I stumbled upon the cookbook, Sirocco, while looking for Hemsley + Hemsley's, but had seen it elsewhere before so I knew I wanted to flick through this given the chance. While browsing through the book, my eyes were immediately drawn to a recipe for Chickenberry rice. It's pretty much what the name suggests, chicken, berries and rice but the seller was the crispy bottom (you have to see the picture to know what I'm walking about!)! It is similar to an Indian Biriyani although this has more of an Iranian flavour profile to it. I found a similar recipe for chickenberry rice here.
Yay or Nay: Yay
This was delicious, the berries after being steamed are sweet, plump and juicy; the chicken was delicately spiced and the rice soaked the flavour of everything!
TIP: The recipe does state, if using a gas stove, to use the lowest heat but even doing that I still burned the bottom, so I would shorten the steaming time and cook the rice a little more in the first part of the recipe to avoid burning!
Thinking of inexpensive but thoughtful Christmas gifts for co-workers I came across this recipe for Gingerbread Granola. Now, I'm a die-hard fan of Deliciously Ella's Granola but it wasn't very Christmassy! When I think of Christmas I think of Mince Pies, Christmas Pudding and more recently Gingerbread (very American not British!) so hopefully The Healthful Ideas's recipe for Gingerbread Granola would be a mouthful of Christmas first thing in the morning!
Yay or Nay: Nay
This was fairly easy to make, I'd say pretty similar to the Deliciously Ella one. However the ingredients didn't really clump together like you see in the shops. On the plus side, the addition of nut butter gave it a richer taste but I was surprised by the 1tsp of ginger powder. I don't know about you, but gingerbread screams a ton of ginger to me so I ignored the recipe on this front and went for three! I figured the recipe as it currently stands wouldn't have a strong enough gingerbread taste and I didn't want to tell people it was 'gingerbread granola' and for it to taste nothing like that! Even with the change there still isn't a strong ginger taste but there is a little hint of spice. BTW MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
