Three Simple Side Dishes.

Hello There blog buddies!

Welcome to my special recipe blog this week in which I will be giving you a round up of three simple side dishes to accompany some of the other recipes I've done over the last few weeks, to make them more of a meal.
Two of them are Caribbean sides and the other is an idea I came up with by accident whilst experimenting with some baked potatoes.

All three are really easy to do and together with, say, my Jerk chicken recipe will make a cracking family feast.

Firstly, I want to tell you about the potato wedges I made.

I have tried loads of different ways of making perfect potato wedges in the past. Drizzling with oil and roasting them in the oven, par-boiling first then finishing in the oven, making them the same way as chips but more chunky, with skins on, without skins on, microwaving first then baking etc, etc,etc, but I had never tried them like the way I did them last week and, to be honest, I will always make them this way from now on!
 Also, the beauty of them is that they can be done in bulk, in advance, and frozen till you need them, and believe me,  you will need them quite often if you know you can go from frozen to crispy and crunchy on the outside and fluffy and light on the inside within around 5 minutes!

So, how do you make these delicious sounding wedges then Mat, I hear you ask.

Simple.


You know when you buy a bag of spuds and there's always a few in there that are a bit too small for jacket potatoes or chips,and they're a bit fiddly to peel ? Well those are the perfect candidates for these wedges.

Jacket Potato Wedges:

Equiptment:

Oven, pre-heated to 160 degrees centigrade.
Small sharp knife.
Deep fat fryer (or you could use a saucepan on the stove but, to be honest, I've seen so many Fire Safety Videos in the various jobs I've had down the years where a "chip pan" has caught fire that i seriously wouldn't recommend it, besides I have a good friend who works for the Fire Service and she would never let me say to you to use such a thing!)

Ingredients:

Maris Piper Potatoes ( Medium sized.)
 If you cant get Maris Piper then ask your greengrocer for a "floury" type potato,such as "Sylvania" There are some others out there but none of them are as good as Maris Pipers in my experience.

Method (Stage one.)

Give the potatoes a clean in cold water if they need it. You can scrub them with a brush if they're particularly dirty.



With your small sharp knife score the skins of the potatoes lengthwise all the way around, then score them again crosswise so you get a criss-cross pattern all over them.

You cant really tell from the picture because the criss-cross pattern is only literally just through the skin but you'll see them far more clearly once they are baked.

Put them in the pre-heated oven directly onto the shelf  in the middle of the oven and bake them until they are well browned and thoroughly cooked. ( this will depend on the size of the potatoes and how many you are doing at a time obviously but to test for doneness i like to give them a bit of a squeeze, if they feel soft all the way through then they are done and should look like the photo below, notice how you can now see the criss-cross pattern.)

When you are satisfied they are properly baked turn the oven off but leave the potatoes in for at least 4 hours but preferably overnight.

Take the potatoes out of the oven and cut them into wedges, don't worry too much about getting them all the same size though.

Once you have cut them up place on a baking tray and put in the freezer, uncovered. Try to space them out on the baking tray so they don't stick together.

Now it really is up to you when you use them. You want them to be frozen and putting them in the freezer uncovered will dry them out which makes them perfect for making wedges, so I would leave them in the freezer for at least 4 hours. If you are making enough to use some at a later date freeze them for the 4 hours uncovered then put them in a sealable tub and put them back in the freezer. You can then take as many or as few out at a time and fry them off whenever you want.

Method (part Two)

Whenever you want some wedges, pre-heat your fryer to 180 degrees centigrade then get however many you want out of the freezer. You can cook them straight from frozen and within about 5 minutes you will have, what i consider to be, perfect crunchy, crispy gorgeous potato delights!

Right then, on to the second recipe this week and it's for a classic Jamaican accompaniment, rice and peas.
 This simple recipe goes really well with the Jerk chicken recipe I did a few weeks ago, but you can use it with Curry goat, calypso chicken, jerk fish, tofu rundown, anything Jamaican in fact. Its also good with hot Indian curries as the coconut milk is a perfect cooling element.

Equipment:

Large heavy bottomed saucepan with close fitting lid.
Kitchen scales.
Measuring jug.

Ingredients:

 400g Long grain rice.

2 Tins of kidney beans including the water from the tins. ( you can use 300g of dried kidney beans if you like, soaked overnight in plenty of water, then cooked until tender in fresh water.)

