Awesome Sweet Chilli Chicken Salad

There's nothing simpler than a warm chicken salad, but your standard supermarket ready to go ones often miss out on the true potential of this dish. Its really easy and can be knocked up in about 15 minutes, for a great meal when your sitting down watching telly, but also impressive for guests.

Ingerdients (to serve 4 people):


Croutons

1 medium sized Ciabatta roll.
1-2 garlic clove
Extra virgin olive oil.

Thinly slicy the ciabatta and add to a medium hot frying pan, frying until golden brown in olive oil and garlic. This will flavour the croutons, but not to the extent that they become garlic bread. Be as rustic as you like with these as they look great either way.

Salad
4 medium Chicken Breasts
Big bunch of mixed salad leaves, ensuring that you have 3 of the following categories of leaf: Crunchy, Spicy, Delicate. I generally will use Iceberg lettuce, Rocket, Watercress, Baby Spinach and some baby gem.
Grated Carrot and Beetroot
Basil and Dil
1 medium Red Chilli
1 standard block of Greek Feta cheese
1 Yellow Pepper
1 Cucumber
High quality Sweet chilli sauce - ensure this is not a thick "dipping" sauce, but a more liquidy one. I got to a vietnamese shop in Hackney (junction of Mare Street and Wells Street) for everything oriental, and they have great ranges here.

Method:
Tenderise the Chicken, and lighly brush with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with some lightly chopped basil, and place under the grill, turning regularly until cooked through but still moist.
While chicken is cooking, Mix all the salad leaves together, add the yellow pepper cut into think strips and the grated carrot and beetroot. Then finely deseed and dice the red chilli and throw in. Place salad in a large container (i use a big tupperware box) and pour over roughly 4 tablespoons of the sweet chilli sauce and toss the salad extensively until evenly dressed.
Once dressed, put onto four plates and then add the basil, dill, thinly sliced cucumber and cubed feta delicately on top (you don't want these overley dressed as it will dominate the contrastin flavours that make the salad so good.
When the chicken is done, clice into thin strips and place on top of each plate drizzling a little bit of sweet chilli sauce. Add croutons on the side as required.

Salsa Verde

This Italian green sauce is a fantastic combination of fresh herbs and garlic in an emulsion of olive oil and vinegar. Serve it with poached or roast chicken breast, char-grilled vegetables and grilled Italian pork sausages, or as a relish with grilled tuna or salads involving hard-boiled eggs. It even works as a dipping dauce for tortilla chips

Ingredients
Makes 4 servings. Takes 10 mins.

40g (very big handful) flat parsley
20g (small handful) fresh basil
30g fresh white breadcrumbs
2tbsp red wine vinegar
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 anchovy fillets, chopped
2tbsp salted capers, rinsed
120ml extra-virgin olive oil, or more if required
Freshly ground black pepper

Optional extra - Add Jalepenos if an extra kick is requires.

Wash the parsley, basil and mint leaves, shake then pat dry with a paper towel. Combine the breadcrumbs and vinegar in the food processor, then add the herbs and whizz, using the pulse action, until you have a coarse paste. Add the garlic, anchovies and half the capers and whizz again using the pulse action to a coarse paste.

Gradually add the extra virgin olive oil with the motor running but try not to process to too fine a purée. Taste, add pepper and the rest of the capers, adjust the flavours accordingly and set aside, covered, until needed. Use within 24 hours.

Coriander Haddock Sous-Vide with Sauté Potato and Asparagus

This dish is fantastic for entertaining friends and a simple saturday night witha few beers. I did the latter tonight and feel genuinely happy having eaten this. Its surprisingly easy and quick, but sounds dead flash!

I'll break the recipie down into three for each part. For timing reasons, the Haddock takes about 3 minutes prep, 11 minutes cooking, the potatoes take about 15 prep, 10 cooking and the asparagus should take no more than 90 seconds.

Coriander Haddock Sous-Vide

Sous-vide is basically houte cuisine speak for boil in the bag. Done well, it can take up to 72 hours, but I think the principle of it can be transferred to the house very easily and incredibly quickly. For me, the boil in the bag method allows for a poached texture to fish, keeping it medium rare of course, but the fact that your protecting it from the water or stock, means you can force very distinct flavours on white fish.

For this get a reasonable chunky haddock fillet, season lightly, and place in a boiling bag. You can get these bags online or in supermarkets, but for this one I was stuck and have a job lot of Morrissons Boil in the bag rice lying around, so i threw out the rice and kept the bag. In with the fish put in 1 tbsp of dry white wine and a bunch of coriander. Any flavours you use will come out really strong, so feel free to experiment with great results, but avoid garlic, as this can be almost pungent in this method.
Boil a pot of water, and place the bag in. Ensure you have pressed all the air out of the bag and closed it with two wooden pegs. Leave this in for 11 minutes, which should get you rare fish, then leave to rest in the bag out of the water, and the evapourating wine will bring it up to medium rate and infuse into the flesh beautifully.

Sauté Potatoes,

This one is fairly simple. Peel and Par boil some small to medium sized potatoes, then cut into small quarters, toss in some olive oil and shallow fry with a half clove of garlic and basil until crispy and golden brown.



