Fattet Djaj (Chicken and Chickpeas with Yoghurt)

So this is truly one of the yummiest chicken dishes I have ever made! This is from a recipe by Claudia Roden, who is a wonderful British chef whose specialty is Middle Eastern cuisine. She has written many great books, this recipe came from 'Arabesque'. I have made it twice now, and it has been really wonderful both times.

And it really is quite easy, really. And yes, I know I always say that! But, you boil a chicken, then layer it over some flatberad & chickpeas, then pop the whole thing in the oven. That is about it.

So I mentioned I've made this twice. The first time was exactly per the recipe below. Then I saved all the broth that I cooked the chicken in & froze it, as you would normally for stock. Stop laughing.

One night I made a roast chicken, and had half of it left over. So I defrosted the 'stock' and gently cooked the roast chicken meat in it for about 10 minutes. The end result was still fabulous.

This serves 6.

1kg natural (full-fat) yoghurt; look to see there is NO sugar
200g Greek style yoghurt
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1.5 tablespoons crushed dried mint, or a bunch of fresh (the recipe says dried, but I prefer fresh)
salt
1 large chicken (do, do, DO try to get a free range one)
1 large onion, cut in half
1 large carrot, cut into pieces
2 fresh bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick
6-8 whole cardamom pods
white pepper
3 very thin Lebanese or pitta breads (I found a fab Afghan bread: just use any flatbread you fancy)
3-4 tbs white wine vinegar
1 x 400g tin of chickpeas, drained
100g pine nuts (but almonds also work!)
2 tbs olive oil

1) Mix the yoghurts in a bowl, beat in the garlic & the mint w/ a little salt. Let it come to room temperature.

2) Put the chicken in a large saucepan & cover with water. Bring to the boil & remove any scum (scum is that white stuff you can see in the picture. Don't stress too much about getting every last bit). Add the onion, the carrot, the bay leaves, cinnamon stick & cardamom pods, and salt & pepper. Simmer, covered, for 1-1.5 hours, until chicken is very tender & almost falls off the bone. Set chicken aside & reserve the stock.

3) Open out the flatbreads (if you're using the pitta kind that has a pocket) & toast them in the oven until they crisp & slightly browned. Then break them up into pieces in our hands and spread them at the bottom of a wide baking dish. Mix the white wine vinegar on about 300ml of the strained chicken stock, and pour over the flatbread, adding more if necessary so that the bread is thoroughly soaked & soggy. Sprinkle the chickpeas over it.


4) Pull the meat off the chicken & cut the meat into pieces, removing the skin & bones. Spread the chicken over the soaked bread & chickpeas & cover the dish with foil. Heat through in the oven (pre-heated to 170'c) for 20 minutes before you are ready to serve: it should be very hot.

5) Just before serving, pour the yoghurt evenly all over the dish, spreading the yogurt mix all over the top of the dish. Briefly fry the pine nuts in the olive oil until golden & sprinkle over the top.

Vietnamese Chicken Salad

Hello!

I made this for lunch on the weekend, and it was very quick, and so, so simple. It is from one of my favourite cookbooks by Rick Stein 'Far Eastern Odyssey'.

As I've mentioned before, he is one of my favourite sources for fabulous, easy to make recipes.

The only cooking involved in this is the chicken, and even that is just for 20 minutes.

The rest of it is a matter of slicing, dicing & mixing together.

I appreciate you may not have all of the ingredients in your pantry, e.g. rice vinegar. Just use any white vinegar (regular white vinegar, white wine vinegar, or even verjuice) as a substitute. Everything else is pretty standard pantry items I think.

Chinese leaf, I have no idea what that is, but if you have a good Asian grocer nearby you could probably get it. Per the cookbook's suggestion, I just used regular white cabbage, and this was delicious.

Serves 4

Chicken Salad w/ Chinese Cabbage, bean sprouts & mint

For the Salad
750g chicken thighs or breasts
100g shallots (aka baby onions or eshallots), very thinly sliced
400g Chinese Leaf, core removed, or white cabbage, finely shredded
100g bean sprouts
1 large carrot, grated (or thinly sliced)
1 big handful each of coriander & mint, roughly chopped
40g roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

For the Dressing
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp very finely chopped garlic
2 red bird's eye chillies, finely chopped

1) Put the chicken into a saucepan w/ 1 teaspoon of salt & just enough water to cover them. Bring to the boil, lower the heat & simmer for 20 mins. Leave to cool in the liquid, before breaking the flesh into long strips. I just used my fingers to pull it apart. You can keep the cooking water for stock, or just discard it.

2) Put the sliced shallots into a large bowl, toss w/ 1/4 teaspoon of salt, a dash of the lime juice, and leave to soften for 30 minutes.

