I used the basic recipe for the mushroom tacos and turned it into Tostadas  as I really loved the ones I’d had in Wahaca that were topped with a lovely cold chicken salad.

It’s really simple and quick and the mushrooms would make a great filling for just about anything.

Serves 2

Ooozy and earthy, absolutely delicious.

Ingredients

• Big hand full of mixed mushrooms, roughly chopped
• Knob of butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1 small red onion (or a shallot), finely sliced.
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• Small hand full of fresh tarragon, finely chopped(or a tsp of dried tarragon)
• 1 tbsp creme fraice
• Small hand full fresh parsley, finely chopped.
• Grated Pecorini (or similar) cheese.
• Pumpkin Seeds
• 1/2 red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped.
• Chipotle Sauce (you can leave this out)
• 2 corn tortillas (you can also use flour ones but I like the flavour of corn ones when they are fried)
• Oil for frying (you can also use a deep fryer if you have one)
• Olive oil

Method

1. Cut the tortillas into discs, I used a ramekin as a template and just cut round that, you need about 3 disks per person.
2. Heat your frying oil in a pan or your fryer, then fry the discs until crispy on both sides, place on kitchen paper to drain.
3. In another pan,  heat the butter and a splash of olive oil until its nice and hot, add onions and mushrooms followed by the garlic and chilli
4. Fry the mushrooms and onions until nearly cooked, then add the tarragon and creme fraiche, cook until the mushrooms are done.
5. If using the chipotle sauce, spread a little bit on each toasted disc, top with a spoonful of mushrooms, then sprinkle with a little bit of cheese, parsley and a few sunflower seeds.
6. Serve and enjoy.

All the quantities are kind of estimates as I just used what I had to hand, It was great warm but even better cold.

If you are of the vegetarian persuasion you can leave the chorizo out and add a pinch or two of smoked paprika and some crushed garlic.

Ingredients

• 1 white onion, sliced
• handful of new potatoes
• 1 green pepper, sliced
• 1 picante chorizo, diced,
• 1 red chilli, sliced
• 1 green chilli, sliced
• handful grated mature cheddar
• handful of grated parmesan
• 2tsp oregano
• knob of butter
• 5 button mushrooms (or a few more if you like), sliced
• 6 large fresh free range eggs, beaten
• salt,
• pepper

Method

1. Boil the new potatoes in water until soft, leave to cool, then roughly chop.
2. Heat a large frying pan, add the chorizo until crispy, if lots of fat comes out you may want to drain it now.
3. Add the potatoes and a knob of butter, fry until the potatoes are crispy round the edge.
4. Add the onion, pepper, mushroom, chilli and herbs, fry until the veg is soft.
5. Season with salt and pepper
6. Add the beaten eggs, making sure it spreads evenly throughout the pan.
7. Cook for a few minutes until it starts to stiffen up
8. Top with the cheese and place under the grill until the cheese has melted.
9. Serve with Salad.

perfect for BBQ's

After the amazing suicide wings at Hickory’s in Chester I thought I’d have a go at making some my self, I very nearly just coated them in the Smart Arse Sauce that The One Stop Hot Shop sent me, but decided that would be the easy and slightly lethal option.

The idea is you can just make them as hot as you want by adding more chilli either using powder, fresh chilli or chilli sauce, these had a nice tingle which I’m pretty sure came mainly from the dash of the Smart Arse Sauce that I ended up throwing in for good measure.

After demolishing a plate of the wings I reckon the sauce would work on almost any meat or fish and especially well on a roast chicken. They’d even work really well with a nice blue cheese dip.

I griddled them but they’d be even better done on the BBQ

Ingredients

• Packet of fresh chicken wings
• 2 Chillis – use which ever ones you want, play around with different ones to give different heat levels and flavours.
• 1 clove of garlic,crushed
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2cm piece of ginger, grated
• 1tsp of red wine vinegar
• splash of olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp honey
• dollop of your favourite chilli sauce (optional) as mentioned I used Smart Arse.
• 1 tbsp tomato ketchup

Method

1. Place all of the ingredients apart from the chicken in a bowl, mix well.
2. Add the chicken and mix until all of the chicken is really well coated in the sauce.
3. Place in the fridge for as long as possible.
4. When ready to cook, heat your griddle, BBQ or grill up so it’s nice and hot, place the chicken on.
5. Cook, until done, turning occasionally, depending on the size of your wings and how you’re cooking them. They shouldn’t take long and the meat should just fall off the bone.

if anyone tries it please let me know how it goes.

Ingredients

• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 large onion
• 4 garlic cloves
• 11 finger/birds eye chilli’s
• 4 tsp mint (mint sauce stuff is fine)
• 50ml white distilled vinegar (not malt)
• 1 tbs sugar

Method

Chop and blend!!!!

If you don’t want to use pork it also works brilliantly with chicken.

Ingredients

• 2 pork small loin chops or one big one, make sure they have a little bit of fat on as fat = flavour and texture
• 1 nice big flat bread or pitta
• some sliced red onion
• some sliced tomato
• a couple of lettuce leaves
• sliced Jalapeño
• hot mustard
• chilli sauce or chilli ketchup
• tzatziki

For the marinade

• splash of white wine vinegar
• glug of olive oil
• pinch of cinnamon
• pinch of nutmeg
• pinch of rosemary
• pinch of cumin
• pinch of chilli powder
• pinch of chilli flakes
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon hot paprika
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• pinch of garlic powder
• pinch of crushed fennel seed.
• pinch of thyme

Extras

• Kebab sticks
• BBQ
• Side salad
• New potatoes (with nandos piri pir chip seasoning)

Method.

