Chicken Tagine

This picture doesn't do this dish any justice at all. It is a lovely full flavoured dish and is incredibly aromatic. For a lovely hearty winter warmer, give this dish a try, you won't regret it.

Ingredients:

• Aprox. 1kg chicken thigh fillets
• 1 onion
• about 3 cloves garlic
• 100g of blanched almonds
• 150g green olives
• 1 lemon
• about 500ml of chicken stock
• 2-3 potatoes chopped into chunks
• enough oil to fry the onion and garlic (I use canola oil)

Method:

1. Chop the onion and garlic finely and then fry this in the oil.
2. Cut the chicken pieces in half and then add them to the onion and garlic and lightly brown.
3. Add the blanched almonds, the finely sliced lemon, olives, potatoes and the stock.
4. Allow to simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes.

I like to serve this with cous cous, although you could certainly eat this alone or with a nice polenta. Perhaps you would serve this with something else, I would love to hear any other ideas.

Mary xxx

As you might have noticed, i'm not particularly precise with my recipes. Often this is because I just use what I have on hand that day. I also tend to adjust recipes to suit my tastes and I encourage you to do the same :)

Vanilla Chai Macaroons with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Like all of my 'good ideas', this one struck late last night. After a false start in which I mixed my almond meal with caster sugar, instead of icing sugar, I was up and running. After starting to pipe my mixture, I found that the push/pull method was the way to go. I also found that I had piped my macaroons way way too big. Next time (read later tonight), I will make them much smaller. The shape of my macarons needs some work, however, I was happy with the feet. Happy that they turned out the way they're supposed to, but still annoyed by them, they just look so untidy. Everyone else seems to think these little feet are wonderful, but I honestly think they look messy. Nevermind.

I used the recipe found at http://muffinsareuglycupcakes.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/roasted-black-sesame-macarons/, however, I substituted the black sesame for vanilla chai. This blog has lots of mouthwatering desserts and sweets. You've been warned :)

My macarons were quite chewy. I think this is because my vanilla chai powder seems to be 50% sugar. I need to reduce the amount of sugar next time. Maybe I could add the vanilla chai instead of the caster sugar, to the egg whites and then increase the amount of almond meal in the dry ingredients. Alternatively I could change to a vanilla chai without sugar, this would also help to intensify the chai flavour, which was quite mild.

Orange Syrup Cake

If there is anyone out there that reads this, i'm sorry for the lack of posts. However, I do have a few things to post about and I will try and update with a few posts over the next week.

I made an orange syrup cake on Sunday and it turned out really well. My brother in law and his wife have an orange tree growing in their backyard and have generously given us a bag of oranges, yum! I will be making the cake again this week although I wouldn't mind trying a recipe that uses almond meal instead of regular flour.

Here is the recipe - Nigella's Orange Syrup Cake, from the cookbook "How to be a Domestic Goddess".

For the cake:
125g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
175g self raising flour
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons of milk
23x13x7cm loaf tin, buttered and lined

For the syrup:
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons (about 4 tablespoons)
100g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and butter and line your loaf tin w2ell.

Cream together the butter and sugar, and add the eggs and lemon zest, beating them in well. Add the flour and salt, folding in gently but thoroughly, and then the milk. Spoon into the prepared loaf tin and put in the oven. While the cake is cooking, get on with the syrup. Put the lemon juice and sugar into a small saucepan and heat gently so that the sugar disolves.

Bake the cake for 45 minutes, or until golden, risen in the middle (although it will sink a little on cooling) and an inserted cake-tester comes out clean. As soon as the cake is out of the oven, puncture the top of the loaf all over with the cake-tester or suitable implement. Pour over the syrup, trying to let the middle absorb it as well as the sides, the leave it to soak up the rest. Don't try to take the cake out of the tin until it is completely cold, as it will be sodden with syrup and might crumble.

I substituted the lemon for orange, used the zest of two oranges and the juice of one orange (which was a particularly juicy one). I doubled the quantity and used a silicon ring mould. I also forgot to include the milk. Once the cake had baked, I poked a lot of holes in the top and then poured over the syrup and stuck it in the fridge to try and get it to cool down quickly so I could take it to my in laws for lunch. I also put a little mixture into three patty pans to make three cupcakes so we could try it before cutting into the cake. The cupcakes were very dry, but I had tried not to put too much syrup onto them so as not to be short of syrup for the cake.

I'm sure this cake would work well with any citrus. Also, Nigella suggests spiking the syrup with limoncello, Italian liquor. This might be a nice touch if you have some handy and if the cake is only going to be for the grown ups.

Enjoy!