A CHICKEN STIR FRY TRAY BAKE

 

I spotted a recipe on FB that looked really easy, quick and very tasty.

The ingredients of a stir fry but baked in the oven.

We had a couple of small chicken fillets in the fridge and all the other ingredients in stock.

We were good to go.  

The recipe included some chilli but we avoid chilli so left it out.

It was still very tasty.

We had ours with plain boiled rice.

It was very tasty, filling, quick and easy.  A perfect weekday dinner.

Ingredients

1 large skinless chicken breast

1/2 a red pepper, seeds removed 

1 small red onion 

1/2 a head of broccoli

1 200g can beansprouts, drained

1 tblsp runny honey

1 tblsp olive oil or a few squirts low cal spray

1 - 2 tsp soy sauce 

1 tsp smoked paprika

Method 

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan.

Slice the chicken and all the veg into bite sized pieces.  

Tip into an ovenproof dish and drizzle over the soy sauce and honey.  Spray with oil spray or drizzle with the olive oil.

Sprinkle over the paprika and season with salt and pepper.

Toss everything around to coat with the flavourings and bake for 20 minutes, stirring half way through, or until the chicken is cooked and the veg tender.  

(I suppose that if your air fryer basket is big enough, or if cooking for one and you halve the ingredients, you could cook this in your air fryer.)

Serves 2

CHICKEN BALMORAL AND HOMEMADE HAGGIS with whisky sauce

Whilst back in the UK for three weeks over Christmas we talked about holding another Burns Night Supper and I wondered whether it might be possible to buy some actual haggis to bring back to France (illegally, as it’s a meat product).

I remember eating haggis in my twenties and liking it.  At the time I lived in Leeds and would buy a real haggis, tied up with string, from the excellent food department of Lewis's on the Headrow. That’s not John Lewis, by the way, but Lewis's.  It was a fabulous shop (to me it was almost the Harrod's of the North).  The food department was in the basement with a black and white tiled floor and you could buy all manner of everyday or exotic foods.  Between Lewis's, Schofield's, the old arcades and the fantastic markets Leeds was a wonderful place to shop in the 1970's.

I found several recipes online suggesting how to use haggis, including some for something called "chicken Balmoral" or "highland chicken" where it’s used as a stuffing for chicken breasts.  I thought that sounded more interesting and possibly more tempting that just serving a dollop of it on the plate for anyone unfamiliar with haggis.  I chose one on a blog called "Caroline's cooking" then noticed that there was also a recipe for homemade haggis, a version that has the offal elements reduced to a minimum.  Real haggis contains the kind of offal that few people would enjoy nowadays, plus suet, onion, oatmeal and spices.  This recipe has enough of a hint of offal without the scary bits.

I had a tin of pinhead oatmeal in the cupboard so brought that back to France after Christmas. For the meat element I used neck of lamb steaks which were reasonably priced and the chicken was ultimately wrapped in English smoked streaky bacon, now an illegal import from the UK!  We had long since worked out that most of our friends were bringing their favourite meats and cheeses to France without any trouble so we thought we'd risk it ourselves.  Nobody at the border took the slightest interest in the contents of our car or cool box.  I imagine that after the early post Brexit flush of enthusiasm the border staff have bigger fish to fry than to search for the odd pound of bacon or sausages!

You can see the recipe for Chicken Balmoral here and for the haggis stuffing here.  I modified both recipes and have to say, I wouldn’t make it again, but decided to write about it because our guests enjoyed it!  For myself I decided that my haggis eating days are well behind me but you never know, you might like it!  I also used some of the Oxo cube stock to make a whisky sauce or gravy to go with it.  Once we got going making the haggis we only used two of the four small lamb steaks I had bought so saved the other two to make a lamb tagine.  I enjoyed that much more!

The stuffed chicken filets can be prepared well in advance which makes it an ideal dinner party dish, as long as you like haggis!  Alternatively stuff them with something else!  The whisky sauce was nice.

Ingredients

For the Haggis

a large knob of butter plus 1 tblsp of vegetable oil (more if needed)

250g lamb steaks

½ tsp each of ground cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, allspice and dried thyme

1 onion

100g chicken livers (or other liver)

50g pinhead oatmeal

½ pint / 200ml chicken or beef stock made using a stock cube or stock pot (we made 400ml from one cube and used the remainder to create a whisky sauce)

salt and pepper

For the chicken Balmoral

4 medium sized chicken breasts

12-15 rashers smoked streaky bacon or unsmoked for a lighter flavour

For the whisky sauce

200ml chicken or beef stock (the remainder from making the haggis)

2 tblsp double cream

A good splash of whisky

Method

To make the haggis, cut the lamb steaks into cubes and mince in a food processor until medium/fine.  Add the liver pieces and process again until combined.  

