Brown stew chicken is a common Caribbean dish, yet I don’t see it too often on restaurant menus in Peckham. Well, not compared to jerk anyway. The stew takes its name from the colour of the sauce, which is made by caramelising the marinated chicken in brown sugar before adding the reserved marinade. This caramel flavour is essential to make a good brown stew and it’s important to spend time ensuring the chicken is properly sticky and golden before moving on. The sauce is then cooked down to an intense gravy; it’s sweet and damn spicy, depending of course on how liberal your hand is with the fierce yet fruity scotch bonnet pepper.

It’s a proper carnival of Caribbean flavours, with depth from the caramelised sugar and soy, plus fragrance from the thyme, ginger, spring onions and  lime. The smell carries like nothing else and will make your neighbours insane with jealousy. This is proper winter comfort food, Peckham style.

Brown Stew Chicken (serves 2-3, depending on how many chicken thighs you fancy)

1kg bone-in chicken thighs (about 6), skin removed
Juice of 1  lime
4 spring onions, finely shredded, plus one extra to garnish
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 scotch bonnet chillies, de-seeded and finely sliced
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 regular onion, finely chopped
1 red pepper, finely chopped
4 sprigs thyme
1 thumb sized piece ginger, peeled and grated
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
Half a tin chopped tomatoes (I used the cherry ones)
Water to just cover the chicken pieces

Place the chicken pieces in a dish and add all the ingredients except the sugar, chopped tomatoes and water. Mix well and leave to marinate for an hour or overnight if possible.

When you’re ready to cook the chicken, remove them from the marinade, reserving the marinade to add to the stew. Pat the chicken dry with kitchen paper. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a high-sided pan and add the sugar. When it begins to turn dark brown and caramelised, add the chicken pieces, taking care because it will splatter a lot. Fry them until you have nice caramelised bits on both sides, then remove from the pan and set to one side.

Add the reserved marinade to the pot and fry for a few minutes to soften. Add the chicken pieces back plus the tinned tomatoes and just enough water to cover the meat. Season, then simmer for 20 minutes until the sauce is thickened and the chicken cooked through. Serve with rice and peas, or plain rice, garnished with the a little chopped spring onion.

I’ve been playing around with Hungarian goulash recipes and come up with a version using melty beef brisket, which I have to say turned out to be quite sexy. Point your cursor at this little linky for the recipe.

Food Stories has been predominantly recipe (not restaurant) focused this year. Creating is what makes me feel happiest inside, it turns out. So here are my favourite recipes of 2011, followed by the most memorable guilty pleasures; it would be terribly neglectful to exclude the latter, I think, as it’s surely clear by now that I’m quite partial to a filthy (probably pork-based, definitely artery-shuddering) snackette, or four.

1. Egg Yolk Ravioli (top photo)

It took three attempts, but I eventually nailed this recipe and was rewarded with some of the most decadent pasta I’ve ever eaten; a quivering yolk coddled by a ring of spinach and ricotta, ready to ooze headlong into a sauce that is made almost entirely from melted butter. Crushed pink peppercorns and purple basil made it one of my prettiest plates of 2011, too.

2. Piri Piri Chicken

2011 was the year I got even more into BBQ. Come drizzle, hail or sunshine, I was out there guarding that Weber, tongs in hand, bucket of meat on standby. We worked our way through jerk; brisket; brats cooked in beer; pulled pork and an obscene amount of wings (more on those later) but one of my favourite recipes was this piri piri chicken, inspired by a local takeaway. The combination of charred chicken (for piri piri must be charred), feisty chilli and tangy vinegar sauce made this one of my hits of the summer.

3. Boston Baked Beans

These rich and smoky Boston baked beans are thick with molasses and packed with nubs of smoked pork belly. They’re about as different to regular baked beans as you can imagine and they rocked my world.

4. Baghdad Eggs

I first came across Baghdad eggs in Jake Tilson’s brilliant cook book, ‘A Tale of 12 Kitchens’. This combination of  onions, sharp yoghurt and spiced butter on eggs is now my favourite weekend brunch.

5. Daim Bar Ice Cream

I visited Sweden this year and re-discovered Daim Bars. They went straight into ice cream. I watched my boyfriend devour the remains of this, straight from the tub with a spoon, after which he lay back, clutching his stomach, moaning “I feel siiiiiiick”. In a good way, you understand.

