Queens day.....Kings day

Queen's Day in Holland was extra special this year due to the abdication of Queen Beatrix and crowining of her son Willem-Alexander. Out and about, flags were waving, people were wearing a substantial amount of orange clothing and generally celebrating with large amounts of alcohol.

However, while I participated in the celebrations (it was hard not to) I don't feel I fully embraced the day from a food point of view as for lunch, I resorted to making a simple dish from Yotam Ottolenghi's Jerusalem. I felt that I should have tried a Dutch classic but in my ignorance of the whole Queen's day/King's day celebration I forgot that shops would be closed and therefore with no fresh food, I resorted to raiding store cupboards.

The dish I chose to make was Couscous with Tomato and Onion. It has 5 main ingredients - onion, tomato puree, tomatoes, couscous and stock - which I had readily to hand. After gently sauteing the onions in oil, you add the tomato paste and then two chopped tomatoes, cooking for a total of 15-20 minutes. In the meantime I soaked the couscous in Magi chicken Stock for 10 minutes. I know using a stock cube is a short-cut but I really think that the Magi cubes are superior to what I used before in the UK and add that bit of extra taste. Also, I remember that I am a cook, not a chef, and I am certainly not conceited enough to believe that conveniences such as stock cubes are inadequate. After everything is ready, the tomato sauce and couscous is combined and then butter is melted in a frying pan. The couscous mixture is added and pressed down to resemble a thick pancake. This is cooked until the base and sides are crispy. These parts were definitely the most tasty.

The book describes this simple recipe as comfort food and it really is. I would definitely make it again either as a light lunch on its own or as an accompaniment to grilled meats or fish and a middle eastern salad.

Enjoy.

Beef Rendang the Hairy Bikers' way

I have made Beef Rendang only three times, once from Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey recipe and twice from The Hairy Bikers' Great Curries. While both were excellent, the Hairy Bikers' recipe, pictured above, was my favourite.
It was extremely easy to prepare, with first using a mini-blender to create a paste from red onions, garlic, chillies, lemongrass, ginger and galangal. Then frying the paste off and adding ground cumin, coriander and turmeric. Follow this with chopped beef, seared with all the spices and then add coconut milk, water, kaffir lime leaves, cinnamon stick, tamarind paste, palm sugar, soy sauce and salt. Simmer for 2.5 hours.
I took their advice and made this the day before I was due to eat it and it was a wonderful, warming dish.

I have cooked with both books several times and all the curries I made were fantastic. I hear that Rick Stein is publishing a new Indian cookbook in July to tie in with his new series exploring Indian curries on the BBC. I will be pre-ordering mine and will bring you more of his recipes in due course.

Rick Stein Far Eastern Odyssey - Amazon
Hairy Bikers' Great Curries - Amazon

A tiny update on a classic BLT

I wanted to add more vegetables to my diet as when I looked back over the past week, I'm barely getting 2 portions a day. It is not for lack of trying, I've just made recipes that have been heavy on meat and carbs such as rice. Last night was a chicken tikka with sauce and rice. Other than onions in the sauce the only concession to something green was coriander.
So, with this in mind I chose to add a little something colourful to my post workout gym session this morning. Therefore the classic bacon "butty" turned into a BLT or to be more accurate a BST as I substituted spinach for lettuce. I was quite happy with the result and even though I love the ultimate bacon butty this still did the trick.
Ok, ok it wasn't a huge amount of vegetables but better than nothing.