Roast vegetables

Tags

broccolini, butter, corn, oven roast, roast vegetables, sweet corn, truffle oil, young corn

 

I suppose this isn’t so much a recipe, more of what works for me when it comes to sweet corn, young carrots and broccolini. An oven temperature of 200-205 degrees celsius is recommended for these vegetables, and a short cook time of 15 minutes in the oven (sweet corn has to be steamed 5 minutes beforehand).

A lot of recipes that I read require the vegetables to be in the oven for 45 minutes, but these vegetables would overcook and turn mushy. 15 minutes is perfect for them to retain some of their original crunch.

Carrots, trim the leaves off and use a small knife to scrape the surface of the carrot to clean. Rinse and pat dry. They’ll look like this after you’re done!
Cut up the corn into three sections and place into a steamer for 5 minutes. Pat dry.
Wash and pat dry the broccolini.

As I’ve repeatedly mentioned throughout this post, always make sure the vegetables are dry before seasoning and roasting. No one likes mushy vegetables!

To season:-

• Sweet corn:- 2 tsp truffle oil per ear of corn and dash of salt rubbed into the corn
• Young carrots:- enough olive oil to evenly coat a very thin layer of oil onto the carrots. Season with salt and sprinkle on some sugar (I tried honey, it didn’t work out too well)
• Broccolini:- again, very thinly dressed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Lay out the vegetables on an aluminium foiled sheet tray and roast for 15 minutes at 200-205 degrees celsius.

Place the vegetables on a serving plate and brush the corn with some butter before serving.

This is a tray of roast vegetables which were cooked differently, also at 200 degrees celsiuse but for 45 minutes. Seasoned with olive oil (I suspect I didn’t add enough oil), salt, pepper and garlic powder. Not bad actually. I tried to keep the vegetables the same size as much as possible so they’d cook at the same pace. Will try this again with more oil!

Creamy mashed potatoes (pomme purée)

Tags

butter, cream, french style mash, mash, mashed potatoes, pomme puree, potato ricer, ricer, roast, sides, sieve

Yes I know, there could’ve been a better picture of it. I should have done it justice and posted something that represents the texture and creaminess of it all.

As it stands, I’ll just post the recipe for it so someone else can have a go and take food magazine worthy photos of this decadent side dish.

So here goes:-

Ingredients (Serves 6-8)

• 2kg Yukon Gold potatoes (washed and scrubbed)
• 2 cups heavy cream or more just in case you like it creamier
• 450g salted butter
• salt and white pepper to taste
• You will also need a ricer for this recipe

Place the potatoes in boiling water and reduce the heat to medium low. Cover and cook until tender (1/2 to 1 hour).

Drain and cool the potatoes.  Peel the skin off.  Pass the potatoes through a ricer.
This is a new toy of mine. It ensures that the mashed potatoes stay fluffy and airy since you don’t have to mash it do death by hand, and therefore it also keeps the potatoes from getting gummy.
Potatoes all pressed through the ricer!  Pour the cream into a sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Slowly mix/whisk in the butter until sauce is emulsified. I actually used more cream than what is stated in this recipe.
Then stir in the potatoes, and season with salt and pepper. Eyeball the creaminess and add more cream if you wish.

After which, I sieved the entire pot of mashed potatoes. And the result? The fluffiest, creamiest mash ever!
  

❤

Chicken gravy for roast chicken (without drippings)

Tags

bay leaf, celery, chicken bits, chicken flavour, chicken gravy, chicken stock, chicken wings, drippings, onion, pan drippings

The title is a lie, you DO need drippings for a good gravy, but it doesn’t have to come from the actual roast that you make on the day itself.  This gravy can be prepared beforehand in preparation for the big roast dinner. I think doing it this way is better than taking the drippings from the actual roast on the day itself for three reasons. 1) You’d have to roast the chicken long enough for brown bits to stick to and accumulate at the bottom, resulting in an overcooked/dry roast. 2) Without those brown bits, your gravy wouldn’t have that tasty chicken flavour to it. I roasted my chicken to tender perfection, but I failed to get any delicious tasting gravy from the drippings in the pan. 3) It is a pain making gravy from scratch, so making more at one time wouldn’t hurt. Thus, in my amateurish opinion, do make the gravy beforehand. Ingredients

• 3 pounds chicken wings (and chicken giblet/neck/bones if you have them)
• 2.5 cups of stock
• Dash of white wine (optional)
• Salt and pepper
• 1-2 tbsp flour (depending how thick you like your gravy)

Ingredients for the chicken stock 

• 1 large white onion sliced into half
• 1-2 sticks of celery, chopped into large pieces
• 1 bay leaf
• 2-3 chicken thighs and bones

First, you’ll need to make chicken stock if you didn’t have it already. Boil some water in a pot and lower the chicken into it and simmer for 3-5 minutes to get rid of the blood and impurities in the chicken parts. Drain the chicken, and add the onions, celery and bay leaf. Add enough water to cover the chicken. Turn up the heat to medium and leave this to simmer for about an hour or so, until the liquid has reduced to about half or slightly more. Season with salt and pepper and taste. It should by this time have that delicious chicken flavour infused with the sweetness of the celery and onions. Cover and set aside.Season the chicken wings generously with salt and pepper and place in a cast iron pan/roasting pan.Roast the chicken wings on high heat at 215 degrees celsius in the oven for about 1-1.5 hours until they turn brown (and those delicious brown bits have started sticking to the pan).  Remove chicken wings (you can enjoy them on its own while you prepare the gravy)  Place the pan with the drippings onto the stove on medium high heat and deglaze with a little white wine, and a cup of the stock. Scrape the pan to get all the brown bits off the pan and into the stock. Reduce the liquid to about half (I always eyeball it, I know, that’s really bad of me).  As for the remaining stock, add the flour to it and mix it in well and good while the stock is cool. This will ensure that there are no flour lumps in your gravy). Pour the remaining stock and flour mixture into the pan with the drippings and stir until the gravy has thickened. This would probably take a few minutes.Strain the gravy with a sieve and that’s it! Good to go. As you can see, my gravy is on the thin side, might need to add more flour as I added less than a tablespoon to it.