Allspice chicken and mango rice - suddenly, we're in the Caribbean!

I'm often drawn towards recipes for traybakes.  They always look so good, with beautifully golden roasted chicken pieces nestling amongst gorgeous roasted vegetables that have just begun to caramelise.  However, my efforts haven't always been successful in the traybake department.

As such, I was bearing this in mind when I found myself drawn towards the recipe for Mango chicken, bean & rice bake in the latest BBC Good Food magazine.  There were the golden roasted chicken pieces, as cosy as can be beside chunks of glowing mango, on a bed of fluffy rice and shiny red kidney beans.

Looking at the ingredients, they seemed to fit what we like - but in a different way to normal.  There were Indian curry ingredients there (chilli, coriander, ginger, onion, rice) with Caribbean influences (allspice, mango and kidney beans).  The recipe even called for lime - which as you know, I have quite a few of just at the moment!

After 30 mins cooking - all chutneyed up and ready to go back in!

I had a little word with hubby about whether he felt he could cope with chicken thighs in this instance.  He's a chicken breast man, ordinarily, you see.  I felt that the chicken thighs would give more flavour to the rice (as they sit on the rice to cook) than ever chicken breast would - plus thighs could cope better with the hour and a half they would be in the oven!  He wasn't convinced, but decided to take it like a man - and have a strategic sandwich afterwards if it all goes to worms.

Making the marinating mix was a breeze - a simple matter of chopping everything into bits and chucking it into the food processor, then whizzing, mixing and we're done for a day.

In fact, for all that the recipe is three main processes - marinating, 30 mins cooking then another 35-40 mins cooking, it really is incredibly easy to do.  Once again, it is a one-pot dish (unless, like me, you decide to add something like red cabbage & apple as a side dish - but that's up to you!) and they really are the easiest things in the world to make.

I have a couple of cook's notes for you though :

1.  If you can, following the 30 minutes cook under silver foil and before the next batch without the silver foil, remove the centre pieces of chicken and give the rice a bit of a stir there.  I found that at the very middle of my dish, the rice was still fairly under done and a bit of a stir at a judicious moment, would have solved that.

2.  If you have anyone who is - like hubby - a bit phobic about "globby bits", remove the skin from their chicken before marinating.  The skin is delicious eating - but not for certain people - and to remove it before serving will mean that they lose all the effects of the marination on the chicken, plus the mango chutney.

3.  Don't be tempted to put too much mango chutney onto the chicken.  I have reduced the amount to half a teaspoonful from a full teaspoonful, as it made the chicken rather too sweet.

So munchable!

4.  The marinade was full of flavour, but if you like the chilli heat do leave the seeds in.  I removed them from our chilli - and rather wished I hadn't by the end of it!

Hubby didn't have need of his emergency sandwich, he enjoyed the new combination of flavours and found the chicken agreeably tender (and free from the dreaded "globby bits", thanks to some careful trimming!).  He did make the comment - and I think he's quite right - in that pineapple would have been a good substitute for the mango.

Son and heir wasn't so keen on the clove-like allspice flavour that is prevalent all the way through the dish, but I think that is simply a matter of being unfamiliar with that particular flavour.  I really liked the dish and agreed, to some extent, with son & heir's lament about the allspice, so I have reduced it from one and a half teaspoonfuls to just the one teaspoonful, in acknowledgement of its dominance - which was a bit too much, I felt.  However, I really liked how sitting on top of the rice - initially in a stock bath - made the chicken incredibly tender.  It was literally falling off the bone.  Lovely!

Considering how differently this turned out to how I was expecting, it was a very interesting and remarkable dinner that is very well worth repeating.  I may well experiment with using chicken breast next time - and cook the rice in the oven without the chicken on board for the first half hour.  Interesting!  I'll let you know what happens.

ALLSPICE CHICKEN AND MANGO RICE   (feeds 4)

Ingredients :

1 small onion, roughly chopped
1 tsp finely grated ginger
2 garlic cloves
1 red chilli, seeds removed if necessary, roughly chopped
small handful of coriander - including stalks - chopped roughly
2 tsp thyme leaves
zest and juice of 2 small limes
1 tsp ground allspice
2 tbsp sunflower oil
8-10 chicken thighs, skin left on but trimmed of fat
300g long grain rice
400g tin kidney beans, rinsed and drained
500ml chicken stock
1 ripe mango, peeled, stoned and cut into small cubes
150g mango chutney.

