Spanish Chicken Risotto

(Recipe adapted from Steph Berg’s blog)

Thought I’d branch out with the risotto flavours this week. Ever since the first time risotto was made in my Thermomix (at the first demo) which resulted in a burnt base that was mighty hard to clean, I’ve been really mindful of stirring my risotto mix well multiple times to avoid another similar incident. If there’s one thing I can pass on to you, it’s to stir your risotto mix when you put your rice in the bowl, and again between steps if you can.

Ingredients

4 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp mild paprika

1 tsp turmeric

2 onions

500g skinless chicken pieces

400g arborio rice

180ml white wine

900ml water

1 tbsp vegie stock concentrate

2 tbsp tomato paste

Method

• Place garlic in TMX bowl and chop for 5 seconds/speed 8.
• Add oil, paprika and turmeric. Cook for 1 1/2 minutes/100 degrees/speed 2.

• Add onions and chop for 5 seconds/speed 8.
• Add chicken and cook for 5 minutes/100 degrees/reverse/speed soft.

• Add rice and mix for 30 seconds/reverse/speed 2.
• Add wine and cook for a further 3 minutes/100 degrees/reverse/speed 2.
• Add water, veggie stock concentrate and tomato paste, and cook for a further 15 minutes/100 degrees/reverse/speed 1. 

• Pour the rice into your ThermoServer and cover the dish for 5 minutes so that the rice can go through the final stage of absorption.

I crumbled some cheddar into my risotto for added flavour. I think that a nice fetta would be great with this dish too. The only crappy thing is that I cannot for the life of me take a good risotto picture. I promise the dish tastes a lot better than it looks here!

Vegetable Stock Concentrate

Just another batch of Thermomix vegetable stock concentrate for the fridge. The end result never photographs well so I didn’t bother this time.

Gravy for roast lamb

(Recipe adapted from Jamie Oliver’s recipe)

I had friends over for dinner on the weekend and decided to try a new roast lamb recipe. When I discovered that chopping, heating and stirring was involved in the preparation of the gravy, I figured the Thermomix would be able to do most of the work for me while I poured myself and my guests a big glass of wine each!

But first, some before and after shots…

This roast recipe actually yields a fair bit of pan juices to use in the gravy,but if you are making the sauce on its own I’m sure the flavour from your stock will suffice. If you are using the pan juices, I recommend tipping the liquid into a glass, letting the oil rise to the top and then spooning it out.

Ingredients

Bunch of fresh mint

500ml stock – I used beef but I’m sure chicken or veggie would have been fine in a pinch

2 tbsps capers, drained and rinsed

Pan juices with as much oil removed as possible

1 tbsp flour

Method

• Pop the mint leaves in your TMX bowl and chop for 3 seconds/speed 5. Set aside, but don’t worry too much about completely cleaning your bowl before moving on to the next step.

• Pop your stock, capers, pan juices and flour into the TMX bowl. Heat for 5 minutes/100 degrees/reverse/speed 1.
• Add in your fresh mint leaves and vinegar. Mix for 10 seconds/reverse/speed 2.
• Enjoy! You might want to add salt and pepper, but as I had heaps of that on the lamb the pan juices had more than enough seasoning. Also, I tend to drown my meal in gravy, and even so, I thought this recipes was more than enough for four people (plus leftovers).

My picture was actually taken the next day (it’s hard to remember to take photos when you have guests over and wine is flowing!) The colour you see is actually a bit of the hardened fat on top, the actual gravy is a much darker brown.

Minestrone

(Recipe taken from the EDC cookbook)

I went on a Thermomix soup rampage over the weekend, which I didn’t quite realise until I ended up having soup for lunch and dinner three days in a row. Menu planning not QUITE up to par this week.

Anyway, not sure if I missed something here, but even without cooking the pasta shells in the TMX, I could only manage to add about 400g of water to the bowl instead of the 750g the recipe calls for. So by the time I heated up the soup on the stove a couple of days later and added the pasta, there really wasn’t much liquid left and I basically ended up with a sloppy pasta dish. It tasted okay, but definitely not one of the better dishes I had made. Any advice?

Ingredients

Small handful parsley
A few basil leaves (didn’t bother)
1 onion peeled and halved
3 cloves garlic
50g olive oil
400g diced vegetables of choice
400g tin chopped tomatoes
400g tin of borlotti or cannelini beans, drained (I used a four bean mix)
2 tsp vegetable stock concentrate
750g water
50g sachet tomato paste
1 tbsp raw sugar
Sea salt to taste
130g pasta shells

Method

• Place parsley (and basil) into your TMX bowl and chop for 3 seconds/speed 7. Set aside (I actually just went straight to the next step).

