roast chicken with petits pois a la francais

Posted by Gary in bread, chicken, food, lettuce, peas and tagged with alex mackay, jon jones May 21, 2012

Sometimes, when you’re cooking dinner you just know it’s going to be good, you can feel it. This was one of those times.

It was an excuse to eat peas, this one: the peas are a recipe from attending Waitrose Cookery School recently (more on that in a future post). I know it’s a classical French recipe but this is just so damn tasty. This from someone who isn’t that bothered about peas. Seriously, they’re amazing. Try this on their own. I would of course usually roast a chicken in my favourite Heston way, but on this occasion I was caught short and had to cook the chicken on the quick and roasted it in the traditional way. It was fine, but I do miss the succulence afforded by lovely brined meat. All that aside, this combination of chicken and braised peas is just brill. The gravy is inspired by a method described in Alex Mackay’s new book Everybody, Everyday.

By the way, note only the breasts were required for this recipe. I used the other parts of chicken for meals elsewhere in the week.

Roast chicken with petits pois a la français (serves 4):

For the chicken:

1.7kg chicken

1 onions, quartered

1 head of garlic, halved horizontally

For the peas:

25g butter

1 onion, peeled and finely diced

4 rashers bacon, sliced

1 sprig of rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped

250g petits pois

2 little gem lettuces, shredded

A large handful of parsley, finely chopped

For the gravy:

600ml chicken stock

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon cornflour

Sourdough bread, to serve

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Free the chicken from its trussing, put it in a roasting tray, slather it in olive oil and season well. Pop a quarter of the onion and half the garlic in the cavity, and scatter the remaining alliums around the chicken. Pop in the oven for 1 hour to 1hr 30mins, until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast reads 70°C+. Allow to rest, covered, for at least 15 mins before carving (only the breasts are required for this recipe).

When the chicken has been in for about 30 mins, melt the butter in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion for a couple of minutes until softened. Add the bacon and rosemary and cook for a couple more minutes, then add the peas and lettuce. Cover and allow to raise for 30 mins, stirring occasionally. When the peas are tender check for seasoning and add the parsley.

For the gravy, boil the stock and soy together until reduced by a quarter. Mix the cornflour with a splash of water and whisk this in. When the chicken has been removed from the oven add the juices from the pan to the gravy. Serve everything together with sourdough bread to soak up the gravy.

sunday grill

Posted by Gary in carrots, chicken, food, potatoes May 20, 2012

…Instead of Sunday roast, geddit? Except it wasn’t roasted, and I ate it on a Wednesday. Simple, eh? Let me explain…

George Foreman Grills are making a comeback, it seems. They passed me by the first time around; just wasn’t in the right place at the right time. So when I was invited to test-drive their new monster 4-Portion family grill I was intrigued. I tried out a few things but they were keen for me to try cooking a delicious four person meal.

Whatever my recipe was how could I leave out my thing, roast potatoes? So a version of that was definitely going to feature; from there it was only a short step to deciding I might as well do as much of a Sunday roast as possible on the little dude. I can’t use my beloved Maris Pipers though, their texture will cause them to fall apart on the griddle. So I’m bucking the trend and using new pots here. Technically we end up with something closer to a saute potato but so much healthier.

With the potatoes sorted, it’s on to the meat. Chicken seems like the way to go. But I want to maximise the flavour, I am not actually roasting here so a few leg-ups are needed to make regular grilled foods punch above their weight. My love affair with brining told me to try it here; it provides you with excellent seasoning and gives a much ‘bigger’ flavour. The final touch for the chicken is to rub it with a stock cube to impart even more deep chickeny love.

So there it is – my quick and tasty Sunday Grill. Once your chicken has brined I reckon it will take you 25 minutes to get it on the table, so it’s a great midweek meal. Check back later this week where I’ll be giving away a grill of your very own!

If you want to go shopping for a grill now, here’s a deal for you: run over to George Foreman Grills and they’re currently offering free UK delivery and a 50% off sale. But for an extra 10% off, use the code GFSAVE10 and grab yourself a bargain!

Thanks to Sophie for going to a lot (!) of trouble getting me a grill to test on. For more George Foreman Grill inspiration, check out Helen’s lemony maple chicken thighs, and Katie’s sticky griddled plums!

