Provencal chickpea salad

Another very simply but also spectacularly good and healthy salad.

Basic idea is mix together some chickpeas, fresh parsley, raw red and green bell peppers (other colors OK of course and maybe a little more sweet), medium tomatoes with all the pieces chopped up to about the same size as the chickpeas. Then dress the salad with a dressing with red wine vinegar, lots of lemon juice, minced garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper.

Ingredients

For four to six, but sounds a bit much even for a dedicated chick pea fan.

• 1 500g of chickpeas (dry?!)
• half a cup of parsley
• 1 small red bell pepper
• 1 small green bell pepper - colour contrast is probably good but I used one large pepper in the end
• 2 medium tomatoes diced
• 3 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar - seemed to go well despite one expecting white wine vinegar
• 1-3 garlic cloves
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Method

Mix all together! Salad can be made quite a bit in advance as well. From location 3331 Mediterranean Harvest.

Notes

Dish was certainly better with freshly cooked chickpeas rather than canned ones, but this was also really simple despite using chickpeas that had been hanging around for a fair old while. Simply soak in advance for a decent amount of time or overnight, then boil and strain! Tasted fine.

I would tend to use more parsley, tomatoes and only one pepper at the end of the day

Chicken with bulgur, tomatoes, peppers and tarragon

This is the best dish made so far in this little exercise. The basic idea is to brown some onion for a little flavor, then saute the chicken to again brown and add some flavor and cook the sauted chicken with tarragon, diced red and yellow peppers, tomato and some chicken stock and then to soak up the cooked juices by adding some bulgar wheat.


This worked fine with three large pieces of chicken thigh. The original recipe calls for longer peppers or also spicy jalapenos but really they did not seem necessary.

• Salt the chicken at least 15 mins before cooking and make sure at room temperature.


• chop up the tomatoes and cook for a while until brown



• start to saute the chicken in butter - normal way. Make sure to remove all the onion from the pan so that you don't end up with bits of blackened burnt onion when you saute the chicken!


• saute the chicken until brown both sides - you dont have to cook right through as you are going to cook in the stock for thirty mins plus


• once the chicken is done, add the peppers and tarragon and stir for one minute- quite a lot of fresh tarragon


• stir in tomatoes and then add the onion - you can now generate some juice to cook in


• add salt and pepper


• simmer for twenty minutes covered - you want to keep covered as the bulgar will absorb the liquid at the end


• take out the chicken


• add in the bulgar and stir with the other vegetables to start absorbing the liquid


• heat up the stock and add - including boiling for a minute to get the bulgar to absorb the liquid I presume


• add back the chicken and then cover and simmer again for fifteen minutes or so. If using chicken breasts keep out at this point - they probably get too dry


• serve!

Ingredients

• onion chopped


• butter


• chicken pieces


• two diced peppers - yellow and red work well


• tarragon


• two plus peeled, chopped tomatoes


• salt and pepper


• chicken stock cubes - or make yourself


• bulgar wheat

Zucchini with tomato, pancetta

This is really a variation of the classic zucchini with tomato recipe - basically adding some pancetta and onion for some extra flavor.

Cut zucchini into 14 inch slices, toss with salt and drain; heat olive oil in dish; add bacon or pancetta cut into small pieces plus onion diced until tender; add tomatoes peeled, seeded and diced cook until start to break down; add zucchini and cook until tender; season with pepper, chopped parsley and chopped basil

1. zucchini
2. salt
3. tomatoes - peeled, seeded and chopped
4. pancetta
5. onion, diced
6. chopped parsley

Good for using up

• pancetta

Moroccan carrot salad

Very simple but really ideal recipe in terms of exotic flavour, using up the coriander and healthy eating with the carrots

.

Basic idea is to cook carrots until OK for a salad, then leave to marinade with some spices - cumin, coriander and fresh ginger - before adding a vinaigrette with lime, olive oil and some salt.

Ingredients

1. 4 carrots
2. half a teaspoon of cummin
3. half a teaspoon of coriander - doesnt really sound enough
4. one inch piece of ginger grated
5. pinch of cayenne
6. juice of half a lime
7. 2 tablespoons of olive oil
8. 2 tablespoons of coriander
9. salt

Cut carrot into batons 2inches long and 1/4 inch square; cook in boiling water until almost tender but still crisp; season with salt; mix 1/4 teaspoon cumin and coriander toasted and ground; add 1inch of fresh ginger peeled and grated and spread over the carrots and leave to marinade; whisk juice of half a lime, extra virgin olive oil and chopped coriander or parsley, pour over.

Sauté chicken with mushrooms

This worked brilliantly well if you make sure you keep to the points below...

• Make sure the chicken is at room temperature before starting to saute.
• Salt the chicken thoroughly before cooking. At least 15 minutes at room temperature. A day before if you are going to keep in the fridge.
• Cook non-skin side down first briefly until it colors over, then turn over to start to saute on the other side.
• While cooking spoon over the fat on to the non skin side so that it keeps moist and cooks at the same time. You have to carry on doing this for quite a while. The chicken should run with clear juice once cooked when pierced.
• Don't try and cook too much in the pan in the same time. You probably need two batches for four people.
• Once cooked to a nice crisp brown on the skin side then drain off the fat, turn over and briefly seal the other side
• In this dish, good to keep the chicken warm while cooking the mushrooms.

For the mushrooms, heat up some butter until frothing and quiet then add some mixed mushrooms. Heat fairly strongly until water comes out and then add finely chopped shallots and salt and cook for a short while and then return the sauted chicken in order to heat up again. Add the parsley and then stop the heat.

Finally add the special ingredient - take garlic and ground down well (for example, using the Japanese ginger grater, and mix with olive oil. Then pour over the chicken and serve straightaway.

French beans dressed with Parmesan

Very simple! Boil greens in salted water (to help keep the color) for a few minutes until tender. Drain, heat butter until frothy and then saute. Add grated parmesan at the end.

Leek with red vinegar, anchovy dressing

Very simple. Cook the leeks in boiling water a few minutes until soft, drain and try and squeeze out any excess water.

Pour over a vinaigrette made of 1 part red wine vinegar to three to four parts olive oil. Add salt to the vinegar and taste to carefully check the balance before adding olive oil. Add a couple of anchovies on top.