Coq au Vin

This is a combination of many recipes off the internet, kudos goes to Nigel Slater, Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver for some of the best ideas.

• 1 whole chicken, ask your butcher to cut this into 4 joints for you
• 2 ribs celery, chopped coarsely
• 500g baby onions (soak in water to peel easier) cut in half
• 500g chantaney carrots, unpeeled, topped and tailed and cut in two
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2/3 bottle rich red wine (Cote du Rhone etc)
• 1 litre chicken stock
• 180g bacon lardons or thick bacon chopped into cubes
• 300g button mushrooms
• butter
• fresh thyme
• salt and pepper

Put chicken, carrots, celery and onions in bowl and add the wine. Mix until all covered, cover with lid and leave somewhere cool overnight to soak up.

Next day, put a good sized knob of butter in a large pan, once melted, cook the bacon lardons in the pan until lightly browned. Put to one side.

Next cook off the button mushrooms in the butter and bacon juices. After 4-5 mins of cooking remove frompan and set aside with bacon.

Take the onions soaked in wine out of the bowl and cook them off next until soft, then repeat for the carrots and the celery (these could be done together). Keep the wine, you're going to need it soon!

Finally in all the remaining pan juices, fry off the chicken pieces until browned on each side.

Once chicken is brown, add the onions, carryots and celery back in. Cook them off for 2-3 mins adding the garlic and the thyme.

Then pour in the wine, chicken stock, add salt and pepper and boil. Turn onto a low heat and simmer.

After 1-2hrs of cooking, add the bacon and mushrooms. Taste for seasoning and if needed add a little cornflour mixed with water to thicken the sauce.

Serve with buttery mashed potatoes.

Chicken Liver Pate and Chicken Liver Parfait

OK, this is a recipe which can go one of two ways, a coarse tasty everyday use pate or a silky, creamy, rich decadent parfait for special occassions.

The pate is my mum's amazing recipe, the parfait is my little additions ;)

For the pate and parfait

• 1kg chicken livers
• 2 onions (white for pate, red for parfait), chopped fine
• 2-4 cloves of garlic dependent on taste
• Fresh thyme, or fresh tarragon whichever you wish
• 125ml brandy
• 1 250g packet of butter
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

For the parfait only

• 1 250g packet of butter
• Small bunch of sage leaves or other large leaf herb
• 50ml double cream

Melba Toast to serve

• 1 loaf medium sliced bread

Parfait only

First need to clarify the butter to make a clear liquid and remove the milk solids. Put one pack of butter in a pan over a very low heat and allow to melt.

Parfait and Pate

Heat oil in a large saute pan, using a high heat cook the onion, garlic and chosen herbs until soft.

Add the chicken livers and cook until coloured on the outside but still pink/red in the middle.

Add the brandy to the pan and allow to bubble to cook the alcohol off. Season with salt and pepper.

Pate only

Put the ingredients into a food processor and using the normal chopping blade, whizz the ingredients up. Chop up the pack of butter and slowly add it to the pate in the processor. Once all added, taste the mix to see whether more salt or pepper needs adding, then pour out into a suitable container or a few containers and chill to set (can be frozen then).

Parfait only

Once the brandy has been cooked through, pour in the double cream and mix well.

Put the ingredients into a food processor with a blender attachment or into a liquidiser. whizz it all up and chop up the packet of butter and slowly add it piece by piece until the mixture is shiny. Taste and season again if you need to.

Once happy with the taste, push the parfait through a sieve to smooth it even more into your chosen container, can use individual ramekins, or a loaf tin, or a bowl. Put into the fridge to chill and set.

Get the pan of clarified butter from the start. Skim the clear oil off the surface using a spoon and put it into another pan on a high heat. Add one of the herb leaves and watch until it starts to bubble and frazzle. Add the rest of the herb leaves and this will make them crispy and snappy.

Decorate the top of the parfait with these leaves and then pour on the clear butter oil to just cover the surface of the pate. Put this back in the fridge to set.

Serve with rocket, a good chutney (pear and ginger, yum yum) and melba toast.

To make the melba toast, cut the crusts off the sliced bread, then put the crustless slices into a toaster just to lightly toast them. Once toasted, carefully using a sharp bread knife, slice them lengthways through the still untoasted dough part in the middle, creating two slices. Do this to all pieces of toast and lay them on trays in the oven (dough side up) at around 160 to 170 degrees for 20-30mins until they start to brown on the dough side and curl up at the edges. Can be kept in an airtight container until needed.

Apple Pie

• 4 baking brambley apples, peel and sliced
• 1 500g shortcrust pastry block, cut into 2
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• splash vanilla essence
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• Milk and sugar to sprinkle

Grease a 9"/23cm deep-dish pie tin. Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees.

Roll out one block of pastry until it is large enough to cover the bottom of the tin. Fold the end of the pastry over the rolling pin to pick it up easily, drape it over tin and squash into corners so it fits. Leave as is, with untidy edges.

In a plastic bag (carrier bag etc) put in the apple slices, with the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla and both types of sugar. Tie the top closed and shak bag around until all ingredients mixed and apples well coated.

Empty bag out into pie dish.

Put pie dish to one side and roll out second block of pastry for top of pie. Again roll out until large enough to cover the top of the pie. Pick it up with the rolling pin and drape it over the top. Push down around the edges, pinching them in to make a nice edging shape.

Lift pie tin in air with one hand flat on bottom and go round edge of tin with a knife to remove overhanging and untidy edges. Pierce two small holes in centre of pie to allow steam to escape. Brush over top with milk and sprinkle with a coating of sugar.

