Review: Jamie Oliver's Chilli, Garlic & Rosemary Smashin' chicken fillets

So, Jamie Oliver now has an association with one of the major supermarket chains here in Australia. I have seen the various pasta sauces, pesto, relish and similar items scattered through the supermarket. I don't often buy meat at the supermarket preferring to support my local butcher. However one night it was late and I wanted something to eat so I did a spin through the meat section. To my surprise I found a number of different meat products with the Jamie Oliver name attached. I do love his recipes and I don't normally buy pre-marinated meat but they were a reduced in price due to being close to the use by date so I thought I would give them a try. I am so pleased that I did and they will be something that I will buy again. 

There is an amazing amount of flavour. The combination goes together perfectly and has a real kick from the chilli. If you don't like spicy food definitely avoid these. There was 4 pieces of chicken in the packet, two breast fillets that have been sliced in half horizontally and covered with the spice paste. I think that a family would want more than one packet which given the full price of the product would probably make an expensive meal. It was more than enough for me. I used the leftovers shredded on wraps for lunch and it was just as good cold as it was hot. The ingredients list doesn't include any additional colours or other additives which is certainly something that I am quite keen to keep to a minimum these days. 

I would highly recommend these. There are a number of different Jamie Oliver meat products available and I will definitely be trying some of the others. Given how good these are, and how much I enjoy Jamie's recipes, I can only hope that the rest of them will be just as good. 

Lemon Love Notes

I have shared this recipe around a bit lately. I posted it over on the Taste forums before they went down for maintenance. I number of the members over there tell me how much they loved them and that the recipe was very popular. I, myself, had not made it in a long time though.

This is my mum's recipe and I remember asking her to make it all the time. It wasn't something that she did make a lot however it made it more special when she did make it. There is another recipe that I used to beg her to make all the time I haven't made it in years either, I will have to dig that one out as well. She always used to let me help her make it. It is such an easy recipe that it really is one that the kids can help with making. I remember pressing the base into the pan and mixing up the ingredient for the topping. Mum would, of course, take it in and out of the oven and would pour the filling over the base. Even when I was older it was still something that we always made together. I made it this past weekend to take along to my Toastmasters meeting tonight and it was enjoyed by all.

Mum has some notes next to a few things. I am also not sure why the recipe specifies an ungreased pan. I both grease and line the pan. Also I have used my slice pan to make it rather than a 20 cm square. Finally the one I made on the weekend I made the base as it but made 1 1/2 times the topping recipe, I this it was better. I then cooked it for 28 minutes and it seemed perfectly cooked.

Lemon Love Notes

Base: 

125g butter, melted

1 c flour

1/4 c icing sugar

Combine all ingredient and press into an ungreased 20cm square pan. Bake at 350 F (180 C) for 8 minutes (I usually bake for 12 - 15 min) or until golden brown. Cool slightly.

Topping:

2 tbsp flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 c sugar (Mum says 3/4 c)

2 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp lemon zest (Mum just says more! I usually use 1 tbsp)

Combine sugar, flour, baking powder. Add eggs, juice & zest and mix well. Pour over base and bake at 350 F for 25 min. Top puffs up in baking but falls when cooled. Cool in pan and sprinkle with icing sugar to serve. 

May 2014 - Slow-cooked beef with ras el hanout

You would think that in "The Baking Issue" I would find heaps of things I wanted to make but no. I really struggled to find something to make. Although I am not sure if it is because of the recipes or if it because I am lacking a bit of cooking mojo at the moment. In the end I decided on two recipes.

One of  those was Jamie Oliver's Wine-braised chicken with roasted grapes. I have made a savoury with sautéed grapes before and it was really good. I have all the ingredients to make it but I decided to make the other one as it is a slow-cooked dish and since it was the weekend it would be better to make that one. The chicken dish takes a lot less time and could easily be a week day meal. 

So I decided on the Slow-cooked beef with ras el hanout. To be honest, it wasn't my thing. I am not sure what the problem was. There was plenty of flavour and a nice bite to it with the chilli but I just didn't enjoy it. I haven't tried the leftovers, perhaps the flavours have developed more since. I will give it a try tomorrow night and see if it is any better. I hope so. I did only make half the recipe so at least I don't have a huge amount of leftovers. 

 Slow-cooked beef with ras el hanout

1 kg chuck steak, cut into 2.5 cm pieces

2 small onions, diced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp ras el hanout

2 small red chillis, deseeded & finely chopped

1/4 tsp salt & pepper

4 tomatoes, deseeded and flesh grated

1 1/2 preserved lemon quarters, rinsed, defleshed and finely chopped

2 tsp honey

handful of chopped coriander 

handful of chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 140C

Combine all ingredients in a casserole dish. Cover and cook for 3 1/2 hours or until meat is tender. 

Once cooked serve with some extra chopped herbs. 

Blogging

I know that I have said this before but I am going to start blogging more, although I am struggling to find something to make out of this month's delicious magazine. I have had a lot of ups and downs over the past year or so but things are improving and I want to start doing more things. Blogging is something that I have enjoyed in the past and I definitely think that it will help me going forward. So I hope that you will be on the look out for new posts over the next week and going forward.

Finally, I managed to get a "silver" award for the following photo in the novice section of a photography challenge site. I was so surprised and very happy.

Cooks Club - April 2014

So it is a little late to be encouraging you head on to participate since it closed about 30 minutes ago. However there is a much loved Taste recipe in that so hopefully we will get some additional pics from those who this is a regular meal in their house.

For the April I decided to take on the the Chicken Satay burgers they are raved about by the people on the forum so I decided that i just needed to join in the fun, They were incredibly easy to make. I didn't realise the sauce needed to cool so. It got put off a day.

I was really pleased with the result. the satay is fabulous and i am sure that it could be used in any number of dishes.

I infact used the leftover chick meat and fashioned them into meatballs, thinned the sauce down with some stock, added vegetable and I had another dinner and lunch meals. I was really impressed with how well this worked.