(Viennese) Chicken in Apricot Sauce

So, you'll all be glad to hear I got Vienna safely this Thursday, and now that I've had a chance to buy some supplies, back to a more regular service of recipes. This first one is basically a variation on beef in plum sauce, but was so tasty, I thought it too needed its own post.
For 4:
6 Chicken Breasts (sechs Hühnerbrusten)
6 Apricots (sechs Aprikosen)
5 Small Onions (fünf Zweibeln)
2 Peppers (zwei Paprikas)
4 Garlic Cloves (vier Knoblauchzehen)
1 Saucepan (kochtopf)
1 Frying Pan (Bratpfanne)
Olive Oil (Oliveöl)

1. Chop onions finely. Fry in saucepan with olive oil on a low heat.
2. Chop garlic finely. Add to the onions.
3. Remove the stone from the apricots and chop into sixths or eighths, depending on size. Add to onions and garlic.

4. Almost cover these in hot water, and bring to the boil.

5. Chop chicken breasts and fry on high heat in frying pan.
6. Once lightly browned, add chicken to saucepan.
7. Mix chicken into sauce, and simmer/boil liquid until thickened.
7. Chop peppers into strips and fry in frying pan used for chicken.

8. Once peppers are cooked, add to saucepan for a minute or two, then serve.

Volumise: Mix some spinach into the sauce. Serve with cauliflower mash.
Add carbs: Use more peppers, use more apricots.
Add fat: Mix in some more olive oil or some coconut oil. Serve with roasted avocados.
Add protein: Mix some pieces of bacon in with the chicken.

P.S. If anyone wants to correct my German, leave a comment.

Warming Beef Stew

I struggled with a name for this. It was never meant to be a spicy dish, but it is full of spices, like cinnamon and cumin, so I went with something that sounds good given the current weather in the UK.
For 3:
3 Casserole Steaks
4 Onions
3 Cans of Chopped Tomatoes
2 Carrots
1 Clove of Garlic
Ground Cumin
Dried Coriander
Ground Nutmeg
Ground Cinnamon
1 Saucepan

1. Peel and chop the onions and garlic. Fry in saucepan until almost browned.
2. Chop casserole steak into pieces about a cubic inch (2.5 cm) in size. Fry the beef in the saucepan until brown.
3. Add the spices and mix into the onions and beef.
4. Once fully mixed in, add the tomatoes and carrots.

5. Simmer for about 1 hour and/or until the sauce is sufficiently thickened. Serve.

Volumise: Add more carrots. Add some spinach about 2 minutes before serving.
Add carbs: Use more tomatoes. Add some peppers roughly ten minutes before serving.
Add fat: Mix in some coconut oil, almond or coconut flour.
Add protein: Serve with bacon. Use more beef. I imagine everyone is sick of hearing "use more bacon", but unfortunately, it is a universal trueism that bacon improves pretty much everything.

Also, this will be posted to Fightback Friday at Food Renegade on Friday. Feel free to head over there and check out more recipes and food related articles.

Coq au vin

Classical French dish. I made it in my slow-cooker, which I know that not everybody has, but the size of the dish means you need a big container for it all, so it's a slow-cooker or a casserole dish. I needed the bottle of wine to make the dish, and I went to Tesco to get it. Annoyingly, I got ID'd and didn't have any on me, which meant I couldn't get some alcohol that I wasn't even going to drink, but evaporate into the air.
For about 4-6:
4 Large Chicken Legs
500 g Bacon
6 Onions
2 Carrots
8 Medium Mushrooms
1 Bottle of Wine (minus 3 Glugs for the Plum Sauce recipe of earlier)
Thyme
3 Bay Leaves
Frying Pan
Saucepan
Slow-Cooker

1. Fry the bacon in the frying pan until crispy.
2. Pour all but one glug of the bottle of wine into the slow-cooker. Add the bay-leaves and thyme.
3. Chop the onions and carrots roughly and add the onion, carrots and bacon and some thyme to the slow-cooker.
4. In the pan used for the bacon, fry the chicken legs until brown on both sides. Place the chicken legs into the slow-cooker.
5. Add water until all the ingredients are covered with liquid.

