Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

Right. So I have so far done roast chicken, roast lamb #1, roast lamb #2, so now we’re onto roast pork. I suspect one of these days I’m going to make roast beef and yorkshire pudding to complete the set.

So as usual, we start with our roasting base which are off cuts of vegetables that we use the rest the meat on and use it for gravy a bit later. Leave the skin on these if they are clean, otherwise peel them. The quantity is enough for about 4-6 people.

Roasting Base

1. 2 onions, sliced
2. 1 bulb of garlic, each clove lightly crushed
3. 1 large carrot, thickly sliced
4. 1 stick of celery, thickly sliced
5. 2 fresh bay leaves (or dried)
6. 2 large sprigs of rosemary
7. olive oil

Scatter all the chopped vegetables on the roasting tray and drizzle with some olive oil and season with a bit of salt and pepper.

Roasting the Pork

1. 1 kg. of boned roasting pork
2. olive oil
3. salt and pepper

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(Chicken and Tortilla Soup, topped with avocado, lime and coriander)

Last week I was pondering whether I should do up a brenner feast (if you watch Scrubs, you’ll know what I’m talking about but if not, maybe next time) but Josh and I started talking about ‘that-Mexican-place-we-went-to-on-one-of-our-first-dates’ and I decided that I would do up some yummy Mexican stuff.

(Ocean trout enchilada)

The Menu

Entrée
Chicken and tortilla Soup

Main
Ocean trout enchilada served with spicy Mexican rice (arroz)

Dessert
Cinnamon-dusted oranges

(Mexican rice – Arroz)

I have decided to split this into three separate posts (and this one, so maybe that’s four? clearly I can’t count) for ease of categorising and to prevent this post from becoming wayyyy too long.

(Cinnamon dusted orange)

But before I launch into the making of each dish, the bill!

The Bill

Total $19.11

Ocean trout                  __________  $6.30
Canned tomato           __________ $0.75
Barbecue chicken      __________ $1.50
Enchilada kit                __________ $3.99
Celery piece                 __________ $0.10
Avocado                        __________ $0.62
Orange                            __________ $0.15
Coriander                      __________ $0.40
Carrot                             __________ $0.20
Red capsicums            __________ $2.00
Lime                                 __________ Free
Onion                               __________ $0.40
Seasoning                      __________ $1.50
Mushroom                    __________ $0.40
Basmati rice                 __________ $0.80

Now scroll down for each separate post. Or Part 1: Chicken and Tortilla Soup, Part 2: Ocean Trout Enchilada, Part 3: Mexican Rice. Err.. I don’t need to tell you how to dush orange segments with cinnamon, do I?

This is part 3/3 of this week’s $20 Mexican Feast.

This is a really easy side dish. I looked up a few recipes on the internet and came up with this one. I used my rice cooker and it takes minimum of two cups of rice (there’s always leftover rice in this household! I had this for breakfast with bacon and eggs the next day). This makes a lot of rice! Enough for 4-6 people.

1. 1/2 onion, sliced
2. 1/2 red capsicum, cut into strips
3. 1/2 yellow capsicum, cut into strips
4. 1 coriander (4-5 stalks), chopped
5. 1 tsp tumeric
6. 1 tsp ground coriander
7. 1 tsp ground cumin
8. 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or chilli powder)
9. 2 cups of basmati rice
10. 4 cups of water

(in the rice cooker)

Turn the rice cooker on ‘Cook’, add 2 tbsp of oil to heat up (you might need to hold down your rice cooker button), fry the onion and capsicum for a minute. Add the spices and rice. Stir until the rice is heated through. Sprinkle with coriander. Add water (this depends on your rice and rice cooker, so you’ll need to adjust accordingly) and cook in the rice cooker.

If you don’t have a rice cooker, do the same on a stove. Add water and cover the rice and turn the heat down to simmer and for to cook for 10 minutes. Rest the rice off the heat for another 10 minutes.

Part 2 of the $20 Mexican Feast continues…

I felt like a bit of fish and since enchilada seems to accommodate fish very well, I decided that enchilada would be perfect. I bought a nice ocean trout fillet from the fish monger (possible about 200g) and that was plenty enough for two of us. Remember to uncook the fish because you’ll have to bake it.

I ended up buying the Old El Paso enchilada kit from the supermarket which consisted of 8 (tiny!) corn tortilla and enchilada sauce. I know. It wasn’t supposed to be though. Unfortunately, my local supermarket didn’t carry corn tortilla on its own. And there was no way I was going to make enchilada with flour tortilla. So recap: corn tortilla not flour tortilla.

Note: this recipe makes 6 small enchiladas (there were 8 in a pack, used 2 for the soup)

Making the enchilada sauce

(Peeled, roasted capsicum – still steaming!)

I start by roasting a capsicum under the grill on medium for about 5 minutes on each of the four sides until the skin blackened and blistered. Cover and rest the capsicum. The steam will continue to cook the capsicum until soft. Peel the capsicum, discard the seeds and chop it into piece.

(Adding roasted red capsicum, fresh chilli and coriander to prepacked sauce)

Bring the pre-packed enchilada sauce to boil (or if you want to make it from scratch, simmer a can of diced tomatoes, chopped onion, garlic, 1 each tsp of cumin, coriander, tumeric, salt and a bit of chilli powder for 20 minutes), add the chopped roasted capsicum, 1 chopped fresh red chilli (alter depending on how spicy you want it) and 4-5 stalk of fresh coriander chopped. The one trick I learn is to add fresh ingredients to zing up bottled sauces. It tastes fantastic like you make it from scratch!