Chop the peeled onion finely.

Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook until softened.

Add the meat and spices, fry until the meat is browned.  Add the stock, cover and simmer for 20 minutes until the meat is cooked.  Season with salt and pepper, stir in the oatmeal and cook for another 20-30 minutes.  You can add more pepper and spices to taste as it cooks.  Go easy at first.  Set aside to cool.

Slash each chicken breast, open out and flatten slightly by bashing with a rolling pin.  Place 1 tbslp of haggis in the middle of each one or enough to fill it adequately.  Fold over to close the fillet.

Lay enough rashers of bacon to almost cover a chicken filet on a piece of cling film, place one on top and roll up, leaving the joins in the bacon underneath.  Repeat with the other chicken filets and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes in the cling film on a tray.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan.  Place the chicken filets on a baking tray and bake in the oven for around 40 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

To make the whisky sauce, put the stock into a small pan and bring to the boil.  Stir in the cream and whisky and cook gently until heated through.  Serve immediately with the chicken.

Traditionally this would be served with mashed potatoes and swede, plus a green vegetable such as beans or cabbage.

Serves 4.

CHICKEN CAESAR SALAD

One of the bars in our village changed hands last winter and is now a very popular bistro style restaurant called Brody's, serving excellent pizzas, lasagne, burgers and salads.  My absolute favourite salad is their chicken Caesar salad.  After a few of those I wondered why I never make it at home and thought it was time I did.  My version is similar to the one they serve.

The chicken ready for poaching.

I now make it quite often using leftover roast chicken or a poached chicken breast, although you can of course buy packs of cooked chicken breast which do the job very well.  You can also cook the chicken breast in an air fryer, adding a few spices if you like, which takes about ten minutes at 180°.  

One poached chicken breast makes plenty of salad for the two of us or would make a starter for four.  I doubt this Caesar salad would pass muster with the authentic salad police but it's a formula we enjoy.  You can obviously omit the ingredients you don't fancy or add other things you like, such as a bit of chopped cucumber.  Some recipes suggest adding bits of crispy bacon which sounds very tasty but I haven't strayed that far yet!

You can also poach the chicken from frozen which is very handy.  I frequently freeze chicken breasts individually, bagging them separately from a large pack from the supermarket, to thaw out one at a time for future use but they work perfectly well from frozen here, just taking a few more minutes to cook in the poaching liquid.

The salad ready for the dressing.

The thing that makes it a Caesar salad as opposed to just chicken salad is the dressing.  I have in the past used home made Caesar dressing based on this recipe here which contains no anchovies.  It came in very handy for a guest who was allergic to most kinds of fish.  Mostly though I use shop bought Caesar salad dressing and have found Heinz readily available in France and very good.  Some others are a bit too thin and not creamy enough.

For the croutons I break up into chunks the dried slices of baguette sold in a local supermarket.  Such things are readily available here for people to serve as apéros with patés or numerous other spreads.  You could make your own or buy packets of cubed croutons (or leave them out).

Since first writing this post I have attempted to make my own croutons by simply drying out some thin slices of yesterday's baguette on a baking tray in the oven part of our wood burner.  It seemed to work!  The temperature was about 200°C and they were in for about ten minutes, turning them over once, until a nice golden brown and crisp.

One thing that is worth the effort is making sure you have the right kind of lettuce, such as iceberg or romaine.  It needs to be crispy and somehow it doesn't work with the floppy kind!  

Ingredients

For the poached chicken

1 skinless chicken breast

1 medium carrot, peeled 

1 stick of celery, washed

1 fat clove of garlic, peeled 

a few stalks of fresh parsley or a pinch of dried parsley

For the Caesar dressing 

2 tblsp mayonnaise

a squeeze of lemon juice or  ½ tblsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp mild mustard such as Dijon

a splash of Worcestershire sauce

1 small clove of garlic, grated

1 tbslp grated parmesan (shop bought ready grated is fine)

For the salad

a chunk of crispy lettuce, washed and shredded (not too finely)

a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

a few stoned black olives, halved

½ a red onion, peeled and finely chopped (or use a spring onion)

¼ of a red pepper, de-seeded and finely chopped 

a handful of crisp croutons 

1-2 tblsp grated parmesan

Method 

To poach the chicken breast, roughly chop the carrot and celery and put them with all the other poaching ingredients into a medium saucepan.  Add enough water to cover the meat, season with salt and pepper and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat to a simmer immediately and cook for 15 minutes until the chicken is tender and cooked through.

Lift the chicken out of the liquid and set aside to cool.  You can discard the liquid and veg or use them to make homemade soup.  When the chicken is cold cut into chunks.

For the Caesar dressing, put all the ingredients into a small bowl and mix together, adding extra ingredients to taste.

