Eggs have two advantages over all
other foods. First, they are procurable nearly everywhere; second, the most
dainty person is sure when eating eggs that they have not been handled.”
extracted from - ‘A Book for A Cook’, The Pillsbury Co. (1905)
Eggs are truly a miracle ingredient. To me eggs are
like talented actors – they can play the lead role or the supporting role. And
when they do play the supporting role, they are actually the ones who pull the
entire show (or dish in this case) together.
This recipe was a hit among my kids. EGGS +
CHEESE = HIT WITH KIDS! And it only took 5 minutes prep time! J
Ingredients
2 large free-range eggs
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 small knob butter
1 small handful Cheddar cheese, grated, optional
Method
Crack the eggs into a
mixing bowl with a pinch of salt and pepper. Beat well with a fork.
Put a small frying pan on a low heat and let it get hot. Add a small knob of
butter. When the butter has melted and is bubbling, add your eggs and move the
pan around to spread them out evenly. When the omelette begins to cook and firm
up, but still has a little raw egg on top, sprinkle over the cheese, if using
(I sometimes grate mine directly on to the omelette).
Using a spatula, ease around the edges of the omelette, then fold it over in
half. When it starts to turn golden brown underneath, remove the pan from the
heat and slide the omelette on to a plate.
Tried this
recipe again and this time, the lemon fits nicely into the chicken’s behind! J
The result :
And after numerous attempts at baking chicken, I have learnt that the temperature of the oven is important. The way Jamie suggested to heat up the oven to 240C and then to bring it down to 200C when you pop the chicken in works! You get a cripsy skin on the outside and moist tender meat in the inside.
Ingredients
1.6 kg higher-welfare chicken
2 medium onions
2 carrots
2 sticks celery
1 bulb garlic
olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon
1 small bunch fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage, or
a mixture
Method
To prepare your
chicken
Take your chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes into the oven.
Preheat your oven to 240°C/475°F/gas 9. There's no need to peel the vegetables
– just give them a wash and roughly chop them. Break the garlic bulb into
cloves, leaving them unpeeled.
Pile all the veg and garlic into the middle of a large roasting tray and
drizzle with olive oil. Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and season well with
salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the bird. Carefully prick the lemon all
over, using the tip of a sharp knife (if you have a microwave, you could pop
the lemon in these for 40 seconds at this point as this will really bring out
the flavour). Put the lemon inside the chicken's cavity, with the bunch of
herbs.
To cook your chicken
Place the chicken on top of the vegetables in the roasting tray and put it into
the preheated oven. Turn the heat down immediately to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and
cook the chicken for 1 hour and 20 minutes. If you're doing roast potatoes and
veggies, this is the time to crack on with them – get them into the oven for
the last 45 minutes of cooking.
Baste the chicken halfway through cooking and if the veg look dry, add a splash
of water to the tray to stop them burning. When cooked, take the tray out of
the oven and transfer the chicken to a board to rest for 15 minutes or so.
Cover it with a layer of tinfoil and a tea towel and put aside. Now is the time
to make your gravy.
To carve your chicken
Remove any string from the chicken and take off the wings (break them up and
add to your gravy for mega flavour). Carefully cut down between the leg and the
breast. Cut through the joint and pull the leg off.
Repeat on the other side, then cut each leg between the thigh and the drumstick
so you end up with four portions of dark meat. Place these on a serving
platter. You should now have a clear space to carve the rest of your chicken.
Angle the knife along the breastbone and carve one side off, then the other.
When you get down to the fussy bits, just use your fingers to pull all the meat
off, and turn the chicken over to get all the tasty, juicy bits from
underneath. You should be left with a stripped carcass, and a platter full of
lovely meat that you can serve with your piping hot gravy and gorgeous roast
veg.
Strangely
my 2 kids do not like apples much. Give them bananas, cherries, pears, mangoes
or watermelon and they will chomp them down - but they simply don’t fancy apples.
Hence, when I came across this recipe from Jamie’s website on stewing fruits,
it gave me an alternative method to prepare apples to see if the kids will like
them.
The
result:
I
burnt my pot while stewing the apples!
Little did I know, sugar laden water
burns easily over a stove hence don’t let that pot out of your sight should you
wish to try this recipe out. Good thing was that my daughter likes the apples
being cooked this way (probably from the castor sugar) but it still wasn’t a
hit with my son.
Cooking tips from Jamie’s website when cooking this recipe:
The
really important thing to remember when you are stewing fruit is that it's best
to decide for yourself how much sugar to add. For example, if your fruit is
really ripe and sweet, you'll need less than. Just have a taste as you go along
and add more if you think you need to.
