Bok Choy (or Pak Choy) with Oyster Sauce

Following a BBC Good Food recipe for Chinese Style Braised Beef One Pot, I decided to improve upon plain steamed bok choy as an accompaniment and google a suitable sauce.  Unsurprisingly, there are many out there, and this is what I cobbled together.

Serves 2 as a side dish

2 heads of bok choy, quartered lengthways and sliced if very large
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (original recipe listed rice vinegar and sugar, so not having rice vinegar I thought balsamic vinegar would be a good compromise)
3 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
Pinch of chilli (optional)

Prepare all the ingredients, and mix all the wet ingredients together apart from the oil.

Heat a frying pan.  When hot add the oil, add the garlic, stir once then add the bok choy and stir fry for a couple of minutes.  Add a couple of tablespoons of water to help soften the stalk of the bok choy.  Once soft remove from the heat to a warmed serving dish.  Pour over the mixed sauce ingredients and serve.

Broccoli, cabbage, kale, spring greens etc could also be prepared in this way to liven them up a little.

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Slow Cooker Chinese Style Beef Stew

Trying to ring the changes with slow cooker stews I thought I'd go for a Chinese style stew.

I pretty much followed the BBC Good Food's recipe Chinese-style Braised Beef One Pot and infact had to cook it in the oven as I left too little time to stew it in the slow cooker.  I will try it another time in the slow cooker but would leave it on High for 6-8 hours to melt the sinewy beef.

I also prepared Bok Choy in Oyster Sauce, rather than the plain steamed bok choy BBC Good Food suggested.  Broccoli, cabbage, kale, spring greens etc could also be prepared in this way to liven them up a little.

My annotated recipe is below, for when I need to repeat it

3-4 tbsp olive oil (I used sunflower)
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Good thumb-size piece of fresh root ginger, peeled & shredded (I never peel ginger, just chop it finely or grate it)
1 bunch spring onions, sliced (I didn't have spring onions so sent my son out to find as many wild chives as he could in the local park)
1 red chilli, deseeded and thinly sliced (Didn't have a fresh one so added 1/4 tsp of hot chilli flakes)
1½ kg braising beef (I used diced shin of beef .  I only bought 1kg based on 200g per person and this was plenty for a family of 5)
2 tbsp plain flour, well seasoned
1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
2 star anise (optional)
2 tsp light muscovado sugar (Used sweet soy Kecap Manis so did  not add any extra sugar)
3 tbsp Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry
3 tbsp dark soy sauce, plus more to serve
500ml beef stock (1 beef stock cube dissolved into 500ml boiling water)

Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a large, shallow casserole. Fry the garlic, ginger, onions and chilli for 3 mins until soft and fragrant. Tip onto a plate. Toss the beef in the flour, add 1 tbsp more oil to the pan, then brown the meat in batches, adding the final tbsp oil if you need to. It should take about 5 mins to brown each batch properly.

Add the five-spice and star anise (if using) to the pan, tip in the gingery mix, then fry for 1 min until the spices are fragrant. Add the sugar, then the beef and stir until combined. Keep the heat high, then splash in the wine or sherry, scraping up any meaty bits. Heat oven to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2.

Pour in the soy and stock (it won’t cover the meat completely), bring to a simmer, then tightly cover, transfer to the oven and cook for 1½-2 hrs, stirring the meat halfway through. The meat should be very soft, and any sinewy bits should have melted away. Season with more soy. This can now be chilled and frozen for up to 1 month.

I would add the stew to the slow cooker at the stage it is added to the oven above.  I'll update this when I have put my words into practise!

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Vegetarian/Vegan Hungarian Goulash

I'm not a vegetarian, but I do try to make a vegetarian or vegan main meal a couple of times a week, and tonight when bulking up a leftover roast pork Hungarian Goulash with some butternut squash I realised the butternut squash would work pretty well on it's own in this dish.

Serves 4

Half a large butternut squash, cubed
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp caraway seeds
A large red pepper, chopped (I blended mine with the tomatoes because my kids say they don't like it if they spot it)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
Leaves from a small bunch of fresh marjoram or oregano (optional, but i have so much growing wild in my garden I was pleased to have a recipe to use it in!)
1-2 fresh red chillies, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 vegetable stock cube, crumbled

Fry the onions in a casserole dish over a medium heat until they start to brown.  Add the garlic, red pepper, and chilli peppers and fry for another few minutes.  Add caraway seeds, marjoram or oregano, and butternut squash and stir, then add tomatoes, paprika, vegetable stock cube, vinegar and pepper & salt.  Top up with hot water (about a can) to cover the squash.  Bring to the boil, put the lid on and simmer for 30-40 minutes or until the squash is tender.

