What to do........

Have you ever been in the situation where due to circumstances where all you had to cook with was in your pantry or in the fridge? I think most people have found themselves in that situation - working late, lack of funds, forgotten the shops are closed due to a public holiday?
And its happened to me recently. I was left looking in the cupboard and found a pack of dried porcini, a leek in the fridge, some dried pasta, onion, garlic. Fair enough I did have meat in the freezer, but that would take too long to defrost.
So here is a Porcini & Leek pasta creation.

Ingredients:
1 pack (20g) dried porcini
200ml boiling water
1 leek
1/2 onion, finely sliced
30g butter
olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
200g pasta (I used fusilli)
salt
Pepper
2-3 fresh sage leaves
1/2 tbls dried thyme
Grated Parmisan to serve

Method:
Soak the porcini in the water for about 20min.<
Strain the liquid through some kitchen paper to catch all the impurities & reserve the liquid.
Thoroughly clean the porcini under running water to remove any grit.
Finely chop the porcini.
Melt half the butter & 1 tbls of the olive oil in a pan over a low heat.
Add the garlic & gently fry for about 2 minutes.
Add the porchini & fresh sage leaves.
Add the porchini liquid a tbls at a time stirring & letting it evaporate before adding the next spoonful, until all the liquid is used.
Cook the pasta as directed.
Meantime slice the leek into 1cm disks.
Heat the remaining butter & a little oil in a seperate pan.
Add the leek & onion & fry for 2 minutes.
Add the dried thyme & 2 tbls of boiling water & cook until the leeks & onion are tender but not mushy.
Add the leek & onion mixture to the porchini & season to taste.
Toss in the pasta.
Serve with grated parmisan.

Randomness..

Just some random photo's on my way home from work.......

Paper Chef #45

Hmm... A month has past since the last Paper Chef & what have I blogged about in that time?

Nothing.

Zero.

No Street Art.

No food.

No recipes.

No enlightened social commentaries.

Maybe I've just lost the blogging mojo or have no inspiration but what ever is missing I hope it does return. It frustrates & annoys me to see just one post for the month.

But Paper Chef is here again & that always seems to stir my imagination!

This month is no different with the ingredient chosen by last month's winner Janie from musingri.

So what do you make with Chicken, Yams, Lentils, & Green Tea?

Well you rule out the Yams & invoke the substitution clause. A trip to the markets and no yams were to be found. A quick google on the mobile revealed that Taro was a close relative of Yams. Another lap of the markets & no Taro. So I had to settle for another root tuber - Sweet Potato, although it was from the otherside of the world & not related to Yams as Yams & Taro are from the South Pacific & Sweet Potato was originally from Haiti.....

The change in an ingredient didn't force a change in idea though. I had thought about it & discarded various ideas before settling on a fairly simple dish of Green Tea marinated Chicken with with Lentils & Sweet Potato (or Yam) crisps, which turned out quite well.

I'm only going to write the recipe for the marinade & chicken. Lentil you can prepare in your favourite way & the Sweet potato crisps were simply finely sliced on a mandolin & then dry roasted. The Green Tea can be brewed from either teabags or leaf. I used teabags only because it was easier.

Ingredients

2 chicken marylands

125ml freshly brewed Green Tea, cooled to room temperature

1 clove crushed garlic

1 thumb sized grated ginger

1 tbls soy sauce

1/4 tsp chili powder, more or less depending on the kick you like

Method:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl & then add the chicken

marinade for 2 hours

remove from marinade & roast in a hot oven until the juices run clear, basting occasionally if you feel its drying out too much.

I served the chicken on a bed of lentils with the crisps, with a bit of orange zest for colour & tang.