Method :

1.  Marinate the chicken up to a day, or as little as an hour, before you want to cook it, by putting the onion, ginger, garlic, red chilli, coriander, thyme, lime, allspice and oil into a food processor and blitzing until a paste has been formed.  Pour the paste onto the trimmed chicken thighs in a large bowl and mix until the chicken has been coated.  Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge to marinate.

2.  Heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

3.  Rinse the rice in a sieve under the cold water tap until the water runs clear.  Then place the rice into a large high sided flat baking dish (a lasagne dish is perfect).  Add the kidney beans and a pinch of salt and level out the surface.

4.  Remove the chicken from the marinade onto a plate and stir the stock into the remains of the marinade in the bowl.  Pour the stock over the rice and beans.

5.  Sprinkle the mango pieces onto the top of the rice mixture and place the chicken pieces on top again.

6.  Cover the dish with silver foil and bake for 30 minutes.

7.  Remove the foil from the dish and increase the oven temperate to 220degC/425degF/Gas 7.  Spoon a half a teaspoon of mango chutney onto each chicken piece and return the dish to the oven for a further 35-40 minutes to brown the chicken and cook the rice.

8.  Before serving, remove the chicken pieces and fluff up the rice with a fork.

Serve.

Printable version
 

Smoky Pork & Bean Wraps - scrumpalicious!

We've done a very good line in swerving various recipes for various reasons, this week.  As a result, very few of those planned recipes have happened on the day they were supposed to - but this one got moved, moved again, then happened on the right day in the end.

All the "do we, don't we" was down to two things.  Firstly, we kept forgetting to buy a tin of smoked paprika - even though we'd gone to the shop specifically for that very thing - and secondly, because of son & heir's social engagements.

Having finally decided to do the Wraps on the Saturday evening, this necessitated another trip to a shop to buy the darned smoked paprika and some more pork mince, as we had another mouth to feed.

This time, we managed to leave the shop with the smoked paprika!  I swear, it's the onset of age.  Either that, or we've got too many things to think about and keep getting distracted.  Can't just be a bad memory.  :: shakes head ::  Oh no, definitely not.  What was I talking about, again? 

The "real thing"

Do you know, I reckon that 99% of alternative supplies of smoked paprika could very easily be disposed of, as none of the ones I've ever tried (mostly because I couldn't get the tin of "real thing") are just house dust by comparison.  The smell of the real thing is just so powerful - it promises so much by way of flavour, all of which it delivers.  In fact, hubby had a camp fire in his patio fire bowl on the Saturday night (with the sleepover boys all gathered around, feeling grown up and manly as they tended the fire and talked guitars), and that fire smelled almost exactly the same as the paprika did.  Maybe they were chucking teaspoonfuls on the fire - I hope not.  *chuckle*

Anyway, I'm supposed to be talking about dinner, aren't I?  See?  Easily distracted.

Well, this meal was another very satisfactorily easy to prepare one.  The original recipe came from ye good olde BBC Good Food Magazine, but they don't seem to have included it in the recipes on the website yet.

As ever (you should come to expect this now), I changed the recipe a little to fit rather better with being able to drain off the fat from the meat and because our guest hasn't got our fortitude where chilli is concerned, I used just a tablespoon of the barbecue sauce, then cooked the filling through to the finished product and decanted enough for one portion out into a separate pan.  I then included the three remaining tablespoonfuls of barbecue sauce into the rest of the mix for us.

The barbecue sauce I used, was one of Levi Roots' products - his famous "Reggae Reggae" BBQ/Jerk Sauce.  I've not used this before and blimey but it's good!  To say it is frisky is an understatement - our poor guest was even a little over-challenged by the one tablespoonful in his wraps.  We are all great chilli hounds, so the friskiness of the sauce was very welcome for us.

I also used Tarantella tomato passata, which is just streets ahead of other passatas for flavour (in my opinion).  I know I've rattled on about Tarantella products before, so I won't bore you again now - but if you can find them, try them.