Serve with basmati rice and a dollop of sour cream if you have any.

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Frankfurter Rice

Frankfurter rice is old student favourite, taught to me by the mother of my first boyfriend who left us lovingly handwritten recipes fearing we were going to starve when left to housesit for a week.

It is  it is a dish I probably haven't cooked in 15 years, as my tastes and income moved on. However, on Sunday Daddy appeared back from Mini Rugby with a warm aluminium foil bundle containing over 20 long hotdogs leftover from the post match feeding frenzy. And, in a true waste not want not approach of my parents generation, I duly divided them up into meal sized quantities and froze them, leaving an odd number  to try frankfurter rice on the kids.

Serves a greedy 4

1 pack or tin of hot dogs (about 5)
1.5 mugs basmati rice
1 mug frozen sweetcorn
1 large onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
2 tsp ground cumin
1 chicken stock cube

Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic.  Gently fry in the oil in a large saucepan whilst you slice the frankfurters into small rounds and add this to the onion and garlic when it starts to brown.  Stir in the cumin and leave to fry for a minute also before adding the sweetcorn, rice, crumbled stock cube, and 1 3/4 mugs of boiling water (1.5 times the volume of rice).

Bring to the boil and simmer with the lid on for 10 minutes, then turn the heat off and simmer with out lifting the lid for another 10 minutes. This 'traditionally' is served in our house with chilli sauce.

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Vegetarian Two Lentil Lasagne

Thought I'd try a lentil and soy mince lasagne tonight for meatless Monday.  I based the sauce on Jamie Oliver's Veggie con Chilli.  The kids were surprised to learn it didn't have meat in and it went down a treat so will be repeated...

Serves a hearty 4

Ragu Sauce 
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 large stick of celery, finely diced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 glass of red wine
75g soya mince (optional - top the green lentils up to 125g if not using soya mince)
75g green lentils
125g red lentils
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 vegetable stock cube, crumbled
A small sprig of rosemary (optional)

White Sauce
600ml whole milk
2 heaped dessertspoons plain flour
1 large knob of butter
A pinch of ground nutmeg
Salt & pepper to season

12 sheets of lasagna
Strong cheddar cheese or parmesan

Pour the red wine over the soya mince whilst you prepare the vegetables.

Sweat the onion, carrot, & celery in a large saucepan together with the olive oil.  Once the onion begins to look a bit translucent add the garlic, stir round then add the tomato paste, stir round again then add the rest of the ragu ingredients plus 2 tins of recently boiled water.  Bring to the boil then simmer for 30 minutes.  Don't worry if it looks very watery at this stage, the lentils will absorb a lot of moisture, and you want a sloppy mix to ensure the lasagne sheets cook.

Whilst the ragu sauce is cooking, start the white sauce.  Put all the white sauce ingredients into a non stick sauce pan and heat gently, whisk with a balloon whisk to mix the flour in well.  As the mixture heats up it will start to thicken. Turn the heat down to low at this point and change to a wooden spoon and stir continuously to stop the sauce sticking to the bottom of the pan. Once the sauce starts trying to bubble turn off the heat and leave with a lid on (to stop a skin forming) until you are ready to assemble the lasagne.

I, or should I say my kids and partner, like/ a lot of pasta in their lasagne.  So when I come to assembling I put take one large ladle full of ragu and spread this over the bottom of the lasagne dish, then dribble over a ladleful of white sauce then a layer of dried lasagne sheets, and repeat, aiming to end up with as many layers of pasta as I can, ending with the final layer of ragu topped with a bit more than a ladle of white sauce to pretty much cover the ragu.  Grate over some cheddar or parmesan and bake at 190C for 45 minutes.

Traditionally in the UK this seems to be served with garlic bread, which in our house invariably ends up as garlic toast (mash garlic into some butter and spread on hot toast), and a green salad.  But as this vegetarian version was so jam packed with pasta and vegetables I didn't bother with either!

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Bengali Spring Greens with Mustard

A surfeit of spring greens led me to create/stumble upon this recipe.  I found quite a few Indian recipes for spring greens but had a mustardy taste in mind.

