Chicken Fajitas

I don't know how does this happen, but every time I go shopping for something I finally buy something completely different! Like today for example, we went to buy candles and ended up in front of the stand with ingredients for ethnic food. So, eventually, we bought tortilla wraps, special spice mix and Mexican salsa and made Fajitas for dinner! Yum!

INGREDIENTS:

4 large corn tortillas

1 whole skinless, boneless chicken breast

1 medium onion, cut in wedges

1 green and 1 red bell peppers, sliced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 cup spring onions, finely chopped

3 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped

juice of half lime

1 cup canned red kidney beans, mushed

2 tbsp avocado oil for frying (I used chilly flavored avocado oil for extra spicy taste)

3 tbsp fajitas spice mix dissolved in 1/2 cup water

1 cup Mexican salsa (I chose mild salsa but it's totally up to you!)

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp hot smoked chilly flakes

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Guacamole or low-fat thick yogurt to serve (optional)

1. Season the chicken breast with salt and pepper and grill it until golden outside and cooked through. Cut in small stripes.

2. In a heavy pan heat the oil. Stir fry the peppers, onions and garlic. Do not overcook the vegetables! They should be slightly cooked but still crunchy. Set aside.

3. Pour some more oil to the pan and add the chicken, diced tomatoes, salsa and fajitas mix and cook for few minutes until the most of the liquid evaporates.

4. Return the vegetables to the pan and add spring onions, parsley and lime juice. Mix well, season with coriander, chilly flakes, salt and pepper and set aside, allowing for flavors to mix.

5. Brush the tortillas with some oil and warm them in a pan.

6. Divide the mushed kidney beans in 4 parts and spread each part over one tortilla. Place some of the chicken mix in the middle of the tortilla, pour some guacamole or yogurt if using, and roll into a tight wrap. Enjoy!

Jambalaya

About 2 weeks ago a couple of friends moved just next door. The first day we had a dinner at out place. The men really wanted something meaty, while the ladies were craving for fishy. So we compromised on the mix of the two (if you could call meat the chicken and fish the shrimps :P ). Was a nice dish, easy to cook and very tasty! And it also looks just great (well this picture is probably not th best :P)!

INGREDIENTS:

1kg chicken fillet, chopped in pieces

30 large shrimps, peeled

300 gr raw smoked ham, diced

1/2 cup flour

3 medium onions, sliced

2 sweet green peppers, seeded and diced

400 gr ripe tomatoes, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tsp dried thyme

350 gr long-grain rice, washed

1 large cup water

1 bunch spring onions, finely chopped

1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

3-4 tbsp olive oil

1. In a large flameproof casserole heat the oil and brown the chicken. Remove the chicken from the casserole and set aside.

2. Lower the heat, sprinkle the flour onto the fat in the pan and stir continuously until the mixture turns golden brown.

3. Return the chicken to the pan, add the ham, onions, pepper, tomatoes, garlic and thyme and cook for about 15 minutes, then add the shrimps.

4. Add the rice and the water to the pan. Season with salt and pepper and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and keep cooking, stirring occasionally, until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed. Add more water if necessary.

5. Once the rice is cooked, mix in the spring onions and parsley and serve hot.

Mushroom soup

I may have mentioned that I grew up in Russia, which means that soup was an every-day first course of the dinner. Any soup would do. The idea is that it's healthy, good for your stomach and it makes you feel full for a long time. It's just like a tradition there. And with a doctor mom, this was a must. So by the time I was 11-12 years old I fairly fed up with it. That's when my first attempts to cook something started. My mom was pretty fine with it as long as I would actually eat something healthy and not just "dry food" (meaning sandwiches, chips and all the other junk). I was quite happy about it, so I didn't eat any soup for few years, maybe just once in a blue moon.

Anyways, once upon a time, while I was already studying in Amsterdam, I was thinking of something to cook for dinner. And suddenly a soup came to my mind. I tried to get rid of this idea, still occupied by my childhood memories but it just would not go away. So, soup it is! Now, the problem was that I never cooked one in my life and of course I was too proud to call my mom to ask her. She would answer with that winning attitude "I told you one day you will appreciate it!". So I decided to figure something out myself. Back in Moscow we had this class at school where girls would learn how to cook, knit and sew and the guys were learning all those constructions and fixing the pipes and whatever else. Now that I'm thinking about it... Very unfair to divide the class, as if guys don't have to know how to cook and of course fixing the pipes could be sometimes useful for a woman as well. Anyways, at one of those classes we cooked a soup. So I tried to remember some of the basic ingredients. So... Potatoes, carrots, onions, chicken and whatever else you wanna add. Anyways, the soup turned out to be very good, I have to admit that I actually missed it and really enjoyed having it for dinner.

