Tag Archives: cumin

Cauliflower, Chicken and Potato Traybake

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Cauliflower, Chicken and Potato Traybake

I may have mentioned before how much I love recipes where everything is cooked in one tin or pot. The great thing is, Agas are particularly suited to this sort of cooking. At the shop of the beautiful National Trust property Trerice in Cornwall in the summer, I bought Rukmini Iyer’s books The Roasting Tin and The Green Roasting Tin, which are excellent and inspiring. Last night though I had specific ingredients I needed to use up for supper so I made up my own one tin recipe, taking ideas from those books, Jamie Oliver and Meera Sodha.

Cauliflower, Chicken and Potato Traybake

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

  • 1 large cauliflower
  • 500g potatoes (I used Charlotte but any waxy potato would be fine)
  • 1kg chicken wings
  • 6 tbsps rapeseed oil
  • 30g bunch coriander
  • 2 tsps cumin seeds
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • ½ tsp chilli powder
  • 1 ¼  tsp salt
  • Juice of 1 lemon

Method

  • Chop the potatoes into 3cm chunks
  • Separate out the cauliflower into smallish florets, about the same size as your potato pieces
  • Finely chop the coriander stalks, placing the leafy sprigs in a bowl of cold water to keep them fresh until needed
  • Place all of the above in your large Aga roasting tin
  • Grind the cumin seeds and mix with the salt, chilli powder, turmeric and rapeseed oil and pour all this over your vegetables in the tin making sure everything is coated in oil. Add a little more oil if you think it’s required
  • Slide your roasting tin onto the second set of runners of the roasting oven and roast for 15 minutes
  • Season your chicken wings and add them to the tin, nestling them in between your vegetables but if you run out of space just rest them on top
  • Return the tin to the roasting oven, this time on the top set of runners for about half an hour but check after 15 minutes and turn everything round a bit so that everything is cooked and some edges are a little charred
  • Before serving pour over the lemon juice and garnish with the coriander sprigs

NB You could use chicken thighs for this but then I would add them at the beginning because they need a longer cooking time.

 

 

Vegetable Pilau

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Vegetable Pilau

Or is it pilaf? I believe the words are synonymous, but perhaps it depends if your dish is Middle Eastern (pilaf) or Indian (pilau). This one is a pilau because it’s based on one of Meera Sodha’s from her wonderful book Fresh India, which I mentioned here and a copy of which I now own.

A pilau is made with long grain rice and is a great way of using up leftover ingredients, which is what I was doing the other night when I made it. I added asparagus because at this time of year during the British asparagus season, hardly a day goes by when it isn’t on our menu at home.

A couple more points: first, I don’t always have fresh ginger in my fridge, but I do make sure I keep a bag of Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients chopped ginger in my freezer, also useful when I’m in a hurry; secondly, when a recipe requires vegetable stock I almost always make it with Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon powder, which I thoroughly recommend.

Ingredients

For two servings

  • 110g/4oz white basmati rice
  • 175ml/6 floz vegetable stock (see above)
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 5cm piece of cinnamon stick
  • 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
  • 1 green chilli, sliced (deseeded if you want less heat)
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • Lump of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped (or some of  the frozen stuff: see above)
  • 100g broad beans, cooked and then slipped out of their skins
  • 200g courgettes, roughly chopped
  • 100g asparagus
  • 100g green beans
  • Salt and pepper
  • Chopped fresh herbs: dill, coriander, parsley, mint…whatever you have to hand

 

Method

  • First, cook the rice the Aga way in the simmering oven, except using the vegetable stock instead of water. It will wait happily in the simmering oven until you’re ready to add it to the vegetables
  • Meanwhile heat the oil in a saucepan and add the cinnamon stick and cumin seeds
  • After a minute add the onion and stir to coat the slices in the oil
  • Put a lid on and transfer to the simmering oven until the onion is soft and translucent
  • Add the chilli, garlic and ginger and return to the simmering oven
  • Cook the green beans in boiling water and drain them, pouring over lots of cold water so they retain their greenness
  • Snap the woody ends off the asparagus and discard. Slice the spears, reserving the tips
  • After 5-10 minutes add the courgettes to the pan, stir to coat in the oil and add a little water
  • Replace the lid and return to the simmering oven. 10 minutes or so later, do the same with the sliced asparagus and add the tips about 5 minutes after that
  • Finally add the broad beans, green beans and some seasoning. When these are hot and the other vegetables are tender, fold in the rice
  • Sprinkle over the herbs and serve with lemon wedges

 

 

Indian Leg of Lamb

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Indian Leg of Lamb

We had a lovely weekend at home this Easter, with our sons and two of their girlfriends joining us for most of it. I tried to keep the cooking as simple (but delicious) as possible and had a cooking-free Saturday night when we went to our local Italian to celebrate my birthday the previous week.

For Easter Sunday lunch I ordered a large leg of lamb from the butcher and asked him to remove the bone and butterfly it. My thinking was that it would cook more quickly and carve more easily (although carving is my (surgeon) husband’s job!).

On Saturday afternoon I prepared the marinade, covered the lamb and put it in the fridge to be forgotten about until Sunday morning.61zmh4n5vpl

I adapted the following recipe from Diana Henry’s book, Cook Simple.

Indian Leg of Lamb

For about 8 people

Ingredients

  • 1 x 2kg leg of lamb, boned and butterflied
  • 55g blanched almonds
  • 2 onions, roughly chopped
  • 8 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
  • a big chunk of fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 4 green chillies, halved and deseeded
  • 550g plain yoghurt
  • 1 tbsp ground cumin
  • 4 tsps ground coriander
  • 2 tsps ground cinnamon
  • 2 tsps garam masala
  • salt and pepper

Method

  • Make deep gashes all over the meat with a sharp knife and put it in a dish
  • Blitz everything else in a food processor and spread this all over the lamb, massaging it in with your hands. It will look like this: IMG_4477
  • Cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge
  • On Sunday morning, preheat a conventional oven to 200ºC, take the lamb out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature. Place it in a large roasting tin and cover with foil
  • Aga users: put it in the roasting oven for about 30 minutes, then remove the foil for 5 or ten minutes before placing the lamb in the simmering oven until you’re ready to serve lunch. This was 2pm in our case, so the total cooking time was about four and a half hours. If you’re using a conventional oven, the cooking time is about one and a half hours, with the foil removed for the last 20 minutes or so
  • Leave the lamb to rest on a board while you reheat the cooking juices, stirring as you go, to make a delicious sauce to be served with the lamb
  • I served our lamb with a pilaff, carrots roasted with coriander and garlic and two green vegetables

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