Chelsea & Me: Chicken, Chorizo & Butternut Bake

Chelsea Winter. Winner of Masterchef NZ in 2012, author of three cookbooks, and my go-to gal when I’m in a recipe funk. At My Table and Everyday Delicious are the most-used and most-recommended cookbooks in my kitchen, so I’m making it my mission to try every recipe. And of course, her new book, Homemade Happiness, is on my Christmas wish-list!
~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything about this recipe appealed to me from the first time I flicked through At My Table. The thought of sweet pumpkin, soft roasted chicken and spicy chorizo set my tastebuds a-tingling. The flavours are very Spanish, and the addition of creamy cannellini beans means this is essentially a one-pan dinner. A marvellously-delicious one-pan dinner.

The chicken was soft and tender; the flavoured oil had permeated nicely into the meat. The pumpkin was super-sweet, and combined with the chorizo and lemony onions…heaven on a fork.

My boys (all three) aren’t big bean fans, and the littlest ones don’t like pumpkin, but they enjoyed the rest of the dish. I thought the flavour and texture combinations were sublime, and this has quickly become one of my favourite Chelsea recipes.

It’s a great dish to prepare as a meal for someone else – lay everything in an aluminium tray and it can be easily transported and cooked (or vice versa) in the same dish.

And the best news is that you can find the recipe for Chicken, Chorizo & Butternut Bake online.

Advertisement

Chelsea & Me: Quick Honey Mustard & Herb Roast Chicken

Chelsea Winter. Winner of Masterchef NZ in 2012, author of two (nearly three, eeeeeek!) cookbooks, and my go-to gal when I’m in a recipe funk. At My Table and Everyday Delicious are the most-used and most-recommended cookbooks in my kitchen, so I’m making it my mission to try every recipe.

The mention of roast chicken usually elicits a polite smile from my husband, followed by a subtle hint towards a different, “tastier” meat to roast. The fact that he had two helpings of this Quick Honey Mustard & Herb Roast Chicken speaks volumes about how tasty it was.

Butterflying the whole chicken myself was oddly satisfying…although the handle of my kitchen scissors snapped partway through, which meant it took a little longer than it probably should have.

The marinade was really tasty – garlic, honey, mustard and herbs – and permeated throughout the chicken to really flavour the meat. I left the chicken to marinate all day on the bench (it was a cold day, and my kitchen stayed fridge-like for most of it!).

As for the onion and lemon mixture the chicken was roasted on….oh my goodness. The lemon was sticky and sweet, and we fought for the last slices, while the onion was alternately soft, sweet, crispy and caramelised. Yum.

This recipe features in Everyday Delicious.

Chelsea & Me: Chicken Cacciatore

Chelsea Winter. Winner of Masterchef NZ in 2012, author of two (nearly three, eeeeeek!) cookbooks, and my go-to gal when I’m in a recipe funk. At My Table and Everyday Delicious are the most-used and most-recommended cookbooks in my kitchen, so I’m making it my mission to try every recipe.

Chicken Cacciatore has always been a dish I’ve enjoyed, but one I’ve never been able to fully master. The balance of flavours has always been slightly askew, and while I’ve managed to create a tasty version, there’s just been something missing. Most of the recipes I’ve tried have used chicken drumsticks, which are a bit tricky to eat when smothered in a rich tomato sauce.

Enter Chelsea’s Chicken Cacciatore. The ingredients are uncomplicated and few, and the method couldn’t be simpler. Brown chicken breasts? I can do that. Throw a few sauce ingredients into a pan to simmer and thicken? Yep. Add a few more bits and pieces to create that balance I’ve been searching for? Done!

The first time I made this recipe, the whole chicken breasts took a little longer to cook through than I expected, but we all went back for seconds and basically licked our plates clean. The second time I made it, I started cooking earlier and yep, same as before – clean plates.

