Tarragon and Mushroom Chicken Tagliatelle

Everyone needs an easy to cook tasty go-to dish for lazy evenings, and this one ticks all the boxes. I actually cooked this recipe last week after a long day at work. Couldn't be bothered with thinking about dinner, and wanted something that didn't require much time or any special ingredients. The prep time was 10 minutes, and cooking time 35; overall it took me only 45 minutes to get this baby on my plate, and boy was it packed with flavours!


Serves 2


Ingredients:

- 200g of Tagliatelle
- 2 Chicken Thighs
- 1 Onion
- 1 large clove of Garlic
- 4 to 5 Button Mushrooms
- 1 glass of White Wine
- 1/2 cube of Chicken Bouillon
- 1/2 liter of Hot Water
- 5 stalks of Tarragon
- 2 tbs of Crème Fraiche


Start by chopping the onion, crushing the garlic clove, and dicing 3 of the button mushrooms very finely.

Heat up a large pan, add some olive oil, and throw in the chopped ingredients together with the chicken thighs. Cook the thighs until the skin turns golden.

Add the glass of white wine, let the alcohol evaporate for about 2 minutes, and then add in 4 stalks of tarragon, the hot water and the half cube of bouillon (normally one Knorr cube has to be diluted in 1/2 litre of hot water, but here the cube is only used as an enhancer so the bouillon is actually very diluted).

Let the chicken simmer on medium heat for half an hour.

Chop the remaining 2 mushrooms in slices. 10 minutes before the end, take the chicken thighs out, remove their bones and shread the meat in smaller pieces. You can now add the meat back in, as well as the crème fraiche and sliced mushrooms. Adjust seasoning if needed, and start cooking your pasta.

Once the pasta is cooked, place in a bowl, add your tarragon chicken sauce, and delicately add the remaining tarragon stalk for decoration purposes!

Crab Dumplings with a Coriander Sauce Vierge

I absolutely love dumplings but the problem is, cooking them from scratch is a mission of its own.
I however found myself home alone recently, and a mission was exactly what I needed to pass time quicker before the return of my other half.
The ingredients list is actually quite short, but because you need to prepare the dough, the filling, the sauce, and cook the dumplings at the end, some organisation is needed.

Serves 4

Step 1: Prepare the dough

- 250g of flour
- 1 cup of lukewarm water
- 1/2 tsp salt

Start by mixing together the water, the oil and the salt. In another bowl, pour the flour. Form a well and pour half of the liquid. Stir, and slowly add the remaining liquid mix. The mixture should form a ball that will be a bit sticky but able to easily hold itself.
Cover the bowl with cling film and let it rest for 30 minutes (You can actually prepare step 2 and 3 during this time).

Once the dough has rested, start kneading for about 10 to 15 minutes. The dough should become elastic and you should be able to stretch it without it breaking.


Step 2: Prepare the filling 

- 200g Crab meat
- 4 Spring onions
- 2 Lemongrass stalk
- Coriander
- 1 thumb sized piece of Ginger
- 2 Limes
- 2 tbs of Soy Sauce

Chop all of your ingredients and quickly blend them using a fork. This will separate the crab meat fibres and give the mix a more homogenous texture.


Step 3: Prepare the sauce

- 4 Fresh Tomatoes (diced)
- 2 Lemons
- Olive Oil
- Coriander
- Salt

Add salt to the diced tomatoes to extract their juices. Add in the lemon juice, olive oil, and chopped coriander.


Step 4: Prepare your wrappers

Put the dough on a floured surface, and spread it as thinly as possible with a rolling pin. Spreading the whole batch of dough really thin might prove difficult, so I would recommend to quarter it first, before rolling each ball individually.

Once you think the dough cannot be stretched anymore, use a pastry cutter to make round wrappers as shown on the picture.

Keep the rolling pin out, and just before adding the filling to your wrappers, re-roll the wrappers once more; you'll be amazed to see they can still be made much thinner.


Step 5: Prepare your dumplings

Take a wrapper, put the equivalent of a teaspoon of filling on the upper half of the circle, and fold the wrapper in two. Use a wet fork fork to seal the edges.


Step 6: Cooking and platting of the dumplings

When you're ready to eat, warm up a pan of boiling water, and add no more than 6 dumplings at a time. Once they start resurfacing, take them out of the water using a slotted spoon. Put them on a plate and finish with a drizzling of sauce.

Asian Sea Bass Papillote

One of the most important concept in Japanese cuisine is to respect the product and I very much agree with this philosophy. When you can get your hands on a beautiful Fresh Fish, not much is needed to make it beautiful. The flavour of sea bass is naturally gorgeous and very delicate, the goal is thus just to enhance it. Steaming will keep the fish moist and allow the aromas and spices you stuff it with to gently infuse the flesh. Here I've chosen Asian herbs and spices, but the same technique can be used for a Mediterranean version, with for instance Lemon, Thyme, and Fennel.

Start by preheating the oven at 200°C. 

Your winning combination of ingredients to this Asian style Sea Bass will be:

-Lemongrass
-Ginger
-Garlic
-One deseeded chili
-Coriander
-Keffir lime leaves
-Kombava fruit or Lime

Roughly chop all these ingredients and put them aside. Score the flesh of the Sea Bass and rub it with salt. Put the seabass on a sheet of foil, stuff it with all your chopped ingredients. If some of it doesn't fit in the cavity, don't throw it away, just put it on the seabass and fold the foil to close the papillote.

Put the papillote in the oven for about 15 minutes for a 300g fish.