Recipe CXXXI - Slow-Cooked Corona Chicken plus Meatballs in Ratatouille

These times of isolation have brought out the imaginative spirit in me. Yesterday, I broke open the fridge to use up any vegetables that seemed to be going soft, and to create something that would last a day or two. So I came up with this very tasty slow cooker that I've named after this epoch of segregation.

Ingredients:
10 tomatoes
2 spring onions
1 red onion
1 ordinary onion
1 red pepper
3 diced carrots
Worcestershire sauce
10 leaves of sage, cut finely
Garlic is optional
Red wine (you choose the amount)
1 whole chicken - slit the breasts and leg open to allow the flavour in
Ground black pepper and salt rubbed into the chicken
1 baking tray with lid or aluminium foil
Food blender
Butter
Lashings of olive oil

Accompaniment: sautéed potatoes

Instructions:

Turn your oven on to 180°C and peel and cut into 2cm-sized pieces.

Take out your food blender, and put in the tomatoes, three sorts of onions, red pepper, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, sage, some salt and pepper. Blend everything to a fine pulp and leave to settle before blending again.

Take out your chicken, cover it in oil, salt and more pepper, place it and the diced carrots in the baking tray then pour over the blended sauce, making sure your chicken is entirely saturated. Spoon more on top if necessary.

Cover it and place in the oven. Cook on 180°C for 30 minutes, then turn down to 120°C and go off to do something constructive while your house starts to smell appetising.

About 45 minutes before you want to eat, parboil the potatoes, then fry them in butter and olive oil on a medium heat until they are nice and brown. Remove the chicken, cut into the appropriate number of pieces and put on the plate with the potatoes. Spoon some of the sauce onto the food and save the rest for tomorrow.

With the rest of the sauce:
The day after, I made a ratatouille with meatballs and rice using the rest of the sauce. Needless to say, it was the heaviest rata I've ever had, but it gave me a nice warm full stomach.

Ingredients:
Aubergine
Red or green pepper
Onion
Courgette
5 large tomatoes, roughly chopped into large chunks
Whole cherry tomatoes
Green beans
Olive oil
500g minced beef
Herbes de Provence
More red wine
Salt and pepper
Rice
The rest of the sauce

Instructions:

Put some pepper, herbes de Provence, salt and minced beef into a pot and mix in well. Make small balls from them. Take a tray and put them in the fridge for half an hour or so.

In a casserole dish, fry the vegetables except the tomatoes on a medium heat until they are soft, then add the meatballs and seal them on all sides.

Add the tomatoes and some red wine, put a lid on, cooking at a medium-low heat allowing the juices to run but not evaporate.

Then add the remaining sauce from yesterday, and simmer for 30 minutes to an hour. Cook your rice in the meantime and add it to the mix at the end, so as not to absorb all the juices while they are cooking.

Recipe CXXIX - Roast Spatchcock Lemon Chicken

I have started shopping in Luxembourg these days, as the kind of fare on offer is more international. This week, they had a splendid Portuguese theme and were selling all kinds of cheeses, vegetables, sea salts, fruits and meats from the country. There were some delightful pastéis de nata, the Portuguese national calling card, and some rather interesting spatchcock chickens. Now usually, I do my own, but what with so many responsibilities these days, time is of the essence, so I bought it. Now, it's winter, so I couldn't really grill the thing outside in the snow, but I wanted to do it some justice, considering its provenance. This recipe was inspired by a meal I had in Andalucía many years ago, which remains one of the most memorable gastronomic experiences I had.

Ingredients:
1 spatchcock chicken
4 large cloves of garlic
1 onion or 4 shallots
3 lemons
2 sprigs of rosemary
Some olive oil
Salt and ground black pepper

Instructions:
Turn on the oven to a maximum 150°C.

Spatchcocking a chicken:
If you have a whole chicken, place it with the breast on the cutting board, and cut along one side of the backbone with a sharp knife or the kitchen scissors. Then cut the other side of the backbone and remove it. Now turn the chicken over to the other side and open it up by pressing on the breastbone. You can use your hands to flatten it totally.

Then...
Having cut up 2 of your lemons into thin slices, place one of them on the bottom of an oven dish along with thick slices of garlic and onion.

Open up the skin of the chicken at the neck with your fingers and fill it with slices from the third lemon. Put some garlic and onion in there if you want too. Finally, spread salt, pepper and olive oil randomly on top of the chicken and cover the oven dish with tin foil. Put it in the oven on a low heat for 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Then take off the foil and roast at 180°C for a further 30 minutes.

