My jerk style chicken.....

I hate throwing out food, especially food that I have lovingly prepared in the kitchen in anticipation of a lovely meal around the table. It's hard to please everyone and more often than not it's chicken that features on the menu as I know it will be eaten. It's nice to liven it up with a marinade or a rub and this one proved very popular chez Ryan yesterday! You can leave it overnight for the flavours to develop further but anything from 30 minutes upwards will do the trick. Don't be put off by the list of ingredients as I bet you will have most of them lurking in your kitchen press......

For a large chicken or 4 large chicken breasts you will need;

1 red chilli
1 shallot
1tsp cinnamon
1tsp ground cloves
1tsp all spice
1tsp ground ginger
1 lemon, juice only
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
2tbsp honey
3tbsp rapeseed oil

Whizz all the ingredients together to form a smooth marinade.
Massage into the uncooked chicken before placing in a preheated oven.
Cook the chicken for at least an hour obviously depending on its weight.
Transfer to a serving dish and tear over some fresh coriander leaves.
Serve, share, enjoy!

I came across a frightening statistic today that 90% of the chicken in Irish restaurants is not sourced from Ireland or even the EU! I for one never ask where the poultry is sourced from when in a restaurant but next time I will. Nothing is going to change if consumers remain nonchalant about these issues. Ask your butcher as well where is their meat sourced, you may get a surprise!

Apple, frangipane & cinnamon tarts

Frangipane is such an easy thing to make and so versatile to use. It's great in a tart, stuffed into fruit or even heated and poured over ice cold ice cream. Frangipane will keep in your fridge for a couple of days or in your freezer for up to a month. I had some left over from the last time that I made my delicious plum tart and you will find the recipe for it here....

http://paulaskitchentable.blogspot.ie/2012/08/vanilla-sugared-plum-frangipane-tart.html

To make these little tarts you will need;

A packet of filo pastry, defrosted
1 eating apple
1tbsp melted butter
1 cup of frangipane
Sprinkling of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
Allow some filo pastry sheets to defrost overnight in the fridge.
Lay them out and cut the entire layer into sixteen squares. Place the squares into a mini muffin tin and press down.
Chop up an eating apple and add it to the frangipane. Place a spoonful into each little filo case.
Brush the melted butter over the pieces of exposed pastry.
Place in oven for 10 minutes or until the frangipane has puffed up and the filo is golden.
Allow to cool on a wire rack before sprinkling with cinnamon.
Delicious!

Quick pasta dinner....

I have had an eventful couple of days to say the least. Slashing my hand, trying to set my sitting room on fire and culminating last night by filling my husband's diesel car up with unleaded fuel! Today was a bit of a blur as we only had one car and I had to drop my husband to Mullingar for work, I had a work meeting to attend, two school pick ups and back to Mullingar to pick up Raymond! I needed a quick and easy dinner to throw together to keep the children going and to ensure plenty of fuel for under 11's soccer training. Pasta is my go to dinner on busy days as it is super quick and dinner can be on the kitchen table in a few minutes.

Pasta sauce

2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
400g can of chopped tomatoes
500g passata
1tsp sugar
Handful of fresh basil
2tbsp rapeseed oil

Heat the rapeseed oil in a large pan.
Add the garlic and onions and cook until softenened.
Add the tomatoes, passata and sugar and allow to simmer for fifteen minutes.
Add the basil and simmer for a further five minutes.
Set aside to cool slightly before blending.

This sauce is a brilliant sauce as it is easy to change the flavours, here are a few of my favourites;

Add a 1/2 teaspoon of chilli flakes to make a spicy sauce.

Roast some peppers until the skins are blistery and charred before adding to the pot.

Roast garlic in the oven until soft inside and squeeze into the pot of sauce.

Add fried chorizo after blending, in fact add chorizo to anything and I will gobble it up!

Today time was against me so I just blended the sauce and added it to some cooked pasta, topped with some extra basil and a grinding of black pepper and served alongside some homemade garlic bread. It made for a comforting meal which was badly needed!

It's very handy to make a double quantity and have some sauce in the fridge or freezer. Great to top some pizza with, add to lasagne or use as a base for tomato soup. Autumn days are truly here!

A new adventure.....

Yesterday marked the start of my adventures with my new Canon 550d. I attended a photography course ran by Tim Durham, a fantastic photographer based here in the midlands. We were sent out and about to capture a few images of Mullingar. Be kind, have just started by dipping my big toe into a huge ocean.....

Passion fruit curd, lime, meringue & raspberry tart

So there I was with two jars of passion fruit curd in the fridge, both of them literally screaming into my gluttonous belly "eat me, eat me"! I had to do something with them to prevent me tucking in with a spoon so I decided to make a few little tarts. People are always a little bit nervous when it comes to pastry but honestly the key is to handle it as little as possible and to make sure everything is chilled. These ingredients make enough for four mini tart cases but feel free to double the quantities as this pastry will happily sit in your freezer and await it's baking adventure turn.

For the pastry cases;

125g plain flour
60g butter
50g icing sugar
Pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
1tbsp milk

Cream the butter, icing sugar and salt together.
Rub in the flour and egg yolk until it looks like breadcrumbs. I always use a fork at this stage.
Add in the milk gradually to form a dough.
Place dough onto a piece of clingfilm and roll into a sausage shape. Allow it to rest in the fridge for at least a hour.

