Chicken Paprika Casserole

As I mentioned in my previous post this is one of my favourite casseroles mainly, and this will be no surprise, because it's easy to throw together and uses ingredients that I almost always have in the house. If you have trouble finding the Tomato Frito (I have found it in the past near the tomato puree but have had less success more recently) then plain tomato passata is a perfectly good substitute. Any leftover passata freezes well or can be used in a bolognese sauce. The casserole also tastes just fine without the creme fraiche too.

Another plus is that this recipe always generates more sauce than needed which makes for a really nice pasta sauce the next day.

Finally, the method below instructs you to fry the ingredients in a pan before transferring to a casserole. This is purely because I don't possess a stove-top casserole dish (I will get my hands on a Le Creuset one day) but if you have one then the whole thing can be made in the one dish. Just transfer the chicken back to the dish when you add the peppers and garlic.

Chicken Paprika

(Adapted from a recipe found on Delia Smith's website - www.deliaonline.com)

1 medium onion

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 chicken thighs (or a combination of thighs and drumsticks)

6oz/175g roasted red peppers from a jar

1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped

1/2 x 560g jar Heinz Tomato Frito

5 fl oz/150ml dry white wine

1 level dessertspoon hot paprika or 1 level tablespoon ground paprika

2 rounded tablespoons creme fraiche

salt and pepper

1) Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/gas mark 4. Heat the oil in a largeish saucepan or frying and fry on all sides until golden brown all over then transfer to a casserole dish.

2) Turn the heat down and add the onions to the pan and cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes until softened and browned at the edges. Add the peppers, garlic to the pan then pour in the tomato sauce, the wine and the paprika. Stir together and bring to a simmer before transferring it to the casserole dish.

3) Cover the dish with a lid and cook in the oven for 1 hour. Remove the dish from the oven and swirl in the creme fraiche. Sprinkle with a little more paprika and serve straight from the casserole.

Serves 2

Unloved Cookbooks Part 4 - Real Fast Food by Nigel Slater

Now I should start by saying that I love Nigel Slater. I love his television programs and he is easily one of the best food writers around. Oh, and the brownie recipe in his Kitchen Diaries is the best I've found to date. However, the Unloved Cookbook in question today, Real Fast Food, unfortunately falls foul of my love of all things aesthically pleasing. In short, it has no pictures - sorry Nige!

My loss as it turns out as when I took the time I found a little book is packed with lots of great sounding recipes all designed to be easy to prepare and quick to cook. Mr Slater's comment that most of the recipes require only one or two fresh ingredients that can be bought on the way home is obviously not aimed at anyone with small children - a trip to the supermarket after work with a small child in tow? Not a chance! So I needed to do a little more forward planning than the book possibly intended. But hey, that wasn't such a hardship.

There were many recipes that caught my eye. Here are just three of them...

First up is a salmon dish. I've been trying to find new salmon recipes to encourage me to eat more fish and this one is particularly lovely. And why didn't anyone tell me about dill before? I am converted!

Baked Salmon with Soured Cream

2 salmon steaks, about 100g/4oz each

1 small onion, very finely chopped

100ml/4fl oz soured cream or creme fraiche

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

1) Put the salmon steaks into a small baking dish.

2) Mix together the remaining ingredients, retaining half the dill. Spoon the sauce over the salmon.

3) Bake in the oven, preheated to 220c/425f/gas 7 for 15-18 minutes. Scatter with the remaining dill.

Serves 2

This next recipe is a fabulous way of sprucing up your new potatoes.

Warm New Potato Salad with Taleggio and Rocket

450g/1lb new potatoes, wiped clean

2 handfuls of rocket, washed and shaken dry

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

200g/7oz mild, semi-soft cheese

1) Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for about 12 minutes, until tender to the point of a knife.

2) Toss the rocket in the olive oil and divide betwe

en two oven-proof plates or dishes.

3) Drain the potatoes and slice each one in half. Scatter over the rocket leaves. Slice the cheese thinly over the potatoes.

4) Place the plates under a pre-heated grill for a minute or so until the cheese starts to melt. Eat immediately.

Serves 2

Oooh, this last recipe was niiice! So easy too.

Hot Blackcurrant Bread and Butter Pudding

4 slices white bread

250g blackcurrants

Caster sugar

Creme de Cassis

1) Butter the bread very generously and lay half in the bottom of a shallow ovenproof dish.

2) Cover with the blackcurrants and sprinkle with two tablespoons of caster sugar.

