Yesterday’s leftover chicken reheated and served with vegetables that had been roasted with chilli, cumin and garlic. A handful of coriander and some warm wraps and that was tonight’s dinner. Perfect Monday food.

While I was planning meals for the weekend, I decided that I wanted to roast a chicken with Morrocan flavourings, in a similar way to this leg of lamb. I bought a bulb of fennel, some olives and some preserved lemons and set about putting together said roast chicken. It didn’t take long for me to realise that I was actually just making chicken tagine with a whole chicken instead of pieces.

At this point, Stephen and I had a conversation in which he said something like “Shall we just make chicken tagine?” but I stupidly ignored him and continued with my original plan. I should have listened to him. If I had then we would have had a really good chicken tagine instead of a dish which was very much like chicken tagine but not quite as good.

Our chicken tagine recipe is here, try it, it’s brilliant.

We had some friends over for dinner on Saturday night and, after exploring pretty much every cuisine we could think of, we settled on Mexican food. The reason it took us so long to decide is that we wanted to cook Maddhur Jaffrey’s chicken but in a different style. We both thought it would work brilliantly with a Thai twist but our local Thai supermarket is closed and we knew we would struggle to get all the relevant ingredients. So, we went Mexican instead since we had everything we needed.

The original Indian recipe uses yoghurt in the first part of the marinating process but we reasoned that lime juice would do a similar job. With hindsight, I think we should have used yoghurt as the flavours didn’t penetrate the chicken quite as well as they did last time. Aside from that, it all worked out pretty well. The chicken didn’t seem quite as moist as it did last time but it wasn’t too noticeable, some extra marinating juices would have been useful here though.

We also decided to try our luck with a pork fillet which didn’t work so well. Pork shoulder would be very good though due to all that extra fat.

Beans, green rice, tortillas and guacamole completed the meal.

(I’ll post the chicken recipe tomorrow, Stephen did most of the work and I’m not sure what went into the marinade).

Oh dear, another unintentional break in posting due to busy schedules and pre-summer diets. We have of course been eating but none of it has been that interesting unfortunately. There just hasn’t been the time to think about food or spend much time preparing it. And healthy food isn’t really my forte so there’s been a lot of salads with some kind of protein and quite a lot of toast.

This chicken dish was interesting though and was enjoyed at the height of my mustard obsession. Simple pot-roasted chicken with a variety of mustards added to the cooking juices. A good alternative to roast chicken for a Sunday lunch – you don’t get the crispy skin but since it’s not diet-compliant, I can’t have it anyway. The chicken will remain moist even if you forget about it for a little while so it’s also a good alternative if you’re not confident with timings.

Pot Roasted Chicken with Mustard

This doesn’t really require a recipe but the steps are:

Brown the chicken all over
Transfer it to a casserole dish and sit it on top of some onions, carrot, celery and a bay leaf
Add some water and wine
Put the casserole dish into an oven preheated to 180 degrees
Cook for about an hour and a half
Remove the chicken to a plate to rest, cover with foil
Put the casserole dish on the hob
Skim the fat
Add mustard of your choice
Bring to the boil
Reduce the heat and simmer
Check for seasoning and thicken if you wish
Serve

My obsession with mustard continues. As does it seems my obsession with breaded meat, especially for Friday night dinners. The two together obviously equal chicken kiev with a mustard-butter instead of the usual garlic. We were going to call this Chicken Dijon (since the chicken is stuffed with Dijon mustard) but that already exists and I couldn’t think of anything else. Not that it matters, what matters is that it was a good combination and the butter did a very good job of staying inside the chicken and not leaking all over the frying pan which is always good.

No lengthy recipe required, just stuff the chicken with the mustardy butter (I used about 2 tablespoons of mustard to about 3 tablespoons of butter along with some salt and pepper and some chopped parsley), roll the chicken in some seasoned flour, then beaten egg and finally some breadcrumbs. Add some olive oil to your frying pan, heat and then brown the chicken on both sides.