To assemble the salad put everything into a large bowl, add the chicken and enough dressing to just coat the salad - don't drown it.  Mix thoroughly.

Serve with crusty bread or, if feeling indulgent, a bowl of chips.

Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as a starter.

SPINACH, SMOKED CHICKEN AND ROAST TOMATO PASTA

 

It is over two months since I last posted anything!  That does not mean I have fallen off my perch, stopped baking or decided to give up blogging.  It's simply because the year has turned out to be a bit manic.

Not least of all is that earlier in the year we had virtually a whole month of visitors, one lot after the other, plus a couple of hasty visits back to the UK for various crisis management issues.  The thing about visitors that I find most difficult is the catering.  Thinking of, shopping for and providing three meals a day at normal times, including impromptu meals out, requires brain effort that no longer comes easily and our usual eating pattern is generally much more ad hoc.  Hence there tends to be over purchasing, a freezer crammed with unused items and a scramble to use up perishables when the visitors have all gone home.

So, this dish is a result of realising it's lunchtime, looking in the fridge to see what there is and coming up with something edible.  It was surprisingly good and I would even do it again on purpose rather than by accident.

One of the ingredients was some home roasted tomatoes.  As always home grown veg are ready all at once and earlier in the year we lost most of our broad beans simply because we were so busy that we didn't get round to picking them.  When my tomatoes began to ripen I was determined not to waste those so found the time to roast and bottle them.  You can see how I did it here.

I confess that the idea for this pasta actually came from a ready meal we had not long ago.  I spotted a couple of packs of something called creamy salmon pasta in the "anti gaspi" or yellow sticker section in the nearby branch of Aldi.  They were remarkably good and I thought I would make something similar when we needed a light meal and I had spinach in the house, although obviously I used chicken, not salmon.

Ingredients

About 3/4 of a pint of pasta.  I used penne and usually measure pasta using my old Pyrex one pint jug.  I find that a full jug or about a pint is a generous serving for two people.

2-3 slices of cooked chicken, torn into small pieces.  I happened to use smoked chicken because we had the remains of a ready cooked smoked chicken in the fridge.

2 tblsp crème fraiche 

About 1/3 of a bag of fresh spinach, washed

6-8 roasted tomatoes in olive oil (or you could use sundried tomatoes or cherry tomatoes)

Method

Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling water according to the packet instructions.  When cooked to your liking (either soft or al dente) drain off most of the water and put the spinach in a single layer on top.  Put the lid on and return to the heat for a couple of minutes until the spinach is wilted.

Remove from the heat, stir in the chicken, crème fraiche and tomatoes.  Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately, sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese if you like.

Serves 2.

CHICKEN WITH THIRTY CLOVES OF GARLIC

I have made this dish many times before, although not for a few years, but never posted about it.  You can find versions of it all over the place on the internet but I usually follow, as a guide, the recipe for "Provencal garlic chicken" from a great little book by Jill Dupleix called "good cooking"**.

It’s one of those recipes that’s staggeringly easy but delicious and warrants ferreting around in the back of the kitchen cupboard for a much loved bit of old kitchen equipment - the chicken brick!

I acquired a chicken brick back in the 70’s or 80’s, or whenever it was that they were all the rage.  It was made of a terracotta pottery (possibly from Habitat) and was probably a Christmas or birthday present, but it didn’t get much use and I don’t remember when I noticed it was no longer around.  Then, about twelve years ago, we held a Pampered Chef party at our house - a kind of Tupperware party but for cooking equipment.  I bought quite a few items and they were not cheap but have turned out to be a good investment.  One of the things I lashed out on was a new chicken brick, or updated version thereof, as it's also very good for casseroles, slow roasted meats and other things.

I remember the Pampered Chef agent saying that these pots should not be put in the dishwasher, that they should be washed in hot soapy water to remove any food bits but should otherwise be allowed to develop their own "patina".  This rather goes against the grain for someone like me who was brought up to scrub things to within an inch of their lives to ward off nasty tummy bugs - and whose very first domestic science lesson (from a very stern Mrs Stafford) was about how to clean a kitchen worktop properly and look after your dishcloth (having first knitted it from cotton string in the needlework class).  But I have to say that the residue hasn't killed us yet, however unappealing it may look! 

Any suitable casserole or roasting dish that has a tight fitting lid will do the job.  You can ensure a tight seal by covering the chicken with foil or baking paper before putting the lid on.  With my chicken brick I don't have to do this.

The original recipe is for forty cloves of garlic but when I checked the larder all I had in stock was thirty! It turned out beautifully; moist and delicious.  The leftover meat was excellent in a chicken and leek pie, the carcass went into the stock pot and was turned into a tasty soup with the leftover potatoes and garlic.

