roast chicken

The humble roast chicken is anything but. It's a real crowd-pleaser. Vegetarians, I feel genuinely sorry that you'll never know the succulent, meaty joy of a crisp, moist roast chicken.

How I cook it depends on what's to hand. Here it's stuffed with a chopped onion, which evaporates sweet perfume throughout the bird, and liberally rubbed with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh thyme. It's sat on a bed of root veg, ready to make gravy with afterwards. I also have a favoured version which starts with fried bacon deglazed with brandy to kick the cooking off.

I generally start it off on a high heat (225C), then take it down to about 180C once it's in. A good basting from the run-off juices every 20 mins or so keeps it moist and returns flavour to the bird. Once a skewer allows clear juice running from the thigh it's done. You must let it rest to retain moistness and flavour, in this case it sat for about half an hour.

The gravy was simply the roasting pan, veg and all, over the hob and chicken stock allowed to bubble over for a few minutes until thick and dark, then strained off. Glorious.

chicken and mushroom hotpot

Wow, this was a Jamie great. Very pleased with the results.

Started with chicken legs: skinned, then trimmed the meat off and diced. The skin was then put into a hot pan and allowed to render the fat out. Then browned the leg meat, and added onion, garlic and celery. Once this had all sweated a little I chucked in some sliced chestnut mushrooms and seasoned well. Then, a spoon of flour mixed through to help thicken it up. I added some chicken stock until soupy, then lovely wood thyme.

I poured this into a casserole pot and topped with lightly-boiled sliced potatoes and baked in the oven for half an hour. Thick, savoury and a lovely blend of textures. Nice!

chicken stock

I love making chicken stock. It means there's a really excellent meal coming in the next day or so, and whilst it bubbles away the whole house smells of divine chickeniness.

Using our friend from earlier in the week, all the leftovers were tossed into a roasting tray with some assorted veg: celery, carrots, onions and any other oddity that was clogging up the fridge. That's the beauty of stock; it doesn't really matter what goes in there, they each add their own interesting note to it. If I've got a marmesan rind knocking about that'll go in, in this case some spare pancetta and a couple of tomatoes were the guest stars.

After about half an hour's roasting it all goes in a pot, covered with water and boiled for maybe an hour and a half, the timing's not terribly important. When it's cooled it's strained off then left covered in the fridge. The best stocks wobble like a loose jelly when chilled. This one had a pleasing little jiggle to it.

Now, what to do with it?

chicken with spinach

Inspired by a true muse, I've heartily ripped this wholesale from Giorgio Locatelli.

It really couldn't be easier: a chicken breast is butterflied and sliced laterally before being battered thin to get the most surface area possible. This means that it can be cooked quickly and keep as much moisture in as possible. It's placed on a griddle for about five mins, until it develops those lovely char marks and the white is creeping up the sides. Then I flip it over for a minute or so until it's done all the way through. I made sure it was seasoned on both faces, and left a smashed garlic clove on top while it cooked.

I served it with some lightly wilted spinach and some cheap-ass chickeny noodles (10p from Tesco!), finished with lemon wedges and drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil. Very nice, and super-quick.

roast chicken legs

Roasted for an hour with salt and pepper. Golden brown, pulled away from the bone dead easy, and really tasty meat.

chicken week

No pics - hands were too yukky and covered in chickeny stuff!

I've wanted to support local butchers and producers for along time, but there's never been a convenient way for me to do this. I want to help them, but they won't meet me halfway with their 9am - 4pm opening times, and Saturday isn't easy for me. Ideally they'd be open late one night a week. Then, out for a walk the other day I found a butcher near me that opens at 8am, just enough time to scrape my shopping in before work. So I popped in there.

It was so nice to chat to a knowledgeable guy who clearly cared about the meat he was handling, and wanted to tell me so much about his produce and what offers he had on. I was only in there for a whole bird, but I knew I would be coming back next week.

So, I decided to have a chicken week this week; buy a whole bird (£6) and get various meals out of it. Before that I have to part it, so I set to.

First the breast: I peel back the skin, then make an incision down the breastbone, then go down and around following the body either side and remove the breast/supreme. A little trim here and there and I've got two lovely plump pieces of meat.

Then the legs: an icision in a circle around the hip joint, then twist and pull for the rest.

Finally the wings: another simple twist and pull.

Then I'm left with a lovely carcass with some dark meat on that I'll roast and stock later on. The whole process took less than ten minutes, and just felt right. It felt like the way things should be done, rather than prepacked sweaty grey flesh with a tampon underneath.

I'll be back with the chicken recipes in the week. Tomorrow is Yaki Soba, which I've blogged before, but made with the legs from here. I'll pic how they roast up.

chicken and chickpea casserole

I saw this recipe on a low GI recipe website, but it was a little under-developed and felt sure it wasn't going to quite come together. So I embedded a few ideas: a sofritto base of onion and carrots, but that wasn't quite enough. I remember doing an Italian pasta sauce starting with basil stalks, infusing the whole thing with a deep flavour. For this I felt coriander would be  good fit. Whaddya know, tastier than expected: red onion, carrots, and coriander stalks sweated off, then diced chicken, chickpeas, button mushrooms, tin tomatoes, tabasco and chicken stock are added. After 45 mins simmering some lemon juice, soy sauce, salt and pepper and coriander leaves are added for seasoning.

