Chicken curry with sweet corn and bamboo slices

I'm not always the biggest fan of curry flavoured things but sometimes I'm just in the mood, like today, plus I had this jar of bamboo slices for ages that I wanted to use. The secret to a good curry is the impressive amounts of spices that you put in it, possibly in the beginning when you can roast them a little bit in the pan, that's when all the flavours come out. You can do a curry with basically any vegetables, I had carrots, sweet corn and these bamboo slices at home right now.

Ingredients for a bigger batch:

• 1 chicken breast sliced
• 2 carrots
• 1 can of sweet corn
• 1 jar of sliced bamboo
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons of sour cream
• cumin
• chili powder
• curry powder
•  ginger (fresh)
• coriander seeds
• 2 smaller onions
• 4 cloves of garlic

Chop the onions fine and start cooking them in a bit of oil. When it's almost done, add the cumin and the corander seeds. Fry them a litle bit and then you can add the chicken and the rest of the spices (add as much as you like according to your taste but I think at least a teaspoon of every spice is neccessary). Add the carrot too and give it a good stir. Then cover the pan and wait until the carrot is cooked. Then you can add the sweet corn, the bamboo, the coconut milk and the sour cream. Give it another good stir and let it boil for another 15 minutes. Cooked rice is perfect with it.

Barbecue chicken thighs with carrot rissoles

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken thighs
• 2 tablespoons of ketchup
• 1 tablespoon of barbecue sauce
• 1 tablespoon of chili sauce
• one squeeze of lemon
• 2 teaspoons of honey
• 2 carrots
• 1 dry bread roll soaked in water
• 1 smaller onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
•  2 eggs

Stir the ketchup, the barbecue and the chili sauce, the lemon juice and the honey together. Pour the whole mixture on the chicken and give it a good stir so that each leg is covered with the sauce. Put the legs into a heatproof dish and cover it with tin foil. It needs about an hour at 200 deg Celsius, the last 15 minutes is without the foil so that the skin can become crispy. Meanwhile cut the carrots into match sized bits and gently crush them with your hands. Add the eggs, the bread roll, the finely chopped onions and garlic, some salt and stir the whole thing very thoroughly. Heat just a little bit of oil in a pan and fry the rissoles in the oil, until both sides are golden brown. I also cooked some brussels's sprouts as garnish. 

Chicken stew with white wine and vegetables

After doing my usual gorcery shopping round, I  occupied the kitchen and cooked for at least two and a half hours. This is the result of not having anything in the fridge to cook of, for a week. After making the creamy asparagus soup, I moved on to this chicken stew, which is very easy and quick to make.

Ingredients

• 1 packet of chicken legs (upper or lower parts)
• 3 spring onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 carrots
• quarter of a turnip root
• quarter of a celery
• 25 dkg of brussels sprouts  
• 2 tbl spoons of sour cream
• 1 tbl spoon of mustard
• 1,5 dl of dry white wine
• 2 dl of water
• salt, freshly ground pepper

Chop the spring onions fine and start cooking them in a bit of oil. Skin the chickens, remove the bones and cut them in equal parts. When the spring onion is half cooked, add the chicken and cook them for a while together. Smash the garlic with the flat of the knife, chop it and add it to  the chicken. Peel the vegetables, and cut them in equally sized pieces. When the chicken has the usual white colour, add the vegetables, add some salt and pepper, and pour the white wine and the water in. You cook it with the cover on until the vegetables become soft. You might need to add some more water during the process. When the vegetables are ready, add the sour cream and mustard, mix the whole dish carefully and wait until it boils again, in that exat minute the meal is ready! :) 

Hungarian style chinese, which we call 'szukijaki'

Meat can be left out, or chicken can be replaced by turkey breast. I will only mark the amounts where important, other than that it only depends on your taste, you can add more or less of each one of the ingredients according to the wishes of the family.

Ingredients for 4 (or just 3 and you have some leftovers for the next day ;)

• 1 half of a bigger chicken breast
• peas (frozen is perfect)
• 1 bigger carrot
• 2 packets of mung beans seed
• leek or red onions
• 3-4 eggs, beaten
• sliced bacon
• 0.5 kg of champignons
• rice-flour paste or rice
• lots and lots of garlic
• a bigger piece of ginger root
• soy sauce
• a little bit of sugar
• oil, salt, pepper

Preparations:

Its a quite a meticulous job to do, but the result speaks for itself. It's better to chop all the ingredients first, then you'll only have to do the frying and stuff - much quicker this way! We usually pare the carrots, to the size of a match stick, cut the onion in half and then into circles, slice the chicken in streaks and the mushrooms (the size of the bits mustn't be too small). You can also slice the bacon across - the smaller the better. Then pitch the eggs and beat them like you do when making scrambled eggs, you can also add a bit of soy sauce. Chop the garlic and the ginger fine, you'll need them twice. Don't do anything with the bean seed, the peas are fine as well just frozen.

The fun part :

Take a frying pan, the best would be a deeper one and put it onto the largest place of the stove. You will need another dish, from which you can serve the food, you will put the continually prepared ingredients in this one. First fry the bacon, it doesnt need any additional oil, it will give its grease out. When its done, get the pieces of bacon out, and leave the grease in the pan, and put the onions in it. Sounds strange but add a littlebit of sugar to the onions, it wont make it sweet but will give it a really nice taste and colour (you can add salt to it a bit later). Dont need to steam it over, just until it becomes soft. Add the onions to the bacon too. Put a little bit of oil into the pan and add the carrots, and a bit of sugar again. It needs a couple of minutes to soften a little bit, its perfect when its still a little crispy. Then come the peas, they're done when you can smash them on the wooden spoon, it takes a couple of minutes in case of tender peas. The next one is the champignons, add salt and freshly grounded pepper to it. Dont need to wait until all the water disappears from the bottom. Next comes the chicken, add salt and soy sauce, and the half of the garlic and ginger. Let it cook until the meat gets white in the middle too. The bean seeds only need a short time, just until its gets a glassy colour, then its ready. Finally comes the egg, pour it into the pan, and basically make scrambled eggs, the only difference is that you need to cut it into little bits. When all of this is done, in a little bit of oil fry the rest of the garlic and ginger, but pay attention to it, if it burns, it will become bitter. The final step is to cook the paste, it only takes 2 minutes. When everythings ready, you just have to mix the whole thing carefully. You can add soy or chili sauce before you start eating, it will give it a good taste. If you use a non stick frying pan, you can skimp the oil.

Carrots with balsamic vinegar and new potatoes with caraway seeds seeds

Ingredients for 2:

The carrots:

• 3 carrots
• thyme
• dark balm vinegar
• salt, pepper, olive oil
• garlic
• 1 onion

The potatos:

1. 5 new potatos
2. caraway seeds

Chop the peeled carrots, put it into a heatproof dish, add a little olive oil, salt, freshly grounded pepper, and the leaves of the thyme. Mix it, and add the cloves of garlic and pieces of onion. Cover it with aluminium foil and steam it until almost ready at 200 degrees in the oven. Remove the foil and pour the vinegar into it, but not too much. Put it back to the oven for 5-10 minutes until the acidity of the vinegar disappears, and the top of the carrots get a nice colour.

Wash the potatoes, and leaving their skins on them cut them in half. Pour a little olive oil onto them and add salt, the caraway seeds and freshly grounded pepper.Cover them with aluminium foil and keep them in the oven at 200 deg until they become soft. Remove the foil then and leave them in the oven until they get a nice golden colour on the top. It can be eaten with the skins on, its really crispy and delicious.