cooks skills

Hello 

An nyoung 

Konnichiwa 

Ni hao 

Most people know I love baking check out a previous blog to see my past baking ventures, what people might not know about me is that I also love cooking, to be honest I just love food in general, like most people I have my signature dishes that I enjoy making and that I often make. So I thought I'd share the past two dishes I did, one being a dish I've made often and one being a first time dish. I really want to start cooking a lot more (work hours often prevent me from doing so) at the moment I try to cook at least three times a week, mainly because I have an 8yr old that if she could would live on soup and tinned spag bol, when it comes to anything cooked she's very picky.

Firstly the dish I often make and love doing is curry, even though I often make chicken korma I decided to do butter chicken, for now I use jar sauces but I would love to be able to do sauces from scratch.

Butter Chicken

Ingredients:

Chicken Breasts

jar of butter chicken sauce 

rice

Naan bread

You may have noticed I didn't put any weights etc for the ingredients one I didn't take note on them when making it and two I hope the pictures would be of help.

3x chicken breasts.

The weight and amount of chicken used depends on how many your cooking for, everything I used was for just two of us (as always Skye wouldn't try what was being cooked)

Dice the chicken

I do love cooking chicken curries but I get paranoid when it comes to cooking it I'm very aware that chicken needs to be cooked thoroughly as not to cause food poisoning etc so I get scared that I've not cooked it enough, I always cut it in half before eating it to stop me from panicking.

The browned bits were because I walked away from the chicken for too long.

I think there are other brands that do butter chicken but at the time this one was the only one available.

Simmering.

While the curry was simmering I started on the naan bread and the rice, the naan bread only about 6-8 minuted in the oven and when it comes to rice it always ends up stuck to the bottom of the pan and I always make too much so I tend to cheat when it comes to rice.

Finished butter chicken with lime and coriander rice.

Cooked and ready garlic and coriander naans. 

Yesterday I cooked my first fish pie and again Skye said she wouldn't try it (I'm a good cook honest) I always like to try to cook and bake new things because you can't improve or built a portfolio if you will if you either stick to what you know or stick to the oven or microwave.

Fish Pie

Ingredients:

1kg potatoes 

400-800g fish pie mix

4 spring onions

Grated cheese

25g flour 

25g butter

400ml milk

1tsp Dijon mustard 

Sweetcorn 

Petit pois 

I remember the weights more for the fish pie as I only did it yesterday and it was a first so wanted to make it right. Instead of making it just one large pie I did it as five individual servings. Also when it comes to the pictures I forgot to take them step by step.

I started by peeling and chopping the potatoes  in half ready to pop on the hob ready to boil and soften to mash.

Peeled potatoes.

Flour, butter and spring onions.

The spring onions needed chopping.

In the pan ready to start.

I have no pictures for the next few steps so will say what I did. On a gentle heat I mixed the flour and spring onions until the butter melted and then whisked in the milk with a balloon whisk until it came to the boil and was thicker. Took the pan off the hob and then added a handful of grated cheddar and stirred it in, then added the Sweetcorn, petit pois, dijon mustard and then added the fish and mixed it all together and ladled it all into the 5 individual dishes.

Before it was put into the dishes.

When the potatoes were soft enough I drained the water and started mashing them and added milk, butter, cheese and ground black pepper till it was to the consistency and flavour that I liked and that spooned it on top of the fish in the dishes and then added cheese on the top.

Potatoes mashed and creamy ready to pop on the fish.

All ready to pop in the oven.

I put the pies in the oven for 25 minutes on a 200 degree temperature and while they were cooking I boiled some baby potatoes to accompany the pies. I love making herby potatoes and any chance I get I make them.

Serving suggestion

fish pie with Kale and herby potatoes.

If there's any recipes you like cooking feel free to comment below or email me the recipes at leannmarkham12@gmail.com I'm happy to try anything new, looking to get a rice cooker so I can start doing my own rice and sushi.

Annyeong

Sayonara 

Zai Jian 

Bye