Serves 1-2
1 head of spring greens, washed and sliced
1 large clove of garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp English Mustard
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1/8th tsp chilli flakes (optional)
Salt to taste

Heat the oil in a high sided frying pan and add the mustard seeds.  Once they begin to pop, add the spring greens and stir fry over the medium high heat until the greens begin to wilt.  Add the garlic and turn the heat down to medium.  Add a couple of tablespoons of water to the English mustard to thin it and pour over the greens together with the chilli and a pinch of salt.  Put a lid on the pan for a minute or so for the mustardy sauce to heat up. Serve as an accompaniment.

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Bircher Muesli

Bircher Muesli seems all the rage right now, and after a few days of illness I thought I'd try out this supposedly healthy option.

I googled a few recipes and then, as ever, came up with a few short cuts

Serves 1
30g no added sugar fruit & nut muesli (internet recipes generally said use oats then add dried fruit & nuts, but the supermarket's own muesli has it all!)
6tbsp apple juice (this ended up far too sweet in my opinion and I would use milk, or even water in future)
1 eating apple, grated
1 dessertspoon greek yoghurt with honey (most recipes say plain yoghurt + honey, and I just happened to have this in the fridge for the kids)

I believe the original recipe soaked the muesli in the apple juice (or liquid of your choice) overnight.  I forgot so soaked it for about 45 minutes on the kitchen counter whilst I got my disabled daughter dressed, out of bed, and ready for her school bus. Other more modern food writers say as little as 10 minutes soaking is all that is required.

When ready to eat, grate the apple and stir in the yoghurt and tuck in.

My verdict: This is not a quick breakfast.  You have to remember to soak the muesli for as long as takes your fancy/schedule.  Grating an apple also adds a little more time. And after all that I found it rather too sickly sweet.

I would soak my muesli again - it plumped the fruit up nicely - but I am more likely to soak it in milk as I get my kids ready for school and eat it later when the chaos subsides. And then pick up an apple from the fruit bowl and eat that as I head out.

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Slow Cooker Venison Shanks with Cannellini Beans

I think the butcher's must have been clearing out their fridges in the build up to Christmas, as I picked up some cheap steaks, and venison shanks.

The word 'shanks' makes me think of lamb shanks, and it is thus that I have treated them.  I only have 4 shanks for five of us so have added cannellini beans to bulk up the dish.  They are still blipping away in the slow cooker, but I imagine I'll serve them with mashed potato and steamed greens (which the kids will pull faces at and won't eat, but at least some beans will have slipped into them unnoticed).

Serves 4
4 lamb or venison shanks
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 glass of red wine
1 carton of passata or a tin of chopped tomatoes
1 beef stock cube
1 glass of hot water
2 bay leaves
8-10 juniper berries (if using venison)

Brown the lamb shanks in a high sided frying pan in the olive oil.  Once browned, place in the warming slow cooker.  Fry the onions in the same pan until they begin to brown.  Add the garlic, juniper berries, bay leaves, and crumbled stock cube and stir around then add the glass of wine and bring to the boil.  Once the wine is boiling, scrape any meat off the bottom of the pan and pour this over the shanks in the slow cooker.  Add the passata to the frying pan and heat up until steaming.  Add this to the slow cooker and top up with boiling water so that the shanks are just about covered in liquid.  Stir best you can then put the lid on and cook on High for 6-8 hours or the meat is falling off the bone.

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Easy Slow Cooker Chicken or Lamb Tagine

Seem to have been making a lot of slow cooker tagines recently.  Maybe that's because I've had no kitchen to speak of.  There are a million tagine variations, but this is now my go-to recipe for either chicken or lamb.

Serves 4

8 chicken thighs or 500g cubed lamb
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp smoked paprika
10 dried apricots, cubed (or dates, if using lamb)
2 tsp honey
400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin boiling water
1 tin chickpeas
1 chicken stock cube
2 tsp dried mint

Fry the chicken thighs in the olive oil.  Once brown, place into the slow cooker warming on high, leaving the oil in the frying pan.

Fry the onion and garlic in the oil left in the pan for about 5 minutes.  Add the cinnamon, cumin and ginger and continue frying for another 5 minutes or the onion starts to brown or catch.  Add the rest of the ingredients and heat until simmering.

Pour over the chicken in the slow cooker and leave to cook on High for 6-8 hours until the chicken is falling off the bone.

Serve with couscous or bulghur wheat.

