Today is the last day of the month, which means that tomorrow I'll be posting a roundup

[conuly]

If you have recipes you haven't posted, you need to post them by then in order to get in this month's roundup. If you posted them off the comm, link to them here so I'll know to include them.

Today is also my birthday. I'm not saying that you should dust off your cake recipes for one last batch of end-of-month posting, but if you did, you should know I like chocolate.

Pork and apple hotpot (Nigella)

[antisoppist]

 My aim is to cook three new recipes from recipe books in the house each month. I am catering for me, a 16 year-old and a 13 year-old (plus a 19 year-old in university holidays). Everyone's tastes vary and I tend to be stuck in a rut of rotating the same things that everyone will eat. I would like to finish the end of the year with a slightly longer list of things everyone will eat and try the things where I've thought "I'll try that one day but haven't actually tried it yet.

Recipe 1.

Pork and Apple hotpot from Nigella Lawson's KItchen, Recipes from the heart of the home.

Ingredients
3 x 15 ml tbsps oil
3 onions halved and cut into half-moons
250g streaky bacon
50g plain flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
seeds of 4 cardamom pods crushed, or 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
salt and pepper to taste
6 boneless pork loin chops
4 Granny Smith apples
1 x 750ml bottle sharp. pressed apple juicee

1 ovenproof dish approx 20cm diameter x 13 cm deep or 24 cm round casserole with lid

Instructions
Preheat oven to 170C/gas mark 3. Warm oil in a wide, heavy-based pan and fry the onion for about 10 minutes until soft. Remove to a bowl
Cut or scissor the bacon into small strips and fry in the oniony pan for a few minutes. Add to onion bowl and mix together.
Put flour, spices and seasoning in a freezer bag and add 3 of the chops. Roll them around and shake off excess flour. Sear chops in oily pan and remove to a plate. Cooke the other 3 chops in the same way.
Peel and core the apples, cutting each one in half. Slice each half into fine segments and then arrange all the ingredients in the ovenproof dish or casserole as follows: A layer of onions and bacon, 3 pork chops, a layer of apple slices, onion and bacon, 3 pork chops, apples slices, onions and bacon, apple slicees.
Tip the remaining spiced flour into the oily pan and stir before whisking in the apple juice. Bring to the boil, then pour into the layered dish letting it filter slowly through to the bottom.
If necessary, make a lid for the dish with greaseproof paper and foil and sit it in the oven on a baking sheet as it may leak. Otherwise pop the lid on your casserole.
Cook in the oven for 3 hours until the pork is cooked through and the apples are tender.

Variations
For 3 of us including a 16 year-old boy, I used 4 pork steaks (making 2 layers of 2), 2 onions and 3 apples but kept everything else the same. I got the layering a bit wrong or didn't have quite enough things for enough layers so possibly I'd keep the onions and apples as written in future. I didn't do the plastic bag thing. I just put the flour in a pasta bowl and coated the pork in it.

Verdict
Perhaps I overcooked it - my oven tends to run high - but there wasn't much liquid left and the onions and apples had turned into a sort of jam. It was nice but the kids thought it was too sweet. This might partly depend on the apple juice. Ours was a gift from friends in the local apple pressing co-op and sweetness can be variable, but I thought it was sharp when we drank it.

Would make again for me and visiting people who are not my children but would put more apples in it and not cook it for as long. 

Naan bread

[antisoppist]

Recipe 2.

Aunty Harsha's Naan from Made in India Cooked in Britain: recipes from an Indian family kitchen by Meera Sodha

I usually make flatbreads using Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's flatbread recipe or vaguely making it up as I go along and cooking on a baking sheet under the grill. I wanted to try an authentic recipe and see what the difference was.

Ingredients
500g plain white flour
rapeseed oil
4 tbsp whole-milk yoghurt
1 pack of dried yeast (7g)
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 level tsp baking powder
275ml whole milk, hand hot

Instructions
Put flour in large mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle and add 2 tbsp oil, yoghurt, yeast, sugar, salt and baking powder. Mix through with fingers until the ingredients resemble breadcrumbs, then add the warm milk little by little and mix until it comes into a dough.

Put the dough on a well-floured surface. Knead for around 5 minutes then scrape any off your hands using a spoon and settle the dough by rubbing a teaspoon of oil on it.

Transfer the dough to a bowl in which it can double in size. Cover it with a tea towel or clingfilm and leave in a warm place for at least an hour (my aunty leaves hers in the airing cupboard).

When the dough has doubled in size, divide it into 12 pieces. Take one piece, roll it into a ball and flatten it between your palms. Coat it in fresh flour and roll out to around 12cm by 20cm.

Put a frying pan on a medium to high heat and when it's hot, place the naan in it. When the naan starts to bubble (after 20 to 30 seconds) flip it over using a spatula and cook the other side for the same amount of time, checking regularly to ensure it doesn't burn. Flip over again and quickly press it all over with a chapatti press or spatula for 10 to 15 seconds. If it rises at this point, it's a bonus and means your naans will be soft in the middle. Turn over again for another 10 to 15 seconds, check that there are no uncooked doughy bits, then take off the stove.