These wraps don't quite measure up to "The best Enchiladas evar!", but I can tell you, it was a close run thing.   It was interesting to have a wrap filling made with pork mince - which naturally goes so well with the spices, tomato and barbecue sauce.  I don't doubt it would have been nice made with any kind of mince (turkey comes to mind, for economy), but the pork mince gave it a particular texture that invited you to "get your teeth into it" in a most satisfying way.


If like our guest, you aren't so good with chillies, then I suggest you get a mild barbecue sauce, as there isn't much spicy heat involved other than that.  However, if you're a chilli hound - definitely go with the Reggae Reggae sauce, you won't regret it!


SMOKY PORK & BEAN WRAPS    (makes 8-10 wraps or 8 wraps and 2 lunches!)


Ingredients :


750g pack of pork mince
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 red onion, chopped
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cumin
400ml passata
5-6 tbsp barbecue sauce
400g red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
small bunch of coriander, chopped
8 corn wraps.


Method :


1.  Dry fry the mince in a large frying pan or wok, until all the meat has changed colour and the fat has rendered out.  Remove the meat with a slotted spoon and keep it warm.  Drain away the fat and discard.


2.  Add the oil and the onion and cook over a medium heat until softened but not browned.


3.  Sprinkle over the spices and stir well, cooking for one minute more.


4.  Add the passata and barbecue sauce along with 4 tablespoonfuls of water.  Add the minced meat back to the pan along with the beans and some seasoning and stir until thoroughly mixed.


5.  Allow the mixture to simmer and reduce, until the sauce is clinging to the meat and not pooling around the meat.  You will need to stir at regular intervals, to prevent the mixture catching on the bottom of the pan and burning.

6.  At the last minute, stir in the coriander and serve by taking a warmed wrap, then placing on some shredded lettuce, then some soured cream and enough of the meat filling that the wrap will comfortably hold.  Roll it up, put it on a plate along with some tomato salsa and some potato wedges.  Yum!


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Chicken & bean enchiladas : the best enchiladas ever!

Which was how these enchiladas were described by both hubby and son.  In fact, hubby was even heard to mutter "eat your heart out, Thomasina Miers!" - which I take to be quite a compliment.

I can't take full credit for the recipe though, as the original version came from a BBC Good Food magazine - and you can see the original recipe online here.  For all that my version of the recipe is very similar, I did opt to develop my own spicing for them and, instead of using roast chicken legs, I cooked off two raw chicken breasts that had been lurking in my freezer, looking for something to do.

In fact, I am jolly pleased with this recipe. To explain, our butcher sells chicken breasts as 5 for £5. Ordinarily, I'm preparing a breast for each of us, which leaves the odd number of two. Invariably, these get added to the freezer and we buy another 5. So, to have a recipe that uses just two chicken breasts across a meal that satisfies 3 people, is marvellous.

As for the spicing, well, I object to having to pay 85p and upwards for a sachet of spice mix when I've invariably got exactly those spices - but individually - in my cupboard.  So, I had a good old look at the ingredients list on three different sachets and discovered that there was nothing involved in the pre-prepared spice mix that I didn't have.  I knew I had to provide a tablespoonful of fajita seasoning and I have had fajitas previously so I knew the sort of balance of flavours I was after.  My spice mix consisted of a flat teaspoonful of smoked paprika, three quarters of a teaspoonful of hot chilli powder, a rounded teaspoonful of ground cumin, a third of a teaspoonful of thyme and the same again of ground black pepper.  Having mixed all those in, the chilli effect wasn't quite as pronounced as I wanted, so I added a pinch of dried chilli flakes, plus some salt.  Perfect!

Ready for the oven

This really is simplicity itself to make.  I whipped up the enchilada filling before collecting son & heir from school, then when we returned, I filled the enchiladas, covered them with grated cheddar - and by the time I'd opened the sour cream, the salsa and made a little salad, the enchiladas had ten minutes left in the oven.  It really couldn't have gone any better.

If you're planning on cooking these for younger children who can manage a knife and fork but who don't have the track record of being able to cope with chilli, you can easily leave out the chilli flakes (which makes them mediumly spicy) and/or the chilli powder (which renders them mildly chillified).  The beans come in a chilli sauce which is very mildly spiced - so the enchiladas can be adjusted up or down, according to taste.

