African

Bim's Kitchen African Inspired Sauces

Recipe by Guest Blogger James Adedeji http://bimskitchen.com/

I first met James "Bim" Adedeji in the local market in Denbigh, North Wales, where he was selling his African inspired sauces and condiments.  I have become a fan ever since with his African Baobab Chilli Jam being my current favourite. Bim, which is short for his Nigerian name 'Abimbola' and is the country he grew up as a child.  It is where he also first learnt about and tasted many of the ingredients he now uses in his sauces such as baobab fruit, tigernuts, moringa, peanuts, cashew nuts, tamarind, alligator pepper and hibiscus to name but a few.  His passion is to find new and creative ways of using ingredients that many people overlooked or used in a very limited way.  This passion led to the creation of his first chilli jam and BBQ sauce using baobab  fruit which have now become amongst his best selling products.

Bim along with his wife Nicola, who is also involved in producing these wonderful sauces, started their business more than five years ago and in that time have received recognition by winning several Great Taste Awards and appearing on James Martin's Home Comfort program at the beginning of last year.  Since then they have moved to Wales and are now looking to build on their success with future long term plans a possibility that they might opening their own restaurant.

For further information you can contact Bim's Kitchen by visiting their website http://bimskitchen.com/

Slow Cooked Game with Vegetables in a Chickpea and Moringa Curry Sauce

Ingredients: Serves 6

Preperation time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time; 4 hours in a slow cooker*

450g mixed game meat cut into large cubes (can be obtained from your local butcher but any meat can be used)

750g mixed root vegetable cut into large chunks (used in this dish baby potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash)

150g mushrooms sliced

200g fresh cabbage sliced

2tsps of cornflour

2tbs sunflower oil

A jar of Bim's Kitchen Chickpea & Moringa Sauce

A few good pinches of salt

Method

Season the meat with 1 tsp of cornflour and a bit of salt

Add 1 tbsp of sunflower oil to a heated pan and briefly brown the meat and then place in the slow cooker.

Add the other tbsp of sunflower oil to the same pan, heat and then saute the mushrooms and add to the slow cooker

Add the root vegetables. Pour over the whole jar of curry sauce then mix the remaining corn flour with a bit of water to a smooth consistency and add to the cooker as well.

Gently mix all the ingredients together. Set the cooker on to 'high' and cook unopened for 3 hours. Then add and gently mix in the cabbage and continue cooking unopened for a further hour.

Serve as a main dish or with plain rice or some warm bread.

Tip: this recipe also works well with Bim's Kitchen African Tomato & Cashew and African Peanut Curry Sauce and you can use other meat instead of game.

*a Crock-Pot 5.7 Litre Slow cooker (SCCPBPP605) was used for this recipe.

Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemons

1 month in the making

This is the dish I wanted to cook using lemon preserves but when I could not get any I ended up making my own.  It was well worth the month I had to wait for the lemon preserves to be ready before I could finally make this dish.

Moroccan Chicken

Ingredients
1 cinnamon Stick
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp chilli flakes
1/4 tsp whole cloves
3 tbs Welsh Rapeseed Oil (Blodyn Aur) or olive oil
6 cloves of garlic chopped
2 tsp of fresh grated ginger
2 bay leaves
1 pinch of saffron
1 free range chicken cut into 8 pieces
pinch of Welsh Anglesey Sea Salt
1 medium onion coarsely chopped
1 preserved lemon (see recipe in my blog) http://searchofgoodfood.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/lemon-preserves.html
chicken stock

In a heavy based frying pan, over a medium heat, toast the cinnamon, cumin, paprika, chilli flakes, whole cloves until they start to smoke. Remove from the pan and grind to a powder.

Heat spice mix gently until they smoke

Cut the free range chicken into 8 pieces

Place the chicken with the spice mix, oil, garlic, ginger, 3 bay leaves, and saffron in a bowl mix all together and allow to marinade for a couple of hours.

Put a little bit of oil in the tagine and place over a medium heat.  Add the onions and fry until tender, about 7 to 8 minutes. Add the chicken, a pinch of salt and marinade to the tagine. Mix one 1 cube of chicken stock with a cup of boiling water and add to the tagine. Remove the lemon preserves from the jar, discard flesh and cut rind into strips and add to tagine.

Cover the tagine with a lid and either place on the hob over a medium heat for about 30 minutes or, as I prefer to do, place in the oven on 180C for 1 hour. When ready serve preferably with couscous

Lemon Preserves

The other day I was looking at a Moroccan Chicken with Olives and Lemon Preservers to cook in my Tagine.  It sounded such a wonderful recipe that I went out to get some of the ingredients.  But for the life of me could I get hold of the Preserved Lemons. I then got to thinking well how difficult can they be to make, in fact as it turned out they are quite simple to make the only catch for me on this occasion was that I had to wait a month before you could use them.

This did not deter me and I set about doing the lemon preserves and the dish would have to wait till they were ready.

Ingredients
3 unwaked lemons
1 1/2 tbs of salt - I have used Anglesey Sea Salt or any quality crystallized salt will do
Water to cover.

You can use optional extra's such as cinnamon sticks, cloves, coriander seeds, black peppercorn or bay leaves.  I didn't use these on this occasion as I just wanted to see how they turned out but by adding them you are increasing the flavour and they also look good enough to give as presents.

Add a bit of salt to a sterilized Kilner or similar type of jar.  Take off the tip of the lemons and quarter

Place in the jar and repeat, adding a bit more salt to each layer until the jar is full

Pour some boiling water onto the lemons until the jar is full, then seal.

Place on a shelve out of direct sunlight for a few days.  Two or three times per day just give the jar a gentle shake to mix. Then place in the fridge for a month.

After a month the lemons can be used.  Discard the flesh and cut the rind into strips or dice and add as instructed to any dish. It definitely adds to the flavour and colour of the Moroccan Chicken dish I eventually got to cook. (Recipe to follow soon)