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Easy recipes from Apple Tree

Category: Main courses (page 1 of 8)

Salmon, harrissa and grains

10/08/2018 / / 0 Comments

Serves 2, takes about 10 minutes.

  • 2 salmon steaks
  • 1 tbs lemon juice
  • 1tbs olive oil
  • 1 tbs harrissa paste

Mix the harissa with the lemon juice and olive oil and rub all over the flesh. Heat the grill to medium-high. Grill for 5-6 minutes without turning until cooked through, then leave to sit off the heat for a minute.

  • 200g bag baby spinach

Wilt the spinach in a pan with just a drop of oil and some seasoning.

  • Pouch of pre-cooked mixed rice and grains
  • 2 tbs chopped chives
  • 2 tbs chopped parsley
  • half a chilli, seeded and sliced
  • 1tbs lemon juice

Heat the grains pouch in the microwave. Tip into a bowl with the chives, chilli, parsley and lemon juice. Season and toss everything together.

  • Sliced avocado
  • Greek Yoghurt

Spoon the grains onto a plate. Add the salmon (leave the skin behind), some spinach, sliced avocado and Greek yogurt.

Roast Vegetable Salad

26/06/2018 / / 0 Comments

Simple to make and flexible with main ingredients. Firstly make this awesome dressing which would go with other things too.

  • 50g cashew nuts

Boil 3 minutes. Add

  • 2 garlic cloves

Boil 2 minutes more. Drain, remove garlic skins and add to a blender (stick blender is best) with

  • Juice of a lemon
  • 2 tsp onion powder
  • half a cucumber

Zap. Add the other half of a cucumber and zap again. You can experiment by adding herbs – tarragon, chives, etc but I am not sure that is necessary.

For the salad – you can swap vegetables around but I used the following:

  • Red cabbage, cut into thin slices including the core so it stays together as a “steak”
  • Sweet potato, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes
  • Courgette, sliced
  • oil

Fry in a hot pan until charred. Transfer to an oven 180C fan, season  and roast 30 minutes. Less if your charring took a while. Take them out when soft all the way through, and cool for a bit. Meanwhile…

  • Broccoli florets
  • Chives chipped or spring onions in 3 cm lengths

In the same pan, add a  bit more oil then toss the broccoli and chives around and char until bright green with charred bits. They should be still crunchy but not raw. Remove.

  • Tofu (vegan) or halloumi (vegetarian)

In the same pan, sear until browned.

  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Lettuce hearts, quartered

Arrange the roasted and seared items with the fresh items in a  tasteful display on your platter. Serve with the sauce.

You could also try asparagus, treated like the broccoli; button mushrooms left whole and fried with garlic and herbs in olive oil; swede or parsnip treated like the sweet potato.

 

Summer Meatballs

21/06/2018 / / 0 Comments

A lighter take on the meatballs classic, perfect for summer. Serves 2:

  • 1 courgette

Peel the outer into ribbons, grate the centre. Put to one side

  • One onion finely chopped
  • Olive oil

Fry gently until soft. Add

  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tsp fennel seeds

Fry 2 minutes more. Tip into a bowl, add

  • 250g pork mince
  • Grated courgetter
  • salt and pepper
  • Chopped parsely

Mix and form into 10-12 balls. Add to the pan, with a bit more oil if required, and fry until cooked. Meanwhile, cook

  • 200g spaghetti until just al dente

Scoop the pasta into the meatball pan. Add a splash of cooking water and the courgette ribbons. Heat gently and stir around to coat the pasta with the pan juices. Add more water if needed. Serve sprinkled with

  • zest and juice of half a lemon
  • grated parmesan
  • chopped parsley

 

Asparagus and Goats Cheese Tart

30/05/2018 / / 0 Comments

Awesome, looks impressive and is actually very easy to make. Here’s how (serves 4)

  • 3 eggs beaten
  • Pack of puff pastry sheet

Heat the oven to 180C. Unroll the pastry sheet, leaving it on its parchment. Put it on a baking tray. With a sharp knife score around the pastry sheet about 2cm the edge so it looks like a picture frame. Stab the inside if the frame with a fork or knife. Brush with beaten egg all over, but keep the rest of the egg, you will need it later. Bake 15 minutes. Remove and cool. Actually you don’t really have to let it cool, I didn’t. You may need to squash down the middle a bit if the whole thing has turned into a pillow.

  • A bunch of asparagus

Boil for 2 minutes, then plunge into cold water to blanch then set aside

  • 50ml creme fraiche
  • 50g grated cheese
  • seasoning

Mix these with your remaining egg

  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • 1/2 lemon zested

Mix with your asparagus

  • 50g goats cheese or similar, cubed

Pour the egg and cheese mixture onto the centre of your pastry frame and spread out. Lay out the asparagus artistically, then dot with the goats cheese. Cook at 180C for another 15-20 minutes until set and golden.

Great with a salad for lunch!