I enjoyed this dish very much.  For us, the spicing was perfectly balanced and could be adjusted up or down as you ate them by the addition of the spicy salsa or alternatively the sour cream.  I was initially sceptical about the inclusion of the kidney beans in spicy sauce, but I will admit that this ingredient made the dish.  Something else that made the enchiladas both interesting and added a slight crunch, was the addition of the sweetcorn.  I really liked the textural changes it brought and the additional little shots of sweetness.

Both hubby and son & heir were quite upset when they'd finished their two and half enchiladas - and were begging me to make them again, and soon.  The next time I have two chicken breasts looking for a home to go to, I think I will!

This blog post has been submitted to Ren Behan's "Family Friendly Fridays" competition :)

CHICKEN & BEAN ENCHILADAS  (makes 7-8)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
a red onion, chopped finely
1 garlic clove, grated

a flat tsp smoked paprika
three quarters of a tsp hot chilli powder
a rounded tsp ground cumin
a third of a tsp thyme
a third of a tsp ground black pepper
a pinch of dried chilli flakes (optional, for chilli heat)
a pinch of sea salt
2 skinless chicken breasts, diced finely
2 x 350g tins of red kidney beans in chilli sauce
198g tin of sweetcorn
corn wraps
100-150g grated mature cheddar

To serve :
200ml hot tomato salsa
150ml soured cream
some mixed salad.  

Method :

1.  Pre-heat oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.

2.  Pour the oil into a frying pan and add the onions.  Cook on a low-medium heat for around 5 minutes, or until softened and beginning to caramelise.  Add the garlic and continue to cook for another minute or so.

3.  Add the spices and salt and stir to combine.  Cook them, stirring all the time, for a another couple of minutes or until they begin to become fragrant.


4.  Add the chicken breast pieces and increase the heat slightly to prevent them from poaching.   Keep stirring and turning the chicken until it has all coloured.


5.  Add the kidney beans and sweetcorn and stir to combine.  Allow to simmer for 5 minutes or so, to reduce the sauce slightly and allow the flavours to mingle correctly.


6.  Place a corn wrap flat onto a chopping board and add the chicken mixture horizontally along the centre line.  Take the side closest to you and wrap it over the filling, tucking it under the other side of the filling and so creating a filled tube.  Roll the wrap away from you, then lift it carefully into a baking dish, placing it with the join as the underside.  Continue until all the filling is used up.  Don't be worried about squashing them in!


7.  Sprinkle the top surface of the rolled wraps with cheese and place into the oven for 25-30 minutes.  Test that the centre wrap is hot enough, by piercing with the tip of a knife, then (carefully) hold the knife against your top lip.  You should not be able to leave the knife in contact with your lip for very long at all, if the Enchiladas are heated through properly.


8.  Serve with a hot tomato salsa, some soured cream as a coolant and some fresh salad.


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Beautiful burritos - more please!

So tell me.  Where did the last ten days go?  Did anyone notice them flashing past at a rate of knots, because I didn't.  One moment it was Wednesday of the week before, the next moment it is today and we're here wondering what happened.

Well, in fact, I know what happened.  It went like this (in chronological order) :

- son & heir's Jazz Band night at school;
- lunch with my parents at their place (we had some gorgeous lamb shanks. Such a treat!);
- son & heir's friend came over for the afternoon;
- we all went to see Mike Dawes & Amy Turk perform at the Bournemouth Folk Club (they were majestically awesome);
- son & heir's Rock Band School night;
- son & heir's Jazz Band night at school;
- a sudden desire for fish & chips;
- my Dad's 80th birthday party at my brother's place (his wife made Beef Stroganoff which was delicious and Coq au Vin which looked delicious!  I made him a Beetroot & Chocolate Birthday cake which I hope I can show you, when my niece emails the photographs to me).

So, one way and another, you could probably sum the last ten days up with "guitars & good wishes".

I didn't even get to post the week's menu up for last week, such was my distraction.  However, it's probably just as well I didn't - as if you read this week's version it's got a lot of what should have happened last week (and didn't) in it.  Fingers crossed for this week!

I did manage to make one nice dinner last week, which was the Tave Me Presh (or Baked Mince with Leeks).  Because, this time around, I'm steering clear of carbohydrates as much as possible, I didn't indulge in much more than a forkful of mashed potato.  Son & heir loves mashed potato, so I made some for him and stole a forkful.  I filled the potato gap with some sauteed courgettes & mushrooms which were a real treat.


