Family Feasts

Delicious meals to share, over Summer holidays, time to catch up, time to give, time to celebrate friendship with festivity.  A few samples of my cooking for the holiday season, suggestions for dishes from other countries.

 Festive Food - Family Feasts

The End Of the Year 2013

Roast Turkey the whole bird with nuts and fruit stuffing.

Exceptional cooking for the end of the year,  it was good that the children and grandkids were with us. It was Thanksgiving, for a good year, we all had.
Cooking the whole bird of poultry is always festive, the turkey was plenty for everyone. 

Cooking delicious dishes from different countries is a good experience, often I got chances to cook beautiful meals and feasting with the children, my family.

Cooking based on Moroccan
Couscous with stuffed chicken breast with red dried pawpaw and pistachio nuts.  It is an excellent food for warm and hot days.  Traditionally couscous is served with hot long stew vegetables or meat and vegetable tajine.  To me, this dish is so good to have during a colder month.  I do love couscous and the taste of Moroccan food, so I cook couscous which is suitable for Summer, it is the stuffed chicken breast with pistachio nuts.  It is delicious, colourful and festive for any table.

Shopping List:
- chicken breast fillets, dried pawpaw, pistachio nuts
- egg, olive oil, sour cream, saffron
- Instant couscous
- Mixed fresh herbs
- Broad beans

The Preparations

The Chicken

Discard the skin
Butterfly the fillet, keep aside
(refrigerate until is needed)

Two tablespoons chopped chicken
Teaspoon cornflour, egg yolk. chopped
pistachio, salt 

Stuff the fillet with the stuffing
Add fresh herbs and wrap with plastic,
cover it again with foil to poach

The stuffed chicken fillet wrapped
in foil is ready to poach. Poach for
9 minutes, keep in the water to cool

Freshly Poach Stuffed Chicken

The Cous Cous

It is quickly done, just follow the instruction on the packet

cooking the couscous

fluff the couscous

The Presentation

The dish to serve

Dressing for the Chicken

Sliced Chicken with no Dressing

Cous Cous and Herbs, Garnished with Stuffed Chicken Fillet with Pistachio and Pawpaw

Beautiful and Colourful Cooking.  Moroccan Flavour.

The Plates

Another cold couscous is Savoury couscous with nuts, to accompany this dish is
a cold pie 'beestya'=chicken pie.  Flavours of Morocco which blend together.

Savoury Cous Cous with Nuts

Using Herbs-Creative Cooking

Celebrate herbs in season, use them as garnishes, fresh herbs are beautiful and also fragrant.  But fried herbs to garnish fried food are absolutely amazing, they look glossy.

Chicken cutlets with garnishes-Fried chicken cutlets garnished with mixed fried herbs

Fried chicken cutlet in light cheese batter, served with

mixed fried herbs.

Preparation for the Garnish

Gather the fresh herbs, wash and dry them properly.

Using fresh oil, deep fry them in hot oil, quickly

drain and cool them on absorbent paper.

Simple ingredients to make beautiful and delicious food.  

Savoury in Pastry
Mincemeat, potato and onions (the savoury) for the filling, and prepare a batch of Susy's water pastry for the wrapper.  Serve with fresh salads and cheeses, to go with summer punch, fruit juice or very cold sparkling white wine.

Preparation for the Savoury in Pastry

Prepare the water pastry and let it rest for at least 25 minutes, then roll it out into thin sheets.

Filling: Mix of 200 g cooked mincemeat, 2 large white onions-slice and sauteed in oil until soft.  Add in sauteed grated potatoes (2) and a cup of grated celery, season with salt and flavoured with herbs-dills and bay leaf powder.  Mix and combine together thoroughly.

Add four eggs in the mixture, mix it well.

The pastry: roll it out into 12 small pieces, then roll and stretch into thin fine sheets which you can see through.  You would have six for the base,  six layers for the top.

To assemble the savoury: use a large and buttered tin, place the six delicate pastry at the bottom and oil/butter in between the layers.

Put the filling on it, spread evenly on the tin.

Cover it with six layers of the sheets, and don't forget to brush with melted butter mixed with oil in between the sheets.

Pleat the pastry on top as pretty as you can, and cover the filling totally.  Then brush the top with the butter and oil mixture

The savoury in pastry is ready to be baked in a preheated hot oven at 175 degrees C for 35 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

Or at this stage, you can keep (refrigerated) and bake the next day.  If you wish you could freeze it to stay longer.  

Freshly baked savoury with beautiful pleated pastry

Serving

Serve with a leafy salad

It is not necessary to have complicated cooking and expensive dishes to have a feast, but beautiful, practical dishes, well presented and ready to serve at the table are lovely, and you can be present and join with family and your guests to enjoy the feast.  

  Dessert: have the sweets that can be prepared beforehand, and are suitable for refrigeration. Such as fruit salad, meringue (pavlova), or cheesecake.

Desserts

Mixed Fresh Fruit. Icy cream and meringues 

Feasting and travelling around my table: local dishes and beyond.

Javanese cooking is suitable for this type of feasting, serve a variety of dishes at the table, especially Javanese dishes are excellent to be served at room temperature.  I may be doing and sharing recipe about Javanese cooking soon.  Stay Tuned.

Thank You For Stopping By

Until Next Post

Susy