Chilli Coconut Panko Prawns
These are really simple but really tasty, you can easily modify them by adding some lime zest or using sweet chilli sauce instead of beaten egg, I’ve even done a version with toasted coconut flakes and fresh chilli. I also did a version of these with added chilli and breadcrumbs in the batter for extra crunch
Ingredients
- 1 packet of raw, peeled, king prawns
- Panko Breadcrumbs (Morrisons now sell them in nice big bags)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2 tbsp dessicated coconut
- Pinch of salt
- Pinch of pepper
- 1 tsp chilli flakes.
- 1 tbsp plain flour
Method
- De vein your prawns if needed.
- Put the breadcrumbs in a bowl, season with salt and pepper, add the coconut and chilli.
- Dip the prawns in the flour, followed by the egg then the breadcrubs, repeat if the breadcrumbs don’t stick so well.
- Deep fry until crips and golden.
Spicy vegetable goulash
This is inspired by the goulash in the Dog and Gun in Keswick and by beef goulash, you don’t have to doit in a slow cooker but it’s so much easier if you do.
Ingredients
- 1 Sweet potato, (chopped)
- 2 carrots , (chopped)
- 1/2 butternut squash (chopped)
- 1 white onion (chopped)
- 1/2 red pepper (chopped)
- 1/2 green pepper (chopped)
- 1/2 yellow (chopped)
- 3 cloves of garlic (crushed)
- 1 vegetable stock cube
- 1 dried chilli (chpoped)
- 2 teaspoons of paprika
- 50 g green beans
- 3 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoons hot paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
- 2 teaspoons carraway seeds (ground)
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 10 mushrooms (more if you wish) (sliced)
- salt + pepper
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon tomato puree
- 1 tablespoon hendersons relish or Lea & Perrins
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- olive oil
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 100ml water.
Then you need dumplings,sour cream and crusty bread to serve with it…oh and a nice crisp beer or quality lager.
Method
- Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry all of the vegetables.
- Add the garlic, tomatoes and stock cube, hendersons relish along with all of the herbs and spices and tomato puree, stir well for 5 minutes, then taste, adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and honey. You can also add more of the herbs and spices if you want.
- If it looks a bit thick add the water and stir well.
- Now either transfer to a slow cooker for 6-7 hours or leave cover and simmer on the hob for a 2-3 hours
- Squeeze in the lemon juice, Serve with warm crusty bread, dumplings and a glass of beer.
Black Pudding Scotch Egg with Spicy Sauce
I’ve been playing with scotch eggs for a while. I’m almost as obsessed about them as I am with arancini. I’ve had all sort’s of ideas for replacing the egg with various things or spicing up the sausage meat with something a bit different. But for now the spice comes in the form of the sauce you serve this one with.
The length of time you boil your eggs for depends on how big your eggs are, I was using XL from a local farm so went for 7 minutes. Most places seem to suggest times between 5 and 8 mins.
Rich, warm and runny!!
Makes 2
Ingredients
- 100g sausage meat
- 100g black pudding
- 3 eggs
- Plain flour
- Salt
- Pepper
- Panko breadcrumbs
- Oil for frying.
For the sauce
- 1 tablespoon tomato purée
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 100ml chicken stock
- 2 teaspoon Tabasco
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- Salt
- Pepper
Method
- Heat a small saucepan on the stove, add the tomato purée, when it starts to sizzle add the Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce along with the paprika, then gradually stir in the stock, simmer for 5 minutes until thickened, season with salt and pepper. Tip into a serving bowl and set aside.
- Place a large pan of water on the stove and bring to the boil, season with plenty of salt, carefully lower 2 of the eggs into the water. Start your timer, after 7 minutes remove from the heat and run under cold water.
- Very carefully peel the eggs.
- Crumble the black pudding into the sausage meat, season and mix well.
- Crack your un cooked egg into a bowl and beat, place the panko breadcrumbs in a separate bowl and the flour in another. Season each bowl.
- Divide your sausage meat mix into two balls, place on two squares of cling film and roll out so they are about 7.5cm in diameter.
- Dip your eggs in the flour then carefully wrap the sausage meat round each egg.
- Dip each coated egg into the flour, then the beaten egg followed by the breadcrumbs, then back into the egg and breadcrumbs.
- Heat your oil to 180 degrees
- Fry the eggs for 8 minutes, this should cook the sausage meat through without cooking the egg yolk.
- Drain and pat dry with some kitchen roll.
- Serve with the sauce and enjoy!
Spicy Low Fat Macaroni Cheese Recipe
I love a good macaroni cheese, it’s so versatile and comforting, it can be served on its own or as a side dish it can be spiced, up padded out with vegetables, deep fried and even used as a burger bun, the only problem is it’s packed with calories. So I wanted to come up with a version that I could have while watching my calorie intake that wouldn’t mean I had to starve for the rest of the day.
