Honey and Mustard sauce

I was not going to post anything about the really "run of the mill" supper we had last night, but then to liven it up a bit I made a Honey and Mustard sauce that is well worth mentioning and it will certainly be made again.


Ingredients:
1 large    Onion, very finely chopped
2 tbsp      Honey
2 tbsp      Wholegrain mustard
Knob       Butter
125ml     Home made chicken stock (warmed up)
125ml     Double cream
salt


Method:
Heat the pan over a medium heat and add the butter, 
once melted (don't let it burn) add the onion.
Fry the onion on a medium heat for quite a while, until softened
Add the honey, and allow the honey to dissolve.
Add the chicken stock and the whole grain mustard.
Turn up the heat and add the cream, stir to mix and bring to the boil.
Turn the heat down again and simmer until the sauce reduces to the consistency you want!
Season with salt if necessary.


Notes:
I told you that I use the chicken stock in everything!!
I served the sauce over shop bought pork nuggets with mash and sweet corn, mundane meal made slightly interesting with this nice sauce.
If you have people in your home that do not like the texture of the onion in the sauce, either chop them finer, or cut them rough and sieve them out at the end.
Depending on your taste you can adjust the ratio of honey to mustard, I find that a 50/50 mix works well, but some might say that it is too sweet and would prefer more of the mustard flavour coming through.




Enjoy it, I would think that this would even go well with a nicely grilled pork chop!

Chicken Cacciatora ala Darrel

Chicken Cacciatora

This is my adaptation of an Italian Classic, taken from one of my favourite cookbooks:
Italian Kitchen by Jane Price!  If you see the book, buy it!


In the original form of the recipe the entire meal is cooked on the stove top.  I have changed it to be baked in the oven, it works perfectly and frees me up to do other things, once it is  popped in the oven.  I also find that the chicken is more evenly cooked in the oven.


Ingredients:
60ml        Olive Oil
1 Large   Onion finely chopped
3 cloves  Garlic, crushed
150gr       Pancetta finely chopped (refer to the notes below)
125gr       Button Mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 large    Chicken cut into 8 pieces (1.6 Kg) (refer to the notes below)
80ml        Dry vermouth or dry white wine
800gr       Chopped tinned tomatoes
1/4 tsp     Cayenne pepper (refer to the notes below)
1 tsp         Brown sugar
1 sprig      Oregano
1 sprig      Thyme
1               Bay leaf


Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C
Brown the chicken pieces in a hot pan with the oil.  Do them in batches if necessary.
Remove the browned pieces to an oven proof casserole dish with a lid.
Once the chicken has browned, drain off approximately 1/2 of the chicken fat in the pan.
Add the onions and Garlic and fry for about 6-8 minutes on medium heat.
Turn the heat up to full and add the mushrooms and the Pancetta. Fry for 4-5 minutes.
Add the wine or vermouth, to deglaze the pan and flavour the sauce, once the wine has virtually cooked away, add the rest of the ingredients: Tomatoes, sugar, cayenne pepper, thyme, bay leaf and oregano.
Bring the mixture to the boil and pour over the browned chicken in the casserole dish.
Put the lid on and put it in the preheated oven for about 1 hour 20 minutes.


Notes:
Pancetta:
If you can't find pancetta, just replace with streaky bacon, and use a whole packet (250gr) as apposed the 150gr in the recipe.  If you fry the bacon until crispy before adding it to the sauce it adds a really nice flavour.  If you can find Pancetta, it is well worth the premium in price, as the flavour is amazing.


Chicken:
As you might have seen in Charlie's Chicken and Pasta, I am not a big fan of chicken breast, therefore instead of using a whole chicken I prefer to use just thighs.  This is a preference so if you are comfortable with the whole chicken go ahead and use it.  The whole chicken is cheaper than just using thighs.


Cayenne Pepper:
Adhere to the 1/4 tsp if you don't like spicy.  As you can see from the photo's I did not do so tonight and as a result Charlie won't be eating the Chicken Cacciatora, it is a bit spicy.  Fine for me but not so good for the little ones in the house.


Believe me once you have cooked this once, it will become a family favourite of yours as it is in my household.  Really nice served with rice and gem squash or butternut!


Enjoy it!

The chopped ingredients

The browned chicken

The sauce poured over the chicken before it goes in the oven

Apologies about the comments section

Sorry I was not aware, that you have to log in to post a comment on the blog page itself!
Pity as I really would like your comments to appear on the page.  However if you don't feel like logging in here then post a comment on Facebook I will pick it up there!


Thanks again for the support!

Macerated Berries with Mascarpone Cheese

Here is the desert that we had with the Family lunch on Sunday.


