Guest Post - Matt Allison - I'm no Jamie Oliver

Friday already, wow this week has really flown by and with it comes a new guest post. All my previous guests have been long time bloggers, most of them I have known since my food24 days, this week is different.

The world wide web is jam packed with food bloggers, every day more and more start up and you can spend hours looking through them. Some start for monetary reasons, others for fun and some have reasons that really amaze you like, for example, Matt Allison from I'm no Jamie Oliver. Before you read any of his other posts, read his intro, it's the entire reason I started following him. 

There are many people who are replicating the whole "Julie and Julia" project but I never really go that vibe from Matt, you know, that wannabe thing. In the short time that he's blogged and I have followed I have enjoyed every post, the pretty pics and the funny comments.

Guess what though, he not only can he cook from Jamie Oliver's but does his own thing too! Multi talented the man is, check it out:

LadyRaven approached me to write this weeks guest post, and while I was honoured, I’ve got to say I was nervous...

I’ve been an instinctual cook for years and until my current challenge of cooking my way through Jamie Oliver’s '20 minute meals', I’d never read a recipe before, let alone written one!

I’ve always loved the kitchen, but really don’t enjoy labouring over my creations, hence the push towards 20 minutes meals, and I can proudly state that this is one.

So without much further ado I present:

Thai Green Chicken Curry (serves 2 as a main course, 4 as an appetizer)

Ingredients:

2 medium sized chicken breasts
1/2 tin of coconut milk (200ml)
60g thai green curry paste
vegetable oil
sea salt
2 tablespoons of butter
1 lemon
1 small red onion
2 cups of mixed vegetables (broccoli, baby corn & sugar snaps)
A small bunch of basil leaves
150g of basmati rice

Step 1: Fill your kettle and bring to the boil, preheat your oven or warmer draw and place your bowls in to warm.

Step 2: Fill a pot with the boiling water and place on a high heat, once boiling add the rice, a pinch of salt, along with the zest of the lemon.

Step 3: Place a wok or shallow frying pan on medium to hot heat, add 15ml of vegetable oil and add the sliced onion. Gently sauté until the onion is soft and browning.

Step 4: Slice your chicken breasts into strips and add to the onions, stir fry for a minute, then add in the thai green curry paste and stir fry for another 2-3 minutes.

Step 5: Add the coconut milk and the mixed vegetables to the chicken, onions and curry paste mixture, simmer on a medium to low heat for 3-5 minutes.

Step 6: When your rice is cooked, drain it into a sieve, place it over the pot and add the butter, place the lid on the pot and let it sit.

Step 7: Remove the curry mix from the heat and set to one side, remove your bowls for the oven/warmer drawer and divide the rice between them.

Step 8: Tear the basil leaves and mix them in with the curry, then serve on the bed of rice

My Easy cooking - Event #1 - Thai Entry

If followed my comments on Food24 you would have picked up very quickly that I am not a fan or pre-made, pre-cooked, pre-packaged foods and sauces. In fact that's putting it mildly. I hate those things. I feel very strongly that taking a piece of chicken, mixing some pre-made mushroom sauce with some milk, drowning the chicken in that and popping in the oven, is not cooking and definitely not blog-worthy cooking.


So I have taught myself to make a lot of things that people just buy. For example "sweet chili sauce". I scoured the web for recipes, threw out the ones that had corn flour in them (after all my 1 complaint about store bought stuff is the starchy mouth feel) and came up with my own. I never did blog the recipe as it was in the time when I was fed up with blogging that I had made it that first time. However, one friday afternoon while browsing other food blogs I came across a recipe for butter chicken which had sweet chili sauce in it. For me that's just scandalous, a dish as rich and complex doesn't need sweet chili sauce shoved into it. 


I mentioned this to Marisa, over at The Creative Pot, and also mentioned that I make my own sweet chili sauce so the though of that fake stuff they sell at the shops glooped into my butter chicken just made me ill. She said I had to blog the recipe so she could steal it, so off I went and cooked up a batch.  


Now if you are anything like me, you cant cook up a batch of something without tasting it and while you can taste sweet chili sauce with a spoon I decided to make something a little more tasty to go with it. What better accompaniment then sweetcorn fritters.


All this cooking came at a great time. As Nina, over at My Easy Cooking is having her first Blog event. Go check it out  and see for yourself. Nina is an outstanding cook and food stylist so I jumped at the chance to participate in something that is linked to her blog. Also I love Thai food and Wang Thai is one of my favourite Thai restaurants. My corn fritter recipe was given to me by some one who used to be the manager there (of course with a  few embellishments of my own as I cannot follow a recipe to the T).

Thai sweet chili sauce
What you need
2 cups Rice wine vinegar
2 cups Sugar
Chilies
Coriander (preferably fresh)
Garlic


What to do
Put the sugar and vinegar into a saucepan and starting heating it through. Int he meantime pop all the rest of the ingredients into a food processor or blender. You want to get everything as small as possible. If you a milder sweet chili sauce then de-seed your chillies. Put the chili mixture into the saucepan and stir till all the sugar dissolves. Bring the mixture up to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. Allow it to cook for about 35-40 minutes. I used a trick I had learned earlier that day at Oded's Kitchen: put a plate in the freezer, when you think the sauce is ready place some on the plate to test the consistency.
Allow the mixture to cool slightly and bottle it.


Thai sweetcorn fritters
What you need
500g Sweet corn off the cob 
½ red pepper
1 baby marrow
2-3 eggs
2 tbs flour
fresh corriander


What to do
Mix all the ingredients together. Heat up some oil in a frying pan and place spoonful of the mixture into the pan. Fry until golden on both sides.


Just a small caution. Both these recipes originally had exact measurements unfortunately I never followed them or copied them. They both are very forgiving and so do what feels right.