So now that I it is so cold and snowy outside I had a real craving for a mushroom soup. It is sooo easy to cook that I managed to actually prepare it in 2 TV breaks! Ok, I peeled the potatoes and carrots in front of the TV, which of course saved me some time but you pretty much need about 15-20 minutes in total. So here it goes:

INGREDIENTS:

2.5 liters water
1/2 chicken breast, skinless , boneless, cut into bites (optional, you could substitute it with a proper number of stock cubes for a vegetarian version)
3 cups mushrooms, washed and quartered
4 large potatoes, peeled
1 large carrot, peeled, cut in semicircles
1 large onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 pinches rosemary
2 bay leaves
2-3 dry chillies (I like it spicy though, you could use just one or none)
1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
salt, pepper to taste

1. Cut the potatoes. Most people usually cut them into large cubes, but I follow my mom and cut them like for french fries, just a bit bigger.
2. Place a pot with water on a strong heat, add the potatoes, chicken, rosemary, bay leaves and chillies with some salt and let them cook.
3. Meanwhile warm up 1 tbsp of oil and fry the mushrooms until they are nicely golden.
4. 5 minutes after the water in the pot starts boiling add the fried mushrooms to the soup.
5. In the same pan that you used for the mushrooms warm up the rest of the oil and fry there the carrots along with onion and garlic until the vegetables are soft. Pour the mix into the pot with the soup.
6. Cook until the potatoes are soft and you could break them with a spoon. Add the parsley and adjust the seasoning. Let it cook for a couple of minutes more so that the parsley releases it's flavor. Turn off the heat and let the soup cool just a little before serving.

Another thing that I started using in the soup lately is ginger. Just finely chop a 2cm piece of ginger root and add it together with carrots and onions. It gives to the soup a really nice spicy touch and it smells wonderfully. But you could skip it and use any other spice that you like. Also if you wanna make it even healthier than it already is, don't fry the vegetables, and just add them raw to the pot. You could also avoid the oil this way, but believe me, frying makes it much more delicious and the oil gives a beautiful golden color to the stock.

Chicken Rolls with Ham and Cheese Filling

Two weeks of no posting! Unacceptable! Luckily, it doesn't mean that there were two weeks of no cooking. But I was rather busy with interviews and some tasks, so I just couldn't find time to post all the nice recipes that I prepared these days. The bright side is that now I have enough material for a long period. So let's get started.

Few days ago I came back from a week in London, where I was visiting my sister. It was really nice. I got to meet some friends, some of which I haven't seen for ages. But with all the going out I didn't really have time for cooking, so most of the times the food options were limited to either some questionable British pub food (apart from the bucket of chicken wings that we shared with Mathias and they were great) and nice and colorful but always pretty much same Asian food from Camden. So, after a week of torture for my stomach I came back and was inspecting what was still uneaten in the fridge. What I found didn't leave much space for creativity. Apart from beer, ketchup and few eggs I found a bunch of oranges that were really close to going bad. I bought them just before leaving and my man was too bored to reach out the fridge and have some vitamins.

Anyway, the first day I was too tired to cook anything more complicated than just pasta. So I decided to deal with the oranges the day after. I was thinking what to do with them apart from just eating and I came up with a really nice idea of combining them with some chicken somehow. But then again, Stratis finds chicken breasts (well this is what I had in the freezer) by themselves too boring and I don't think that marinading them in orange juice would change his mind so I decided to spice the things up a bit. Ham and cheese would be just perfect. So after some thinking I came up with these chicken rolls, which I think were pretty good and slightly different from the usual grilled chicken with some salad on the side.

INGREDIENTS:

5 halves skinless, boneless chicken breasts
5 slices Gouda cheese (or any other cheese that melts)
5 slices smoked ham
10-12 small green olives, pitted
toothpicks or BBQ sticks for holding the rolls
juice and flesh of 3 orange
thyme, salt, black and red pepper to taste
2 tsp liquid honey

1. On a cutting surface place one half of the chicken breast like on the picture and then make a parallel to the table section on the left side but don't cut all the way through. At the end you should have something like a "sheet" of chicken.



2. Beat the chicken with a kitchen hammer or an empty wine bottle until it's thin and wide.
3. Place a slice of cheese and a folded slice of ham on the right side of the chicken "sheet" and top with a couple of olives.

4. Holding the filling inside with your fingers, roll it until you create a tight roll. With a couple of toothpicks fix the edges so that the roll does not fall apart. Place in a deep baking tray and proceed with the next piece of chicken. At the end season all the rolls with some black and red pepper.

