Moist, sticky, sweet but fiery pieces of succulent chicken, nestling with languid red onion and red pepper, bathed in sour cream and wrapped in the warm blanket of a tortilla. The Fajitas. Surely one of the finest English recipes ever to take the Americas by storm.

Shakespeare and Dickens both make reference to this inventive dish. The tragedy is that no one recognises its true English origins*. Not until now, anyway.

So, fair maidens and Noblemen, this way for the receipt for Fajitas.

* None of this is true.

To prepare this much beloved, easy and heartwarming feast, acquire some chicken meat. I prefer thigh – tis cheap and tasty, much like my husband.

If you can get them, and want quickness, go for the thigh fillets. If not, get the thighs with bone and skin still attached and simply cut the meat off the bone. In this instance, I had 3 thighs and a drumstick – sounds like the opening line of a joke.

Hack and butcher them into bite-sized pieces

Get a shallow dish and put the ingredients for the marinade into it.

3 tbsp light olive oil, 2 tblsp maple syrup, 1½ tblsp wine vinegar, 2 tsp dried Oregano, 1 ½ tsp dried jalapeno (or use a fresh one), ½ tsp ground cumin, freshly milled salt and pepper and 2 cloves garlic, crushed (I hadn’t put it in yet when I took the picture)

Place your chicken into the marinade, turn it around to coat it, then cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Remove the seeds from a red pepper and cut into strips. Finely slice one or two red onions.

Preheat your griddle/sizzler pan/frying pan, add a little oil and fry your onion.

Once it’s beginning to brown, add the red pepper.

When you’re happy with it’s state of doneness, add the chicken with its marinade. If, as I sometimes find, the chicken isn’t really browning because the pan is too crowded, remove the vegetables and keep them warm, allowing the chicken to cook nicely

that’s better

Add the veggies back, ready for serving

Warm your tortillas according to pack instructions (I used ye olde microwave and kept them warm in my tortilla warmer – courtesy of Aldi).

Take one tortilla, spread a little sour cream over it, scatter – neatly, please – with the tender, sticky chicken and veg, then a sprinkling of grated cheese.

Roll up and devour. You can add all sorts of weird and wonderful things to it, but as I have a pathological hatred of avocado, there’s no guacamole on the plate. You must do whatever shakes your maracas.

Your English Maracas. Ariba.

………………….

Ye Olde English Fajitas

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chicken thigh meat off the bone, cut into bite sized pieces

marinade:
3 tbsp light olive oil or a vegetable oil
2 tblsp maple syrup
1.5 tblsp wine vinegar
2 tsp dried Oregano
1.5 tsp dried jalapeno (or use a fresh one)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
freshly milled salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic, crushed

Combine the marinade ingredients in a shallow dish and add the pieces of chicken. Turn well to coat then cover and chill in the fridge for 2 hours or so – stir around occasionally.

2 red onions, peeled and cut into think wedges
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into thin slices

Preheat your griddle/sizzler pan/frying pan, add a little oil and fry your onion. Once it’s beginning to brown, add the red pepper. When you’re happy with it’s state of doneness,add the chicken with its marinade. If the chicken isn’t really browning, remove the vegetables and keep them warm, adding them back just before serving.

Serve in warmed tortillas with a blob of sour cream and some grated cheddar or whatever other hard cheese makes you smile.

We’re having some strange weather again this Summer. It’s been cold enough to make you contemplate making a pot of stew, but yesterday it was hot again, with the Mother of all rain and murk arriving in the evening.

So what to make for dinner on these days? A strike down the middle;  warming, comforting pork chops and a healthy, tumbling portion of bright and beautiful Summer vegetables.

The vegetables are utterly versatile, really, you can chuck in whatever you like – carrots, green beans, fennel, aubergine, well anything! You could liberally strew some fresh herbs over the top for the last 10-15 mins of cooking if you fancied it. I would definitely get some of the fresh basil growing in the garden and tear at it.

I would if I had basil growing in the garden, but I don’t. I’d get one for the windowsill, but Gary (the male cat) would eat it. He likes green stuff. I don’t like cat spit all over my food, so I wouldn’t like that. Hey ho.

So, first pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 6/400F/200C, then have a look at the Summer veg

Sometimes I put the cannellini beans, more often, I don’t. Whatever moves you. After taking this pic, I found a courgette in the fridge, so I sliced that and chucked it in as well. Reckless and free.

