Jamie's Feastival

This year I've been upping my foodie event participation. I went to a street food festival on the Southbank, Taste of London (which was amazing by the way) and Jamie's Feastival which was a fusion of music and food in a large outdoor space. Duh! Brainchild of Jamie Oliver.


I was super excited to go because, well the food of course, but also because they had an amateur barbeque contest called Ready Steady Que and I signed up for it. Long story short you get one mystery ingredient, 5 items from the veg baskets and as much herbs and spices as you like, 25 minutes and it must be cooked on the bbq grill.


The mystery ingredient was a quail, I had never cooked a quail period, far less bbq'ed one, but I was up for the challenge. I chose bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, chillies and lemons. I decide to leave the quail whole and I rubbed some paprika and garlic salt into olive oil to make a paste and I covered the quail with that, I figured the paprika would give it a nice colour as well as a smoky taste, and garlic, well that's just good sense. 

On the mushrooms I rubbed dry basil and olive oil, I grilled half of a bell pepper and two whole chillies, and in a frying pan I sautéed onions and peppers julienned. I then chopped the julienne slices and stuffed them into the half pepper. 
I made a raw chilli and onion salsa with lime juice, oil and garlic and I roasted the mushroom caps. 

When the quail was nicely coloured I wrapped it in foil so that it wouldn't dry out, because I didn't know if it was cooked all the way through. Turns out I'm a genius because it made a nice little sauce in the foil and the quail was as succulent as ever. I took the quail off when I had five minutes left and cut it in half along the breast bone. 


I came second, but ended up burning my hand in the process when the bbq grill top fell open on my hand, ah well, I wear it like a badge of honour.

                                                               Other highlights of the feastival?


I met Levi Roots

Saw Jamie Oliver (the back of his head)

The food of course!

Pulled pork salad, asian chicken salad, gourmet burger!

Best lamb sandwich ever!

Haggis

Levi Roots singing Put some Reggae Reggae sauce on it! (priceless)

The weird DJ girl

The crazy dancing in undies men!

These mussels were so good and fresh and *drools*

Will definitely be visiting if he does it next year.

Arroz con paella-esque rice dish

I was in the mood for a rice dish and I was hungry so I wanted to cook something fairly quickly. I love the Latino dish arroz con pollo and I looked up some recipes for it but I had on hand some turmeric root so I decided to freestyle with the recipe, which I often do.

Ingredients:
Mixed chicken pieces
2 cups long grain rice
2 cups water
2 cloves grated garlic
1" turmeric root grated
1/4 cup olive oil
1 white onion diced
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin garbanzo beans
3 celery stalks diced
1 handful chopped raisins
1 handful chopped jalapenos
1 orange bell pepper diced
salt and pepper to taste

Notes:
I'm a Trinidadian living in London. Trinis make a lot of bone-in chicken dishes, so I left the bone in, but chicken breasts chunks could be used instead. Also in Trinidad we wash meat (wash meat with water and soak in lime/lemon and water for a few minutes) before seasoning. Trinidadians eat a lot of chicken and it's very common to buy chickens whole and cut, wash and season the pieces and then freeze portions for later use. This is how my chicken was prepped. It was frozen and I defrosted it all morning before cooking. It was seasoned with salt, pepper and a chicken seasoning powder. This portion had eight bone-in pieces. Also I don't use a lot of salt when I cook, so if you do use my recipe, add salt to your taste.

Method:

This is the Turmeric root. It's also referred to as Indian Saffron. In Trinidad we also call it  Saffron because Saffron isn't readily available in Trinidad.

I grated the turmeric root and garlic and added to the olive oil in a hot pan.

Beware, turmeric can stain your hands.

Let it sweat for about 1 minute then added the chicken.

If the chicken has skin put skin side down in the oil to get  browned, or rather yellowed.

Turn over pieces when they get colour on one side. Then remove from the pan.

Add onions, celery, raisins, bell pepper and jalapenos to the pan. Cook for 2 minutes.

Add tine of chopped tomatoes and stir in with vegetables.

Add 2 cups of rice and mix in with contents of pan, then add two cups of water.

The contents of the pan should be covered by the water. Cover the pan and turn heat down to medium heat.

Drain the brine from the garbanzos and add when the rice is half cooked. About 10 minutes after adding the rice. You can have a taste now and add the salt and pepper to your taste.

When the rice is cooked, after about 25-35 minutes depending on your rice, switch the heat off.

Add the chicken pieces and mix into the rice.

You can serve with avocado, lettuce or tomato slices.

Enjoy.

When my aunt tried the rice she loved it and asked me if it was paella inspired. I just shrugged my shoulders because I hadn't even thought of paella, but it did make sense to me why she mentioned that. I had been dreaming of arroz con pollo. I loved it anyway, it was delish!

Feel free to freestyle on this if you like as well, for instance use kidney beans instead of garbanzo beans, or dates instead of raisins, use fresh chopped tomatoes instead of a tin. Anything you like. I just love when I'm craving something and attempt it that it hits the spot, and that's what this dish did. Still have yellow fingers though.