5. In a small bowl mix the orange juice and flesh with thyme, salt, pepper and honey. Pour the sauce over the chicken. Cover with a foil and bake in the over for 30min at 200°C. Remove the foil, turn on the grill and bake for few more minutes until the chicken is golden. Serve with rice or a large green salad.

Mediterranean Chicken Orzo

Orzo is a type of pasta. In Greek it's called Kritharaki and it looks just like rice. In fact, it looks so much like rice, that when I cooked it for my 30 year-old cousin who lived in Russia his whole life, I actually had to convince him that it is not rice!

Usually there are two different "sizes" of orzo. It doesn't really matter which one you use. The difference is mostly visual and of course the one that is bigger requires a little more time to cook. But you could always try and see if it's ready.

Anyways, I was not really expecting to find this kind of pasta in Amsterdam, as it is supposed to be something very local. Imagine my surprise when I saw it while checking the Turkish stores in the neighbourhood. One of the many great things that I can find only there. That's why it feels like home. At the end, Greek and Turkish cooking have a lot in common. Well good for us, because I haven't seen any Greek store here around, so the Turkish guys really save me from missing mom's great cooking!

I was so happy that I found orzo in Amsterdam that I used the whole 500 gr pack of it. Of course the resulting amount of food turned out enormous for only two people. So you may as well cut all the amounts in half.

INGREDIENTS

500 gr orzo pasta
400 gr skinless, boneless chicken breast, chopped in bites (You could prepare it without chicken for a vegetarian version. It is still very delicious!)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 zucchini, diced
1 green pepper, sliced
2 cans chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp pine nuts
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp chilly flakes
2 tsp sugar
10 grains allspice
2 tbsp fresh basil leaves
salt and ground black and red pepper to taste

1. Cook the orzo just as you would cook a regular pasta, in a pot of boiling salted water, until it is almost soft. Drain and set aside.
2. In a large pan heat the oil. Add the chicken and cook over a medium heat until the chicken is cooked through.
3. Add onions, garlic, mushrooms, carrots, green pepper and pine nuts. Cover and cook until the vegetables are soft.
4. Pour in the tomatoes and bring to boil. Add the zucchini, herbs and spices and cook over a low heat for about 15 minutes. Turn the heat off and let the orzo absorb the juices for few minutes.
5. Add the basil leaves and serve.

Alternatively you could put the mixture into a ceramic oven-proof dish, spread some mozzarella on top and bake in the oven for few minutes until the cheese makes a nice golden crust.

Chow Mein

I always wanted to get myself a good wok. And each time in the store I would find excuses, that the ones offered were either too expensive or of a poor quality or a combination of both. That's why I was really happy when for my birthday Katja and David got me a wok! (Thank you guys!) Of course the very next day I had to try it. It proved to be a very good one.

In order to decide what to cook I checked one of many cooking books that I have (in fact I have a whole collection of them!) and I found the following recipe, which I adjusted according to my taste and the ingredients in my fridge. This is what I got:

INGREDIENTS:

500 gr egg noodles, cooked according to the package directions
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp fresh ginger, chopped
1 red chilly, chopped
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast, thinly sliced
20-25 uncooked large shrimps or tiger prawns, peeled
100 gr green beans
1 medium-size carrot, chopped
100 gr baby corn, chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
2 tbsp bamboo shoots, sliced
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp oyster sauce
black pepper, freshly ground

1. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a wok.
2. Add garlic, ginger and chillies and fry for 1-2 minutes over a high heat.
3. Add chicken, shrimps and beans. Stir-fry until the chicken and shrimps are cooked through. Transfer to a bowl.
4. Heat the rest of the oil in the same wok. Add green beans, carrots, baby corn, mushrooms and bamboo shoots. Stir-fry for few minutes.
5. Add the noodles and toss to mix. Season with soy sauce, oyster sauce and black pepper.
6. Add the chicken - shrimp mixture. Reheat and mix well with the noodles.

I actually changed the original recipe, which required 2 lap cheong (air-dried Chinese sausage) and a bit different mix of vigetables (green beans, beansprouts, garlic chives). I also added more soy and oyster sauce, I think the original amount was not enough and the food was a bit dry. Finally, it was really good and if you eat reasonable amount (pretty hard for me!) it's not heavy at all!

Bon appétit!

PS: The recipe was adopted from the book "Around the World in 450 Recipes".

Paraskevopita - Chicken FridayPie

Few years ago (many years ago?) both me and Stratis were still living in Thessaloniki. He was renting an apartment together with his brother and I was sort of constant visitor :P There were some days we were so bored to go shopping for food that our fridge would only have some old milk and beer and we would order pizza from what is probably the cheapest pizzeria ever (back then 60eurocents/slice :P). But if the mood was proper we would literally stuff the fridge with all kinds of nice things and then wonder what recipe could mix all of them together. Well one of those days I came up with this nice and super easy pie. The idea was to mix together some ingredients and then use a pack of frozen pastry to stuff it with the filling.

