Tag: recipe

Spanish Omelette Bento, with recipe!

Leave a comment

This bento is packed with leftover Spanish omelette from dinner the day before. It’s just as delicious cold the next day, and I love it with dill pickles.

Spanish omelette bento

Here’s the Spanish Omelette recipe!

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 large potatoes
  • 200g ham
  • 100g frozen peas
  • 50g oak smoked / sundried tomatoes
  • 4 eggs
  • Salt and pepper
  • Cheddar cheese

METHOD

  • Peel the potatoes and slice thinly. Wash to remove the starch, then fry vey lightly in olive oil to ensure the potato is slightly sealed and won’t stick.
  • Then remove to a microwave dish, cover and cook until tender. This is the cheat’s method for getting your potatoes completely soft without creating a crispy crust or sticking together and breaking apart. That way, they’ll be soft and melt into the egg when you bite into it.
  • Crack the eggs into a jug, then add the chopped ham, tomatoes and peas. Mix.
  • Add the hot potatoes to the egg, mix around, then return to the pan.
  • Once the bottom is well set, grate some cheddar cheese onto it and pop it in the oven on a low temp until set.
  • Then remove, leave for a few minutes and slice.

This will serve two for dinner with a portion left over for a bento, or will make around four large bento portions.

Gingery Chinese spring rolls

Leave a comment

These are seriously the most delicious spring rolls I have ever eaten, so I’m really excited to share the recipe with you – I hope you get a chance to try them out and fall in love too! Forget soggy beansprouts and weird gloopy sauce, these spring rolls are a meal in themselves – because you won’t be able to stop eating them once you start…

You can freeze these ahead of when you want to eat them,  but you should thaw them before deep frying. Just prepare the filling and roll up the wrappers, then pop in a single layer in your freezer. The ones pictured are normal size, but for bentos buy a large packet of spring roll wrappers and then cut them into quarters for cute mini spring rolls!

Chinese spring rolls

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 pack large spring roll wrappers
  • 2 chicken breasts, shredded
  • 75g cooked prawns, cut into small pieces
  • 4 spring onions, finely chopped
  • 100g bean sprouts
  • 75g grated carrot
  • 50g grated onion
  • 3 square centimetres fresh ginger finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves finely chopped
  • 1 beaten egg
  • 1 1/2 tablespoon light soy sauce
  • 1 1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon sesame seed oil
  • Pinch chilli flakes (optional)
  • Oil to stir fry and deep fry

METHOD

  • Mix together the soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, sesame seed oil and chilli flakes.
  • Heat your wok to a medium heat. Stir-fry the chicken in 1 tbsp oil until it’s white, then reserve and drain. Remove excess moisture from your wok and heat some more oil.
  • Fry the ginger for 30 seconds, then add the garlic, frying for one minute. Add the grated onion and spring onion and cook until it has softened. Watch your temperature here – you don’t want to brown the ingredients. If the wok gets too hot, remove it from the burner for a few seconds.
  • Add the carrots, bean sprouts and prawns and cook until the bean sprouts are slightly translucent.
  • Pour on the beaten egg and mix. When the egg has solidified, add the soy sauce mixture and the egg and mix thoroughly. There should be no excess liquid – all the seasoning and egg should cling to the ingredients. Leave to cool.
  • To assemble your spring rolls, place your spring roll wrapper diagonally on the work surface and fill the corner nearest to you with a tablespoon of mixture.
  • Pull the corner up over the top and then roll twice – you should now be roughly to the centre of the wrapper.
  • Fold the two corners in to the middle and then continue to roll it up, sealing the end with water – this is vital or your roll will pop open when you fry it.
  • Now for the deep frying – at this point it’s probably best to say that deep frying can be very dangerous – if you’re concerned, then use a deep fat fryer at 170 degrees centigrade to cook your spring rolls. Heat the oil in a pan. Test the heat by adding a spring roll – if it sizzles and the oil bubbles around it vigorously, you have it right.
  • Cook on each side for a couple of minutes, then drain. If your rolls go dark brown too quickly, turn your heat down.
  • You can make a dipping sauce with light soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar to taste. Add chilli flakes, chopped spring onions or a slug of sesame seed oil for a special touch.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

What to do with left over turkey at Thanksgiving

Leave a comment

Leftovers at Thanksgiving can be so much more than a simple rehash of that Turkey Day meal (although, let’s face it, that’d be pretty darn delicious anyway!). Try these recipes for delicious leftovers – I promise you, none of them will feel like second-best meals! In fact, you might be tempted to roast another turkey (or chicken) just to make some more!