Put in oven at 190 degrees for 20-30mins until golden brown, then turn down oven to 160 degrees and cook for 30-40mins more, until a knife slides through the pie easily.

Baklava

Made up amounts etc as usual.....!

• 100g cashew
• 100g pistachios
• 150g walnuts
• 100g almonds
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 packet pre- made filo pastry sheets (about 250g)
• 150g melted butter

FOR SYRUP:

• 340g caster sugar
• 300ml water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• juice 1/2 lemon
• 3 tbsp honey

Toast almonds and chop all the nuts into small buts (or bash :-) ) and put in seperate bowls. Mix the sugar and cinnamon and split between the bowls evenly.

Use a shallow baking tray and brush with melted butter then place first sheet of filo over the base leaving excess hanging over sides. Brush again with butter and place another sheet on top. Repeat until 6 layers of pastry. Scatter one of the bowls of nuts over the pastry then put another 2 layers of filo over this (buttering each layer as you go). Scatter next bowl of nuts on top then another 2 layers of filo. Repeat until you are nut free! Use the rest of the filo on top of the last layer of nuts again buttering as you go - I had about 6 sheets on top. Trim any excess pastry from the edge of the tray with scissors/knife.

Bake at about 180 degrees for 30 minutes until golden brown and crispy then take out to cool.

Whilst the baklava is cooling place all the syrup ingredients into a pan and heat until the sugar is melted. Simmer for about 5 minutes on a low heat.

Pour over the baklava then leave to cool completely. Store in airtight container (if there is any left after you've tried a piece or two!!)

Chicken Croquettes and Mushroom Croquettes (La Tasca)

• 1 packet of Smash or instant mash potato, made up
• 1 breast and leg of cooked chicken chopped finely
• 9 closed cup mushrooms chopped finely
• 1 white onion chopped fine
• 1 clove garlic crushed
• salt and pepper
• 1 tub breadcrumbs
• 2 eggs beaten
• garlic mayonnaise

Fry the onion and garlic in a pan together on a low heat, in a little olive oil, until soft. Empty the cooked onions and garlic into a bowl with the mashed potato and mix until combined. Split this mixture into two bowls.

Next cook the mushrooms in a pan with some oil again until soft and cooked. Put these into one of the bowls and combine.

Put the cooked chicken into the other bowl and combine together.

If potato is still a little hot, place both bowls in the fridge to chill, the croquettes are much easier to mould when cold.

Once chilled, get bowls out and scoop a spoon of mixture into floured hands (this is going to be messy), roll into small barrel shapes and use all mix. Place barrels onto a plate and again put back in the fridge to chill.

Switch on deep fat fryer to heat up on the highest setting.

Beat eggs and put into a flat bowl and empty breadcrumbs into another flat bowl or onto a plate. Roll each barrel shape into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs to cover.

Once fat is hot enough put a few of the croquettes in the basket and cook for around 3-4 mins until golden brown. Repeat for all.

Serve with garlic mayonnaise.

Wagamama's Ginger Chicken Udon

All credit to NZgirl for finding out the recipe but just had to post it here!

• 220g (7oz) udon noodles (2 x packets at the supermarket, Chi Yip in Chadderton do these)
• Handful of mange tout, finely sliced
• 1/2 red onion, peeled and thickly sliced
• 4 spring onions, trimmed and cut into 2.5cm (1 inch) lengths
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and finely sliced
• 1 tblsp fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
• 2 tblsp vegetable oil
• 330g (10.5 oz) boneless, skinless chicken thigh meat, cut into strips (I have done it with breasts too)
• 2 teaspoons pickled ginger
• 6 sprigs coriander

Cook noodles ina large pan of boiling water for 2-3 minutes or until just tender. Drain and refresh under cold running water.

Put all ingredients except the oil, chicken, pickled ginger and coriander sprigs in a large bowl, adding the noodles last, and mix to combine.

Head a wok over a medium heat for 1-2 mins or until completely hot and almost smoking and add the vegetable oil. Add the chicken and stir fry for 5 minutes, or until cooked.

Add everything from the bowl and stir fry for 3-4 minutes. Check the seasoning, then divide between two plates and scatter over the pickled ginger and coriander sprigs.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

• 4oz/120g golden syrup
• 4oz/120g soft brown sugar
• 4oz/120g margarine
• 6oz/180g self raising flour
• 2oz/60g cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 1/4 pint/145ml milk

For the icing

• 2oz/60g margarine
• 7oz/150g icing sugar
• 1oz/30g cocoa powder
• 2 tblsp boiling water
• 1 tblsp milk

Melt the sugar, syrup, margarine in the microwave (start off on high for 30 seconds and see how it goes).

Once all melted together, mix well and then slowly add rest of ingredients, adding the flour and cocoa powder bit by bit and mixing well.

Once cake mix is smooth and combined pour into a greased plastic/silicone mould (I use a tupperware ring mould which is ace but this kind of thing would work as well, a ring mould is the best shape for it).

Cook in microwave for 4 1/4 mins on high, until the cake mix is just cooked, don't overcook it as the cake will carry on cooking even when you remove it from the microwave.

Let the cake stand for at least 10 minutes, until it starts to shrink away from the mould sides. The turn out onto a plate and leave to cool.

Whilst cake is cooling put all icing ingredients into a jug and melt in microwave for 15 seconds, then mix together and give 10 seconds more in the microwave. Mix again and allow to cool.

Once cake cool, ice with fudge frosting.

When eating, either serve hot or cold, for hot, cut a chunk and put in microwave for 20 seconds on high and icing will turn into fudge sauce.