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Dairy Free Courgette & Lime Cake

What to do with a courgette/marrow glut...continued.

I believe this is a Nigella Lawson recipe. which I found on someone else's blog.  I made it as an all in one recipe in the food processor as is my wont, rather than the more traditional cream and stir in method.  It is also supposed to be a sandwich cake, but I make 2 loaves and iced them in their lining paper to take to market.

250-300g courgette/marrow
125ml sunflower oil
150g sugar
225g self raising flour
2 eggs
1 heaped tsp baking powder
1 tbsp lime juice
50g raisins (optional)

Icing
2 tbsp lime juice
Icing sugar (about 20 heaped teaspoons)

Makes 2 small loaves/cakes (2lb loaf or 21cm round tins)

If using raisins, leave these to plump up in a little boiling water as you start making the cake.

Wash and roughly chop the courgette (I had to peel mine as it had grown tough like a pumpkin's as it was the size of a marrow).  Chop the courgette in the food processor to a fairly fine rubble.  Tip into your tin.

Cream the sugar, oil, and eggs in the food processor.  Don't worry if any bits of courgette are still in the bowl. Add the flour, lime juice (I used bottled lime juice from Aldi), and baking powder and mix again until smooth.

Add the courgette, and raisins if using, and quickly mix to incorporate.

Spoon and divide equally into 2 lined cake tins.  Bake at 180C for 30 minutes.

Mix the lime juice for the icing with enough icing sugar to make a cream like consistency, halfway between double and extra thick cream.  You want to be able to pour it on but not have it run off the cake like milk.

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Chorizo Stuffed Marrow

What to do with a courgette/marrow glut Part 5

No attempt to clear a courgette/marrow glut would be complete without Stuffed Marrow.  But in an attempt to make it palatable to the kids, I have wooed them with a chorizo flavoured stuffing from - an ever so slightly toned down version of River Cottage's Tupperware Chorizo to be exact.

Serves 6

1 oversized courgette/small marrow

1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1 tin chopped tomatoes

Chorizo
500g minced pork
1 tbsp sweet smoked paprika
1 tsp hot smoked paprika
1 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp fennel seeds
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
50ml red wine
Freshly ground black pepper

 Mix and squish the chorizo ingredients together thoroughly. Seal in a tupperware container and leave for 24 hours or more (it will keep for up to 2 weeks in the fridge) for the flavours to develop.

On the day you are cooking your stuffed marrow, wash and halve the marrow lengthways and scrape out the seeds.  Find a high sided baking tray they can fit snuggly in side by side cut side up.  Season the cavity and drizzle with olive oil.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion until it just starts to brown.  Add the chorizo mix and fry this until brown too.  Pour in the chopped tomatoes and half a can of water to make a sloppyish mixture.

Once the sauce is bubbling, turn off the heat and spoon into the marrow cavity.  Cover tightly with aluminum foil (it is the trapped steam that cooks the marrow) and bake for 30 minutes.  The recipe I followed said it should be ready after this time, but my overgrown yellow courgette was still solid at this stage.  I ended up baking it for an hour so factor this into your estimated dinner time!

I served it with bulghur wheat and it was announced the best way ever of having courgette!

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Creamy Courgette Pasta

I have returned from 3 weeks away to find 6 overgrown courgettes on my allotment.  This is the first of many recipes to tackle my 'courgette problem'.

I started off intending to make Jamie Oliver's Courgette Carbonara, but as ever had to improvise as I realised I had no bacon, ham or lardons, no cream, and no spare eggs.

Serves 4
4 medium courgettes, any colour
1 large clove of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
200g soft cheese
50g mature cheddar
400g dried pasta shapes

Wash, top and tail, and then grate the courgettes.  Using my overgrown courgette, I had to peel the harden skin off so my resulting sauce is a rather insipid colour.  Fry the grated courgette with the olive oil over a medium heat in a high sided saute pan until it is soft and almost transluscent, or sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Meanwhile cook the pasta according to the packet's instructions.

When the courgette is soft, add the soft cheese and melt and stir it into the courgette together with the garlic and plenty of black pepper.  Stir in the cheddar and leave on the lowest heat until the pasta is ready.

Drain the pasta, reserving about half a mug of the cooking water.  Pour the cooked pasta into the courgette sauce and stir the sauce through thoroughly, adding a little of the pasta water for a looser sauce if preferred.