Leftover mosaic

Week One: Feel Good Chicken Broth - Broth before stock

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: roast chicken risotto

1 Comment

Risotto isn’t one of those quick and easy, on the table in 20 minutes kind of dinners. You have to stand there and cook and stir and add stock for a looong time. But you know, when it’s dark and wet outside and you’re kind of fed up with everything, that’s okay. Sometimes you just want to stand there and stir something.

This roast chicken risotto recipe used to be my number one method of disposing of a dead body. There’s nothing like it to get rid of the evidence you had a chicken for your dinner than using it up in this delicious, simple risotto. But now I’m cooking a chicken every week, it would get a bit samey. If you try this, though, you’ll see why it’s my number one chicken disposal plan.

Week Six : Leftovers - Roast chicken risotto

INGREDIENTS

  • Knob of butter and a splash of olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 350g risotto rice
  • 1 glass white wine
  • 1.5 litres simmering stock (chicken would be best)
  • Cup of frozen peas, defrosted
  • Leftover chicken – half a chook max
  • 50g grated parmesan

METHOD

  • Melt the butter and add the olive oil to a big pan. I use a giant saute pan to make my risotto.
  • Cook the garlic and onion together until translucent.
  • Stir in the rice until coated with the butter.
  • Stir in the wine and cook until evaporated.
  • Add a ladleful of stock and stir, stir, stir – ever so gently – until the stock is evaporated. Then, repeat the process until you have just one ladleful of stock left. This is boring and dull, but not all cooking is about flamenco dancing around the kitchen with sharp knives, slicing lemons and throwing them at a great distance into fiery cauldrons of magical stew.
  • At this point, add your chicken and your peas. I haven’t specified how much chicken, because this is a recipe for leftovers and that would, frankly, be madness. Who wants leftovers from a leftover recipe?
  • Cook for five minutes, then stir in the parmesan cheese and serve.

Serves four adults.

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: Miso-Chicken Ramen

2 Comments

One of my favourite meals to use up chicken is now, officially, ramen. Not only does it make good use of all that chicken stock I’ve got knocking around the place (smug foodie moment! Ha ha, I have homemade chicken stock, ho ho!) but it’s also a quick and healthy meal, and you get to use up loads of veggies.

All you have to do is put some cooked, drained Chinese noodles at the bottom of a deep dish, and then cover it with toppings of your choice – in my case, shredded pak choi, boiled egg, wedges of red onion, beansprouts, bamboo shoots and cooked (leftover!) chicken. Then, pour over chicken stock with miso paste stirred into it. After that, eat it! The recipe serves one – but is easily doubled.

Week Four: Leftovers, Miso chicken ramen

INGREDIENTS

  • One sheet egg noodles
  • 500ml chicken stock
  • 1-2 tbsp miso paste
  • 1 head pak choi
  • Handful beansprouts
  • 1 boiled egg
  • Half red onion
  • 1 tbsp bamboo shoots (I used the kind in red oil)
  • Handful cooked chicken

METHOD

  • Heat the chicken stock in a pan. Meanwhile, boil water for your noodles.
  • While all that is cooking, prepare your veggies – shred the pak choi, cut the onion into thin wedges and rinse the beansprouts.
  • Cook the noodles according to the instructions on the packet, then drain and rinse. Place them in the bottom of your bowl.
  • Put all your toppings on the noodles, then stir the miso paste into your chicken to taste. Don’t let it boil because this will destroy the universe.
  • Once it’s stirred in, pour the hot stock over your ramen and eat!

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: bang bang chicken

1 Comment

One recipe I turn to quite often for leftover chicken or turkey is Nigella Lawson’s recipe for bang bang turkey salad. You can find it online here.

