Spicy Chicken & Chorizo Pie with a Potato Top

After being disappointed today, as mates cancelled a meet up I decided to cheer myself up with a spicy chicken pie...

3 Cloves of Garlic, sliced
2 Small Onions, diced
1 Pepper, diced
1 Chorizo Sausage, sliced
500g Chicken (Thighs deboned are best)
1 Can Chopped Tomatoes
300ml Chicken Stock
1 Teaspoon chopped Basil
1 pinch dried Oregano
1 pinch Parprika
Dash of Hot Sauce (I used Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce)
4 or so Potatoes
Handful of Button Mushrooms
Salt & Pepper to season
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• Fry the garlic and onion for a few minutes then add the chorizo and cook till it starts to brown the sausage
• Add the peppers and the chicken and cook till the chicken starts to golden
• Add the everything else but the potatoes and simmer until the sauce reduces to a nice thick consistency
• Preheat the oven to 180C
• Slice the potatoes very thinly (Ideally with a mandolin) and par boil in salted water.
• Pour the chicken filling into a oven proof dish and put a layer of the potato on top, sprinkle with seasoning and the olive oil, and repeat till you use all the potatoes.
• Whack it in the oven for about 30 mins or until the topping is all crispy.

Chocolate Eclairs

I recently went to a friends for dinner and I didn't want to show up empty handed to the lovely ladies when they were cooking me a feast - so I made them some chocolate eclairs.

I used a recipe from BBC Food

For a first attempt they looked a bit like bangers and brown sauce, but they were scoffed by the girls (All 16!!!)

Beef Stew

Rainy Saturday means comfort food and the sofa. This Beef Stew can simmer away as you relax watching some old movie and relax.

800g Diced Beef

2 Small Onions diced

1 Peppers diced

2 Cloves Garlic chopped

Dozen or so Button Mushrooms

3 Stalks of Celery diced

2 Carrots Diced

100g Pancetta/Smokey Bacon diced

1 Oxo cube

1 Tablespoon tomato puree

1 Bottle Dark Ale (I use Hobgoblin)

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1 Tablespoon Plain Flour

4 or 5 Potatoes cut into big chunks, not peeled.

1 Bay Leaf

Couple of Stalks worth of Fresh Thyme

Salt & Pepper to season

• Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan and brown off the beef in batches on a high heat then remove from the pan.
• Add the Pancetta/Bacon and cook till it starts to brown.
• Add the onions, garlic, peppers and carrots. Cook for 5 mins on a high heat then reduce the heat to low, whack the lid on and simmer for 10 mins.
• Stir in the flour and puree and cook for a couple of mins
• Add the beer and stir in slowly to thicken it.
• Add the beef, potatoes, mushrooms, oxo cube, thyme, and bay leaf and bring to the boil.
• Reduce and simmer for as long as you can. The longer the cooking the richer the gravy.
• Serve and scoff on the sofa in bowls with a grin

Hot Chilli

This recipe is an old and trusted favourite. Its my comfort food, my hangover cure and my cure for blocked sinuses. If you don't like spicy food then do ignore this.

500g Minced Beef

2 Small Onions diced

2 Peppers diced

2 Cloves garlic chopped

½ Chorizo ring diced into cubes

1 can red kidney beans

1 can chopped tomatoes

2 Tablespoons Lazy Chilli

5 Tablespoons Chilli Powder

3 Teaspoons ground Cumin

2 Teaspoons Paprika

2 Tablespoons Encona West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce

10 Dashes Tabasco

1 Oxo cube

1 Tablespoon tomato puree

Mixed Chilli’s – 5 low heat, 10 medium heat, 15 Uber heat

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper to season

• Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan and add the onions, chorizo, garlic, chillis and peppers. Cook till they start to soften.
• Add the chilli powder, cumin, paprika and lazy chilli stir till all covered then coo kfor a further 5 minutes.
• Add the mince and cook till brown.
• Add the tomatoes, kidney beans, oxo cube, hot pepper sauce, Tabasco sauce and stir.
• Bring to the boil then reduce and simmer for as long as you can. The longer the cooking the hotter it becomes.
• Serve with rice or tortillas. If you aren’t good with heat add sour cream or just don’t cook it as it is wasted on you!!!

