Tag: red onion

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Lemon and Thyme Roast Chicken

I was in London and staying at the Fox and Goose close to Hangar Lane. This is a Fullers Hotel and is part of the same chain at Drayton Court, which I have also stayed at.  The restaurant is in the older part of the hotel, as the hotel part is now a new build at the back. Despite being part of the same chain, they do have different menus. Their version of chicken was different to Drayton Court. So after having had my prawn cocktail starter I had the lemon and thyme roast chicken.

This was lemon and thyme roast chicken served on chorizo, courgettes, red onion and cannellini beans.

lemon and thyme roast chicken served on chorizo, courgettes, red onion and cannellini beans

The chicken was really good, full of flavour, moist and tender. You could taste the chicken, and the lemon and thyme enhanced the flavour.

The chicken was served on a bed of chorizo, courgettes, red onion and cannellini beans. The beans were a little overcooked, but the chorizo was excellent, large chunks of soft spicy chorizo.

Overall I really enjoyed this dish and would certainly order it again.

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Pollo Cacciatore at Bella Italia




I was out for a meal at Bella Italia at Cribbs Causeway. It’s being a while since I was last here, but I do remember have an excellent meal here back in June 2021. I did notice that Bella Italia at Cabot Circus which has been closed for a while, is now going to be a Bao Burger. I found that branch lacked character and atmosphere, whereas the Cribbs Causeway branch has a little more character and charm. They’ve updated it over the years and though at some time it had a classic Italian trattoria feel to it, today it is slightly more of a Italian inspired funky look.

We had booked, which having arrive, made sense, as the place was rather full. We were given a friendly welcome and we were shown to our table.

I looked over the menu. I didn’t think it was as interesting as it was back in June 2021, but there were some dishes I did like the sound of.  In the end I went with the set menu, and I had a starter of Mushroom Crostini, which I enjoyed.

For my main I did initially think about having their new(ish) Pinsa Pizza.

With a bigger, thicker, crispier base, this traditional premium Italian Pinsa is hard to beat

I suspect if they had a white base pizza with mushroom and truffle then I would have gone for that. In the end I decided I would go with a pasta dish and I chose the Pollo Cacciatore – Roast chicken, pancetta, chestnut mushrooms and red onions tossed with pappardelle pasta in a white wine and tomato sauce. I did look at the image on the online menu and liked the look of the dish.

The dish which arrived didn’t quite look like the picture on the online menu!

This is what I received.

This is what the online version looked like.

Having said that the pappardelle pasta was cooked well, and I liked the mushrooms and red onion in the dish. I could have quite easily lost the chicken though. The sauce was tasty and I had some extra parmesan added which enhanced the dish.

For dessert I had the Tiramisu.

Overall I did enjoy my food and I enjoyed all three dishes I had from the set menu. I think after having such an excellent meal back in June 2021, I was a little disappointed. I think that it didn’t help that the dishes I received on my table didn’t reflect what was on the menu. Maybe they shouldn’t publish photographs of the dishes on the website. I probably will visit again at some time.

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Making a Keralan vegetable curry

curry ingredients

I cooked a Keralan Coconut Vegetable Curry that I cooked. I cheated a little by using a curry kit from The Spice Tailor.

A delicately balanced, mellow coconut curry from Kerala. Its gentle spicing and layers of flavours makes this a go-to for those who love milder Indian flavours.

I have been using this curry kit for some time now.

I prepared the vegetables, this time  I used red onion, brown onion, butternut squash, sweet potato, baby sweetcorn, red pepper, green beans and cauliflower florets.

I add oil to a large frying pan and then add the spices from the curry kit. I then added the prepared vegetables. This is cooked until softened. I then add the sauce mix from the curry kit, a little water and stir it into the vegetables. I cook it for five more minutes, I then added some fresh young spinach, before covering and cooking for another five minutes or so.  I then did a final stirring the curry.

I served it with plain white rice.

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Spiced Cauliflower Salad

Spiced Cauliflower Salad

This recipe was inspired by one I saw in a magazine.

In a foil lined roasting pan, add some olive oil (and a splash of sunflower oil) and place in a hot oven for ten minutes to heat through.

Cut some potato into 2cm cubes. I used Maris Piper potatoes.

Add the potatoes to the hot roasting pan and roast for ten minutes.

Break the cauliflower into florets and halve the bigger florets, so the pieces of cauliflower are of an equal size. You can also add the cauliflower leaves as well.

Add these to the roasting pan and mix with the potatoes.

Cook for another fifteen minutes.

Sprinkle on some garam masala and stir and toss the potatoes and cauliflower.

Cook for another ten to fifteen minutes, or until the potatoes are crisp and brown.

