• Aloo Sag a la Chop

• Baby Potatoes with Chilli and Orange Butter

• Sour Marjoram Potatoes

• Roman-Thai Veggie Fried Rice

• Curried Potatoes

• Risotto is Yummy

• Saffron and Cardamon Rice

• Pullao Rice

• Berner Rösti

• Asparagus Risotto with Champagne

Aloo Sag a la Chop

- Chopper

Oil

1 onion, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

1-inch piece of fresh ginger root, chopped

2 fresh red chilies, finely chopped

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 lb Potatoes, cut into small pieces

2 x 8-oz packets frozen spinach leaf, thawed

Salt

Peel the potatoes and cut into small cubes. Boil these in a pot with some turmeric until they are just done.

Heat the oil in a Wok, add the onion, and cook until soft. Add the ginger, chilies, turmeric, cumin and garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes, and salt to taste, stir well, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the red pepper to the mix.

Squeeze out any liquid from the spinach and chop. Add to the potatoes and cook for about 5 minutes, until both vegetables are tender.

If it's too dry you might want to add some vegetable stock, but be careful not to mush the whole thing up.

Baby Potatoes with Chilli and Orange Butter

This is yet another of my spur of the moment inventions. Based on a recipe I had tried out for citrus parmesan potatoes and the fact that I had some home grown chillies to hand and no parmesan this ensued. It goes pretty well with anything -Paula

Preparation time 30 mins

Serves:4

Enough baby potatoes (new or otherwise) for 4 people

Enough butter to toss said potatoes in

Finely grated rind 1 orange

Juice of ½ orange

1 medium sized (couple smaller) red or green chilli finely chopped

Melt the butter over low to medium heat. Stir in the orange rind and chilli and cook for 1 min. Remove from heat. Stir in the orange juice and leave to cool.

It doesn't matter if this mixture separates upon cooling the main idea is to get the flavours of the orange and chilli into the butter.

Pour boiling water and a pinch of salt over the potatoes and cook till done; this will probably take about 15-20 minutes. Drain and stir in the chilli butter. Serve.

Sour Marjoram Potatoes

Yet another Austrian recipe of the vinegar variety - Anita

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 20 mins

9 small potatoes (waxy)

1 tbsp flour

½ - 1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 small onion

1-2 tblsp butter

2-3 dl water

1 tbsp marjoram

salt and pepper to taste

Peel the potatoes and cut them into 2-3 mm thick slices. Boil them for about 8 mins - you want them cooked, but not disintegrated. Drain the potatoes and let them cool in a sieve for 10 mins.

Put the putter into a large frying pan and fry the diced onion.

Add in the flour and knock down the heat and keep stirring (the desired redult is a thick creamy looking substance).

Add the water, vinegar and marjoram and potatoes. Season with salt and pepper and let simmer for 10 mins (if it's too thick add more water or vinegar).

Roman-Thai Veggie Fried Rice

I've tried to include alternate ingredient names, and some suggestions for ingredient substitutions. All my recipes are all my own, and I admit I actually never use measuring tools, so the amounts (especially for spices) may need adjusting according to your own tastes. Most of what I make are experiments, generally from having seen or tasted something that looked good and I got to go home and guess at the ingredients. This. Like my other recipes is among the dishes that I live off ... like them it's "tried and true" but admittedly, may not be to everyone's liking - Broenwynn

1 cup uncooked rice (long grain or jasmine)

1 large yellow onion

1 large capsicum (green pepper)

3-4 Roma tomatoes

1 large carrot

1 med bunch broccoli crowns

6-8 spring onions (scallions, green onions)

3 eggs

3-4 cloves garlic

1-2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp cumin

1 tbsp black pepper

5-7 dashes Tabasco sauce

Vegetable stock bouillon cubes (flavour cubes for soup stock)

Italian dressing (favourite Italian style salad dressing)

Parmesan cheese

Cook rice per package instructions, adding vegetable stock cube/flavouring to water prior to boiling, set aside

In large (frying) pan: Use oil sparingly to coat pan or use a cooking spray. Place roughly chopped broccoli and grated carrot and fry at med-high heat until almost tender.

Add soy sauce, lemon juice, pepper, cumin, garlic and Tabasco while broccoli and carrot cook. Stir occasionally with wooden spoon. Once broccoli and carrot are almost tender, add capsicum, yellow onions, and spring onions. Cook for 3-4 minutes at med-high heat. Reduce heat to low and set aside.

In separate pan add well-mixed eggs (a few dashes of Tabasco in this works well) and scramble over medium heat until dry and crumbly. Add to vegetable mixture. Add roughly chopped tomatoes to mixture. Add cooked rice to mixture and stir well over low heat until all ingredients are thoroughly integrated.

