I’ve cooked a few whole birds on the barbecue before, such as southeast spatchcock and slathered with BBQ sauce. But with getting a drum-style barbecue this year I could try grilling a whole one for the first time.
This chicken came about from trying Sainsbury’s new chicken roaster. It’s a metal stand which holds the bird in a vertical position while it roasts. Assembled it’s rather phallic, but once you look past that you have a metal prong over a tray which all hooks together. The pieces come apart and you are able to fold it away to pretty much nothing. You’re cooking a chicken to a similar principle as a beer-butt chicken which I’ve always wanted to try but just don’t like the taste of beer (the quickest my face goes from happy to sad is noticing there’s onion rings on the menu, then spotting they’re beer-battered onion rings. Horrid yeasty aftertaste, yeeuch).
I rubbed the meat all over with a sweet spice mix and awkwardly impaled the chicken on the spike. And now it looked like it had waltzed off Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer video, hence the name.
I started mine off on the BBQ with the lid down, but after 70 minutes the bird had barely started to warm up and it just wasn’t feeling right. I brought it into the oven and finished it off there. The flavour was great and it had taken on some smoke so not all was lost. Carving into it the flesh was moist and tender.
Is the roaster worth it? I’m not quite convinced. You could go down the beer can route on the BBQ, and in the oven it takes up a lot of space being vertical. Being able to put liquid underneath (I used white wine) means a natural mist is retained going up into the cavity but the skin stays crisp. That said as long as time allows I’ll be sticking to my preferred Heston technique. The roaster is a fun gadget, but not essential.
Thanks to Sainsbury’s for sending me the roaster to try out.
Sledgehammer chicken (serves 4 – 6):
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch of chilli powder
Olive oil
1 medium chicken
Splash of white wine
Mix the spices together and blend with enough olive oil to make a gloopy paste. Smear all over the chicken and make a real mess of it. Impale the chicken on your chicken roaster and fill the tray with wine.
Light the BBQ. Once the flames have died down and there is a thin coating of white ash over the coals, place your chicken into the BBQ and close the lid. Roast there for 2 – 3 hours until the chicken is 70°C at the thickest part (always use a probe thermometer, it’s the only way to be sure). Or if your BBQ isn’t quite hot enough, transfer to a 180°C oven. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving. I served mine with potatoes roasted with chorizo.
After sampling some beautiful desserts in Mallorca recently, I really fancied recreating some of them. One on the hitlist was creme caramel, so I gave it a go. I used this recipe of James Martin’s, and didn’t change a thing.
It turned out brilliantly! I was sure it would be lumpy and gnarly, but the mixture was smooth, the caramel golden and the whole thing sweet and jelly-like. I was gobsmacked!
Creme caramel (serves 4):
4 eggs
1 egg yolk
120 g caster sugar
500 ml milk
1 drops vanilla essence
For the caramel:
150 g caster sugar
50 ml water
Preheat the oven to 140°C/gas 1.
Whisk the whole eggs, egg yolk and sugar together in a bowl, then mix in the milk and vanilla essence. Pass through a fine sieve into a clean bowl.
To make the caramel, boil the sugar and water together in a small pan without stirring until the syrup thickens and caramelises, turning golden brown.
Pour the hot caramel into 4 dariole moulds.
Pour the egg mixture into each caramel-filled moulds. Place the darioles in a roasting tray and pour hot water in around the moulds until it reaches half-way up the side of the moulds.
Bake the crème caramels in the preheated oven for 40 minutes. Remove and set aside to cool.
To serve, turn out the moulds on to serving plates.
Following the runaway success of Heston’s hidden orange pudding during Christmas 2010, Waitrose commissioned the Dinner proprietor to create a refreshing Summer dessert in celebration of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. I can’t say I care a great deal about the wedding but I do appreciate the general buzz of excitement among people I speak to – rays of sunshine in these politically gloomy times are welcome. One thing definitely guaranteed to grab my attention however is a new Heston recipe.
Heston seems to have a bit of a thing for trifles, as In Search Of Heston has previously noted. His In Search of Perfection version is particularly mental, with typically absurd amount of stages involved. It did come in handy for one section however – the strawberry compote, which here serves as the “jelly” layer of a Seventies trifle. I incorporated fresh strawbs in with the compote, as I know Heston is fond of mixing the cooked and raw version of an ingredient together. In place of custard there’s a particularly intriguing saffron cream, topped with fragrant, crisp amaretti biscuits. The supermarket version is laced with Marc de Champagne brandy – well I checked my cupboard and I was fresh out (!) so I plumped for my old favourite dessert spirit, Marsala. Finally there’s a meringue topping, and a garnish of candied almonds and dried strawberries.