Retirement does have benefits.  Our food bill and wastage are both significantly lower than when we were working.  I never thought I would turn into a person that makes their own stock (and uses leftovers so enthusiastically) but having the time to do it is the key.  

**Other recipes from this excellent little book that I have made and posted about before include:

Airport potatoes 

Cranberry blondies

Ingredients

1 oven ready chicken, about 1.2 kg in weight

2 bay leaves

3 sprigs of thyme

4 tblsp olive oil plus extra for oiling the dish

30 garlic cloves, unpeeled

6-8 smallish potatoes, washed but skin on

75ml dry white wine

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.  Lightly oil the inside of the baking dish.

Rub the chicken with a little salt and put it in the pot, surrounded by the potatoes, garlic and herbs.  Drizzle with the olive oil, pour over the wine and season again with salt and pepper.

Fit the lid tightly (see notes in text) and bake for about an hour.  Remove the lid, increase the oven temperature to 220°C / 200° fan / gas mk 7 and cook for a further 10-15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through* and the skin is a golden brown.

Serve with the potatoes and garlic cloves, which are delicious when squished so the puréed garlic oozes out.  Serve the cooking juices from the bottom of the chicken in a jug and any greens or salad of your choice.

*You can judge this by either poking a knife into the thickest part of the breast and making sure the juices run clear, not pink, or by using a meat thermometer.

Serves 6 with leftovers to use as you wish.

COCK-A-LEEKIE SOUP

I made cock-a-leekie soup as the first course at our Burns Night Supper.  There were five guests plus ourselves so seven people in total.  This was more than my soup maker could handle so I made it like I always used to - in my large stock pot.  As the name suggests it is essentially a chunky chicken and leek soup!

Most of the recipes I consulted suggested cooking a chicken with the veg, taking the meat off the bones after it was cooked and adding it back into the soup.  I already had some home made chicken stock in the freezer so I cooked some chicken breasts separately (in the air fryer) and used those.  

Some recipes suggested adding prunes to the soup.  Prunes are a favourite in this house but not everyone is a fan so I left them out.  I would add some next time if I made a smaller quantity just for the two of us.  Another ingredient I left out was some smoked bacon because one of the guests eats only fish or chicken, no red meat. They would also be a good addition for next time I think!

It turned out really well - chunky veg, very tasty and this amount of ingredients made eight good servings.  It would also be an excellent way of using up leftover chicken.

Ingredients 

2 skinless chicken breasts, cooked 

A twinpack of smoked bacon lardons (optional)

4 large carrots

2 large leeks

4 sticks of celery 

50g butter

2 tblsp olive oil 

1 litre of chicken stock (home made or using water and two chicken stock pots or cubes)

1 bouquet garni

A good handful of stoned prunes (optional)

Method 

Peel and chop the carrots into small dice of about 1cm.  Trim and thinly slice the leeks.  Wash and thinly slice the celery.  

In a large saucepan or stock pot heat the oil and butter gently until the butter has melted, add the lardons if using, then add all the veg.  Cook gently until the veg are softened which will take about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally or shaking the pan so that they don’t stick.  

Add the stock and approximately a litre of water.  The liquid should cover the veg completely so use your judgment to add more water if needed.  Add the bouquet garni and season well with salt and pepper.

Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 30 minutes.  If using the prunes add them half way through the cooking time.

Chop or tear the cooked chicken into small pieces and add into the pan.  Cook for another 5 minutes, check the seasoning and serve with a nice fresh baguette.

Makes 6-8 generous servings.

STUFFED CHICKEN FILLETS with thyme and goats cheese on a bed of courgettes and tomatoes.

When we recently invited some friends round for a bbq the weather decided to turn decidedly English - cool and showery. I was planning to serve the chicken, lemon and thyme kebabs with a ratatouille that I wrote about recently but had to have a quick change of menu that used mostly the same ingredients - especially as our veg patch is proving to be rather successful in producing courgettes this year!  We also have thyme growing in a corner of the garden. 

I spotted this recipe on the Good Food website and it ticked all the boxes.  All I needed in addition was some goats cheese and bacon which I happened to have in the fridge.

We looked at the weather forecast at about the time we would be marinading the kebabs and stuffed the chicken fillets instead, leaving them on a tray in the fridge. The most fiddly part of the recipe was stripping the tiny leaves from the thyme stalks, which I always find annoyingly tedious.   

It turned out well, looked good and was very tasty.   I served it with some buttery new potatoes (instead of the planned potato salad) and a dish of French beans (from the freezer) while the rain poured outside!

Ingredients

One skinless chicken fillet per person (six for this recipe)

1 log of goat’s cheese 

2 courgettes

4 tomatoes

4 sprigs of fresh thyme

1 pack of streaky bacon (you may need more)

3-4 tblsp olive oil or some Frylight spray

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.

