Chilli Cabbage and Duck Salad

    

                                     

♬ 'Only By The Night' by Kings Of Leon

Finally! Another glorious salad worth making a video about, I might be ranting on about cavolo nero in this clip. The tangy bitter mother of cabbage deserves a lot of praise! Talking a lot more on these videos mean I am typing less which is great, this way you get to see my excitement instead of an exclamation mark at the end of every sentence! See what I mean.

I simply fried the cabbage lightly with a small green chilli, the duck was roasting while I was humming in the kitchen. I literally just had a call from a friend who said 'mate that tuna salad looks well good'. Which sounds great for pescetarians, so omit the duck from the above and flake over a can of tuna if you want.

Have a great weekend.xx

Song on video

ê 'Crawl'

Curry vol-au-vents

♬ 'The Suburbs' by Arcade Fire

Listen everyone I might have gone a bit crazy in this video, words are splurging out and sometimes I am stuck for words. I don't even think I made sense at the end! You will have to excuse this one, remember practise makes perfect! Which definitely reflects in my pastry making! My first attempt at puff pastry turned out fine, but I think I made the circles too wide and thin. Next time thicker rolling which will enable a higher rise vol-au-vent. Either way it turned out lovely!

I think for today's post I will refrain from typing up the pastry recipe, only until I have perfected it! The chicken and veg curry can be found here.

Since I am still left with a massive block of puff pastry, I'm thinking it's a pie night.

Until then see you soon!?

I'm really not sure what possessed me to say that at the end of the video. Someone fast forward to Friday already!

Favourite Song

ê 'The Suburbs'

Butternut Squash Salad

♬ 'Annie Mac Presents 2012' by Various Artists

Another video with my massive finger getting in the way, however this was done in less than half an hour which is a record for me! 

Right if you want to make this salad keep on reading, if it doesn't tickle your fancy - sorry! I'm working on other salad combinations and wanting to present them in a quirky Mita stylee this coming week.

Recipe for two hungry squash and bacon lovers:

Ingredients:

1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed or chopped in the same shape.

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

5 radishes

Small red pepper chopped.

150g bag of rocket, spinach and watercress.

Olive oil

Sea salt

3 thick rashers of unsmoked bacon.

Method:

: Preheat oven to 200°c, grease small tray and place chopped squash with rosemary leaves in a graceful way and season. I've whacked the heat up for the oven to perform it's magic a bit quicker for the squash. Place on the middle top shelf.

: Bake for 30 minutes until squash is tender.

: Fry bacon until slightly crispy then chop up and dry on kitchen roll.

: In a large salad bowl add chopped radishes, pepper, bag of leaves. Drizzle a bit of olive oil and mix with hands,

: Taste.

: Once squash is done add this to the bowl, also get the bacon involved.

: Serve with a burger, pie or eat on it's own.

Obviously this dish doesn't show off my crazy creative skills, purely because this salad is about combining flavours which are beautiful together, ingredients that people might not normally think go well together. Sometimes I refuse to cover up a salads flavour with dressing. This salad doesn't need it - trust me.

 The pungent rosemary loves getting on top of butternut squash, it was delicious.

Enjoy.x

ê On video - 'Shining Star' by Nneka (Joe Goddard Remix)

The Salad Diaries

♬'Pacha Ibiza Albums' by Various Artists

Here I am letting you know about this weeks video theme, bye bye cake - hello salads!

Stay tuned this week.x

Quorn Stuffed Aubergines

♬ November's Playlist

'Night Light' by Jessie Ware

'Is Your Love Big Enough' by Lianne La Havas

'Pelican' by The Maccabees

'Hard Times' by Plan B

'What's Love Got To Do With It?' by Tina Turner

'Let Me Love You' by Ne-Yo

'Sleaze' by Knife Party, Mistajam

'I Want You Back' by Jackson 5

'Sweet Nothing' by Florence Welch and Calvin Harris

'Anything Could Happen' by Ellie Goulding

'Hometown Glory' cover by James Arthur

'Starships' cover by Conor Maynard

'Remember The Time' by Michael Jackson

This week I worked in a kitchen with a very talented chef in Angel, an experience I'm glad I took on as it showed me working in the kitchen is not the place for this Patel. My hands were battered, cold, burnt of chilli, nothing glamorous about my appearance, and I am all about looking good. The past few days have consisted of hand cream smothered on every two minutes, sweating out chilli during hot yoga and not looking at knives in the same way ever again. OK, maybe a slight over exaggeration about chopping a whole tub of chillies! However I stupidly rubbed my eye in yoga the next day and felt the pain. 

I love to try an area in the food industry and learn from it, most definitely learnt a big lesson here. The best line of the day was when I was stirring soup and told, "Lorraine Pascale stirs like that, a proper chef stirs like they are king of the world". A great insight into a life of a chef compared to what I see and perceive as 'chefs' on TV. Arguably TV cooks and chefs maybe have to strip down how they come across to make skills and meals look easy for us to try at home. Anyway the dream of one day being a TV cook/presenter is still at the forefront of my mind, just so a fresh new somebody other than Jamie and Gordon can take over channel four. That will be me once I get the ball rolling with even more experience and training.

"Positivity can encourage creativity"

I made this up myself, I quite like it.

Right enough about my crazy week and onto the scrummy dish which has been focused and sort of not focused on at the top of the page.

There comes a time when meat has to take a step back and something else has to takes it's place. I present to you (drum roll please) Quorn stuffed aubergines with a simple sauce infused with basil, oregano and garlic. So simple, so easy. so healthy. Quorn has great appeal, as well as looking like real mince once cooked, it's actually very low in fat!

The last time I made stuffed aubergines was back at school in year 9 for food technology. Back then I had no clue about food styling so the dish tasted amazing because I followed a recipe from the only cooking book in the house, unfortunately mine looked awful. The recipe was cheese stuffed aubergines and the final dish looked like aubergine vomit, no colour, and no consideration taken into presentation. I think I got a C grade for that project whereas my best friend who is now an army medical corp received an A*. Every time he beat me in food tech and I just wanted to scream and cry at the same time. He taught me about perfection so I still love him. 

Don't be scared, this is not a recipe for disaster!

 Quorn with aubergine and fresh tomatoes make a lovely thick sauce worthy of an A* and a commendation. 

 ▶ Recipe for 2 

Ingredients:

1 large aubergine

Quorn mince (for two people use 150g)

1 large garlic clove

Fresh basil leaves

Dried oregano

Olive oil

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 can of chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato puree

Drop of Tabasco

Method:

: Preheat oven to 180°c, cut aubergine length way and scoop out flesh.

: Dice aubergine chunks and fry with olive oil and crushed garlic for 2 minutes.

: Meanwhile rub olive oil on aubergine skins, season and wrap in foil. Bake for 20 -25 minutes until soft.

: Add Quorn to aubergine mixture, let this go brown and tip in can of tomatoes. With the same can fill it half way with water and add to mixture.

: Add puree and simmer on slow heat for 15 minutes.

: Stir through chopped basil leaves and 1 tsp oregano, season and taste.

: Taste again after 5 minutes to see if you need more seasoning, add Tabasco if you like.

: Take aubergine skins out of the oven and scoop in mixture.

: Done!

Enjoy.x