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>

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Enjoy

Pasta with pepper steak

Pasta with pepper steak

Tonight's dish uses up the remaining piece of steak I have after last nights Beef Pho and is something completely different. A tangy blend of Dijon Mustard, Worcestershire Sauce and Pepper made into a smooth creamy sauce, it tastes fabulous and clings to the pasta and steak to create a truly delicious dish.

Cooking Time: 30 minutes Serves: 1

Ingredients

- 100g spaghetti / tagliatelli or other long pasta

- 1/3 cup (80ml) olive oil

- 50g unsalted butter

- 125g rump or sirloin steak, trimmed

- 1/4 onion, halved, thinly sliced

- 1 dessert spoon green peppercorns in brine

- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

- 50g button mushrooms, thinly sliced

- 100ml dry white wine

- 1 tsp Dijon mustard

- 1 dessert spoon Worcestershire sauce

- 1/2 cup (125ml) thickened cream

- 1 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions, then drain.

Toss with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and set aside.

Heat butter and remaining oil in a large frying pan over very high heat, add steak and cook for 1-2 minutes each side, remove and set aside. Reduce heat to medium, add onion, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes until soft. Add the drained peppercorns, garlic, mushrooms and wine, and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

Add mustard, Worcestershire sauce, stock and cream, season well, then allow to simmer for 2 minutes.

Slice the steak thinly and add to the pan with the pasta and parsley, then toss gently to combine.

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Enjoy

Beef Pho (thịt bò Phố)

Beef Pho

Today's dish is something completely new for me, Pho is a Vietnamese dish and I've never even tried Vietnamese food before let alone try and cook it. The idea was inspired by friend Andy who has visited Vietnam and suggested that as I have a taste for Far Eastern cuisine I may like it, Andy you were right.

So what is Pho? Pho is a simple soup poured over a bowl of rice noodles and meat garnished with herbs and chilli. The flavour is light, refreshing, hot it's just different from anything I've tried before it's lighter than Thai and has a herby element unlike anything, its great. I've read a few recipes and ended up combining a couple of ideas and came up with this one.

Ingredients

serves one

- 1L beef stock

- 1/2 large onion, sliced into rings

- 3 slices fresh root ginger

- 1 stalk lemon grass

- 2 large cloves of garlic

- 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

- 200g beef sirloin steak, cut into thin slices

- 75g beansprouts

- small handful fresh basil, leaves only

- small handful fresh mint, leaves only

- small handfulfresh coriander, chopped

- 1 fresh green chilli, sliced

- 1/2 lime, cut into wedges

- 100g packet dried rice noodles

hoisin sauce to serve

hot sauce to serve

fish sauce to serve

Prep: 10 mins Cook: 1 hour 20 mins

In a large pan, combine stock, onion, ginger, garlic, lemon grass, cinnamon and peppercorns. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and cover. Simmer for 1 hour.

Arrange beansprouts, mint, basil and coriander on a platter with chilies and lime.

Soak the noodles in hot water to cover for 15 minutes or until soft. Drain. Place into a large soup bowls, and place raw beef on top. Ladle hot stock over noodles and beef. Garnishes and sauces.

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Enjoy

Swedish Delights

Swedish Delights

A quiet day on the food front, however, I have been snacking on these pickled fish delights from those nice people at IKEA all day.

Flavoured with Garlic (Sill Vitlok), Sour Cream (Sill Graddfil) and Onions (Sill Lok) other flavours are available.

If you have an IKEA or a good Deli near you they are certainly worth a try, I have to admit I don't know how the Swedes serve them but they do go well with savoury pancakes.

Enjoy

Cod with asparagus and noodles

Cod with asparagus and noodles

Dinner with the kids beautiful fresh Cod, vibrant iron rich Asparagus and fresh egg noodles. Healthy, full of flavour and the kids really enjoy their fish.

Ingredients

- 500g fresh skinless and boneless cod

- 2 bunches of Asparagus

- 400g fresh Egg Noodles

- 2 spring onions (salad onions) for garnish

All ingredients from Sainsburys

Season the Cod with salt and white pepper, then steam the for 10 - 12 minutes. As I've said before I do not have a steamer so use a colander over a pan of water with a piece of foil over the top of the colander works perfectly. Once the Cod is almost cooked remove from the steamer and wrap in foil it will continue to cook whilst you prepare the Asparagus and noodle.

Prepare the noodles as per the instructions on the packet, if you are using fresh this is normally dropping them into boiling water for 2 - 3 minutes. Once cooked drain well and drizzle with olive oil, whilst cooking the noodles you can drop the Asparagus into boiling water for a similar amount of time. Once the Asparagus is cooked plate up immediately drizzling the Asparagus in olive oil and sprinkling with Maldon's sea salt, place the Cod on top of the Asparagus and drizzle with more oil. Plate the noodles and garnish with finely chopped spring onions.

That is it, if you use fresh ingredients, this dish will taste great, do not skimp on the olive oil extra virgin will give you the best flavours.

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Enjoy

Tomato

Tomato

For those who follow by blog a quick hello and just to say I'm still here and still bloging. It has been a crazy busy few days so just wanted to throw something up, normal daily service will resume shortly.

Not quite Vegetable Soup

Not quite vegetable Soup

After a fabulous Christmas lunch with the family Natalie made a huge batch of stock from the turkey carcase and left over veggies, has been a usual event for a few years. Normally Natalie would then use some of the stock to make a soup, well this year I'll have to do my own, so here I go.

Ingredients

- 1/2 litre turkey stock.

- 2 carrots

- 1/2 a small swede

- 8 - 10 Brussels

- 1 large parsnips

- 2 shallots

- 175g smoked bacon cubes

- seasoning

Start my peeling and finely chopping the shallots, then in a large pan add a little olive oil and fry off the bacon until nice and golden, it does not need to be crispy. Add the shallots and cook gently until translucent and soft.

Next peel and dice the remaining veggies so they are roughly the same size and add to the pan and soften for 5 minutes. Add the stock and simmer slowly until all veggies and tender. Remove a quarter of the veggies and a little of the bacon leaving all of the liquid in the pan, blitz with a hand blender (you can add the soup to a larger blender at this stage if you wishuntil smooth and they return the chunky bits you removed, this will give you a little texture.

If you do not have some home made stock simply buy a tub of fresh.

Serve with some fresh bread and you've got a great meal.

Enjoy

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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