Chicken Arrabiata

We’re trying to use up things in the freezer at the moment and needed some way to use up a lone chicken breast. We reasoned that it would probably stretch furtherst in a pasta dish and decided upon making an arrabiata sauce to go with it.

A quick Google search tells me that our sauce wasn’t entirely authentic, but we just chose to make up a spicy tomato sauce and go with it!

Chicken Arrabiata
Serves 2
Prep time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 20 mins

1 chicken breast
160g pasta (we used conchiglie, but would have used penne if we’d had any!)
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 green chilli, minced (red’ll do too!)
1tbsp tomato purée
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2 tsp dried oregano
olive oil
salt & pepper
Grana Padano/Parmesan, to serve (optional)

1. Put the chicken breast in a pan and cover with boiling water. Bring to a slow boil and poach for 10-15 minutes or until cooked. When cooked, remove it from the pan and leave on a plate to rest.
2. Meanwhile, soften the onion in olive oil for 5 minutes before adding the crushed garlic and minced chilli. Cook for a further minute.
3. Add the herbs and then stir the tomato purée through. Leave it for 30 seconds or so before adding the chopped tomatoes. Season to taste and leave to simmer for 15 minutes.
4. While the sauce is simmering, cook the pasta according to the instructions.
5. When everything is ready, shred the chicken with your hands (or a couple of forks if it’s still too hot!), drain the pasta and then mix everything in together before serving with a sprinkling of Grana Padano/Parmesan.

This was the first time we’d poached chicken and it worked really well, cooking it through whilst keeping it soft and moist. The sauce had a pleasant warmth from the chilli (if you want more of a kick, you’ll want to add more) and was all in all a really nice, quick and easy meal.

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Want-to-watch-the-tennis Salad

Erika and I wanted to watch the tennis last night so didn’t spend too much time either thinking about or making dinner. In the end we ran into the kitchen at the start of the third set and were back not too many minutes later, just as it started to get interesting.

Whilst I made some bubble and squeak with leftover cabbage and mash from Sunday night, Erika prepared a simple salad of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, diced cucumber, feta and croutons which she dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and oregano. We had the bubble and squeak and salad alongside a hard boiled egg, some sliced mature cheddar and plenty of crackers and rice cakes.

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Melon and Pomegranate Salad

We had a small melon still in the fridge from our Abel & Cole delivery that, over a week on, was starting to look a little sorry for itself. It stuck in the back of my mind as we were doing our weekly shop this afternoon when I spotted some enormous pomegranates (about the size of small melons themselves) and knew I had to have one – I’d think about what to do with it later.

When I was younger, a friend’s mum would often give us pomegranates to hack at for the best part of an hour or so and making a terrible mess on fingers and clothes – no wonder I’ve always loved them! Thankfully, the grown up me now knows the secret to de-seeding a pomegranate with no mess and no wasted seeds – a simple bowl of water.

How to De-seed a Pomegranate

1. Cut the pomegranate into quarters
2. Pull away the areas of skin and pith that come away easily
3. Transfer the piece of pomegranate to a bowl of water and remove the seeds – it will be surprisingly easy to do so
4. The seeds will sink to the bottom, whilst the pith will float to the top. Scoop the pith out of the water with a sieve and then drain the water – you’ll be left with a glistening pile of beautiful pomegranate seeds.

There was also a lone orange in the fruit bowl and half a lime from Ted’s fajitas last night and so, a light summery dessert was born.

Melon and Pomegranate Salad
Serves 2-3
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: None

1 large pomegranate (2 standard-sized will do!)
1 small melon (any variety other than watermelon will do)
1 orange
1/2 lime
25ml vodka (optional)

1. De-seed the pomegranate (as described above), cut the melon into slices, remove the skin and cut into chunks. Grate the rind of approximately half of the orange onto a separate dish.
2. Cut the orange in half and juice both halves into a cup/small bowl then add a couple of squeezes of lime juice (to taste). If you fancy a bit of an extra kick add the vodka now!
3. Put the pomegranate seeds, melon chunks and orange rind into a bowl and mix well with your hands. Pour over the juice and mix again, then serve.

I really liked this. The crunchy pomegranate seeds and sharpness of lime provided a wonderful contrast to the sweet, soft melon – a delightfully refreshing dessert that was much needed in the desperate-for-a-storm heatwave we’re experiencing in SW London. We tried this both with and without vodka and I couldn’t really decide which one I preferred so will leave that decision entirely up to you!

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Savoury Rice and Feta Cheese Stuffed Peppers

Rob and I don’t always eat together as one of us may be set on having a particular meal, but the other’s just not interested! Tonight, Rob wanted fajitas so I let him go ahead while I set about trying to create something.