Remove from the oven.

On a serving plate arrange some leaves of Romaine lettuce. Top with the potato and cauliflower. Add some pomegranate seeds and thinly sliced red onion.

Serve.

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Pickled Red Onion

Pickled Red Onion

I have had pickled red onion when I have been out for meals at Wahaca and Wagamama. It was something that I had thought about making myself. I have had success in making quick pickled peppers for salads, so thought I could do it.

I thinly sliced a red onion and then added salt, white wine vinegar and a small amount of sugar. I then added some dried Italian herbs as well.

This I then left for a few hours. I then drained it in a sieve and served with a salad. It was rather nice.

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Gluten Free Red Onion Rings

Gluten Free Red Onion Rings

Having made some crunchy breaded chicken wings I had some of the seasoned flour and egg left. Not wanting to waste it and having enjoyed the onion rings I had cooked before, decided to mix it together with some milk and coat some onion rings and fry them.

As this was using leftovers, I didn’t measure anything out and so after mixing the egg and flour together I added some milk until the batter coated the back of the spoon.

I took a red onion and sliced it thickly across and then separated out the individual rings of onion. I kept the rest of the onion, diced for another dish. 

I used a smaller frying pan and shallow fried the onion rings in hot oil a minute or so on each side until the batter was cooked and a golden brown.

The end result was beautifully crisp onion rings, the batter had an excellent crunch, they had a succulent taste of onion on the inside. Unlike some I have had these weren’t greasy either, which I often think is a result of cooking rings twice.

These were delicious, the red onion providing a different flavour to the brown onion I used last time and a lovely light crisp batter.

As I had a little bit of batter left I did some green pepper strips as well.

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Time for a salsa

salsa

Actually I am not sure if this is a salsa or not, as I didn’t follow a recipe nor did I check what making salsa entails… 

This was made using my new kitchen toy I got for my birthday, a mandolin,  (other similar models can be had on Amazon).

Ingredients for the salsa.

      • Red pepper (half)
      • Orange pepper (half)
      • Small red onion
      • Cucumber (quarter)
      • Sweetcorn (half a small tin)
      • Olive oil (splash)
      • White wine vinegar (slightly smaller splash)
      • Salt and Pepper
      • Chilli flakes (to taste)

Using the fine dicer, I diced the peppers, onion and cucumber before stirring them. I then added the sweetcorn, the olive oil and white wine vinegar. Add seasoning and the chilli flakes to taste. This was then thoroughly stirred and covered for a hour or two.

Serve with barbecued meats or with tacos. 

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Cheese and Red Onion Scone

So there I was in John Lewis and decided to get a coffee from the Espresso Bar in the basement in their Bristol branch. Feeling a little peckish I had a look at what was on offer and went for their “special” scone, a cheese and red onion scone.

I do quite like a savoury scone, when I visit the restaurant at Cadbury Garden Centre I quite like their cheese scones. If it isn’t cheese than I might go with a sweet one with sultanas, which means I must also have butter, jam and clotted cream. When it comes to sweet scones, for me they much have fruit, and be served with butter, strawberry jam and clotted cream. Of course the other key thing is that the scone must be fresh. Nothing worse than eating a scone that was baked days ago… Most places seem to sell not-fresh scones, that more than likely they buy in bulk ready made. Whereas there are a few places that do bake and sell scones that taste fresh. You can easily tell the difference.

This scone from John Lewis was rather nice, not too heavy, fresh and full of flavour. Certainly if it is on sale again I will probably get one again.

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Roasted Vegetables

Roasted Vegetables

I really do enjoy roasted vegetables either as a meal in itself or as an accompaniment to another dish.

On this platter I have roasted squash, red onions, red pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergine, parsnips and sweet potato.

The method I used for this was in the roasting pan I placed the squash, the parsnips, red onion and sweet potato with a good splash of olive oil. This was then roasted in the oven for about 15 minutes. I then added the mushrooms, tomatoes, aubergine, courgette, red pepper and another splash of the olive oil. This was then roasted for about 15-20 minutes.

Simple and delicious.

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Alba Ristorante Part Four

I was recently lucky enough to go to dinner at the Alba Ristorante in London with some friends., not just once, but enjoyed it enough the first time to go for a second meal. Unlike a lot of Italian restaurants I have been too, the menu here was not full of pasta and pizza, on the contrary it was very different and as a result much more interesting and refreshing.

On my second visit for my main I had the Bistecca D’Agnello con Borlotti e Cipolle Rosse or in English, Lamb steak with Borlotti beans & red onion from Trope.

Now don’t get me wrong it was very nice, however I did ask for it cooked medium and what I got was more rare than medium. The beans were nice though.