Transfer to the oven and cook for about 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked. Serve with some kind of potato and vegetable – we ended up eating the salad I had prepared as a starter hence the rather lonely looking chicken up there.

I couldn’t get the title of the post to do justice to the meal, so had to add that bit on the end. The recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey’s “Indian Cookery” and the title in there doesn’t do it justice either; it is simply called “Whole Chicken Baked in Aluminium Foil”. On reading the recipe though, it becomes obvious that there is more to it than that – there is a marinating step and then some more spice paste is put onto the chicken before it is wrapped up and cooked.

We found the recipe in the morning while paging through our recipe books and when I saw that it required the whole chicken to be skinned, I was initially a bit worried that I would spend the whole afternoon in the kitchen trying to do it. But then serendipity – we were watching Saturday Kitchen and Atul Kochhar ended up doing exactly that! I didn’t skin it as quickly and effortlessly as he did, but at least I had an idea of the technique before starting, which helped a lot.

We had planned a few accompaniments too – dal, roasted cauliflower, braised cabbage and chapatis.

The chicken was brilliant. At one point I said something like “this is the best chicken I ever remember eating”. The depth of flavour was intense, but in a mellow and rounded way. The spice paste had cooked through and made an excellent sauce, along with having flavoured the chicken with its deep gingery, garlicky, spicy goodness. I can’t think of much more to write about it that will do it justice, but we will certainly be cooking this again when some friends are around to share the deliciousness.

Indian Baked Whole Chicken
Serves 4-6

Marinade
2.5cm ginger, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
6 tbsps natural yoghurt
1 tsp turmeric
1 1/4 tsps salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper
Black pepper

1 chicken, skin removed
225g onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled
4cm ginger, chopped
25g slivered almonds
3 tsps cumin
3 tsps coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsps salt
Oil
2 tbsps lemon juice
Pepper
1/2 tsp garam masala

First make the marinade by blending all the ingredients together. Rub the marinade all over the chicken, including the inside, and set aside for two hours.

Meanwhile, blend the onions, garlic, ginger and almonds together into a paste. Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, cayenne pepper and salt and blend again.

Put some oil into a frying pan and fry the paste over a medium-heat for 8-9 minutes. Add the lemon juice, pepper and garam masala and mix together. Leave the paste to cool and pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.

Spread the cooled paste all over the chicken, including the insides and then wrap securely in foil. Bake, breast side up, for 90 minutes or until the chicken is tender.

When we fancy a stir fry of some sort we usually end up following a Thai recipe or at least giving it a Thai twist, but this time we fancied something in a Chinese style instead. We had intended to use oyster sauce but when it came to cooking time we found that we didn’t have any. Problem. And we thought of using chilli flakes but we found that we had none of those either. Another problem. But we ended up using Szechuan peppercorns instead; Szechuan peppercorns are brilliant and if we’d remembered that we had them then we probably would have planned to use them anyway. So we forged ahead and just added loads of soy sauce in an attempt to make up for the lack of oyster sauce… it worked out pretty well.

The recipe was of our own devising and went something like this:

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts, sliced thinly
soy sauce
Chinese cooking wine
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon szechuan peppercorns
vegetable oil
3 spring onions, green and white parts, sliced (remember to wash them as there can be sand in the green ends)
baby corn
mange tout or sugar snap peas
spring greens or pak choi
Chinese noodles – either soaked for the appropriate amount of time, or the “straight to wok” type

Place the thinly sliced chicken breasts into a bowl and add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce along with the szechuan peppercorns and one third of the garlic. Stir and let it marinate for 30 minutes. Then heat up your wok and add a little oil. When it is hot, add the garlic for 30 seconds and then add the chicken (leave excess marinade behind in the bowl for now), stirring constantly while it fries. After 2 to 3 minutes it should be almost cooked; remove it to a plate.

Add a little more oil and another third of the garlic. After 30 seconds add the baby corn, mange tout and spring onions. Add a splash of soy sauce and stir fry for two minutes, adding the spring greens or pak choi half way through. Then add the chicken back to the wok along with the reserved marinade and a splash of the Chinese cooking wine and turn down the heat. Stir well then cover the wok with a large saucepan lid and leave it for 2 to 3 minutes.

