In the summer months when we want something that little bit heartier for our dinner, the slow cooker becomes my best friend.  If I don't want to be heating up the kitchen, the slow cooker is the way to go!  I have three slow cookers.  One in a large size for making dishes large enough to feed over 4 people, and two smaller ones which are perfectly sized for two people, a round one and an oval one, because a small round one doesn't always cut the mustard when it comes to slow cooking.  A small oval one is perfect for small roasts, hams, etc.


Slow cooking lends itself perfectly to creating delicious dishes like this Lamb Tagine I am showing you here today.  A Tagine is traditionally a Moroccan dish. I love the flavours of Moroccan food. 


Moroccan cuisine is a delicious mix of Arabic, Andalusian, Mediterranean and Berber cuisine with a dash of European and Subsaharian influence thrown in for good measure.  Think what we traditionally see as warm baking spices . . .  cinnamon, ginger, mace, nutmeg and cloves  . . .  with some heat through in from cayenne and black pepper  . . .  and lemon.  They love to use preserved lemons . . . leafy things like coriander . . .  rose petals.  And this is by no means a complete list, but merely a hint of the deliciousness involved.



They also love using tomatoes, dried apricots, dates, prunes  . . . I love savoury dishes with dried fruit involved, and this one is just wonderful using both  apricots and prunes  . . . and zest of oranges . . .



The sauce is fragrant and delicious . . .  sweet and savoury at the same time, with a tiny bit of heat, but not overpoweringly so . . .



The sauce/gravy is thickened with ground almonds or what you might know in American as almond meal, which lends a slight nuttiness into the mix . . .  and then there is the sweetness of that oh so tender lamb  . . .



I can only think now that they were not very good lamb chops  . . .  because I have never had lamb over here that smelled like burning wool, or tasted like it for that matter.  I truly love the taste . . . young tender lamb has a delicate almost sweet taste.  Older lamb can taste a bit gamey, but its not bad either.

Heat the oil in a  skillet.  Add the lamb and cook over medium high heat until golden all over.  Scoop out and put into a small slow cooker. Add the onion and garlic to the pan, and cook gently to soften.  Add to the slow cooker and stir into the lamb. Add the stock, zest and orange juice, honey, apricots, ground spices, mint and ground almonds.  Stir well to combine.  Cover and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Garnish with the flaked almonds to serve.

I hope you will take advantage of your slow cooker this summer and make this delicious Moroccan stew!  I think you will love it!  Bon Appetit, or as they say in Morocco, بالصحة و العافية!  Now that's what I would call a tongue twister, lol Serving it with peas and rice is so, so  . . .  well, English.  In Morocco you would probably have it with couscous!

I love all of the baby new potatoes at the markets at the moment.   The Jersey Royals are in the shops now, and I know that not all of you have those available to you, but there are also other tasty new potatoes out there to be had.  They are not so good for mashing ( I had a bad experience with that when I was younger, DUH! Live and learn!) but are great boiled until tender and served with herb butter, or for use in potato salads.



They are also great boiled and then roasted like this. These little babies get all crispy on the outsides . . . and stay moreishly fluffy on the insides.

That final breaking open, cracks the skin so that some of that tasty fluff pours out and crunches up a bit in the final baking . . . with the help of a bit of Olive Oil.



A few flakes of sea salt . . . a good grinding of black pepper . . . and some fresh rosemary leaves . . . and you have tasty little bits fit for a king.

These even make good appetizers especially when you use the really tiny ones and serve them with a creamy dip . . . adjust the times accordingly as smaller ones won't need to bake as long.


We love 'em just as they are.   Great with beef, fish, chicken, pork or lamb. 



*Smashed Roasted New Potatoes*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe


This is a great way to cook baby new potatoes. Crisp on the outsides and soft and fluffy inside.


16 small new potatoes, unpeeled
2 TBS light olive oil
a few sprigs fresh rosemary
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


Preheat the oven to 230*C/450*F/ gas mark 8. Place a baking tray into the oven to heat.


Toss the potatoes together with 1 TBS of the oil to coat. Spread them out onto the hot baking tray. Roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven. Flip the potatoes over and then gently squash them down with the back of a large metal spoon. Strip the leaves from the rosemary sprigs and sprinkle over top along with some sea salt and black pepper. Drizzle with the remainder of the oil.


Return to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes, until the potatoes are crispy and golden brown.

I really love Jersey Royals.  They are a tad bit sweeter than normal potatoes and have a very unique flavour due to the provenance of them and the way they are grown!  Mmm . . .  I wish everyone could try them.  In any case this recipe will still be tasty with any new potato.  Bon Appetit!

Deviled eggs have to be one of the easiest things in the world to make and one of the most popular dishes on the salad table. Men absolutely love them as well. I am not sure why that is, but, it's true. If you bring a platter of deviled eggs to a pot luck party . . . you will be the most popular person at the party and everyone will be scrambling for your recipe! Tis true, cross my heart.

