eaon pritchard's rowies

Aberdeen's gift to the world.
I'm informed that this is the recipe used by Aitkens Bakery
of Torry.


Rowies
1oz baker's yeast 3/4 pint tepid water
1lb flour 6oz lard(hog)
1 level teaspoon salt 6oz butter
1 " tablespoon sugar
Warm all utensils before starting.
Sieve the flour.
Mix yeast , salt , sugar together and add with water
to the flour.
Mix well and then cover with warm cloth and
remove to warm place.
Allow dough to double in size.
When ready blend fats together and divide into 3.
Roll out dough on a floured board.
Dot one portion of the fats over the dough.
Fold in three and roll out again.
Repeat twice.
Form into oval shapes , place on greased and
floured tray and allow to prove for a further 30
minutes.
Bake at 400 degrees Farenheit ( gas 4-5 ) for
approximately 25 minutes.
When ready remove from oven , spread with
lashings of butter and eat immediately.

originally posted here

Eaon Pritchard is Head of Digital at Geronimo London.

diana caspi's pilaki (pinto beans cooked in olive-oil)

This interesting Turkish dish comes courtesy of Diana Caspi, who has recently baled out of the Fashion business Los Angeles to concentrate on her love of cooking.
She blogs over at Tested and Approved Recipes from Everywhere also 1200 Daily Calorie Menus and Recipes for the more weight conscious among you.

Over to Diana...

'I started my blog after I was laid off around a year and a half ago; which was a blessing as far as I'm concerned. This gave me time to cook at last, so I thought I'll make comments on all of these recipes that float all around the net. Most of them need tweaking, so why not find out what needs to be done before you cook the dish. I've also added some of my mothers recipes that I know taste great.

I checked my recipes and decided that my favorite is an appetizer dish that always gives a fresh pick me up to any table. You can eat it all by itself or serve it with a basic salad and make a complete meal of it.

Turkish cuisine has appetizers called 'meze'. It's similar to the Greek tradition. In both, before you eat the main course, you linger socially over small plates of savories, among them vegetables, mostly cooked in olive oil and eaten cold. Pilaki is one of these mezes. I also serve it next to rice to complement assorted main meat or chicken dishes.

This one is my mother's recipe, tested and cooked for over 30 years:) The recipe uses dry beans which you need to soak overnight, but I never seem to plan ahead like that, so I used canned pinto beans, which do the job just fine.

If you like beans, give this dish a try. It really is tasty. And it is healthy, although I have to admit it might pack some calories, but it is so worth it:)

If you don't have tomato juice at home, you can use tomato paste and use 1/2 cup water instead. I like the tomato juice better, it makes the dish less heavy.



PILAKI - PINTO BEANS COOKED IN OLIVE OIL

Ingredients:
1 Cup Pinto Beans
2 Potatoes
2 Carrots
1 Onion
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup Tomato Juice
1/2 cup fresh parsley
1 tsp sugar
2/3 cups Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:
If you are using packaged beans, soak overnight, and then cook the beans for about 20 minutes. Be careful not to overcook, because you will cook them some more later. If you are using canned beans, you don't need to cook them. Just set them aside.

Cut potatoes and carrots into cubes and boil until tender, but, again, do not overcook, you will be cooking them together with the beans again later.

Grate the onions, and mince and mash the garlic to make a paste. They need to disappear in the tomato sauce.

Add all the ingredients to a pot. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes until all vegetables are tender, but before they are overcooked.

Remove from heat and let cool. When cold enough move over to a serving dish and enjoy.

Some people enjoy adding a couple of drops of lemon after the dish cools down.

tangerine toad's 'grandma rose’s chicken paprikas'

Perhaps the only one of the Web 2.0 gurus with a traditional advertising background, Alan Wolk, aka tangerine toad, has staked out a distinctive voice for himself with his Toad Stool blog. Billed as a 'frank but fair' look at the ever-evolving social media and advertising scenes, the blog is best known for the series 'Your Brand Is Not My Friend', which deals with the pitfalls established brands make in embracing social media. The wide-ranging appeal of Wolk’s common-sensical approach made waves throughout the blogosphere and helped establish him as one of the go-to guys for social media and Web 2.0.

Prior to 'seeing the light', Wolk was a highly successful creative director who spent years at ‘90s hot shop Anderson & Lembke and went on to start up Atmosphere, BBDO’s digital agency. A New York City native and Stuyvesant High School graduate, Wolk currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and 2 kids, where he doubles as a Little League and basketball coach.

