It's Nothing Like - Gallette de Pomme de Terre

I was feeling rather hungry one Saturday morning in the days before I starting watching my carbohydrate and calorie intake. The fridge was fairly empty as we hadn't done the weekly shopping. So I came up with a filling variation of a gallette de pommel de terre.

It's Nothing Like a Gallette de Pomme de Terre

Ingredients

A couple of large potatoes

Half a red onion

A chunk of cheddar cheese

A large knob of butter

An egg

A wholewheat tortilla

Method

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes.

Melt the butter in a wide, flat-bottomed pan until it starts to foam.

Carefully place the potatoes in the pan overlapping the slices lightly. Try to keep to a single layer, two at most.

Cook the potato slowly so it softens and cakes before it browns. Then carefully turn it over to brown the other side.

Cooking the Potatoes

Before the bottom of the potatoes starts to brown, grate the cheese over them. Once the bottom is browned and the cheese has melted, sprinkle a little sliced onion over the gallette. Let the onion cook for a short while until it has lost its rawness but is still crunchy.

Melted cheese and onion garnish

Finally, serve on a warmed tortilla and to with a lightly fried or poached egg.

Flat Chicken Sandwich

Sometimes you want something quick to eat. I find this simple flat chicken sandwich fits the bill. It's pretty healthy too.

Ingredients

Half a skinned chicken breast

Two squeezes of lemon

Two splashes of olive oil

A dusting of paprika

A mean pinch of dried oregano

A mean pinch of salt

A wholewheat tortilla

A few lettuce leaves

A ripe tomato

A small lump of cheese

American mustard

I use American mustard because of its mild taste, its natural sourness and its consistency which makes it easy to "dribble" over the finished sandwich.

Equipment

A heavy bottomed grill pan

Method

Slice the chicken lengthways into "fingers".

Dust the chicken with paprika and sprinkle the oregano on top. Squeeze the lemon and splash the olive oil over the chicken. Rub the marinade into the chicken.

Heat the grill pan until it is very hot. Warm the tortilla quickly on both sides and then transfer straight to the serving plate.

Sprinkle the salt over the chicken then quickly grill the chicken so that it is brown on the outside but still moist on the inside.

Whilst the chicken is cooking, tear the lettuce leaves and place them on the tortilla. Roughly slice the tomato and spread it over the lettuce. A squeeze of lemon and splash of olive oil will nicely dress the salad.

As soon as the chicken is cooked, lay it on top of the salad.

Before the outside of the chicken has time to cool, finely grate some cheese on top so that it melts.

Finally, drizzle the mustard over the open sandwich, roll and eat.

Rare Blends - Almost Indian Fajitas

I'm one of those people who like a little variety in their food. Sometimes, we have the ingredients ready to cook and I just feel like something different. One evening when I had originally planned to cook It's Nothing Like Chicken Fajitas I wondered how I could make it a little different

I had some left over Almost Indian-style pumpkin in the fridge so I came up with this Rare Blend - Almost Indian Fajitas. I offset the sweetness of the pumpkin with some chopped onion and a little yogurt.

Almost Indian Fajitas

Ingredients

A chicken breast

A pinch of chilli powder

A squeeze of lemon

A splash of olive oil

A pinch of salt

A couple of dollops of pre-cooked pumpkin

A small red onion

A tub of Greek-style yogurt

A couple of wholewheat tortillas

When cooking the pumpkin, I simply sautéed it in some mustard oil with a pinch of cumin and a little chopped red chilli.

You could use white tortillas but, not only do they not look so much like chapatis as the whole wheat ones, they aren't so healthy.

Equipment

A heavy bottomed grill pan

Method

Slice the chicken breast into "fingers" and then marinade them in the lemon juice, olive oil and chilli powder.

Heat the grill pan, once it is hot sprinkle a little salt over the chicken and grill quickly until the meat is fully cooked whilst still moist.

Remove the chicken from the pan and a let in rest for a couple of minutes.

