"Maneating" Chicken - or Chicken in a maple syrup & mustard glaze.

We were really looking forward to sampling this Maneating Chicken.  No, really!

Hubby had been browsing through Pinterest again and had been enticed by the fantastic photograph and the title of "Man-pleasing Chicken".  The photograph linked back to a lovely blog called wittyinthecity.com which has lots of interesting looking (and sounding) recipes.

The recipe was simplicity itself - basically make up a maple syrup/Dijon mustard/white wine vinegar mix to go over your chicken pieces - then in the oven they go.

The smell of the chicken cooking was completely mouthwatering and bode well for the eating.

Snuggled up in a bath of mustardy goodness

I think hubby was a little bit disappointed in the end result, as I can't help feeling that he was hoping for something more than the simplicity of the mix.  However - and this is testament to the big flavours that were going on there - when son & heir took his first taste, his brow wrinkled and he exclaimed "wasabi!".

Amazingly, I could see exactly where he was coming from with his horseradish/wasabi comment, as the combination of the slightly smokiness of the maple syrup with the warmth and earthy tanginess of the Dijon mustard had definitely combined into something reminiscent of wasabi.  Son & heir wasn't entirely sold on the idea - horseradish is a fairly new flavour for him, so he was a little bit challenged by it.

As for me, well, I loved it.  I loved the flavours, I loved the texture of the baked chicken, I loved the look of it - everything.  I'd have been very happy to have had the exact same dinner the next day, too!

Hubby cooked an interesting side dish of sesame green beans and broccoli, which I also loved and could have eaten a whole lot more than was on my plate - but mustn't be greedy.  The roasted sweet potato cubes were lovely and although it didn't look like there was much on the plate (hubby's view, not mine!), I definitely felt that I'd eaten a complete meal by the end of it.

I guess if you're a bit nervous of the "horseradish effect", the thing to do would be to substitute honey for the maple syrup.  After all, a honey mustard glaze is a classic - and done this way, just can't go wrong.

MANEATING CHICKEN  (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

3 skinless boneless chicken breasts (or the equivalent in leg pieces)
half a cup of Dijon mustard
quarter of a cup of Maple syrup
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
two sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped finely.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

2.  In a bowl, combine the Dijon mustard, Maple syrup and white wine vinegar.  Mix well.

3.  Take each chicken breast and cut into three pieces.  Place into a suitably sized oven dish that will enable the chicken to lay in a pool of the mustard mixture.

4.  Sprinkle each with a little seasoning, then pour over the mustard mixture and turn the chicken pieces, making sure that each piece of chicken is well coated.

5.  Bake in the oven for 40 minutes, basting half way through, until the edges of the meat are beginning to char slightly and the chicken demonstrates no pinkness when a knife is slipped into it.

6.  Allow the chicken to rest for 5 or so minutes before serving.

7.  Make sure to spoon any extra sauce over the top of the chicken, as it is way too good to leave in the pan!  Sprinkle on a little of the rosemary, add your choice of vegetables and serve.

Printable version
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Meal planning for a new week

We met again on Monday last, across a bed strewn with recipes, notepads, pens and Jack Russell terriers - and planned this week's meals.  Oh, the romance!

Well, actually, making a menu plan is a nice excuse for a cup of coffee and a couple of hours spent talking (almost exclusively) about food, flavours, what goes with what, what might go with what, what cooking methods to use, what turns out to be way too expensive, etc.  Allow for a bit of deviation from the focus of the conflab, to scratch a dog's ears or retrieve a pen from the other dog's mouth - you can imagine, if you've ever owned a dog, I'm sure.

We started from a position of "what do we know for sure we'll be cooking?", moved on to "what have we been yearning for?" and "what have we had in mind to cook?", winding up with "what's a family favourite that's easy to do?".

The final list looks like this :

Tues : Pizza

Weds : Springtime Pasta and meatballs

Thurs : Maneating Chicken, roast sweet potato with sesame broccoli & beans
Fri : Kari Udang with rice

Sat : Tarragon Chicken & Asparagus, Jersey Royals, broccoli & peas

Sun : Slow Roast Cinnamon, Fennel & Cirtus Lamb with Roast Rosemary & Sea Salt Jersey Royals, Green spring vegetable Thoran & gravy.

Mon : Chilli con carne with potato wedges.