Ingredients:
500gr Mixed berries (any you can find, blueberries, blackberries, gooseberries raspberries etc.)
2-4 tbsp Caster sugar (super fine) 
2 boxes of Raspberry jelly
Mascarpone Cheese to serve


Method:
Mix the jelly as per the packet instructions, and pour into six serving bowls.  Refrigerate for 2 hours.
Wash the berries, and allow to drain in a colander for a while.
Put all the washed berries into a bowl, cover with the caster sugar and toss lightly to coat. 
This works quite well if you put cling film over the bowl, which you leave on whilst in the fridge.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, but preferably an hour.
Mix a little pouring cream into the mascarpone cheese, and stir to soften up.


Add the berry mixture to the top of the jelly in your serving bowls.  
Add a dollop of mascarpone cheese to the top and serve!


Notes:
The jelly part of the desert was my wife's idea - Brilliant!
If you have small ones in the house that don't like the mascarpone, my son loves it, but his mom doesn't care for it, then rather serve with custard.  It tastes great with the custard too!


Nice and easy desert that you can prepare long in advance, so you are not working while your guests are drinking all the wine.


Enjoy!

Justin Bonello's Bobotie and Yellow Rice

I absolutely love the "Cooked in Africa" TV series, and thus love the cookbook too!


We had a family lunch today and this is what I served!  I will post the desert in the next post.


Ingredients:
Small knob of butter
1 Large Onion, chopped
250gr Beef mince
250gr Pork mince
3 cloves Garlic, Crushed
A small hand of Ginger, peeled and finely grated
1tsp Garam Marsala 
1/2 tsp Turmeric
1/2 tsp Ground Cumin
1/2 tsp Ground Coriander seeds
3-4 Cloves
3 All spice berries (I can't find these anywhere, if you find them let me know, I just left them out)
1 tsp Dried mixed herbs
Handful dried apricots, Chopped
1/4 cup Flaked Almonds
3 tsp Apricot Chutney
4 tsp chopped Flat Leaf Parsley
4 Bay Leaves
Handful of Sultana's
250ml Full Cream Milk
3 Large Free Range Eggs


Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 Degrees
Heat the butter in a pan and add the onion, allow to sweat and sweeten.
Remove the onion from the pan and set aside.
Turn the heat up on the pan and brown the mince.
Once browned remove the pan from the heat and add all the ingredients except the milk and eggs.
Spoon the mixture into an ovenproof dish, the mince should be 3-4 cm thick.
Using the back of a wooden spoon push the mixture down firmly.
Whisk the eggs and milk together, and pour over the mince.
Bake in the oven until the egg custard sets.
A good way to check if it cooked is to do the "wobble test", if it wobbles then back in the oven!


Serve with yellow rice:


Ingredients:
1 cup Basmati Rice
1-2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Turmeric
2 Cinnamon Sticks
Handful of raisins, soaked in water for 20 mins, then drained.


Method:
Cook the Basmati rice as per the packet instructions, but add the turmeric and cinnamon sticks to the boiling water.  Once the rice is cooked and drained, add the raisins.


Notes:
At the point where you mix all the ingredients together in the pan, I added about a tablespoon of flour to the mixture and added some water from the kettle.  I did this as it helps the mince mixture to be more "saucy".  I have made the recipe a couple of times, and the mince seems to be dry.  By adding the flour and water and mixing it up nicely it doesn't dry out.  I also am a bit liberal when it comes to the apricot chutney, more like three tbsp's than 3 tsp's!


Sorry no photo's it was gone before I could take a photo!


Enjoy it!! 

Home Made Tomato Soup

This is a creation of mine!  I have always loved the taste of Tomato soup, something very wholesome and "Good for you" about it.  


Ingredients:
1 med.           Onion finely chopped
3 cloves        Garlic finely chopped.
1 410gr can  Tomato puree.
800ml             Home Made Chicken Stock
250ml             Fresh pouring cream
Salt and Black Pepper


Method:
Over a medium heat soften the onion and garlic, in a splash of olive oil.
Once soft add the can of Tomato Puree, stock and cream.
Season with salt and pepper and keep hot until you are ready to serve.


Serve with bread of your choice!


A Very Hearty tomato soup that will uplift you, especially on a cold winter's night!


Enjoy and let me know if you liked it! Better than the canned soup I promise.

Reflections of my first week.

Wow!!  and Wow again!!
This has been an amazing week!  I have always wanted to write a blog on food, late one night last week I jumped into it, and "Dad's Cookbook" was born.  Thank you to all of you for interacting with me it has been a fantastic week, sharing my passion for cooking good food!


For the future I hope that I can keep it up, and keep sharing my food experiences with all of you, around the world.  One of the most amazing things about the blog, was seeing where the people that are reading the blog are from!  I don't know anyone from India (I wish I did), but I got a reader looking at my blog from India.  What an amazing way to bring people together in sharing a common interest, such as good food.


As I write this next to the pool sipping on a glass of Welmoed 2010 Sauvignon Blanc (brilliant find), I realise what a wonderful world we live in. 


To all of you that have participated this week, thank you, and I promise that I will try to keep it up.  Please interact, whether on facebook or with the comments section below the post, as this will be my guage as to what you like and what you don't!!


Lets enjoy the journey of discovery together!


Darrel