jarman.org.uk
Home (about us)
Baked Chicken & Potato with Mozzarella Cheese Topping
My one-pan comfort dish with crispy browned chicken, sweet fried onions and potatoes, and a melty mozzarella crown — finished with a tangy sauce.
Ingredients
Main dish
600 g fresh chicken fillet
2–3 tbsp olive oil
A little butter
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 fresh garlic cloves, thinly sliced
400 g potatoes, peeled and sliced ~5 mm thick
A pinch of salt & a little black pepper (for the potatoes)
½ tsp dried garlic
½ tsp sweet paprika
A pinch of freshly ground black pepper
A pinch of salt
80 g sour cream
2 fresh eggs
150 g mozzarella, shredded
For the sauce
40 g sour cream
½ tbsp whole-grain mustard
1 tbsp ketchup
1 small pickled cucumber, finely diced
A few fresh green onions, snipped
Method
Preheat the oven to 200 °C (fan / convection).
1. Season & brown the chicken
Pat the chicken fillet dry, then cut into even pieces (about 4 cm chunks).
Rub with the ½ tsp dried garlic, ½ tsp sweet paprika, a pinch of salt, and the freshly ground black pepper.
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil with a little butter in a large oven-safe skillet or the dish you’ll bake in.
Brown the chicken pieces on high heat, about 3–4 minutes per side, until you get a deep golden crust. Set the chicken aside on a plate.
2. Fry the onions & garlic
In the same pan (leave the browned bits!), add the thinly sliced onion with a drizzle of the remaining olive oil.
Fry over medium heat for 5–6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly golden.
Add the thinly sliced garlic cloves for the last 30 seconds so they warm through but don’t burn.
3. Fry the potatoes
Toss the ~5 mm potato slices with a pinch of salt and a little black pepper.
Add the potato slices to the pan with the onions.
Fry over medium heat for 3–4 minutes, flipping once, until the edges are just starting to soften and take on a light golden colour. You only need a brief head start here — they’ll finish cooking in the oven.
4. Assemble the dish
Spread the fried onion-and-garlic mix evenly across the bottom of an oven-safe dish (a 25 × 30 cm dish).
Arrange the lightly fried potato slices and onions at the bottom, lightly pressed down.
Lay the brown chicken pieces on top of the onions and potatoes.
5. Mix Sour cream and eggs
Pour mixture over top and try to cover. Press the chicken light to make the mixture go further.
Scatter the shredded mozzarella generously over the whole surface but do not press down.
5. Bake
Bake for 30–40 minutes, until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife and the cheese is bubbly and golden.
You can cover loosely with foil for the first 20 min to keep the cheese from over-browning, then uncover for the last 10–15 min to get that crispy top.
6. Make the side sauce (while it bakes)
In a small bowl, stir together the 40 g sour cream, ½ tbsp whole-grain mustard, 1 tbsp ketchup, and the finely diced pickled cucumber.
Taste and adjust — a tiny extra pinch of salt or a squeeze of lemon can brighten it up.
Sprinkle the snipped green onions over just before serving.
7. Serve
Let the dish rest for 5 minutes (the eggs and potatoes will firm up). Slice into portions, and spoon the cold tangy sauce alongside or drizzled over each plate.
Tips
Even potato thickness is still key — the quick fry gives them a head start, but uneven slices will still cook unevenly.
Don’t over-fry the potatoes in the pan; 3–4 minutes is enough. They should be just softening at the edges, not fully cooked, so they finish in the oven without turning to mush.
Don’t skip browning the chicken — that Maillard crust is where the flavour lives.
The dish keeps well for 2–3 days refrigerated; reheat covered at 180 °C for 10 min.
Aloo Chana Masala
Ingredients
- 120ml Sunflower Oil
- Fennel Seeds (about 12-24)
- Cardamom Pods (freshly ground – never buy pre-ground Caradom)
- 750g Par boiled Potatoes
- 1 1/2 large onion
- Curry Leaves (fresh if possible)
- 2 tbs Ginger & Garlic paste
- Salt (to taste)
- 1 tsp Turmeric
- 1 tin chickpeas
- 1 tsp Cumin
- 2 tsp Chilli Power (to taste)
- 1 tsp Coriander Power
- 6 salad tomatoes roughly chopped
- 3-6 Green Finger Chillis
- Fresh Coriander to top
Method
Par boil the potatoes for 2-3 minutes so still firm.
