Craig Cooks

everyday experiments with food

Navigation
You are here: Home / Archives for Cuisine

Slow-cooked Spanish Lamb

by Leave a Comment

Here’s a variation of a dish that I’ve cooked on a charcoal BBQ a number of times. I call it Spanish Lamb and it consists of studding a lamb leg or shoulder with slivers of garlic clove, seasoning with salt and pepper, then smothering it with tomato paste and oregano (fresh or dried), and then cooking it.

[Apologies for the terrible iPhone photos. I need a new one!]

This time it was a slow-cooked fairly large shoulder of lamb. The fat on the lamb was pretty thick so I made slices all the way along.

The lamb was then prepared as above, then sprinked with 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika and 1 tsp Aleppo pepper flakes.

I added the following to the baking tray

1 large carrot, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 leek, cut into chunks
6 brown shallots
1/2 head garlic, cut in half
1 red capsicum cut into 8 slices
3 strips orange peel
1 cup white wine
2 -3 cups water
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 large bay leaf
2 cloves

I cooked it at 120C for about 3 hours, then on 150C for about 1/2 hours. After the first hour I covered it with alfoil, then took that off towards the end. I turned the lamb part-way through so that the meat on top softened under the liquid, then turned it back again.

I removed some liquid towards the end to make a sauce. I blotted off some of the fat with paper towel, then cooked it down to reduced it. I strained it and later thickened it with Arrowroot powder.

I cranked up the oven to 200C to brown the top of the meat at the end.

Sides

White bean puree – cooked Cannellini beans blitzed with chicken stock, 2 cooked garlic cloves, 2 tbps butter
Scallopped potates baked with cream and butter
Brussels sprouts – olive oil and salt baked at 200C
Green Sicilian olives

It doesn’t look pretty on the plate but it tasted amazing.

 

 

Three Middle Eastern Dips

by Leave a Comment

I love learning about Middle Eastern cooking. I love the flavours, colours, mixture of savoury and sweet, and I also particularly like serving a table full of different plates of food where everyone can help themselves. As well as making flatbread, I like making simple, tasty, colourful dips. Here are two regulars on our table plus one that I invented yesterday.

Carrot and Caraway Dip

Nothing could be simpler than this tasty dip! This recipe comes from The Complete Book of Turkish Cooking by Ghillie Basan. This book is out of print, but Basan is a prolific author, so please hunt down her books. Here’s my take on it.

3 large carrots – peeled and thickly sliced

Steam or boil the carrots until tender. Drain and mash them coarsely.

Stir in 1/2 tsp caraway seeds, 1 tbsp olive oil, juice of 1/4 lemon, 1/4 tsp salt and some cracked black pepper.

That’s it! You can also leave out the lemon juice and instead serve it with yoghurt with some lemon juice and garlic mixed through. Basan garnishes with mint leaves but I’m not a fan of mint.

Beetroot Moutabel with Tahini

Here’s another brilliant and relatively simple dip. It requires a little more time but not much effort. The recipe is from the amazing Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume by Silvena Rowe –  a book that has one of the best cookbook covers ever.

2 medium beetroot
1/2 lemon
1-2 tbsp greek yoghurt
1 tbsp tahini
salt
Peel from one orange (optional)
Toasted walnuts (optional)

Bake the beetroot in the oven for about an hour at 180 C. I usually scrub them and bake them in their skins wrapped in foil. Then peel them with a teaspoon while warm (yes, wear gloves).

Put 1.5 of the beetroot, chopped into a food processor and keep the other half. Blitz with juice of 1/4 lemon, yoghurt, tahini and a pinch of salt. Grate the remaining beetroot and stir it through the mix (this adds texture to the dip).

With the recipe you can add more (or less) yoghurt, tahini and lemon juice to suit your taste.

If using orange peel, toast for one minute in a frypan, cool and place on top of the dip. If using walnuts, chop them and toast them in a pan and sprinkle on top of the dip.

The colour of this dip is amazing.

Charred Cauliflower and Onion Dip

Here’s the recipe that I made up last night.

1/4 large caulflower
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 medium onion
3 tbsp greek yoghurt
Juice of 1/4 lemon
1/2 tsp aleppo pepper flakes (or red pepper flakes) or 1/4 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp chopped garlic
Sea salt and cracked black pepper

Cut the cauliflower into medium-sized florets and mix with olive oil and 1 tsp salt. Bake at 200C for 20-25 min until it is starting to char on the outside (black not brown).

Cut the onion into about 3 thick slices. Cook in a frypan in olive oil on medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes until it starts to brown/char a bit on the outside. Chop the onion roughly.

Blitz the cauliflower and onion roughly in a food processor with the garlic and some cracked pepper. You want the mixture to be chunky, not smooth.

Add juice of 1/4 lemon, 1/2 tsp aleppo pepper flakes (or 1/4 tsp chilli flakes) and 3 tbsp yoghurt and mix with a spoon (you can mix it in the food processor but don’t overmix it.)

Once again, this is really simple and very tasty.

 

 

 

Seven Spice Chicken with Flatbread

by Leave a Comment

Here’s my middle eastern chicken with flatbread. I’m on the hunt for good but simple flatbread recipes, and this recipe from Gourmet Traveller did the trick. I did however add twice as much water, and then had to add more flour and yoghurt to compensate! Nevertheless, I’m standing by the recipe!

The chicken recipe came from The Lebanese Kitchen by Salma Hage and is for Chicken Sharwama.

Cut chicken breast into strips and soak overnight in a mixture of 3 tbsp malt vinegar, juice of 1/2 lemon (maybe 2 tsp?) and 3 tbsp water.

The next day toss it in Lebanese seven spice seasoning, add some salt and pepper. You can buy the seasoning or make it yourself. Hage’s spice mix is as follows:

5 tbsp ground allspice
3 1/2 tbsp pepper
3 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
5 tbsp ground cloves
4tbsp ground nutmeg
4 tbsp ground fenugreek (coriander is an alternative)
4 tbsp ground ginger

The recipe says to bake the chicken strips at 200C for 30 minutes. I thought that this would dry them out and it did – I pulled them out of the oven early. Next time I’d just sear them in a pan.

The chicken is served on some baked veg with home-made baba ganoush and saffron-cumin rice cooked in chicken stock.

Pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, some chard from our garden, a slice of lemon and yoghurt. A great combination.

Chinese Braised Duck

by Leave a Comment

Last night I made a slight variation on this recipe from Taste. The sauce was good, and more importantly the duck cooking method worked really well.

The duck marylands were cooked in a pan, skin side down, on low heat for 15 mins, then skin side up for 5 mins.

Then they were covered in marinade (see below) and cooked, covered, in the oven at 180C for 45 mins.

Then the duck was taken out of the pan and put in a clean tray and cooked at 220C for 10 mins. While the skin did not crisp up, the duck itself was soft.

The recipe is for 4 marylands. I cooked two but made a full quantity of the marinade.

The marinade consists of the following:

3 garlic cloves, sliced
3 cm root ginger, julienned
2 star anise
1/2 cup Shaoxing rice wine
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup red wine
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar

Actually the sauce could do with a hit of chilli.

Saute the garlic and ginger in a pan, then add the other ingredients. Bring to the boil then simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the marinade to the duck in the cooking pan, but don’t fully submerge the skin. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp of five spice powder onto the duck skin (or 1 tsp if 4 pieces of duck).

When the duck is in the over an 220C, strain the marinade, skim off the fat, and reduce on the stove for 10 mins. Add some of the sauce to the dish before serving.

The recipe included potato, but I substituted fennel, carrot and broccolini. Julienned spring onion and chilli on top.