(the sauce after fresh ingredients have been blended in)

Simmer the sauce for a few more minutes. Blend the sauce and put aside while you prepare other ingredients. I used my Sunbeam Stickmaster and I can’t rave about it enough. It was the best wedding present ever!

Making the enchilada fillings

(cooking the vegetables)

1. 200 g. ocean trout, pinboned and cut into 3 cm cubes (don’t worry about remove the skin)
2. 1/2 onion, sliced
3. 3 button mushrooms, sliced
4. 1/2 red capsicum, cut into strips
5. 1/2 yellow capsicum, cut into strips
6. Yet more coriander! Pile them on!

First of all, start by preheating your oven now to 200′C. Fry the onion, capsicum and mushroom together in a bit of oil until the vegetables soften and start to colour. Add chopped coriander. Set aside.

(pan-frying the trout)

Turn the heat way up and add oil. Cut the fish into 3cm cubes and fry very them quickly on high. No more than half a minute on two sides only. You need to really under cook the fish here because it will be baked later on as well and nothing is worse than overcooked fish.

Putting them together

Heat the sauce up and fill the bottom of a baking dish up to about 2 cm.

(putting the fillings together)

Place a corn tortilla on a plate. Spoon some vegetable filling (about 1 tbsp), place two cubes of cooked trout (the skin will come off easily here if you wish to remove it) and flatten the fish a bit. Roll the tortilla by folding the two side into the centre. Hold the side that the two ends meet up. It won’t stay close, don’t worry. Place the tortilla into the sauce in the baking dish, move the tortilla in the sauce a bit and then turn it upside. So now you end up with the sealed part at the bottom and the other side nicely sauced. Are you confused yet? This is basically to dispense with the need to spoon more sauce on top of each enchilada. It gets messy so I do it this way. Do the same for the rest of the enchilada. It’s important to use a baking dish that fits all of your enchilada properly.

(bake until the cheese melts)

Sprinkle with some grated cheese. Tasty is good. American Cheddar even better. But I have mozzarella. It doesn’t matter so much (imo, anyway). Bake for 10-15 minutes until the cheese melts.* We don’t really have the luxury of baking it until it’s nice and golden because the fish will be overcooked. If you’re using another meat, or like to cook the hell out of your fish, I recommend baking it for longer.

* The more I think about it, I should have just grilled it so the cheese will melt and browned and the fish won’t overcook. Ah well. Next time.

(Chicken and Tortilla Soup, topped with avocado, lime and coriander)

This is part 1 out of 3 from this week’s $20 Feast.

The main reason I wanted to do this soup is because it’s fabulous using leftover roast chicken and that’s what I had plenty of. We were at the supermarket late the other night and came across a nice looking barbecued chicken so we thought why not. They make really good sandwiches and other things.* If you don’t have leftover roast chicken, just use some fresh chicken breast instead. Poach it in the stock first and then slice and add to the soup.

So what you’ll need (this makes four servings of soup):

1. 1 litre of chicken stock
2. 1 tbsp of butter
3. 1 stalk of celery, chopped (leaves reserved for stock)
4. 1 small carrot, diced (peel reserved for stock)
5. 1/2 onion, diced
6. 1 garlic, chopped
7. 1 fresh coriander  (4-5 stalks), leaves reserved, stalked chopped
8. 1.5 cups of leftover roast or barbecued chicken, no skin
9. 1 tsp ground cumin
10. 1 tsp ground coriander
11. 1/2 tsp chilli powder
12. 1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
13. 1/3 canned diced tomato
14. 1 tbsp tomato paste
15. 2 corn tortilla
16. wedges of lime, to serve
17. 1/2 avocado, cubed to serve

Making chicken stock

(freshly made chicken stock)

So first things first, the stock. I find that supermarket barbecue chicken bits (skin, wings, frame, bones) make fantastically rich chicken stock. And fast too! I placed a litre of filtered water, handful of chicken bits (that we didn’t really want to eat, no stuffing though!), some carrot peels, some young yellow celery leaves (don’t add the dark green stalks) and tough stalks. You can add a bit of stock powder if you like, I tend to do that instead of salt. Bring the stock to boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Skim off any fat.

Putting the soup together

Heat some butter in a saucepan and sautee onion, celery, coriander stalks and carrot on medium heat until soft. Add bay leaf, garlic and chicken. Turn the heat up and stir for a minute or so until heated through. Add ground cumin, ground coriander, chilli powder, canned tomato and tomato paste. Add 3/4 of the  stock and bring to boil. Simmer for 20 minutes. Taste and season accordingly. If desired, add more stock.

Garnishing the soup

Take the two corn tortill and either cut them into strips and deep them or spray some cooking oil and microwave on high for about 1 minute. Once cooled, the tortilla will be come crispy.

Cut avocado into cubes.

To serve, ladel the soup into a soup bowl. Top with avocado and the crispy tortilla (crack them if they are still whole) Garnish with some coriander leaves and serve with a wedge of lime squeeze over the soup. ¡Buen apetito!

* That chicken ended up being numerous sandwiches, this soup, chicken a la king, and barbecued chicken and veggie stir-fry. Talk about stretching one chookie!