Blanched Asparagus

This is dead easy, but also easy to seriously mess up and timing is key. Boil some unoiled, salted water and put the asparagus in for EXACTLY one minute, draining quickly. In the pot, put in a knob of butter and when it melted, throw in the asparagus for 30 seconds, with some salt and pepper. Do this last, as they can be served straight to plate then. Be very careful not to over cook.

Serve the Haddock on top of the asparagus bed, with the potatoes in the middle in a dish.

Enjoy!

Pancake bake

On pancake day I always end up making slightly too much batter, but always cook up the pancakes anyway, as they are great the next night for this one dish meal (less washing up).

This one is really simple, and requires no effor whatsoever, which is ideal!

For this i generally use what ever meat sauce or stew i have in the freezer, but feel chilli con carne works best flavour wise, because it has that extra kick.

Basically the key idea is to get a large dish, roll the meat sauce in the pancakes, tightly pack the rolls in and sprinkle grated cheese over. Sprinkle black pepper, nutmeg and oregano over the cheese and shove the whole thing into the oven at about 160-180 for 15.20 minutes, when the cheese should be starting to crisp on top and the meat will be piping hot in the middle. The edge of the pancakes will also have a nice crunch too.

This is possible my favourite quick dinner at the moment as it takes no time and looks great and really warms you up.


Enjoy!

Baked Sea Bass with Lime and Chilli

Baked fish is so tender and so easy to do, with great results for dinner parties, and for this dish, a good quality fish, with a subtle flavour. Cooking time is also fairly minimal, which is always a plus. Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 Fillets Sea Bass, decent thickness.
1-2 limes, depending on size.
1 medium red chilli
1 glass of dry white wine
1 standard bagh of fresh spinach
6-8 baby courgettes
1 clove of garlic
4 leaves of fresh basil, diced
1 Pinch of chopped parsely

Instructions:

1. Fist prepare the Fish by wrapping each fillet in individual tinfoil parcels. put a quarter glass of wine in the bottom of the pacel, lay fish skin down on top of it and cover fish in finely chopped chilli and 4 slices of lime. Close up parcels.
2. Preheat oven tp abput 180, and place closed up parcels in for 8-9 minutes.
3. Dice courgettes and sauté with roughly chopped garlic clove.
4. Wilt and season spinach.
5. Remove the parcels from the oven while the spinach is wilting, and leave to stand closed for 3 more minutes. The fish will still slow cook in the bag. If you want the fish mroe well done, adjust accordingly, but a meaty fish can be served medium rare for best results.
6. Place a bed of spinach on each plate, and put the sautéd courgettes on top and lay the fish atop of them.
7. Garnish with the chopped basil and parsely.


Alternative results can be achieved by making a white wine and lime sauce, while pan frying the fish with chilli, which will create a crispier skin, but I prefer baking, as it allows for the chilli and lime flavours to infuse more.

Tuck in!

Mango and Apple Salsa with Bacon and Feta

This dish involces very little prep time, and more importantly, has a lot elements that can be pre-prepared, requiring very little time away from your guests.

Ingredients (for 4 people)
1 Large Mango
1 mid sized apple
1 Red Chilli
8 Rashers of Smoked streaky bacon
Feta Cheese (as desired)

Instructions
1. Cut your Mango into small chunks. roughly 2 cm cubes. Place in a bowl.
2. Finely Dice a medium red chilli (to give a bit of heat, but nothing overwhelming. you want to contrast the sweetness, not hide it) and toss in with the mango
3. Cube a decent handful of feta and keep on a seperate plate.
4. Put bacon under grill and cook until really crispy but not burned. medium heat for best effect. Do not fry as the excess grease will spoil the fruit.
5. While bacon is cooking, slicy the apples into thin sheets and dice lenghtways (imagine matchstick size). Do not do this too early as the flesh could brown if exposed too much to air. Toss the apple with the mango and chilli.
6. Take the Apple, Mango and Bacon and distribute intpo equal bowls.
7. Chop the crispy bacon roughly and toss over the fruit
8. Sprinkle the cubed feta over and serve.

Serve with a garnish of rocket, and enjoy. Simple, cheap and surprisingly well received everytime i've served it.

Alternatives include substituting the apple with shredded beetroot for a less sweet, more robust flavour or for veggies, I suggest replacing the bacon with small amounts of grated carrot and some thinly shredded fennel.

Enjoy.

Smoked Mackrel in Cream

Smoked Mackrel in Cream

Again, a really easy smoked mackrel starter, and very impressive for guests. Takes very little time and effort. Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 fillets of Smoked Mackrel (Peppered fillets from the supermarket are cheapest and best option, as they are generally well seasoned)
• 1 pot of cream, preferable double.
• ground nutmed
• Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

1. tear up the mackrel fillets into small flakes. Place in 4 small pots or ramekens [sic]
2. pour cream in to fill up pots leaving hals a centimeter at the top.
   
3. shake on Parmesan and ground nutmeg to give an even cover to the top.
4. Place, uncovered, in a preheated oven at 180 degrees until piping hot and browned on top. roughly 10-15 mins.
5. Serve with rustic bread or ciabatta as a warm and rich starter.

Alternatives of this include shrimp or crayfish tails. Any good oily smoked fish works.

Enjoy!