Then it should all be cooked, so remove it to a plate, preferably a warmed one so that it doesn’t get cold. Turn the heat back up and add a little more oil and then the last of the garlic. After 30 seconds add the noodles and a generous splash of soy sauce; stir fry for 2 minutes or until done.

Serve the noodles with the chicken and vegetables on top of it. Enjoy!

I love puy lentils and we eat them a lot. Boiled simply and then flavoured with oil and fresh herbs while still warm, they are endlessly versatile and often form the basis of a quick, week-night dinner. What we don’t often do is cook them with other ingredients as part of a one-pot dish.

Cooked this way (braised I suppose), the lentils took on more flavour and the texture changed too, becoming almost creamy. It took a little longer this way but we were rewarded with a completely different dish and a whole new way to enjoy lentils.

The other thing I particularly liked about this was the mustard. It’s the second dish I’ve cooked recently that uses a lot of what I mostly use as just a condiment. I’m definitely converted to cooking with mustard instead of just spreading it on my ham sandwiches and am looking forward to experimenting further.

Chicken with Mustard Lentils
Serves Two

4 skinless chicken thighs (legs would obviously be fine, breasts would be more likely to dry out)
Salt and pepper
150g pancetta
1 onion, finely diced
1 rib celery, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Herbs (I used a handful of fresh rosemary and parsley and a couple of bay leaves)
Glass white wine (I wanted to use sherry but there wasn’t any left, funny how that happens)
200g puy lentils
250ml chicken stock
2 tbsps Dijon mustard
Squeeze lemon juice
Handful fresh parsley, chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.

Start by browning the seasoned chicken until it’s very dark all over and then remove to a plate.

In the same pan, remove the excess oil and then fry the bacon pieces until the fat has rendered. Remove to a plate.

Again, remove the excess oil and then soften the onions, celery and carrot. After about five minutes at a medium heat, add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Next, add the herbs and the black pepper and cook for just a minute.

Return the bacon back to the pan and then add the wine, allowing it to bubble for a couple of minutes so that the alcohol burns off.

Now add the lentils and stir them around so they are well incorporated with everything else. Add the chicken stock and mustard and stir again. Sit the chicken on top of the lentils and put the pan into the oven for about 35 minutes (this will vary depending on the kind of chicken you’re using and whether it has bones).

Check to see if you need to add any salt, add a squeeze of lemon juice and the parsley and then serve.

Another recipe found in the recent Recipe Spring Clean, courtesy of The Wednesday Chef.

I’ve had this bookmarked for a while but, much like my clippings folder, rarely refer to my bookmarks when I’m searching for inspiration. I tend to cook something quite quickly after discovering it and the online “recipe” folder is typically where recipes go to die. I’m glad I found this one again though because it was brilliant. There’s a lot of mustard on that chicken but it melts away and provides really tasty crumbs. The original recipe calls for duck which I’m not sure about, pork chops would work very well though I think.

Mustardy Breaded Chicken
Serves Two

Skinned chicken pieces (I used two legs and two thighs but breasts would work well here)
Salt and pepper
2 tsps dried herbs (you could use a mixture of fresh herbs)
4 tbsps Dijon mustard
Breadcrumbs
Melted butter (or olive oil)

Season the chicken with salt and pepper and then sprinkle over the dried herbs. Next, spread the mustard all over the chicken before rolling the chicken in breadcrumbs. Transfer to an oiled baking dish and then drizzle over the melted butter.

Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for an hour or until the chicken has cooked through.

While on holiday in South Africa, we picked up a packet of Portugese spice mix to bring home. Aside from the description telling us it included tarragon and the cinammon we could smell/taste, I’m not sure what else was in there. It was a winning combination though (and a cheap one, at only 40p or thereabouts) and one which, sadly, we have no hope of replicating. We’ve probably used about a third of the packet so we’ll have to try and make this last for another year or so until we get back to South Africa again.