Yesterday I managed to hurt my back so today I spent most of the day on the couch. As the evening was approaching and Stratis would come back from the office I started thinking of a quick recipe that would feed my man and allow me to spend as little time as possible standing in front of the stove. And somehow I remembered Paraskevopita. To be honest I haven't cooked it ever since that first time and was struggling to remember if I used any spinach in the "original" version. But since I didn't have any spinach anyway, I decided to skip it. Also the original recipe didn't have raisins in it. But the rest of the ingredients are same :)

INGREDIENTS:

For the filling:
400gr skinless, boneless chicken breast, sliced in small pieces as for wok
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups cooked rice (I used brown rice but any other would do)
1/2 cup black raisins
5-6 large champignons, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1 tbsp dry oregano
1 tsp sweet boukovo
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 pinch ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
4-5 slices smoked ham, cut in small pieces
1 cup grated Gouda cheese
1 egg, beaten
salt and pepper to taste

Rest of the ingredients:
1/2 pack fillo (phyllo?) or 2 sheets sfoliata (sfogliata?) or any other pastry you like
2-3 tbsp extra olive oil for brushing

1. In a large pan heat the oil.
2. Add chicken, onions and garlic and cook until the chicken is golden.
3. Add rice, rasins, mushrooms, oregano, boukovo, cumin, cinnamon, ginger and chicken stock, cover and cook for about 5 minutes at low heat.
4. Add ham and Gouda cheese.
5. Turn off the fire, add salt, pepper and a beaten egg and mix everything with a wooden spoon until uniform. Set aside to cool.
6. Brush a medium-size, deep baking tray with olive oil and place one phyllo sheet on the bottom. Drizzle randomly with some oil. Use very little oil since you will add more to each sheet. Add another sheet and again drizzle with oil. Repeat until you get about 5-6 layers (if you are using single sheet of pastry, i.e. sfoliata, you dont have to add oil at all). Don't try to straighten the pastry. It should be a little wrinkled to keep the oil. At the end it should look like this:


7. Fill with the chicken filling and spread out evenly so that the filling goes everywhere.


8. Place 2-3 sheets of phyllo on top, brushing with some oil between the layers. Close the remaining pastry and drizzle with oil again.


9. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 30 minutes or until the pastry is dark golden.
10. Let it cool a little before serving and enjoy!

Back in the days we've been thinking how to name the pie. The initial idea was to call it Katerina'sPie, but we figured it was a lame name. So we came up with Paraskevopita (in Greek Paraskevi = Friday and pita = pie) since I cooked it on Friday evening. The name stayed ever since!

Chicken with thyme, Feta cheese and Ouzo sauce

Today was my first ever job interview. Even though it turned out to be pretty good (well the more I think about it the less cool it seems but anyways) I still came home pretty stressed and worn out. So after spending one hour on the couch I decided to kick myself to the kitchen and cook something different. I have to admit that I was not really planning anything specific, just followed my instinct and the result turned out to be pretty nice, so I thought it was worth sharing :)

INGREDIENTS:

500gr chicken breast, skinless and boneless, cut in bites
4 tbsp butter or margarine
1 tbsp pine nuts
1-2 tsp dry thyme
10 - 12 bahari grains
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1 clove garlic, chopped
100gr Feta cheese (You could substitute it with any other feta-like cheese, as long as it is salty enough and not too fat)
1/2 cup Ouzo (traditional Greek anise-flavored aperitif)
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. In a heavy sauce roast the pine nuts.
2. Add the butter, coriander seeds, bahari grains and dry thyme and simmer for a couple of minutes until the butter has melted completely.
3. Add garlic and chicken and cook on strong heat until the chicken gets a golden crust. Lower the fire and cook till the chicken is cooked through.
4. Mash the Feta cheese and add it to the pan. Stir with a spoon until the butter and Feta mix together in a thick paste.
5. Pour in the Ouzo and lemon juice, season with some salt and pepper (remember feta is very salty so don't add too much salt), turn off the fire, cover and let the chicken absorb the flavor for some minutes before serving. If the sauce turns to be too thick you could add some more Ouzo or just a little bit of water.

I served it with plain and spinach fettuccini, but I would guess that it should be good with any other pasta or rice. Funny thing is that I actually hate Ouzo and I was going for the white wine, which I didn't have. But finally Ouzo, Feta and thyme made a very nice combination. I guess I'll have to bring more Ouzo next time I go home! ;)