Sunday grill (serves 4):

4 chicken breasts

Lots of salt

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon honey

1 chicken stock cube

500g new potatoes, halved

750g carrots, peeled and chopped

1 shallot, peeled

50g cooked chestnuts

4 pork sausages, skinned

1 rasher bacon

3 sage leaves

25g breadcrumbs

Gravy, to serve

Put your chicken breasts in a bowl and put it on top of some scales. Cover the chicken generously and note how heavy the water is. Work out 5% of the weight of the water, and add that amount of salt to the bowl. Ad the bay leaf and honey, cover and leave refrigerated for at least an hour, but no more than 6 hours.

When you’re ready to cook, drain the chicken, give it a brief rinse in cold water and pat dry with kitchen roll.

Pre-heat your George Foreman grill to it’s highest setting on both grill and griddle. Get a large pan of water on to boil. Crumble half the stock cube into the water. When it’s ready pop the potatoes in and boil for approximately 8 minutes or until tender enough that a knife can pass into it. Drain and allow to steam-dry for a couple of minutes. As they cool add a teaspoon of oil and toss thoroughly.

In a food processor, whizz up the shallot, then add the chestnuts, sausagemeat, bacon, sage and breadcrumbs. Season well with salt and pepper and pulse several times until the whole mixture pulls together. Scoop out the mix and form into 4 balls, then flatten.

On the griddle section, add the potatoes cut-side down. This will cook for about 1o – 12 minutes, until the are beautifully golden brown. You should also just about have room for the stuffing patties. After about 6 minutes the stuffing should be flipped over and cooked on the other side.

Meanwhile, fill the saucepan that held the potatoes with boiling water again and get the carrots on to cook until tender to your liking.

After the potatoes have been on for about 4 minutes, rub the remaining stock cube half all over the chicken and add the chicken breasts to the grill. Cook for 7 – 10 minutes until cooked through. They will take longer to colour because of the brining, but they will cook inside in the same time. Serve everything up and pour over your favourite gravy.

cumin chicken salad

Posted by Gary in chicken, cumin, food, salad April 29, 2012

chicken salad (image comes from flyingroc on Flickr)

Image copyright flyingroc on Flickr

Worktime lunch is frequently a source of frustration for me. Sandwiches are OK for a while, but then I start to go stir crazy at the mundanity of them. Occasionally I’ll have a salad but there’s a lot of faff trying to keep the dressing separate until lunchtime.

Recently I was sent a compartmented lunchbox by Sistema. It’s genius: there are layers to keep different parts in, and a little pot for dressing, yet the whole thing slots back into a neat normal-sized lunchbox. In Heston Blumenthal at Home Heston clears up what destroys the salad leaves: surprisingly it’s not the vinegar component of the dressing but the oil. It seeps into tiny cracks on the leaves’ surface, and its for this reason you shouldn’t dress a salad until the last possible minute. With the separate pot for salad dressing this means you can dress the salad when you’re ready. This recipe shows it off really well: spiced chicken flavours with an Asian-style dressing. Nice and simple yet perfect for an office lunch.

Cumin chicken salad (serves 2):

2 chicken breasts, diced

1 teaspoon cumin powder

½ cucumber, cut into matchsticks

½ iceberg lettuce, shredded

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

For the dressing:

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar

1 teaspoon tomato ketchup

Dash of soy

Few drops of sesame oil

Toss the chicken in the cumin and fry for a few minutes until cooked through. Toss in sesame seeds and leave to cool.

For the dressing, combine all the ingredients together and season to taste.

To serve, put the chicken with the lettuce and cucumber and toss with the dressing.

Unusually for me, I’m using someone else’s photo. I completely forgot to take a picture of lunch, but it looked a lot like this! Thanks Flyingroc.

karo tacos

Posted by Gary in chicken, food, onion, paprika, peppers, thyme, tomato April 16, 2012

There are times when Twitter is completely inspirational, and tonight was one of those times. I knew I wanted tacos (who doesn’t love tacos? It’s like eating crisps and pretending you’re a grown-up), and had chicken ready for them. But how to season? I’d made them a dozen times. Casting around on Twitter, @karohemd came up with the nub of this recipe, and it’s him I dedicate this sweet-spicy dinner treat to him. Thanks Ozzy!

Karo tacos (serves 4):

3 chicken breasts, diced

1 clove of garlic, finely diced

1 teaspoon hot smoked paprika

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Zest of ½ an orange

1 onion, sliced

3 peppers, sliced

½ teaspoon coriander

1 tin cherry tomatoes

12 tacos

Put the chicken in a bowl along with the garlic, paprika, thyme, vinegar, a splash of oil and salt & pepper. Combine and cover to marinate for at least an hour, more if you have time.