 

Husspi

11/05/2018 / / 0 Comments

I like breaded scampi. I catch too many dogfish. Last weekend I caught dozens, all went back but one was deeply hooked so I tried an experiment. It worked, so I’ll share it here.
Take one dogfish, skin and fillet it to remove the backbone. I always freeze dogfish for a week but some would say that is unnecessary. Anyway, I did.
Thaw the fillets and slice into scampi-sized pieces.
Beat an egg and put in a bowl. Put to one side.
Make a mug of breadcrumbs by whizzing up a few slices in a blender.
Mix in a teaspoon of garlic salt, a fierce grinding of black pepper and a violent shake of cayenne pepper. Forgot to mention, if you have some parsley, add a small handful to the breadcrumbing process and whiz that in too.
Pour some cooking oil into a pan to a depth of 2cm and heat to 190C (or when a cube of bread goes brown in 30 seconds)
Dip your fake scampi in the egg then in the breadcrumb mix then drop in the hot oil. After a minute flip them over. After another minute they should be brown and crispy. Remove and drain on some kitchen paper. They should look like this and taste extremely good, with or without embellishment of tartar sauce or lemon juice.

Greek Oven-Grilled Chicken

07/04/2018 / / 0 Comments

This works for chicken quarters or a spatch-cocked whole chicken. First marinade your bird.

  • Chicken
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 2 crushed garlic cloves
  • 2 tbs olive oil
  • salt and pepper

Mix, then rub all over the chicken. Put everything in a plastic bag and massage the marinade into the chicken. Squeeze air out of the bag, tie off and chill for an hour or two – or more.

Heat the oven to 190C. Put portions or spatch-cocked chicken on a pan and oven roast for between 40 minutes and an hour until cooked. You can finish it under the grill if you like it charred and crispy. You can also cook this over a BBQ, or cook in the oven and finish on the BBQ. Great with Greek potatoes, halloumi and asparagus

Herring Brunch

27/03/2018 / / 0 Comments

This is very quick and easy – or at least it is once you have caught and butterflied your herring. Three to four minutes of actual cooking time. For one brunch:

  • 2 herring – scaled, gutted, head removed and butterflied (slit open, squash the back down on a board then peel away the backbone and ribs)
  • seasoning of choice: sprinkle with Potlatch, lime and chilli rub, Cajun or any seasoning mix you fancy

Head some oil in a frying pan until smoking hot. Fry the herring fillets until crispy on the surface. Meanwhile, toast a slice of bread and poach an egg. Assemble as in the photo and sprinkle on some fresh chives.

Easy Pulled Pork

12/03/2018 / / 0 Comments

…with the One Pot!

  • Pork (leg or shoulder joint), cut into 2 inch cubes
  • Splash of oil

Brown on Saute setting. Add

Cook on Normal for 60 minutes. Let it de-pressurise naturally. Remove pork and shred. Put the liquid in a pan (remove any fat first) and reduce by half. Mix back into the pork and heat through. Serve on buns with sides (jacket potato, slaw, corn) and more Kansas BBQ Sauce.

Best Cottage Pie

12/02/2018 / / 0 Comments

Still the best.

  • 1 onion chopped
  • 1 large carrot chopped
  • 1 celery stick chopped
  • 1tbs oil

Sweat in oil until the onion is softening

  • 500gm steak mince

Cook with the vegetables, stirring until all pink has gone

  • 2 tbs tomato puree or half a tin of chopped tomatoes
  • 500ml beef stock (Oxo cube is fine)
  • Season well with salt and black pepper

Cover and simmer the beef mince while you peel enough potatoes to make a mash to cover. The quantity here is debatable. You want enough potato to cover the top of the dish, but you could bulk up with more to make the dish stretch further. Boil the potato and mash them when cooked, adding a bit of milk and butter if they are a bit dry.

Put the oven on to 180C and find a suitable pie dish. Ladle the beef and veg mix into the dish. If it has dried out, add more beef stock – it needs to look very sloppy. Carefully cover the dish with potato and fluff up the top so it goes crispy, and cook for 30  minutes. The ultimate comfort food, served with a green vegetable.

Slow cooked lamb Madras curry

29/01/2018 / / 0 Comments

This takes a lot of time but not much work. First make a curry paste and marinate your lamb, half an hour minimum or up to two days in the fridge.

  • 1 lamb shoulder or two halves
  • 1.5tbs mustard seeds
  • 4tbs coriander seeds
  • 2tbs cumin seeds
  • 2 tsp cardamom seeds from inside the husks

Dry fry until they give off a scent. Grind to a powder in a pestle and mortar. Add

  • 5 red chillies
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 2 x 5cm pieces of ginger
  • 1-2tbs chilli powder
  • 1stp turmeric
  • 3tbs tomato puree
  • 1tbs vinegar
  • 60ml oil

Whizz to a paste. Smear all over the lamb and set aside to marinate (in a plastic bag works well)

When you are ready to start cooking, scrape all the paste off the lamb and reserve. Put the oven on 220C and sear the lamb for 20 minutes. Meanwhile start on the sauce.

  • 4 onions sliced
  • oil

Sweat the onions very gently in a pan for 10 minutes. Add the reserved curry paste and cook another 5 minutes. Add

  • Can of chopped tomatoes
  • 400ml lamb or chicken stock
  • 1 aubergine, chopped into chunks

You can either cook in a very low oven or in the Instant Pot/Slow cooker. For the oven method, put the lamb and sauce in a pot with a tightly fitting lid and cook 170C for 3.5 hours. Watch it doesn’t dry out. A safer option is put it all in the Instant Pot and put on Slow Cook High Heat for 5 hours. You will probably need to reduce the sauce at the end if you have used the Instant Pot – simply take the lid off, put on Saute and bubble away. When you are ready to serve, take the meat off the bone (it will fall off), remove fat etc and put the lean meat chunks a serving bowl with the sauce. Top with plain yoghurt and fresh coriander. We served this with naan and a dhal.

 

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