This version is vegetarian but it works well with a little bit of smoked bacon or chorizo, It went something like this
Healthy, delicious, comforting
Ingredients
- 40g plain flour
- Salt
- Pepper
- 100g grated extra mature cheddar cheese (you can use low fat if you want to reduce the calories further
- 2 tbsp low fat crème fraiche
- 2sp Djon mustard
- 100g macaroni
- 2 large chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 1/2 red pepper, thinly sliced
- 1/2 green pepper, thinly sliced
- 1/2 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
- Small red onion, thinly sliced
- 4 tbsp bread crumbs
- 400ml of vegetable or chicken stock.
- Pinch chilli flakes
- Splash of Tabasco
- nutmeg
- Oil
Method
- Turn on your grill so it can get nice and hot
- Place a large pan of boiling water on the stove, season with some salt and add the macaroni, cook until soft. Drain and set aside
- Fry the peppers, onion, mushroom and peppers in a touch of oil, set aside
- Place the flour in a sauce pan and mix in the Djon mustard to form a paste, turn on the heat and slowly add the stock a little bit at a time, stirring continuously to stop lumps forming, heat the sauce until it starts to reduce and thicken, add 2/3rds of your grated cheese and the crème fraiche.
- Mix in the vegetables and pasta, season with salt and pepper, the chilli flakes and a grating of nutmeg.
- Place the mixture in a large grill proof dish, sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top followed by the breadcrumbs.
- Place under the grill until the breadcrumbs are crispy and the cheese has melted.
- Serve in a bowl with some salad and a splash of Tabasco.
Hickory’s Suicide Sauce
One of my favourite parts of our trips to Hickory’s Smokehouse in Chester is their Suicide wings, so when a friend brought me a bottle of their newly bottle sauce up a few weeks ago I could’t wait to get stuck in.
The first thing we did was put it on some steak for the BBQ, we only used a tiny bit as we weren’t sure exactly how hot it would be so decided to proceed with a little bit of caution, While we could taste the sauce and feel a little burn It could definitely have done with a bit more sauce adding.
Since then I’ve been experimenting and used it on everything from chicken wings to pizza, it’s great with just about everything, I especially like it drizzled into some baked beans which are then piled onto a jacket potato and covered in cheese.
It’s definitely one of those sauces that’s hot with a really big chilli kick but is usable every day, unlike a lot of the more extreme sauces out there it’s not all heat and no flavour. It’s got plenty of fruitiness and a little bit of a sour twang that combine with the heat and pretty much anything you choose to put it on.
If you are in Chester it’s well worth popping into Hickory’s and getting a bottle…have a meal while you are there too as the food is brilliant too.
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- Suicide sauce
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- Airforce Approved
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- Avoid contact with intimate areas…
Spicy Vegetable Soup
This is a great way to use up any vegetables you have left kicking around at the end of the week, it’s healthy, spicy and really tasty. You can even do it all in one pan and use a hand blender instead of a food processor that way there’s not much to wash up afterwards.
The trick is to chop the veg into small chunks so they cook evenly and quickly. You can even add some curry spices or things like cumin and coriander to add a bit of extra depth.
Spicy Vegetable Soup
Ingredients
- 2 small /medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 3 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 4 leeks, peel and chopped
- 1/2 packet of green beans, chopped.
- 1 vegetable stock cube
- 2 tsp mixed herbs
- 2 tsp chilli flakes
- Boiling water
- Salt
- Pepper
- Olive oil
Method
- Heat a splash of olive oil in a large pan, fry the vegetables until soft
- Sprinkle over the herbs, chilli flakes and stock cube, stir
- Pour over some boiling water so that the vegetables are just covered.
- Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes until everything is cooked and soft.
- Blend until smooth, you can add more water if needed.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Enjoy.
Spicy Crayfish Spaghetti
I love crayfish tails and can’t help buying them without thinking what i’m going to use them for and last night I found a packet in the fridge along wtih some veg and cream that needed using up, that resulted in this recipe being formed, it’s pretty delicious and if you replace the cream with some low fat cream or fat free yoghurt.
Serves 2/3
Spicy Chilli Crayfish Spaghetti Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 packet of peeled and cooked crayfish tails
- 1/2 small red onion, sliced
- 1/2 red pepper, sliced
- 1/2 yellow pepper, sliced
- 4 chestnut mushrooms, sliced
- 100g dried spaghetti
- 1 tsp chilli flakes
- 1/2 tsp Paprika
- 100ml double cream
- 2 tbsp Parmesan, grated
- 8 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
- Salt and pepper
- Olive oil
- spash of sherry
- Squeeze of lemon juice (optional)
Method
- Cook your pasta as per the instructions on the pack
- While the pasta is cooking, heat a little olive oil in a frying pan, add the peppers, onion and mushrooms, fry until soft. Add a splash of sherry and cook for a further minute.
- Sprinkle the Paprika and chilli on the crayfish tales.
- Stir in the crayfish tails and tomatoes, followed by the cream.
- At the last minute add the parmesan, taste then season with salt and pepper. Add a squeeze of lemon juice if using
- Serve with the pasta
Chilli chocolate melt in the middle fondant recipe
This is one of my favourite all year round pudding recipes, it’s an adaptation of a Gordon Ramsay Recipe and is pretty much foolproof.
