Simple Cosy Stuffed Roast Chicken

May 23, 2016 — Leave a comment

Music I Cooked to:

Ingredients:

For the stuffing:

Half a jar of cranberry sauce – around 200g
100ml ruby port
2 small onion, chopped
200g Pancetta or smoked bacon cubes
100g butter
4 garlic cloves, chopped
900g sausage meat
280g fresh white or brown breadcrumbs
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
½ tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
300g peeled, cooked chestnuts roughly chopped
2 medium egg, lightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste

For the roast chicken:

2 x medium free-range chickens
about 500ml of chicken stock
250ml white wine
2 lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation Method:

For the stuffing –

Chop and fry the onion and pancetta gently in the butter, until the onion is tender and the bacon is cooked.
Add the garlic to onion and pancetta cubes and continue to fry for another minute or so.
Leave to cool slightly, then mix with all the remaining ingredients, including the cranberries and port, and add enough egg to bind. Fry a knob of stuffing in a little butter, taste and then adjust the seasoning as you see fit.
To stuff the chicken, begin at the neck end where you will find a flap of loose skin: gently loosen this away from the breast and pack about two-thirds of the stuffing inside. Make a neat round shape on the outside then tuck the neck flap under the bird’s back (you can secure it with a small skewer). Take the remaining stuffing and place it in the body cavity.
Place the chickens into a roasting tin, breast-sides up, and add just enough chicken stock and white wine to cover the bottom of the roasting tin.
Place the chicken in the roasting tin and smear 2 oz (50 g) of softened butter all over the chicken with your hands. Squeeze over the juice of half a lemon. Season the chicken all over with salt and freshly milled black pepper then arrange 7 rashers of smoked streaky bacon in a row along the breast. Cut one extra rasher in two and place a piece on each leg. Finally place the remaining half a lemon between the legs of the chicken. Cover the roasting tin with aluminium foil.
Roast in the centre of a pre-heated oven, gas mark 5, 375°F (190°C), for 20 minutes per lb (450 g) plus 10-20 minutes extra – this will be 1 hour and 50 minutes to 2 hours for a 5 lb (2.25 kg) bird. Baste three times with the stock/white wine mixture and fat during the cooking time. During the last basting, remove the crisped bacon rashers and keep them warm. For the final 30 minutes of cooking, remove the foil increase the heat to gas mark 7, 425°F (220°C) to give the skin that final golden crispiness. When it is cooked, remove it from the oven and cover it with foil. Sprinkle over some fresh chopped parsley. Leave to rest for 30 minutes before serving.

The stuffing used in this recipe can also be baked in a dish, or rolled into balls that will be crisp on the outside and moist inside. To bake, press the stuffing into a greased ovenproof dish in a layer that is around 4cm thick. Bake at 190C/gas 5/fan 170C for about 40 minutes, until browned and, in the case of sausage meat stuffing, cooked right through. Alternatively, roll into balls that are about 4cm in diameter. Roast the stuffing balls in hot fat (they can be tucked around the bird to be roasted, or done in a roasting tin of their own) for 30-40 minutes, until crisp and nicely browned on the outside.

Spicy Spanish Style Chicken

October 22, 2014 — Leave a comment

Pure warming, hearty, comfort food – perfect for this time of year as the nights begin to draw in. Frying the chicken before roasting it helps to give it a nice crispy skin, and then cooking it in the sauce adds loads of lovely spicy, punchy flavour to the meat. I like to eat this with some simply cooked white rice and lots of crusty bread to mop up the delicious sauce. Easy to cook, nutritious, healthy, easy on the wallet and amazingly tasty – whats not to like!

Music I Cooked to:

Ingredients

2 red onions
2 medium sized carrots
2 cloves of garlic
3 Chicken thighs (bone in)
3 Chicken legs
Tin butter beans
200g smoked ham (cubed or chopped) – ideally for authenticity use Panceta Adobado (Spanish pancetta). You could use normal pancetta… if you do, it would be good to marinade it in red wine vinegar, smoked paprika and garlic for a couple of hours beforehand. Link to Spanish Panceta HERE. Waitrose do an easy version HERE.
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp Sun Dried Tomato paste
2 tbsp chilli powder
2 tbsp smoked paprika
Handful chopped parsley
Handful peas (fresh or frozen)
salt and pepper to taste
100ml Chicken stock
100ml Balsamic vinegar
250ml red wine (spanish for extra authenticity)
Splash of red wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar or honey

Preparation Method:

Finely dice and chop the onions, chilli, and garlic.
Very finely slice the carrots
Heat a frying pan with a tbsp of vegetable oil. At the same time pre-heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.
Fry the chicken pieces until they are nicely browned all over.
Season the chicken with salt and pepper – cover with foil and set aside
In the same pan fry the onion over a medium-high heat until they begin to brown.
Add the carrots and fry for another 8 mins until the carrot begins to soften. Add a splash of red wine vinegar.
Add the garlic and chilli and continue to fry for a further 5 mins.
Add the red wine, balsamic vinegar and chicken stock. Turn down to a medium heat and cook for 5 mins
Add the tomato puree, sun dried tomato paste, smoked paprika, chilli powder and stir in. Continue to reduce. You should end up with a thick sauce like consistency.
Drain the butter beans and add to the sauce
Add the chicken pieces to the sauce.
Add the sugar. Simmer the whole mixture for a further 5 mins.
Take the base mixture off the hob, cover with foil and place in the oven for around 30mins.
After 25mins quickly fry the smoked ham in some oil for around 2mins
After 30mins remove from the oven, take off the foil. Baste the chicken with the sauce, add the smoked ham to the pan and place back in the oven for another 10-15 mins until the chicken skin is nicely browned and crispy.
For the last few minutes of cooking time place the peas into the pan
Remove from the oven and sprinkle over the parsley
To serve prepare some white rice, spoon the rice into a bowl and then place a piece of chicken meat with a generous helping of the rich, delicious sauce on top.

Hearty, Zesty, Rich Beef Ragù

July 14, 2014 — Leave a comment

So here it is by popular demand… well I say popular – two people asked for it, in fact probably just one person really, and I’m totally imagining the other. But anyway – here it is… my recipe for a frickin tasty, meat-tastic beef ragù. Be warned – it has to be slow cooked for at least a couple of hours minimum – so if your idea of effort in the kitchen is reaching for the HP sauce from the highest shelf in cupboard this may not be the recipe for you. Having said that its not a complicated recipe, and anyone with enough common sense to be around hot/pointy kitchen implements and utensils, without supervision, should have no problem getting brilliant results. Once its in the oven, it just needs checking every so often – leaving you free to find something suitably random to stick on Netflix for 3 hours – ‘Gangsters vs Zombies’ looks interesting. Anyway… back on track – a ragù is just a meat based sauce for pasta – thats it… nothing complicated, just a italian sounding meat stew really. This one, like many has a tomato and meat stock base, enhanced with a rich good quality red wine. Recipes do not come much easier than this and the BIG, deep, sumptuous, opulent flavours that come from the rich sauce and meltingly tender, slow cooked meat are just awesome – as with many recipes like this the effort to results ratio is pretty generous. The flavours come in amazing waves of complexity too – sweet, savoury, tangy, meaty… they just keep on coming. My girlfriend and I have been enjoying many bowls of this sitting on the sun on our little balcony recently – as this is the kind of dish thats perfect for cooking up a big batch and sticking in the fridge to heat up throughout the week. And just like all dishes of this kind – beef bourguignon, english stew or a meat paella – a couple of days in the fridge soaking up flavour just improves it. Its also perfect for cooking up in big batches if you have a load of mouths to feed as its so easy to do, and basically is classic one big pot cooking – I recently had to do this myself, cooking up two big patches for my girlfriend to take on a girls weekend away she was doing with some friends in a beach cabin – though I have to admit it probably didn’t taste as good as concentrating on cooking up one, amazing, fantastically layered and slow cooked batch of ragù on a lazy Saturday or Sunday and enjoying it in the evening sun with a good glass of wine.

Music I Cooked to:

For the ragú

Light olive oil, for frying
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
4 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
3 sticks celery, finely diced
6 Tomatos de-seeded and chopped
1 chopped red chilli
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
750g beef cut suitable for slow cooking, chopped into 3cm/1in cubes e.g shoulder steaks
200g pancetta
Jar of anchovies
Zest of an orange – grated
Zest and juice of 1 lemon – grated
500ml Italian red wine
600ml beef stock
2 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp brown sugar
4 sprigs Lemon Thyme, leaves picked and roughly chopped
4 sprigs Tarragon, leaves picked and roughly chopped

Preparation method

Preheat the oven to 160C/300F/Gas 2.
Prep your veg – rough chop the carrots and celery, dice the onions and de-seed/chop the tomatoes.
Add some oil to an ovenproof, heavy-based pan set over a high heat and add the beef pieces. Fry until the meat is golden-brown on all over – this may have to be done in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan.
Remove the meat from the pan and set a side. Reduce to a medium heat and add the onion, carrot, celery.
When the vegetables have softened, add the pancetta, chilli and garlic to the pan. Cook for about five minutes until much of the pancetta fat has melted and the vegetables have browned a little around the edges.
Add the browned beef to the vegetables. Pour the red wine into the frying pan. Cook over a medium heat, scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze it.
Add the tomato purée and chopped tomatoes to the ragú and stir through. Cook for a couple of minutes stirring regularly to avoid burning
Add the beef stock and bring to a simmer
Add the grated citrus zest and stir through. If you like your ragù with a bit of a zesty kick like I do you can use the zest of 2 oranges instead of one
Squeeze the juice from the lemon into the ragù
Take 4-5 anchovies and finely chop. Add, then stir well.
Add the chopped lemon thyme and stir through. Sprinkle in a tbsp of brown sugar
Put the lid on the pan and place in the preheated oven for 2½ – 3 hours, or until the meat is meltingly tender and the liquid reduced to a lovely thick sauce like consistency. Check JUST once or twice in this time and stir to prevent the meat on the surface drying out. Top up with a very little extra beef stock and wine if you think its needed.
To serve, place some fresh tagliatelle or pappardelle in a bowl and spoon over the ragù. Sprinkle over some chopped fresh tarragon.