I’ve also made it using chopped chicken breasts, in an effort to make it s-t-r-e-t-c-h a little further – the cooking time is drastically reduced this way. I’ve made it without capers, and the flavour wasn’t quite right, but it was still very tasty. I chargrill fresh peppers – throw quarters under the grill at the same time as you brown the chicken, then pop them in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave the skins to basically sweat loose.

It was easy to make a gluten free version for a kindy teacher and her family following surgery, and it is already dairy free which is perfect for me. It’s a healthy dish, and a great meal for a family – I normally use half the number of chicken breasts (unless they are tiiiiiiny), and there is enough to feed my family of four, with plenty of leftovers for Tall’s lunch.

This is one well-spattered page in At My Table, and a dish I keep returning to when I’m feeling uninspired.

Kid-Friendly Chicken Curry

We eat a lot of curries, therefore my boys are not afraid of a little bit of spice. I do try and tone the heat down a bit when making a curry for the whole family to enjoy, but I love that both boys will happily tuck into a dish that is verging on a medium heat.

This curry is full of flavour, but not particularly spicy; it would be a good dish to make as an introduction to curry for a child (or an adult!) who was a little bit wary. Westerners have a tendency to believe that a curry is always going to be spicy, but this is often not the case, and we’re making a conscious effort to ensure our children are aware that a curry comes in a variety of flavours and styles.

Chicken Curry – serves 4

4t tikka masala paste (or kashmiri masala paste, if you can find it!)
4T tomato sauce
1t Worcestershire sauce
1t five-spice powder
1t sugar
pinch of salt
8 chicken drumsticks, skins removed
3T rice bran oil
5cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely shredded
4 cloves garlic, crushed
juice of 1 lemon
fresh coriander leaves

Mix the masala paste, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, five-spice powder, sugar and salt in a small bowl. Leave to stand until the sugar has dissolved.

Place the chicken in a large roasting dish and rub the marinade all over with your hands. Cover and leave to marinate for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight. Bring to room temperature before cooking.

Heat the oil in a large wok or frying pan. Fry half the ginger and all the garlic for a few minutes.

Add the chicken (in batches, if necessary) and seal on all sides. Lower the heat, cover and cooks until the chicken is tender and the oil has separated from the sauce.

Remove the wok or frying pan from heat. Remove the chicken from the sauce and shred the meat from the bones*; add the meat back to the pan with the lemon juice and remaining ginger, and mix well before heating through gently.

Serve with plain basmati rice, garnished with the coriander leaves.

