CHICKEN, BACON AND AVOCADO SALAD

CHICKEN, BACON AND AVOCADO SALAD

Ingredients (serves 4)

2 chicken breasts cut into 1" chunks

50g of bacon lardons

2 ripe avocados, peeled, stone removed and cut into chunks

2 table spoons of Mayonnaise

1 Frisse lettuce cut roughly

2 salad tomatoes de-seeded and cut into quarters

1 chicory (aka endive) cut into chunks

2 Thick slices of bread

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

25g unsalted butter - softened

1 teaspoon of capers

Sprinkling of pine nuts

Preparation:

If you want to make your own mayonnaise I've already posted a good recipe that would go well with this dish. Click on the hyper link to find it.

Start with the hot stuff: put the lardons into a baking tray and into an oven pre-heated to 200 degrees. Also fry the chicken chunks in some vegetable oil and butter until brown and crispy. While that is cooking away cut up the lettuce, chicory, tomato and lay it out in a dish and dizzle with olive oil.

After 10 minutes, your chicken and bacon should be done. Set them to one side in a paper kitchen towel to absorb off any surplus oil or greasiness and to cool. Next, take your bread slices (this is a great way of using up old, stale bread), spread them with butter on both sides, cut them into 1" chunks, sprinkle with your chopped garlic and fry until crispy all over to make croutons.

Finally, in a bowl, add the chicken, bacon, avocado, croutons and mayonnaise and mix thoroughly. Spoon it over the salad stuffs already in your dish. Sprinkle with some pine nuts and capers. Season well and serve. Makes a lovely light lunch.

Chicken in cream and tarragon

CHICKEN IN CREAM AND TARRAGON

When we used to visit my family in France, this was a great signature dish that my Auntie Sophie used to do. And the great thing is, it is really easy to double up ingredients if you have more mouths to feed.

Ingredients (to feed 4)

4 chicken legs

1 pint of chicken stock

A decent hand full of fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

10 baby button mushrooms

50-80g of peas (up to you really)

1 teaspoon of mustard

4 tablespoons of creme fraiche

2 table spoons of finely chopped tarragon

1 tablespoon of corn flour

25g of unsalted butter

Half a glass of white wine

Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper

The Cooking:

Start by melting the butter over a medium heat in a large, deep frying pan. Once it is foaming, lay your chicken legs in and fry in butter on all sides until the skin is brown and starting to crisp. Approximately 6-7 minutes on each side. Increase the heat and before the butter gets a chance to burn, add your white wine and let the liquid reduce down to about half its original content. Then transfer everything to an oven proof dish. Add in the flour, thyme and bay leaf, pour over the liquid from your frying pan and your chicken stock (just enough to cover the chicken), then cover with a lid and place into an oven, preheated to 180 degrees C. Cook for approximately 2 hours, so that the chicken is virtually falling off the bone. Check it every 20 minutes or so, to make sure that the stock is not drying out (if it is add more wine or stock). Give it all a good stir every time. 30 minutes before the end of your cooking time, take your casserole dish out of the oven. Lift out the chicken legs and place them on a baking tray or roasting tin and return them into the oven.

Gently fry your button mushrooms in butter. Be generous with plenty of ground pepper. While they are browning, add the creme fraiche and the tarragon to the liquid in the casserole dish and with a  wooden spoon, give it all a good stir until all the liquids are combined into one smooth sauce. If you are using a heavy dish like mine (rather than a glass one) best results are achieved if you do this bit over a hob on  a low heat, as it thickens the sauce nicely. Add the mushrooms and the peas into the sauce. Retrieve the chicken legs and put them back in the dish with everything else, season with salt and pepper, pop the lid back on and return to the oven for the final 30 minutes of cooking. Giving you the perfect amount of time to do any accompaniment you may fancy.

Serve up on a bed of rice and may be some vegetables Julienne.

Chicken And Chorizo Casserole

Chicken And Chorizo Casserole

Ingredients (to serve 4):

4 Chicken legs separated into thighs and drumsticks (skin on)

A Whole Chorizo, peeled and cut into chunks

1 Sweet white onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 Garlic cloves peeled, crushed and finely chopped

A small handful of fresh thyme, chopped

2 Teaspoons of dried sage

3 Red peppers cut into 1 inch chunks

50g of Bacon lardons

6 Cherry tomatoes halved

100g of butter beans

3 cubes of dehydrated/powdered chicken stock

Olive oil, salt and pepper

Quarter of a glass of red wine

Quarter of a pint of chicken stock

A small hand full of black olives

An optional extra; a few slices of black pudding if you wish

The cooking:

Begin by crumbling the stock cubes into 4 tablespoons of warmed olive oil (warm your olive oil by popping it into an oven proof jug or bowl and heat at 150 degrees for about 2-3 minutes - do not use a microwave). Stir until thoroughly mixed into a paste then liberally baste over the chicken pieces and season with salt and pepper. Fry the chicken peices on a medium heat in a pan for about 5 minutes each side, until the chicken turns golden, then set aside in an oven proof casserole dish.

In a teaspoon of olive oil, and on a medium heat, fry the onion until softened, then add the chorizo to the same pan. After 2 to 3 minutes add the red wine and turn up the heat to reduce down so the liquid content roughly halves. Then add the peppers, sage, garlic, thyme and lardons (and black pudding too if you are using it). Once golden, add it all to the casserole dish, pour over the stock. Give it all a big stir and pop it into an oven pre-heated at 180 degrees and cook for about an hour and a half to two hours (or until the chicken is starting to come away from the bone). If it starts to dry out, add more wine. Half an hour before the end, add the tomatoes and the butter beans and mix thoroughly.