3) In a bowl, mix together all of the dressing ingredients.

4) Add the chicken to the bowl w/ the shallots, and add the Chinese leaf / cabbage, bean sprouts, shredded carrot, herbs & most of the peanuts. Pour over the dressing, season w/ black pepper & toss together well.

5) Serve up, sprinkling the remaining peanuts on top.

Shaariya Medfouna

Or 'Buried in Vermicelli'!

This is from a cookbook by the fabulous Claudia Roden called Arabesque. She really is one of the best English speaking authorities on Middle Eastern Food.

This dish is a speciality of Fez, and it is so yummy. It is a good dish for people who aren't accustomed to much i the way of herbs or spices. It is wonderfully flavoursome, but not overpowering.

In Morocco they also cook pigeons & lamb in a similar way. This isn't the full recipe (which calls for 2 whole chickens). This is the version I made for lunch w/ my gorgeous friend Mikarla.

2 large chicken breasts
4-5 chicken thighs
2 onions, chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp saffron threads
60g butter
2 tsp clear honey
1 tsp orange blossom water (optional)
handful chopped parsley
handful chopped coriander
100g blanched almonds
500g vermicelli nests

Put the chicken into a pan & pour in 500ml of water & bring to a boil. Skim the scum from the surface. Add the onions, half of each of the cinnamon, ginger, and saffron. Add salt & pepper & simmer, covered. Turn the chicken occasionally so they are well cooked all over.

Lift the chicken out of the pan (keep warm somewhere), and turn the heat up on the liquid mix and reduce it slightly. Add the butter, honey & orange blossom water & cook for a few minutes. Taste & season w/ S&P. Add the chopped herbs, the rest of the spices & return the chicken bits to the pan.

Dry roast some flaked almonds in a frying pan until nicely toasted - be careful, they can burn very easily.

Bring a pot of water to the boil, and cook the vermicelli until al dente.

Put the noodles on top of the chicken, scatter the almonds over the top & serve.

Wine Match
I served this with a lovely bottle of lightly oaked Chardonnay from the Bloodwood vineyard. I think the mellower flavours of a Chardonnay work better than the crispness of a Sauv Blanc or Pinot Grigio.  A semillion might also work.

Maggie Beer's Barossa Chicken w/ Raisins & Pesto

This is a recipe from Maggie Beer's amazing book 'Harvest' . . . . quite possibly the most expensive cookbook ever! It has an embroidered cover, making me permanently terrified of having it on the countertop when I cook: don't imagine the stains would come out easily!

I hadn't visited it in a while - I've had it around 18 months . . . I think I was intimidated by just how gorgeous it is: I don't want to get it dirty! It is a wonderful cook book (tome is a better word!), and one to really treasure. Reading through over the weekend, I was inspired by many of the recipes, and I will be trying quite a few different things from this one over the coming months, so watch this space

There is a recipe for peach (apricot?) halves, where you fill the kernel hole w/ butter, ginger & almonds, that is just so simple, and utterly delicious. One of my best dessert ever according to my brother, and he is an expert!

There are a few different steps to this chicken recipe, but none of them are overly complex or tricky.

You need to make this pesto, and make this polenta, and marinate the chicken breasts for an hour so I would suggest either save this for a weekend meal., or if you want this for a special mid-week dinner, get a little organised and make the pesto, and marinate the chicken etc ahead of time.

The end result is absolutely worth it!

BTW: 'Verjuice' is something that Ms Beer is quite famous for. In fact I believe she was one of the first people in the world to produce it commercially. You see it in more recipe's now, but you see it in Maggie Beer recipes all the time. It is the juice of unfermented grapes, and you use it similarly to how you might use vinegar, except that it isn't tart at all. Harris Farm stock it (yes, them again! No, I'm not secretly working for them!), as does the DJ's foodhall, and most good deli's. Or you can order it online from her website:

http://www.maggiebeer.com.au/

1/3 cup (55g) raisins

1/4 cup (60ml) verjuice
2 sprigs of rosemary
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 free range chicken breasts, (the recipe says skin on, but I used skinless)
1/3 cup (50g) pine nuts
1 tbs butter
Polenta and Salsa Agresto


Soak the raisins in the verjuice overnight (or microwave on 'defrost' setting for 5 mins). If you are like me, and can't figure out how to work your microwave, you could do what I did: I microwaved them on normal for 1.5 mins, and then left to soak until I needed them an hour or so later.

