Category Archives: azahars kitchen

mission accomplished!

31 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by in azahars kitchen, casa azahar, food & drink, home, homecooking

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

nye

New Year’s Eve dinner was AMAZING. Inspired by the wonderful presa al palo cortado that I’d had at Bodeguita Romero earlier in the week.  It was the first time I’d slow-cooked a whole piece of presa Ibérico de Bellota (pork shoulder) and so I got some cooking tips from my friends, the family at @bodeguitaromero and chef @jose_pizarro. It wasn’t that much different than making my (now famous!) carrillada al oloroso but this sauce was made with palo cortado sherry, LOTS of sweet onion, portobellos, garlic and a few sprigs of fresh thyme. I think I maybe overcooked it a bit as the sauce ended up VERY reduced and had a fair bit of meat in it, that had fallen off the shoulder. So I added more broth and sherry to it and wow, so tasty. Side dishes: roasted potatoes, courgette and spring onion, and Yorkshire puddings. What did you have?

nye dinner

the chicken sharing project

06 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by in azahars kitchen, casa azahar, food & drink, homecooking

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

,

chicken express

Well why not? I have an oven, my friend Peter doesn’t, and so this happened. An agreement whereby every couple of weeks or so during the winter months Peter will purchase a nice free-range chicken at the market and then I will prepare it in different ways using my oven and then we’ll split the bird. Did the first one today and, well, as you can see that IT WAS AMAZING.

It’s a good idea on many levels. We both get to enjoy a well-cooked bird, which of course I could do on my own (since I have an oven) but I mean, how much chicken can one girl eat in a week? This way is win-win. I also give Peter the carcass to make a soup or stew, so that’s a bonus for him, and because he buys the bird that goes towards what I spend on electricity. Looking forward to trying all kinds of new roasted chicken recipes too – I think spatchcocking is coming up next.

dilly

29 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by in azahars kitchen, cooking, homecooking, recipes, sevilla

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

dilly
It all started when I had a hankering last week for some tzitziki, which I hadn’t made in something like 35 years. So I got online, found a few recipes and, as usual, patched a couple together to make my own. Most called for fresh mint and/or dill, but I don’t like minty food so I went off to buy some fresh dill at the supermarket – and they were sold out! Instead I got some dried dill and well, it was just okay. So this week I was determined to try it again with fresh dill and it was heaven. A perfect summer dish, so light and fresh. You can find the recipe here in Azahar’s Kitchen.

Anyhow, this left me with a surplus of fresh dill, which I could tell wasn’t going to stay fresh long, even sitting in a glass of water in the fridge. But short of making tzitziki for the third time in a week, or dill pickles (something else I haven’t made for over 35 years) I didn’t know what to do with it. So I got back online and found this…

20 Bright & Fresh Recipes to Use Up a Bunch of Dill

dill feta

Which inspired me to make something completely different. But there are actually quite a few great sounding recipes there, so I expect my newly rekindled love affair with dill will continue throughout the summer. I also love how it feels so soft and silky when you run it through your fingers, though this could just mean that I’ve been in Lockdown too long.

back in the kitchen

12 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by in azahars kitchen, casa azahar, food & drink

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Some of you may know that one of my (too many?) websites is azahar’s kitchen, a recipe blog that I started back in 2009. It’s “moved house” a couple of times over the years, from WP.com to my own hosted sites.

Some of you may also be aware of a recent flutter of activity on that blog, which started after I published a new recipe (requested by my friend Ann when she saw a pic of my albóndigas al oloroso on social media). Then I found a bunch of photos that I had filed away for “later”, so I have added text to those and put them up too. There are still a couple to go.

This is totally a “hobby blog” just because I enjoy cooking, and also sharing the recipes I come up with (sometimes on my own, more usually a combination of several recipes I’ve found online or in books, which then get edited into one I prefer. So drop by and have a look. You can also subscribe to be notified when new recipes go up.  🙂

hooked on slaw

08 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by in azahars kitchen, casa azahar, homecooking

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Been making lots of vegetable slaw lately, using my spiralizer instead of a grater, so I decided to put up a recipe for it on Azahar’s Kitchen. I mean, it’s pretty basic, but what the heck. Since temps are unseasonably warm lately it’s a nice dish to have on hand (good for at least 3 meals).

Azahar’s Kitchen – Slaw