Well, Tuesday's Pizza doesn't come into any of the categories above, as it forms a bit of a breathing space in between weeks.  It's good to just chuck a pizza into the oven every so often - and it's always a winner with son & heir.

Eat at lunchtime .. sleep rest of day

Wednesday's Springtime Pasta and Meatballs got bounced from last week owing to our having broken our tummies by eating the remains of the Tuna & Vegetable Lasagne for lunch.  I hasten to add that they weren't broken in a bad way, just broken in a "I couldn't eat another thing for many hours" kind of way.

Everything was keepable - even the Little Gem lettuce, which has kept very well in the vegetable drawer of the fridge - so it was easy to bounce along to this week.

Thursday's "Maneating Chicken" originated as "Man pleasing chicken", but the name got adjusted along the way by hubby.  He discovered the original recipe on the Witty in the City website and loved both the look and the sound of the recipe - plus, its reputation as "man pleasing chicken" is always a good sign.

He's going to be making roast sweet potatoes in a very similar fashion to the roast butternut squash (except with different spicing) that we had this last weekend with the pork.  It will be interesting to see how they turn out, as I have a great deal of problem getting sweet potato to caramelise and look roasted, instead of just mushed!

I think this one qualifies under the "what have we been yearning for?" category, as hubby has always wanted to find a really really good chicken recipe - one which knocks spots off of all the others.

The Kari Udang is a Malaysian recipe recommended to me by The Spice Traders.   Taken from their website, it has required a bit of sourcing of things like curry leaves and fenugreek, but we (pretty much) had the remainder of the spices in the cupboards and fridge already.  I really like prawn curries and we've picked up some King Prawns to use, so I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be great.  I think this one comes under the "what have we had in mind to cook" category, as I'm always in the market for an authentic Malay recipe.

Saturday's Tarragon Chicken with Asparagus is a recipe from this month's BBC Good Food magazine.  The minute I saw the photograph, it was love at first sight and I knew I had to make it - and soon.  It doesn't seem to have hit their website yet, or I'd show it to you - but take it from me that it looked completely gorgeous.

Cooked with lovely steamed Jersey Royal potatoes (which are our favourite type of new potato), broccoli and peas, I think it'll make a superb Saturday dinner.

Hubby's back in the kitchen with his "Sunday Lunch Chef" hat on next. We were originally planning on a salmon dish - right up until I saw an advert for reduced price lamb at Tesco.  I'm afraid I was swayed by this and we drove down to our local Tesco and made off with a leg of lamb just this morning.  We have since reconvened the brainstorming session (complete with accompanying Jack Russells, ever keen to be in the midst of a major conflab) and come up with what sounds like a terrific menu for Sunday's lunch.

Photograph c/o BBC Good Food website

It will now be a slow roasted leg of lamb - marinated in lemon & orange, rubbed with cinnamon, fennel & garlic, then roasted for a minimum of 4 hours.  As side dishes, we've come up with roast Jersey Royals with sea salt & rosemary, after which we go off up a complete side road with an Anjum Anand recipe for Green Spring Vegetable Thoran.  You can find the exact same recipe here, although it isn't credited to Anjum at all, so I don't know who got which from whom - but here it is, anyway.  The Thoran has no sauce as such, so will go very nicely with the lamb & potatoes, leaving us the elbow room in the ingredients list to make a lovely gravy from the lamb pan juices.


Wish hubby luck with this one, he's not going to need it, but he is going to need some support with just thinking about creating it all and having it all go right!

Good old Chilli con Carne makes another showing on the menu list for Bank Holiday Monday.  We all love this one, but to make it a little different this time, we thought we'd serve it with potato wedges.  It all depends on whether we've a lot of potatoes going wrinkly as to whether we make the wedges or just chuck some in the oven from the freezer!

Either way, with grated cheese and some sultanas to sprinkle on the top (you don't have sultanas?  What?  Try it, next time!) I know it'll be empty bowls all round.

I don't suppose the weather will do anything but rain, however, with the chance that we might see some sun on that day I've purposely not scheduled anything that takes a long time to make.  It'd be nice to get out and see something other than these four walls! 

Ruby's first crop of rhubarb - plenty more where that came from!

As for extra cooking, well we're still on the lookout for a good rhubarb chutney recipe and I've still to bake a cake.  I'm guaranteeing nothing where either of them are concerned, it all depends upon finding the right recipe (or dreaming one up!) and the time available!

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