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Chicken Maraq

Chicken Maraq recipe from Oman

Our fictional trip around The World for £4 or less took us to Oman last night. This was one of our favourite recipes so far, with a new ingredient for us - Black Limes! These are dry preserved Limes which I found in the local Halal Continental shop. We only actually needed 2 but ended up with 500g. I can see these sneaking into all sorts of dishes. They really pack a citrus punch!
 
Ingredients:-
 
½ a small Chicken cut into portions – Drummer, thigh, wing, breast cubed etc.
A large knob of Butter or Margarine
1 Onion, chopped
2 cloves of Garlic, minced
Omani Spices (See below)
¼ of a tube of Tomato Paste
3 large Tomatoes, chopped
2 Black Limes, cut in half
1250 ml of Chicken Stock (We had our own in the fridge from the Chicken carcass Sue rended down a while ago – But Stock cubes are cool)
3 medium Potatoes, peeled and cubed
 
Omani Spices 
 
Ingredients:-
 
1 handful of chopped Coriander
Cumin
Cinamon
Black Pepper
Cloves
Turmeric
½ tsp of each dried ingredient.
 
Method:-
 
(1) Fry the Onion in the Butter / Margarine until golden and softened.
(2) Add the Chicken pieces and cook for a further 5 minutes.
(3) Add the Garlic, Omani Spices, Tomato Paste, chopped Tomatoes and Black Limes.
(4) Add the Chicken Stock and stir for 2 minutes.
(5) Add more water if the sauce seem too thick, but you are aiming for quite a thick sauce.
(6) Bring to the boil them simmer for 15 minutes.
(7) Add the Potato and simmer for a further 20 minutes until the Potato is softened but not breaking down.
 
We enjoyed ours with hand made Gluten free flat breads (Recipe Here), Turmeric Rice and a sprinkling of chopped Coriander to add a bit of colour. 
 

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DIY Cress

Yes it's very old fashioned and probably not really worth eating.

But they are charging £1 in the local supermarket for a small black punnet!!!!

We bought three packs of seeds for £1 from a well know discount store on Foss Islands Road in York (It might be called M&B?) The Coriander and Parslry are doing fine on our little balcony in boxes. But the star of the show has been the Radishes. They germinate within a day and grow incredibly fast.

So we had 3/4 of a packet of seeds left. We popped a bit of kitchen paper in a pot and now we have lots of little friends to eat!

 

Polenta Pie

 

It’s the last of our last of our "Around The World for £4 or Less" recipes. So we’ve been to Zambia. This is not quite the recipe we expected, but we couldn’t find Crocodile meat locally within budget!

Ingredients:-

300g Polenta
350ml of Stock
100g Margarine
1 large Onion, sliced
1 clove of Garlic, minced
225g cooked minced Beef,  mixed vegetables (Other options in the recipe were cubed Chicken, Lentils etc.)
1 tbsp on Flour
A Handful of chopped fresh Coriander
½ tsp dried Basil
Juice of a Lemon
Salt and Pepper
Oil

Method:-

(1) Add the Stock to 350ml of water and bring to the boil.
(2) In a bowl add a little of the Stock at a time to the Polenta and stir or whisk making sure there are no lumps.
(3) Reserve a little of the Stock.
(4) Return the Polenta to a pan and let it sit to absorb the liquid.
(5) Prepare and chop the vegetables into bite sized pieces.
(6) Fry the Onions and Garlic with a little Oil and Margarine.
(7) Add the meat and fry until browned.
(8) Add the vegetables and fry until they still have a little bite. We used Potatoes Swede Carrots and Peas.
(9) Add the remaining Stock, Flour, chopped Coriander, dried Basil, and Lemon Juice.
(10) Season with Salt & Pepper and simmer gently.
(11) Grease an oven proof dish and add 2/3 of the Polenta to the bottom and bake for 10 minutes at 180c
(12) Above this add the vegetable and meat mix.
(13) Add the remaining Polenta and run a fork on the top into lines.
(14) Return to the oven and bake for 30 minutes at 180c.