6. Cook for 6-8 hours.

7. Strain all the liquid from the pot into a saucepan and boil down into a thick sauce. Return the solids to the warm pot, but do not apply heat, to maintain temperature.
8. While this boils, chop the mushrooms into quarters and fry in butter. Once browned, add the remaining glug of wine. Boil this liquid down to a thick sauce also.

9. Once the mushrooms and sauce is ready, serve. Be careful of bones from the chicken legs (they can be reserved for stock).

Volumise: Use more carrots. Mix in some cauliflower, it may dissolve and thicken the sauce.
Add Carbs: Serve with roast sweet potatoes.
Add fat: Mix some coconut oil or coconut flour into the slow-cooker prior to 6-8 hour cooking.
Add protein: Use more bacon. Use more chicken legs.

Roast beef in plum sauce with mashed cauliflower

Good God! I thought I mightn't post this week because of exams and whatnot, but this was genuinely too good not to share. I really enjoyed this meal. The sauce was amazing.
Let's get straight to it.
For 2:
4 Small Beef Steaks
2 Plums
3 Glugs of red wine (yes, that's a unit!)
3 Onions
1 Cauliflower Head
1 Beef Stock cube (Knorr)
Coconut Oil
Roasting Dish
Frying pan
Saucepan

1. Heat the oven to about 150 degrees C. Once hot, put the steaks in with some coconut oil.
2. Slice the onions finely. Fry in the pan on a low heat with some oil.
3. Cut down to the plum stone, run the knife all the way round, then twist the plum apart and remove the stone. Chop each half plum into four pieces (so 16 plum pieces in all). Add them to the frying pan with the onions.
4. Put a saucepan of water on the boil.
5. Chop the cauliflower up into bit and start boiling it once the water is boiling.
6. Add two glugs of wine and the stock cube to the frying pan and one glug of wine to the beef in the oven. Stir the frying pan until the stock cube dissolves.

7. Once the sauce is thickened up and the beef has had roughly 40 minutes, add the liquid from the baking tray to the frying pan.
8. Once the cauliflower is boiled, drain it, then mash it.

9. Once the beef has had 1 hour total and the sauce is thick, serve.

Volumise: Use more cauliflower, boil or steam some broccoli.
Add Carbs: Boil and mash some sweet potato instead or as well.
Add fat: Add coconut oil to the mash.
Add Protein: Wrap the steaks in bacon and with cheese.

PS Most of these recipes are now going up on Chowstalker. Two points come to mind:
1. They have a ratings system. If you enjoyed the recipe, let them know.
2. They have a butt-load more good recipes.
Enjoy.

Meatza

Sounds crazy; tastes amazing.
For 4:
800g beef mince
1 Carton Tomato Passatta
1 Onion
1 Pepper (Red)
4 Mushrooms
Oregano
1 Saucepan
1 Baking Tray

1. Press the beef mince into an even layer in the baking tray.
2. Mix the passatta and some oregano in the saucepan, boiling down to make a thick sauce.
3. While this is boiling, put the baking tray in the oven at 200 degrees C for 20 minutes.
4. Chop the onions, pepper and mushrooms into thin slices.
5. Once the mince is cooked, pour the tomato sauce onto the base, and place the onion, pepper and mushroom on top.
6. Return this to the oven until the vegetables are slightly crisped.

Volumise: Add some spinach with the veg in step 5.
Add carbs: Use more peppers.
Add fat: Place a layer of cheese on top of the vegetables.
Add protein: Use more beef mince. Use some usual pizza toppings such as pepperoni.

Chicken Curry

It took about an hour to make. First curry I've tried without coconut milk.
For 2:
2 Chicken Breasts
4 Small Onions
3 Small Green Chillis
Coconut Flesh
3 Garlic Cloves
Ground Ginger
Ground Cinnamon
Chilli Powder
Turmeric
Coconut Oil
Saucepan

1. Chop and fry the onions and chillis in coconut oil until soft.
2. Food processor or grind coconut flesh (about 3 cm x 3 cm) garlic cloves, cinnamon and ginger into a "paste". Or chop it all into small pieces. Add this to the onion and chilli, stir in and stir fry to three minutes.
3. Chop chicken into bite-size pieces and add to pan. Mix in chilli powder and turmeric. Lower heat and leave to cook with lid on for five minutes.
4. Add 125 ml of water and bring to boil. Reduce heat and cook until chicken is soft (about 30-45 min).