Chicken Soup

Was feeling ill as hell today, so when I woke up in the evening I made a big batch of chicken, mushroom and sweetcorn soup.

2 Chicken breasts cut into 1cm chunks

1 Litre Chicken Stock

2 Cloves garlic, chopped

2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

12 Button Mushrooms quartered

1 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1 Tablespoon Groundnut Oil

200g Can Sweetcorn

1 Tablespoon Corn Flour

• Heat the oil in a heavy based pan and fry the garlic till it starts to golden
• Add the mushrooms and the chicken and fry until golden.
• Put the corn flour in a bowl and mix in 5 tablespoons of the stock and mix till its like milk
• Add the sweetcorn to the pan and add the stock.
• Stir in the corn flour-stock mix and let to simmer for 15 mins.
• Serve – Ideally if I had some spring onions I’d have chopped those and sprinkled on the top, but I had none.

I revisted this recipe the other day and used Sesame Oil and it was nicer - I also topped with Spring Onions.

Cherry Pie

Pastry

12 Oz Self Raising Flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 Oz White sugar

8 Oz unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into 1 inch chunks

Ice Water

Filling

500g Cherries halved and stoned

6 Oz White sugar

Pinch of Salt

½ Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1 Tablespoon Kirsch

2 Tablespoons Black Cherry Jam

Glaze

Milk

Sugar

• Combine the salt, sugar and flour in a bowl and mix so the salt and sugar is evenly distributed.
• Add the butter to the bowl and mix with your hands until the mixture looks like course crumbs.
• Gently add a bit of the Ice water at a time mixing the contents till it turns into a ball of dough that holds together by pinching.
• Put the dough on your work top and cut in half, wrap each half with cling film and put in the fridge for an hour.
• Preheat the oven to 210
• Put all the ingredients in a bowl and stir so the sugar and jam are coating the cherries and leave for 20 mins.
• While the cherries are making all the lovely juice take one half of the pastry out and roll it out in a circle and put into your pre-greased pie dish.
• Cut off the excess pastry round the top with a sharp knife.
• Roll out the other half of the pastry and cut into strips about an inch wide
• Add the filling to the tart dish and then brush the edge of the pastry with milk then add the strips so there is a gap between each one showing the cherries. Pinch them onto the edge.
• Brush these strips with milk and lay some more strips over so it forms a nice lattice, pinching to the edges again.
• Brush the last strips with milk and then sprinkle sugar over the whole pie and put in the oven for 15 mins.
• After 15 mins turn the oven down to 180 and continue cooking for about 20 to 30 mins or until it goes a nice golden brown.
• Pull out the oven let to cool and serve with some vanilla ice-cream 

First Recipe - Shepherds Pie

2 Oz Salted Butter

2 Medium Carrots diced small

2 Onions sliced

Pack of Minced Beef/Lamb

1 Oxo cube

1 Clove of Garlic diced

200ml Water
Glass of Red Wine

100g Grated Cheese

2 Teaspoons of Wholegrain Mustard

8 Potatoes as big as a fist peeled and diced

1 Tablespoon Tomato Puree

50ml Double Cream

Salt and Pepper
1 Tablespoon Flour

• Fry the onions and garlic on a low heat until soft
• Add the carrots and fry till softening then add the tomato puree
• Add the flour and stir coating the carrots and onions
• Add the mince and fry until brown
• Pour in the wine and let the alcohol cook off
• Add the stock cube then add the water slowly till there is a nice gravy, then leave on the hob on a medium heat and put the water on for the potatoes, ensuring the water is salted and add the potatoes.
• Preheat the oven to 180°C
• Season the meat in gravy with salt and pepper, stir then turn down to a simmer.
• Once the potatoes are done, drain and add the butter, pepper, cream, cheese and mustard and mash.
• Transfer the mince in gravy to an oven proof dish then spoon over the mash.
• Place in the oven and cook till the mash turns a golden brown.
• Serve and eat.