2 Small tins of coconut milk, or 1 large tin.

2 Sprigs of fresh thyme.

The green stems from a bunch of spring onions, finely chopped.

1 Whole scotch bonnet pepper.

1 Bay leaf.

1 Litre fresh cold water.

Salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Method:

Empty the kidney beans, with the water from the tins, into a large saucepan or, if you're using beans that you've soaked then cooked leave them in the pan with a little of the water left over from the cooking.

Add the rice, thyme, coconut milk, bay leaf, chopped spring onion stalks and scotch bonnet pepper.

Add the fresh water and put the lid on the pot.

Bring the pot up to the boil and, as soon as it is boiling, turn the heat down to low, ( I turn mine down to number 1 on my electric stove.)

DO NOT STIR THE RICE!!!! ( this is very important as we're using the "absorption" method to cook the rice, if you stir it before all the water is absorbed you will end up with a mushy rice pudding! )

Give the pot about 15 minutes before you even take the lid off and have a look.

Remove a few grains of rice from the pot ( I like to take a few from the middle of the top and a few from the sides of the pot.)  And test for doneness. The rice should be almost done all the way through or, "al dente", as chefs call it.

If the rice is still a bit firm replace the lid and leave on the low heat for another 5 minutes then check again.

If you're happy that the rice is "al dente" remove the pot from the stove, replace the lid and allow to steam for about 10 minutes. This method will ensure you get perfect fluffy rice. Carefully remove the scotch bonnet, the bay leaf and the thyme sprig stalks.

After 10 minutes of steaming off the heat I like to tip my rice into a large roasting tin to get rid of any water that might not have been absorbed for a few minutes.

 

You can now fluff your rice up with a fork and gently stir it to distribute the beans, thyme and green spring onion stems.



 And serve!










Okay, for the final simple side dish this week I'm going to show you a very simple "festival" dumpling recipe.
Festivals are crunchy little fried dumplings that can be served with any Caribbean meal as a side.
They're a little sweet and the texture is quite dense but they are great for sopping up curry juices and gravies. Believe it or not, they are also fantastic, once fried and then cooled, split in two with a slice of good sharp British cheddar and I even have a friend who lashes them with butter, jam and clotted cream and eats them like a scone!

You can get the ground cornmeal ( sometimes called coarse polenta or maize meal ) in health food shops and they sometimes have it in the aisle in supermarkets where they sell the gluten free flours etc- normally called "free-from foods".

Equipment:

1 mixing bowl.
Kitchen scales.
A sealable tub large enough to hold the dough.
Deep fat fryer.

Ingredients:

175 g ground cornmeal.
125 g plain flour.
2 teaspoons baking powder.
1 tablespoon caster sugar.
Half a teaspoon salt.

Method:

Put all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir
 to combine.












Add a splash of water, not too much and, with a spoon, stir it in then, with your hands rub the mixture together to get a coarse breadcrumb texture.

If you need to add another splash of water then do so but don't add to much water at a time.





when you have the same texture as in the picture
add another splash of water and press the mix together to form a firm dough.
Once again, you only need to add enough water to
 just about bring it together, you don't want
a wet dough!

Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and knead for about 10 minutes till it forms a fairly smooth dough ball. You shouldn't need to add any more water but if you think its still a bit dry, just wet your hands and knead until smooth.








Pop the dough in a sealable tub and put it in the fridge to allow it to rest for about an hour. If you don't allow the dough to rest your finished festival will be chewy and heavy.



After the dough is rested take it out of the fridge, and tub, and cut into portions. ( I got 8 smallish portions out of it.)
Roll each piece into sausage shaped festivals
 or, if you prefer, rounds.













Pre-heat the fryer to 180 degrees c and fry the festivals in two batches of 4 until golden and crunchy on the outside. You will get a few cracks in them but the cracks add another texture to the finished dumplings.









And serve, ideally with some jerk chicken and rice and peas! ( or butter, jam and clotted cream, or cheese, or whatever you like! )










Well, that's it for this weeks recipes. I hope you enjoy making them, especially the wedges. I have almost 2kg of them just waiting in the freezer to be fried off and scoffed!

Oops!, make that 1.5 kilos........!
My next review blog will be published early next week and the next recipe blog in the middle of next week, it's a great recipe for all you chocoholics and brownie lovers out there so be sure to take a look!

Happy Cooking!

Mat.