Gently heat Sun flower oil and add fenel seeds for a minute caramon.
Fry Onion and potatoes (aloo) in the pan for a couple of minutes.
Add curry leaves, ginger and garlic paste and salt and let cook for another 3-4 minutes.
Add chickpeas (Chana), turmeric, chilli powder, cumin powder, corriander powder and cook for a further 3 minutes.
Add chopped tomatoes but do not mix in. Cover and cook for 4 minutes with the lid in place.
After check the mix is not too dry and add water if it is.
Mix and add the green chillis and simmer on a low heat for a further 2 minutes.
Top with gram masala (optional) and fresh corriander and serve.
Spinach Dhall – Dall Saag
Daal saag
Been trying a number of Daal recipes and this is one of the simplest and really tasty. This has been adapted from BBC Foods Daal Saag
Ingredients
- 225g moong daal – yellow split lentils
- 750ml oz water
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil or olive oil
- 1 tsp black mustard seeds
- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp asafoetida
- 2 hot green chillies, chopped
- 8 curry leaves
- 100g/3½ oz frozen spinach
- 2 spring onions, chopped
Preparation method
Put the water and daal in a heavy saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat then simmer for about one hour, or until the lentils are really soft. Add the frozen spinach when the lentils are soft.
Heat the oil in a wok or large pan until a cumin seed fizzes when put in the oil and add the mustard seeds, turmeric, cumin, asafoetida, ginger, chillies and curry leaves and fry for 2-3 minutes stirring.
Add the cooked dhall and spinach to the frying pan and stir in the spring onions.
Heat for a further two minutes, season, then serve.
Speeding up XBMC
I have always run X-Box media centre from xbmc.org which is an amazing piece of open source software. The power, flexibility and scalability of it has blown me away. Currently the release is Frodo 12.3. Coincidently for a long time it no longer runs on the x-box unless some dirty tricks are applied, and for a long time I never even had one, but it runs beautifully on a Linux, several flavours of Windows computers and my Raspberry Pi.
The files in your library are automatically scanned by XBMC and it uses various scrappers to determine what the TV programme or film or music that the name relates to. But the rules are all straight forward and easy to follow. You can always create a .nfo file to describe the program if the file can not be found.
My main computer and the kids computers all want to watch the same films from a NAS drive (network attached storage – i.e. a disc available on your home network), and the best way to do that was to put it on a MySQL server.
That was easy enough, create a file called advancedsettings.xml and populate it with the basic data, obviously changing the host, usernames and database names to the appropriate settings for my configuration. The advanced settings file was on a windows box was under the user profile (.xbmc) either or in the home directory for a Linux box under ~.xbmc
<advancedsettings> <videodatabase> <type>mysql</type> <host>192.168.1.3</host> <port>3306</port> <user>xbmc</user> <pass>xbmc</pass> <name>video</name> </videodatabase> <musicdatabase> <type>mysql</type> <host>192.168.1.3</host> <port>3306</port> <user>xbmc</user> <pass>xbmc</pass> <name>music</name> </musicdatabase> <videolibrary> <importwatchedstate>true</importwatchedstate> </videolibrary> </advancedsettings>
Once it had loaded up with its new setting the concepts worked fine but the performance was always awful. It took 40 seconds to move between each menu and for a long time I thought this was just a problem with the size of my media library. I turned on the debugging (under advanced settings in xmbc and it appeared that the
Optimisations
MySQL
This gave massive performance advantages. As each request was actually timing out due to the reverse DNS lookup. The debug output did not give this impression, in fact it suggested the mysql server was very fast. Each time that a request was being made by XBMC to the SQL server, it looked up the name of who had made the request (Reverse DNS lookup) which it couldn’t resolve.
I solved this by ensuring all my devices running xbmc had the same ip address (using an option in my router under DHCP) and then set up a host table on the MySQL server to tell it what all the devices were called. (edit /etc/hosts and add each machines name and I/P address).
Raspberry Pi.
Use a fast usb stick or disc in addition to the SD card. Both are faster than the SD card itself.
XBMC
Under Setting -> system settings – Video Output
Put the resolution to disable 720 x 480. This only applies to the user interface and not anything you watch. By reducing this value, you are freeing up available memory.
