Chicken Casserole

My family live in a small village on Bodmin Moor. The weather can be very cold and bleak there in winter. After long walks out on the cold moors, a warming, wholesome meal is what's needed. This chicken casserole is perfectly warming.

Ingredients

4 Corn-fed chicken portions
1 onion, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
4 slices of pancetta, cubed
Bowl of frozen peas
1 organic chicken stock cube or pint fresh stock
8 chestnut mushrooms, cleaned and cut into quarters
salt & pepper
2 springs rosemary or thyme

Method

Heat the oven to 180oc

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a casserole dish. When hot, add chicken portions. Fry on both sides until the skin is golden brown. Remove from the pan and put aside on a plate. Add the pancetta to the hot oil and fry until golden and crisp. Add the onions and garlic and cook until soft and the onions are transparent. Add the carrot & mushrooms and fry for a further 3-4 mins.

Return the chicken portions to the pan, carefully placing them on top of the onion & pancetta mix. Add two sprigs of rosemary or thyme, 1pt of chicken stock and season with salt and pepper.

Place the casserole dish into the oven (no lid required). Cook for approx 50 mins (until chicken is cooked through). Stir the frozen peas into the pot 5 mins before cooking has finished.

Remove from the oven. You may wish to mix 1 tsp cornflour with a little water to thicken the sauce before serving. The casserole can be served with crusty bread, rice or mashed potatoes.

Horizon Restaurant (and Inn)

We spent much of our honeymoon on Pangkor Island, Malaysia. We quickly got bored of the food available at the beach resort that we were staying at, so we ventured out into the small town most nights. We were lucky enough to discover a lovely little restaurant at Teluk Nipah called 'Horizon'. It was always very busy with locals, as well as tourists, which we took as a good sign.

As with many restaurants in Malaysia, there wasn't any indoors seating, but who wants to sit indoors when you have hot weather & beautiful views?

Fresh seafood was a big feature on the menu, and the staff BBQ'd it on a large BBQ just by the entrance to the restaurant. All of the dishes that we tried (and we tried quite a few as we went there on several occasions!) were delicious. The ingredients were really fresh and cooked with skill. I remember that the noodle dishes & the tofu dishes were really great.

As Horizon is also an Inn, it caters for western tastes as well as local tastes, so there are a number of western style dishes on the menu. I cannot understand why people go abroad and don't try the local food. Needless to say, we didn't order any of the western style dishes!

The service was friendly and reasonable quick considering they were so busy. The food was really lovely & very reasonably priced - much cheaper than any of the resort restaurants.

We will go back to Pangkor Island just so we can go to this restaurant again!

You can find more info about Horizon here:
http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/Horizon-Inn.html

Nasi Lemak Recipe

My husband ate Nasi Lemak everyday for lunch at his primary school in Malaysia. It's a dish that he has really missed since living in the UK, so we have developed our own, which I think is actually very close to the proper Malaysian dish. It is really delicious and equally good served hot or cold.

Ingredients (serves 4)

One can of cococut milk
Four cups Basmati rice
One piece dried galangal

8 Shallots
1 large garlic clove
3 dried red chillis (soaked for 1 hour in boiling water)
3 fresh red chillis (medium heat)
2 tsp sambal belacan (can be found in most oriental grocery shops)
1-2 tsp tamarind (available in most supermarkets)
Two large handfuls of Ikan Bilis (dried small fish similar to anchovies)

6 hard boiled eggs
1 cucumber thinly sliced
unsalted roasted peanuts

Method

• Wash the rice with cold water until water becomes clear. Cook the rice with the coconut milk and added water (if needed), and the galangal.
• Thinly slice the shallots & gently fry in 1 tbsp cooking oil on a low heat for about 10 minutes, until the shallots become soft. Turn off heat.
• Thinly slice all of the chillis (fresh & dried) and grate the garlic clove finely.
• Pound the garlic, chillis and sambal belacan with a pestle & mortar for approx. 10 minutes until it becomes a rough pulp. Add 1 tbsp water to this pulp.
• Re-heat the shallots gently and add the chilli pulp. Fry for 2-3 minutes on a low heat. Stir in the tamarind.
• In a separate pan, heat 1 tbsp cooking oil and gently fry the ikan bilis for 2 minutes and then add the ikan bilis to the chilli mixture - stir together and keep warm on a low heat.
• Serve with the coconut rice, cucumber, hard boiled eggs & peanuts.

Welcome

Hi and welcome to my blog!

With this blog I aim to combine my love of food with my love of travel & foreign places.

You will find the following things here:

• Recipes
• Reviews of restaurants/cafes
• Information about travel destinations & local foods