Week Five : Leftovers - Bang Bang chicken

It’s delicious and spicy, and refreshing thanks to the spring onions and cucumber. You can serve it as part of a large party spread, using up other left overs like pie or quiche, and people will think you’ve gone to a lot of effort to create a brand new dish, when, really, you’re just sneakily feeding them your left overs. HO HO HO!

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 tbsp groundnut oil
  • 2 tsp sesame oil
  • 3 tbsp smooth peanut butter
  • 2 tbsp chilli bean sauce (buy in Asian groceries)
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1.5 tbsp black Chinese vinegar
  • 2 tbsp water
  • 250g shredded chicken or turkey
  • Shredded iceberg lettuce
  • 20g chopped coriander
  • 20g chopped mint
  • Half cucumber
  • 6 spring onions

METHOD

  • Make the sauce by heating the groundnut oil, allowing to cool slightly, then adding the sesame oil, peanut butter, chilli bean sauce, caster sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and water.
  • Mix the sauce with the shredded chicken meat and lay it over a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce,which has been covered with the mint and coriander.
  • Finely slice the spring onions, and cut the cucumber into batons. Arrange on the platter.

Week Five : Leftovers - Bang Bang chicken close up

Delicious, spicy, and satisfying!

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: hoisin chicken buns

4 Comments

This recipe is an adaptation of the hoisin chicken buns recipe from Cooking Light, by way of Cooking Cute.

Week One : Leftovers - Hoisin buns

To make this recipe, you first need a batch of white bread dough (for rolls) – you can either find fresh dough in the chiller cabinet of larger supermarkets (make sure it’s just plain old white bread dough, not focaccia or anything fancy like that!), or you can make a batch in your bread maker. This part is a faff, but the finished product is such an interesting and unusual way of using up leftover chicken, that I think it’s worth going to a little bit of extra effort – plus, these are portable, and perfect for lunches on the go!

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 batch fresh bread dough (see above)
  • 400g (approx) dark turkey / chicken meat
  • 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce
  • 2 tsp rice vinegar
  • 1 bunch spring onions, shredded finely
Hoisin buns on tray

METHOD

  • Shred the chicken, and mix with the rest of the ingredients.
  • Once you’ve made your dough, turn it out and cut it into eight pieces, and roll each piece into a size slightly bigger than your palm.
  • Place a spoonful of the chicken mix into the middle of the bun.
  • Pull four corners into the middle and pinch, then do the same again with the leftover tabs, which should fall in between the compass points of the tabs you just sorted out. (It’s helpful to rock the bun back and forth at this point to shape the top nicely.)
  • Set it on an oiled tray and put the rest together.
Hoisin buns on cooling rack
  • Cover and allow to prove for 20 mins in a warm place.
  • Preheat your oven to 190C and then brush the buns with beaten egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
  • Bake for 15 mins, or until golden. You can also bake them for a shorter amount of time (12 mins or so) and then freeze them to bake again another day. (There are great instructions here for freezing and then reheating the buns at Cooking Cute.)
Hoisin bun halved
  • Allow to cool slighty, then eat!

 

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: chilli chicken salad

1 Comment

I may have mentioned before my love for the late Sheila Lukins’ USA Cookbook. Her chilli chicken salad is a delicious way of using up turkey or chicken from your left over holiday meal!

Week Two: Leftovers, Chilli chicken salad - the start

INGREDIENTS

  • Half cup mayonnaise
  • Half cup sour cream
  • 2 tbsp lime juice
  • 1 red chilli, finely chopped
  • 1/2 tsp orange zest
  • 1/4 tsp chilli powder
  • 1/8 tsp cumin
  • 4 cups shredded chicken or turkey
  • One diced red pepper
  • One diced green pepper
  • 10 pitted black olives
  • 2 finely sliced spring onions
  • 2 tbsp chopped coriander
  • Bed of lettuce
  • Cayenne pepper (for dusting)
  • 1 avocado, sliced
  • Bunch red grapes

METHOD

  • In a bowl, mix together everything from the mayonnaise to the cumin.
  • Add in the rest of the ingredients down to the spring onion.
  • Lay the salad on your bed of lettuce, and dust with cayenne pepper, and sprinkle with the coriander.
  • Serve with the avocado and red grapes.

