Attempt #8: Potato and chorizo omelette with a kinda parsley salad

This is my first time baking eggs!

I have tried scrambling eggs, poaching them, boiled, steamed…but never baked them like a soufflé. And I must say that it is so much easier than trying to poach an egg! (I am still sore that my earlier recipe asking for poached egg turned out to be a disaster).

According to Jamie Oliver, this omelette recipe is supposed to be a cross between a Spanish tortilla and an Italian frittata. It’s Spanish because of the chorizo and potato, but a little Italian too because it is finished off in the oven instead of on the hob.

Result:

 

Overall, interesting and easy recipe to make. It tastes almost like quiche but ‘heavier’ in terms of texture. The added rosemary leaves gives a pungent, spicy taste to the omelette. The rosemary also further enhanced the spiciness of the Spanish chorizo sausages.

Besides, anything with eggs, sausages and potatoes in them, along with onions as a salad dressing - it won’t go really wrong I think. J As Jamie says it, these are 3 ingredients which are usually "all time favourite” 

Recipe: 

- 4 small waxy potatoes, scrubbed and cut into chunks
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 6 large free-range or organic eggs
• 2 x 60g good-quality Spanish chorizo sausages, cut into 1cm thick slices
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
• 2 shallots, peeled and very finely sliced
• juice of 1 lemon
• extra virgin olive oil
• a bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked

Method:

Preheat your oven to full whack, (I PRE-HEAT TO 240C AS THAT IS THE HIGHEST IT COULD GO FOR MY OVEN) or get your grill nice and hot. Put the potatoes into a saucepan of boiling salted water and simmer them until cooked, then drain in a colander and leave them to steam dry. Beat the eggs with a fork in a large mixing bowl, season well with salt and pepper, and put to one side.

Heat a 20cm non-stick, ovenproof frying pan. Add the chorizo slices and the potato chunks. The chorizo will start to sizzle, releasing all its tasty oils and spices. After a couple of minutes, when everything’s lightly golden and crisp, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and put to one side. Sprinkle the rosemary leaves into the hot fat. As soon as they hit the pan, they’ll start to crisp up. Pour the beaten eggs on top immediately, adding the potatoes and chorizo and spreading everything out evenly. Place the whole pan in the preheated oven or under the grill until the omelette is golden brown on top and just cooked through in the middle.

While the omelette is cooking, put the shallots into a bowl with the lemon juice, some salt and pepper and a glug of extra virgin olive oil. Toss and pinch the shallots with your fingertips to soften them slightly, then mix in the parsley leaves. Serve a little on top of the omelette and tuck in!

Jamie Oliver's Rendition of the Omellete:

Attempt #7: Soy-baked salmon with zingy salsa

With the poor attempt on my crab cakes, I still wanted to make a fish-based dish.

Having just bought a kg of fresh, chilled salmon from my friend (PM me if you ever want to get your hands on fresh, premium quality salmon), I selected this recipe (link to Jamie's website). Looks easy enough for a quick bake for dinner!

 

The result….absolutely Y.U.M.M.Y.

The zest from the lemon and the lime added in a taste of sweet bitterness to the fish. And the grated ginger provides that zingy, spicy element to the creamy texture of the salmon. The idea of searing the salmon (skin down) on the pan before popping it into the oven is fantastic! This way, it makes the skin of the fish so crispy and nice.

Here's the photo:

I did omit chilli again in this recipe. And I added in some finely chopped red onions and garlic into the salsa mix since I omitted the chillies.  

Curious Corner:

Do you know that salmons have a peculiar life cycle?
Extracted from Organic Factswebsite, salmons will lay their eggs near the mouth of the rivers. The eggs hatch there, develop into fries and start their journey towards seas. They grow in the seas into adult salmons and again go back to the rivers to reproduce, where most of them die after laying eggs.

Attempt #6: Home-made crab cakes with a hot blackened salsa

Biggest mistake was not to get fresh or premium crabmeat. So, should you plan to attempt crab cakes, make sure that you get premium crab meat. And try not to get flower crab as these are not as sweet as other types of crabs in general.

Another unique element to this crab cake recipe (link to Jamie's website) was it doesn’t ask for eggs or breadcumbs or flour to hold the patties together. Instead, the recipe asked for potatoes and mashing the steamed potatoes together with the crabmeat.

Although I did pop the nicely shaped patties into the fridge overnight which was supposedly to help hold the patties together, I still had a difficult time trying to keep them together when frying them. In the end, I still had to re-shaped them into patties for the presentation of the finished dish.

My rendition:

Jamie's rendition:

Result: As I bought frozen flower crabmeat, I couldn’t taste the crabs nor its sweetness. Instead, it felt more like having potato cakes L

But the salsa recipe was yummy. Think we enjoyed the salsa more than the crab cakes this round.

Curious Corner:

How many potatoes make up to 500gm?