3) Place the remaining slices of bread on top of the blackcurrants, butter side up. Sprinkle with another tablespoon of sugar and two tables spoons of Creme de Cassis.

4) Bake in an oven preheated to 220c/425f/gas 7 for 20-25 minutes.

Serves 2

A Symbolic Gooseberry Tart

It's gooseberry season again and I have finally got around to making a gooseberry creme fraiche tart - something that's been on my to-do list for ages.

And why symbolic? Well, this tart is the result of the last proper baking session I shall have in my kitchen in it's present state. In a couple of days some nice men will be arriving to take the existing kitchen away and replace it with a nice shiny new one. So, goodbye annoying tiled worktops, goodbye horrid brown sink, goodbye "farmhouse style" brown units, it's been nice working with you but now it's time to move on.

But back to the tart. This particular recipe, Gooseberry Creme Fraiche Tart, comes from James Martin's Desserts. This is a lovely light, summery tart with lots of flavour from the gooseberries and any sharpness in the fruit nicely counterbalanced by the sweetness of the filling. It's also very straightforward to put together. The pastry, in particular, is a dream to roll out thanks to the addition of the egg.

Gooseberry Creme Fraiche Tart

(adapted from Desserts by James Martin)

For the pastry case - makes 300g

200g plain flour

pinch of salt

2 tbsp icing sugar

100g cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 egg, beaten

2 tbsp iced water

1) Rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mix resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

2) Mix the egg with the water and slowly add to the flour/butter mix. Mix together until it forms a dough (you may not need all of the liquid). Form into a ball and wrap in cling film for about 30 minutes.

To assemble the tart

200g sweet shortcrust pastry (I put the rest in the freezer)

200ml creme fraiche

4 large egg yolks

1 whole egg

100g caster sugar

450g gooseberries, topped and tailed

1) Roll out the pastry and use to line a 23cm, 2.5cm deep, loose-bottomed, greased tart tin. Prick the base all over with a fork and brush with some of the egg white left over from the eggs for the filling.

2) Heat the oven to 190c/375f/gas 5 and put a baking tray in to heat up. Then place the tart tin on the baking tray and bake for 20 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and reduce the heat to 180c/350f/gas 4.

3) Whisk the creme fraiche, yolks, whole egg and sugar together.

4) Arrange the gooseberries in the pastry case and pour the creme fraiche mixture over the top. Return to the oven for a further 40-50 minutes or until the tart is light golden brown. Allow to cool before serving.

Another Creme Fraiche recipe!

I had finished with my little creme fraiche project for the time being but then I came across this recipe in May's delicious magazine which I thought looked interesting.  It's called Roasted Chicken and Leek Fusilli Pie and, instead of mixing the pasta with the sauce, you just put it on top of the chicken and veg mixture, a bit like a pie crust I suppose, drizzle with olive oil and then bake it in the oven   I was bit concerned that the pasta would go really crunchy like the edge of a lasagne that hasn't quite been covered by sauce.  

As it turned out the pasta didn't go crunchy, apart from a few bits around the edge, although I did think it was a bit chewy.  Overall I thought it was a pretty nice dish, but not outstanding.  There was quite a lot preparation involved with chopping all the veg and chicken (the recipe states 15 minutes prep time but I'm sure it took me longer that that) although once that was done it was all pretty straightforward.  Also, you couldn't then just put it in the oven and leave it as the veg had to be roasted, then the pasta added and then the cheese put on the top for the last five minutes.  While it was nice, it was quite nice enough to justify all the effort and to be honest I'm not sure it's one I'll be making again in the future.

Here's the recipe...

Roasted Chicken and Leek Fusilli Pie

(adapted from delicious magazine, May 2009)

2 tbsp olive oil

8 large skinless chicken thigh fillets, cubed

2 red potatoes, diced

1 red onion, thickly sliced

2 leeks, washed and thickly sliced

3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1 bay leaf

2 tbsp plain flour

250g fusilli or other pasta shape

100g frozen peas

150ml chicken stock, hot

200g creme fraiche

75g grated fontina or gruyere

1) Preheat the oven to 109c/gas 5.  Heat 1 tbsp o

il in a 1.2 litre ovenproof dish.  Stir in the chicken, potatoes, onion, leek, garlic, bay leaf, flour and some seasoning.  Roast in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden, stirring once or twice.

2) Meanwhile, cook the pasta until just about done but still firm in the centre, then drain well.

