Chickpea Biryani

It was 7pm, I was hungry and had forgotten to take the stuffed chicken out of the freezer. It had been a long day as Jack had been off pre-school with a suspected stomach bug, I'd missed parents evening as I needed to stay at home with Jack rather than take him to a friends & risk spreading the bug, he then threw up on the trampoline, kids were arguing & I'd been in the kitchen for the last 2 hours providing a conveyor belt of food!


I looked in the fridge for inspiration - mushrooms way past their best before that needed using up so that ruled out jacket spuds & beans. I then recalled the Biryani that I'd seen on Reluctant Housedad's Recipe Shed earlier in the day - but I had no chicken, except the frozen stuffed chicken breasts - in the house. Ah well, I could add a can of chickpeas & tell the husband that the chicken was chopped up very small & hope that he didn't notice.


Don't Tell The Husband There's No Meat in It Chickpea Biryani


1 onion
tbsp olive oil
1/2 pack Schwartz  bombay potatoes mix
can of chickpeas

couple of big handfuls of basmati rice

handful of sultanas
2 tbsp coconut
mushrooms
boiling water

If I'd had a banana I would've added that too


Sorry I can't be more specific with the weights & measurements but I don't usually measure unless I'm baking or following a specific recipe.

• Fry the onion in the olive oil for a couple of minutes.
• Add the spice mix and chickpeas and stir
• Add the basmati rice and some boiling water and stir, put the lid on keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't dry out.
• Stir in the sultanas, coconut and mushrooms
• Add more water, around a cupful at a time, until the rice is tender and water has been absorbed.

Serve with a spoonful of natural yoghurt and some of The Curry Guy's Lime pickle - or if, like me, you haven't got any lime pickle then any pickle or chutney would do (except Branston's, horrible stuff) - like my prizewinning Marrow chutney for example.

Reluctant Housedad's Herby Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast The Crazy Kitchen Style

I would love to live in Reluctant Housedad's house, he always has such amazing looking dinners - you should see his to die for Steak n Chips. Yesterday he posted a delicious looking dish and, unlike with most of his posh nosh, I had all the ingredients needed to recreate this 'Moreish Main' - well sort of.


Here are the ingredients required for Keith's Herby Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts wrapped in Parma Ham:


Serves 2

FOR THE FILLING

2 tbsp soft cheese, such as Philadelphia (or ricotta, or cottage cheese)
2 tbsp pine nuts*
1 tsp chilli powder or paprika (depending on your spice taste)**
3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped***
Salt and freshly ground black pepper****

FOR THE CHICKEN

2 chicken breasts, butterflied
6 slices Parma ham*****
1 tsp olive oil

My minor amendments :
*KP salted peanuts
**Chilli Flakes
***3 sprigs of fresh basil
****just pepper as peanuts were salted
*****you won't find any posh Parma Ham in this house...Bernard Matthews Turkey Ham is far superior!


I whizzed the peanuts,cream cheese, chilli flakes,pepper & basil together in a blender, splodged it onto the chicken breast & wrapped it all in the turkey ham, refrigerated for an hour, fried them off in the olive oil & baked for around 30 minutes and voila .......

Keith commented that, after making this dish, 'Your partner will love you forever'. I've lost track of the number of times he's said 'that chicken was beautiful' tonight so thank you Keith, no more boring midweek meals for us.

Recipe Shed - Cakes & Bakes

Last week I was having a good look through my recipe box for inspiration for this weeks Recipe Shed challenge and also Jenny's Halloween themed 'I love Cake'. My recipe box is a huge collection of recipes that have been ripped out of magazines mostly with the intention of sticking them into a book when I make them, marking up any amendments that I've made so I would know how to make it again. One day I hope to get around to doing this but for now they're in a box at the top of Sams wardrobe. In this box I found what must be the oldest recipe I have and I don't know where it came from or how it got to be in my box but here it is :

For those of you that can't read my 12 year old scrawl it's a recipe for Cold Tea Cake that I had taken from Saturday Superstore and made on 30th January 1983. If you're too young to know what Saturday Superstore was you didn't miss much, except maybe for the extremely memorable moment in 1984 when the 80's band Matt Bianco got called a bunch of Wankers live on air, that is a moment that has stuck with me ever since and just in case you missed it you can watch it on good old You Tube here.

Back to the cooking, and Keith's theme for this week is Cakes & Bakes so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out this Cold Tea Cake and see if it really is as good as I remember it.

Ingredients

8oz / 225g SR Flour

6oz / 175g Demerara Sugar

6fl oz / 170ml Cold Tea

8oz / 225g Sultanas

1 egg

pinch of Salt

• Mix together then dollup into a loaf tin and cook in oven.
• Cook at 180 degrees C.

Notes

1. I added 2 tbsp of milk to the mixture as it was a bit dry - I'm not sure if this was due to using wholemeal flour or the extra large jug lacking small increments.
2. I greased & lined the loaf pan with baking paper before 'dolluping' the mixture in
3. Bake for approx 1 hour.
4. No it is no mistake, it really doesn't have any butter in - that means it's healthy right?

It could have perhaps done with a few minutes less in the oven but I was too busy tweeting & forgot about it! 


Lovely served with butter or (shhhh don't tell anyone or they'll think I'm weird) cheese & chutney....yum!

9th September 2013 : I've added this post to The Good Life Mum's 'Bake It Monday' where the theme is 'Nostalgic'