Strip the leaves from two of the sprigs of thyme.

Split each chicken fillet lengthwise but not all the way through.  Open out and flatten slightly by batting with a rolling pin or tin of beans.

Thinly slice the goat’s cheese, place two slices into a chicken fillet and sprinkle with thyme leaves. Fold the fillet over to enclose the cheese and wrap in two rashers of bacon.  Repeat with the remaining chicken fillets.

Slice the courgettes and tomatoes and arrange in a suitable oiled roasting tin or baking dish.  Drizzle with oil or spray with Frylight, season with salt and pepper and put the thyme sprigs on top.  Sit the chicken fillets on top with the ends of the bacon tucked underneath.

Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked, the bacon crisp and the courgettes tender.

Serve with potatoes or other veg of your choice.

Serves 6.

CHICKEN, LEMON AND THYME KEBABS

We at last have summer weather here in France and the barbecue season has arrived!  We seemed to  suddenly lurch from a cool and wet spring to high summer with temperatures regularly above 30°C.  Luckily we have a shady place to cook on the barbecue and last year we lashed out on a new gas one.  We had resisted, thinking we were not really barbecuing unless we used charcoal, but it has taken much of the guesswork out of the cooking.  We no longer get food that's crozzled on the outside and raw in the middle and we can predict more accurately when it will be ready - no more waiting for the charcoal to become hot enough then having to get on with it!  In other words, cooking on a gas barbecue has taken all the stress out of it and is definitely just as tasty (if slightly less exciting).

I recently bought some excellent lemon and thyme marinated chicken brochettes in Lidl when we were having visitors.  They were quite pricey so we looked for a recipe we could adapt to make them from scratch.  We found one in a book called "Charred and Scruffed" by Adam Perry Lang.

The book itself was a gift from my brother some years ago, possibly to encourage us to be more creative than just burgers than sausages with our barbecue repertoire!  It's not a book I would have bought for myself as it's American so therefore in cup measurements, which I'm never very confident with, but it's full of lovely recipes.

Ingredients

4 smallish skinned chicken breasts, cut into large chunks

1 red pepper, seeds removed and cut into large chunks

For the marinade

2-3 tablespoons olive oil (or roughly equal to the amount of lemon juice)

2 cloves garlic

1 shallot

juice of 1 lemon*

1 tsp granulated sugar

3-4 small sprigs thyme**

salt and pepper to taste

Method

Grate the garlic and shallot using a microplane zester or the finest grater that you have.

Strip the leaves from the thyme sprigs, chop fine, and put them with all the other marinade ingredients into a small jam jar.  Shake the jar well to combine everything together.

* For extra tanginess you could add in the lemon zest and the fleshy bits from the juicer/squeezer.

** If you don't have fresh thyme, use a teaspoon of dried thyme and marinate for more than the minimum time.

Push the chunks of chicken and pepper onto skewers and lay in a shallow dish.  Pour the marinade over evenly, cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for at least thirty minutes, or 2-3 hours.

Alternatively, put the chunks of chicken and pepper into a plastic bag, add the marinade and toss about to make sure everything is coated then leave in the fridge until ready to cook and assemble the skewers.

Grill on the barbecue for 8-10 minutes, turning occasionally.  Or bake in the oven for 20 minutes.  Test for doneness by inserting a sharp knife into a piece of chicken to see if it’s still pink.

Serves 2-3, depending on how many sausages there are per person.  (We have found Lidl Toulouse sausages a good bbq alternative to the magnificent Cumberland!)

CHICKEN WITH GRAPES, LEEKS AND ROSEMARY

This recipe is adapted from one of those recipe cards I picked up at Waitrose some time ago.  The original uses chicken legs but we had some skinless chicken breasts in the fridge already so I used them instead.

Waitrose recipes tend not to disappear or be hijacked so to see it on their website click here.

I cooked it in a favourite cast iron casserole dish that was given to me by my Aunty Vera donkeys years ago.  Probably in the 1980's when cast iron cookware was all the rage - if the cookery magazines were anything to go by in those days.  I suspect that my aunt bought one but was not enamoured with it, preferring her Pyrex instead!  I like it because it's actually quite small and ideal for making something for just the two of us.

Of course if you don't have a cast iron dish you can do the first part of the recipe in a frying pan on the hob and finish it off in an ovenproof dish in the oven.

The recipe was easy to make and with the grapes and wine had a slightly "weekend" appeal, yet was quick enough for a midweek meal.  The chicken was moist and delicious.  We had ours with the usual selection of weekday veg and mash.