Grandma Rose’s Chicken Paprikas

'My great-grandparents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants and my great-grandmother passed that culinary tradition on to my mother and grandmother, who called everything by an Americanized name. The result was that growing up, I never realized that the “beef stew” I was eating was actually goulash or that the “chicken in a pan” was actually chicken paprikas. (Which is pronounced pup-REE-kash, for those of you into authenticity.)

Pan or paprikas though, it was my favorite meal and one of the first things I ever learned how to cook. It’s actually fairly simple once you get the hang of it and can be done with white meat only or drumsticks only. Now Grandma Rose, who taught me how to make it, was an old-school cook, whose measurement scales veered towards “2 fingers of butter” or “enough water” so I’ve tried to translate that into workable numbers when possible.

The key to successful paprikas though is real Hungarian paprika. This may require a little legwork, but many upscale supermarket chains (e.g. Whole Foods) now sell brands like Pride of Szeged that actually have flavor. This is a big change from my childhood where we’d need to make trips to the (now-defunct) Paprikas Weiss specialty store in the formerly Hungarian Yorkville section of Manhattan’s Upper East Side to get “real” paprika.

Here’s what you’ll need:
Hungarian Sweet Paprika
Hungarian Hot Paprika (optional)
Large-ish yellow onion
Medium size chicken cut up into 8 pieces or 3 breasts cut up into 6 pieces.
Cooking oil (corn, safflower or canola)
Salt & pepper to taste

Here’s what you do:
Pour enough oil into a large fry pan to coat the bottom (start with 2 tablespoons and see where that gets you). Swirl it around so that it’s even and then start heating it up on a medium flame.

1. Peel the onion and slice it against the grain, so that you get thin circular slices. (Do this near an open window or something if your eyes are particularly sensitive to onions the way mine are.)

2. Cut the circles in half

3. Lower the flame under the oil and add about 2 tablespoons of sweet paprika to the oil, stir it around twice and then add the onions, stirring constantly. Add about 3 dashes of salt too.

4. You can cover the pan at this point, but make sure to stir the onions fairly regularly (every minute or two) so they don’t burn and stick to the pan. Cook them slowly. Your goal is to have them turn a translucent orange-ish color.

5. Once the onions are that translucent orange-ish color, it’s time to add the chicken. If the pan seems pretty dry at this point, you can add another tablespoon of oil, stirring it in with the onion mix and letting it heat up first. I like to sear the chicken on each side, which means pressing it into the pan with a wooden spoon, counting out 5-Mississippi and turning it. This lets the juices from the chicken out too.

6. Once the chicken is seared, slowly add water to the pan. Start with a cup of water and pour it in a little at a time, stirring and mixing it in as you go. The goal is to just cover the chicken pieces and so the amount of water you add will vary depending on the size of your chicken pieces and the size of your pan. Make sure to mix the onions and paprika in thoroughly.

7. Bring the heat up a little to say 50% until the liquid starts to simmer and then bring it down to maybe 20%. You want the chicken to cook slowly. Cover the pot, but stir and turn the chicken every 5 minutes so that it cooks evenly.

8. After about 20 minutes, uncover the chicken and cook an additional 5 minutes so that the broth thickens.

9. Serve over rice, letting the broth flavor the rice.
Chicken paprikas keeps well in the refrigerator and is often better the next day.'

asha treacy's chicken with peppercorns and shredded ginger

Something Indian this week, coutesy of Asha Treacy, Human Resources Advisor for Bucks New University. She blogs about everything and anything at ashatreacy.com

‘I think this is a great idea, I love cooking so happy to contribute a recipe..

Chicken with Peppercorns and Shredded Ginger

I wasn't sure when I looked at this recipe, thought it may be too much garlic or ginger, but I cooked it for a couple of friends and it went down a treat. It also takes you away from the very traditional curries which is what I was looking for and it's very easy. The secret to a good curry is onions and garlic which really bring out the flavour. If you're not sure about the chillies you can normally tell how spicy they are by their smell, so the stronger the smell the hotter..and don't forget to tailor the ingredients to suit you..not everyone like it's so hot..

You will need...

Serves 6..