* if you prefer to get messy, you can keep the meat on the bones – since getting my braces, I find it easier to eat if pulled. It also goes a bit further, and my kids will eat it better.

~~~~~~~~~
Recipe adapted from Curry, by Mridula Baljekar

Meal Planning

Much like last week, most of this week’s meals come from my new Chelsea Winter cookbook, At My Table. It’s been a long time since I bought a new recipe book (I got rid of a whole lot earlier in the year and vowed not to replace them), and I’ve been giddy with excitement at trying some new recipes. I did browse through others in my collection for inspiration this week, but the pull of Chelsea’s recipes is rather strong.

Sunday: Greek-style meatballs with yoghurt sauce and pita bread – enjoyed by all, but the meatballs were even tastier the following day.

Monday: crispy fish wraps with mango salsa – the mango salsa was divine, and combined with a mild fish like hoki, it was a very tasty meal indeed.

Tuesday: roasted pumpkin, beetroot and feta tart – meant for last week, but pork from the farmers’ market was calling our names instead.

Wednesday: steak and bacon sandwiches – I love a good steak sandwich, and the paprika mayo served with this one sounds goooooood.

Thursday: mushroom soup with crunchy mushroom toppers – it will be interesting to see whether my boys will eat this one!

Friday: chicken quesadillas – a family favourite that I make up as I go along.

Saturday: quick tomato macaroni cheese (from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Dinners) – sundried tomatoes and mozzarella should make for a delicious twist on this family favourite.

As for last week’s dinners, I’d say they were all a rollicking success. The salmon and cabbage red curry was amazing, the mediterranean sausage bake went down well-enough (except for the beans. None of my boys like beans.), and the creamy chicken pie was deeeeelicious.

Cheap-As Tuesdays

Now that I have spare time again, and I’m used to my braces, I’m enjoying getting back into my kitchen. For the past few weeks, I’ve been cooking fairly simple, similar dishes, meals that I know won’t take long to prepare, and that I hope will be eaten with little or no protests from my boys. While Tall was away, I made three meals, and we ate leftovers or variations for the eight days. While we were on holiday, we ate a lot of salad-based meals, with fish or meat on the side, but it’s a bit cold for salads in Dunedin right now.

I took great delight in sitting down with recipes on Sunday, planning our week’s meals before doing the groceries. It felt so nice to spend time doing one of my favourite things – thinking about food – and it felt great to plan meals that were different, healthy and hopefully delicious. An added bonus was that Tiny was watching me flick through Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals, and chose two of this week’s meals based on the pictures he liked.

Inspired by Elizabeth’s post about meal planning and food budgeting over at To Find a Silver Lining, and by SAHM I am‘s current What’s Cooking Wednesday series, and the distant memory of posts I used to do long ago, here is this week in meals in the Tall, Short, Tiny & a Pickle household:

Sunday: malai kofta with rice – a recipe given by a friend, which takes a while to prepare, but is definitely worth the effort! Everyone ate and enjoyed this curry, which was very mild but so flavoursome.

Monday: Thai red prawn curry – one of Tiny’s choices, a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals. It was spicy, and de-heading the whole prawns saw me retching into the kitchen sink, but the flavours were delicious and the near-voms were an acceptable trade-off. The fish lady at our local supermarket wanted to get rid of her last few prawns, so discounted the lot by $10/kg for me, making this dish much cheaper than it might otherwise have been!

Tuesday: sweet and sour pork – a recipe from Tana Ramsay’s Real Family Food that I’ve made before and we’ve all enjoyed.

Wednesday: Thai-style chicken soup – another Tana Ramsay recipe, but one I’ve not tried before. The spices will be much more muted than the prawn curry above, as this book is aimed at families with children who may not have tried spices before.

Thursday: Pregnant Jools’ Pasta – another Jamie O. recipe, and another of Tiny’s choices. Pasta and sausage-meatballs, essentially – but very tasty and appealing to my pasta-loving boys *this week’s Cheap-As Tuesday meal*

Friday: pizza (pear and blue cheese; salmon and cream cheese) – our classic favourite variations.

Saturday: orange chicken bake – a Tana Ramsay recipe that I’ve made before and we’ve all enjoyed. Leeks, potatoes, oranges and chicken pieces, baked and served with crusty bread to mop up the juices. Yum.

All of these meals will be completely home-made, and I was quite proud of myself for managing to buy everything we needed for these dinners, plus kindy lunches, breakfast staples, fruit etc, for about $40 less than I had been spending. Winter (and June, particularly) is an expensive time of year for us, so keeping the weekly shop cost down is something that’s on my mind at the moment.

Fun with Food: Chicken in Green Masala Sauce

I’ve mentioned previously that my Curry recipe book was the best £2.00 I spent when we were living in England. The pages are spotted with spices and splashes of sauce, and it is the most prized cookbook in my collection. Whenever I make a curry, my husband always asks, “Is this from the book?”, and my answer is, inevitably, always “Yes.”

This chicken curry is beautiful, and really simple to make. It is slightly sweet and slightly salty, with the merest hint of spice.

The original recipe calls for chicken breasts, but I prefer chicken thighs, which work just as well, and also for sultanas as a garnish. I can’t stand sultanas (they are grapes that just couldn’t be bothered, in my opinion), so I omit them, and the dish is still delicious. Feel free to adjust the amount of fresh chilli for your own heat preferences – I use one if my babies are going to be eating this, which gives a hint of spice, but isn’t the overriding flavour.

Chicken in Green Masala Sauce – serves 4

1 green apple, peeled, cored and cubed
3T fresh coriander leaves
2T fresh mint leaves
2/3c natural yoghurt
3T ricotta cheese or fromage frais
2 fresh green chillies, seeded and chopped
1 bunch spring onions, chopped
1t salt
1t sugar
1t crushed garlic
1t fresh ginger, grated
1T vegetable oil
225-300g chicken breast or thighs, skinned and cubed
1T fresh coriander leaves, for garnish
(25g sultanas, for garnish)

Place the first 11 ingredients into a food processor, and process for one minute. Scrape around the sides of the bowl and process for a few seconds more.

Heat the oil in a wok; pour in the processed mixture and cook gently over a low heat for two minutes.

Add the chicken pieces and stir well. Cook over a medium-low heat for 15 minutes, until the chicken is fully cooked.

Serve over basmati rice or a nut pulao (recipe to come!); garnish with extra coriander and sultanas, if using.