There’s a few stages involved to be sure but none of them are particularly taxing and involve a bit of letting the ingredients sit about. I have no idea how close my version has come, as it isn’t in the shops yet at the time of writing, but I was very pleased with it. It’s creamy, fruity and the saffron sends in a festive, spiced note out of left-field, yet it’s somehow warming and comforting.
I’ll be fascinated to try the real thing when it’s around to see how I did but either way, I think it’s a lovely dessert with a lot going for it.
Heston Blumenthal’s Royal Wedding Trifle (serves 6 – 8):
For the strawberry compote:
1kg strawberries, hulled and diced
100g caster sugar
Place the strawberries and sugar (reserving 4 for later) in a saucepan and gently heat, stirring occasionally. Cook down for about 15 minutes until you have a sticky puree.
Pass the puree through a sieve to remove all the bits and crush well with the back of a spoon to get the most out of it.
For the saffron cream:
500ml double cream
About 20 threads of saffron
8 tablespoons caster sugar
Pop the cream in a saucepan and add the saffron. Bring to a gentle simmer then turn off the heat and allow to cool. The saffron will infuse and colour the cream, turning custard-yellow.
When the cream has cooled whisk, gradually adding the sugar. Keep going until you have a stiff cream.
For the amaretti:
150g crushed amaretti biscuits
4 tablespoons Marsala wine
Mix the amaretti with the Marsala but don’t let it sit around too long – you still want them to have some crunch.
For the meringues:
5 egg whites
300g caster sugar
1 teaspoon cornflour
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
Pre-heat the oven to 150°C. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually incorporate the sugar. Once all that’s in add the cornflour and vinegar. Keep whisking until the mixture is stiff.
Pour into a piping bag and pipe 5cm blobs onto a lined baking tray, then bake for 1½ hours until firm but not browned. Turn off the oven and leave to cool in the oven for a further oven, then peel off and store in airtight containers until needed.
To garnish:
30g almonds
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 large strawberries, finely sliced
Pre-heat the oven to 100°C. Dust a baking tray with icing sugar and lay the strawberries out on the sugar. Pop in the oven for about half an hour, until the strawberries are slightly shrivelled and sticky. When cooled peel off the tray gently.
Put a small pan over a high heat and add the almonds. Shake them around for a couple of minute until toasted all over.
Add the sugar, a pinch of salt and a tiny splash of water. Keep tossing the mix around in the pan until the sugar starts to turn golden brown, then turn out onto a ceramic plate to cool.
To assemble:
Place the strawberry compote in the bottom of a serving dish (a nice glass one would be traditional, try and use a prettier one than mine). Finely slice the last 2 strawberries, top with a small twist of black pepper and stir into the puree.
Spoon the cream over the strawberries. Top this with the amaretti biscuits.
Arrange the meringues on the top, and scatter over the almonds and dried strawberry slices. Serve with bunting.
After revealing to me that her favourite meal in Atlanta was Korean BBQ, I sheepishly admitted to @SlowFoodKitchen that I’d never tried the cuisine. So I asked around for ideas to knock up tonight. I settled on this recipe from renowned chef Judy Joo. Thanks also go to @gourmetraveller for the tips.
I didn’t quite have everything to hand for the Ssam Jang sauce – I approximated flavours and texture from the ingredient list. What I ended up with was an angry peanut butter, and dead more-ish to boot. The beef itself was great, all sticky and sweet with that savoury tang of those best buddies garlic and ginger.
Consider me a Korean BBQ convert!
Kalbi:
500g beef rib steak, sliced into thin pieces
100g sugar
4 cloves garlic, minced
15g fresh ginger, minced
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fresh black pepper
For my not- Ssam Jang sauce:
2 tablespoons chilli sauce
1 teaspoon tomato puree
1 tablespoon tahini
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Cover the beef in the sugar and leave to cure for 30 minutes. Shake off the excess sugar and discard what’s left in the bowl.
Combine the garlic, ginger, soy, oils, pepper and sesame seeds and leave the sugared beef to marinate in this for 2 hours.
To make the sauce, combine all the ingredients together in a bowl.
Get a pan or griddle really darn hot and fry the beef quickly for a minute on each side until nicely caramelized. Serve with rice and crisp lettuce leaves.