I made potatoes roasted in olive oil and rosemary, and to bring some colour, Brussels sprouts fried in butter and nutmeg.

Bom apetite, as they say in Old Lisbon!

Recipe XCVIII - Hungarian Paprika Chicken

A part of the world brimming with culture and tradition, from the cowboy-like farmers of the Puszta plains past the talented Gipsy musicians enchanting Budapest to the noble rot winemakers of Tokaj, Hungary is a country that makes central Europe that little bit more like an ancestral homeland. What the locals speak of course, is incomprehensible: surrounded by Slavic and Germanic language speakers, Hungarian is from the incomprehensible Finno-Ugric strain and subtitlers give the Chinese a run for their money in one of the TV and film world's most thankless professions. Which may explain why they dub everything. And why, quite bafflingly, only 35% of Hungarians speak a foreign language. Nevertheless, when I was there, I found the food to be sensational, even if I needed to point at other diners' plates to get what I wanted.
This dish is one of the easiest and most delicious things you will ever cook, and you should immediately go out and buy the ingredients.

Ingredients:2 dessertspoonfuls of paprika*
1 dessertspoonful of plain flour*
1 large pinch of Cayenne pepper*
10 crushed peppercorns*
600g chicken breast
5-7 ripe tomatoes, quartered
2 onions, chopped
1 red or green pepper, cut into strips
1 pot of sour cream

300ml chicken stock
Some odourless oil

*Put these ingredients in a pot and mix thoroughly together

Instructions:
Put the chicken in a high-sided frying pan and fry until sealed. Add the onions, and stir up until they release their aroma. Sprinkle liberally all the spices over the meat and onions and mix well.

Add the tomatoes and crush them to release their juices. 

Pour over the chicken stock before the ingredients stick to the bottom, add the peppers and simmer with the lid on for up to 2 hours.

Just before you serve, pour sour cream into it and stir to form a marbled effect.



Serve with rice or boiled potatoes.

Recipe XCVI - Celeriac Purée

Last week I had what I can only believe must have been the world's greatest chicken, a superhero amongst all the other farmyard fowl, a titan of the coop, a caped crusader of a bird which provided us not only with an unbelievable amount of the best chicken meat I have ever tasted, but gave me the best stock in living memory, and I wanted to do something with that stock to give it the perfect send-off. Anything less would have been an insult to this magnificent specimen of a bird, so I decided to make one of those dull dishes with one of those vegetables which is almost laughed at due to its likeness to the Ood from Doctor Who, the type of vegetable that makes people pleasantly surprised when they realise it's actually pretty damn tasty when served properly...




Ingredients:1 celeriac, peeled and chopped into 2cm cubes
2 onions
1 litre of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of cumin
Half a tablespoon of turmeric
Ground white pepper
40g butter
A carton of cream (optional; preferably thick)



Instructions:
Put some butter into a high-sided frying pan, put on a low-to-medium heat and when hot add the spices. Throw the onion and celeriac into it and stir until all the ingredients are nicely covered. 





Continue stirring for 2 to 3 minutes, then pour the stock on top. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat to simmering temperature for about 20 minutes.





Keep the liquid, but put all the solid ingredients into a blender and allow the mixture to turn into a saucy consistency. Put the cream in at this point, but adding some of the liquid from the stock is a good idea too.



Keep it warm until all your other food is prepared; when serving, you can put a large spoonful on the plate and with the underside of the spoon run it through the purée to create a decorative look.





It is best served with something like boiled potatoes so that it can act as a kind of dip. With the rest of the leftover stock, I let it boil down in a pot of Savoy cabbage until the fat from the stock fried it gently.

Recipe LXXVI - Roast Masala Chicken, Spicy Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts

There's something refreshing and wholesome about a roast dinner on a Sunday. After a long autumn walk in the country, coming home to a house full of the smells of your delicious immediate future is how it should be. This recipe is my own take on a version by my favourite Indian cook, Madhur Jaffrey. Her recipes are shining examples of how complicated dishes are actually very simple when you have a little time and patience.