Strip the rosemary leaves & save for another day. Put the rosemary 'twigs' into a dish w/  the olive oil (except 1 tbs, save this for cooking the chicken) & a little pepper, then add the chicken breasts, coating them in the oil/twig mix. Cover & marinate for at least 1 hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 220'c, and moisten the pine nuts w/ a little of the olive oil, place on a baking tray & roast for 5 minutes, or until golden. Be careful as they go from golden to burnt very quickly!

Heat a frying pan large enough to have space between the chicken: if it isn't, cook them in batches. Over medium heat add the butter, and once golden brown, add the saved tablespoon of olive oil. Put the chicken in, skin side down, and fry for 6 - 8 minutes until golden (lots of golden in this recipe!). Flip over & cook the other side. Season, and leave in a warm place, skin side down.

Discard any butter left in the frying pan, and toss in the raisins, and stir to deglaze the pan. Turn up the heat up to high to reduce the liquid by half. Stir in the pine nuts, and mixing to incorporate them well.

Place some polenta, then a chicken breast on a plate, and pour over some of the sauce. Add a generous dolop of the pesto, serve!

Wine Match!
This is lovely with a not-too-sweet rose, pinot noir, but I served it with a bottle of Bloodwood Chardonnay (a cool climate chardonnay from Orange, not too oaky of course!).




 

How to feed a crowd of people . . . . Sri Lankan Chicken Curry Recipe

Now, please don't think I am obsessed about Rick Stein: it is a coincidence that both of the dishes I cooked are his recipes, but also indicates how wonderful his dishes are!

I know I said this about the meatball recipe, but I think this is one of the dishes I am proudest of: its flavours are just wonderful.

Roast Chicken

This recipe is pretty simple, with a bit of fussing, but not too much considering the end result!

I made this roast chicken for my wonderful friend (Hello Mrs Robertson!) and her gorgeous new hubbie.

A roast is always great because,  you just put it in the oven and let it be, you don't have to keep checking on it etc, leaving you more time to spend with any guests etc.

Buy the very best chicken you can afford (free range, bio-dynamic are great, but as I discovered to my surprise at the check out, these chicks ain't cheap: around $20 - $25 (at Harris Farm even!). . . but totally, totally worth it, especially for a special occasion).


Roast Chicken (a bit decadent, but very good!)

1) Rinse your chicken inside and out (just open the bum-cavity & let the water flood in. . . charming I know), shake excess water off, and pat dry w/ paper towel.

2) Take some softened butter (about 100g I guess, not melted, just leave it out at room temp overnight, you want it to be 'squishy'); add the zest of 2 lemons & 2 crushed & sliced cloves of garlic to the butter. Mix it all together w/ a fork until you have created a lemon-garlic-spread kind of thing.
3) Take the 2 zested lemons, quarter them, and put them into the cavity (up the bum! Last bum reference, I promise. For today anyways.)

4) Place the chicken on its back & with your index finger gently 'raise' or separate the skin from the breast (one side at a time - you don't want to tear the 'barrier' between the 2 breasts . . .yes, from bums to boobs!).

You want it to still be attached at the side of the breast, but you are trying to separate the main part of the breast from its skin so you can then take the 'butter-spread' & put it into the space created between the skin & the breast.

Massage the skin (or use any other method you fancy) to spread the butter mix across the breast as evenly as possible . . . but it really doesn't have to be too exact: it is butter! It will melt anyways! Repeat w/ the other breast.

Don't worry if you pierce the skin, it doesn't matter that much (I mean, try not to, but if you do, don't despair).

6) With any extra spread, or just a little extra butter, rub the chicken all over. Then give a good glug of olive oil over the chicken & rub this all over: this will turn the chicken a gorgeous shade of brown when it is roasting (no, this is not the world's healthiest roast chicken, but damn it is good).

7) If you have a roasting rack, put that into your roasting pan, and pop the chicken on top. If you don't have a roasting rack, do you have a cake rack or similar? If the chicken is elevated, you can pop the potatoes (if doing roasted spuds) underneath so they cook with the amazing drippings falling over them from the chook. Not a big deal if you don't have one: of course they can all just sit in the same dish.

8) Put the chicken into an oven pre-heated at 180'c. Cook for apx 1.5hours, depending on the weight.

That's it!

Gravy
To make the gravy, remove the chicken & any veg from the pan, and skim off as much fat as possible (will not help the gravy come together: you want the chicken 'juice', not the 'liquid chicken fat').

Add about a 1/4 cup of plain flour to the remaining liquid in the pan, stirring to brown the flour & it becomes cobwebby. And any juices from the carved chicken, and if more liquid is required, dip a tea-cup into the boiling veg water, and add it to the gravy pan (adding more than 1 cup if necessary). Crumble in 1 chicken stock cube, and stir until well combined. Taste, season w/ S&P as necessary.