Jottage from Lancaster - Tupperware Mexican Chorizo

I am surprised, amazed even, that I haven't written a blog about this before as I'm sure this was one of the first recipes I cooked from River Cottage Everyday - it's probably one I have made the most often. I have made it up for guests coming as well as just a weeknight tea and it was the recipe that introduced me to smoked paprika. It's so very versatile and easy to make. I would say that you can't really go wrong - but I nearly always do as I forget that 1 tablespoon of smoked paprika makes it far too hot to eat. A couple of times I have had to add extra meat - a LOT of extra meat - to make it edible. 


Hugh does tell you to break a bit off and cook it so that you can taste it as you go along so that you can add more seasoning if you need to - but he doesn't say how to adjust for LESS. This time I used just a teaspoon of the hot stuff and cooked a marble-sized piece which I have just eaten and established that the seasoning is just about right. 

Meatballs gently frying

Tin of tomatoes for the sauce

Pasta simmering

I am going to make meatballs with half the quantity and we will have that with pasta tonight using a tin of tomatoes reduced for the sauce, then I will make some pizza dough tomorrow morning and we will have the rest tomorrow night on home made pizzas.

The finished meal

Easy, tasty, cheap, and with enough leftovers for another meal!

Jottage from Lancaster - Spicy Yoghurt Marinade for Chicken

Although we've been back at home a week from our US trip, and there are no jet lag excuses left, cooking is still something I don't really want to get involved with in any deep way. Not least because I haven't really been seriously food shopping and so I don't have everything in the house. So it was with some relief that I remembered a jar of pasta sauce in the cupboard which would do in an emergency. And today seemed to be that emergency - I definitely wanted an easy dinner that I didn't have to think about much.

Hidden away.

I suddenly remembered that bit of chicken in the freezer and wondered if there was anything simple I could do with it so I quickly scanned the index of River Cottage Everyday in case there was something I could rustle up without too much effort. To my surprise I noticed Spicy Yoghurt Marinade for Chicken which I had never seen before. I thought that there wasn't a recipe in the book I hadn't at least read through so when I looked this up I eventually found it tucked away at the bottom of the Herby Chicken page. It looked so simple, so trivial, that even opening a packet of pasta sauce seemed complex (just getting the lid off seems to be quite a faff these days). So I took out a little pot of home made yoghurt from the fridge, added curry powder, garam masala and a little bit of lemon juice and mixed them together adding a clove of garlic and dropped in the chicken. I did this at lunch time so that the flavours would develop. 

Marinading

Then I cooked a bit of rice and voila! it was all done. 

Ready to eat!

PS It was, incidentally, lovely to eat too. One of those infinitely adaptable recipes that you can put in almost any combination of spices that you like and it will always be that little bit different.