Ingredients:

FOR THE CHICKEN MARINADE:
A whole chicken - Madhur Jaffrey removes the skin, but I choose to keep it on, because it's the best part!
4 tbsp lemon juice
2 tablespoons of ginger
5 cloves of garlic, chopped or crushed
1 small, hot red pepper - Madhur Jaffrey used 3 hot green chillies, but I live in deepest, darkest Germany and can only get what I'm given.
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp salt



...and for later:
chili powder
freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE POTATOES:
Oil for roasting (olive/sunflower, etc...)
5 medium potatoes, peeled, and sliced to your preference
Half tsp turmeric
1 tsp Kashmiri (mild) chili powder
10 freshly ground black peppercorns
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
A pinch of salt

Instructions for the chicken:
Preheat the oven to 150-170C. Put all the ingredients for the marinade into a blender and blitz it to a paste. With a sharp knife, make two deep incisions into each breast. You should do this in the thighs and legs too.



Put the chicken on a baking tray making sure there is enough foil to cover the bird completely. I made two layers, in a cross-shape.
With your fingers or with a spoon, spread the paste evenly over the chicken and into the incisions.



Let it marinate for a minimum of 30 minutes. Just before you put it in the oven, sprinkle the chili powder and black pepper over the chicken. Seal the chicken tightly in the foil and put it in the oven for the time it takes you to go for that afternoon stroll! For the last 10 to 20 minutes, you can roast it with the foil open. You can save that last roasting bit for later when you are browning the potatoes.



Instructions for the spicy roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts:
Boil the potatoes and Brussels sprouts for a maximum of ten minutes in some salted water.
Put the cumin, coriander, turmeric and chili powder in a small bowl and mix them up well.
Make sure the potatoes and sprouts are well oiled and roll them in the mixed spices. Put them in a baking tray in a single layer and roast for a minimum of 30 mins - you may wish to share the oven with the chicken for the last part.



The chicken will simply fall off the bone and the juices make an ideal gravy.



I added Brussels sprouts to Madhur Jaffrey's wonderful recipe, and I made a few changes to the procedure, but I can say it was a joy to cook, and I will do it again very, very soon.

Recipe LXXII - Chicken Clare Balding

This is a recipe I designed myself with very careful thought. I wanted to honour the person who most epitomised my wonderful summer of sport on TV and my time in London during the Games. This person is, for me, someone who straddles classes, who is at home sitting next to other presenters and pundits in the studio, interviewing an elated tongue-tied competitor or mingling with crowds inside and outside venues. She explains everything so clearly and is most obviously hyper-intelligent without having any airs or graces. She is also one of those who is on my list of living people I'd most like to invite to a dinner party. I hope she gets to read this recipe one day and if she makes it, that she likes it. I apologise for the three horrid photos, but I have a new light in the kitchen and it is somewhat over-bearing for my poor little camera... Just like Clare Balding, this is an extremely adaptable recipe for the season, the taste and the consistency, but below are the original ingredients I used, the essential items having asterisks (*).

Ingredients (for 2 people):
200g Greek krithiraki / manéstra pasta * (an Olympic commentator should have something Greek in her eponymous recipe, although I used Turkish as that's what they sell locally!)
Half a courgette
Half a pâtisson (yellow squash or in the US pattypan squash) *
(in different seasons I see no problem in using sweet potatoes, aubergines or the like to add seasonal taste)
1 sweet red pepper *
1 onion
1 spoonful of chili powder *
2 breasts of chicken (sliced into strips) *
(A handful of green beans is a pleasant variant)
1 carton of single cream *
Some olive oil *
3 sprigs of English garden mint *



Instructions:
I think it was a pleasure to make this dish. Slice the squash into thin strips. You can halve those strips or keep them the same size, but they should be no thicker than a third of a centimetre. Cut up the chicken breasts into chunky pieces. Slice the courgette, pepper and onion in any way you wish.
Take two frying pans, on a medium heat, with olive oil - in one, begin frying the chicken, in the other, the squash. In the one with the squash, add some chili powder, and in the other once the chicken is sealed, add the vegetables. Stir-fry both pans, the squash for a good ten minutes. Add the chopped mint to the squash after seven, and in the other pan stir-fry the chicken for up to half an hour, or until everything is nice and soft and the flavours have run.



Once it is cooked, add the squash to the chicken for the remainder of the cooking time, and with ten minutes to go, turn down the heat and add the cream to gently heat up without evaporating. While the other ring is hot, heat some salted water and cook your Greek pasta. You can either mix it in with the other ingredients once cooked, or as I did, serve the chicken on a bed of pasta.


Above is one I made with green beans.

Serve in wide bowls or flat plates, with a nice bottle of medium Kent, Sussex or Hampshire wine.


