Chicken legs and tomatoes

Friday, 28th March 2014

Thanks to Jamie Oliver for this one.
I used less garlic and chilli and added a can of cannellini beans, which made for a thicker sauce and suited me very well. They probably would have been better going in half an hour before serving, rather than right at the beginning. The chicken was good, but it didn't come out as tender as I would have liked.
Served with a sort of colcannon of mash, leeks and bacon.

Chicken Dürüm

Sunday, 2nd March 2014

A turkish yufka bread filled with shredded grilled chicken thigh, caramelised onions and homemade lime pickle. A bit cross cultural and very tasty.

Braised Chicken Thighs

Saturday, 16th November 2013

Season the chicken and brown it in oil for a few minutes on each side. Remove it from the pan and add onions and chopped fennel. Fry these for a few minutes then add garlic and then a glass of wine. Deglaze the pan and add sliced courgette. Let it cook for another couple of minutes then put the chicken back, with enough stock to cover the veg but not the chicken. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Uncover, turn the chicken and cook for another 15 minutes, while the rice is cooking. Adjust seasoning.
Basmati rice - Wash the rice several times, then soak it for a bit. Drain it and add twice as much water as there is rice (by volume) and salt. Bring to the boil and allow the water to boil away to the point where hardly any is visible, and there are craters in the surface of the rice. You need to be paying attention. As soon as the craters form, add a small knob of butter, slap on a lid and put the pot on the lowest possible heat, so the remaining liquid steams the rice for 10 minutes or more.
Chicken thighs are meaty, juicy and flavourful and the best part of the bird I think. The very simple sauce in this was delicious.

Roast Chicken

Saturday, 27th July

I've lost my touch with roasting chickens and this was no exception. I put a lemon in the cavity and used a honey and lemon glaze, but it was actually a bit dry and not really very flavourful. Two excellent salads made my Monika though. Peppers and onions in one and mango and seeds in the other.

Pollo alla Cacciatora

Friday, 8th June 2013

Al Fresco dining on the balcony today.
"Hunter style" means something else in Germany, but for this Italian recipe it was with tomatoes, onions and red pepper (Home book of Italian Cookery p124).
Brown the chicken then add chopped onion, garlic and pepper and cook for 10 minutes. Then add chopped tomato, bay leaf, a little red wine, salt and pepper. Add enough stock to just cover the chicken and then some tomato concentrate. Simmer for an hour or so.
Served with pasta in this case.
Simple and very good. The chicken could have been slightly juicier, but that's a minor quibble.

Paella

Saturday, 13th April 2013

Book of Tapas and Spanish Cooking - Hilaire Walden p93. I think Paella is one of those dishes where you can vary the ingredients in the basic recipe quite a bit, so this was my variation.
I cut up a poussin into small pieces, browned these in oil for 10 minutes and removed them from the pan. The added onions and garlic, chopped red pepper and diced chorizo and bacon. Then I added 250 grammes of risotto rice (not really the best substitute, but OK), some paprika, and a small amount of red chili.
Then stock, where I had to guess the amount, since I wasn't following the recipe closely. For 350 grammes rice the recipe said 1.75 litres of stock, which seems a huge amount to me. I added a bit less than a litre, and that turned out to be more than enough.
I put the chicken back in and added 8 cherry tomatoes halved, rosemary and seasoning, and boiled for 10 minutes.
Then came the seafood. I used 6 small squid cut up, some mussels, 6 prawns in their shells, a red mullet fillet cut up into small pieces and two red king prawns. This was all scattered over the top and not stirred in (as in the photo).
This was then supposed to simmer for 10 minutes and then steam, off the heat with the lid on, for 10 more minutes. However, the pan I used was large and, although it bubbled fairly well in the middle the edges were not hot enough. It was soon obvious that neither the fish nor the rice was going to be cooked through in that time, and there was still too much liquid. In the end I let it simmer for about a half hour and then steam for 10 minutes.
In the end everything came out very nicely, with a delicious flavour. Both the fish and the rice were cooked about right, although the squid got a bit lost and there were too many mussels. The red mullet was particularly good.

Spinach and Chicken Curry

Friday, 22nd February 2013

Or, as we English would know it, Saag Murgh. 200 Curries, p58.
Marinade chicken in yoghurt, garlic, ginger, ground coriander, and curry powder. Cook and blend some spinach. Fry onions and add some cumin seeds. Add the chicken then the spinach and some water. Cook for 30 minutes. Add some lemon juice.
I put in too much spinach but the flavours were still good. Could have been spicier for my taste. I also added some coriander leaves, which is the flavour I most associate with Indian food, but the local supermarket seems to have found a variety of completely non-aromatic coriander.
Served with aubergine baked with Garam Masala (over-cooked), rice and turkish flat bread (over-cooked).