We served ours with a Gluten free Bread crumbed vegetable tray bake.

 

Pork Cherry sauce & Tray Roasted Veg

It’s Prunus season. That’s Cherries first and then Plums for those who can’t be bothered with Latin names! Boneless Belly Pork at £2.19 didn’t look too promising in it’s wrapper. But it worked out really well!

Ingredients for the Tray Roast:-

Carrots
Red Onion
Mushrooms
Garlic
Plumbs
Cabbage
Chillies
Black Lime & 1/2 the juice of a Lemon
Oil
Salt & Pepper

Method:-

(1) Shake it all up with the Oil, Salt & Pepper
(2) Put it in a tray in the oven at 180C
(3) Watch some TV or have a glass of wine (We didn’t do either as we have no TV or wine!)
(4) Turn so that everything roasts evenly
(5) Serve!

Ingredients for the Cherry Sauce:-

Cherries
Soy Sauce
Cornflour
Juice of ½ a Lemon

Method:-

(1) Place everything excluding the Lemon Juice in a sauce pan and boil.
(2) Once the Cherries have softened take the sauce off the heat and press through a sieve.
(3) Add the Lemon juice and bring back to a simmer.

Belly Pork:-

Score with a knife, rub with Oil, Salt & Pepper and roast at 180C until the crackling is crispy. I’m pretty sure nobody needs in-depth instruction here!

We demolished ours we a few boiled Garlic Spuds for a change and the whole thing was really taste. Sorry about the very casual approach today, but this is a really easy, quick and tasty recipe you can do while you’re fighting with you printer, washing machine or children!

 

Leftovers Soup!


We have a confession to make…. We often cook far too many vegetables and also end up with bits of leftover meat. Most folk would throw these in the bin, but we’re a bit tight like that. So it all ends up in the freezer in boxes. But the freezer is not a bottomless pit.

So yesterday we had a “Soup Making Day” Nothing goes to waste here. I can’t give you exact ingredients for this soup but basically you’ll need the following.

Ingredients:-

Vegetables and meat leftovers from the freezer
2 Stock cubes
1 Wuzzer ( We got ours as a freebie via Amazon when we switched energy suppliers) – That’s a food processor to most folk.

Method:-

(1) Thaw everything you have stored in boxes.
(2) Boil 2 Stock cubes in 500ml of water.
(3) Blitz everything apart from the stock.
(4) Place in a large pan and add enough stock to make a reasonable soup liquidity.
(5) Bring to boil.
(6) If you are not going to eat today allow to cool and freeze in portions.

We have a few verbs and bits an bobs which we are growing in tubs on our balcony, so I dressed the soups up with those, a Gluten free cracker and a bit of grated Cheese. Looks good, tastes better!

Slow roast Pork Leg



In the local Supermarket they had an offer on boned out Pork Leg earlier in the week. “Was £9.10 now £4.55” Not to be sniffed at. But far too big for us to eat in one sitting. So I butchered it into three more manageable sized pieces and froze two of them. This was the result of one of the frozen pieces and we still have a good half of this cooked in the fridge. So potentially six servings from the one joint.

Ingredients for the roast:-

Oil
Chilli flakes
Salt and Pepper
Dried Sage
2 fresh Rosemary sprigs

Method:-

(1) Rub the above ingredients excluding the Rosemary into the outside of the meat.
(2) stab the joint with a sharp knife and insert the Rosemary into the holes
(3) Foil and roast at 170C for about an hour.
(4) If the joint hasn’t been frozen take the foil off and turn up to 190C for the last 20 minutes to crackle the skin.
(5) Remove the Rosemary before carving and allow the joint to rest.

We served ours with Gluten free Yorkshire puddings, Roast Potatoes, Cabbage, Carrots and Peas.

The gravy was a stock cube, Corn Flour and the meat juices.

 

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