Get a large pan over a lowish heat and add some oil. Add the onions and peppers and stir-fry for about 10 minutes, or until the veg starts to soften. Add the coriander and some seasoning and stir well.

Throw in the tomatoes and raise the heat. Simmer briskly to reduce some of the tomato liquid (tacos don’t work too well with soggy fillings!). Heat the tacos according to the packet instructions.

Now push the veg to the sides of the pan to make some space, then fry the chicken alongside everything. When the chicken is coloured all over stir everything together and continue cooking until the chicken is done. Serve with guacamole, salsa, jalapenos and all those other yummy Tex-Mex garnishes.

heston blumenthal’s roast chicken

Posted by Gary in chicken, food, lemon, salt, thyme, wine and tagged with heston blumenthal February 5, 2012

Heston’s latest series, How to Cook Like Heston, is probably the one that could finally convert the non-believers. It’s vintage Heston treading familiar recipes, but taking them just far enough, and just explaining enough to make them accessible for those that want to try. The best example of this is roast chicken: I’ve previously cooked his perfect roast chicken (from In Search of Perfection) and it’s a brilliant recipe. But despite its relative simplicity there are a couple of stages in it that could be intimidating: plunging into water a few times, trying to cook a whole chicken in a frying pan, and chicken wing butter. So I was intrigued to see him show an even further simplified version on the show.

The brining is still there; an absolute necessity in my book. A low solution of 6% keeps the meat moist without making it too strong and cure-like. The slow roasting is also there, “low and slow” as Heston puts it, and after a simple resting back into your hottest oven to finish off. For the roasting itself, you simply have to use a meat thermometer to be sure that it’s done. I recommend Salter’s Heston-branded one but any one will do. It is recommended that you take the meat to 75°C; Heston admits that but says 60°C gives you the perfect succulence. If you have bird of spotless provenance that would probably be fine but I took my mid-range supermarket bird to 70°C.

And it’s tremendous of course. In fact I’d possibly argue that the extra stages introduced by the Perfection version are unnecessary. You get a fabulously juicy, tasty chicken, plump with flavour and intense chickenness. It’s well worth giving a go once – it takes no more effort than a regular roast chicken, just the brining the night before and a bit longer time blocked out for the oven. If you love your Sunday roast chicken, you owe it to your dinner table to try this one out.

The link to the Channel 4 recipe is here. An even more developed and detailed version of the recipe is in the book Heston Blumenthal at Home.

Heston Blumenthal’s roast chicken (serves 4–6):

6% brine (I used 240g salt dissolved in 4 litres of water)

1.4kg chicken

1 lemon

1 bunch of thyme

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for rubbing into the skin

30ml dry white wine

Remove the trussing from the chicken to allow it to cook more evenly then place it in a container. Pour over the brine ensuring that the chicken is submerged then place in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 90ºC. Remove the chicken from the liquid, rinse with fresh water and pat dry with kitchen paper. Place on a wire rack over a baking tray.

Roll and pierce the lemon then place it in the cavity of the bird with half the thyme. Rub some softened butter on top of the skin. Roast the chicken until the internal temperature in the thickest part of the breast is 60ºC (for mine to hit 70ºC took 2 hours 20 minutes but there’s so many factors involved you should check every half hour from about 2 hours onwards).

Remove the chicken from the oven and allow to rest for 45 minutes. Turn the oven temperature as high as it will go. This is a good time to use the oven if you’re doing roast potatoes.

In the meantime, melt the butter in a pan and add the wine and a few sprigs of thyme. Bring to the boil then remove the pan from the heat and use the melted butter to baste the chicken before browning. Grind over some black pepper.

Once the resting time has elapsed, put the chicken back in the roasting tray and return it to the oven for approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown, taking care that it doesn’t burn.

Once coloured, remove the chicken from the oven and carve. Serve with Heston’s perfect carrots and my perfect roast potatoes, a combination of methods including Heston’s.

empire chicken with indian gravy and bombay roasties

Posted by Gary in carrots, chicken, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cucumber, cumin, curry, food, garlic, ginger, lemon, nigella seeds, potatoes, red onion and tagged with jamie oliver December 5, 2011

What a triumph this is. Just when I was feeling a bit indifferent to Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain along comes this absolute belter. Jamie introduces this by saying most people when asked about their favourite foods will mention roast chicken and curries, and this utterly unites the heart of both of these.

