I searched the whole Hive, but could not for the life of me find a Tomato Salsa recipe, so I had to go further afield. Not much of a story here, really. I scrolled through a few hundred PeakD search results but couldn't find what I was after. I'm sure someone at sometime has shared their excellent salsa recipe: maybe passed down through over many generations, or maybe just made up on the spot, I just couldn't find it. So I followed Jamie Oliver's instead:
Everything you see above (except the garlic) was grown by my Mum in her garden and gifted to me when she visited last week. Tomatoes and capsicums. There were also a few limes I forgot to photograph. I decided I needed a way to use them all up and a simple salsa would be best.
So, I bought some corn chips from the local deli and then set about cutting the tomatoes, capsicums and garlic into fine pieces. Stuck it all together in a bowl. Added half a lime worth of juice, a sprinkle of olive oil and some salt and pepper, then mixed it all up. The result was dinner, eaten like a dip with the chips. Pretty good. I think I overdid the garlic though. I used four cloves instead of one. I really like garlic, but not that much, as it turns out. Was a bit strong. The other thing I'd change for next time is draining the liquid before eating. There was a lot of it, mostly from the tomatoes. Too much, but none of that took away from the enjoyment of eating.
Recently I was reading a post by @creativemary where she cooks a stew using quinces and turkey. I had some apples to use up and lemons too, so thought I'd modify the recipe and give it a go myself using chicken and apples rather than turkey and quinces. The result of the first step is above: sliced and washed apples placed in water with the juice of half a lemon added.
Here's the chicken, ready to cut up. 1 kilo of bird.
Pan frying the chicken in butter.
Cooking the apple slices in butter also and white wine. Honey is added later and salt & pepper.
After simmering for an hour, the chicken is placed along the base of a ceramic tray, then covered with the apple slices. Brown sugar is sprinkled across the top and then the whole thing is baked like this in the oven for half an hour.
The results! Beautiful. The chicken was very tender and flavoursome and the apple slices were nicely stewed and lovely and sweet. Delicious. Can recommend. Not the kind of dish I would normally consider making, or the kind of flavours that I'd think to put together, but I appreciate trying some adventurous cooking.
The full recipe that I used is as follows:
Ingredients
- 100g of Butter
- 1Kg of Apples
- 2 tbsp. of Honey
- 1 tbsp. of Flour
- 200ml of White Wine
- Juice of 1/2 a Lemon
- 1 tbsp. of Brown Sugar
- 1Kg of Chicken
- 1 tbsp. of Olive Oil
- 1 Cinnamon Stick
- Salt & Pepper
Method
Cut & clean apples, add to a bowl. Fill the bowl with water and add lemon juice.
Cut the chicken and sprinkle lightly with flour.
Fry the meat in half the butter and the olive oil. Cook until a shiny crust is achieved.
Add the remaining 50g of butter and apples.
When they start sizzling, add the white wine.
Add the honey & let it caramelise.
Add salt & pepper then put to one side.
In a large pot add the meat, 2 cups of water & the cinnamon.
Boil for 1 hour.
Pre-heat your oven to 180° Celsius.
Take a ceramic tray and add 150ml of water.
Layer the meat on the bottom.
Add the liquid from the boiling pot.
Place the apple slices on top.
Cover with the spoonful of brown sugar.
Cook for 30 minutes without a lid.
One thing I wasn't sure about was how to tell when the honey caramelises? I just cooked the apples for about 20 minutes before turning off the heat and concentrating on the chicken.
Plus, I only had powdered cinnamon in the pantry, no sticks. Turned out okay.
Not sure if I'll do more of this type of post. I don't think my photos are pretty enough. Hence the title! At least not when compared to @creativemary and other food bloggers here on Hive who do exceptional work. I was inspired and thought I'd give it a go, because why not? 😄
Credit goes to @creativemary for the original recipe which can be found here.
As a small token of my appreciation 50% of any author rewards from this post will go to her.
-Sing