Served with greek yoghurt mixed with lemon juice and more coriander, this was quite satisfying and pretty simple.

chicken curry

Can the world take another generic 'curry' recipe? At least one more it seems.

We kick off with ginger, onions, lentils, turmeric and cumin with 2 pints of water. This is left for 40 mins, then diced chicken is added for a further 25 mins. As seasoning right at the end, cumin seeds, ginger, garlic, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt is fried until aromatic, then pounded to nothing and added to the curry with some lemon juice. Turned out pretty good.

The little beige puddle in the corner is one of my fave accompaniments: cashew butter. It's just toasted cashews and cumin seeds blitzed with oil and salt. Yum!

broccoli, chicken and pasta bake

Using the chicken in white sauce from Sunday makes this dead easy. Get some pasta on the boil along with some broc, meanwhile heating up some frozen chicken sauce and adding a little cream to loosen it up. When all is ready tumble into the same dish and bake. DONE.

chicken a la king

I've never been quite sure what's kingly about peppers, but it's tasty so that'll do me. Yet again using the ever-bounteous frozen chicken, I warm this up with some ham from the deli. Then I add a drained jar of peppers in oil and end up with a very yummy dish that makes me grin all over.

chicken and ham pies

Not my finest photogrpahy ever. Thankfully it ate a lot better than it snapped.

I fried some pancetta, and added Sunday's frozen chicken. Then some peas in there. Sticking it in an individual pot and topping with frozen puff pastry was the hardest part. Sometimes I just get a craving for a pie, with a crispy brown top, that slightly soggy undercarriage, followed by a warm and gooey filling. This satisfies those cravings and then some.

chicken in white sauce

An exercise in time-economy this one: make a meal base good for three dinners on a lazy Sunday, reap the rewards x3 during the pressured week.

I diced 6 chicken breasts and fried in batches till coloured and then left to one side. Meanwhile I fried an onion and deglazed with white wine. Once done I started getting my roux on; butter and flour coming together to make a paste, before adding chicken stock to make an unctuous gloop of savouriness. Then a little cream to thin it out, and we're done.

It doesn't sound like much written like that, but the process takes the best part of an hour. Now three potential meals are within arms reach. I divide this mixture into three and freeze once cooled in freezer bags, one of my favourite ever inventions.

chicken schnitzel with sauerkraut

Crunchy chicken... the Colonel is on to something there. Chicken breasts, battered thin, washed in milk are then rolled in leftover breadcrumbs that have been whizzed up with S&P and a little paprika. These are then fried until irresistibly brown.

On the side is a little sauerkraut, which is red cabbage cooked down for a long time with an apple and some seasoning.

Very simple - very teutonic - very tasty.

yaki soba

Now here's one of my absolute favourites. I'd played with stir fries for years, and only kind-of enjoyed the results. It never felt particularly special though, just muddy and bland. "Use the holy trinity" Ken Hom would intone. "Rice wine vinegar," he'd bark. And that was that. Identikit meat + noodle + veg + jar of Amoy sauce stir-fry, and another dull meal. I knew there was something eluding me.

One lunchtime, urged by my good friend José, I finally tried Wagamama, the Japanese-inspired 'fast-food' chain. I pored over an expansive glossy menu printed in elegant Nihon vocab. I'd dimly recalled Yaki Soba being good - can't remember where from - so ordered it and loved it. Every morsel. And then one opened quite near to me that same month.

I loved it so much, I sought out its' recipe book, which is more or less the version I present here. I've tweaked it to my taste, but the rules for this and its' accompanying stir fry recipes were at once, blindingly simple and obvious:

1. Get the pan as hot as can be - it's the searing quality that keeps the freshness.
2. Cut all ingredients to roughly the same size - they'll cook in the same time.
3. Keep everything moving all the time - don't let the ingredients settle long enough to burn.

Armed with this ruleset it makes stir fries foolproof. On to yaki soba!

On of my deviations from the norm is to use chicken legs roasted with a little oil and seasoning in a hot oven for about 45 mins. This gives a richer, more interesting flavour than dull ol' breast. Once out of the oven I shred it with forks, ready to be mixed with yakitori dipping sauce.

Speaking of which, this is time to get on with the sauce: 250 ml light soy sauce, 3 tablespoons of dark soy sauce, boil up gently with a teaspoon of sugar and pinch of salt, til it gets all bubbly and thick. Once that's the case, pour this over beansprouts and spring onions (the recipe also calls for prawns here, which are a nice option). You also need noodles in this mix, and being a lazy so and so I like to use the pre-cooked ones which are good to go. If I can get them then I'll use soba (wholewheat) noodles, hence the name, else I'll use udon or whatever I can lay my hands on. Toss this all together and leave to sit a while. Once my chicken's cooked that's going in there too. During this marinating time I like to slice an onion into half-moons and a red and/or green pepper. Now it's cooking time.

The onions go into a devlishly-hot pan with a little oil, and after a minute or two to take the harsh edge off the onions, the peppers go in for the same treatment. Don't forget to keep it on the move. Once they start to tenderise then the yakitori-soaked mixture is chucked in. Once you feel the noodles and beansprouts start to give a little, you're practically there. Now add two beaten eggs, which will collect up all the loose juice and meld with it to form a silky, delicious coating. Keep it on the move as always, it's not supposed to be egg-fried rice.

Dole out into bowls, top with sesame seeds, pickled ginger and fried onion bits and devour with joy in your heart. It's just brilliant.