Keep warm by stacking them on top of each other on a plate or wrapping them in foil.

Variations
None. I made 12 for 3 of us (!) and heated the remaining ones the next day chopped in half in the toaster.

Verdict
The best breads I have ever made, apparently. This is going to become my default naan bread recipe.

Can we have a tag for breads? I could use baked goods but they're not baked.

Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic (or not)

[antisoppist]

Recipe 3

From Nigella Lawson's Kitchen: Recipes from the heart of the home

Ingredients
2x15ml tbsps olive oil
8 chicken thighs with skin on and bone in
6 spring onions
small bunch fresh thyme
40 cloves of garlic unpeeled
2 x 15 ml tbsps dry white vermouth or white wine
1 1/2 tsp sea salt flakes or 1/4 tsp pouring salt
good grinding pepper

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Heat the oil on the hob in a wide, shallow ovenproof and flameproof casserole (that will ultimately fit all the chicken in one layer and has a lid) and sear the chicken on a high heat, skin side down. Transfer pieces to a bowl as you go.
Finely slice the spring onion, put them in the casserole and quickly stir fry them with the leaves from a few sprigs of thyme.
Put 20 of the cloves of garlic into the casserole. Top with the chicken pieces, skin-side up, then cover with the remaining cloves of garlic.
Add the vermouth or wine to any oily chickeny bits in the bowl and pour this into the casserole
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and add more thyme, Put on the lid and cook in the oven for 1 1/2 hours.

Variations
I had a pack of 3 thighs and 4 drumsticks so I used all of those. Didn't have any thyme so left it out. Considered bay leaves and rosemary instead as I have those but didn't in in the end. Only had 15 cloves of garlic and peeled them before I realised you weren't supposed to.

Verdict
Would eat again. I found myself thinking "yes but it would be even nicer with a bit of bacon and some onion and some cream and maybe some mushrooms and more of a sauce" but then I realised that would be coq au vin and that's an entirely different recipe and one my children won't eat because Sauce/Sauce With Bits In. We ate it with pasta (because after unnecessarily peeling 14 cloves of garlic I couldn't face peeling potatoes) and peas and broccoli. A nice way of cooking chicken pieces in a way  that makes them taste of something. I'll add stock to the remains with de-boned bits of meat from the three drumsticks we didn't eat and turn that into a garlicky chicken soup, as recommended by Nigella.

Cachapas - Venezuelan fresh corn pancakes

[fred_mouse]

I've had the tab for this open for Quite Some Time (since mid/late 2020, when we discovered the existence of these tasty tasty treats), but finally got it together to try tonight. We did not do a great job, and have concluded that doing this on a sheet BBQ (so one can do a whole batch at once) would be great. Otherwise, too fiddly to count as a quick meal, even if the mixing and individual cook times are short.

Link to recipe: https://www.whats4eats.com/breads/cachapas-recipe

We used frozen corn, which was still cold when we started, and I don't think that helped. The description of 'thick as heavy cream' had us scratching our heads. Youngest thinks we added too much water (they didn't hold together well), I'm not so sure. And blend until 'still a little chunky' wasn't helpful either (not entirely sure we shouldn't have kept going).

Mod: could I please have a tag for gluten-free.

Sweet Potato Kale Frittata

[spiralicious]

recipe is from Good Housekeeping.

Ingredients
6 large eggs
1 cup half and half
1 teaspoon kosher salt (I used regular salt)
½ teaspoon ground pepper
2 cups sweet potato (since it doesn't say how it wanted the sweet potato, I peeled and cubed it)
1 tablespoons olive oil (I used vegetable oil)
2 cups firmly packed chopped kale (I couldn't get kale, so I subbed in spinach)
½ small red onion
2 cloves garlic (again, it didn't say, so I minced them)
3oz goat cheese (The only size of goat cheese available was 4oz, so I used that. It seems like a small difference, but it's actually a lot of cheese)

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk together eggs and next three ingredients.

2) Saute sweet potatoes in 1 tablespoon hot oil in a 10 inch oven proof nonstick skillet (I had no such thing and used a cast iron skillet) over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender and golden; remove and keep warm. Saute kale and next two ingredients in remaining 1 tablespoon oil 3 to 4 minutes or until kale is wilted and tender; stir in potatoes. Pour egg mixture evenly over vegetables, and cook 3 more minutes. Sprinkle egg mixture with goat cheese.

3) Bake at 350 degrees F, 10 to 14 minutes or until set

Verdict: Because of the cast iron skillet, the oil and cooking times had to be adjusted slightly, but it came out perfect. I did this because I need to batch cook breakfasts, if I want to eat when I get up. It was tasty, but after the first two days, I was really tired of it. The sweetness of the sweet potatoes combined with the goat cheese, just got to me. My mom loved it. For myself, I would probably not make it again, but since Mom liked it, I think we are going to be having it again.