One hundred and one ways to roast a chicken!

Well, that's how it feels sometimes........  Alan would have preferred the regular old roast chicken but I was in the mood for something a little different. Alan bought me a boxed set of the Barefoot Contessa's cookbooks for my birthday, so that is where I am going for inspiration these days.  Came across Indonesian Ginger Chicken, 

Sounded worth a try, and it really was. "MMMM - mmmmmm" was Joseph's comment!  Pretty easy, basically you marinate 4 chicken quarters in honey, soy sauce, garlic and ginger then roast it, still covered in the marinade, first covered with foil then open so it browns.   The marinade becomes a pretty good sauce, I put it through a sieve as I had chopped the ginger rather than grated it, so the pieces were a little big and I thought would be unpleasant.
Probably a good one to marinate 2 chickens and put one in the freezer, maybe next time!

CRAB CAKES - YUM!

Alan and I are both fans, I've only made them once before and they were ok. Browsed a few recipes and decided on good old Epicurious, this recipe had so many great reviews and they were really excellent: Crab Cakes with Herb Salad.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe, I went light on the amount of herbs in the crab cakes as I did not want to overwhelm the taste of crab.  The dressing, which is basically grapeseed oil, lemon juice and dijon was really delicious.  I added a sliced heirloom tomato, with a drizzle of the dressing of course, because I thought it would be a good combo and added some colour to the plate.  Have to admit though that I did serve a little Chipotle mayo on the side.  Sure to be making these again.

How can anyone be a vegetarian?

Actually the whole quote was "A meal like this makes me wonder how anyone can be a vegetarian", spoken by my son.  The dish was very enjoyable and I have included it before, Beef Salad with Asian Dressing.

Of course there needs to be a twist! Two of the ingredients this recipe calls for are sesame oil and a chili.  Does anyone else make shopping lists them leave the list at home?  I do it too often!  Did pretty well today, the only thing I forgot from the list was a chili.  Once I stared cooking I discovered I was out of sesame oil which I thought I had.  Thanks to Jane Z I have O & Co's chili oil  - that seemed like the perfect substitute for the 2 missing ingredients. Recipe calls for skirt steak but I always use flank steak, I prefer it.
A little different tonight, of course, but still excellent. Another thing I love about this dish is that it reminds me of my nephew, Sean, who I made this for on one of his visits.  He is an excellent 'braaier', so he cooked the meat and really enjoyed the dish.  Cheers Sean!

A QUICK DINNER

The weekend of Mother's day I get quite selfish about spending a lot of time gardening.  However, dinner should not be compromised.....  I found this recipe in the pile I had cut out of NY Times and it was quick.

Curried Scallops with tomatoes -  which I decided to serve with Jamie's smashed beans and some baby courgettes and snap peas, which I steamed.  It was pretty good but I would change a few things next time.  Main thing is that the curry overpowered the scallops, I think this would be great with boned chicken thighs.  Also, the smashed beans got lost, good old rice would have done the trick. Hey-ho, can't be perfect every time!

A RIGHT ROYAL DISH!

Have to admit I starting watching at about 5.45 on Friday morning, I thought it was all spectacular - the Brits know how to do this!  Katherine looked stunning, as did her sister and most of the guests.  The only stand outs for me were Eugenie and Beatrice - what were they thinking??? They looked like the ugly step-sisters...  but back to me.  My good friend Julia hosted the wedding party today and we all had to bring an 'appropriate' dish.  I decided on a version of Coronation chicken.  This dish was invented for the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and there is some story about there being an ingredient from each Colony at the time.  More important to me is that my first foodie friend, Jock Lawson, used to make this often for parties, but she substituted the chicken with shrimp.  I had her tell me the recipe, must have been about 25 years ago (gulp, can that be true?).  I cannot remember when I made it last, but it did make me smile looking at my very neat handwriting in my first ever recipe book!

• 1 small onion pureed
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 heaped tsp flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 cup Mayonaise (roughly, I did a conversion, start with a bit less and taste!)
• 2 Tbsps curry powder
• 8oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1Tbsp mango chutney pureed (can use apricot jam)
• 2 Tbsps heavy/double cream
• juice of about half a juicy lemon
• tabasco to taste
• 2 pounds of shrimp/prawns or shredded meat from one chicken.

Melt butter over medium heat, soften onion for about 5 mins, do not brown. Add flour & curry powder and cook for few mins more. Add tomatoes, chutney, sugar and season with S & P.  Cook over gentle heat for about half an hour.  Cool then add other ingredients.

I found it did not need any tabasco and I served with some melba toasts and peppery water biscuits which was all fabulous!  Sorry I forgot to take a pic before it was devoured.