1. Mix all of the herbs and spices together along with the olive oil and white wine vinegar, set aside
2. Bash our your pork so it’s nice and thin then slice into strips, mix in the marinade from step 1 and leave for as long as possible. when ready thread onto your bbq skewers.
3. Heat your BBQ up and place the skewers onto it, turn every few minutes so the fat gets nice and crispy on all sides. Depending on the heat of your BBQ they wont take long to cook
4. Warm your bread then spread the bread with tzatziki, mustard and mayo, top with the onion, lettuce and tomato followed by the meat  Fold or roll up depending on the size of your bread, enjoy with a nice cold beer, salad and new potatoes.

You could also replace the peso with ready made spicy pesto or home made pesto (like the one  I used here in this cod loin recipe)

If you like your pastry really crispy, bake the pastry first then top with the veg and bake until the cheese melts.

Serves 2

Ingredients for Spicy Vegetable Tarts

• 1/2 packet of ready rolled shortcrust pastry.
• 1 large beef tomato, thinly sliced
• 4 tsp pesto
• 1/2 courgette, thinly sliced
• 2 mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 yellow pepper, de seeded and thinly sliced
• 2 red chillis, finely chopped.
• 1 ball of mozzarella
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• Salad and potatoes to serve with.

Method

1. Pre heat your oven to 200 degrees and remove the pastry from the fridge.
2. Either grease a baking tray or cover it in baking paper.
3. Cut the pastry into 2 even sized pieces.
4. Smother each piece of pastry with 2 tsp of pesto.
5. Layer each piece of pastry with the tomato, followed by the courgette, mushrooms, onion and pepper.
6. Break the mozzarella into chunks and lay on top of each tart.
7. Sprinkle with the chilli
8. Drizzle with olive oli, season with salt and pepper
9. Bake for 20-25mins until the cheese is golden and the pastry crisp.
10. Serve with seasonal salad and new potatoes.

Ingredients

• 500g minced beef.
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 red chillis
• Ginger (grated)
• Lemon grass
• Basil
• Corriander
• Chives
• 1 Lemon
• 1 Lime
• 3 Spring onions
• Salt
• Pepper
• Honey
• Chunk of Cucumber

Method

1. Put the garlic, chillis, lemon grass, lemon zest, lime zest, salt, pepper, basil,chives, corriander and ginger in a food processor and blend, then add the 3 or 4 spring onions and blend until finely chopped.
2. Add the minced beef and blend until smooth (blend less if you prefer a rougher texture burger)
3. Take a little bit of the mix out and fry it, taste, and adjust accordingly.
4. then make into burgers shapes, wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for a couple of hours.
5. Then to make the dressing, mix the lime juice, honey, lemon juice and some chopped spring onions and grated cucumber, corriander and taste, you should have a slightly twangy/sweet sauce.
6. Remove from the fridge an hour before cooking.

Now depending on how you want to cook them you can do the following:

1. roll in seasoned breadcrumbs and fry the burgers
2. roll in herbs and spices and fry the burgers
3. BBQ the burgers
4. Griddle them on a really hot cast iron griddle pan (how i did it)

Serve in a toasted bun with a few spoonfuls of the sauce and some salad.

Instead of fresh chilli you could always use chilli chocolate. It’s also quite nice if you replace the nuts with coffee beans.

Ingredients

• 200g digestive biscuits
• 110g whole pecans, roughly chopped
• 110g pistachio nuts, peeled
• 12 glace cherries
• 2 fresh red chillis, de seeded and sliced
• Big handful of chopped marshmallows (jamie uses 2 ready-made meringue nests, smashed up but i prefer marshmallows)
• 150g unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup or honey
• 200g dark chocolate

Method

1. Break the biscuits into small pieces directly into a large bowl. Add the pecans, pistachio nuts, marshmallows and cherries and mix together. Put the rest of the ingredients into a separate, heatproof bowl and put on a low heat over a pan of simmering water until the butter and chocolate have melted.
2. Combine the biscuit mix with the chocolate mixture. Line a 30 x 20 cm plastic container with clingfilm, leaving plenty of extra film at the edges to help turn the cake out later. Whack everything into the container, place in the fridge to firm up then turn out and cut into chunky slices.
3. This cake can be kept in an airtight container for a few days, and it actually improves in flavour.

The recipe is part of a campaign to promote eggs and give people quick and easy recipes, from everything to poaching eggs to creating egg curry.

You can view more recipes at eggrecipes.co.uk/mealsinminutes

Watch the video here

These are different to the lime and chilli onion rings that I did with the spicy crusted steaks a while back, they aren’t technically battered just lightly dusted with a lovely spiced flour.

This should serve 2 or 3 people but it’s easy to make for more.

Ingredients

• 1 nice big red onion
• 2 tbsp plain flor
• 1 tbsp corn flour
• 2 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp cumin
• salt
• pepper
• Oil for frying
• Milk

Method

1. Slice your onions into nice thick rings
2. Place the onions in a dish, and cover with milk, leave for 30mins or so, this helps remove the bitterness and moistens the onion
3. Place the flour and all of the spices in a bowl, season and mix well.
4. Drain the onions and toss in the flour, making sure all of the onions are well coated in the mix.
5. Heat your oil or deep fat fryer to 180 Degrees C
6. Carefully drop the onion rings into the oil and fry until crisp and golden.
7. Place on some kitchen paper and then serve.