With blackened, tangy skin the chicken comes out juicy and tickling on the tongue, although be warned it will make a mess of your oven as it sits on the rack.

Being the kind of blog this is though, I have to talk about the roast potatoes. They are a triumph. I used to get “spicy spuds” from a dubious takeaway near me and these are very, very close to those – crispy, spicy and fluffy.

I’ve made a few changes to the spices in the potatoes based on what I had, and used floury over new pots to get them really crispy. I’ve served mine with a refreshing salad.

I cannot recommend this recipe enough.

Jamie’s original recipe is here.

Empire chicken, Bombay roasties, Indian gravy and refreshing salad (serves 4):

For the chicken and marinade

1.4kg free-range chicken

1 heaped tablespoon each finely grated garlic, fresh ginger and fresh red chilli

1 heaped tablespoon tomato purée

1 heaped teaspoon each of ground coriander, turmeric, garam masala and ground cumin

2 heaped teaspoons natural yoghurt

2 level teaspoons sea salt

For the gravy

1 stick of cinnamon

2 small red onions, peeled

10 cloves

3 tablespoons each of white wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce

3 level tablespoons plain flour

500ml chicken stock

For the Bombay-style potatoes

800g new potatoes

sea salt and ground pepper

1 lemon

2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil

a knob of butter

1 heaped teaspoon each of nigella seeds, ground coriander, garam masala, fenugreek and turmeric

1 bulb of garlic

Pinch of chilli flakes

For the salad

½ a cucumber, peeled

3 carrots, peeled

1 red onion, peeled

½ lemon

Slash the chicken’s legs a few times right down to the bone. Mix all the marinade ingredients together and smear all over the chicken. Leave to marinate overnight.
Preheat the oven to 200°C and organize your shelves so the roasting tray can sit right at the bottom, the chicken can sit directly above it, right on the bars of the shelf, and the potatoes can go at the top.
Cut the potatoes into golf-ball size pieces then parboil them in a large pan of salted boiling water with a whole lemon for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through. Drain the potatoes then let them steam dry. Stab the lemon a few times with a sharp knife and put it right into the chicken’s cavity.
Roughly chop the onions and add to a roasting tray along with the cinnamon stick, cloves, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, then whisk in the flour. Pour in the stock or water, then place this right at the bottom of the oven. Place the chicken straight on to the bars of the middle shelf, above the roasting tray. Cook for 1 hour 20 minutes.
Put a roasting tray in the oven for five minutes to get hot. Add the olive oil, butter, the spices, halve a bulb of garlic and add it straight to the pan. Add your drained potatoes to the tray, mix everything together, then season well. After the chicken has been in for 40 minutes, put the potatoes in.
Once the chicken is cooked, move it to a board to rest. Pass the gravy through a coarse sieve into a pan, whisking any sticky goodness from the pan as you go. Bring to the boil and either cook and thicken or thin down with water to your preference (I had to add some boiling water to deglaze the surface and make a sauce out of it.
For the salad, use a vegetable peeler to make thin strips of the carrot and cucumber. Then finely slice the onion and add this to it. Add a pinch each of salt and sugar, then squeeze over the lemon and toss to combine. Leave for 15 minutes while everything else finishes off.
Get your potatoes out of the oven and put them into a serving bowl, then serve the chicken on a board next to the sizzling roasties and hot gravy.

sunday roast chicken with roast potatoes, carrots and brussels sprouts

Posted by Gary in bacon, brussels sprouts, carrots, chestnuts, chicken, food, garlic, maple syrup, marjoram, parsley, polenta, potatoes October 28, 2011

Sunday lunch is when you want to just go for it. I grew up in one of those lucky houses where my Mum cooked a Sunday roast every week without fail, and recently it’s been nagging at me to do this much more regularly for my own family. But my Mum didn’t have Twitter to distract her. Or Facebook. Or Dave Gorman’s Absolute radio show. But I’m trying.

This is a fairly typical roast for me, and when you do more involved roasts with a few side-dishes, I think you should forgive yourself a few shortcuts. Why not use packet stuffing, or frozen yorkies? We all know you can make them, but the extra timing, oven space and graft is more worthwhile concentrating on getting the big stuff right. So I took a few liberties.