Top servings with favourite Italian dressing and grated Parmesan cheese. Serve and enjoy.

Curried Potatoes

Again this started out as invention and ended up being an irresistible dish. I cooked what I thought was enough for two days, it never lasted that long. It appears to be delicious hot or cold, although by the time we were eating it cold we had probably drunk enough wine to make us appreciate anything. You decide - Paula

Preparation time - 30mins

Serves:4

Enough baby potatoes (new or otherwise) for 4 people

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 onions chopped

2 cloves garlic sliced

4 tbsp curry paste

1 tub Greek yoghurt

Fresh coriander chopped

Scrub potatoes. Pour boiling water and a pinch of salt over the potatoes and cook till almost done; this will probably take about 15 minutes.

Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Sauté garlic and onion for about 5 mins till starting to soften. Add curry paste and cook for a further 2 minutes.

Stir in the yoghurt and once mixed in add the potatoes and heat through, stirring carefully so that the potatoes do not break up. Sprinkle with chopped coriander and serve.

Waider's Goddamn I'm So Lazy Special Fried Rice

Partly cadged from a recipe on a soy sauce bottle, among other places. Measurements aren't terrifically important, at least not the way I cook this. This is actually partway between stir-fry and fried rice; depending on how much extra stuff you throw in. I've never made this for more than two people, so I'm not so sure how it scales. - Waider

1 chunk of chicken per person. Breasts are good since they're generally the right size for a single serving.

2 eggs per person

 "Enough rice" per person. If you've cooked rice, you know how much.

1 small onion per person

A quantity of peas

Carrots

Peanut oil

Soy sauce

Anything else that seems like it'll fit (peppers, chestnuts, bamboo shoots, spices, etc.)

Put the rice in a saucepan, fill it with twice as much water as rice, and put it on max heat. Toss in a little salt if you want the water to boil hotter. Once the water's boiling, crank it back to simmer. I've found it hard to mess up cooking rice, other than letting all the water boil off. You don't need the rice to be particularly sticky for this recipe, since the idea is that the egg is supposed to make it clump. In practice, screw that and use a fork instead of chopsticks.

Put the peanut oil in the wok, and turn it on to "OOOOH! HOT!". How much oil and how hot is a matter of experimentation; I think I probably use about 2 tbsp and put the heat up to the max.

While the oil's heating, cook up the chicken. Hey, you can get precooked if you're lazy. Me, I toss it in a microwave for five mins or so (650W, not quite max power). Once the chicken is cooked, shred it.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them soundly.

You might need to defrost the peas. I generally toss 'em in a bowl of water for now.

Chop the onion and whatever else you're throwing in. Carrots should be sliced into sticks, I guess.

Right now, everything is waiting for the rice. With practice you may find the optimum time to turn on the wok. I just leave it work away by itself until the rice is cooked.

When the rice is cooked, drain it in a sieve. Rinse it through with water if you like, to remove excess starch, but it's not really that important.

Now, this is the only timing critical bit. Toss the eggs into the hot peanut oil. Watch for oil splashes. Stir the eggs like mad to prevent an instant omelette forming. Add the rice and mix, mix, mix. This should stop your eggs from congealing pretty sharpish. Now toss in all the other ingredients, and KEEP STIRRING. Once you've added everything, douse everything liberally with soy sauce and stir some more. This is the stir-fry like part of the recipe. If you stop stirring, you end up with burnt rice and/or burnt egg, neither of which adds to the recipe.

Keep with the stirring until you're convinced everything is sufficiently hot. Note that heating stuff is really the only side of this you're interested in, since it doesn't taste nice when it's cold (you rinsed the rice, didn't you?), and all the potential food-poisoning items have already been cooked.

Toss it on a plate. Serve with wine. You wanna do this with chopsticks, fine by me. I tend to give up and use a fork.

Chopper's Fabulously Yummy and Really Simple Basil & Tomato New Potato Stuff

Basil (preferably fresh)

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Some Mushrooms

1 Large Onion

1 Green Pepper

Small New Potatoes

2 Large RIPE Tomatoes

Tomato Puree

Vegetable Stock

Boil the New Potatoes and cut into small, bite sized pieces.

Chop the Onions and Mushrooms and add to the wok in some hot virgin olive oil.

Add lots of Basil and pepper to the mix (Don't spare the rod) and fry until golden brown.

Add the Green Pepper, chopped into appropriate pieces obviously.

Fry a bit more.  Maybe add some more pepper.