Chicken Breasts with Ginger

Friday, 8th February 2013

The Low-Fat Gourmet, p51. The recipe says wrap the breasts loosely in foil with a sauce of onion, ginger, garlic, soy, sherry and concentrated apple juice. I used normal apple juice and a spoonful of plum puree and, because I had no foil big enough, just a normal covered dish. I also omitted the 24 hours marinading due to bad planning. Came out nicely enough, if nothing special. The tiny Thai asparagus, boiled for a minute and tossed in sesame oil, where the best bit.

Roast chicken and red cabbage

Sunday, 25th November 2012

I've had some lovely roast chicken recently but, sadly, this wasn't it. It came out rather dry and greasy. The cabbage was just stir-fried with onion, and could probably have done with more cooking time.

Chicken and peppers in rice.

Friday, 23rd November 2012

Brown the chicken and quickly fry the slice peppers then set aside. Fry the rice with onion and then add wine, stock and tomatoes, bring to the boil and return the chicken a peppers. Simmer until the liquid has mostly gone.
I server this with a salad of leeks, sliced red pepper and olives, and anchovy stuffed mushrooms. The salad was delicious and definitely the best part.

Stir-fry chicken and red peppers

Thursday 15th November

OK for a TV dinner, but not very memorable.

Chicken and rice

Thursday, 19th July 2012

I don't really remember cooking this! I think the chicken was stir-fried in some thai grill sauce. Note to self - blog more promptly!

Lemon chicken casserole

Sunday, 1st July 2012

I casseroled the chicken pieces in a lemon and white wine sauce.
The flavour was nice and lemony, but should have been richer.
Pasta with tomato and basil was nice in itself, but not a good accompaniment to the chicken.

Pesto Glazed Chicken Breast

Friday, 15th June 2102

A repeat of something from last year that we really liked. This time without the mushrooms.
I don't repeat very often, but I was feeling a bit under the weather, and this is simple and delicious.
Equally good as before, I thought, but my partner felt the chicken could have been more tender. Maybe just the quality of the meat.

Chicken Alexa

Thursday 12th January 2012

This is something I haven't cooked for ages. The chicken is roasted and then served with a creamy sauce with mild spices. Fry onions in butter and then added flour and garam masala and cook for a minute or two. Gradually add half a pint of chicken stock and cook for 10 minutes, then add lemon juice, cream and honey and heat through. In this case served with basmati rice and a spoon of bulgar wheat salad.

Roast Chicken

Monday 9th, January 2012

Simple roast chicken with home made sage and onion stuffing and bacon wrapped figs (because I had two figs that needed eating). No vegetables because this was just to eat with bread in front of the TV.

Chicken casserole with chorizo

Sunday, 18th September

I did this in the slow cooker, because we were out in the afternoon, and it was a bit overdone to be honest. Should have had the heat on low instead of medium.
Diced some chorizo and fried it off until the fat ran, then removed it from the pan. Jointed and browned the chicken in the chorizo fat the removed that as well and browned some tiny onions and a bit of garlic. Deglazed the pan with wine and transfered everything to the slow cooker. An hour or so before serving I added the zest of an orange and some black olives.
Served with roast potatoes and caramelised fennel with figs. Cooked the fennel in stock for about 10 minutes, then fried it in butter and sugar for about 5 minutes on each side, until it was nicely browned, then transfered it to a dish with a bit of liquid and topped with sliced fig (from the balcony!) and baked it in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

Chicken with Red Peppers

Friday, 17th June

Sainsbury's Cooking of Spain, p67. Served with mashed potatoes and aubergine fritters, ibid. p48. Very tasty, especially the fritters, but the chicken I used was an older, larger bird and it came out very dry, despite long cooking. The fritters are just sliced aubergines dipped in milk and a little egg, and then floured and fried. Lovely contrast in texture to the chicken sauce. I don't usually do mash, but this came out nice and creamy, with plenty of chives, butter and cream mashed in.

Pesto Glazed Chicken Breast

Monday, 23rd May

Found this Pesto Glazed Chicken Breast with Pasta recipe on-line when looking for inspiration. This is probably the best thing I have cooked this year so far.
The freshly made pesto was fantastic, the chicken juicy and tender and the overall combination of flavours just perfect. I added a few sliced mushrooms to the pasta, because I had some, and they were good too. And it was easy! Even making the pesto was a doddle, as I used a hand-held blender and not a mortar and pestle. Sauteing the chicken quickly and then moving the whole pan to the oven for a few minutes seems to be a great way to get it cooked perfectly.  Highly recommended!

Chicken and Shitake on rice

Wednesday, 27th April

This should be Oyakodon (Chicken and Egg Rice - literally "parent and child rice bowl"), but I didn't have any eggs, and I don't really like egg anyway. So I improvised with mushroom, but used the basic recipe from Traditional Japanese Recipe Book, p22. Gently sautee onion, add chicken that had been previously quickly blanched in boiling water, add stock, mirin, and soy. Cook through, add shitake and cook for a couple of minutes, top with sliced spring onion and serve over rice. I wonder if the Japanese use a much paler sort of soy sauce than we get here, because my sauces always turn out much darker than the ones shown in the pictures with the recipes.
Anyway this was very good and the chicken and mushroom combination was excellent.