3) Stir the peas, stock and creme fraiche into the chicken mixture, then top with the pasta.  Drizzle over the remaining olive oil, then bake for a further 20 minutes.  Scatter over the cheese and return to the oven for 5 minutes until bubbling and golden.

This dish was included the magazine's "freeze ahead" section.  If you want to freeze the dish, cool it completely before wrapping in cling film and foil and storing it in the freezer for up to two months.  Defrost thoroughly before reheating at 190c/gas 5 for 25 minutes until piping hot.  Cover with kitchen foil if it's browning too much.

The Creme Fraiche Challenge - Recipe No 4

Tonight's dish, Pork Medallions with chilli, lemon, chive and creme fraiche, was recommended to me and it didn't disappoint.  It's another recipe from the Delicious Magazine website and can be found here.  The most time-consuming thing about this dish was the mash I served with it - cooking the pork took just a few minutes.  I should say that I'm not a fan of fresh chillis so just used a few dried chilli flakes instead.

The only negative thing about this dish was that it wasn't particularly photogenic!  Apart from the broccoli I served with it, it was all a bit beige so I'm afraid I don't have a photo to share with you tonight.  

So, how about this one instead?

The beautiful Jersey cow, but from a slightly-less-than-beautiful angle.  

Well, I like it!

No?

You'd prefer I stuck to photos of food?

Ok...

The Creme Fraiche Challenge - Recipe No 3

Tomato, Red Onion and Creme Fraiche Tart

I was trying to think of a creme fraiche recipe for my Creme Fraiche challenge that didn't involve pasta or mushrooms when I remembered a lovely tart recipe. I found this recipe in Delicious magazine some time ago and have made it two or three times now. The first time I made it I thought the recipe used far too many tomatoes so since then I have just used 250g and have much preferred the end result.

Making this recipe has reminded me of a couple of useful pastry-making tips!

Tip No 1 - If you can't be bothered with messy flour on your worktop or are struggling with cracking pastry just put the pastry between two big pieces of cling film and roll away!

Tip No 2 - Always keep a few scraps of raw pastry to one side. Then, if your cooked pastry case comes out of the oven with a crack or two in it you can just cover them up with a bit of raw pastry. Don't worry about the raw pastry, it will cook when the tart goes back in the oven.

This is a really delicious tart. The onions give a lovely sweet, rich flavour which is nicely balanced with the creamy filling and sharp tomatoes. This is a recipe which takes bit of time to put together but rest assured, your efforts will be rewarded!

You can find the recipe here on Delicious Magazine's website.

The Creme Fraiche Challenge - Recipe No 2

The second dish I've made as part of The Creme Fraiche Challenge is a great after-work pasta dish - it's quick and only needs one pan.

Lemon linguine with ham

(from Good Food Magazine - August 2006)

Serves 4

400g/14oz linguine

cupful of frozen peas

200ml creme fraiche

grated zest of 1/2 lemon and juice of 1 lemon

3-4 slices of cooked ham, cut into strips

1) Cook the pasta in a pan of boiling water, adding the peas for the last 4-5 minutes

2) Drain the pasta well, reserving a little of the cooking water

3) Return to the pan and stir in the creme fraiche, lemon zest and juice.  Add a little of the cooking water if it needs loosening up.

4) Season and serve with the ham strips scattered over.

The Creme Fraiche Challenge - Recipe No 1

When discussing my blog with a friend she requested some recipes using creme fraiche as she often ends up with some leftover when cooking.  I was more than willing to take up the challenge as, when cooking for two, I rarely find a recipe that uses a whole pot and more often than not end up throwing the rest away.

So, the first recipe I was going to cook as part of this challenge was supposed to be a lemon-based pasta dish.  However, the lemon I was relying on to make this had, to put it mildly, seen better days (ok, it was green and furry).  Luckily I already had the necessary ingredients for an alternative dish.

Pasta with Rich Mushroom Sauce

(adapted from Waitrose Magazine)

Serves 4

500g pasta (I like rigatoni for this one)

1 onion, chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

400g chestnut mushrooms, sliced

2 tbsp sherry

200ml creme fraiche

parmesan shavings

1) Cook the pasta in boiling water

2) Fry the onion in the olive oil then add the mushrooms and fry for 2-3 minutes.

3) Add the sherry and simmer for a minute before adding the creme fraiche and warming through.

4) Mix with the cooked pasta and top with parmesan shavings