I fancied something that felt fresh and light and feta cheese came to mind, this reminded me of the feta-stuffed romano peppers we’d had and I decided that I’d stuff some peppers with a savoury rice, top it with feta and then bake it in the oven.

First thing’s first, the oven needed to preheat to about 200c. For the rice, I sweated off half a red onion (diced) with a crushed clove of garlic, a large flat mushroom (chopped) and seven quartered cherry tomatoes. When this had all softened I added 1/3 cup of rice (65g) and then 2/3 cup of water along with a sprinkling of vegetable stock powder. I gave it a quick stir and then brought it to the boil before reducing the heat as low as it would go and covering the pan. Ten minutes later, I took the pan off the heat and left the lid on to allow the rice to steam for a further 10 minutes (without the veg, this has been my foolproof method of cooking rice since I first discovered it a few years ago). Once the rice was cooked, I added some leftover cabbage and carrot from last night’s dinner, stirred through some chopped fresh basil and fresh thyme leaves along with a generous grind of black pepper.

At this point the rice smelt very strongly of mushrooms, which I hadn’t really wanted – I was after tomato more than anything. It didn’t taste too mushroomy though, but neither was it particularly tomatoey! I considered adding some tomato purée but concluded that this could just ruin it completely and settled for more quartered cherry tomatoes.

I halved two medium-sized red peppers lengthways and removed the stalk and seeds before stuffing them with the rice, topping them with cubes of feta (65g in total) and placing them on a baking tray (there was still enough rice left for a further two peppers – I’ll have it for lunch tomorrow). They were then baked for 30 minutes until the edges of the peppers were getting soft and crinkly and starting to get a little charred.

When I took the peppers out of the oven I was a little disappointed and wasn’t particularly looking forward to eating them, expecting them to be a little dry and really needing something to accompany them. I’m happy to tell you that I was wrong! The peppers themselves were sweet and juicy (I think roasted peppers may be one of the most delicious foods around) and the extra tomatoes I’d added had oozed into the rice to give the extra moisture and flavour that it needed. The feta was crisp on the outside and soft and creamy inside and lifted the rest of the dish from good to really really good.

P.S. The photo shows two pepper halves, but that portion was for aesthetic reasons only and I finished off both peppers!

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Roasted Monkfish with Lemon and Thyme

We’ve been quite busy recently. Erika and I both have the week off work and have been out of the flat more than we have been in so there’s not been much to write about. This afternoon we found ourselves walking past a fishmonger and asked for some inspiration for something to go alongside some bits from the veg box – Jersey Royals, carrots and cabbage.

After a quick chat with the knowledgeable chap in the fishmonger we left with a wonderfully fresh piece of monkfish and a recipe:

Roasted Monkfish with Lemon and Thyme
Serves 2
Prep time: 10 minutes (plus 1 hour marinating)
Cooking time: 15 minutes

2x 130g monkfish fillets
2tbsp olive oil
juice and zest of half a lemon
10 sprigs of thyme
salt & pepper

To make the marinade, place the monkfish in a dish and add the olive oil, lemon zest and juice and the thyme. Season, mix well and leave in the fridge for up to an hour. In good time, preheat the oven to 200c.

Heat a dry frying pan over a high heat and add the fish, cooking for a couple of minutes each side until nicely browned. Add the leftover sprigs of thyme along with any remaining marinade and then place in the oven (still in the frying pan) for 6 or 7 minutes until the fish is cooked through.

We served the monkfish with Jersey Royals, carrots and cabbage – all simply boiled so we could really experience the flavours – from the veg box that Able & Cole delivered last Friday. I was a bit skeptical about the vegetables staying fresh after nearly a week; we’ve bought things from farmers’ markets before and they’ve not lasted the weekend, let alone seven days. Surprisingly, most of it had lasted well with just a few floppy carrots and one or two potatoes that were starting to go bad. Once cooked, the potatoes and vegetables tasted wonderful. The Jersey Royals were much better than those we’ve recently bought from supermarkets and the carrots and cabbage were full of flavour, again far superior to anything from the supermarket.

The fish itself was gorgeous. The outside of the fish had a delicate flavour of thyme whilst the inside was juicy and succulent. Monkfish is a firm, meaty fish and it handled the marinade well, despite having quite a mild flavour it was still able to hold its own against the flavours of lemon and thyme – altogether a delicious combination. Neither Erika nor I have had monkfish before but we’ll certainly be having it again (although perhaps not too often as it carried a hefty £38.99/kg pricetag!). Lesson learnt: speak to your fishmonger!

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