Spicy ham rolls with squashed potatoes

A proper 'ready steady cook!' dish this one. I had ham, potatoes and some vegetables, along with some very stale bread. This is what happened.

1. Boil some new potatoes. Nothing smart here.
   
2. I had some crusty bread rolls that had gone hard over the past 3 weeks. These were destroyed into read crumbs using a rolling pin.
   
   
3. For the spiciness I used some caraway seeds, cinnamon, star anise, cardamon pods garlic a pinch of cloves and a little oil. I heated this in a pan until the first pod popped. Then I emptied out about half the pods and peeled the garlic before grinding it all in the pestle and mortar.
   
   
4. Next I sweated an onion for about 15 mins before adding a pepper, some balsamic vinegar and some sugar and then kept cooking this on a medium heat for about 10 more minutes.
   
   
5. After they were boiled I was meant to crack the potatoes next. I smashed them. I added a little oil and a lot of mint and then chucked them in the oven.
   
   
6. Next I added some mushrooms to the onions, and after about 30 seconds added the spice mix and the bread crumbs, taking the pan off the heat.
   
   
7. I laid out 3 large slices of ham, added a layer of lettuce (I wanted this to be healthy) and a good blob of the mix from the pan to each. I then rolled up each ham slice with the contents inside.
   
   
8. The 3 ham rolls were chucked in an oven dish thing, covered in the remaining mix and a little layer of cheese. This was then placed in the oven for about 5 mins.
   
   
9. Once the potatoes were slightly crispy and the cheese was going brownish I took it out the oven and served.
   
   
10. As a random special treat my housemate Gez had left me some profiteroles he'd made (white and dark chocolate). They were really good.
    
    
    
    
    Review
    I think this meal worked better than it had any right to so I'm fairly pleased. The filling mixture was a little dry maybe... some tomato might be used to make it more liquidy, or to coat the whole thing in the dish enchilada style. Saying that the food did taste a little Christmassy, as I think with the cinnamon and cloves I was most of the way to making a mince pie. I'm glad I didn't go with chilies- I think they would have distracted from the taste of the ham. I would have like for the potatoes to have had come out crispier as well, but they tasted fine anyway.
    
    

Chocolate Roast Chicken Jambalaya

So I bought a chicken and thought I should try and do it in a kind of Mexican style with rice. Then I decided to do it all together to see if it'd work... the results are as follows;

1. What makes food Mexican? To me chilies, cumin and chocolate. I added some garlic, two chilies, some cumin seeds, a table spoon of cocoa and some extra chili flakes along with some oil. WARNING- this makes chilies exploded splattering your shirt with oily chocolate. You should prick the chilies or something I guess.
   
2. Now you peel the garlic and put it, along with the rest of the stuff, into a pestle and mortar to be ground up. I added some extra ground coriander seed and paprika at this stage.
   
3. Now shove half an onion in a chicken and massage the chili chocolate paste into the skin of the chicken. This is probably the creepiest step... it gets better.
   
4. Add the chicken to to pan along with some water and white wine vinegar and lime juice to make a simple stock. Cover the chicken with some foil and chuck in the oven.
   
5. Now to start on the rice. I used all the risotto rice I had left, a pepper, an onion and 3 mushrooms. I fried this in a generous glug of olive oil for a couple of minutes before adding any water.
   
6. Add water and cook until the rice starts becoming soft- not copletly done
   
7. Now after the chicken has been roasting for about 20 minutes add the rice into the pan with the chicken and spread around evenly. Baste the chicken with any excess fluid. If you do not have any add some extra water. Recover with foil and add back to the oven.
   
8. Every 15 minutes or so check this in the oven, baste and add about 1/3 a mug of water- you don't want the rice to be dry yet.
9. After a few repetitions the chicken starts looking like its being done. Stab in with a knife to see if its done. If it is, or near is, add a little more water and then put in the oven at a slightly lower temperature for about 20 minutes more.
   
   
   
   
10. When it is finished add about a quarter of the rice along with about a quarter of the chicken to a plate. Eating usually follows.
    
    
    
    
    Review
    This did not quite come out as I expected - the Mexican flavours were not as strong as I'd hoped- I guess the chicken should have been marinaded in the fridge in the paste for several hours and maybe some extra paste should have been added to the rice.  
    However the chicken came out very tender, better than dry roasting, and the peppers in particular worked very well. I'd probably be simpler and just as effective to put a normal risotto in the oven to get these benifits.