My person of 2012, Clare Balding - photo: www.tvnewsroom.co.uk

Recipe LXIV - Sage & Onion Stuffing

One of the most special thing about roast dinners is the way the meat is seasoned. When it comes to birds, you can not go wrong with some stuffing. Now, whilst most people get it from the supermarket, actually making it at home yourself is easier (and cheaper [and tastier]) than what comes out of a packet. This is one of two recipes this week, to make up for lost time.

Ingredients:
2 slices of bread, preferably no longer fresh
1 egg
A cup of milk
1 onion, chopped
Some fresh sage
3 cloves of garlic
Ground black pepper
Salt



Instructions:
Cut up the onion into fine pieces.
TIP: to avoid your eyes being affected too much, many people have their own methods: in some parts of the Mediterranean, they cut onions on their heads. I favour sticking my tongue out - then my tongue bears the brunt of the odorous onion, leaving my eyes less affected.
Take the leaves of the sage, and fold them into a ball. With a knife or a pair of scissors, slice them up into small pieces.
Put the bread, egg and milk into a bowl and with a potato masher or fork, bind it into a smooth consistency. Then add the onion, sage, ground pepper and salt.



Mash well, until it is all nicely mixed in together.
Open the bird and fork the mixture inside. I favour leaving the bird open, as this allows the stuffing to slowly slide outwards, leaving a delicious crust.



Salt the skin of your bird, and baste it in oil. Put some butter on the leg area - this gives some crispiness to the skin on the legs. I sometimes put half-cloves of garlic under the skin, but with the stuffing inside, this is not necessary. Roast the bird for about 20 minutes per 500g, plus twenty minutes on top.



The photos of the result did not come out very well (dark!) but this was the best I could do:



The potatoes enjoyed bathing in the oil too...

Recipe LXII - Stoved Chicken

Last weekend, I was in Belgium and whilst perusing the shops of Leuven's historic centre, I came across a bookshop where, in the window, was the last thing any Belgian would ever expect to find in pride of place: "Good Housekeeping: Book of British Food". Billowing with nostalgic pride, I immediately opened it, and found everything in it you could ever wish for in a book: advice on choosing various meat; when fruits and vegetables are in season; where the best places in each British region are to buy various items; local gastronomic events, and the main wine producers in the UK. It was a small fortune, but I bought it and took it to work to show my classes. They were pretty fascinated, and not one made a sarcastic remark. Ladies and gentlemen, British food is being taken seriously - get used to it!
Today, I am sampling a recipe from that very book, which took the fancy of some of my French, Spanish and Italian students. As with a lot of British recipes, they are mere guidelines, and not Gospel, so I have adapted it to suit my requirements and tastes.

Ingredients:
500g chicken breasts, halved or 4 chicken quarters
2 thick slices of back bacon, the skin removed and cut into strips
6-8 large potatoes (floury ones like King Edwards), peeled and cut into slices
2 small onions and 2 shallots
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
7 teaspoon-sized knobs of butter
600ml chicken stock
Salt & plenty of ground black pepper
Fresh chives for garnishing



Instructions (there are three layers: potatoes, meat, potatoes):
Preheat the oven to 150°C. Fry the chicken, shallots and the bacon for about five minutes to seal, until they are lightly browned. Leave to one side.



Start layering half the amount of onions and potatoes in a casserole. This will be the bottom layer of the three. Do not forget to season it well - I sprinkled ground black pepper between them. Put half of your knobs of butter in strategic places.



Now put the bacon, chicken and shallots on top. This will be the middle layer of your dish. Sprinkle the thyme into it.



And now for the top layer. Repeat the bottom one, not forgetting the butter. Pour over the chicken stock so it barely covers the ingredients. Put the whole thing into the oven, and wait for about 2 and a half hours.



Sprinkle the chives on top just before serving.



REMARK:
The recipe was in every way spot-on in terms of measurements, cooking times and flavour balance. However, I would say carrots, garlic and some white wine would go extremely well with this recipe.



I wholeheartedly recommend the Book of British Food, and believe that the bookshelf of every true lover of cooking would only be enhanced by it.

Recipe XXXVII - Meat Korma: spice up your Yuletide

Yuletide is coming, the only thing to worry about is if the guests enjoy the food you prepare. For the day itself, you'll do whatever, but the day after, when you realise you've got a load of chopped meat in the freezer, there are only two possibilities: a stew or a curry. I know what I'd choose, and here it is...



