Chicken and pearl barley stew

 Things I discovered with this dish: 

• It is now very hard to buy any chicken pieces with bones in them in Australia, apart from wings, drumsticks, or whole birds. 
• Pearl barley cooks well when boiled up in a fair amount of stock and then left for several hours, then finished off with a little more heat. 

Given the above lack of bone-in thigh pieces, I prepped this in several stages (bone-in drumsticks are a bit messy to eat in a stew): 

Stock and meat prep (earlier in the day): 

De-bone drumsticks, make stock from bones and some skin with a few of the usual suspect veg and good seasoning, simmering gently as per normal. Meanwhile soak meat in strong brine. No need to cut up. 

Pearl barley

As above, boil up for an initial gentle roll in your fresh and very well-seasoned stock, and leave. (Still early on in the day, looking at a couple of hours here). Heat up again later and finish up as desired. 

The rest

Mirapois veg, plenty of it, good seasoning, one chili (or as desired), fresh oregano or other herbs as wished. Fry off the meat, deglaze the pan. Add meat, veg, herbs, and glaze to pressure cooker with a splash of white wine and pressure cook for 30 mins. 

Then 

Gently strain the cooking juices from the solids, return juices to pan and thicken with some cornflour. Add the pearl barley to this 'gravy', check it's cooked and thickened/stewy to your liking. Gently add the cooked veg and meat, as it'll be pretty damn soft and you don't want to mush it. Serve in bowls with a sprinkling of cheese. 

Hearty and bloody tasty, and probs not bad health-wise either. 

Persian lamb stew

A bit of a throw-together but got the thumbs-up and 'again' from most of the kids so here we are:

Lamb stew

Into the pressure cooker for an hour: 

Lamb - leg or shoulder or something, preferably with a bone in 

Garlic

Onions

Turmeric

Pickled lemons

plenty of salt

(first cook)

Take out, chop lamb a bit, take the bone out. Add: 

Aubergine (chopped) 

Mint

Parsley

Fenugreek (soaked) 

(second cook for about 30 mins) 

Could have used a bit of a reduction at the end but the cooker was playing up and time running out so didn't bother. Even with very runny sauce was delicious. Goes nicely on rice. 

Herby cheesey dumplings for stews

Cook these for 20 minutes on top of ready stews.

300g self-raising flour, 100g butter, 2/3 cups milk, pinch salt, cheese and herbs of choice. I like LOTS of fresh herbs, rough chopped. Rub flour and butter, mix into dough with milk, add cheese and herbs. Roll into balls. Can cook like little scones for other applications. Such as snarfing down with butter and ham for lunch. Kid favourite.

Lamb and Quince Tagine with Preserved Lemon

• Large leek
• Crushed garlic
• Chopped ginger
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 0.5 tsp ground turmeric
• 700g diced lamb shoulder
• 10 green olives
• 1 quince, peeled, cored and sliced into wedges
• handful of coriander, roughly chopped
• 30g flaked almonds, toasted
• 1 tbsp finely chopped preserved lemon rind

Sautee leek in some butter, add spices, garlic and ginger, Add lamb, olives, quince, and enough water not to cover everything. Simmer for about 1.5 hours.

Combine coriander, almonds and lemon in a bowl, serve the tagine with couscous or rice and the almond garnish.

Italian White Bean and Chicken Stew

Rather nice one, this – very hearty, but still quite nice and ‘clean’. Recommend for cold days when you want to set the grumps aside.

Need:

• plenty of chicken red meat, off the bone and cut into chunks

• Cannellini beans

• Onions, fennel, garlic, fresh tomatoes diced, plenty of courgette

• Basil and oregano (fresh).

1. Coat the chicken chunks in oregano, season, brown. Extract from pan.

2. Thinly slice onion and fennel, soften (I added a carrot – didn’t do any harm and a bit of colour).

3. Return chicken to pan, add a bit of stock, simmer down (the broth, not you).

4. Add cannellini, chunked tomatoes and courgettes, minced garlic. Season to taste.

5. Mix in reserved fennel tops chopped, and the basil (actually I forgot the basil – was really nice anyway).

Served this one with little bread-balls from a basic pizza dough.