And I know what some of you are thinking. “Yorkies? With chicken?” Yes. They were made to float on gravy of any description. Try and stop me.

The chicken here was excellent, from those fine chaps at Farmers Choice. It gave brittle, savoury skin with plump and flavour-packed meat. A real treat.

If the thought of making a Sunday roast scares you, and just seeing that list of things is too daunting, don’t panic. I bet you could cook all those things on the list individually. So it comes down purely to timing. If it helps, write a list. Start with the thing that takes longest to cook, and count things in from then – see below for a guide. Don’t forget to allow the roast time to rest. But be bold, and always remember that the gravy will heat everything back up again :-)

Sunday roast chicken with roast potatoes, carrots and brussels sprouts (serves 4 – 6, + leftovers):

1.6kg chicken

1 teaspoon dried marjoram

1 onion, quartered

20g butter

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon parsley, finely chopped

500g white potatoes, peeled and diced into golf ball-sized chunks

1 tablespoon fine polenta

25g butter

2 bay leaves

Dash of red wine vinegar

3 carrots, peeled and sliced

250g brussels sprouts

100g cooked chestnuts

4 rashers back bacon, rind removed and reserved and sliced

1 tablespoon maple syrup

A few hours before, sprinkle the marjoram over the bird. Spread it all over generously with salt and black pepper, then place on a rack over a roasting dish and pop in the the fridge for about 3 hours. This step draws flavours down into the chicken, while at the same time drying out the skin to make it super-crispy.

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C. This temperature will really blast the skin and make it golden.

Get the chicken out of the fridge and add a few more flavourings: put 2 quarters of the onion inside the carcass and the other two on the base of the roasting dish you’re going to use. Mix the butter, parsley and garlic together. Work your fingers under the skin of the chicken to release it from the meat, then slowly push the butter into this little pocket you’ve created. Put into the oven and leave there for 15 minutes, before turning the heat down to 180°C.

Meanwhile, get the potatoes on. Get a large pan of boiling water on and salt generously. Par-boil for 10 or so minutes, until a knife can slide in and out easily (I usually jab a knife into a wedge then suspend it above the water – when it can fall off within a few seconds they’re ready). Drain well and leave to sit in the warm pan without a lid for a few minutes to steam dry. Put the butter with a splash of rapeseed oil into another baking dish and place in the oven to heat up. Toss the potatoes in the polenta and then tip out into the now hot fat. These are going to need about 45 minutes, which will cross over with removing the meat from the oven. When you remove the meat, turn the heat back up to 200°C for the potatoes’ sake.

When the chicken is cooked (look for juices running clear when probed), remove to a wooden board and cover loosely with foil. Pop the roasting dish on a high hob and add a tablespoon of flour, stirring well. After a minute add about 300ml boiling water to cover the bottom of the tray and get scraping to get all that good stuff. Sieve into a jug for serving, and give it a short blast in the microwave to keep the heat up right at the end.

If you’re using packet stuffing like me, you’ll probably need to do the boiling-water-and-stick-in-the-oven thing here. Let the instructions on the box guide you.

When the potatoes have had about 20 minutes, add sea salt, a little white pepper, the bay leaves, red wine vinegar and the bacon rind. Return to the oven.

Get the carrots and sprouts on to cook. When you are cooking multiple veg I recommend a multiple-tier electric steamer. It gets everything going at once and frees up a space on the hob. The carrots will need around 15 minutes.

While the sprouts cook, get a frying pan on medium hot and add a little oil. Throw in the bacon and wait til it colours on one side before adding the part-cooked sprouts and chestnuts. Stir fry well for five minutes.

The potatoes might need a final blast of seasoning, otherwise they’re good to serve. Take the chicken to the table, pouring any spare juice into the gravy jug, and get someone else to carve. You’ve done enough.

If you’re using frozen yorkshire puddings, they’ll need their 2 minutes in the oven now.

When the sprouts are tender, take them off the heat and add the maple syrup. Toss well to coat and serve, and don’t forget the carrots!

paella gabriel

Posted by Gary in chicken, peppers, pork, rice, stock April 23, 2011

I’m fresh back from a week in Mallorca, and besides the balmy weather, powder-fine sandy beaches and beautiful views, one of my highlights was watching an expert cook paella for me up close. I’ve never had any particular technique for paella, throwing things in and waiting for a bit. But this guy, taking his time and enjoying it (and bursting into giggles throughout) had no qualms about cooking a monstrous dish of rice for 30 people. And he talked about different versions too, of ones specific to Mallorca, a paella negra made with squid ink, and a gutsy paella brut.