Ingredients:
500g pork/chicken/beef/whatever
20 coriander corns, crushed in the pestle & mortar
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp dessicated coconut
3 onions
A piece of ginger, about 3cm long, 4cm wide
2 tomatoes
2 bay leaves
5 to 7 peppercorns (whole)
5 cloves (whole)
7 pods of cardamom (whole)
1/2 tbsp ground turmeric
7 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1 stick of cinnamon (6 cm long)
2 pots of ordinary yoghurt
A sprinkling of garam massala
A handful of chopped green coriander
1 red pepper (optional)
A cup of coconut milk (optional)

Instructions:
Heat a frying pan to a red hot temperature with nothing in it. Take the coriander, cumin and coconut, and dry-roast them for 2-4 minutes or until they go darker. Put the dry-roasted spices in a bowl to wait for later.



Put the onions, garlic, ginger, tomato and turmeric into a blender and turn them into a pulpy paste. Put these in another bowl and wait for later.



Heat some oil at medium power in a frying pan. Add the peppers, cinnamon, bay leaves, cardamom, peppercorns and cloves. Once they are nicely browning, turn up the heat, add the meat and seal it in the oil. Remove the meat and cinnamon from the pan and leave it for later.



Building up the sauce:
Put a dribble more oil in the pan, add the blended paste and let it reduce slowly for 10 or so minutes at a medium heat. Keep stirring. Put in some water now and again to keep it moist and stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan. Now you can add the dry-roasted spices.



After 5 to 10 minutes, add the yoghurt. After another 5 to 10 minutes, sprinkle some salt on the meat and add it and the cinnamon to the pan again. Add some garam massala and green coriander and if you want some water or coconut milk, and leave it to simmer for up to an hour, or until it is done.



Serve it with boiled basmati rice, roast cauliflower and/or some chapatis.

Recipe XX - Paella Del Norte

When I set out to make a paella, I decided not to call it anything Spanish - the Mediterraneans are so fastidious when it comes to food that naming it anything other than something new was never going to happen. They are all about sun, sea and food, but when it comes to substance, forget it. For example, I would like to draw your attention to the cooking instructions written
on the side of the rice packet I bought in Luxembourg:


It says:
"1. To warm up 600cl of meat soup and 1/3 of Paella seasoning(PDS) until Bowling. Soon to extinguish fire. 2. To place in a paella pan, 4 spoonfuls of olive oil, 250 g of chicken (pieces), 250 g pork ribds, 1/2 red pepper stripes, fry during 5 minutes until they are gilded and to add 1 tomato grated, to continue frying 4-5 min all the ingredients together.
3. Add 200g, fry 1 minute, add the broth and to cook during 10 strong fire min, 5-6 min to average fire. To extinguish and to let rest 5 min (cover the paella pan with a rag).
Upon not having a copy of the Sun, I settled for a glass lid. Anyway, here's my version:

Ingredients:
300g paella rice
4 chicken thighs
3 tomatoes (quartered)
1 pepper (sliced into strips)
1 courgette
1 onion
Some frozen peas
500ml chicken stock
Some chives
Fresh herbs (oregano, thyme, etc...)
Pepper
Salt
White wine (or a squeezed lemon)



Instructions:
Cut up the vegetables into different shaped pieces. To cut a courgette into quarters in less than 2 minutes, firstly cut it lengthways twice to make a cross-shape, stopping a centimetre from the end. Then put it on its side and cut it into thin pieces (see photo).



Put the chicken into a paellera or wide frying pan, put salt over it and fry gently until sealed. Add the vegetables (not the tomatoes, peas or herbs) and continue frying for a further five to ten minutes, until they are nicely sweating but not soft.



Put the paella rice in for a long minute to soak up some of the oil. Add the tomatoes, and put a lid on to allow the juices to run. A couple of minutes into this stage you can add the stock, the peas and the herbs. Put more salt in, and add some white wine. I love to put a lot in because it complements the salty flavour of the meat and rice, but you can put as little as you like in.



By now the whole dish is bubbling away with all the juices and liquids, cooking the rice as it goes. Paella rice, contrary to most people's expectations, takes a relatively short time to boil, only 15 minutes. So once those 15 minutes since you added the rice are up, the rest is letting the dish mix in and acquire flavour. Some like to wait until the juices have been absorbed, and some like there to be
something runny. That's the reason for the lid - it is a harmless way for the juices to absorb.




Other notes:
Serve preferably outdoors.

A bottle of sweet wine from Moravia or Alsace will go splendidly with it!