Great on its own. If you want it to go futher then serve with rice to pad it out. Deserves a full bodied red Rioja or Ribera del Duero.

Luxurious Chicken, Gammon and Leek Pie

Luxurious Chicken, Gammon and Leek Pie

Great idea to plan this as part of a 3 day menu, where you have gammon on day 1, roast chicken dinner on day 2 and use the left overs to make this delicious pie on day 3. Failing that, boil 3 chicken breasts in chicken stock in a covered pan for 10 minutes and roast a joint of gammon and use what you need to for this recipe and keep the rest back for another day.

Ingredients:

Approximately 300g of cooked chicken, skinned and cubed

Approximately 300g of cooked gammon, with surplus fat cut off and cut into cubes

2 Leeks cut into slices

1 Onion finely chopped

250ml of Chicken Stock

200ml of milk

150ml Double Cream

75g on Unsalted Butter

Half a Glass of White Wine

50g Grated Mild Cheddar

2 Cloves of Garlic, Crushed and Chopped
2 Table Spoons of Plain Flour

Puff pastry to cover the dish your pie is in

The Cooking:

Lightly fry your leeks and onion on a low heat, using 25g of your butter. When softened, add your garlic and fry for a minute, then the wine. Increase the heat and reduce the wine down. Once the quantity of liquid has halved, reduce the heat, add the rest of the butter and once melted, add the flour. Keep stirring to form a goo, then gradually start adding and stirring in the milk a few drops at a time. Once all the milk has been added, continue to add the stock in the same way. Turn up the heat to allow to thicken. Finally add the cream and grated cheeses, stir it in then remove from the heat once the cheese has melted and let the mixture cool. When I do this, I usually do this preparation in the morning. Then I leave the mixture in the saucepan with a lid on through the day, until I am ready to do the final prep (below) before serving, as it only takes 30 minutes it can be done in tandem with mash and veg prep.

For the final stage, preheat an oven to 190 degrees C. Add the chicken, gammon and cooled mixture to an oven proof dish. Stir it all together. Cover with a puff pastry lid. Peirce with holes to let the steam out while cooking, and brush with a beaten egg to create a glaze. Place into the oven for 30 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and golden.

Chicken in white wine, mustard and cream

Chicken in white wine, mustard and cream

I have mentioned before, that my inspiration for a lot of the recipes in this blog come from me having spent my summer holidays as a boy, with my mother's family in the Charolais region of Burgundy in France (the gastronomic capital of the world!). This dish is especially typical of the fantastic food my auntie used to cook for us when we stayed with her. And it consists of a lot of the great, local ingredients Burgundy is famous for: Chicken from Bresse to the east, white wine from the Maconnaise to the south, mushrooms from the Auxerrois to the north east, mustard from Dijon in the north and cream from the famous cows of the Charolais itself.

Ingredients:

2 fresh chicken breasts with the skin on

A hand full of small, closed cup button mushrooms

50ml of white wine

25ml of cream

Dessert spoon of Dijon mustard

100ml of boiling water

1 chicken stock pot or cube

2 tea spoons of corn flour

25g of butter

Preparation:

Preheat an oven to 200 degrees centigrade. Prep your chicken breast by giving them a swill under the tap, then lay them on a chopping board skin side up. Pour a drop of sunflower oil into your hand and massage it into your chicken breasts. Then break about 1/4 of your stock pot off from the rest and also rub that into them. Then season with salt and pepper. 

Warm a deep pan on the hob, and once ready, place your chicken breasts into it, skin side down and seal on a medium heat. Occasionally give them a prod with a fork to stop them from sticking. Once the skin side is golden brown and crisp, turn them over and seal the meaty side so it is golden brown as well. Then place your chicken breasts into your pre-heated oven and bake for 20 to 22 minutes. Make sure you test that they are properly cooked before serving up by prodding a skewer or pointy knife into the fattest part of the breasts to be sure that the juices run clear. If it is pink, pop them in for a bit longer, but not so long they dry out. 5 minutes tops should do it.

10 minutes before your chicken is due to come out of the oven, get started on your sauce by mixing what's left of your chicken stock pot with the 100ml of boiling water to make your stock. Then, melt your butter in the pan you sealed the chicken in, on a low heat. Once it is melted scoop in your corn flour and stir to make a roux (the base of your sauce). Turn the heat up, still stirring, so the mixture starts to froth in the heat, then add your wine. This should make the mixture coagulate. Don't panic about it. Just keep stirring until it is smooth. Add your stock and whisk until the sauce is smooth. Turn the heat down and add your mustard and your cream and continue to whisk. The sauce is meant to to be about as thick as a standard gravy. If your mixture is a lot thicker than that then add more wine (a little bit at a time) until you have the desired smoothness. If it's too runny, keep the heat turned up for a bit longer until it thickens. If nothing happens, add more butter. This should still leave you 4 -5 minutes to quickly fry your mushrooms in a knob of butter.

When you take your chicken from the oven, plate it up either on a bed of rice or with chips (as you will want something to mop up this sensational sauce) and I would recommend some french beans and asparagus if its in season. Pour what ever liquid is left in the roasting tin that the chicken came out of, into your sauce and stir it in. place your mushroom on top of your chicken breasts and smother with sauce. It is not a decision you are ever likely to regret!