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts

a splash of oil

1 large or 2 small leeks, washed and sliced, not too thickly, not too thinly

a large handful of green grapes, washed and halved

2 small sprigs fresh rosemary

1 small glass of white wine (or use chicken stock)

a squeeze of lemon juice

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.

Using a cast iron casserole dish* on the hob, heat the oil then fry the chicken breasts, skin side down for 10 minutes until golden brown.  Turn the chicken and cook on the other side for 2-3 minutes.  Remove from the dish and set aside.

Add the leeks to the dish with a pinch of salt and fry for 3-4 minutes until beginning to soften.

Stir in the grapes, rosemary, wine and lemon juice.  

Remove from the hob, place the chicken breasts on top and roast, uncovered, in the oven for about 25 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

Serve with mashed or baked potatoes and veg.

Serves 2.

*If you don't have a cast iron casserole or one that can be used on the hob, do the frying in a frying pan then transfer the leek mixture to an ovenproof dish of some kind, maybe ceramic or enamel.  Place the chicken on top as above and roast as above.

CHICKEN STIR FRY SOUP (soup maker recipe)

Our kettle in the UK died last week.  Actually the kettle still boiled water but the catch holding the lid broke and my other half declared it unfixable so we went to buy a new one.

Curiously, exactly the same thing happened to our kettle in France last month; the lid broke on that one too.  How bizarre to have both give up the ghost at the same time, for the same reason!  As it happens both kettles were at least ten years old so didn’t owe us anything.

In France we got a new decent one from a small selection at our nearest supermarket.  In the UK the choice in our local Tesco, usually quite extensive, was poor.  In fact since their recent refurb they have changed the way they display their small electricals and it’s not good.  Previously they had a top shelf with each item on display so you could pick it up and look at it, with sealed boxes of them stashed on shelves underneath for you to buy your selection.  Now, nothing is on display.  There are simply boxes of things piled on the shelves and none that you can look at, only the picture on the box to go on.  Hence there are damaged boxes of the things where people have ripped them open so they can see what they actually look like. We looked at a couple that had already been opened and gave up, eventually ordering one from Amazon.  

However, I suggested that it might be worth looking at the sale shelf, where they dump items for clearance.  They had no kettles but they did have a wok, reduced to less than £10.  I have never owned a wok in my life and have never tried making stir fries at home but my OH reckons he has.  He mentioned it in the same wistful way that he refers to all his awful 1970’s clothes that filled his wardrobe when we met and that were expunged when we got together and combined our two households in the 90’s.  The implication being that I took it to the charity shop along with his flares and skinny rib jumpers.  I can honestly say I don’t remember doing that.

Anyway, I am on a mission to lose a bit of weight* and thought a wok might help, stir fries being generally lower in calories than say sausages and chips for a midweek dinner, so we bought one.  We picked up a bag of stir fry veg, some noodles and chicken fillets, and that evening Nick made a delicious chicken stir fry, making a sauce with garlic, fresh ginger and soy sauce.

There was a good portion leftover and about a third of the pack of veg so I turned it into soup.  It was also delicious!

The soup maker makes four good portions and as there are only two of us I store the remaining half in the fridge.  Having experimented with various ways of storing it I have finally settled on using the ancient Tupperware jug that belonged to my mum.  It was found at the back of the cupboard when we cleared Dad's flat after he died and I'm pretty sure neither of them ever used it.  It was no doubt a rogue purchase from one of the Tupperware parties that Aunty Vera used to drag Mum to in the 1970's!

*There will be no cake posts for a while, sadly.  If I make it I will eat it and we have even decided not to make a Christmas cake this year, which is the first time ever in my whole life that there will not be a home made Christmas cake in the house.  

Ingredients 

one portion of leftover chicken stir fry, including the noodles

the remaining unused stir fry veg in the pack

three small potatoes

1 carrot

1 leek

1 stick of celery

Method

Add the stir fried chicken and veg to the machine and prepare enough veg to fill to the bottom line.

Add enough water to fill to the top line and cook on smooth setting.

Makes four generous portions.

COQ AU RIESLING

 

This is another very retro dish, but with a twist.  It's coq au vin but made with white wine.

I can actually remember the very first time I ate coq au vin (the red wine version).  Nick and I were on our very first motorcycle tour of France together in May 1994.  The weather was decidedly iffy and we were camping.  Nick was keen to show me a place where he had camped a couple of  years before (probably with his previous girlfriend but we won't dwell on that!).

We made our way down through France and landed up in Chinon.  The campsite there is across the river from the town itself.  We pitched the tent and as the light faded the view of the river with its lovely old  bridge, the boulevard along the river bank and the château overlooking everything, in all its splendour, was a sight I shall never forget.

