My name is Maky (yes, this is a nickname 😄), I am 38 years old and I live in Amsterdam....
I love to travel, cook, read, watch movies and tv shows (I binge watch Netflix like a pro, the "are you still watching" comes up more time than I'd like to admit!).
I know blogs are pretty much pass, but I decided to start one in order to get into regular writing, share my recipes and as a general creative outlet.... wow that sounds so pretentious now that I read that... sorry peeps! I guess in short this is me trying to start something and stick with it (not my strong suit as you will no doubt discover).
Anyway, here is my first recipe, one of my favourites. It's fairly healthy and its basically the chicken version of a cottage or shepherd's pie:
Chicken cottage pie, serves 4
Filling:
- 300g ground chicken
- 300g green beans, cut into pieces
- 1 onion, chopped up
- 1 clove of garlic, chopped up or minces
- 1 tbsp oil (I use either ghee or olive oil)
- Couple of drops of Worcestershire sauce
- 1 heaped Tbsp flour (I used spelt, but any is fine)
- 200ml chickenstock (I either make my own, or use the low sodium kind, but any kind of stock or bouillon will work here)
Mash topping
- 450g sweet potato or turnip (or if you don't like either of those, regular white potatoes work too), peeled and cut into chunks
- 350g cauliflower, quartered
- 1 onion, halved
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 tbsp butter or ghee
- pepper and salt to taste (I personally like to use the fresh 4 season pepper)
Instructions:
Heat oil in a frying pan and add garlic and onions and gently fry till soft.
Add ground chicken and once browned add the green beans and fry for 5 mins.
Add Worcestershire sauce, pepper and sprinkle flour over pan and add the stock and mix till flour is desolved. Bring to a boil and then let simmer till beans are nearly done and (they have to have a bit of a bite to them), and liquid has halved, approx 10 mins.
Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and boil or steam (I use my pressure cooker, I freakin' LOVE my pressure cooker, but I'll leave that for another post) along with the cauliflower, onion and garlic. Preheat oven to 180C.
Once done, keep about 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid, add the butter or ghee and pepper to the potato/veg mix and mash while adding the cooking liquid a bit at a time depending on how you like your mash (or use milk instead if you prefer).
Pour the meat mixture into a oven dish and spread the mash ontop of that.
You can add topping to the mash here, like an egg wash, cheese, herbs.
Bake in oven for 25-30 mins.
M.
M.