1kg chicken joints, skinned
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
1-2 green chillies
15g fresh ginger, sliced into thin shreds
1 tbsp of coriander powder
1-2 tbsp salt
200ml water
1 tbsp black peppercorn coarsely ground
1/2 tsp garam masala
2 tsp lemon juice
2 handfuls of chopped fresh coriander leaves and stalks

Marinade

10 large cloves, finely chopped
10g fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 tsb garam masala
1 chicken stock cube, dissolved in 1/4 pint of hot water

To marinade the chicken, make the paste with the garlic, ginger, garam masala and chicken stock cube. Pour into a large casserole dish, add the chicken, stir to coat well and marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour or as long as possible. I leave mine to marinate all night. Return to room temperature before cooking.

Heat the oil in a non stick saucepan. Add the onions (I use about 3) and cook until they are soft and starting to brown. Add the green chillies (I add about 12-14 fairly spiced chillies). If you are not sure it's best to add less and then increase as you go on. Add the ginger, coriander powder and salt and cook for another minute or so.

Add the chicken with the marinade and sear on all sides for about 3-4 minutes. Add the water and black pepper and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the chicken is tender. Sir the pan occasionally, adding splashes of water if necessary.

Increase the heat and stir the chicken for at least 3-4 minutes to reduce the gravy to just a few tablespoons. I prefer to have a bit more gravy than this. Stir in the garam masala, lemon juice and fresh coriander just before serving. Goes lovely with some naan bread, or rice and a bit of salad on the side...and not forgetting the glass of red.. =)

All the best

Asha xx '

neil perkin's basque chicken

A taste of Spain now, courtesy of Neil Perkin. Neil is a marketing and strategy cheese at IPC Media, the publisher of lots of magazines and websites. He blogs at Only Dead Fish

'I'm not the greatest cook in the world (which says a lot for how easy this recipe is) but this dish is an absolute dinner party fave. It's been on heavy rotation amongst my friends enough times that everyone must have had it at least twice (and no-one's complained - yet). It's based on an old Delia recipe and these amounts are enough for four people. You'll need:

1 chicken, jointed into 8 pieces (or 8 pieces bought separately)
2 onions
2 red peppers
About 50 g sun-dried tomatoes in oil
Olive oil
Garlic
About 150 g of chorizo sausage
Brown Basmati rice
275 ml Chicken stock (Delia would use the giblets, I use Oxo)
A bit of white wine (about 170 ml)
1 level tablespoon tomato purée
A dash of hot paprika
Tomato puree
50 g of pitted black olives
Half a large orange
A big casserole dish with a lid

To prep...peel and cut the orange into wedges, chop all the black olives in half, measure out 225 ml of the rice in a meauring jug, chop 2 gloves of the garlic, drain and chop the sun dried tomatoes into centimetre wide pieces, skin the chorizo and chop that into centimetre slices

Then...season your chicken pieces well. Chop the peppers in half, remove the seeds, and cut the halves into strips. Chop the onion into strips as well. Heat up a good splash of the olive oil in your casserole on the hob until it's good and hot and then brown the chicken pieces four at a time until they're a golden colour on both sides.

When they're done take them out, leaving all the flavoured oil behind in the casserole, and put them on a plate to the side. Add a splash more oil and get it hot again before adding the peppers and the onions and stir them around to cook for about five minutes. Next add the garlic, dried tomatoes and chorizo and give it another stir for a minute or two.

Then add the rice so that it gets covered in the oil, and then add your wine and the chicken stock, tomato puree and add the dash of hot paprika. Get it to simmering point and put the chicken pieces on top of it, put the orange wedges amongst them and then sprinkle over the olives. Ideally you need to have all the rice under liquid as it will soak it up as it cooks. Lastly, put the lid on and cook it at 180C or gas mark 4 for about an hour - this provides ample time to chinwag with your friends over a nice glass of Rioja.

An hour later, serve it up, take all the plaudits, and drink lots more rioja. Enjoy.'

chris hambly's frutte di mare

Another Italian dish, this time from Web Strategist Chris Hambly.
Chris is the founder Audiocourses.com a distance learning company based in London UK, which he now manages through his creative web development company Audana.
Chris is also the founder of Mediacamp the new media unconference, and blogs at chrishambly.com

take it away Chris...

'Frutte Di Mare means Sea Fruits so get your seafood taste buds wrapped around this.

Also bear in mind, like all great cooking, the ingredients change, just like Chinese whispers can change the meaning of text, so feel free to adapt this to your own needs, that's what I did and do each time.

OK so you are going to need.

