by where you can buy free range eggs, so much the better.
Many people are greatly intimidated at the thought of hard boiling eggs. Its really not that hard and is a matter of timing. To hard boil eggs with a firm white and yolk start with room temperature eggs.
Pierce the large end of the egg with an egg piercer or a needle; this helps to prevent the egg from cracking in the heat of the water.
Place then into a saucepan and cover them completely in water. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, maximum.
At the end of that time, remove them from the heat and place them in cold water immediately. This will prevent them from over-cooking and developing that unsightly dark ring around the yolks.
They will still taste okay, should the dark ring develop, but they are not as attractive to look at and in this salad, that's quite important.
Black olives are also an important part of this salad. You should use Nicoise olives if you can find them. I can't find those here so I have used Kalamata olives, which are a wonderful substitution.
The final salad ingredient is ripe garden tomatoes. They are starting to come into their own now. Just an ordinary tomato will do . . . fresh from the vine with the warmth of the summer sun still on its skin.
That's what you want, and what is ideal. Failing that, just get the best your money can buy and leave them at room temperature to ripen for a few days. You won't be sorry!
There are a few other things you can add if you want to. Capers is one. I adore capers. Vinegary, salty, they go so very well here.
Some thinly sliced red onion also works well. I have gone for simplicity here however, so I did not include either of those two things.
The final element of course is the dressing and I say keep it simple. I have chosen to use a simple vinaigrette dressing without any bells and whistles. With all of that fresh produce, why run the risk of overwhelming them with a dressing which is overly flavored.
Simple. Simple. Simple. Oil, vinegar and seasoning. That's all you need. Let the beauty of your fresh ingredients speak for themselves. Let them sing. A good dressing will only enhance their flavors, not overwhelm them. This simple dressing does just that.
Enjoy!
Tuna Nicoise Salad
Yield: 2
A beautiful main dish salad for those days when you just can't be asked to cook. It makes a great use of the abundant produce available to us this time of year as well.
Ingredients
For the dressing:
- 2 TBS white wine vinegar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup (120ml) olive oil
- 1/4 tsp ground paprika
For the salad:
- 2 large free range eggs, hardboiled. peeled and quartered
- 4 new potatoes, scrubbed, cooked and quartered
- 12 French beans, washed, trimmed and cooked until crispy tender
- 2 heaped cups (120g) mixed salad leaves
- 2 tomatoes, washed and quartered
- 12 kalamata olives
- 1 (6 1/2 -ounce/170g) solid albacore tuna, drained
Instructions
- Mix the vinegar and the salt together for the dressing in a small bowl. Leave to stand for a few minutes. Add the pepper and then slowly whisk in the olive oil until the mixture emulsifies. Whisk in the paprika. Taste and adjust seasoning as required. Set aside.
- Put the eggs and potatoes into a mixing bowl. Toss with a little bit of the dressing.
- Divide the salad leaves between two chilled plates. Top with the eggs and potatoes. Add the tomatoes and green beans. Place all of this around the edges. Divide the tuna in half and place half in the center of each plate. Scatter the olives over top.
- Drizzle the remaining dressing over everything and serve immediately.
Notes:
You can use two fresh tuna steaks in the place of the tinned tuna. Put a small amount of oil in a skillet and heat over high heat. Season the tuna steaks and sear them in the hot oil, cooking them for no longer than 1 minute per side. Place one onto each plate of salad and serve.
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