We strolled across the bridge into town for dinner and, being exhausted from a long ride, fell into the first restaurant that was open.  It was the Café des Arts in the beautiful square with the fountain.  There we had coq au vin, the chicken cooked in Chinon wine, followed by crème brulée, before staggering back to the tent and our sleeping bags.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  

Chinon became our all time favourite town in France and we went back there for at least part of our holiday every year, often more than once.  Now that we spend half the year in our house in France it is almost just around the corner.  The Café des Arts has been spruced up somewhat in the intervening years but still serves great food.

This white wine version is loosely based on a Nigella Lawson recipe which you will find in her book Nigella Express.  You can also find it here.

Ingredients

1 pack of lardons, about 150g

1 leek, finely sliced

4 small skinless chicken thighs (or a pack of chicken mini fillets, about 350g)

a handful (half a punnet) of mushrooms, thinly sliced

2 bay leaves

1 tblsp garlic oil for frying

half a bottle of riesling wine

a tblsp cream or crème fraîche

a tsp cornflour (optional)

Method

Heat the oil in a sauté or frying pan  that has a lid.  Fry the lardons then add the leeks and cook until softened.

Add the chicken pieces, bay leaves, mushrooms and wine, season with salt and pepper.  Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook with the lid on for 30-40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  Stir in the cream and heat for another minute or two.  

Thicken the sauce with a little cornflour mixed with water if you prefer it less watery.  Cook for 2 minutes more.

Remove the bay leaves before serving with pasta, rice or potatoes.  Sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley or dill if you like.  Enjoy the rest of the bottle of riesling with the meal!

Serves 2-4, depending on the amount of chicken.  

CHICKEN, LEEK AND POTATO SOUP (soup maker recipe)

 

One of the recipes I regularly cook for dinner, for ourselves or guests, is Rachel Allen's chicken open pot roast.  You can see it here and I first wrote about it here.

This time I had one portion left over.  1 chicken thigh, a few chunks of potato, a few slices of leek and a tablespoon, or thereabouts, of the delicious sauce.  So I decided to make a soup.  It was yummy!

It also shows how easy it can be to turn not very much in terms of leftovers into a tasty lunch for next to nothing.

Ingredients

1 cooked chicken thigh

a few chunks of cooked potato

a few slices of cooked leek

Any remaining sauce from the dish

1 medium potato

1 onion

1 large carrot

1 chicken stock pot

Method

Put the cooked veg into the soup maker.  Remove the meat from the bone of the chicken thigh, discard the skin, tear the meat into small pieces and add it to the veg.

Add the uncooked veg, peeled and cut into large chunks, enough to fill to the bottom line.

Add the stock pot and water to the top line.

Cook on smooth.

Makes four generous portions.

CHICKEN, LEEK, MUSHROOM AND WILD GARLIC PIE

 

 

 The wild garlic season is upon us.

 

I have Dominic at Bellau Kitchen to thank for first alerting me to the use of wild garlic in cooking.  When I was a little girl, the woods around where we lived were full of it at this time of year but it was regarded with huge disdain and derision.  My mum would never have dreamed of cooking with it.  Once I had made Dominic's wild garlic and asparagus quiche I was hooked. 

 

 

These days we are usually in France when it's in season but this year, as we know, is rather different so we have been able to pick plenty of it in the woods near to where we live in the UK.

 

 

The pie filling was made of a mixture of chunks of chicken breast, chopped leeks, bacon and mushrooms in a white sauce.  The wild garlic was stirred in when the filling was ready as it cooks very quickly, a bit like spinach.  You can vary the ingredients according to what you have in the fridge, less chicken but more leeks or mushrooms, with or without the bacon, and so on.

 

 

Having piled the filling in the pie dish I let it cool before adding the pastry.  I usually make a pastry collar for the dish before putting the lid on and sealing them together with a pinched edge - the way I was taught to do it at school.

  

Flour is still hard to come by in many places but there seems to be no shortage of ready made pastry, as long as you're not fussy about brand.  For my pies I used a pack of Tesco own label shortcrust pastry and it was excellent. 

 

 

I made two pies, one for us and a small version for my dad who is self isolating, all by himself in his little bungalow.  We had ours with some extra veg and it was absolutely delicious. 

 

Other things I have made using wild garlic are mushroom and wild garlic quiche and lasagne.  I have also used it in a version of my favourite risotto, using chicken and bacon.

 

Ingredients

 

1 pack of ready made, ready rolled shortcrust pastry

2 small skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized chunks

1 tblsp vegetable oil 

4 rashers smoked streaky bacon, cut into 2cm pieces

1 large leek, washed and thickly sliced

6 large chestnut mushrooms, sliced

1 heaped tblsp plain flour (or cornflour)

250ml milk

a small bundle of wild garlic leaves, washed and sliced into ribbons

1 egg, beaten

 

Method

 

Heat the oil in a large frying or sauté pan and add the chicken, bacon, leeks and mushrooms.  Cook until the chicken is slightly browned and the leeks and mushrooms softened. 