So here is the punnet of cherry tomatoes, 2 red onions- cut into thin wedges, the sliced courgette (zucchini), a red pepper- seeded and chunked, and a tin of cannellini beans that I had emptied into a sieve and rinsed. Who puts sludge in the bottom of the tins, I ask you?

Fling them into the roasting tin and drizzle over some light olive oil, some freshly milled salt and black pepper and 2 garlic cloves that you have unfashionably crushed. I say unfashionably, because it’s all about squashing them in their little papers and chopping them nowadays, but I like the garlic in this to be very small and a bit on the fierce side, so none of that ‘slow-baking in its jacket will mellow it out’ junk in this recipe.

Turn it around to cover it all and admire. Pure Summer. Cover it loosely with some foil and bung it in the oven for about 30 mins.

After 30 mins, take it out of the oven, remove the foil and increase the oven temperature to gas mark 8/450F/230C.

It looks pretty unchanged huh? You can see the tomato skins pinching up a bit, but there’s no real change. That’s why we’re going to blast them in the furnace. Stick it up to gas mark 9 if you like them charred.

Charred in a good way, not in a ‘When cooking women dispose of their husband’s body’ way or ‘When good housewives go bad’ or ‘Women do the funniest things’. OK, I’ve finished. It hurt my feminist sentiments, typing that out.

Carry on letting this glorious concoction roast away for a good 30 mins. Keep an eye on them though – they’ll catch at the edges and it really is in your interest to periodically give them a stir to bring the edges into the middle.

I took them out at about 25 mins, because I didn’t want it too pappy, but we decided that we do like them a bit more cooked down; you can’t go wrong really. Even if they’re completely underdone, they’re only hot crudites.

Here they are finished

I stirred a couple of tblsp of balsamic vinegar in, just to keep the flavour lively. It tastes so delicious, and you know it’s good for you. Makes you feel seasonal and virtuous.

So you need to do something about that. You need to cook some meat. That’ll redress the balance.

There you are! Raw slabs of meat! Pork chops, seasoned with salt and pepper and thrust under the grill for about 8 mins each side.

Ta da! We like the crusty bits on the edges. We really, really like pork chops to have a bone inside and some rind, but this was all I could get, so you know.  It’s not like I substituted it with hedgehog, so don’t be ungrateful.

We had to have some broccoli and sweetcorn cut off the cob. Alex likes those vegetables with every meal. EVERY meal. I used to love sweetcorn passionately, but frankly, we need a break from each other.

The thing is, it’s my fault really.
Shouldn’t have shown him how to press each piece of corn onto his front teeth to give you that instant ‘ain’t never brushed my teeth’ look.
I still do it better than him. He has much to learn.

Dinner’s ready! Btw, this is Ian’s portion, not Alex’s. I’m not insane.

The pork was juicy and crispy, the roasted veg is so flavoursome, silky and yielding. The easiest meal, but so utterly delicious.

The leftover veg, ahhhh yes. You could reheat it and have it warm like a salad accompaniment, or just cold with a salad. Try it with some meat and mayonnaise in a sandwich. Oh yeah baby. Looks like carnage, but tastes far better than carnage. Ever eaten carnage? Do let me know so that I can alert the police.

Here’s the instructions again, sans wittering:

Roasted Summer Veggies

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1 tin cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 red onions, peeled (duh) and cut into slender wedges
1 courgette, sliced
I box cherry tomatoes
I red pepper, chunked
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
drizzle of light olive oil
freshly ground salt and black pepper
balsamic vinegar to drizzle on after cooking (optional)

Preheat oven to GM6/400F/200C
Put vegetables into a roasting tin, drizzle with oil, add crushed garlic and salt and pepper. Mix to combine.
Loosely cover with foil and bake for 30 mins.
Remove tin from oven and increase temperature to GM8/450F/230C
Remove foil, stir veggies and return uncovered tin to the oven.
Continue to cook for another 25-30 minutes. If you like your veggies more on the charred side, then up the oven temperature and leave them in for longer. Do periodically check them and give them a stir.

When cooked, remove from oven, check seasoning and add a splash (2 tbsp or so) of balsamic vinegar to them and give them another stir.
Serve hot (oh! mind your mouth!), lukewarm or cold with a salad. This makes a large quantity, so feel free to reduce quantities as you wish. One word of caution, don’t over-fill the roasting tin too much, otherwise you don’t give it a chance to do anything but steam.

Pork Chops

Preheat grill to medium.
Remove 4 pork chops from the wrapper. Wipe them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill for about 8-10 mins each side.

Serve with the roasted veg and some fresh green veg.