Langoustine and Tomato Tagliatelle!

The allotment is knocking out some great produce at the moment, especially tomatoes. So I thought I’d try a Marcus Wareing recipe. Langoustine from our local fish monger, well I say local, 7ish miles away, can you believe we live on the east coast of Durham and there’s one fish monger of I know. Anyway I digress, tomatoes, shallots, basil, chili and garlic from our allotment. Tell ya what, it was bluming gorgeous!

Chop a good handful of cherry (sized) tomatoes in half.

Chop up a couple cloves of garlic.

Chop a chilli into small pieces, leave in seeds if you want a bit of heat.

Chop a shallot up into small bits.

Finely slice 2 Basil leaves.

Ok, drop a couple of nests of Tagliatelle into boiling water. Fry the garlic and shallots in a frying pan with a splash olive oil. After a couple of minutes put in the tomatoes for a few minutes while you cook your Langoustines separately. Add the cooked Langoustine, then the basil and chilli. When Tagliatelle is al-dente, drain off water and add to the sauce. Mix in the pasta and serve.

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Salted Chilli Chicken Fake away!

One of my favourite takeaways is Salted Chilli Chicken with egg fried rice and curry sauce. But even though it’s convenient, it’s sometimes a bit pricey when you’re a pensioner ha.

So, the missus and me have a half decent ‘fakeaway’ recipe for when we have the time and want this dish.

Cut up 2 chicken breasts into bite size pieces. Coat in flour, salt, chilli powder and cornflour. Slam in the oven on medium (180c) for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop a full decent sized onion into small pieces, a green pepper same size and 2 red chillies. Sweat off the onions in oil for a few minutes then add the peppers and the chillies.

Now, we usually have a Tupperware dish of already cooked brown rice in the fridge, so I crack 2 eggs into a Wok, mash up then add the rice with dark soy sauce. This doesn’t need a lot of cooking off.

Then after about 20 minutes, shake the chicken and whack the heat up full for a few minutes.

Take the chicken out and add to the pan with the onions, peppers and chilli. Cook it all together and the chicken should crisp up and brown further.

Put kettle on and mix up some Bisto ‘Chip Shop Curry Powder’.

Put on a plate in a pretty pattern and eat.

At this point I would like to point out, I like my food well seasoned and apart from a few shakes of Soy sauce, nothing salty went in. So I would also add sea salt into the rice when cooking, but don’t tell the missus!😉