Author Archives: yeti

Chicken and Vegetable ‘Punk’ Pie

Posted on by

Here’s a great one I came up with over the weekend, it’s named Punk Pie as I used Brewdog Punk IPA, but really any IPA will work in the recipe.  You’ll need the following (and a couple of hours)

For the pastry –

  • 350g of plain flour
  • 200g of butter (or anything suitable for baking, as you can see I used Vitalite)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg to glaze

For the filling –

  • 2 good sized onions, red or white will do
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1 (325ml) bottle of Punk IPA, or the IPA of your choice
  • 1.5 chicken stock cubes, or enough to make roughly 635ml of stock, more or less to taste
  • 800g chicken thighs and legs
  • A few handfuls of frozen peas
  • 4 or so carrots
  • A couple of tbsp of flour for thickening
  • 200ml of water
  • A pinch of sugar (to taste)
  • A couple of pinches of tarragon
  • A few handfuls of grated cheese
  • Pepper

You’ll also need a mixing bowl, a casserole dish or oven proof pan (with a lid) and a 30cm pie dish
Continue reading →

Things I found down the back of the internet – Gulf Baharat

Posted on by

A quick recommendation for you all, I can’t take any credit for the recipe which can be found here – http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/baharat.html

I’m referring to the Kebsa spice mix, aka ‘Gulf Baharat’ – one of the more interesting mixes I’ve come across because of its use of dried lime and saffron. I’ve just tested it out on a piece of salmon cooked up in a grill pan and finished with a squeeze of lemon and wow… Is it tasty!  I would highly, highly recommend giving this a shot. And just to clarify – the first ingredient listed is red pepper, I believe it is referring to paprika

Dried lime is a bit of an uncommon ingredient in spice blends (I’ve never seen it used before) and as such I doubt many will have it to hand, but it’s easy enough to make yourself – simply get a lime and slice it as thinly as you possibly can, then lay the slices evenly across a non-stick baking tray and place on the top shelf of your oven at its lowest temperature.  At 50C it took about an hour and 20 minutes to dry to the point where it could be powdered in a spice mill.

Damned tasty salmon consumed whilst listening to – Demonaz – “March of the Norse”

Chinese Style Kebab Marinade

Posted on by

See those kebabs at the top of the page?  Wanna know how I made them?  It’s a very, very simple recipe and tastes great –

  • 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 1 tsp red wine vinegar
  • 3 tsp brown sugar
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 4 star anise seeds – ground finely
  • White pepper
  • 1 chilli of your choosing, more if you like extra heat

It’s a marinade, so I’m sure you can guess how this is put together – in a bowl add the soy and vinegar along with the sugar and stir until dissolved. Mince the garlic and chilli and add to the marinade along with powered star anise.  If you can’t find star anise or don’t have any to hand then I’m sure some Chinese 5 spice would work quite well, maybe try 1/2 a tsp?  Give it a taste and see how it works. Add the white pepper and mix together well, you want a balance of sweetness and saltiness as well as a little bit of tang from the vinegar. Use as a marinade for chicken, pork or beef a few hours before you plan on cooking it – thread the meat onto bamboo skewers that’ve been pre-soaked in water to prevent them from burning along with chunks of bell peppers and red onion.  You can cook in a grill pan, under the grill (broiler, for any of you across the pond) or for best results on a BBQ.  Feel free to mess around with the measurements to suit your tastes

A Very Yeti Breakfast

Posted on by

So, recipe number one… Here it comes!  Are ya ready? Are ya!? Well it’s bacon and eggs, with a twist

For this you will need –

  • 2 rashers of smoked bacon
  • 2 eggs
  • A bunch of coriander
  • One medium red onion
  • 2 finger chillies
  • 2 medium tomatoes
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • Olive oil
  • Pepper
  • Coffee for the cook, attempting to cook this first thing in the morning without caffeine is lunacy

Begin by slicing your bacon up, you don’t want it chopped too small, it’s meant to be a fairly chunky dish. With that done chuck it in a bowl and get started on the onions, garlic and chilli, these you do want to chop up pretty finely so it mixes in well with the eggs.  Leaving the root on the onion and slicing from root to cut end, and then across will give you nice small pieces

Huge knife not entirely necessary, but this is metal chef after all – the bigger the better!

And everything else chopped…

I probably don’t need to show you all of these steps, but it’s my first post here and everyone loves pictures, right?

Now it’s time to get that bacon cooking. Add a drop of olive oil to a pan on a medium heat and gently cook the bacon until crisp, don’t go overboard on the oil – as the bacon cooks and the fat is rendered out it’ll start to cook in that.  You can cook to your desired level of done-ness, personally I hold the firm belief that if it’s not smoked and it’s not crispy, it’s not bacon.  This looks pretty good to me –

Once you’re happy with how your bacon’s looking you can add the onions, garlic and chillis and continue to cook gently on a medium heat for a couple of minutes.  Whilst that’s cooking you can chop up the tomatoes and coriander, again you want these pretty chunky

I didn’t use all of that coriander, just about a handful of the chopped leaves is plenty

By now everything in the pan should be looking good, when the onions are turning slightly golden in parts it’s done

The onions are turning slightly golden in parts

Next break in your two eggs and mix in with the onion, you don’t want to stir too much or you’ll break up the egg into very small pieces.  It should take around 45 seconds to 1 minute for your eggs to be just cooked through – when they reach this stage add the tomatoes and coriander and continue to cook for a further 45 seconds just to take the chill out of the tomatoes.  It’s very easy to overcook eggs and have them turn rubbery, you want these to remain nice and soft and they will continue to cook once served.  Serve in a pre-warmed bowl, season with black pepper and tuck in!

To pimp it up even more you can serve it in a warm tortilla wrap with slices of avocado and some grated cheese.  Personally I just like it with a good squirt of sriracha hot sauce.  So there we have it, post number one completed – a nice and easy, but very tasty alternative to the normal bacon and eggs.  Stay tuned for more folks!

Cooked whilst listening to – Mors Principum Est – “The Unborn”