Skin and chop the tomatoes.  Drop them into the mix with the new potatoes. 

Add a lot more basil and pepper. 

Do maybe a 1/5 pint of vegetable stock.  Mix in some tomato puree stuff and pour into the wok.  Mix well. 

Cover and simmer until enough of the water has evaporated to give you the desired moisture level.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

To finally tell you how to do it properly...without the aid of a jar of sauce from M&S

For the accompanying wine I would suggest an "Orvieto" or "Pinot Grigio/Gris".

It is important to note that the eggs are only added at the very last moment. If you add them any earlier, or while the food is still on the heat, then they will overcook and solidify. While this does not really affect the taste, it will cause the whole mess to "fluff up" and ruin its appearance. Indeed, some people have suggested that if the egg overcooks, it makes the meal look a touch vomitous - Anita

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 25 mins

100 - 150 gr. of spaghetti per person

1 onion

2 eggs

1 tablespoon of butter

150 ml cream

2 dl dry white wine

100 gr back rashers

50 gr Parmesan Cheese (fresh and preferably grated)

oregano, salt & pepper to taste

Put on the water for the spaghetti and while you wait for it to boil start working on the sauce

Dice the onion, cut the rashers width-wise into thin strips and fry both with the tablespoon of butter in a non stick frying pan. Add the white wine reduce the heat and let it simmer for 3-4 mins. Add in the cream, oregano as well as salt & pepper to taste. Leave it simmering on low heat until the spaghetti is cooked.

When the spaghetti is done drain it and put it back into the pan but do not put back on the ring, add the cream/wine sauce and stir.

Finally, add in the grated parmesan cheese and the (here they come) 2 eggs - stir the whole mess thoroughly and serve immediately.

Risotto is Yummy

My latest particular one was made using some slightly curried vegetable/ham stock that needed to be used up and there were some cooked veg in there too, onion, butter, seasoning and rice did the rest. There are also about a million variations (which is why there seem to be so many options below) but don't worry, all you really need is rice, butter and [stock or veg or nice things or any combination of the former]

Basically rice is fried in butter and stirred alot while gradually adding stock whenever it dries out a bit. It should swell and take up lots of nice flavour and be very tasty with a bit of cheese. - James

(if you've rice & butter/oil/whatever and _something else_ and maybe some cheese you shouldn't ever need to specially shopping for your risotto. Mustn't forget to mention that you need a decent pot ... the rice will swell and you're throwing everything else in too so just make sure you've enough room for everything + you stirring energetically so that you can minimise the amount you scatter over the cooker. (this is STICKY stuff and can prove interesting to try and remove)

butter - nice big chunks, I'd say I used in total a quarter of a packet ... um ? That would be ? 125g?

rice - about a cup for two people, white is fine, I suppose brown would be grand too, but the white really turns out quite nice.

1 onion [optional] and other veg/meat things for frying [very optional - e.g. if you've no stock]

stock vegetable or meat (or see later for more suggestions) (like salted water but fry up more veg before for flavour! You need about enough to cook the rice... if you end up with too little just add some water at the end. Ummmm, for a cup of rice you should need about ...um .... say between 5/6 cups of liquid roughly.

seasoning & herbs & spices if you're inclined

parmesan or other hard tasty cheese (or if you're using cheddar for that extra stickyness make sure you don't drown the other flavours, although a bit of cheddar is nice alright)

If you're artistically or nouvelle-cuisine inclined you need something to garnish the risotto afterwards as a sticky yellow-white heap of risotto may be very tasty but, well, it looks a bit boring. e.g. some salad, an olive, capers, .... depending on what went into the risotto. Y'know, use your artistic flair and ingenuity for this bit.

Chop onion small and fry in some of the butter, ... add some more butter and fry uncooked rice in there for a while too. Just swish everything around and all the butter will be sucked up by the rice.

(If adding meat/veg/cooked veg do so now and fry em up until they mix with the rice, ... don't overwhelm your rice with veg, ... the rice should be the main feature as it's going to take loads of flavour from the stock/veg later)

You could also add some herbs, spices, seasoning, garlic, a bit of chilli etc ... now. (but don't add all of that, seasoning is enough, herbs & spices etc. are nice with different things.)

Now start the risottification.

The idea is to slowly add the liquid so the rice absorbs it gradually and sticks to the bottom of your saucepan. This will make cleaning up as difficult as possible later on (so make sure it is understood that you're not doing it beforehand). Oh, and forget about dishwashers. If made correctly this stuff should be so sticky that nothing short of direct human intervention and application of large amounts of chemicals and scraping will clean the risotto pot.