Some people like to put pickle relish and all sorts of other things into their picked eggs . . . but I like to keep it simple and it works. These eggs quite simply have nothing but mayo, some grainy mustard and a bit of seasoning in them. I cannot tell you the number of times a week I had to make these little babies when I was working as a Chef in the big house down south. There had to be a plate of them in the refrigerator at all times. They just loved them. They're a portable snack too.

Perfect in the picnic basket as well. You can put them together in pairs and wrap them up as a set. You just put the filling sides together and there's no mess at all. Easy peasy, lemon squeasy. I do think these are the best I've ever eaten myself. I like to garnish with a few fine-chopped fresh chives . . . the green looks so pretty against the egg yolk and the flavour is so mild it takes nothing away from the eggs themselves. Look for a few hints below on making hard boiled eggs.


Note:  If you are not serving these right away, cover and chill in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.  Dust with paprika just prior to serving.


Tips for Creating Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs:

1. Older eggs are a lot easier to peel than newer eggs. I always use eggs that at least one week old, if not older. If you have eggs that are close to their expiration date, so much the better. It's true!

2. Boiled Eggs, should actually NEVER be boiled! Keeping them at a steady simmer is much better. Boiling toughens the yolk. Also, never add salt to the water. I do add a tiny bit of vinegar, which helps them to peel easier.

3. Always bring your eggs to room temperature before boiling. They are less likely to crack if you do this.

4. Don't stack your eggs in the pot. Have them laid out in one layer. If you have too many eggs to do this with, you need a larger pot! You only need about 1 inch of water over the top of the eggs. More than that and it takes too long to boil. Less than that and your eggs won't stay covered.

5. As soon as your water comes to the boil, remove your pot from the heat, pop a lid on and let them set in the boiling water for (17 minutes) large eggs, (20 minutes) jumbo eggs. At the end of that time, drain and then run cold water over them until they are cooled down. Let them sit in cold water for about 10 minutes and then drain. For ease of peeling roll them around and allow the shells to crack while they are still in the water. Let sit for a few minutes.

For ease in peeling these things help alot . . . using older eggs, beginning at the large end of the egg, peeling under running cold water. I usually tap the large end on the counter until it cracks, then give the egg a gentle roll all over before peeling them under a slow running tap. You will get perfect results almost 100% of the time.

I also have one of these hard plastic egg timer thingies. They work a charm and you end up with perfectly cooked Soft, Medium or Hard boiled eggs every time.

And now for a giggle.  Here's a few things I baked over the past few days for Easter that never made the cut for the blog for aesthetic reasons.  In other words, they didn't photograph well.

To make the Sauce, combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until the butter melts. DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL. Using a long tined fork, pierce the cake 10 or 11 times.  Pour the hot sauce over the warm cake.  Allow to stand and absorb for about ten minutes before tipping out onto a serving plate.  Just before serving, dust with icing sugar.

Cream together all of the frosting ingredients with an electric mixture until thick and smooth.  Spread on top of the cake and decorate as desired.

I don't think I will ever be able to find work as a Cake Decorator, lol. Happy Easter!

So what exactly is Black Garlic?

From Wikepedia:  Black garlic is a type of "caramelized" garlic (in reality, browned by the Maillard reaction rather than truly caramelized) first used as a food ingredient in Asian cuisine. It is made by heating whole bulbs of garlic (Allium sativum) over the course of several weeks, a process that results in black cloves.

The garlic came, already peeled in a plastic pot. It looked a bit like garlic clove shaped black jelly babies. It was soft and slightly sticky.  I tasted a small one just to see what it tasted like.  It was only slightly garlicky, very mellow with an almost fruity balsamic quality. I could not wait to use it.


Place the garlic, vineger, mustard, salt, sugar and pepper into a blender or the cup of an immersion blender.  Blitz until smooth.  With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil until completely imulsified.  Store in a jar in the refrigerator.








Note - If you cannot get black garlic, you may use plain roasted cloves of garlic.  It will give you a lovely garlic kick without the umami flavour of black garlic.  Still mighty tasty however.  Do try to get the black garlic if you can however, as it is fantastic!



Black garlic is sweet meets savory, a perfect mix of molasses-like richness and tangy garlic undertones. It has a tender, almost jelly-like texture with a melt-in-your-mouth consistency similar to a soft dried fruit. Hard to believe, but true. It’s as delicious as it is unique. This is sure to become a pantry staple.

To find out more about Balsajo Black Garlic, be sure to check out their website. 


Balsajo Black Garlic is available from www.balsajo.com and any good independent farm shops, fine food shops and delicatessens.



Many thanks to the people at Balsajo for affording me this opportunity to try something new!  This has become a new favourite item in my kitchen!  I can't wait to see what I can use it in next. There are plenty of recipes and tips on their site.  That Black Garlic and Parsley Potato Salad is calling my name!

