Resipe: Chorizo and Chickpea Tagine

We had this last night, and can I just say...both me and Ben absolutely wolfed it down! The chorizo means it's not exactly amazingly healthy, but you could substitute it for paprika marinated chicken for something healthier. Also, we served it with couscous again (The third time this week I've eaten couscous...I've not eaten it since the first time I tried it when I was 13 and decided I didn't like it!) but it would go amazingly in a pitta bread. I'm considering making it one night and saving it for work the next day, but I don't think it'd last long enough! Oh, and I think I've figured the secret of using the tagine...cook my chickpeas first, and it survives wonderfully under a higher heat than I used the first time!

Chorizo and Chickpea Tagine

Serves 2

200g tinned Chickpeas
1 desert spoon of olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 pepper, finely chopped
1 Chorizo sausage, cut into rounds
1 tsp hot chili powder
1 tsp dried sage
2 tsp dried thyme

1. Cook your chickpeas however it is you like to cook them (saucepan, microwave, however it is you like to do it)
2. Heat the oil in your tagine or heavy bottomed caserole dish 
3. Saute the onion, garlic and peppers till soft 
4. Add the chorizo and cook until it begins to brown
5. Add your chickpeas, chili powder, sage and thyme, stir in well, and cover and cook for about 15 minutes 
6. Enjoy the delicious yummyness!

Recipe: Carrot and Chickpea Tagine

My mum got me a Tagine cooking pot for Christmas, and I thought that it might be a great idea to make use of the recipe book that she got me to go with it and put the pot to its intended purpose (as opposed to using it as a pretty Moroccan style piece of decor.)

Being that we're trying to get back on track with the healthy eating (though, to be honest, not necessarily succeeding so far!) I took the chance to make a mini resolution of trying to have at least one vegetarian day a week, as there are some lovely sounding vegetarian recipes. I cooked this last night, changing the original recipe here and there to make it more healthy. I've still got to get used to cooking with the Tagine pot - it's meant to be used to cook tagine stews slowly on a low heat, and will apparently sustain damage if used on a direct, high heat...as such the carrots were a bit tough and the chickpeas a little undercooked...but the flavour was good, very earthy and wholesome. I served it with couscous and a salad of finely chopped onion, pepper, chili, cucumber, garlic mint and parsley, and dressed in freshly squeezed lemon juice.

If you don't have a Tagine cooking pot you can use a heavy bottomed, lidded caserole pot, or other pan you would use for making stews on a hob. I used a low heat throughout but I probably should have gone up to medium or increased cooking time.

Serves 2:

1 Onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 large carrots, cut into rounds
1 tin (410g) chickpeas, drained
1 desert spoon of olive oil
1 desert spoon of clear honey
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp hot chili powder
Fresh coriander, roughly chopped/torn

1. Heat oil in the pot, and sautee the finely chopped onions and garlic till soft
2. Add the carrots, honey and spices (except the fresh coriander) and mix in well
3. Add enough water just to cover the bottom of the pot, cover and leave to cook for 15 minutes (I actually left mine on for about 30 mins on a low heat, so stick a knife in there and test your carrots to see if they are cooked to your standards!)
4. Add the chickpeas, top up water if neccesary, and cover and cook for another 15 minutes (I did leave it for that long, and as said, my chickpeas were cooked but not particularly soft)
5. When it's cooked, stir in the fresh coriander, and serve

Later this week I'm doing another one, but made with Chorizo and chickpeas. I'm really looking forward to it as I love chorizo, but am not a huge fan of pulses (hence why I'm trying to make these chickpea tagines, to  introduce them more to my palate and get myself used to them...same with the couscous...I did it with pasta so I can do it with these!) so I hope the one will cancel out the eww factor from the other! I will let you know how it goes!

Recipe: Cheap and dirty home made Curry

This recipe was adapted from a Hairy Bikers recipe. I've always wanted to try making a curry from scratch, but the constraints on our budget this month meant that I couldn't go the whole hog and pay out for things such as cinnamon sticks. Still, all the other spices, fresh or dry, can be bought for mere pennies if you check out your supermarket own brand. The only thing on this list of ingredients that I payed more than £1 was the meat.

Servings: 2
Calories per serving: 551 (approximately, curry only, please make allowances for rice etc)
Cost per serving: £2.50 (approximately, I have no idea how much a teaspoon of any given spice is!)

Ingredients:

All the yummy ingredients...guess where I shop! Also, curse blogger for not displaying the picture correctly! Ah well...

• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 310g Lamb (I'm using boneless lamb leg steaks)
• 2 Onions
• 4 red chillies
• 4 cloves of garlic 
• Approximately 1tsp fresh root ginger
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 1tsp ground turmeric
• 1tsp ground cumin
• 1tsp garam masala
• Tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)
• 1 lime
• Salt and Pepper to season

Preparation before cooking

• Chop lamb into bitesized chunks
• Roughly chop onion
• Finely chop fresh spices (garlic, root ginger and chillies)
• Measure out dry spices 

All the measured out and chopped up dry and fresh spices. Note that I cannot "finely" chop chillies or garlic for toffee

 Method

• Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a big pan  to a medium high heat
• Once sufficiently heated, add your chopped up lamb and brown all over

I hear action shots make for great blog posts...

• Add another 1 tbsp olive oil along with the onions and fresh spices
• Once the onions are turning brown, add the dry spices and stir well for a minute or so
• Add the tomatoes, stir in well 

At this point, the concoction should look like this.

•  Reduce the heat to simmer for an hour. Remember to check back regularly and add a splash of water if the curry begins to dry out

Another action shot! Inside my square cauldron a feast is bubbling up...just in case you were wondering, our kitchen is tiny and we don't have room for an actual oven, so we have this massive electric pan which is the best thing in the world EVER and in the background there is a miniature countertop electric oven which is the second best thing ever because it gets hot enough to make a roast in and the hob gets hot enough to steam veggies on but not hot enough to make pancakes :(

•  Once cooked, squeeze in the fresh lime juice then serve

The final product before the side dish is added (in today's case that would be roast potatoes which may seem odd for going with curry, but savoury rice makes me ill). Oh dear I seem to have splashed some when serving :o so messy...

So it doesn't exactly look like the most appetising thing in the world, but imagine it served on top of a bed of rice or in one of those stainless steel curry dishes you get in restaurants, with a bit of fresh corriander sprucing it up like a little green hat and then it looks much nicer! Anyone who hasn't tried a curry before now (I know curry isn't quite as popular in the USA as it is here in the UK) don't be put off by the appearence of my meagre offering on a pitiful little dinner plate.

And how does it taste? Well to be honest, it was so spicy it burnt off my taste buds and I only managed to get a real taste in the first couple of bites. Next time I'm going to halve the ammount of fresh chillies I use as this seems to be the source of much of the heat. As for the flavour, it was quite aromatic and I'm proud to say not at all flat or two dimensional...if a flavour can be two dimensional lol. I hope you get what I mean! The first assault on the senses is the heat from the chillies, but then you bite into the lamb and you get the lovely earthy flavours (I always thought lamb had quite an earthy flavour). This is accompanied by the aromatic flavours of the spices, and then as you swallow it's all topped off with the fresh tang from the lime. Quite a flavoursome experience, and that really surprised me being that I cooked it with my own two hands.

But the curry king here abouts is Ben, he being the one who introduced me to curry as a regular dish in the first instance. What do you think Ben? Is this as success? One for the recipe journal?

If you look carefully, you can see smoke emerging from his mouth from where his taste buds are slowly being burnt off

I think that's a yes!