Mini Wellingtons

From one of my BBC cooking books, 101 Simple Suppers. Take:

4 fillet steaks, brushed with olive oil and seasoned (I also used freshly ground mixture of peppercorns)
4 tbsp mushroom pâté (or if you have more time and inspiration, take 4 large mushrooms, cut and fry a bit, until the liquid has evaporated)
2 x 375 g puff pastry
1 beaten egg
green beans to serve

Heat the oven to 220° C. Sear steaks for 20-30 seconds each side. Cool slightly, then top each with pâté and put them on a piece of rolled pastry. Lay another piece of pastry on top and press the edges together firmly. Trim and seal. Glaze with egg, then bake for 12 minutes* for medium rare. Serve with green beans.

*Mine was baked for 15 minutes or so, so it was somewhere between medium rare and done.

Caribbean soup

500 g cod
1 papaya
1 lemon
6 tbsp of oil
1 garlic clove
cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
1 chilli
1 tbsp dried marjoram
80g long-grain rice
pommegranate juice (1 fruit)
cayenne pepper
1 avocado, which I didn't have and didn't use this time. I don't believe it improves the taste tremendously (previous experience), but improves colour and appearance of the meal, which would have been very helpful this time...

Wash fish fillets and cut in chunks of 2cm. Cut papaya in a half, remove seeds and skin, dice. Cut avocado in a half, peel and cut in slices. Mix fish, papaya cubes and avocado slices with lemon juice and 4 tbsp of oil and leave for about an hour.
Chop garlic clove and fry a bit with marjoram, then add rice, mix to coat rice, fry for about 3 mins. Make a bouquet garni out of cinnamon, cloves, bay leaf and chilli (I used empty tea-bag!). Pour 1.5L of water over rice, season and toss bouquet garni in. Boil for about 15-20 minutes.
In the meantime, squeeze juice out of pommegranate and mix with fish. Add fish to rice and boil for another 5-7 minutes, take the bouquet garni out, add a bit of cayenne pepper.

Spiced plum chicken

1 chopped onion
1 chopped garlic clove
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
3 chicken breasts
250ml stock
2 tbsp tomato puree
250g ready-to-eat prunes
250 g couscous
handful of chopped fresh coriander

Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large pan, cook onion for couple of minutes, add garlic, then spices and stir for a minute. Add chicken strips and cook for 4-5 minutes.
Add the stock and puree, cook for 15 minutes. Then add prunes and cook for another 5 minutes. sprinkle with coriander.
Prepare couscous, serve.

Warm crab noodle salad

100 g rice vermicelli noodles
3 limes or 2 small lemons
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tbsp muscovado sugar
1 tbsp sweet chilli dipping sauce
1 tbsp grated ginger
1/2 red onion
170 g white crab meat
a handful of sugar snaps or mangetout
a handful of coriander leaves

Soak the noodles in boiling water until softened. drain and put in a bowl. The recipe says that you may want to cut them into shorter pieces with scissors that they mix with other ingredients more easily. Well, I tried to break them before soaking, but it didn't work, so I used scissors on soaked noodles and it worked miracles and was fun to do!

Put the lime/lemon juice, fish sauce, sugar, dipping sauce and ginger in a small glass jar, close and shake well. Toss the thinly sliced onion, crab, sugar snaps cut lengthways and coriander through the noodles. Pour the dressing over, toss well.

The picture is not very informative though. This time I used canned crab meat, as I needed a quick meal, but next time I'll make sure I look for fresh or frozen crab meat as it is more chunky.

This is how I make my own lasagne

Lamb shoulder with garlic and rosemary

Shoulder of lamb
Few garlic heads
A bunch of rosemary
Olive oil

Take an ovenproof dish and put few rosemary sprigs on the bottom as well as plenty of unpeeled garlic cloves. Season well, put few more sprigs and garlic cloves on top and drizzle with olive oil. Cover with foil tightly, preheat oven up to 220°C, put the lamb in and reduce the heat to 170°C and cook for 4 h. serve with mashed potatoes and mint sauce.

Maroccan chicken stew with lemon and olives

Specially for my sister, and she knows why. She went to Marocco and had to go through the hell of haggling over the price of saffron for me...

2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
4 garlic gloves
5 cm fresh ginger
1/2 tsp turmeric
4 chicken breast fillets
1 small cinnamon stick
a pinch of saffron
600 ml chicken stock
1 small lemon - zest an juice
a handful of each chopped mint and parsley
275 g couscous
a handful of pine nuts
12-15 black pitted olives

Heat oil in a pan or small pot, cook the onion, chopped garlic (leave 1 tsp aside), chopped ginger and turmeric for a minute. Add chicken, cinnamon, saffron, stock and lemon juice. Season well and cook for 20 minutes. In the meantime mix garlic that you have put aside, lemon zest and herbs. Put aside.
Remove chicken from the stock and keep warm, boil stock for another 10 minutes or until the liquid is reduced by half. In the meantime pour 450ml of boiling water over couscous, cover an leave for 5 minutes. Then mix in the pine nuts and season. Finally, mix chicken with sauce, olives and herb mixture.

Spinach and ricotta filo pasties

400 g frozen spinach
250 g ricotta
1/4 tsp nutmeg
170 g pack filo pastry
50 g melted butter

Heat oven up to 180C. Defrost spinach and mix with ricotta, nutmeg, season with salt and pepper, mix well. Take one filo pastry sheet, cover with butter and put another sheet on top. Put a spoonful of ricotta mixture and roll into a small parcel. Repeat with remaining sheets and mixture. Bake in the oven for about 15 min.