Ingredients
500
g seasonal fruit, such as rhubarb, plums, apricots, strawberries or pears 2.5
cm piece fresh ginger, optional, for if using rhubarb
caster
sugar, to taste
Method
Chop up all the fruit, discarding any stones.
Place the fruit in a pan. If using rhubarb, peel the ginger and finely grate it
into the pan. Add the sugar – I usually add 3 heaped teaspoons to rhubarb and 2
heaped teaspoons to any other fruit, but just taste as you go along and add
more if you think it needs it (please be careful when tasting as it gets really
hot). Add 2 tablespoons of water and cook on a medium heat with the lid on.
Once the fruit has softened, remove the lid and let the liquid reduce – you
want to end up with a fairly thick consistency.
Serve over cereal, yoghurt, pancakes, granola, muesli or even with roast pork!
As I was trying to assemble the ingredients for this recipe, it
seemed like déjà-vu that I have attempted this before. Then I realized why it feels like déjà-vu.... most
of Jamie’s recipe calls for either lemon, tomatoes or basil.
The result:
It was definitely tasty. However, it taste like the previous
attempts or recipes as they are all baked in lemon, basil and/ or tomatoes as
well. J
Ingredients
•4 higher-welfare chicken legs, jointed •sea salt •freshly ground black pepper •1 big bunch fresh basil, leaves picked,
stalks finely chopped •2 big handfuls red and yellow cherry
tomatoes and ripe plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes halved, plum tomatoes
quartered •1 whole bulb garlic, broken into cloves •1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped •olive oil •410 g tinned cannellini beans, drained,
optional •2 handfuls new potatoes, scrubbed, optional
Method
Preheat your
oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Season your chicken pieces all over and put them
into a snug-fitting pan in one layer. Throw in all the basil leaves and stalks,
then chuck in your tomatoes. Scatter the garlic cloves into the pan with the
chopped chilli and drizzle over some olive oil. Mix around a bit, pushing the
tomatoes underneath. Place in the oven for 1½ hours, turning the tomatoes
halfway through, until the chicken skin is crisp and the meat falls off the
bone.
If you fancy, you can add some drained cannellini beans or some sliced new
potatoes to the pan and cook them with the chicken. Or you can serve the
chicken with some simple mashed potato. Squeeze the garlic out of the skins
before serving. You could even make it part of a pasta dish – remove the
chicken meat from the bone and shred it, then toss into a bowl of linguini or
spaghetti and serve at once.
This turned out
really bad. Point in case – photo below shows the result of my attempt with
this recipe vs Jamie’s.
My attempt:
Jamie's rendition:
Biggest mistake
I suspected was that I did not pre-heat my grill to the highest which was 240C.
Instead, I was only using at 200C.
Should you want
to attempt this, recipe as below:
Ingredients:
4 slices quality prosciutto
4 large free-range eggs
1 handful different coloured small tomatoes,
halved and quartered
1 small handful fresh basil leaves
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely
chopped, optional
olive oil, for drizzling, optional
Method:
Preheat your
grill to high. Heat a small, non-stick frying pan until medium hot. Dry fry the
prosciutto until crisp. Remove to a plate, keep warm, and put the pan back on
the heat.
Meanwhile, whisk the eggs in a small bowl and season with sea salt and pepper.
Pour into the hot pan and, using a fork, mix the eggs around to cook a little.
Scatter the tomatoes on the top, remove the pan from the heat and place under
the hot grill, about 6–7cm away. Continue to cook until the eggs are just
cooked and the tomatoes are warmed through.
To serve, place the prosciutto on top, sprinkle over the basil and chilli, if
using. Season with black pepper and finish with a drizzle of olive oil, if you
like.
Most people love sweetcorn – even most kids! It is probably that
wonderful bright yellow that makes it so sweetly appealing.
I find that this recipe makes a good side dish especially if we
are in a hurry.
The result:
As usual, I omitted the chilli and this time the ginger too as I
wanted to make it kids-friendly. I did swap the ginger with some bittersweet
orange zest recommended by Jamie as well.It was certainly a fresh perspective on how something as simple as corn
kernels can be cooked besides cooking them with butter. J
The parsley did give the
dish color but it was not a big hit with the kids. For convenience, I used the
frozen and pre-packed corn kernels bought from the grocer. Hence, the corn was
not as sweet as I hoped it should be.
