What's everyone cooking this week?

[dennispc Profile]

halibut.jpg

Home alone for a few days, really spoilt myself with a piece of halibut. I was rather pleased with the tomato and mushroom sauce. Should've used white field mushrooms to avoid the 'black' looking bits.

AmyW's dish looks a bit tidier than mine! But standards slip when it's just me.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Sometimes the black looking bits are the best bits! I'm thinking olives (which I'd probably have added to the sauce)...

Is that a spider trying to break free at 2 o'clock?

[dennispc Profile]

Sometimes the black looking bits are the best bits! I'm thinking olives (which I'd probably have added to the sauce)...

Is that a spider trying to break free at 2 o'clock?

The Delia equivalent recipe does include olives but I'm not keen. The portobellos were really black in places.

Chicken soup, taken out yesterday from the freezer, for lunch.

[Renee Profile]

The Portobellos have so much more flavour. It looks lovely Petronius!

I bought a couple of Flat Iron Steaks, also known as Feather Steaks, I believe, from Booths supermarket. They were quite thick but narrow. I dipped them in flour, browned them with onions and added red wine, thyme and pepper and cooked them very slowly. What a fabulous meal it was! I've never seen that cut in other supermarkets.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Looks great, Petronius.

Nice cooking on the feather steak, Renee.
I have cooked them in the past with a Portuguese recipe, with lots of onion.

[Renee Profile]

I'll try that next time Gill. Does it also contain tomatoes, maybe olives?

[Sakkarin Profile]

The tomato/mushroom/olive idea prompted me to make a chicken "cacciatore", although there were no recipes in any of my Italian cookbooks. Is it an authentic dish or a spag bol type appropriation? I used a combination of three very different online recipes using the ingredients I preferred.

[Amyw Profile]

That halibut looks lovely Petronius, a fish I've never tried.

Sakkarin, my mind association when it comes to chicken cacciatore is chicken on the bones, tomatoes, olives, lardons and some gutsy red wine . That looks pretty good to me

[Renee Profile]

I knew that Chicken Cacciatore meant Hunter's Chicken. I looked up some information about the history of the dish.

"Cacciatore means “hunter” in Italian, and it is hunters who first ate this dish. In fact, it is thought that the first Chicken Caccaiatore was not made with chicken at all, but with rabbit or other wild game sometime during the Renaissance period, so between the 14th and 16th centuries."

[karadekoolaid Profile]

So if it was between 14 - 16th centuries, I doubt very much if tomatoes were included, since they would only have recently arrived from South America AND would (probably) have been reserved for high society.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I'm always slightly puzzled that there seem to be Hunter's Chicken dishes in both Italy and eastern Europe

Are the hunters not very good? Presumably they are hunting boar, hare, deer, or game birds, not chickens, I suppose they might make a similar dish with rabbit.

Unless of course "hunter's" is just the code for mushrooms, as forestière is in French?

I've always though of Chicken Cacciatore as Italian American, but I'm not sure why - perhaps because Americans I have known have regarded it as a regular Friday night dinner type of dish. Don't think I've ever seen it in a London Italian restaurant

[Sakkarin Profile]

Haaa!

Mind you they have vicious chickens in America...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4WGQmWcrbs

[Renee Profile]

Vicious and almost indestructible it seems!!! That was fun!

[WWordsworth Profile]

Tonight I fancied something a bit different; it was delicious.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/pea ... mon-tagine

[Lusciouslush Profile]

I sometimes use pearl barley in a risotto - also in tabbouleh type salads - I like the chewy texture, & it takes on other flavours very well.

[Sakkarin Profile]

May give that pearl barley risotto a try, the last pack I had just festered in the back of my cupboard till I threw it out, I think I bought it for some Scotch Broth.

Yesterday, some Lap Yuk (Chinese Bacon) prepared, so it will be ready in a week's time.

Today, I had too much milk lurking in the fridge so used 2 litres of it to make some paneer (citric acid method), and followed on with some Palak Paneer using half of it. Probably freeze the rest. I had a flip through some current paneer-making YouTubes, and in one the host suggests adding a teaspoon of cornflour to the paneer at the "kneading" stage to make it fry better, however I ignored that, and this batch fried perfectly well, nice and crispy brown as you can see.

[Renee Profile]

That's really delicious-looking Sakkarin! I can see onions, but is that spinach with them?

Do you make your own Chinese bacon, because you said it will be ready in a week?

[Sakkarin Profile]

Yes Renee, it's spinach (palak), although I added some frozen fenugreek (methi) too which I had left in the freezer, similar look and texture but a different, musty flavour.

Yes, the Lap Yuk is from scratch, It really is very easy, although a week is a long wait! Will be hanging it up to dry tomorrow, do you remember a piccy I posted a couple of years back of some blackened lumps of pork belly hanging up to dry?

P.S. Recipe tweaked, more onion and less spinach than the recipe, hence onionyness!

[Renee Profile]

Yes, I vaguely remember the pork belly that you had hanging up to dry. The conditions have to be right for drying pork I would think. I did go through a pork curing phase for a short while which was so easy to do and turned out well. It was about the time that Josh was discussing it on the BBC board I would think.

[Sakkarin Profile]

I had some dramatic curing failures, so it was a pleasant surprise for the Lap Yuk to be such a success!

The oriental shop in town sells ready made Lap Yuk, it is horrifically expensive, given that my half kilo of it will set me back maybe £2.50.