Volumise: Add some spinach about 3 minutes before meal is ready.
Add carbs: Mix in some glucose. Add more onions.
Add fat: Use more coconut or more coconut oil. Add some butter.
Add protein: Add a side of bacon. Mix whey into the sauce. Add more chicken.

Chicken in "Oriental" Marinade (Overnight)

Another in the procession of "Chinese" meals.
For 3:
3 Chicken Breasts
4 Small Onions
3 Peppers
2 Spring Onions
6 Tablespoons Coconut (or Olive) Oil
4 Tablespoons Apple Juice
2 Garlic Cloves
Ginger
Wok
Food container (for marinating)
Mug
Bowl


The night or morning before:
1. Put the coconut oil in a mug, then put the mug in a bowl that is shallower than the mug, then fill the bowl with boiling water to melt the coconut oil. No need to do this with olive oil.
2. Chop the spring onions. Chop the chicken into bite-size chunks.
3. Mix the spring onions, coconut oil, apple juice, garlic cloves and ginger in the mug.
4. Put the chicken in the container and pour the marinade over the chicken. Put the container in the fridge overnight.
The night of eating:
5. Chop the onions and peppers.
6. Heat the wok, throw in the onions and peppers and the chicken in the marinade and stir fry the lot.

Volumise: "I'm not gonna be very inventive here - spinach, pak choi, cabbage, bean sprouts; like last time." - Me, previous recipe.
Add carbs: Mix sugar into the sauce, add more apple juice or apple sauce to the marinade, or perhaps some apple to the stir-fry at the end.
Add fat: Add more coconut oil to the marinade.
Add protein: Mix an egg into the sauce, serve on/with an omelette, mix some peanut butter into the marinade to make a satay-style marinade.

Bonus Fun Fact: The difference between fats and oils is simply whether they are solid or liquid at room temperature. The coconut OIL sat in my room is a solid. Where coconuts are grown, coconut oil is an oil, but in England it's a fat due to the cold temperature here (similar to what happens when olive oil goes cloudy in shops in Winter because it is stored at outdoors temperature). A friend of mine who recently got back from Spain tells me that she had a problem figuring out the difference between the Spanish words for fat, grease and oil, as the examples they gave were in different states in England and Spain.

Beef in Chilli Sauce

Getting a bit of a "Chinese" theme for a little while. This is going to sound pretentious as hell, but the one person I know who's been to China says Chinese restaurants are propagating a lie; I don't care, they still make great food.
For 3:
300 g "Sirloin steak" (it was in the 3 for £10 in Tesco, so we're not talking quality here, any sort of frying steak).
4 Small Onions
2 (Red) Peppers
2 Spring Onions
1 Tablespoon Ground Ginger (or fresh, whichever)
1 Chilli (or 1 Tablespoon Hot Chilli Powder)
50 ml Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Almond Flour (AKA Ground Almonds)
3-4 Tablespoons Apple Juice
Wok

1. Peel and chop the onions. Chop the spring onions, chilli and peppers. Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces.
2. Mix the ground ginger, chilli, vinegar, almond flour and apple juice. Again, I mixed it with a fork in a mug, because I'm very well equipped.
3. Throw the veg into the pan, followed by the beef, then the sauce (obviously, the chilli is chopped, so make sure you throw the sauce into the pan so the chilli gets into the pan).
4. Stir-fry the lot.