~~~~~~~~~
Recipe: Curry – Mridula Baljekar

~~~~~~~~~
Fun with Food
Please copy and paste the button below and include it in your foodie post!
By clicking on the link below, you’ll be taken to an external page, where you can enter your link and see who else is linking up. Please take the time to visit them, too!

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Spaghetti with Mushroom and Bacon Sauce

This is a dish I remember my mum making when I was a teenager, and before I moved out of home, it was the first “recipe” to be written in to my book of favourites.

I’ve adapted the recipe over the years, adding things here and there depending on what’s in the fridge and what I’m feeling like, but it’s always an easy, cheap and tasty meal that everyone seems to enjoy.

Add chopped chicken to up the protein stakes, or omit the bacon and use vegetable stock to make this a vegetarian meal. If you don’t have any fresh parsley, try fresh thyme instead, and feel free to serve this with fettucine (spinach fettucine is especially tasty here!) or any other long pasta.

Spaghetti with Mushroom and Bacon Sauce – serves 4

250g mushrooms, sliced
3 rashers bacon, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1T butter, plus 1t extra
2t flour
3/4c chicken stock
3/4c sour cream
1 egg yolk
salt & black pepper
fresh parsley, chopped

Heat the 1T of butter in a fry pan and cook the bacon and onion until the onion is clear. Add the mushrooms and cook for three minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Over a medium heat, melt the 1t of butter in the same pan; add flour and cook for one minute.

Gradually stir in the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to low; stir in sour cream and egg yolk.

Season to taste; add vegetables back into the pan with 1/2c water from the pasta pot  and heat without boiling. Add more water from the pasta to loosen the sauce if desired.

Add fresh parsley just prior to serving over cooked spaghetti.

~~~~~~~~~
Fun with Food
Fun with Food is a way for you to share your foodie (mis)adventures with other people. You don’t have to be a superb cook, or produce Masterchef-quality plates of food; this will be a place to share new and favourite recipes, meal plans, cooking on a budget, lunchbox ideas, new products, kitchen successes and disasters (because we all have those!) and maybe some handy tips for getting fussy kids to eat their dinner!

The linky will open on a Tuesday and stay open for a week, so I hope you’ll share your kitchen adventures, and be inspired by what other people are doing in the heart of their homes.

Please copy and paste the button below and include it in your foodie post!
By clicking on the link below, you’ll be taken to an external page, where you can enter your link and see who else is linking up. Please take the time to visit them, too!

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Fun with Food: Grilled Teriyaki Chicken

I have a new favourite “go to” meal at the moment: grilled teriyaki chicken. It could not be simpler, and let me assure you that it tastes as though you’ve spent hours slaving in the kitchen.

Or that you’ve popped down to the local Japanese restaurant and brought home takeaways!

Ideally, you should use the nicest free range chicken thighs you can find, but guess what? Even humble supermarket chicken becomes a thing of beauty with these basic touches.

I usually serve this with sticky rice and stir fried vegetables, but it’s also good with shredded iceberg lettuce and sliced cucumber.

