dinner recipes – ¡Comemos!

This recipe wasn’t planned. It was a ‘what have I got in the fridge that needs using up?’ kind of meal, which then ended up being utterly delicious. It turned out that it was fresh fish stock and coconut cream that were in my fridge, crying out to be saved, avoiding getting lost behind mountains of double cream, yoghurt and pancetta, or indeed, just ending up in the bin.

I can’t say it’s the most photogenic dish, but we’ve got way too caught up in a world where a dish’s appearance is more influential than its flavour, so excuse the imperfect imagery, and simply try it for yourself – this definitely bears more resemblance to curries in India than restaurant or takeaway curries!

The idea of making a curry without using a ready-made sauce or paste can often seem like a lot of effort, but experimenting with different spices and flavourings is what makes it exciting. I can assure you that this curry recipe is very straightforward and doesn’t require a food processor or hand blender for the base paste.

You can adjust the spice levels to your taste – this wasn’t fiery, but I do like a fair bit of chilli in mine.

Serves 2

1 large onion

Thumb of ginger

1 whole chilli

1 ½ tsp turmeric

1tsp chilli powder

40g coconut cream (I used the kind that comes in a solid block)

250ml fish stock (fresh if you can find or make it)

2 white fish fillets

A pinch of saffron

Sprinkling of desiccated coconut

Rice or flatbread to serve

Slice the onions and cook for at least 20 mins in oil on a low heat until they are beginning to caramelise.
Add the diced chilli and grated ginger along with all the spices except the saffron. Cook for a few more minutes until fragrant.
Add the coconut cream and fish stock, turning up the heat slightly and cooking until reduced by1/3.
Add saffron and chunks of fish (or you can keep the fillets whole) and cook until fish is done.
Serve with rice and a sprinkling of desiccated coconut.

As you can see, there are so few steps to this recipe, and once the onions are done, it’s a pretty quick-to-cook meal. It’s sometimes difficult to leave the onions alone for so long, as the temptation is just to get on with things, but allowing them to properly caramelise really does add to the flavour so try to resist the urge to move on too early – I promise it’ll be worth it.

¡Comemos!

Who doesn’t love pesto? It’s basically a rite of passage to live off of a pre-made pesto pasta for at least half of your time at university nowadays, but it’s actually very simple to make yourself.

This recipe takes the greatest of the pasta sauces – both pesto and béchamel and combines them in a super creamy chicken lasagne dish, where you won’t need to spend ages simmering a ragù sauce and ensuring the meat is cooked adequately, as leftover chicken works a trick here.

With the crunch of almonds on top, combined with oozy melted cheddar, this is a super comforting dish that looks even more impressive than a standard lasagne.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

For the pesto

30g basil

30g pine nuts

2tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic

1tbsp grated parmesan

For the lasagne

125g shredded cooked chicken

50g cheddar

4 lasagne sheets

2tbsp butter

1 clove garlic

3tbsp flour

milk

nutmeg

handful of almonds

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (depending on your oven – use your own judgement).
Put all the pesto ingredients into a food processor and blend to a paste.
Boil some salted water and part-cook the lasagne sheets until very al dente.
To make the white sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the diced garlic and flour and mix well.
Add milk bit by bit, continuing to stir on a low-med heat until you have a thickened sauce.
Grate in the nutmeg and remove from the heat.
Mix the chicken and pesto in a bowl.
In a food processor, blitz the almonds into coarse crumbs. For extra flavour, don’t wash out the processor after making the pesto, as then your almond crumbs will suck up all the excess pesto left in there.
In a loaf tin, layer a lasagna sheet, then chicken and white sauce, then repeat twice more.
Top with the final sheet and sprinkle with grated cheese and the almond crumb.
Bake for 15 minutes until the cheese on top is golden.

¡Comemos!

Tag: dinner recipes

Coconutty Fish Curry

Pesto chicken lasagne