Under Setting -> system settings – Video – File
Disable generate thumbnails – This scans each file as you preview it to find a thumb nail from the file. It massively slows down navigation.
Under Settings -> Skin settings -> Home Window Options
[Optional] Disable “recently watched”- Makes a fair performance difference on the Raspberry Pi – but I want this information so don’t disable it.
[Optional] Disable “Show Recently Added videos” – Makes a fair performance difference on the Raspberry Pi – but I want this information so don’t disable it.
Under Settings -> Skin settings -> Background Options
[Optional] Disable fan art
Printers
Adding a Printer / queue
Setup for Linux
Ensure you are root or sudo’ed
Adding Your First Printer from the Command-Line
Run the lpadmin command with the -p option to add a printer to CUPS:
/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p printer -E -v device -m ppd
or
/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p printer -E -v device -P <directory to ppd file>
For a HP DeskJet printer connected to the parallel port this would look like:
/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p DeskJet -E -v parallel:/dev/lp1 -m deskjet.ppd
Similarly, a HP LaserJet printer using a JetDirect network interface at IP address 11.22.33.44 would be added with the command:
/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p LaserJet -E -v socket://11.22.33.44 -m laserjet.ppd
Managing Printer Classes from the Web Interface
The Web interface is located at:
You may need to check CUPS (Common Unix Printer Services) is installed and running
By default cups installs the following directories:
/etc/cups: Configuration directory.
/var/spool/cups/: The spooler directory where print jobs are held for printing.
/var/spool/cups-pdf: The spooler directory where CUPS-generated PDF files are held for printing.
CUPS also installs an executable binary in /etc/init.d/ (or /etc/rc.d/init.d) called cups. This binary is started with the command:
/etc/init.d/cups start/stop/restart
Create a printer on linux the hard way.
1. To create a printer called mylp for the /dev/lp1 device, open the /etc/printcap file with your preferred text editor. The sd option tells the Linux printing daemon, lpd, where to temporarily place printed (spooled) files. The mx command, used with a value of 0, places no limit on the size of spooled files. Type an entry such as this:
mylp:\ :sd=/var/spool/lpd/mylp:\ :mx#0:\ :lp=/dev/lp1:
2. Save the entry, and then create the printer’s spool directory by using the mkdir command:
mkdir /var/spool/lpd/mylp
3. Make sure the directory lp has the correct group ownership and permissions by using the chgrp and chmod commands, as follows:
chgrp lp /var/spool/lpd/mylp chmod 755 /var/spool/lpd/mylp
4. Test the printer entry with the lpr (line printer command) using the -P option to specify your newly created printer:
lpr -Pmylp test.txt
5. Your printer should activate and print the test document.
Setup for IBM AIX
For this operation you need to be logged in as root or sudo’ed
run smit.
-> Print Spooling
-> Aix Print Spooling
-> Add a Print Queue
Select options
* hpJetDirect
* Other (Select this if your printer type is not listed above)
* generic Generic Printer
* 2 Do NOT make this system a BOOTP/TFTP server
Enter name of queue in ONE of the Names of NEW print queues to add – select PostScript if not sure (e.g. HP4050_QUEUE)
Enter HOSTNAME of JetDirect Card (e.g. HP4050_PRN)
Leave port 9100 as that is nearly always right.
Create a printer on Aix the hard way.
1. Add the printer to /etc/hosts
10.0.0.111 HP4050
2. Add the print queue
Option a) Generic ASCII
/usr/lib/lpd/pio/etc/piomkjetd mkpq_jetdirect -p 'generic' -D asc -q 'HP4050asc' -h 'HP4050' –x '9100'
where ‘HP4050asc’ is the queue name and ‘HP4050’ is the host name as specified in /etc/hosts
Option b) Generic Postscript
/usr/lib/lpd/pio/etc/piomkjetd mkpq_jetdirect -p 'generic' -D ps -q 'HP4050ps' -h 'HP4050' –x '9100'
where ‘HP4050ps’ is the queue name and ‘HP4050’ is the host name as specified in /etc/hosts
What would you do if money was no object?
This is really pongnant. How to we avoid making the same mistakes as a forefathers and make a life, no matter how long really matter.