Tave Me Presh is one of my very favourite dishes, I've decided.  The ingredients seem to be so simple that it sounds highly unlikely that they'll taste good together.  In fact, it is one of those dishes that the act of cooking just makes magic happen.  The leeks and the lamb combine to make a gloriously buttery collaboration that it is hard to imagine that butter wasn't involved somewhere along the line.  The sweet peppers have just enough sweetness to take away that rough edge that leeks can bring, plus they add a welcome shot of colour.  If you like leeks and lamb, do try it.  I'm sure you'll like it.

Hubby had a flash of inspiration over one of his dishes.  He had dreamed up a dish of corn tortillas, interspersed with a hot chilli con carne mixture, which would be baked in the oven.  Named the "Mexican Wheel of Pain" it would all be topped off with avocado and was specifically designed to appeal to my anti-inflammatory diet's requirements.  However, as the time drew near for him to create this marvellous recipe, he was running out of inspiration and energy (you just wouldn't believe how often that happened to us both, last week!).  To save the dinner from disaster, he decided to downgrade his plans and instead made Burritos.


Now I have a marked partiality for Burritos, which was caused by my local Spar shop - approximately 20 years ago - selling the most fabulous Burritos from their delicatessen.  I would drive from the horses' field (where I spent all the time I wasn't asleep or at work) 2 minutes up the road, pick up a Burrito and a coffee, drive back and sit munching happily whilst watching the horses doing their thing around the field.  Happy days!

Hubby has made Burritos in the past, but I wasn't terribly struck on them.  This was because we habitually used flour tortillas which I really don't like very much at all.  They always taste of some preservative or another, which I find distinctly yuk.  Now because wheat flour is out, but corn is okay (according to the anti-inflammatory diet), we swapped to corn tortillas.  Wow!  What a difference!


I absolutely loved these Burritos.  They were as close as you could get, to those yummy Spar Burritos of days gone by.  The chilli mixture had been reduced as far as you could go and was just moist, rather than running out the end of the tortilla wrap.  Also, hubby had used a fraction of smoked paprika, along with some smoked streaky bacon, to develop and deepen the flavours.  Once again, this was such a simple recipe - but one I'd be happy to eat again and again.


BURRITOS  (makes 6-7 burritos)


Ingredients :


4 rashers streaky bacon, sliced finely
1 onion, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
2 long red chilli, chopped fine (seeds discarded if you prefer your chilli cooler)
500g minced beef
400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 flat tsp smoked paprika
half a tsp dried sage
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
400g tin red kidney beans (I recommend Bonduelle - in which case, 2 x 200g tins)
pack of 8 corn tortillas (soft versions)
a handful of grated cheddar cheese.


Method :


1.  Pre-heat your oven to 180deg C/350deg F/Gas 4 and prepare a flat baking tray.

2.  In a deep frying pan, dry fry the bacon pieces until the fat runs and the bacon is beginning to get crispy.  Remove and keep warm.

3.  Fry the onion in the bacon fat until softened, then add the garlic and chilli and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes.  Remove and keep warm.


4.  Fry the beef until all the moisture has been removed from the mince, the beef is completely browned and the fat has separated.  At this stage, you can drain off the fat if you're conscious of your weight.


5.  Return the bacon and onion mixture to the pan and mix to combine.


6.  Add the tomatoes and tomato puree, then the paprika and sage.  Season to taste and add a teaspoon of sugar if the tomato sauce seems too acidic.  If your chilli hasn't added enough kick at this stage, add some dried chilli flakes to pep it up a bit.


7.  Add the kidney beans and stir through.  Bring to a simmer.


8.  Simmer the mixture (stirring occasionally) until it has reduced to a point where there is no discernible runny sauce.


9.  Allow to cool slightly, then fill each tortilla wrap with the chilli mixture and roll it up.


10.  Place each roll onto the baking tray and, once all are assembled, sprinkle the lot with the cheddar.


11.  Place into the oven until the cheese has melted, the chilli has reheated and the wraps are turning crispy.


12.  Serve with a layered salad plus a dollop of soured cream.


Delicious!

Inflammation factor : +76 (approx) per serving of 2 burritos minus salad.

Pepperpot Beef & Orange Stew

We had this for dinner on Sunday last.  As you'll know if you've been reading along for a while, I got bored with doing the same old roasts on a Sunday and went looking for more interesting recipes to try.