Chop the onion.

In the meantime, chop the onion and spread a dollop of pumpkin on each tortilla.

Once the chicken has rested, place a couple of fingers on each tortilla and sprinkle a little onion on top.

A couple of spoons of yogurt nicely tops the dish off.

Fold and eat!

It's Nothing Like - Chicken Fajitas

One of our favourite mid-week meals is It's Nothing Like Chicken Fajitas. We enjoy the mix of tastes and textures that you get when you bite into a filled tortilla. It's pretty healthy and quite quick to cook too.

Nothing Like Chicken Fajitas

Ingredients

Two skinless chicken breasts

Two medium onions

A green pepper

A red chilli

Two ripe tomatoes

A juicy lime

A couple of stalks of coriander

Pinch of paprika

Sprinkle of oregano

A good glug of olive oil

A squeeze of lemon juice

Two pinches of salt

A splash of Worcestershire sauce

A glug of dark soya sauce

A small chunk of cheddar cheese

A tub of sour cream

You can use any onions though I usually use one red onion and one brown-skinned one.

I always prefer to use plum tomatoes.

You might know coriander as cilantro.

A glug is about the same as a tablespoon full. A good glug is somewhere between two and three tablespoons.

If you don't have a lime, you could use a lemon but a lime definitely tastes better.

Equipment

A good quality, heavy bottomed grill pan.

I use a large Circulon frying pan that has very low ridges. I can use it both with and without oil. It was a wedding present.

Method

Cut the chicken into finger-sized strips and but in a shallow dish.

Add a splash of olive oil, the squeeze of lemon juice, the paprika, and oregano then mix well.

Cut off about a quarter of the red onion and save it. Thickly slice the remaining onions.

Heat the glug of olive oil in the grill pan using very low heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onion and cook slowly. The aim is to soften the onion and bring out it's natural sweetness.

Now finely chop the onion that you saved and add it to a small bowl. Squeeze the juice of the lime over the onion.

Halve the tomatoes lengthways and discard the seeds. Similarly de-seed the red chilli unless you enjoy the hot chilli taste.

Finely chop the tomatoes, the chilli, and the coriander. Add them and a pinch of salt to the onions and lime juice. Stir and set the bowl aside and give time for the ingredients to cook.

Half, de-seed and chop the green peppers and them to the onions cooking in the grill pan. The onions should be nice and soft and starting to caramelise. 

Quickly grate the cheddar cheese into a serving dish and pour the sour cream (or part of it) into another serving dish.

When the peppers have just lost that completely raw look. Turn the heat up high so that the peppers retain a little crunchiness. Add the Worcestershire and soy sauces, stir and cook until the onions turn dark brown and the dish is almost dry. (This should be a couple of minutes at most.) Turn the peppers and onions into a serving dish.

Quickly clean the grill pan and heat it over a high heat. Once the pan is very hot, reduce the heat a little but not so much that the pan's temperature drops. Add the chicken strips one at time. Don't overcrowd the chicken strips in the pan. Cook the chicken strips on all sides until they are just fully cooked through uit no more or they will dry out. One a strip is done, transfer it to a serving dish.

Let the chicken stand for a few minutes before serving.

We eat these Nothing Like Chicken Fajitas with wholewheat tortillas.

Asparagus, Feta and Pea Salad

We regularly eat grilled salmon and I'd fallen into a lazy habit of serving simply prepared asparagus with it. One evening as I was about to prepare dinner, the thought of another meal of grilled salmon and asparagus just didn't appeal.

The salmon and the asparagus were sitting waiting to be cooked. So I started to think how I could make our meal a little more interesting. I found a recipe for this Asparagus, Feta and Pea Salad on the Internet.

Asparagus, Feta and Pea Salad

It turned out a treat and really complimented the grilled salmon. You can find the recipe here. The only change I had to make was to use frozen peas instead of fresh ones as it is almost impossible to find fresh peas here. I did cook them and let them cool before using them though.