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St Clements Marmalade with Elderflower

I'm not sure as I peer through the rain covered window whether any elderflowers are left out there, but if there are and you are making Elderflower Cordial I highly recommend making marmalade with the orange and lemon soaked with the elderflowers overnight.

Makes about 3x 450g jars
2 oranges
2 lemons
Sugar
Water

Remove the sliced oranges and lemons from the discarded elderflowers.  Don't worry if any odd elderflowers are attached to the slices, that is part of this marmalade's charm.  Finely shred the slices including the rind, ensuring you remove all the pips as this can make the marmalade unpleasantly bitter.

Once shredded, weigh the chopped mass.  Write this weight down then and add the same weight of water to a heavy bottomed pan and bring to the boil.  Simmer very gently with the lid off until the rind is soft enough to squash between your fingers.  My marmalade recipe says 2 hours but it is for Seville marmalade the rinds of which are apparently tougher than most citrus fruit.  I think it took about 30-60 minutes to be soft enough.

When you think the rind is soft enough add double the weight of the shredded fruit in sugar.  Stir to dissolve and bring to a rolling boil and keep it boiling for 10 minutes.  Test for set on a saucer that has been placed in the freezer.  The marmalade is set when about a teaspoon of marmalade wrinkles when cooled as you push the edge of it towards the middle.  Turn off the heat once the marmalade has reached setting point and leave for about 10 minutes before pouring into sterlised jars (see below).  The reason for leaving it to cool a little is to stop start the jam setting and stop all the rind floating to top.

How to sterilise jars:-  Soak the labels off in warm soapy water and clean thoroughly inside and out.  Drain then place into cold oven.  Heat the oven and jars to 150C.  The jars are sterilised once the oven reaches temperature.  I sterilise lids (both old and new) by simmering them in boiling water whilst the jars are sterilising in the oven.

Warming Spring Greens Soup with Paprika

It's the 20th June and I'm wearing a fleece.

It's not as cold outside as it looks, but I've got a sore throat, feel like I'm going down with something, and I've got a surfeit of spring greens.  I need soup.  Spring green soup.

This soup is loosely based on a Portuguese Kale & Potato Soup, Caldo Verde.

Serves 4 (makes 1.5l)

1 medium onion, peeled & roughly chopped
1 large clove of garlic, peeled & roughly chopped
1 medium carrot, roughly chopped
1 celery stalk, roughly chopped
1/2 a head of spring greens, roughly chopped (or cabbage)
1 medium potato, roughly chopped
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 tsp smoked paprika
1l recently boiled water

Place all the ingredients in a deep lidded saucepan.  Bring to the boil then simmer for 20 minutes.  Liquidise and tuck in!

Can't Be Bothered to Stir Fry Noodles

I needed to make a quick tea for the kids yesterday, in the midst of baking 14 loaves and a million other things for market day.

I couldn't be bothered with all the grating and fine chopping I do for the kids usual stir fry tea so I just boiled 2 noodle nests (for 3 kids) with half a mug of sweetcorn.  Once cooked I tossed the noodles in 1 tbsp sesame oil and stirred in a large handful of cooked chicken from a carcass, a couple of finely chopped spring onions, 2 tbsp ketchup, 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce.  I never heard any complaints.

Bottom of the Fridge Greens Soup

Storm Imogen is blowing in and it is most definitely soup weather.  To warm myself up with the front door wide open all day as we are having the hall and landing painted I have rustled up a soup to enjoy in a draughtfree corner.

As I remind my mother-in-law, who has just bought a soup maker, soup can pretty much be made with any vegetable however bendy!  Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall talks about the holy trinity of soup bases being onion, carrot, & celery.  I do aim for this, but at the end of the day it comes down to what I have left, and a handsized potato to stretch it all a little further.

Today's soup, with smokey paprika, is loosely based on a Portuguese Soup, Caldo Verde

1/4 cabbage
Broccoli stalks
1 large onion
1 large celery stick
1 large potato
1 large garlic clove
2 vegetable or chicken stock cubes
1 litre boiling water (or half milk for a creamier soup)
1tsp smoked paprika

Roughly chop all the vegetables and fry gently in the oil for a few minutes.  If using broccoli stalk, I find I need to quarter it length ways and cut out the softer inside otherwise the soup can be too fibrous.  Add the crumbled stock cubes, paprika, and top up with boiling water so the vegetables are covered by about 2cm of water.  Simmer for 20 minutes then blitz in a liquidiser or with a stick blender.

Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

I am trying to remember to use my slow cooker at least once a week, so here is last week's recipe.  This week's is still WIP.

Chicken Cacciatore or Italian Hunter's Chicken (as opposed to Chicken Chasseur which is French Hunter's Chicken!)

Serves 4
8 chicken thighs
1 tin chopped tomatoes
500ml red wine
4 anchovy fillets (optional)
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped or crushed
2 large bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
Handful black olives
1 tbsp olive oil

Turn the slow cooker on, with the lid on, to high to warm up.

Fry the chicken in the olive oil until lightly brown.  When brown, lift out leaving the oil in the frying pan and place in the slow cooker. 

Fry the garlic, bay leaves, rosemary and anchovies (if using) in pan you just fried the chicken in.  When the garlic begins to brown, add the tomatoes, olives and the red wine.  Bring to the boil then pour over the chicken. 

Poke the chicken under the liquid as much as you can, put the lid on and leave to cook for 5 hours on high.  Check for seasoning just before serving.  I guess this would probably be served with polenta in Italy, but I serve it with mashed potato, pasta, rice, garlic bread...

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Kipper Pate

Knocking up kipper pate for New Year's Day.  Sadly our overnight guests had to cancel first thing this morning as their young son is ill, so I'm making one portion for our family lunch tomorrow and one for the freezer.

1 pack boil in the bag kippers
125g soft cheese
1 medium garlic clove
Lemon zest (optional)

Boil the kippers according to the instructions on the packet.  The pack I bought did say microwave but this tends to dry them out too much in my opinion so I prefer to boil them.

When cooked/heated through (about 15 minutes) cut open the bag and tip into a food processor along with the soft cheese, garlic and lemon zest if using.  Puree, spoon into a pot, pop on a lid and place in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to chill.

Serve on toast or as a pasta sauce.  Beware that there are little flexible bones in kippers.  These are fine to be eaten but may put off fussy eaters.

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Turkey, Leek & Noodle Soup

First of the Christmas turkey leftover soups. 

1 small onion
2 leeks
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp olive oil
2 large handfuls cooked turkey, diced
100g broken tagliatelle
1.75 litres chicken or turkey stock

Peel, trim, and finely dice the onion, carrot, garlic and celery and fry gently whilst you clean and finely slice the leeks.  I used the food processor to finely chop everything.  Once you've added the leeks put a lid on the pan and sweat for 20 minutes, checking from time to time to make sure they are not sticking.  If they do, add a ladleful of stock and carry on steaming.

After about 20 minutes, when the leeks start to loose their raw onion smell and start to sweet instead, add the rest of the stock, turkey and noodles.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes until both the vegetables and pasta are tender.  Taste for seasoning as I was somewhat surprised that I had to add two chicken stock cubes to the turkey stock I was using to give it the right depth of flavour.

My Leftover Turkey Compilation

Picture may date from 2013 but I thought it worthwhile to trawl through my recipes and update a compilation of leftover turkey recipes as I need it every year!

In no particular order:-

• Turkey stock - same principle as chicken stock, you just might need a bigger pan!
• Turkey Minestrone
• Mulligatawny (Curried Vegetable & Meat Soup)
• Jamie Oliver's Sweet Leek & Turkey Pie - a warming winner every year
• Turkey, Mushroom & Sweetcorn Pie or Casserole - swap chicken for turkey 
• Turkey & Chipolata Cassoulet - substitute chicken for turkey
• Red or Green Thai Turkey Curry
• Turkey Chilli con Carne
• Wokless Turkey & Noodles - I would substitute 2 handfuls of chopped cooked turkey for the chicken in this recipe
• Christmas Turkey Noodle Soup
• Turkey Congee (Rice Soup/Porridge) - I made this with duck stock last year but turkey would work just as well
• Spicy Korean Turkey Rice Salad - a fitting end to turkey and cranberry sauce
• Veg Rich Toddler & Kids Curry - use Patak's curry paste with leftover turkey, carrots, sprouts etc 
• Turkey Vindaloo
• Turkey Korma - use cooked turkey instead of diced chicken
• Turkey Katsu Curry -  make the sauce for this curry by simmering the sauce ingredients for 2 minutes.  Add chopped turkey to heat through and then the cornflour to thicken. 
• Leftover Roast Chicken (or Turkey) with Chorizo & Butter Beans

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