Tropical Beef Stew

Has it really been a week since I blogged here? Where does the time go? My sincerest apologies. I shall try my best not to leave you all alone for so long again.

Just when we thought it was getting all summery again, the southerly has come back through, so the fire is going and the wintry food keeps rolling out of our kitchen.

This one comes from the Recipe Book of the Weird and Wonderful - that's not a real recipe book, mind you, but an excuse for me to make up strange combinations and cook them just because I can.

This particular meal came about because we happened to have a whole fresh pineapple in the house. We'd sliced up about half of it and eaten it off a platter during the day, but as anyone who's ever kept pineapple will know, you really should eat it the day you slice it open or it goes bad.

I really don't like it when things go bad.

So, no matter that I had taken stewing steak out of the freezer to cook for dinner that night. The pineapple was going in with it too, somehow.

Thus was born the Tropical Beef Stew. Think of it as a Summer-Winter fusion if you must, as Spring in Wellington so often is.

Tropical Beef Stew
(Serves 4)Ingredients:
400g Stewing Steak, cubed and seasoned with freshly ground pepper and salt
1 Large Lemon
1/2 Fresh Pineapple, cubed, or 1 200g Can of Pineapple Pieces
Whole Nutmeg for grating
2C Hot Beef Stock
Grate the zest of the lemon and a few gratings of nutmeg over the beef and toss well. Batch fry the meat, draining the cooking liquid into a large pot as you go.
Transfer the cooked meat into this pot. Heat the pan again and add the pineapple, squeezing over the juice of the lemon. Heat briefly, tossing to deglaze the pan, then add to the pot along with the beef stock.

Bring to a rapid boil for 20 minutes, then reduce to a simmer for 1 1/2hrs.
Dish over rice boiled in beef stock, with sour cream and fresh steamed veges.

(The odd shape on the left in this photo is a dumpling. I had some dough that I had frozen, but here's my advice: dumpling dough doesn't unfreeze and cook very well. Don't bother, or, if you know a trick that makes them not come out like shrivelled little piles of rubber, leave me a comment so I know better for next time.)

I'll be honest: This dish got a mixed reception. I liked it, but not everyone at the table thought it was something I should add to our regular menu. But if you like beef and pineapple, it's a pretty good combination.

Baked Pineapple-Dukkah Chicken

I've just realised that while I pretend that this is a foodie blog, it's been a month since I actually posted a recipe!

I'm sticking to the excuse that it's been the holidays and that there's been a lot going on. It seems that I've also had a lot of other things to write about, and I've been flat tack with other writing work, including completing a submission to Firebrand Literary Agency. Fingers crossed that that is well received, but if not I won't be worried. It's just the first step on what can be an even harder process than writing a book in the first place: getting published.

We also finished painting the house and with a lot of help from Obi, we got the roof painted too, as well as tidying up the garden, cleaning out the tool shed, putting up shelves in the garage, and nurturing the pumpkin patch. It was while we were painting the roof that I had this thought:

In ten thousand years, when the archeologists of the future are digging up the ruins of our ancient civilisations, what will they learn from the DNA and stomach contents of insects stuck in paint on our rooves and walls? Because there sure are a lot of them.

Anyway, without further ado, let me roll up my sleeves, roll out the orange ink, and present to you...

Baked Pineapple Dukkah Chicken

Serves 2 - increase quantities to suit

Using whole chicken legs, slice open the skin, gently prise away from the meat, and slot in 1 slice of tinned pineapple, cut widthwise (ie, to make it skinnier), per leg.

Toss the chicken in Dukkah (usually available from most ethnic groceries or in Wellington, Christchurch, Kapiti and Nelson, from the MFW) and semolina flour. Dukkah is a spicy and fragrant rub made with a hazelnut base, and is delicious on many things, but especially on chicken. There are plenty of recipes online if you'd like to make your own, too.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the chicken on one side until brown.

Add 2T soy sauce to the pan, shaking vigourously until the liquid has been absorbed. Turn the chicken over and repeat, sprinkling over any leftover dukkah and flour you might have.

Add quarter of the pineapple juice from the tin, repeat shaking until the liquid is absorbed, turn the chicken over and repeat. Cook for 10 minutes, being carfeul not to let the skin cook away from the chicken.
Place the chicken in an oven dish. Add the rest of the pineapple juice and about 1/8 Cup of water to the pan to deglaze it, and drain this liquid over the chicken legs. Place into an oven preheated to 220C and bake for 1 hour, turning twice during the cooking time.
Serve with Jasmine Rice cooked in Chicken Stock and a fresh garden salad. Delicious summer food. It's making me hungry, and I only just had dinner!

Pineapple Chicken with Moroccan Couscous

Do you ever feel like it's really time you did something different with that plain old slow-cooker chicken?

I get that feeling all the time. It's only sometimes that I have the imagination to actually do something about it.

Slow-Cooker chicken is so easy, and so good just as it comes, that it must be hands-down one of the best family meals you can cook. I was looking in the fridge for something that might make the bird more interesting when I spotted some pineapple rings from the night before, and I was inspired.

Don't forgot to pay very close attention to hygiene if you're going to get this intimate with a chicken...

Also pictured here is my latest obsession: Couscous. With apologies to anyone who already knows the joys of couscous, this stuff has to be the best carbo alternative there is. It takes just a few minutes to cook and tastes like whatever you choose to make it taste like. I'll be throwing around heaps of suggestions for how to make this stuff a normal part of your weekly meal routine as I discover more interesting ways to deliver it to the table.

Here it's cooked with a pre-packaged Moroccon spice blend. If you have the skill and the means to prepare your own spice blends, go for it - and maybe drop us a link here to share. From everything I've ever read about making up things like garam masala or other spicy mixes, the quantities involved are usually such that we would never use it all before it goes stale. So we stick to the pre-made ones for now. Suggestions welcome!

To cook couscous, just boil an equal quantity of water (ie, 1 Cup) with 3T olive oil and 1-2 T of flavouring, remove the water from the heat, add the couscous (again, 1 Cup), allow to stand off the heat for 3 minutes, then stir through 1T of butter. Fluff up with a fork and serve. Yummy stuff.

Now, onto the main event:

Pineapple-Stuffed Chicken

(Serves 4)

Take one whole chicken of a size suitable to feed your family, and make sure it is either fresh or completely thawed.
Slice the skin of the chicken near the tail on the breast side. Carefully prise the skin away from the flesh, making sure that it remains firmly attached down the length of the breast. Gently slide in two pineapple slices cut in half lengthwise, being careful not to break the skin, as per the picture.

Halve an onion and jam it firmly into the cavity.

Toss the chicken (gently) in a large bowl with 3T Soy Sauce, 1/4C Pineapple juice (reserved from the canned slices), freshly ground salt and pepper, and 3T of flour. Place on a low rack in the slow cooker, and cook on high for 2 hours, reducing to low for a further 3 hours. And yes, after all the care you took not to split the skin, it'll split anyway. But you didn't do it. The laws of physics did.Anyway, when you try to get the chook out of the cooker, it'll just fall apart. Dish the chicken and top it with the pineapple rings and fresh diced capsicum, alongside Morrocan Couscous and fresh veges.