Week Two: Leftovers, Chilli chicken salad

Creamy, zingy, spicy… this is not leftover chicken as you know it!

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: hot and numbing chicken salad recipe

1 Comment
If you feel like you need an unusual recipe for leftover turkey this Thanksgiving or Christmas, look no further! This recipe is from the excellent Sichuan Cookery by Fuchsia Dunlop, which has about four or five easy and tasty recipes for cooked chicken at the front. This hot and numbing chicken mixes spicy chilli oil and toasted, ground sichuan pepper together with soy sauce and sugar to create a really delicious cold dish.

Week One : Leftovers - Hot and numbing chicken and cucumber

INGREDIENTS

  • 300g left over cold cooked turkey or chicken, white or dark meat
  • Bunch spring onions
  • 4 tsp granulated sugar
  • 2 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 2-4 tbsp chilli oil (depending on how spicy you like it – best to start small and add more later!)
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
  • Cucumber, to serve
METHOD
  • Dry roast the peppercorns in a frying pan, then grind them to produce 1/2 tsp of ground spice.
  • Cut the chicken in slices, and cut the cucumber and spring onions into elegant diagonals.
  • Create the dressing by dissolving the sugar in the soy sauce, then adding in the chilli and sesame seed oil.
  • Arrange the chicken and spring onions on a plate, then sprinkle over the Sichuan pepper.
  • Drizzle over the sauce, and tuck in!
Serve with salad, or white rice.

Omurice

2 Comments

I’m one of those weird people who gets all funny about ketchup. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but I have certain rules about it – which I’ve never really examined in too much depth, to be honest. For example, it is never to be squirted onto food – makes it soggy. Better to go on the side, by itself, so it can be dipped into. Also, it is never to be mixed in with things to create some hideous Frankenfood of soggy ketchup and ‘other stuff’. That’s just wrong.

So, with that in mind, it’s very strange that one of my most favourite and comforting foods should be omurice: the dish that breaks my cardinal food rules and somehow manages to rise above its offence:

Omurice bento

Omurice is basically rice and veggies cooked with some ketchup, then coated in an omelette and served with another drizzle of ketchup on top. It’s comfort food for children, which makes it all the more weird how strangely nostaglic the dish is for me, a 28-year-old woman who has never lived in Japan… But nevertheless, there’s something very universal about its combination of starchy carbs, eggy protein, and lashings of tomato sauce.

This recipe makes four portions:

INGREDIENTS

  • Butter
  • 2 chicken thighs, boned
  • 1 onion
  • 50g carrot
  • 1 green pepper
  • 2 shiitake mushrooms
  • 1 tbsp parsley
  • 4 cups cooked Japanese rice
  • 3 tbsp ketchup
  • 1 tsp sake
  • Dash Worcestershire sauce
  • 8 eggs
  • Ketchup to serve

METHOD

  • Finely chop the onion, carrot, mushroom and parsley.
  • Debone the chicken and remove the skin. Cut the thigh into small pieces, around 1cm in size, then season with salt and pepper.
  • Heat 1 tbsp butter in a frying pan and sauté the onion until slightly softened. Add the chicken and fry until the outside has gone white. Add the carrot, pepper and mushrooms and cook until soft. This could take as long as ten minutes. You need to ensure the carrot is tender, as it will not be cooked again. Add the parsley and remove from the heat, reserving the mixture and wiping out the frying pan.
  • Melt 1 tbsp of butter in a frying pan and add the hot rice, stirring well. Add the fried mix along with the ketchup, sake and Worcestershire sauce. Season if needed, and keep warm. Do not over cook as this will dry out the rice.
  • In another, shallow frying pan, heat 1 tsp butter. Beat two of the eggs, season with salt, then pour into the frying pan, spreading to cover the base. Put a quarter of the rice in the middle of the pan while the egg is still slightly raw. This helps to stick the rice mixture to the omelette.
  • When the eggs are slightly set, wrap the edges over the top of the rice and turn out onto a warm plate. Don’t worry if you pierce the egg as you do so, as the edges are tucked under. Using a paper towel, shape it as in our photo, then squirt tomato sauce on the top. Continue with the rest of the eggs and mixture until you’ve made four omelettes.

You can also keep this for the following day, and serve it in a bento ala the picture!