• Place onion, garlic and oil into the bowl and chop for 4 seconds/speed 6. Saute for 5 minutes/Varoma/speed 1.

• Add all remaining ingredients except peas if using (I wasn’t) and pasta shells, and cook for 15 minutes/100 degrees/Reverse/speed soft. This is where I realised that the bowl was too full to accommodate all the ingredients.

• I added another 10 minutes to the heating time to ensure the beans were well-cooked, then popped the mixture into a pot for the next day.

• I cooked my pasta shells separately before adding in to the soup mix, but by that time there was only a small amount of liquid left. Edible, but not quite the hearty minestrone I was hoping for.

Coffee cake

(Recipe adapted from this post)

I LOVE coffee cake. But for some reason, it’s not a common flavour in Melbourne. Also, it was freakin hard to find a Thermomix recipe that was just that, a plain coffee-flavoured cake with no frills. There was one recipe that included a ‘glass of milk’ as one ingredient, and ‘espresso coffee cup’ as another. Considering I have 5 different water glass sizes at home and no espresso cups to my name, I figured that the next best option was to modify a butter cake recipe. I thought of playing with Dani Valent’s basic cake recipe, but when I saw that this recipe only uses self-raising flour, I thought it would be interesting to see exactly how much lighter the result would be! I tweaked the original ingredients and used a few alternatives. Also, I didn’t bother with the Butterfly (one less thing to wash, yay!)

Ingredients

2 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee

2 teaspoons of hot water

165g raw sugar (I normally reduce the sugar content by about a third, but seeing as I was adding coffee I thought I’d leave the full amount in to counteract the bitterness)

125g butter, cubed

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs

225g self-raising flour

125ml milk

Method

• I started off dissolving my Nescafe granules in the least amount of water possible. I can’t remember if I used two teaspoons of water, but basically you stir the mixture until this…

… looks like this!

• Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees.
• Place your sugar in the TMX bowl and mill for 5 seconds/speed 10.
• Add butter, and if it’s straight out of the fridge, chop for 5 seconds/speed 7.
• Scrape down the sides, and mix for 30 seconds/speed 4. 

• Add in your coffee mix, followed by the milk and flour.
• Mix for 30 seconds/speed 4 and while doing this, add in your eggs one at a time through the hole in the cover.

• Check your mixture. If necessary, scrape down the sides and mix for another 5-10 seconds/speed 5.

• Pop the mix into a tin lined with baking paper (I used a medium sized square but your normal round tin will be fine)

• Whack it in your oven for about 25 minutes and once it’s passed the skewer test, you’re done-ski!

My girlfriends thought this cake was brilliant, and it was certainly moist and fluffy. Not QUITE where I want it to be in terms of coffee strength, so I might try 3 teaspoons of coffee the next time! Or maybe some coffee buttercream…

Garlic and herb dip

(Recipe adapted from the EDC cookbook)

When I first received my Thermomix and had the demonstration at my place, the consultant made this dip. I’m not exactly sure why, but at the time it tasted pretty ordinary. I think it might have been parsley overload or something. I hadn’t bothered giving it another go, but when I read that the macadamia, olive and sundried tomato dip I was making for a friend’s housewarming would be nice with a soft cheese, I thought this might be a good time to give the recipe another shot. Worst case scenario, I could mask the blah-ness with the strong flavours in the other dip!

Ingredients

Small bunch fresh parsley

1 clove garlic (I used two, but this is only if you know that the people who are eating the dip can handle it)

2 shallots (the recipe says you can use spring onions too but I prefer the taste of shallots)

250g cream cheese

Method

• Pop all the ingredients in the TMX bowl. Blend for 5 seconds/speed 7.

• Scrape down the sides and blitz for a further 20 seconds/speed 4. Make sure the dip is well combined, otherwise pulse the mixture a couple of times on Turbo. And…you’re done. 

Macadamia, olive and sundried tomato dip

(Recipe taken from Tenina’s blog)

Ever since I got the Thermomix, I’ve been the designated dip chick in the group. which suits me just fine. Especially when it comes to quickies like this recipe! I don’t even have to bring out the bullet points for this one, that’s how little effort is needed.

Ingredients

1 clove garlic

50g macadamia nuts (look in the baking section of your supermarket, and you can get little packs if you want so you don’t have to keep too much in your pantry)

50g sundried tomatoes (I used semidried which worked too)

50g kalamata olives, pipped

20g extra virgin olive oil

20g balsamic vinegar.

Method

Pop all the ingredients into the TMX bowl and blitz for 6 seconds/speed 6.  Doneski!!!

I also made the EDC garlic and herb dip (post to come soon) which actually goes really well together with this. I think you could probably substitute the macadamias with cashews if that’s cheaper/better/easier, but given most chunky dips are cashew-based this is a nice deviation from the norm.