If you don't have stock, or oxo cubes then soup or salted water are fine to use but to get some flavour then fry stuff up with the butter & rice at the start for a few minutes. Tasty items I could suggest are peppers, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes (remember to soak them beforehand), olives, capers, broccoli ..... You could also throw in leftover cooked veg or meat (I did), carrots, leek, celery, ham, sausage, and be sure to add in a good dollop of herbs, salt and pepper and other seasoning too.

Note: Italians will get very insulted if you think of Risotto as a "left-over" dish so don't be tempted to think of it that way. Think of it more as a flexible, delicious and filling food (and did I mention easy to prepare (but not to wash up)). And don't go nuts with loads of flavours .... it's almost tastier when there's just one/two tasty flavours.

So anyway at this stage you should be stirring every few minutes and splishing in some more of whatever liquid you're using ... so you have to hover around the pot and concentrate .... no wandering off to talk on the phone or the washer-up is in REAL trouble. Keep at this until the rice has cooked (eat some to test). Then add a good bit of grated parmesan (or whatever you like) and maybe a little more butter :), season and turn off the heat. Mix in the parmesan and leave to "cream" for a minute or so.

Now the sticky mess is ready to be dished up and consumed.

Serve with something pretty but not filling as the risotto may look innocent but it's great stuff and will satisfy even the most experienced of eaters. Something pretty? e.g. a slice of tomato, some salad, something uncooked of what you threw in at the start, stuffed peppers :), ....

Saffron and Cardamon Rice

- Paula

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 20 mins

1 lb rice

750ml water

3 cardamon pods

2 cloves

1 tsp salt

3tbsp semi-skimmed milk (I use whatever I have)

½ tsp crushed saffron

Put the rice, water, cardamon pods, cloves and salt in a saucepan, bring to the boil, turn down the heat to medium low and cook the rice for 12 minutes, or until done. Drain. Heat the milk and mix in the saffron. Pour this over the rice, stir well and leave on a low heat for 5 mins. Serve.

Pullao Rice

- Paula

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 20 mins

3 oz unsalted butter

4 cloves

4 green cardamon pods

1 bay leaf

1 tsp salt

1 lb basmati rice rinsed to remove excess starch

1 l water

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the spices and fry for 1 min. Add the rice and fry for a further minute, stirring well to coat the rice in the butter spice mix. Add the water and cook out the rice (should take about 12 mins). Drain and serve.

Berner Rösti

- Anita

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 35 mins

2 big potatoes per person (if a main dish, otherwise 1 potato). NB make sure the potatoes are waxy (you will save yourself a lot of hassle....trust me)

1 medium onion

3-4 rashers

3-4 tblsp frying butter (don't use oil - the taste would be all wrong, been there done that)

salt, pepper, nutmeg, paprika to taste

Boil the potatoes the day before because you need the cooled or they will distintegrate (traditionally rösti is a leftover dish).

Take the skin off the potatoes. Put the frying butter into a frying pan and grate the potatoes into the pan. NB very important to use a coarse grater.

Add in the diced onion and the thinly sliced rashers, turn on the heat and fry for 3-5 mins, if the potatoes already start sticking to the pan add in more butter.

Spice the rösti and turn down the heat to medium and let it fry for 20-30 mins, but be sure to check it won't stick to the pan. Place a plate on top of the rösti and flip the frying pan (beware of excess butter !) to turn out the rösti. The rösti should now be brown and cruncy.

Asparagus Risotto with Champagne

Can be served as either a side dish or a main course - Anita

Serves:4 (half the amounts if being made as a side dish)

Preparation time: 50mins

3 big cups of risotto rice (vialone or arborio)

1 onion or spring onion

6 asparagus (green ones)

3 bay leaves

1 cube of chicken stock

1 tblsp butter

1 piccolo champagne (250ml - you can also use German Sekt, but be sure that you use a dry one, or alternatively a dry white wine)

salt, coarse black pepper to taste

fresh parmesan cheese

Dice the onion and fry in the butter for about 1 min. Add in the rice and fry all together for 1 min. Then add the champagne and fry for 2 mins. Then add 6 cups of water and turn down the heat.

Cut of the hard ends of the asparagus and cut each into 3 pieces. Add them to the rice.

Add in the chicken stock cube, bay leaves and spices to taste and let simmer for 20-30 mins (depending on the rice - note you don't have to drain the rice since the water is the exact amount of water the rice can soak up).

Grate some parmesan and toss it on the risotto. You can also cut wafer thin strips of the cheese and serve with garlic bread or foccacia.

Serve with a Frascatti or an Orvieto (both white wines) or a bottle of Prosecco (Italian champagne)