Grilled Teriyaki Chicken – serves 4

4 boneless chicken thighs or breasts (skin on or off)
4T teriyaki sauce (pre-prepared, or make your own using the recipe below)
2c sushi rice
3-4c sliced vegetables for stir-frying
extra teriyaki sauce, to garnish
optional: Japanese 7-spice powder or sliced spring onions, to garnish

Cook your rice according the the packet instructions. (Personally, I prefer the absorption method, which means the rice is standing while the chicken and vegetables are cooking.)

Place a baking rack on a tin foil covered tray; preheat your oven and the rack on high grill (preheating the rack means the chicken is less likely to stick, and the tin foil catches drips, so you won’t spend hours trying to scrape sticky sauce off the tray!).

Place the chicken onto the rack, skin side up if you’re using meat with skin on, and grill for five minutes. Turn over and grill a further three minutes, or until the chicken is almost cooked through.

During those three minutes, heat a little oil in a wok or large fry pan, and begin stir frying your vegetables.

Turn the chicken again, and brush with half the teriyaki sauce; grill a further two minutes before turning again, brushing with the remaining sauce, and grilling for another minute.

Check that the chicken is cooked through (the juices should run clear).

Serve on rice with the vegetables; drizzle with extra teriyaki sauce and a sprinkling of 7-spice powder or spring onions, if desired.

Basic teriyaki sauce (makes about 300ml): bring 150ml soy sauce, 150ml mirin, 50ml sake and 50ml sugar to the boil over a medium heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Reduce the heat right down and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the sauce has reduced by a third and is all syrupy and thick. Cool completely before using or storing; will keep in the fridge for up to a month.

~~~~~~~~~
Fun with Food
Fun with Food is a way for you to share your foodie (mis)adventures with other people. You don’t have to be a superb cook, or produce Masterchef-quality plates of food; this will be a place to share new and favourite recipes, meal plans, cooking on a budget, lunchbox ideas, new products, kitchen successes and disasters (because we all have those!) and maybe some handy tips for getting fussy kids to eat their dinner!

The linky will open on a Tuesday and stay open for a week, so I hope you’ll share your kitchen adventures, and be inspired by what other people are doing in the heart of their homes.

(By clicking on the button below, you’ll be taken to an external page, where you can enter your link and see who else is linking up. Please take the time to visit them, too!)

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Thai-Style Chicken Broth

When we honeymooned in Thailand, I was blown away by how such delicious food could be made with such simple ingredients. Everything was so fresh and clean, so quick to prepare (if you discounted the seemingly endless hours – or so it felt to our western-arms – of bashing things in the mortar and pestle to make curry pastes), and so delightful for the tastebuds.

The Thai ability to balance the flavours – sweet, salty, sour and spicy – has been something of an enigma to me; something I will always strive towards perfecting. This broth is my attempt at creating something reflecting this – but has made me realise that what tastes balanced to my palate, might not to yours.

If you try this recipe, start with a minimal amount of the four flavours, and add more to suit your own tastes. The measurements given here are approximations, and are my maximums, but as with all cooking, you have free reign to make it the way you like it!

Steaming broth

Thai-Style Chicken Broth – serves 4

300g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, sliced into bite-sized pieces
1-2T vegetable oil
4c water
4c chicken stock (preferably homemade, but if you do use bought, it will be a bit saltier)
2T soy sauce
1T lemongrass (either freshly chopped, or from a jar or tube)
2.5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
1-2 fresh red chillies, de-seeded and finely sliced
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 carrot, finely sliced into batons
3 spring onions, finely sliced
2-3 dried noodle “nests”
1T fish sauce
1T lime juice
2T palm or brown sugar
1 small handful coriander leaves

Heat oil in a frying pan, and brown the chicken quickly, without cooking completely. Set aside.

Place water, stock, soy, lemongrass, ginger and chillies into a large pan and bring to the boil. Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.

Add chicken, garlic, carrots, spring onions (and any other vegetables you fancy – I added red capsicum, which was lovely, but the mushrooms went a bit chewy so I’d leave them out!) and noodles; simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Add fish sauce, lime juice and sugar; taste and adjust seasonings to your palate.

Add coriander and serve immediately.

Homemade stock rocks!