Volumise: I'm not gonna be very inventive here - spinach, pak choi, lettuce, bean sprouts; like last time.
Add carbs: Again, add some sugar to the sauce. Use less vinegar and more apple juice or some kind of apple sauce into the sauce.
Add fat: I added some coconut oil to the sauce, but as it's solid it wasn't easy to mix in.
Add protein: Again, add some egg to the sauce. Perhaps serve on an omelette base.
Add pretentiousness: Point out that I went to a local "foreign" (of the "Indian" variety) to get the chillis for this and the okra for the updated Texan Chicken. I also went to an independent supermarket to get the almond flour and coconut oil.

Sweet and Sour-ish Chicken

It was tasty and kept well; it was not very sweet or sour.
For 3:
3 Chicken Breasts
4 Small Onions
3 Peppers
1 Garlic Clove
2 Tablespoon Tomato Puree
4 Tablespoons Apple Juice (or Apple and Blackcurrant Squash)
2 Tablespoons Almond Flour
1 Lemon, Juice of
4 Tablespoons Vinegar
Wok

1. Peel and chop the onions. Chop the peppers. Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces.
2. Crush or finely slice the garlic.
3. Mix the garlic, tomato puree, apple juice, lemon juice, vinegar and almond flour (with a fork in a mug, if you're me).
4. Throw the onions and peppers into the pan, followed by the chicken then the sauce. Stir-fry the lot.

Volumise: Add some spinach, pak choi, lettuce and/or bean sprouts.
Add carbs: Mix some sugar into the sauce (this was in the original recipe). Add more peppers.
Add fat: Add more almond flour to the sauce. Add more oil to the stir-fry.
Add protein: Add more chicken. I have not tried this, but add some egg to the sauce. This should also help to thicken the sauce.
Bore anyone reading this blog: Add an inane story at the end of every single post.

Grilled Green Chicken

Very enjoyable, just be careful to remove as much marinade as possible before frying; I nearly destroyed a frying pan doing this.
For 4:
4 Chicken Thighs
2 Small Onions
1 Roughly chopped Green Chilli
4 Tablespoons Greek Yoghurt
Handful of Chopped Fresh Mint
Handful of Chopped Fresh Coriander
1 Tablespoon Garam Masala
1 Lemon

1. Mix mint, coriander, chilli, yoghurt, garam masala, lemon juice and a little salt/
2. Strip meat from thighs.
3. Marinate chicken and onions in above mixture overnight.
4. Wipe marinade off chicken.
5. a. Fry chicken in pan until golden brown.
b. Cook onions in saucepan.
6. Serve with coconut bread and a dollop of yoghurt.

Volumise: Add more onions and celery (I haven't tried the celery).
Add carbs: Mix some honey into the dollop of yoghurt. Add some honey to the marinade. Serve with mashed sweet potatoes.
Add fat: Add more yoghurt. Add some olive oil to the marinade.
Add protein: Serve with a side of crispy bacon. Mix some unflavoured whey to the marinade.
Destroy a frying pan: As I suggested earlier, don't scrape the marinade off the meat properly.

Lamb Tagine

Very enjoyable and filling (if a bit watery because I didn't have time to thicken the sauce).
For 5:
1 Rolled lamb shoulder
4 small onions
200g dried apricots
2 tins chopped tomatoes
Turmeric
Ground Ginger
Cumin
Coriander
2 Lamb Stock cubes (Knorr)
1 Slow-cooker or large pot

1. Chop the onions.
2. Add everything to the slow-cooker or pot and cook for 8-10 hours.

Volumise: Add more onions. Add celery.
Add carbs: Add more tomatoes or apricots.
Add fat: Mix in some almond flour at the start, should make the end product thicker too.
Add protein: Use more lamb. Mix some unflavoured whey (I haven't tried this, this may be a disaster).
Add a bad day: Let the container you have this in open into your bag and fill your laptop and lab-book with tagine.