That was my first challenge. Well, for those who doesn’t have a weighing scale readily available, 500gm of potatoes is about 4 pieces of a medium sized potato.

 

Here’s a photo to help you make that gauge. Hope this helps!

 

Attempt #5: Tender and Crisp chicken legs with Sweet Tomatoes

Since a tomato-based dish turned out pretty good in my last attempt, I thought why not test the theory that anything with tomatoes will taste good regardless if you can cook or not.

 

An Ah-HA! I can now confirm that theory - “ANYTHING WITH TOMATOES WILL TASTE GOOD”.

For this Tender and Crisp chicken legs with Sweet Tomatoes dish, I substituted chicken legs with chicken pieces and I omitted the red chilli so that it is suitable for the kids as well.

The result : Yummy and to quote Jamie Oliver’s famous expression…”Heavenly”. Although I am not sure how Jamie got his dish coming out looking saucier than what I had. But it still taste yummy.

Getting read to go into the oven...

 

Hot out from the oven...

 



Jamie's rendition...looks soo much better as usual :)

For the full recipe, click on this link to Jamie’s website.

Curious Corner:

Difference between red and yellow tomatoes. Extracted this from eHow.com

The most obvious difference between these two types of tomato is their color. Red tomatoes are far more common than yellow tomatoes, and are often the only color of tomato found in grocery stores and supermarkets. Red tomatoes are high in lycopene, a powerful antioxidant thought to prevent some cancers. Lycopene is what produces the tomatoes' red color. Yellow tomatoes do not contain lycopene. Red tomatoes are highly acidic, which produces their tangy flavor. Yellow tomatoes are lower in acidity, making them generally sweeter than red tomatoes. Red tomatoes are higher in vitamin C, while yellow tomatoes are higher in niacin and folate. Both colors are a tasty and nutritious addition to any meal.

Attempt #4: Baked white fish with olives and a simple tomato sauce

With almost 1 month down, I am only at my 4^th recipe attempt. Yikes!

Time to speed the cooking up. But I do have a valid excuse *grin*…I was on a road trip to Italy with my girlfriend. Here’s a sneak peak to one of the many yummy food that we had. More on my roadtrip later.

 

Moving on to my Baked White Fish attempt. This attempt proved to be quite successful. The recipe for Jamie’s Baked White Fish with olives and a simple tomato sauce is oh so easy and more importantly, very yummy.

 

I guess any tomato-based recipe will not go wrong much. I did substitute red wine vinegar with ginger wine vinegar and it still taste right! And I skipped the olives and capers. I may have short-changed Jamie’s recipe a tiny bit but hey credit to the chap, the fish still turns out yummy! J  

Enclosed the full recipe below by Jamie Oliver:

Method

To make your sauce:

1. Peel and finely slice the garlic cloves. Pick the basil leaves and put aside, finely slice the stalks.

2. Add a good couple of lugs of olive oil to a large pan on medium heat. Add the garlic and basil stalks. Pierce the chilli once with a knife so it doesn’t explode when frying, and add to the pan. Fry gently until the garlic is soft but not coloured, stirring occasionally.

3. Add the tins of tomato and season lightly with the salt and pepper. Gently simmer on low heat for 30 minutes. Remove the chilli. Break and mush the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Season the sauce really carefully with more salt and pepper, if needed, and add a tiny swig of red wine vinegar to give it a little twang.

To prepare and cook your fish:

4. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/gas7.

5. Pour your tomato sauce into a roasting tray (about 20cm x 30cm). Season the fish fillets on both sides with a little salt and pepper, then place on top of the sauce. Squash the olives, using the base of a jar or something heavy, and remove the stones. Sprinkle the olives and capers over the fish. Scatter the reserved basil leaves over the fish.

6. Cook in the oven for around 15 minutes or until the fish is cooked through (check by cutting into the thickest part of one or two of the fillets; they should be pearly white and not transparent). Lovely served with new potatoes and a green salad.

ingredients

• 3 cloves of garlic
• a small bunch of fresh basil
• olive oil
• 1 fresh red chilli
• 2 x 400g tins plum tomatoes
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• red wine vinegar
• 4x 150g white fish fillets such as coley, whiting or pollock, skin off and bones removed
• a handful of black olives, stone in
• 1 tablespoon capers, drained

Attempt #3: Creamy Asparagus Soup with a Poached Egg on Toast

Result of my soup in 4 words. Tasty but visually ugly.   

I wanted to make something simple and fast for this attempt. Saw this recipe for Creamy Asparagus Soup with a Poached Egg on Toast on Jamie Oliver’s website and thought would be a good choice since my kids love asparagus and eggs! However, it didn’t turn out as fast nor as pretty as Jamie’s rendition.

Nothing much I could say further except to show the pictures. Here’s a side by side comparison of the result of Mr Oliver’s Cream of Asparagus Soup and mine.

 

THE RESULT:

Same recipe but different outcome.

