Three Good Things - Three good meals

Since starting Tonight's Menu I have tried to steer clear of the weekly round up of meals style blog post.  The main reason behind this* is that it is "Tonight's Menu" not "This Week's Menu".  That aside, I have had good reason not to be writing this week, my Mum is visiting.  It may not sound like a good reason to you, but I like to spend time with my guests, especially family, rather than spending the evenings typing.

Luckily, a wonderful blog concept from the glorious Liz, who writes at Margot Barbara, may well have saved my blogging conundrum.  Three Good Things is a roundup of three things that Liz is grateful for over the space of a week.  As this blog is about my evening meals, here are the three best ones that I have cooked this week

Good Meal One - Harissa Baked Trout

The thing with Mum is that she is quite a fussy eater.  There are very few meals that are completely off the menu, apart from any form of cured pork.  Ham, gammon and bacon are all persona non grata when she visits**.  We are making progress with some of the other foibles, fish being one of them.  The problem with fish is the fiddly nature of them.  It is written that Mum will find a bone in every portion of fish she is served.  With this in mind, I took extra care to pinbone the trout fillets before applying some harissa paste and baking them in a tinfoil parcel.

I served the trout with couscous, roast peppers and cherry tomatoes.  By the time the fish had been flaked off the skin and mixed through the couscous Mum was more than happy.  As were Z and I as we love fish and don't eat it often enough.

Good Meal Two - Tuscan Bean Stew

With the drawing in of Autumn and the shortening of the days, I have already started thinking about comfort food.  One of my favourite and most comforting combinations is that of sausages and beans.  The combinations of flavours that you could use is only limited by your imagination and good taste.  We bought some Italian inspired sausages from Sainsbury's over the weekend and cooked those with onion, celery, borlotti and haricot beans in some pork stock for a couple of hours.  The stew was finished with green beans and spinach.

Good Meal Three - Gigot Chops

The third good meal was courtesy of Mum.  We had decided to have some lamb as Z, who can't stand the stuff, was out for the evening.  I pointed Mum in the direction of Kirkgate market, told her who my favourite butcher is, and left the rest to her.  I imagined a Barnsley chop or some shanks but Mum was on a mission.

Having found B & J Callard, she walked in and flummoxed the young butcher by asking for two Gigot Chops.  He didn't have a clue what she was after, but one of the more senior members of staff was there to help.  The Scottish gigot chop is what the English call a leg steak and although I will have eaten it in the past, years of living in England had let it pass from my memory.  It is easily my favourite cut of lamb.

So there we have it, three good things, three good meals, all completely different and all wonderfully tasty.

*other than my odd obsession with following unwritten rules that I have set myself.
**I have been known to smuggle bacon into dishes but once it is cooked down it acts more as a seasoning than an ingredient.

Kedjenou

Two years ago, instead of Euro 2012, the telly was full of Africa 2010.  The World Cup.  Another disappointing football tournament for England and another football tournament that Scotland and Wales had failed to qualify for.  One thing makes the World Cup in Africa stand out for me.  It isn't Shakira's official song and it certainly isn't the vuvuzela.

I didn't have a blog at the time.  In fact at the time, I was ridiculing a good friend for having a food blog.  Paul at How Not to do a Food Blog is far from an inspiration*, but he is a top bloke, loves food, writes well, and chucks together a great roast pork belly.  Anyway, for reasons that I cannot explain, I decided to eat meals based upon the teams playing in the evening football matches.  One evening USA were playing, so we had hotdogs.  Another night Chilli were playing so I found a traditional bean stew recipe.  Then came the Ivory Coast.

I don't know who they were playing that night.  I couldn't tell you if it was a European team and I fancied a challenge.  It could well have been that I couldn't find a recipe for the opposition at all.  What I can tell you is that what I did find was this recipe for Kedjenou.