One
of the things I love to do is to stir-fry the corn kernels in a hot wok or
frying pan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a tablespoon of chopped ginger, a
teaspoon of chopped chilli, a handful of chopped fresh parsley and a couple of
tablespoons of low-salt soy sauce. You can vary the flavours with different
herbs, but this is a good base to start with.
If you ever come across days where
you need to whip something up with common ingredients available in our kitchen,
this would be one of those amazing recipes to know. The result: Although the cooking time will take almost an hour, the preparation takes merely 10 minutes to put together. Healthy dinner for a weekday night. :)
Ingredients that you need :
·chicken (whole or whole
thigh) ·Sea salt, Black Pepper
(for seasoning) •1 bulb garlic, peeled and crushed •1 large orange •a few sprigs fresh thyme •extra virgin olive oil •Pesto sauce from the jar Optional: Some freshly grated Parmesan cheese
(to mix into the Pesto sauce)
Method
Preheat your oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6,
then stuff your chicken with the1 garlic bulb or place the garlic in between
the chicken thighs and thyme. Zest the orange and then squeeze the juice of the
orange over the chicken. Place the orange peel / skin in between the chicken.
Then, rub the outside of the chicken with
lots of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, then rub with olive oil and
roast for 1 to 1½ hours (depending on the size and weight of the chicken). To
see if it's properly cooked, pierce a thigh with the tip of a knife and check
that the juices run clear. If they don't, continue cooking and check again.
Scoop out a tablespoon of the Pesto sauce from the jar. Add the Parmesan and
season with salt and pepper. If the pesto looks stiff, moisten it with olive
oil.
Serve the chicken in portions – hot or cold – on a big plate with the pesto in
a bowl next to it or over the chicken.
The amazing
thing with this cooking adventure of trying out 100 of Jamie Oliver’s recipe is
that I am beginning to learn and recognize the different herbs and short cuts
to prepare certain ingredients.
With this
attempt, I learnt that to help you peel that skin off that tomatoes, you can
simply boil them first for a quick 30-60 seconds. And “wala”, the skins can be
pinched off easily.
The result:
This dish…just
so pretty. And healthy, healthy, healthy! If you love bell peppers (or also
known as capsicums) and tomatoes, you will love this one.
The recipe:
·2 peppers, red or yellow
·Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
·20 chery tomatoes
·1 handful of fresh marjoram and basil
·2 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
·Extra virgin olive oil
·Optional: Anchovies, herb vinegar
The method:
Preheat the
oven to 400F. Cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds.
Place in an
oiled baking dish and lightly season with salt and pepper. Price the cherry tomatoes
with a knife and place in bloing water for around 30-60 seconds until the skins
can be easily and quickly pinched off. Feel free to run cold water over them
before peeling.
Once peeled,
place the tomatoes in the peppers. Stuff your herbs and sliced garlic and
season. You could drape over some anchovies insteadof using seasonging at this
point. Drizzle with oilive oil.
Cook in
preheated oven for 15 minutes lightly covered with aluminium foil, then around
30 minutes without. The smallest little splash of herb veniger on each pepper
can be a real joy.
Bell peppers,
also known as sweet peppers or capsicum, come is variety of colors. They are
the member of the nightshade family- the same plant family of potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant. Bell peppers are
very nutritious and excellent food for health.
Curious Corner:
Bell peppers are very rich in antioxidants
and also excellent source of Vitamin A and Vitamin C. They are high in fibre,
folate and manganese as well. Overall, bell peppers are extremely healthy and
great in taste too.
What are the differences between Red, Green and Yellow Bell
Peppers?
Red, green and yellow- these bright colored bell peppers are
extremely nutritious and they contain some of the best nutrients available.
Green bell peppers are harvested before they are fully ripe; they
are very crispy in taste. Green bell peppers are less expensive than red and
yellow bell peppers. Green bell peppers are very good source of fiber, folate,
and vitamin K. They also contain significant amount of beta-carotene.
Yellow bell peppers are more mature than green bell peppers and
have a fruity taste. They contain more amount of beta-carotene than green bell
peppers. They also contain more amount of Vitamin C than the green bell
peppers. They are harvested before they fully mature and turn red.
Red bell peppers are mature than green and yellow bell peppers.
They also contain eleven times more beta-carotene than green bell peppers. Not
only that they contain more Vitamin C than both green and yellow bell peppers.
Red bell peppers are excellent food to prevent prostate and breast cancer.
Bell peppers are excellent for health regardless their color. But
among them red bell peppers contain more nutrition than the other two.