6. Ham Cooked in Coca Cola with a Rum and Molasses Glaze

The only way to make this sticky-sweet ham any better would be to pull great big hunks off it, stick it in a sandwich with some deep fried pickles and…oh, wait a minute.

7. Hickory Smoked Hot Wings 

After my first batch of home made hot wings, I wanted to do a variation and decided to smoke them using hickory wood chips, before dousing them as usual in Frank’s Hot Sauce and melted butter. Come to mama.

8. Smoky Aubergine and Lamb Pide

Pide are like a pointy Middle Eastern version of pizza. I based the recipe on my ‘Peckham Pizza’ (based on lahmacun). The topping is an intense paste made from spiced, minced lamb and the flesh from a charred aubergine. Garnished with chopped pickles and herbs, they’re lovely eaten as is, or wrapped around some salad.

 9. Pork Pibil Tacos

This pibil was made with pork knuckles and smothered in achiote paste – a wonderful ingredient which simply has no substitute. The tacos were spicy, drizzled as they were with a sauce made from orange juice, onion and scotch bonnet chillies.

10. Sausage Rolls with Apricots and Whisky-Caramelised Onions

And finally, a seasonal entry at number 10, my new favourite sausage roll recipe. Onions were slowly, slowly caramelised then bubbled furiously with whisky before going into these sausage rolls along with some dried apricots. The sweetness worked so well with the sausage meat and I’ve had great feedback from people who’ve made them this Christmas.

For the guilty pleasures, I’ve exercised some restraint (most uncharacteristic) and narrowed it down to five:

1. Baked Gnocchi with Gorgonzola and Spinach

Sneaking in on 3rd Jan was this rather naughty dish I made for my boyfriend’s birthday dinner. Home-made gnocchi baked in a sauce of Gorgonzola and cream, with a little spinach thrown in to ease the guilt. The gnocchi goes crispy on top while remaining gooey and soft underneath. A cardiologist’s nightmare.

2. Wedge Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing and Candied Bacon

Candied bacon is definitely one of my top guilty pleasures of the year, so much so I wrote a whole post about making it and using it. I have fond memories though of this ‘salad’ garnish, chopped candied bacon sprinkled over a river of blue cheese dressing and crunchy iceberg.

3. Deep Fried Pickles

Everyone went mad for these in 2011. I stuffed mine into a sandwich with coca cola ham and hot sauce. Then I had a lie down.

4. Meatwagon Burgers

I’ve followed Yianni’s journey from his van in Peckham, through #Meateasy in New Cross and now to Meat Liquor via The Rye. The latter has to be the most convenient and dangerous burger vending situation ever in existence if the state of my waistline is anything to go by. The Rye pub is opposite my house you see and for a few glorious months I needed to do little more than hop over the road to get my fix. Now they’re gone and Meat Liquor is in central London. I could cry.

5. Eggy Bread and Candied Bacon Sandwich

In at number 5: the sandwich of shame. I had candied bacon to hand and I’d just made eggy bread. It had to be done, see? We felt the guilt after eating this but damn, it was good. Sick, but good. If you’re into sandwiches, I’ve written a post about my top 5 here.

Phew. No wonder I need to lose weight. The diet inevitably starts er, tomorrow but until then I’ve got a Ginger Pig rib eye with my name on it. Happy New Year everyone. Thank you for reading and here’s to a tasty 2012. Cheers!

For my AoL Column this week I’ve gone all Creole on yo’ asses with a hearty jambalaya. Chicken, chorizo, prawns, chilli, plus something calling itself a ‘holy trinity’; get on over to AoL Lifestyle for the recipe.

We can thank squid for evolving into a shape that just begs for a good stuffing. Don’t let them down now, it would be terribly disrespectful; mosey on over to AoL Lifestyle for the recipe.

I’m very much into cooking with ham hocks (or knuckles) again after the pibil, so I’ve made a porky white bean broth for AoL Lifestyle, super-charged with a salsa verde-like green sauce. Find the recipe over on AoL.

A couple of weeks ago I did a stall selling my new Peckham Jerk Marinade at Ms. Marmite Lover’s Underground Farmer’s Market and found myself pitched up next to the Capsicana Chilli Company. Like a kid in a sweet shop I stocked up on loads of Mexican chillies and as I was packing up I heard a ‘psst’ from behind me; I swung around to find the chilli guy, Ben, offering me a pouch of achiote powder like it was illegal drugs, “hard to find in the UK” he whispered, “have a little play around with that.”