I made my version totally identical to his, even going to a Spanish supermarket to get some powdered orange colouring, and it’s really good. Fishy, meaty and completely enjoyable – though you can omit the fish if your family are as picky as mine! I’ve named this version after him as tribute to his demonstration. Make sure you serve it with sangria.

Paella Gabriel (serves 6):

4 cloves of garlic

300g chicken thighs, roughly chopped

300g pork loin, diced

2 peppers, sliced

Some mussels, opened

Some prawns

2 teaspoons powdered orange food colouring

Large splash of brandy

500g green beans, sliced

500g chestnut mushrooms, quartered

Large handful of peas

1 tin tomatoes

1 pint chicken stock

2 handfuls of rice per person

Lemon wedges, to serve

Crush the garlic and mix with the meats. Add a splash of oil and leave to marinate (overnight, if you have time).

Heat some oil in a large wok or paella pan. Fry the peppers and fish on a sizzling heat until the peppers are tender, then remove from the pan to one side.

Add the chicken and pork and continue to fry. Sprinkle a little salt and colouring.

When the meat is browned deglaze the pan with the alcohol. Allow this to bubble for a minute or two before adding the vegetables. Stir well to coat in the seasonings and then pour over the tomatoes and stock.

Once the liquid had come to the boil, tip in the rice. Simmer for a further 15 minutes, or until the rice is cooked. Stir occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking.

When the stock has been absorbed, turn off the heat and stir the fish and peppers back into the paella. Serve with wedges of lemon.

roast chicken with creamy chorizo butter beans

Posted by Gary in beans, chicken, chorizo and tagged with jason atherton March 13, 2011

I had a tremendous lunch at Cathy’s the other week, featuring a millionaire shortbread trifle and an unctuous confit chicken leg. The star of it for me though was a creamy chorizo and butter bean stew, a rich and textured dish spiked with tht lovely Spanish sausage. It’s one taken from Jason Atherton’s Gourmet Food for a Fiver book and it’s absolutely fantastic. I ran right home and did it myself later that week.

The only change I made was to roast the chicken instead of confit due to time constraints, no other reason. I urge you to try the beans though, they’re dynamite.

Roast chicken with creamy chorizo butter beans (serves 2):

2 chicken legs

1 head of garlic, halved

A few sprigs of thyme, leaves picked

Pinch of paprika

100g chorizo, diced

100ml chicken stock

100ml double cream

1 220g tin butter beans (I love Napolina ones)

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Mix together half the thyme with the paprika and a generous dose of salt and pepper. Blend with a glug of olive oil and smear this paste all over the chicken legs. Pop the garlic halves in a baking tray and pop the chicken legs on top of the garlic. Bung in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until the juices run clear when poked with a skewer.

When the chicken is about 15 minutes away from done, fry the chorizo in a pan until browned. Remove to one side and add the remaining thyme, cream and stock to the pan. Turn the heat up to get everything bubbling away. When the liquids have reduced by half, drain the butter beans and throw them in the pan, and the chorizo too.

Simmer for 10 minutes and check for seasoning. Serve with wilted spinach.

chicken skewers, satay sauce and noodle salad

Posted by Gary in chicken, lime, noodles, peanut butter and tagged with jamie oliver February 21, 2011

This recipe is adapted from one of Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals. If you’ve browsed around this blog in the last couple of months, you’ll have noticed that I’ve gone through quite a lot of them, and they’ve all been pretty fantastic. This is the first one that felt like a lot of fuss for okay results. I’m sure it could be simplified to a more straight-forward stir fry style recipe. I’ll be back with this one.

Chicken skewers, satay sauce and noodle salad (serves 2):

For the satay sauce:

½ a bunch of fresh coriander

A few slices of red chilli

1 clove garlic

3 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter

1 tablespoon tahini

Soy sauce

2cm ginger

Zest and juice of 1 lime

For the chicken:

2 chicken breasts, diced

Runny honey

For the noodles:

1 nest per person

50g unsalted cashews

½ red onion

½ bunch fresh coriander

Soy sauce

1 lime

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon fish suace

1 teaspoon honey

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

To serve:

More fresh coriander