Chicken Curry

I looked through a few online recipes for this and synthesised it from those. It was very nice. One of my most successful experiments (which went much better than what I'm currently doing in the lab).
For 4:
1.8 kg chicken thighs
3 large onions
2 chillis
1 can coconut milk
1 can tomatoes
1 chicken stock cube (OXO)
7 tbls cumin
1 tbls paprika
1 tbls turmeric
1 tbls chilli powder
1 tbls garam massala
1 tbls vanilla flavouring/extract
1 large frying pan or wok
1 slow cooker or large pot

1. Chop the onions into roughly quarters.
2. Finely chop the chillis.
3. Start frying the onions and chillis on a low heat.
4. Remove the skin and bones from the chicken thighs, so you're left with just meat.
5. Once the onions and chillis are soft, add them to a room temperature slow cooker pot or normal pot.
6. Add everything else to the pot. Mix thoroughly.
7. Heat on low heat for 10-12 hours in a slow cooker (or on a hob, stirring occassionally.)

Volumise: I intend to add mushrooms in the next iteration of the curry. Add more onions and chillis.
Add carbs: Add some sugar to the curry. Add some potatoes to the curry. Serve with rice. Add some tomato passata or some more tomatoes.
Add fat: Add some water at the start of cooking and mix in some almond flour about two hours before the curry is cooked. Add more coconut milk. Mix in some olive oil at the start of cooking.
Add protein: Seriously, there's about 250-300g of chicken in each of the four servings. You could add more chicken. You could serve with bits of crisped bacon.
Add three days of soaking to clean the pot: Leave it on high heat instead of low.

"Texan" chicken

Very nice chicken stew. Instead of chicken stock cube, I used home-made chicken stock. This lead to a very nice taste, but it was very gloopy and nasty after keeping it in a tub ad re-heating it.
For 3:
3 chicken breasts
3 small onions
3 yellow bell peppers
1 cube chicken stock (OXO)
Ground ginger
Chilli powder
Turmeric
Tomato puree
Peanut butter
1 Saucepan
1 grill/ 1 frying pan
1 jug

1. Chop onions and soften in saucepan over a low heat.
2. Start grilling chicken breasts or butterfly chicken breasts then start frying (singly).
3. Add a big squirt of tomato puree to onions and mix in.
4. Add about 1/2 pint of chicken stock (OXO cube in boiling water) to the onions.
5. Mix about a forkful of peanut butter into the onions+stock (sauce).
6. Mix some ginger, some chilli powder and some turmeric into the sauce.
7. Chop and mix in the yellow peppers.
8. Gently reduce the sauce while the chicken cooks.
9. Once the chicken is cooked:
If it's fried, throw it into the saucepan whole.
If it's grilled, roughly chop or tear it into whatever you consider bitesize
chunks, and mix it into the sauce.
10. Keep the whole thing on a low heat until you think it's thick enough.

Volumise: Add more onions.
Add carbs: Add more peppers. Add some sugar to the sauce.
Add fat: Use almond flour instead of heat to thicken the sauce. Fry the chicken in excess olive oil.
Add protein: Fry up some bacon until it's very crispy and add to the meal just before serving (again, pig bacon for more fat, turkey bacon for less fat).
Add a severely burnt pan: Leave the sauce for too long without stirring. The peanut butter can really mess up a pan.

P.S. I just made it without tomato puree and with okra. I added the okra once the food was nearly done and mixed it in. It worked really well.

Lamb with vodka, cinammon, cayenne onions.

My girlfriend has very little useful veg a lot of the time (no offence), but a spice rack (it's actually a cupboard) that's more expansive than mine. This was a ridiculously simple meal that I'm not massively proud of, but I do like my vodka-cinnamon-cayenne onions.
For two:
2 lamb steak
4 small onions
Ground cayenne pepper
Ground cinnamon
Roughly 3 shots of vodka
1 frying pan
1 saucepan

1. Chop the onions.
2. Add the onions to a hot, oiled saucepan and reduce the heat to the lowest setting.
3. Pour vodka onto onions and break the onions up with a wooden spoon.
4. Sprinkle cayenne and cinnamon over onions.
5. Leave onions to soften slowly in pan and when they're nearly done, oil and heat up a frying pan to max.
6. Fry the lamb steak as you like them.

Volumise: Add some more onions.
Add carbs:
Add fat: Brush the lamb with extra olive oil while it cooks. Add extra oil to the onions as they cook.
Add protein: Seriously? Add more lamb.
Add bright red lips: Use too much cayenne.