Flower power! (I feel like I should gesture the obligatory peace sign now.) Oh, what a month! Our May Monthly Mystery Munchies has been packed with flavour, challenges, and fun. And swearing. And lots of broken electronics plus a hurricane thrown in for good measure. Here’s how it went…
I chose the theme, edible flowers, without doing much research. Ann at Grubbs n Critters, ever-willing, ever-keen, and not one to back down from a challenge, any challenge, embraced it. See, I have a jasmine shrub in my garden which would make it easy, right? Not so much! I tried a variety of jasmine recipes, each interesting, having never cooked with fresh jasmine before, I enjoyed playing around. Cooking, after all, should be fun! I finally found one I lurved. Ready to go? Nope. My laptop crashed, along with the recipe, photos (which I had deleted from my phone upon upgrading a few days earlier), and everything was irretrievable. Everything. Frantic email to Ann, with an expletive four-letter word as the subject, explaining the story, and she kindly agreed to postpone. Not to worry, said The Husband, he’ll organise a spare work laptop. Awesomeness. Erm, yeah, it was great until that too decided to crash. Yet another frantic email, yet another postponement, and Ann, ever-so-sweet and understanding, was very relaxed about it.
The Husband managed to revive his work laptop, so, onwards and upwards. Yay for being betrothed to an IT geek! A couple of days later, a hurricane hit Cape Town, or, as it was colloquially called, the “Moerse Storm”. Fortunately we have a gas hob, so cooking in the storm, with the concern of the power dying at any moment, was not an issue for this recipe, as it’s all done in a pan on the hob.
Back to the jasmine. Ann said she struggled with this challenge too, which made me feel slightly better. Sorry, Ann! Having moved to the Netherlands a while back, and being surrounded by beautiful flowers (check out her Instagram page for beautiful photos of said scenery – https://www.instagram.com/grubbsncritters/) Ann was keen. As always. What an amazing blogging buddy I have! Speaking of uhhh-mazing, check out her mucking afazing pansy and calendula flowers custard cake. Have. You. Ever!!!
Before I kill this laptop again, here is my recipe. One-pot (pan) limey, herby chicken with jasmine rice, using actual jasmine flowers, all in one dish. Check out Ann’s take on this month’s challenge here.
Herby Lime Chicken with Fresh Jasmine Rice
Supplies:
500g boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 small onion, chopped
1 green chilli, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons lime juice; slice the other lime
3 bulbs of garlic, bruised and sliced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1.5 cups good quality chicken stock
½ cup water
1 can drained black beans
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup rice
5 jasmine flowers
Fresh coriander/cilantro
2 tablespoons olive oil
Making It Happen:
In a large pan on medium, heat the olive oil and fry the cubed chicken, onion, chilli and garlic for 5 minutes, stirring, and turning the chicken pieces once. Season with salt and pepper.
Stir in the lime juice, oregano, stock and jasmine flowers.
Bring to a boil, add the rice and after 30 seconds, reduce heat to a simmer. Cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the drained black beans and garnish with fresh coriander and lime wedges.
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