Hot-headz Smoked Chilli & Garlic Sauce

Hot-headz Smoked Chilli & Garlic Sauce

Today's dish is also a big shout out for a fabulous sauce I've recently discovered an the most amazing shop I found it in.

Whilst visiting Brighton Marina to see my friend and great photographer Kirstie Blake at Eclectia Gallery I was introduced to Frank Jay and his amazing shop, the Chilli Shop, Frank stocks anything and everything you could possibly think of relating to chillis and lots of that you could never have thought of, more importantly Frank will take time and make a real effort to understand exactly what you are looking for, will help with ideas on how to use his products and generally help out.

There dozens of tasters out so you can try before you buy and with many of the locally sourced products frank can give you full provenance, you'd be amazed how many chilli based products are made in the South of England

Smoked Chilli & Garlic Hot Sauce from Hot Headz is a medium strength, smoky sauce which can be served a condiment, it will add a healthy but not over powering kick to chicken, fish, pasta or even eggs. With a good helping of garlic it creates a great rich, rounded flavour and certainly brought my dish of chicken breast with spaghetti and fried peppers to life. The flavour is long and deep, probably because of the smokiness and lingers in the mouth for a while, it's lovely and warming especially on a cod evening like we had in Southampton.

I'd certainly suggest this as a a great sauce for anyone who likes a kick to their meal and wants to bring a simple dish of chicken and pasta to life.

Suppliers

Smoked Chilli & Garlic Hot Sauce - Chilli Shop

Chicken, pasta & peppers - Tesco

Ingredients

- 1 large chicken breast, oven roasted

- 2 peppers, medium diced

- 75g spaghetti

- 1/4 jar of smoked chilli & garlic hot sauce

Method

Rub the chicken breast with a little oil and season with salt and pepper, place on baking tray on in a small roasting pan and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cover with a healthy layer of sauce and cook for a further 5 - 7 minutes.

Whilst the chicken is cooking boil your pasta as per the instructions on packet, once cooked to taste drain and place in a large bowl. Add 1/2 tbsp of sauce an toss until all the pasta is covered with sauce.

Whilst pasta and chicken are cooking dice the peppers and fry in a small amount of oil until soft and golden, season with salt to taste.

Once the chicken (slice and check its cooked through) is ready plate up/p>

Download your recipe card here

Enjoy

Roast chicken with beans and salad

Roast chicken with beans and salad

A great Sunday spent with the kids meant little time to cook so I cheated a little but hey the kids loved lunch. A roast chicken from the hot counter at the grocery store, home made pasta salad with sweet corn, crispy bacon and mayo with beans on the side. All done in under 20 minutes and it went down a treat.

I love cooking and photography but some things are more important.

Enjoy the photos more tasty treats tomorrow.

Christmas Lunch at Natalie's

Christmas Lunch at Natalie's

I was not going to post today as time has been precious with the kids and concentrating on photos was not a priority, however, I captured shots which told a good story of our lunch so here they are.

Back to normal service tomorrow and it's going to be a corker.

Enjoy and I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas.

Golden Crispy Chicken with Pasta

Golden Crispy Chicken with Pasta

Golden, crispy, moist chicken one of my favorite dishes, I'll warn the health conscious of you this is probably not for you but hey that is your lose because this is great.

First things first the pasta and thee cucumber are lovely but lets face it this dish is all about the chicken, for instructions on cooking pasta I suggest reading the packet it really helps. Now for the chicken, I use legs and thighs if you cook them right they are amazing, far better than breast I'd suggest two thighs and two legs minimum for an adult, possibly more if they've a big appetite.

Start by remove the bone from the thighs this is simple, lay the thigh skin side down on a chopping board flatten it out as much as possible and run a sharp knife down the bone. Once the bone is exposed continue to trim around the bone until you can pull it away, make sure you get all of the tough sinew, do not attempt to remove the bone from the legs.

Now added enough oil (vegetable / sunflower) to cover the bottom of the largest flat bottom pan you have, heat the oil until you can feel the heat when holding you hand over the oil, now start to add the thighs skin side down, if the oil is hot enough it should sizzle but not explode into flames. Leave for at least 5 minutes before checking the colour, if you have the temperature right you should be able to leave it for 7 - 10 minutes before turning. Once the skin is beautiful and golden turn and cooking flesh side down for a further 5 - 7 minutes, cut into the flesh to check that it is cooked through thighs usually cook fairly evenly with the bone removed.

For the legs follow the same method, if you have two pans then cook them at the same time however, legs will require turning more frequently due to their shape and may take slightly longer took cook. With the legs I suggest cooking one extra to use as a tester, once you think it is cooked cut all the the way to the bone and check for signs of blood this is especially important when cooking for children, they'll not be impressed with blood in their dinner. Legs should be a beautiful golden colour when fully cooked.

Serve how ever you see fit, personally I could eat a pile for this with nothing but some hot chilli sauce but I'll leave that to you.

Enjoy

Chicken wrapped in Serano ham, asparagus and rice

Chicken wrapped in Serano ham with asparagus and rice, yep it's the weekend again and time to make a little more effort with the food for the kids and this one went down a storm. As with all of my weekend dishes this one is full of flavour and really simple.

- 1 Chicken breast person.

- 2 slices of Serano ham per breast

- 12+ spears of Asparagus

- 1 cup of rice (uncooked)

- 1 small bunch of parsley (chopped)

Wrap each breast in two slices of ham, place in a roasting tray, drizzle with olive oil and season. Place in an oven for 20 mins at 200c

Whilst the chicken is cooking boil the rice as per instructions on packet, the kids like Basmati mix in a handfull of chopped parsley once cooked.

Once the chicken and rice are ready drop the asparagus into a pan of salted boiling water, plate the chicken and rice whilst the asparagus is cooking. Cook asparagus for no more than three minutes preferably less.

Drizzle the whole lots with a little extra virgin olive oil, grind over some black pepper and dig in.

Enjoy

Roast Partridge

Roast Partridge, this was a first for me and a bird I've wanted to try for a while, sadly it didn't work for me. This may be down to my poor cooking skills but I found some parts of the bird over cooked (the legs) and other slightly too rare even for me. The flavour was as it should be rich, 'gamey' and full and the bird was nicely seasoned (needs a good pinch of salt whilst cooking) but the texture over all was just not good.

I'll certainly give it another try but after some better research into how to cook Partridge.

Mild Turkey Curry

Mild Turkey Curry I enjoy Indian food and was more than happy when the kids said they wanted Turkey Curry for dinner. After my attempt at naan bread on Thursday this seemed like a logical next step. After saving the recipe to my phone we made a visit to the grocery store for what seemed like a long list of supplies, it was worth it.

After a visit to Netley Abbey we made for home and our curry, unsurprisingly I didn't have any left over Turkey so pre-cooked two Turkey breasts (follow instructions on packet) before following the recipe.

Everything went to plan and we all enjoyed a great curry, it as as the title says fairly mild even my three year old was happy to eat it. I served it with plain Basmati rice.

Enjoy