However, I think I'm going to have to ban myself from buying Brisket of beef for a while, as that seems to wind up being the meat of choice for a Sunday - and that's getting just as boring as doing the same old roast chicken!  In fact, I found myself hankering for a lovely pot-roast chicken, but that may also have something to do with the fact that my reservoir of chicken stock is running low!

Anyway, the reasons I chose to do this Pepperpot Beef & Orange Stew are as follows.  For starters, it's beef and oranges.  Now you don't often find those two in the same cooking dish.  Secondly, it involved mashed red kidney beans being used as a method of thickening the gravy.  An interesting idea and one which I was keen to try out.  Lastly, it had Caribbean overtones and I'm very interested in Caribbean cooking, as I really like the combination of meat and fruit which they are very good at.

So that all amounted to an interested "I'll give that a try!".

As a first go, it didn't turn out too badly.  I made one or two mistakes which I would remedy the second time around - and which have been incorporated into the recipe below.  For example, I used the aforesaid Brisket of beef rather than the braising steak that was originally suggested.  Do you blame me? There's a whole heap of difference in the price of the two!  However, that meant that the dish would require a minimum of 2 hours cooking and a maximum of 3 hours.  Regrettably, it never occurred to me that in that time the red and yellow peppers would have been cooked away to nothing more than an ingredient in the gravy/sauce, which was a shame.  It would have been nice to have had them more prominently in the dish.  As such, I have suggested adding them a lot later into the cooking process.


I was also a little leery of putting too much chilli in - and as it happened, I would have been absolutely fine to have included the seeds, rather than binning them.  I did test the chilli on my tongue (for heat), but couldn't have paid much attention to the result, as a) I don't remember it and b) if I had have done, I'd have included the seeds!


What you wind up with, is a casserole dish full of lovely tender beef in a thick pinky-brown gravy (that's the red kidney beans) that is multi-faceted in flavour and well worth the effort of making it.


PEPPERPOT BEEF & ORANGE STEW ( serves 3-4)


Ingredients :


700g brisket of beef, trimmed and cut into small cubes
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
25g fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 small red chilli, de-seeded (if it's a hot one!) and chopped
400ml beef stock
410g can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 small orange, cut into six wedges
1 red pepper, de-seeded and chopped
1 yellow pepper, de-seeded and chopped
2 tbsp roughly chopped coriander leaves.


Method :


1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180deg C/Gas 4.


2.  Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a non-stick frying pan and add half the meat, browning all over.  Decant into a warmed casserole dish.


3.  Repeat the process with the second batch of meat, but when browned, sprinkle with the flour and add the tomato puree.  Mix well and cook for a couple of minutes without burning.  Decant the lot into the casserole dish.


4.  Give the frying pan a wipe out, then add the remainder of the oil and the onion,  ginger and chilli.  Cook gently until softened and golden brown - around 10 minutes.

5.  Take one half of the red kidney beans and mash them with a potato masher, then add them to the casserole dish, along with the whole beans.

6.  Add the stock and tip into the casserole dish, add the orange and stir to ensure everything is amalgamated.


7.  Cover the casserole dish and place into the oven for 1 hour.


8.  In the meantime, add the peppers to the frying pan and fry them lightly until just beginning to soften.


9.  At the end of the first hour, remove the casserole dish from the oven and give the contents a good stir.  Add the peppers and stir again.  Season, cover and replace into the oven for another hour and a half.


10.  Remove from the oven and test the beef.  If not tender enough, return to the oven for another half an hour.  You may need to add a little water at this stage, if the gravy/sauce has reduced too much.


11.  Once the beef is tender, remove and serve with rice and green peas with a blob of sour cream on the side.


Delicious!

Chicken in Cider - the "nearly rabbit".

I really wanted to find a rabbit from the butcher, this week.  Unfortunately, neither of our local butchers had rabbits (Spring Fields only stocked rabbits from China – what’s with that?) so I was left pondering on chicken versus pork as a satisfactory stand-in.

As it turned out, I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer in time, so we got another 5 chicken breasts for £5 and put two of them in the freezer for next week.  Far easier than pondering further on what cut of pork to use!