 

Sprinkle the flour over the pan and stir in.  Cook for about 2 minutes before stirring in the milk.  Continue cooking on low heat until you have a thickened sauce.  Add a little more flour or more milk if necessary to get the consistency of a nice, thick coating sauce.

(If you don't have plain flour, use cornflour, blending it with a little of the milk and adding more to get the right consistency if necessary.)

 

Season with salt and pepper and stir in the wild garlic ribbons.  Tip the whole lot into a suitable pie dish with a rim and set aside to cool.

 

Preheat the oven to 180C / 160 fan / gas mk 4. 

 

Unwrap the pastry and cut off enough to cover the pie.  From the remaining pastry or the trimmings cut lengths about 2cm wide.  Lay the trimmings on the rim of the filled pie dish to form a collar and dampen with water.  Spread the larger piece of pastry over the pie and seal to the collar by pressing lightly into place.  Trim the edges and seal by pinching with finger and thumb or pressing with the prongs of a fork.  Make a small hole in the centre of the pastry lid and either leave as it is or decorate with leaves made from any remaining pastry trimmings.  Make extra small holes in the pastry between the leaves with the point of a knife.

 

Brush the lid with beaten egg and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the pastry is nicely browned.

 

Serve hot with veg of your choice.

 

Serves 4-5 portions.

CHICKEN LEGS BAKED WITH LEMON AND OREGANO

We were recently the lucky recipients of a bag of goodies donated by a friend who was closing up her home in France for the winter.  The contents included a pack of frozen chicken legs.

We are in the throws of working against the clock chez nous at the moment, having had a lot of building work done, hopefully the last tranche, and now trying to get the decorating done and the furniture out of the barn and back in the house before the weather gets too cold and damp.

In this game of “beat the clock”, time for shopping is seen as a waste of time, unless it’s an essential trip to the nearest DIY store, so we are doing our best to use up the contents of our own fridge and freezer.  This pack of chicken legs therefore came in very handy and provided us with an excellent late lunch one day.  We are finding that working in the morning while the light is good, having a late lunch and very little food in the evening after a second session of painting, seems to work well for us.

I spotted this recipe on the BBC Good Food website and adapted it using what I had in the house, i.e. chicken legs not thighs, maincrop potatoes not new ones and dried oregano instead of fresh.

The whole thing worked extremely well, providing a delicious and hearty meal and creating very little washing up.  We had ours with some greens which required only one extra saucepan.

The steps in the cooking allowed perfectly for preparing the ingredients, setting the table, slapping another coat of paint on a bit of wall and enjoying a glass of wine.  (There was wine in the recipe so why not?)

A great recipe to have under the belt for midweek dinners and equally for guests.  Definitely one I will be doing again and again.

As for the washing up, and those who may not approve of allowing the dog to finish the dish (there were no onions in it by then), there is a very good reason for it.  Now that we have our new fosse septique I am keen not to overload it with too much gunge so have got into the habit of wiping fatty dishes with kitchen paper which I then dispose of in the bin, along with all bits on the plate, thereby flushing less grease into the fosse.  With something like this I am happy for Lulu to help out and make the task easier!

Ingredients

500g maincrop potatoes, washed and halved then sliced into roughly 1cm slices

2 tblsp garlic oil

4-5 chicken legs, skin on

5-6 shallots, peeled

100g bacon lardons

1 lemon, cut into eight wedges

1 tblsp dried oregano

100ml white wine

200ml chicken stock (made from half an Oxo cube*)

*use Marigold powder for a gluten free version

Method

Preheat the oven to 220°C / 200° fan / gas mk 7.

Put the potato slices in a bowl with 1 tblsp of the oil, season with salt and pepper and stir to coat all the slices.  Tip into a large roasting tin or baking dish and spread out evenly.  Bake for 20 mins.

While the potatoes are baking, remove any excess or flappy bits of skin from the chicken and season with salt and pepper and prepare the shallots.  Check your paintbrush isn’t drying out.

After the first 20 minutes, remove the tin from the oven and add the chicken on top of the potatoes.  Scatter the lemon wedges, lardons, shallots and oregano over the top and drizzle with the other 1tblsp of oil.  Return to the oven for another 20 minutes.

During the second phase of cooking, set the table, prepare any additional veg, open the wine, pour yourself a glass and slap another coat of paint on the wall over the fireplace!

When the timer pings, pour the wine and stock over the chicken and return to the oven for a third 20 minutes, after which the chicken should be cooked and the potatoes tender.

Serves 4