Achiote (annatto) is the seed of the achiote tree and is an essential ingredient in Mexican cuisine; I had a little ‘aha!’ moment when I first mixed it up into a paste – it smelled instantly familiar even though I’d never cooked with it before. It has a curious smell, almost like a cross between chilli and citrus. This was the flavour I was always trying to identify when I ate ‘proper’ Mexican food like Buen Provecho’s tacos.

I turned to Diana Kennedy’s classic tome, ‘The Essential Cuisines of Mexico’ for this pibil recipe, which calls for a pork shoulder to be smothered in the prepared achiote paste, wrapped in banana leaves, cooked for a torturous eternity and then doused in an incredibly fiery sauce. My butcher had no pork shoulder so I bought pork knuckles instead, allowing a bit of extra weight for the additional bones.

To make achiote paste I mixed the achiote powder, oregano, cumin, allspice and water to a thick red sludge which I smeared all over the pork as directed, having sliced it here and there to let the flavour get deep inside and given it an initial bath in salt and orange juice. There’s some garlic and ground piquin chillies in there too. The knuckles were wrapped in banana leaves, which Diana insists imparts a particular flavour; I have to say I didn’t notice it, but then I didn’t know what I was looking for and wrapping things in banana leaves is still fun. You can obviously use foil instead.

They were in the oven for 6 hours by which time I was going clinically insane with anticipation. I unwrapped the parcel and found the meat just slipping off the bone; there’s a lot more meat on a pork knuckle than I realised. The meat shredded easily and the achiote powder gave it an earthy flavour that is impossible to substitute. A word of warning to potential pibil cooks though: make sure that package is tightly sealed. I lost about half the juices when I turned the pork midway through cooking which was very traumatic; protect that precious cargo! Still, I had enough to play with and there’s a fantastic separate accompanying sauce, too.

It is hot, consisting as it does of orange juice, red onion and THREE WHOLE SCOTCH BONNETS. I wimped out and settled on two which was enough. The acidity of the orange juice does cook the chillies a little though, taming their ferocity somewhat.

We made big, messy tacos, piling the meat on with our hands and topping with creamy guac and a spoon of that orange-chilli sauce. I almost cried when I took the last bite of the last taco and wiped the final bit of sauce from my food flecked face. One to firmly embed in the repertoire.

If you liked this you may also like the look of my pork cheek tacos with blood orange and chipotle or chipotles en adobo. 

Pork Knuckle Pibil Tacos

3 pork knuckles
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/2 teaspoon ground piquin chillies or other dried chillies, ground (Diana says you should use powdered ‘chilli seco yucateco’ or paprika)
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons orange juice mixed with 2 tablespoons lime juice

Banana leaves, for wrapping (you’ll need foil as well and you can leave out the leaves if you can’t get hold of them; they’re cheap in Peckham but can be expensive in shops elsewhere. If you do use leaves you’ll probably need to clean them with a damp cloth and make them more flexible by heating slightly over a flame)

For the achiote paste

2 tablespoons achiote powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
Pinch black pepper
6 whole allspice
1.5 tablespoons water

Make deep cuts in the pork knuckles with a long knife then rub it all over with the salt followed by the orange and lime juice.

Make the achiote paste by combining crushing the allspice berries to a powder and mixing with all the other ingredients. Crush the garlic with the piquin (or other dried chillies), 1 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons orange juice, then mix with the achiote paste. Smother this all over the knuckles, rubbing well in. Make a parcel by first layering tin foil, then banana leaves and placing the knuckles in the centre; fold the package to seal it and wrap with foil. Refrigerate overnight.

The next day, remove the pork from the fridge about an hour before you want to cook it and preheat the oven to 165C. Get a big roasting tin and put a rack inside it (I just put a cooling rack in a tin) then put 125ml water in the bottom. Place the pork package on top of the rack and cover it tightly with foil. Cook for 4 hours then turn the knuckles over and baste them. Cook for a further 3 hours or until the meat falls easily from the bone.

Carefully remove the knuckles from the parcel, taking care to save those precious juices. Tip the juices into a bowl and set aside. Shred the meat from the knuckles and set aside in a bowl then pour the juices over and give it a good mix. This is now ready to serve with the sauce and guacamole.

For the sauce

1/2 a red onion, finely chopped
3 scotch bonnets, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
165ml orange juice

Mix all the ingredients together and set aside for 2 hours.

For the tacos

I always cheat and buy ready made corn tortillas then cut circles from them and warm them through in a dry pan.