For the meringue;

I always use Nigella's meringue recipe as it has yet to fail me. Meringue is possibly one of my favourite things to both make and eat and this one is foolproof!

2 egg whites
150g caster sugar
1 tsp cornflour
1/2 tsp white wine vinegar

Whisk the egg whites in a spotlessly clean bowl until soft peaks form.
Add in the sugar a spoonful at a time and whisk till glossy.
Add in the cornflour and vinegar and give it one final whisk.
Spoon into piping bag.

Remove pastry from the fridge and cut into thin slivers. Place these into the tart cases and press down gently to join the edges, similar to a jigsaw puzzle. So much easier to do this than to roll it out. Bake blind in a 180 degree preheated oven for fifteen minutes or until golden at the edges.
Allow to cool.

Once the cases are cooled fill them up with passion fruit curd, use as little or as much as you like.
Pipe little noisettes of the meringue mixture onto half of the tart and place under grill until lightly browned. Keep a close eye as they can burn very quickly.
Take some fresh raspberries and add to one of the tart quarters and with the remaining section add some grated lime zest.
So there you have it, a very impressive looking tart that is super simple to achieve. The tang of the passion fruit curd, the sweetness of the meringue, the sharpness of the raspberries and the citrus flavour of the lime combine to make this a great taste sensation. I need to cook a dessert for Chef Derry Clarke in my upcoming Tesco Fresh Factor competition, do you think he would be impressed by this?

Passion Fruit Curd

I spotted some passion fruits last weekend on special offer and as per usual I couldn't resist a bargain. They are the kind of fruit that I am never sure what to do with, I have used them previously in smoothies and on top of pavlovas but I wanted to try something different this time. I love curd. I love it in tarts, on ice cream, on toast, in fact throw it on anything and I will eat it, so what better way to use up four neglected looking passion fruits in the bowl.

You will need;

125g butter
1/4 cup of caster sugar
2 tbsp of fresh lemon juice
4 passion fruit, entire contents
5 medium eggs

Melt the butter and sugar in a bowl that has been placed over some simmering water.
Lightly mix the eggs, lemon juice and the passion fruit and add to melted mixture.
Stir continuously over a low heat until mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon. This should take around fifteen minutes.
Set aside to cool before placing in sterilised jars.
So there you have it, sunshine on a day when the sun isn't necessarily shining!

One enchanted evening......#paulaskitchensupper

I was really looking forward to writing this blogpost about my supper party. I envisioned lovely pictures of my gorgeously laid table, happy diners and plates of delicious food. However it didn't quite turn out like that.........

Picture the scene. Paula running around the kitchen. Pork slowing roasting in the oven. Six hungry children. Figs awaiting a drizzle of local honey & walnuts. Twelve guests arriving imminently. Wine cooling in ice buckets. Candles lit. Peas to be puréed. Rubbish placed in bin. Palm cut with can. Blood. Mild panic. More panic. Major panic. Deep gash. Accident & emergency. Triage. Stitches. Tetanus. Drama. Should have been a disaster but not so!

I arrived home to find my supper club running very smoothly. Course one prepared and served up by my great pals and sister. Course two was at the cusp of being ready, just required a few instructions by me to get it right! I jest of course everything was well under control. Huge thanks to @tracyobr for fantastic mashing & purée skills, @fishahoy1 for exquisite fresh scallops, home smoked salmon and amazing help in the kitchen, @helenamoloney for top class pork pulling and @geoffboyle for taking charge of the vegetarian courses, that beetroot tarte tatin was fun to make!

Plenty of cocktails, laughs, good food and fantastic company made for a great night. I want to share with you the recipe for the slow roast pork shoulder as everyone raved about it. A pork shoulder is a really cheap cut of meat that with some tender loving care transforms into mouthwatering tender pork. I used Jamie Oliver's jerk pork recipe which added fantastic flavour! Smoky, zingy, fresh, citrusy and spicy all at once! I amended the recipe slightly but the original is to be found in Jamie's Great Britain.

You will need;

A pork shoulder with the bone in
Sea salt & black pepper
Pinch of rosemary and thyme
1 whole nutmeg
Rapeseed oil
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Preheat your oven as high as it will go.
Score the skin of the pork.
Rub in the salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme and grate over the nutmeg. Add a good drizzle of olive oil and massage into the cracks and all over the pork.
Place the pork into a large roasting tin, skin side up and pour the apple cider vinegar and enough water to cover the bottom of the roasting tin.
Put into the hot oven for thirty minutes then turn the heat down to 130 degrees.

I roasted the joint for ten hours covering with a double layer of foil half way through the cooking time.
Pull the crackling off, get rid of any fatty bits underneath and use two forks to pull the pork apart.

For the jerk salsa you will need;

2 red chillies
1 bunch of spring onions
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of ground cloves
1/2 tsp of all spice
Juice of three limes
Thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 tbsp of honey
Rapeseed oil
Large bunch of coriander

Whizz all of the above ingredients until you have a salsa consistency.
Pour over the pulled pork and toss through.

I served this on a bed of creamy mashed root vegetables with some wilted spinach. Wish I had some pictures to share with you but unfortunately I don't, you will have to trust me when I say it was really good!

So the last of the visitors have just gone and so brings to the end a great weekend minus the "can incident"! Thanks to all for great fun, much merriment and plenty of jokes at my expense! There will have to be a repeat performance, going to treat last night as a bad rehearsal!

Thanks for taking the time to read!