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Jerk Chicken
Hat tip: @LyttleR
Ingredients
- 8 chicken thighs (boned or otherwise) - tbh any chicken will do but leg/drumstick/thighs are best, can even jerk an entire chicken
- Handfull of molasses (unrefined) sugar
- 2 tsp Dunn’s River dry jerk seasoning: http://www.gracefoods.co.uk/gallery/dr_jerk-10.jpg
- 1 tsp Dunn’s River wet jerk seasoning: http://www.gracefoods.co.uk/gallery/dr_jerk_seasoning-16.jpg
- 1/2 tsp Ground allspice
- 1/5 Bottle of beer/pale ale
Marinade
The easiest chicken to use (as was used at #Fel) was boned thighs, it’s quicker to marinate and quicker to cook. That said, if you have the time I always find chicken on the bone gives much better flavour. However, you need to slice into the flesh in slashes so the marinade can penetrate.
Start by washing the chicken, don’t worry about drying as any left over moisture is used in the marinade, however drain most of it off. Now add the molasses, gently massaging it around the chicken until it has dissolved. This should start to give the chicken a light brown colour.
Now add the dry jerk seasoning. Dunn’s River is the best stuff I’ve come across, it really is worth sourcing this. Again, massage this into the chicken, the colour should start to get darker. Once it’s evenly distributed you can add the wet stuff - precise measurements are to taste, however be careful with the wet stuff as it packs a punch. Once again massage this into the chicken.
Finally add a glug of beer, 1/5 of a bottle. The Jamaican’s would argue Red Stripe is the best, personally any larger will do, a pale ale even better imho. Thoroughly mix everything together, et voila.
Leave for a couple of hours prior to cooking to allow the marinade to penetrate the meat.
For best results cook over a fierce bbq to get caramelise the sugars. Season with salt and pepper once you’ve turned the meat. When it’s cooked, allow to rest for 5 mins before wolfing down.
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Puy lentils with toasted cumin
Serves 4 people
- 200g green Puy lentils
- 1 red, orange or yellow pepper
- Table spoon cumin seeds
- A dash of red wine
- A dash of balsamic vingegar
There was a time when I was growing up that whenever my mother said that we were having lentils for tea the rest of the family would moan and make jokes about Neil from The Young Ones. Though we all secretly loved her lentil concoction.
This dish is a slight variation on my mother’s, removing the turmeric (which only served to stain the saucepan!). I’ve also changed the method slightly in cooking off the lentils with first in water, bay and garlic.
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A web app in 10k? I didn’t think it was possible, but it is!
I was amazed at how much you can achieve with only 10k to work with. I’ve just submitted my entry into the 10k Apart competition. Drawing inspiration from the new Fliboard iPad app the 10k Feed Board uses YQL to retrieve content from both Flickr and Twitter and populate multiple canvases that you can navigate around. You can configure each canvas with your own search terms and these are persisted using modern browsers’ localStorage feature so you can come back time and time again and view your results.
It’s compatible with Firefox 3.6, Chrome 5, Safari 5 and IE Dev Preview - I’m afraid it will be disappointing in any other browsers!
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Penne pasta with grilled courgettes and pine nuts
Serves 4
- 4 lrg courgettes (zucchini)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 red chili
- Juice of 1 small lemon
- 150 gms grated Parmesan cheese
- 3 tbl sp olive oil
- 400 gms Penne pasta
- lrg handfull of pine nuts
This pasta dish is a great one for when I’m stumped for something to cook. Other than the courgettes the rest of the ingredients are usually in the cupboard. It’s reasonable simple to prepare as well - not to mention really tasty.
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Smashed celariac with chili, garlic and thyme
Firstly skin the celeriac by cutting the root off then cutting from the top down to the bottom In inch wide strips reapeat this al the way round the celeriac. Once skinned chop it into 1cm squares. It’s easiest to do this by cutting 1 cm thick slices lengthways then into strips and further into cubes. Once chopped start to gently fry in a generous amount of olive oil on a very low heat, adding the chopped garlic, chilli and stripped thyme leaves. Season with salt and pepper.
Continue to fry gently for about 20 minutes until the celeriac begins to soften. Then add a small amount of the chicken stock and let the liquid cook down, continue to add a little more stock, cooking for a further 10 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently Once the celaric begins to break up remove from the heat and serve. Note that this is not meant to be mash, there should still be some texture to it.
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New look, now to get busy writing!
Back at the beginning of February I Threw away my previous design (if you could call it that!) and stripped things back to a bare bones, wireframes look. I then added a little css to at least pretend I cared. I then managed to get a few recipes and other bits ‘n bobs up. Then came a little downslide in production due too being busy, not to mention a little bored of the dull look the site had.
Well, that’s all now changed with a new look! A splash of colour and some sense to the the way it’s laid out and here we are. It’s still work in progress, but I couldn’t hold off any longer. I trust you all like it (that’s if anyone actually reads my blog!) - anything had to be better than the last monstrousity
Now all that’s needed is for me to write more! Watch this space…
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What is Twitter? And what’s all the fuss about?
With Twitter becoming more and more popular with celebrities it is now getting some very public coverage. Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) was interviewed by the Beeb recently and explained very neatly and succinctly what Twitter was for him. He was also a guest on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross (@wossy) which has helped Twitter further reach the masses.
Accordingly last week I was posed the question by my mother: “What is Twitter? And what is all the fuss about?”. Now, my mother is a bit of a luddite when it comes to computers and the internet, even referring the mouse as a ‘rabbit’! So imagine my difficulty in explaining Twitter to her!
Fortunately some of my collegues at Made By Many along with BBH labs have put together a beautiful slide share presentation on what Twitter is all about. It is released under the Creative Commons license so free to use it in any presentations about Twitter - all they ask is that you give credit where credit is due.
Twitter… what’s all the fuss about?View more presentations from madebymany. -
Oven temperature conversions
I’ve been caught without a gas mark conversion chart too often so I decided to put one up on here for reference.
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Custom fonts in your webpage using Cufon (canvas and VML)
For years designers have wanted to use custom fonts in their web page designs, this however has been problematic. Until now there’s only really been one option - sIFR - which unfortunately requires the Flash plugin. It also comes with its own set of problems, aside of requiring the Flash plugin, too many sIFR objets on the page have been known to cause problems in the browser - not to mention how tricky it can be to set up. Now, however there is Cufon - from Simo Kinnunen.
The main aims behind Cufon were to avoid proprietary software in favour of the open standard <canvas> and VML. Essentially Cufon acts as a web interface to fontforge to create an a JavaScript version of your font. There’s also a neat little online genertaor that allows you to upload your own font and generate the required JavaScript.
It’s incredibly easy to use, once you’ve created your JavaScript version of your font simple reference it along with the Cufon js (making sure you load cufon first!) then apply it to the element you want rendered. The following will render the text in an <h1>:
<script type="text/javascript"> Cufon.replace('h1'); </script>For full instructions and downloads visit Cufon on Git Hub.