I had trouble with blending the asparagus in the soup and making the poach egg. I used a handheld blender but the content of the hot soup kept skirting off everywhere outside the pot. And the poach egg, hats off to the folks who can make perfect poach eggs!

Visually,  I think my soup even made melted ice-cream looks good. Sigh…

Attempt #2: Sausage Carbonara

Thought that it will be good and easy enough to try out pasta in my second attempt.

The recipe for Jaime’s Sausage Carbonara looks so, so simple and the photo shot of the dish look so, so yummy! Here’s how I see it:

 

Simple + Yummy = Good idea for a Chef Wannabe

 
 

But, here’s what went down:

(First) 5 min : I stared at the pasta.

Any of you ever had problems of trying to gauge how much pasta to cook? Or am I the only one? Here's the thing...too little, you get too much sauce leftover. Too much, you have pasta going to waste. Perhaps it is time I invest in a pasta measurer.  

(Next) 10 min : I stared at the Italian sausages.

Recipe says ‘With a sharp knife, slit the sausage skins lengthways and pop all the meat out. Using wet hands, roll little balls of sausage meat about the size of large marbles and place them to one side.’

Firstly, I have never thought that I could actually make use of those sausages that we get from the Deli and make them into meatballs.

Then, I was questioning if the sausage skins were that easy to slit. How much pressure do I have to use?

(Next) 15 min :

Tried slitting the sausage skins. OMG!!! Miracle!!! It actually slit opened perfectly!

It was like an Eureka moment for me! What a great way of making meatballs. The sausages were already pre-mix with herbs and best of all, it stays together easily. The ball making was really easy and fun!

See the before picture and after pic of the Italian Sauages. 



BEFORE = I AM A SAUSAGE

AFTER = I AM A MEATBALL

 (Next) 30 min :

The cooking process started. I followed the step by step guide provided in the recipe. Some learnings to look out for in future:  

1.  Never grate the lemon beyond the yellow part of the lemon peel (skin) as the white inner part is actually bitter.

2.  When I tossed the cooked pasta into the egg mixture directly, it did not thicken as described in the recipe. So, I had to heat up the pan. Only then it helped to thicken the mixture well.

3.  The Italian sausages/ meatballs should not be fried in the pan for too long as they become hard. My mistake was that I was afraid they were not cooked and I usually like my meat well done. Hence, the meatballs were not as juicy as it should be.

The Result:

Overall, the pasta was quite yummy. The taste of the lemon zest was a perfect touch to the salty cheese mix and cream. The lemon also provided an amazing bitter sweet fragrance to the sauce and dish.

Attaching Jamie's Sausage Carbonara below:

 

Ahem...I did replace linguini with angel eye pasta and pancetta with mushrooms. Figured too much meat.

But linguini does make the dish look 'sexier' and the pancetta added colors to the dish which is definitely lacking in mine.

 

 

FUN FACTS: Did you know? The word carbonara is derived from the Italian word for charcoal, and its origins are as a sauce served with pasta to the coal miners in Italy in the mid-1900’s.

Attempt #1: Perfect Roast Chicken

News has it that roasting a chicken is one of the easiest dish for new cooks (or a chef wannabe) to start with. So, when I found this recipe on Jamie Oliver’s website for a Perfect Roast Chicken…I thought I struck gold…or poultry heaven in this case.
 
But oh….roasting a chicken was not as easy as 1-2-3 as news has it!

Here’s what happened and learning! Learning! Learning! to remind myself the next time I attempt to roast an entire chicken! 
 

Mistake #1: Never try to adjust the recipe of a great chef when you are trying your virgin attempt to roast a chicken!

Instead of organic, free range chicken which I thought was rather large for a family of 2 adults and 2 small kids, I bought a ‘kampung’ (village fed) chicken. This means that I should have also halved the other ingredients which I did not and adjusted the baking time.

IMPORTANT: Depending on the size of the chicken, may not be full 80 minutes as per recipe. Else, you will get a much burnt bird!

 

Recipe asked for celery and carrots. I replaced with leaks and cherry tomatoes. Reason being: I had leftover of leaks and cherry tomatoes and I wanted to use them before they went rotten. Waste not, want not right?

IMPORTANT: Roasting is like a box of chocolates, you will never know what it will taste like if you have not tried it. So, don’t try to be creative just yet!

Mistake #2: Size of the lemon must be in according to the size of the chicken!

The lemon keeps popping out from the chicken’s rear end as you can see from the photo! It took me longer trying to tackle the lemon and stuffing it into the chicken’s behind than to clean the chicken.

Not just that, if the lemon doesn’t get inserted well into the chicken, you get burnt lemon.

The RESULT: Chicken was slightly burnt and a little tad too sour (probably from the tomatoes!). But overall, it was quite tasty. The citrusy taste of the lemon goes really well with the sweet onion.

p/s: Visually, I thought the roasted chicken looks like an alien trying to eat that lemon! Don't ya think? See the resemblance? Gosh, I got to do something about my visual presentation of the food!