Glanbrydan’s Weblog

This is a basic recipe for a very useful dish. The simple version is good as a potato dish, with a BBQ, with a salad or good with lunch.  We are having it with sausages and peas. The left overs will be sliced, stored in the fridge and used as and when over a couple of days. It is also great if you have an egg glut – a chicken keepers delight.

You need:

5 or 6 medium potatoes or 6 to 8 smaller potatoes

1 onion peeled and diced

6 eggs

olive oil

salt and pepper

Peel the potatoes and slice them into half centimeter slices (I hope this is about quarter of an inch).

Put them in a saucepan, cover with water and add a good pinch of salt. Bring them very gently to the boil and then turn them down to a low heat. They need to cook gently for about 10 minutes. They need to be cooked and retain their sliced shape. Drain the water off and allow them to sit in the drainer over the empty pan for a little while .

Take a medium frying pan. We use a 10 inch (about 26 cm) pan. Put about 4 to 6 tablespoons of olive oil in and heat up on a medium heat, add the diced onion and allow it to sizzle gently for 10 minutes.  While this is cooking beat 6 eggs with a whisk until combined. Season with a pinch of ground pepper and a pinch of salt.

Put the potato in the pan and cook for a few minutes to help warm them up a bit them pour over all the egg. Try and push down any sticky upy potatoes so the top is coated in egg.

Put this on a low heat and cook for 20 minutes. Check it isn’t burning, it really needs to be gently cooking, too low and it won’t set – too high and it will get a tough outer layer. The top should be just a bit gooey.

You now need a plate and a big lid or two plates. Cover the pan with a plate and tip the egg onto it. Cover this with the lid or another plate and tip it up again. Then return the gooey side face down to the pan and cook for another 5 minutes.

Gently turn out onto a clean plate. It can be served hot or left to cool and served cold. When cold keep it in the fridge

miniature Iris - sticking their tongues out

I am now making my second batch of chicken soup. OK, I did say it was a bit of a palaver but I think I’ve cracked it.

Make some good stock.

We bought ourselves a giant chicken from the Brecon market, far too much for just us so we decided to make more meals out of it. The chicken was cut in 2 and half of it roasted. It may sound a waste but we ate the meat in chicken sandwiches, very yummy.

We saved the carcass which was added to the uncooked carcass that had been stripped of meat. The uncooked breast will make one dish and the smaller meat from the thighs and legs will make chicken fajitas. http://glanbrydan.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/the-last-of-the-chicken-for-tea-chicken-fajitas/

Put a bit of olive oil in your pan and heat it up to a low/medium heat . Cut up 1 or 2 onions into quarters with the skin still on and place in a big saucepan along with a few sticks of roughly cut celery , a peeled roughly chopped parsnip, a couple of roughly chopped garlic cloves, 10 ish peppercorns, half a teaspoon of salt and all the chicken bones.

Give it all a good stir and let it cook for a few minutes without allowing it to burn. Add about 3 litres of water or enough to cover the bones (push them down into the water a bit if you need to), a teaspoon of dried thyme , a couple of bay leaves , a chicken stock cube and then bring to a simmer, put the lid on the pan. Allow it to cook gently for 3 hours checking it every now and then to see if it needs a little more water.

You can also add carrot, parsley, courgette, a bit of tomato among other things. It’s worth experimenting a few times to see what you like. You may have things ‘at risk’ of going over so it’s a good way to use things up.

Take the pan and put it to cool a bit somewhere out the way. Once it’s cooled to a heat you can handle the meat strain it in batches into a couple of bowls or another saucepan. Put the meat and veg to one side to be sorted out in a few minutes.

Return the liquid to a cleaned stock pot or pan and allow to simmer very gently uncovered for about 30 minutes. The liquid should reduce and help to develop the flavour. If it is too weak now you will need to add another chicken stock cube or a couple of teaspoons of veg stock powder.

Now sort out your chicken and veg. Carefully remove and meat bits that you can add back into your soup being sure to get the bones out – some bones can be very sharp! Discard the carcass then either throw away the veg or feed them to hungry dogs with a bit of dog food - again be sure there are no bones left for your dogs to choke on.

Now you can take enough stock for your soup I use about 1.5 litres for 4 people as a starter or as a nice lunch for 2, any leftovers can be kept for gravy for a day or two in the fridge or frozen for later use. Once the stock has cooled keep it in the fridge, after a few hours or a night in the fridge the fat will have risen to the surface and can be removed. The rest will set to a light jelly.

The soup bit

When you are ready to make your soup take

a little butter  – about 25 gms

an onion, peeled and chopped

a carrot, peeled and chopped

2 sticks of celery, washed and sliced

optional ingredient  – about 100/200 gms mushrooms

optional ingredient  – sweetcorn – a small tin, drained or a fresh ear stripped of the corn. It becpmes sweetcorn and chicken soup with this in.

about 75ml double cream

4 tb of dry sherry or a small glass of white wine.

more salt and pepper to taste

Heat a pan with a little butter in until it has melted and add the onions, carrots, celery and mushrooms/sweetcorn if using. Let them cook gently for a few minutes giving them a swirl every now and then to stop them sticking. Add the alcohol, turn up the heat so it boils for about 30 seconds. Add the stock back in and cook for 30 minutes.

Tip in the cream and heat up to simmering. Taste it and adjust the seasoning. It should now be ready to serve with fresh crusty bread and butter or croutons made from toasting slices of french stick and then grilling a bit of cheese on top of them before serving great if like us you cannot eat a complete french stick in one day.

After searching through many lemon chicken recipes I decided on Gordon Ramsey’s sticky lemon chicken with champ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/gordon_ramsay/article1660232.ece. It was easy to cook and we had it with the other half of the cabbage. This time the cabbage was cooked with a left over slice of bacon.

Cabbage and bacon

Melt an ounce (25g) of butter in a pan and add a slice of chopped bacon. Let it sizzle for a couple of minutes then chuck in half a shredded cabbage. Put on the lid and it will start to wilt very quickly. Add a dash of water and pop the lid back on. In 4 to 6 minutes you will have tasty cabbage, wilted but with a bit of bite.

The next ‘at risk in the fridge’ is half a packet of fresh cherries. With pancake day not too far away I may turn them into a sort of cherry jam ready for the day.

The snow has begun to melt here in the valley but high on the mountain the caps remain white. The moon is bright in the clear sky as the temperature plummets our wood burners is working overtime. The chickens have long settled down for the night, the dogs are quiet and I have no doubt that Smudger cat has gone out for a night on the tiles.

The cottage is still and T-W-O has retired  to bed having spent yesterday night awake, the early hour has caught up with him. I have watched a recording of the BBC series the ‘Victorian Farm’ where several people are spending a year working a farm as they did in the late 19th century.  Now I am going to enjoy a peaceful nightcap and take my hot water bottle up to join T-W-O for a good nights sleep.