Tom Kerridge’s.

Appealing from the moment he added powdered porcini mushrooms to this shortcrust pastry. It works! It fills the kitchen with a lovely smell, adds to the flavours of the pie.

The fillings’s made of fried chestnut mushrooms, fried red onion, chopped, good quality ham, all this brought together by a thick white sauce flavoured with chicken stock and dijon mustard. Filling cooled before assembling with the pastry.  Baked in 190 degrees for about 40 minutes, served with green salad.  Very good indeed.

By far my most favourite of all taco fillings, since my Mexican craze began.  Chicken tinga tacos were the first dish brought to the table when we dined in Wahaca and it blew me away. I made it 4-5 times since, but tonight I think I hit the spot. Previously I used the mixture of recipes from foodnetwork.com and others, I consulted Tommi’s book of course too.  I once poached the chicken breasts and used the stock to make the sauce, which is apparently The Right Tinga Way, I cooked the thigs in the sauce too, but today I used a shop bought roasted chicken thighs, made the sauce the way I like it and I thought it rocked. Chicken breasts don’t excite me, I love thighs, but I never roast the whole chicken, as my husband-to-be hates meat on the bone(!!!!!!!!!).  Luckily Waitrose and Co-Op sell very tasty roast chicken thighs and that’s what I’ll be sticking with from now on. Dustin too is a dog for roast bird, he will approve!

For the sauce I gently fry a shallot or a red onion, 2-3 crushed cloves of garlic, a chili, then chuck a can of plum tomatoes in, some chicken stock, season well with salt, pepper, brown sugar, 2-3 tsps of chipotle paste, some liquid smoke, fresh oregano and simmer for up to 20 minutes to reduce and thicken it.  Chopped roast chicken goes in, lots of coriander in the end. This evening I stood by the pan and licked the spoon. What I love about it is the combination with good red wine, the palate just goes nuts!

Good chunky guacamole would be grand here, but my avos are slightly, ekhm, crunchy, so tonight it was tomato salsa with lots of lime juice- another one that enjoys a renaissance in my cooking.

Fab. 🙂

“Dry soup”, from “Mexican Food at Home”, Florek bought for me. When Tommi made it on telly it looked very appealing, so I had to try. It didn’t wow us though. I really liked the idea of frying my vermicelli before placing them in the sauce to rehydrate.

That was fun. The recipe didn’t specify whether the final texture should be slightly crunchy or should the pasta be left in the sauce until completely soft. I left mine a bit crunchy and rather liked it that way.

The rich tomato sauce ; a shallot, a garlic clove and 1 birds eye chili were gently fried. A can of plum tomatoes added, salt, pepper, allspice, brown sugar, a sprig of thyme and 2 bay leaves, gently cooked down for 20 minutes. Then a mug of chicken stock added and 2 tsps of capers- new for me too, I never use capers in my cooking, but absolutely adore them in the steak tartare they serve in Brasserie Blanc. The last thing- the sauce got blitzed into smoothness, the vermicelly nests placed in to take all the flavours in.  There should be dollop of sour cream on top, which I forgot to buy, my shaved cheese was Grana Padano, not Pecorino, but I was generous with coriander. It tasted nice, nothing wrong with the flavours, but not astounding.

Back to the book, which, by the way is one of the best cook books on my shelf, it’s a good read alongside the recipes.