Red Onion
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Seafood
Spaghetti
Moscatel de Valencia (a very sweet wine)
Salt
Capers
Green Chili
Tomato Passata (tinned toms are fine)

So first take half the red onion and chop it really fine:
The next step is to plenty of the olive oil in a frying pan over a moderate heat and "sweat off" the onions. The secret here is not too hot, do not burn them but get ALL the water out of them, as in ALL the water, "sweat" them off...

While that is doing you should prepare some water for the pasta which should be as salty as the Mediterranean, so get plenty of salt in there. I usually add a lot of salt, some of you may prefer less than me, but hey I'm a salt nut.

Next job is to "sweat off" the tomatoes, and add a tiny amount of green chili and some capers.

You hear me say "sweat off" a lot in this recipe, this is vital in lots of dishes like this. Italian food is oil based not water based (this is one of the key areas some people get wrong), you really need to get all that water out.

Have patience take a bit of time (sip some wine while it's doing)
until the water really has ALL gone. Only the ingredient remains with the oil. Looks delicious already, and the tomatoes at this point have become sweet, if you do not sweat correctly they do not become sweet, they have that sharp taste still.

So now that you have the basic sauce prepared (easy eh), you can get on with washing the seafood.
I have crab sticks, mussels and squid as my seafood, that's a good taste and not too strong in flavour, also the texture is good, firm. Most stores sell this in packs, but you can mix this up from a good fish shop.

So next up is that "special touch", adding some of that deliciously sweet white wine. I like to use dessert wine, very sweet and thick in texture.

Throw plenty in with the seafood and sauce. Again you must "sweat" this down a little, not too much as the seafood will become hard, so don't add too much.

Pasta should be prepared Al Dente, you know, firm to the bite, do not get it all soft and bloated, it is best with texture. This is another key area some people get wrong. Pasta should be textured, firmish.

Lastly you drain the pasta (DRAIN ALL WATER) and mix together,
Note the colours will vary a lot from dish to dish, so don't worry about that but do take note of the textures and amounts.

And lastly get that wine, and enjoy the delightful taste of Chris Hambly's version of Frutte di Mare.

I'd love to hear about it if you do try this version, send a comment in.

Have fun and, always take your time, never rush food, cooking and eating is to be made special.'

eaon pritchard's beef braciole

Eaon is an interactive creative generalist, currently Head of Channel Development with London based digital agency Weapon7. His popular advertising/marketing and pop cuture blog is Never Get out of the Boat

'Here's my take on an Italian/American classic dish.
Famously featured in that great episode of Everybody loves Raymond where Deborah and Marie compete over who's braciole was the best, and Ray has to choose (between mother and wife!).
It's also cropped up in a couple of episodes of The Sopranos.
The correct name for the dish is Braciole however its been Americanised into Brijole over time.

ps...
Purists would say do it all on the hob, however this douchebag chef is happy to stick it in the oven.

Beef Braciole/Brijole

Serve with your favourite pasta or gnocci with a rocket and parmesan salad.

1 lb beef / 8 steaks approximately 1/4 inch thick
8 slices of prosciutto
1 packet pine nuts
Big pile of grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
8 garlic cloves, chopped
Bunch of fresh flat parsley, chopped
Olive oil
3/4 cans imported Italian tomatoes
1/4 cup tomato puree
2 bay leaves
Bunch of fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 carrots, peeled and chopped fine
2 celery sticks, chopped chopped fine
Red wine
flour spread on a plate for dredging
salt & pepper to taste
Serves 4.

1.Pound steaks with a meat pounder until 1/4 inch thick. Season with salt & pepper. Lay a slice of prosciutto on each one and sprinkle evenly with with the crushed pine nuts, cheese, garlic and parsley. Roll up the slices and tie with kitchen string or fix with a cocktail stick..

2.Heat a good glug of the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Dredge the braciole in flour shaking off any excess, then place in the pan. Cook until browned on all sides then remove and place in a baking dish.

3.Add the onion, carrots, and celery. Cook, stirring until tender but not browned, about 10 minutes. Add a couple of glasses of red wine and cook until most of liquid evaporates, about 2 minutes. Pass the tomatoes, with their juices through a seive into the pan. Half fill one of the tomato cans with water and add to pan. Add tomato puree, turn heat to low and cook at a simmer for about 10mins.
Add the sauce to the baking dish with the braciole, mix in the basil, place in a low ish oven (about 120-150) and bake for 2 hours (or until the beef is tender and crumbly).
Top with mozzerella with 20 mins to go if you like,
Serve with the pasta or gnocci and salad.'