Note - Athough I was sent some black garlic for free to try out, I was not required to write a positive review.  Any and all opinions are my own.

I did us some lovely Lamb Chops for our New Years Eve Supper last week.  I simply rubbed them with a mixture of rosemary, thyme, garlic, sea salt, white pepper, olive oil and a bit of  good balsamic vinegar that I mashed together with my mortar and pestle.   I let them macerate for a good hour or more while these delicious potatoes were baking and then I quickly grilled them in a hot skillet with a bit of butter for about a minute and a half per side.   They were done perfectly!

After his hospital procedure today I wanted to make Todd something he would really enjoy for his tea.  Apparently he was talking about stew and dumplings in the operating theatre and how good my stew is that I make.  I didn't have any stewing beef or lamb in the house, and no way of getting to the shops to get any,  but I did have some leftover cooked chicken, and another of Todd's favourites is a nice and creamy soup.  I had found this recipe on the net the other day and thought it looked pretty good and so I decided to make it, but with a few adaptions.

Here in the Western world putting fruit in with meat isn't something which we do very often . . .  however having said that we do like our pork with applesauce and our cranberry sauce with turkey . . .  but fruit in a stew, its not a really common thing.  In the Middle East it is a fairly common thing . . .  just think of a Tagine with apricots or dates . . . really delicious dishes.

One type of food that I have really come to adore since moving over here to the UK is Indian Food.  It is a type of food which I had had a very limited experience with prior to that.  Back when I was a much younger woman I had a British friend who had cooked a curry for us one night and I thought it was gorgeous, but that had been my only experience.  I was of the opinion that it was complicated and much to difficult, and in all truth it sometimes can be, often using ingredients that are unknown and very difficult to find.

Over the past sixteen years I have become very fond of Indian food.  My mouth waters at the thought of some gorgeous Onion Bahji's I had at an Indian friend's home one day . . .  and I have made a few very delicious curries here in The English Kitchen as well.  That's why I was really excited when I was given the opportunity to review this new cookery book, Indian Made Easy, by Amandip Uppal.




This collection of over 140 recipes presents a fresh approach to cooking Indian food, taking you on an amazing spice journey that fits a fast-paced lifestyle. You'll find quick, uncomplicated recipes for Butter Chicken and Prawn Curry, tempting vegetarian dishes, as well as Lamb Kofta with Saffron Creme Fraiche and slowly simmered Beef and Potato Curry. Complete your meal with homemade chutneys, pickles and infused rice, then finish off with a decadent dessert or spiced chai. Special features guide you through making paneer, yoghurt and flatbreads, plus there's a fabulous menu planner and information on pantry staples, must-have spices and alternative ingredients. Indian Made Easy has what you need to create everything from a simple, sumptuous dish to an opulent feast - all filled with the wonderful flavours of India.



I found the very indepth information on spices and other ingredients to be very informative.  I like knowing about the ingredients I am going to use.  Knowledge is power, and knowing how to use and store things is really important to me.  I hate waste.



Blendingtraditional and contemporary Indian cuisine, Amandip's recipes breathe a new lease of life into well-known dishes whilst holding true to tradition at the same time.  Broken into tasty chapters entitled Light Bites; Vegetables and Lentils; Fish, Meat and Poultry; Breads and Rice; Salads; Pickles and Chutneys; abd Desserts and Drinks, Indian Made Easy contains quick uncomplicated recipes for every occasion, as well as information on pantry staples, basics, and must-have spices, as well as a fabulous menu planner to help you put together opulent feasts and wonderful combinations of tastes, textures and flavours.



Cook up Lamb Kofta with saffron creme fraiche and Tamarind rice with onion; learn how to make coriander (cilantro) stuffed naan and sesame and ginger chicken skewers; please the veggies with dishes like Aubergine with Chilli Pomegranate Dressing (see above photo) and a cheat's Dhal Makhani; ad sate your sweet tooth with a pistachio kulfi or a Pomegranate and rosewater granita.

 

Everything is photographed beautifully and in all honesty I cannot wait to get stuck in and start cooking with it!  Indian Made Easy is a beautiful and delicious cookbook that brings Indian cookery up to date for the modern and busy cook.



UK based author Amandip Uppal is a former stylist and writer. She  worked for many years at The Times, and later became Deputy Fashion Editor of Conde Naste Traveler.  Drawing on her life-long love of design and food, she created ChilliHotChocolate.com . . .  an online kitchen and dining emporium.

Indian Made Easy, by Amandip Uppal
Photography by Lisa Linder
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Murdoch Books (8 Sept. 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1743368585
ISBN-13: 978-1743368589

Many thanks to Murdoch Books for sending me a copy for review.  Although I was sent a free copy I was not oblidged to write a positive review.  Any opinions are entirely my own.