I’ve even tried mixing cherries into the batter which works really nicely, as does adding a splash of booze.
A lot depends on your oven, the recipe says 12 minutes but I find they take 14 in mine.
Ingredients
- 50g unsalted butter, chopped into chunks
- 2 tsp cocoa powder
- 50g good quality chilli chocolate
- 1 free range egg
- 1 free range egg yolk
- 60g caster sugar
- 50g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp of chilli powder.
Method
- Heat the oven to 160 degrees c, butter two large ramekins, about 7.5cm in diameter, then dust well with the cocoa powder.
- Break the chocolate into chunks and slowly melt together with the butter it in a bowl over a pan of hot water, take off the heat and stir until smooth, leave to cool for 10 minutes
- using an electric whisk, whisky the whole egg, egg yolk, sugar and chilli powder together until pale and thick. Then mix in the chocolate.
- Sift the flour over the mixture and gently fold in using a metal spoon.
- Divide between the ramekins and bake for 12 minutes.
- Turn out onto a plate and serve with a dollop of ice cream.
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- Perfectly formed
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- Oozing in the middle
Hairy Dieters Chicken Cordon Bleu with a chilli twist
I’ve just got my hands on the new Hairy Dieters Book and those who follow my other blog will know how much of a fan I am of both books (which you can buy them here and here)
There’s plenty of healthy and spicy recipes in both and those that don’t have any chilli in can easily be spiced up without adding too many calories.
The first one that I chose to spice up was the Chicken Cordon Bleu, it’s a super simple recipe anyway so adding a dollop of chilli jam didn’t take much extra effort and was absolutely delicious, plus it only added a few extra calories, although this will depend on how much you add and which jam or sauce you use.
Serves 2
Ingredients
- 2 boneless and skinless chicken breasts
- 2 tsp chilli jam
- 2 slices of Emmental cheese, around 25g each.
- 2 slices of nice ham, not too thick
- Salt
- Pepper
- Olive Oil
- Salad/Veg to serve with
Method
- Pre heat your oven to 200 degrees c
- Carefully open up the chicken breasts, but slicing it horrisontally, stopping it before you go all the way through, giving you a chicken “book”
- Spead your chilli jam on one half of each chicken breast
- Place you ham on followed by the cheese slice
- Fold the chicken breasts over to create little parcels. If the edges don’t quite meet you can always secure with a couple of cocktail sticks.
- Season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper (you could always add a sprinkling of chilli flakes too)
- Heat a splash of olive oil in a frying pan, add the chicken and fry for 3 minutes each side.
- Place chicken on a baking tray and put it in the oven for 7 minutes or until cooked through.
- Serve with either veg or salad.
Spicy Bolognese Recipe
I love bolognese but everyone seems to have a different recipe and everyone has their opinions on what should be in the sauce, so after lots of experimenting and borrowing bits from various places around the web I finally made a recipe that I want to make again and again and again, you can leave the chilli out if you want as it’s delicious without too.
It’s taken a fair bit of experimenting with the herbs but the hardest decision was whether to use white wine or red wine…the white seemed to give it a lighter, sweeter flavour and the red more meaty and robust.
I took the star anise out after about 6 hours just so I didn’t forget to take it out at the end.
I also made the decision to make it all in a pan then put it in the slow cooker on medium for about 8 hours just because I think mince tastes way better when its been cooked for a long time at a low heat.
Spicy bolognese recipe
Ingredients
- 500g lean minced beef
- 90g smoked bacon lardons/pancetta
- 1 large carrot, diced.
- 1 red onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 8 chestnut mushrooms, sliced
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 star anise
- 1/2 courgette, diced
- 1 tbsp tomato purée
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1/2 tsp chilli powder
- Nutmeg, grated, to taste.
- 1 tbsp Hendersons Relish (or Worcestershire sauce)
- 400g tin of chopped tomatoes with herbs
- 187ml bottle of red wine
- 2 bay leaves.
- Salt
- Black pepper
- 60ml milk
- Parmesan cheese, grated.
- 2 tsp Tabasco
- 1 red chilli, finely chopped
- olive oil
- 1 beef stock cube
- Spaghetti or pasta to serve with.
Method
- Heat a large pan, add a splash of olive oil followed by the bacon, fry the bacon for a few minutes until its golden brown, add the mince and stir well, cook the mince until its browned. Crumble in the stock cube.
- Add the tomato purée ,Hendersons Relish and Tabasco, stir again.
- Add the onions, mushrooms, courgette, carrots and chilli, cook until the mushrooms are soft, stirring regularly to stop it sticking to the pan.
- Tip in the small bottle of red wine and bring to the boil
- Once the red wine has reduced, add the tomato along with all of the herbs and spices apart from the star anise and bay leaves, grate about 1/4 of a nutmeg over and stir well.
- Cook for 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened and any water has evaporated.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the milk along with 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan.
- Taste and then season with salt and pepper.
- Add the bay leaves and star anise then tip into you slow cooker and cook for 4-8 hours on a medium heat.
- Serve with pasta and some spicy garlic bread.