I can quite see how this recipe would be really suited to cooking a rabbit, as the chicken was nice, but rabbit would have lent a rather more earthy flavour to the ensuing sauce.  However, a gold star for excellence must be awarded to the Cider I used.  It was Sheppey’s Dabinett Cider, a single variety cider that at £1.54 for a 500ml bottle wasn’t the cheapest choice, but equally it could have been worse.  However, for flavour, it really was perfect.  In fact, by the time hubby and I had had tasties, there was little more than the required 350ml left!

I certainly didn’t miss the rabbit, as the chicken made for an excellent stand-in and we didn’t have to contend with son and heir’s distaste for rabbit.   He’s having problems getting past the “fluffy bunny” aspect, you see, but considering he’s just 12 it’s understandable.

One thing to bear in mind with this recipe is that it requires overnight marinating – so you need to have a plan in place and not forget to take the chicken out of the freezer, like I did. 

CHICKEN IN CIDER (serves 3)

Ingredients :

3 skinless chicken breasts

9 prunes

350ml dry cider

a large onion, sliced

1 tsp wholegrain mustard

2 bay leaves

salt and pepper

2-3 tbsp plain flour (more = thicker sauce, less = thinner sauce)

2 tbsp olive oil

10g butter

1 large parsnip, peeled and cut into chunks

small can red kidney beans, drained

Method :

1.  Put the chicken pieces into a large bowl with the prunes, cider, onions, mustard, bay leaves and 250ml water.  Season and stir gently to mix, then cover tightly and refrigerate overnight.

2.  The following day, pre-heat your oven to 180deg C/350deg F.

3.  Remove the chicken breasts and pat dry with kitchen paper.  Whilst the oil and butter heats up in an ovenproof casserole dish, toss the chicken in seasoned flour.  Then fry until brown and remove to keep warm.

4.  Sprinkle any remaining flour into the casserole and stir round.  Pour in the marinade, reserving the prunes.  Add the parsnips, return the chicken to the dish and bring to the boil, covered.

5.  Once at boiling point, put into the oven and bake for around 40 minutes.

6.  Add the prunes and the beans, cover again and bake for a further 15-20 minutes or until everything is tender.

Serve with mashed potato and green beans.

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Sausage Goulash

Hubby managed to pick up a pack of 12 speciality chipolatas for the price of an ordinary pack of sausages, the other day.  Although there were 12 in the pack, I felt they were a bit on the teensy side to be treated as just plain old sausages to be had with mash or suchlike, so began looking for a casserole-type dish to use them in.

I turned up a recipe for Sausage Goulash, which looked like it would have good results.  Indeed, it would have done, had it not have been for the accidental heavy hand with the crushed chillies and the quantity of paprika, which to hubby's taste was rather too strong.

Still, I enjoyed both the paprika and the chillies!  However, because I know that I'm currently going through a chilli-phase, I've re-written the recipe for another go at it, this time adjusting the quantities a tad.  Oh, and I'll try not to have a nerve jump in my hand right at the moment I'm shaking out a half a teaspoon of crushed chillies, next time.  LOL 

Incidentally, it would be easy for it to stretch to feed more people simply by including more vegetables in the mix.  Potato, sweet potato, parsnip, swede, peas, sweetcorn, green beans - all these would go very nicely.

SAUSAGE GOULASH (serves 3)

Ingredients

1 pack of sausages
2 onions, sliced thinly
2 cloves of garlic, grated or chopped
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 bay leaves (optional, depending on how herby the sausages are)
1 heaped tsp Paprika
1 tsp Smoked Paprika
half a tsp dried chilli flakes
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
4-5 mushrooms, quartered
1 small can kidney beans
1 small can chick peas or cannelini beans
600ml chicken stock
1 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
Plain yoghurt to garnish

Method

1.  Brown the sausages in a deep saucepan, then set aside.

2.  Fry sliced onions and garlic gently until golden, but not caramelised.

3.  Add paprika and stock.

4.  Add carrots, chick peas and beans, bay leaves, tomato puree & tomato ketchup and mushrooms.

5.  Return the sausages to the pan and simmer until the carrots are tender.

6.  Add the balsamic vinegar and simmer for 15 minutes more.

7.  To serve, decant into warmed bowls and add a generous blob of natural yoghurt on top.  If you really want to show off, add a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

Serve with crusty bread.