Its simplicity belies the full flavour that the dish delivers.  The lack of liquid in the ingredients list also makes you wonder what you are going to end up with.  The fact that two years on, I'm still cooking this one pot, no effort wonder should tell you all you need to know.  After a couple of hours the chicken is perfectly cooked and the vegetables have collapsed and created a fantastic sauce.

Tonight, we have cooked some couscous to have with the chicken and vegetables, but you could easily have some pita bread on the side.  This one dish, as well as being delicious, is the reason behind the Olympic Food Challenge.  If I had made it through the world cup without finding a stand-out meal I probably wouldn't have thought twice about eating the Olympics.  I can't wait to discover my next kedjenou.


*I'm more than capable than making my own stupid bed and lying in it.

Roast Vegetable Tajine with Herby Couscous

Continuing on our current stint of vegetarianism, tonight Z cooked a really nice Moroccan style meal.  For some unknown reason we had the end of a packet of ras-el-hanout in the spice cupboard and dried ground spices do not have a good shelf life.

Z roughly chopped peppers, courgettes, tomatoes and an onion, rolled them all in the spice mix and plenty of olive oil and slowly roasted them.  Once cooked, and after I got in from work, all that was left to do was rehydrate some couscous with some vegetable stock and mix through parsley, mint and lemon zest.  I know it hasn't been the hottest of summers so far but this was a taste of sunshine and perfect for a late evening meal.

Harissa Chicken

Last month we ventured out of our LS11 enclave and took a trip to Kirkstall Abbey.  The reason for the adventure was Kirkstall Deli Market.  Wandering around food stalls laid out in the cloisters of an Abbey is my idea of a fun way to spend an afternoon.  That day we took home venison for the evening meal but we also picked up a few additional items.

One gem was a jar of fresh harissa paste from Asharun Spices.  I've only ever found Asharun at Kirkstall Deli Market but I'm glad they are usually there.  There is always something new to try from their range and the fact that they wrap their wares in recipe cards takes the pain away from trying new things.

In the time that has elapsed from our trip to Kirkstall to tonight I've mislaid the recipe card but no matter.  I decided to rub some of the paste, with a little oil, into two chicken legs and let them marinate for a couple of hours before roasting them until the meat fell off the bone.  I served this with a couscous and roasted vegetable salad a little later than planned, but it was worth the wait.

Chicken Koftas

After a weekend of feasting and generally eating until I felt sleepy, what I really needed was a light meal.  Not for one second do I mean that I wanted a small portion of food.  Nor did I want to still feel hungry once my knife and fork came together on the plate at the end of the meal.  Nice and filling without being stodgy was the order of the day.

We're not inflexible in the kitchen and tonight's menu changed halfway through the day.  The interesting thing is the key ingredients stayed the same.  We'd initially thought about some Tex-Mex style spicy chicken wraps with roasted veg and rice.  For some reason Z sent me a text during the day which read "Do you fancy koftas?"

We had already thawed out two of Swillington Farm's chicken and bacon burgers to use as the starting block for the meal.  Substituting Moroccan spices for Mexican ones was no hardship.  Instead of rice we had couscous with the roasted vegetables that we were going to cook anyway.  Yoghurt with mint and coriander acted as a dressing for the couscous and a cooling sauce for the spicy koftas.

Mediteranian Roast Chicken

I'm still raging against the gluttony of Christmas and New Year celebrations.  I am also still just about getting by on what we have in the house, having not managed to re-fill the cupboards.  I must go shopping tomorrow.

Fortunately, our last meat order from Swillington Farm, contained a chicken so big that we would have been eating leftovers for a week if we had roasted the thing whole.  I jointed it and froze the portions in handy two person packages.  One of these packages was still in the freezer and it contained the two legs.

I think chicken legs are overlooked.  I know that they take longer to cook than the breast but they do manage to taste of chicken.  We use them in stews and curries, stuff them and even stir fry them (once the bone has been removed).

I marinated the legs in lemon juice, coriander, oregano, garlic and olive oil and then roasted them along side some peppers.  Served with seasoned couscous and green beans, I'm feeling less bloated day by day.