Tag: jo pratt

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chicken meat recipes red onion yoghurt

chicken souvlaki

Most people’s best food memories, aside from the childhood dinner table ones, come from a holiday experience. For me it was the perfect steak in New York, an amazing chocolate dessert in Florida, or even a lamb chop in the Peak District. The good times mingle with the food, being with friends and family, and a rose-tint descends on the memory. Back home, in your familiar surroundings you try and recreate that magic to capture those good feelings.

That’s the idea behind James Villas’ #MyHolidayDish campaign. Working with the brilliant Jo Pratt, she came up with holiday-inspired dinners such as Puglia Pasta Con Le Cozze, Rhodian Whole Baked Snapper and Cypriot Souvlaki. Here’s my take on it, a chicken souvlaki.

I took Jo’s recipe and swapped the pork for chicken, added my own pickled onions and have included a recipe for flatbreads if you want it. If it’s too much faff, buy your own flatbreads and tzatziki.

You can find Jo’s original recipe here, or here she is on video cooking the kebab:

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chicken souvlaki

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 8 chicken thighs
  • Juice of ½ lemon
  • 2 teaspoons dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoons dried paprika
  • 2 cloves garlic peeled and crushed
  • 1 red onion peeled and sliced
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • Pinch sugar

For the flatbreads:

  • 300 g self raising flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 300 g natural yoghurt

For the tzatziki:

  • 1 cucumber halved and deseeded
  • 200 natural yoghurt
  • Small handful of chopped parsley
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

Instructions

  • For the chicken, mix the chicken, lemon, oregano, paprika and garlic together with a tablespoon of oil thoroughly, season with salt and pepper and cover. Marinate for at least 30 minutes.
  • For the flatbreads, mix the flour, baking powder and yoghurt with a pinch of salt to a smooth dough. Cover for 30 minutes.
  • For the tzatziki, grate the cucumber and dust with salt. Leave to drain in a sieve for 10 minutes, then squeeze out as much of the moisture as you can. Combine with all the other dip ingredients.
  • For the onion pickle, cover the red onion in vinegar and a pinch each of salt and sugar.
  • Get your grill really high, or light the barbecue. When hot, skewer your chicken and cook for 15 minutes or until cooked through. Leave to rest on one side while you portion the flatbread dough into 8 balls. Press into thin circles and cook for a minute or two on each side until puffed up. Serve the meat in the breads and top with lovely pickles, tzatziki and your favourite salad.

James Villas kindly provided the ingredients to cook this with.

Categories
carrots chicken courgettes food rice stock

thai rice soup with chicken

It was one of ‘those’ Mondays; very little in the cupboard and mouths to feed. What I did have however, was some Tilda Stir Fry Thai Green rice and one of Jo Pratt’s recipe cards from a recent cookalong. Using that as a starting point I knocked up a ten min din which was slurpy, filling and had that tickle of heat rolling through your mouth and leaving you with a warm feeling in your belly.

The Tilda rice helpfully skips all the pastes and mounds of herbs and spices, which gives it a real authentic taste. It may sound like a complete shill but I believe in the product – we’re all busy people and these kinds of ethical prepared foods give us handy shortcuts. Sometimes you have the time, and you can bash down a Thai paste and simmer the ingredients gently. Sometimes you don’t and that’s where these come in.

I decided to use a yaki soba style sauce to enrich the broth, and yanked courgettes and carrots from the garden for veg. However my coriander was looking decidedly ropey and attempting to go to seed, so rather than use the leaves I went for a coriander “bouquet garni”, tying some stalks together and leaving it in the soup to give out flavour as it cooks. I’d prefer to use the greenery but it’ll do in a pinch.

(PS. Note the oversize teacup serving dish. I really must get around to buying Chinese style soup bowls – I have the spoons but no bowls!)

Thai rice soup with chicken:

2 chicken breasts, diced

2 cloves garlic, finely sliced

1 litre chicken stock

1 tablespoon chilli dipping sauce

1 pack Tilda Thai Green Rice

1 medium carrot, cut into matchsticks

1 medium courgette, cut into matchsticks

Bunch of coriander stalks, tied into a bundle

1 small red onion, cut into rings

Sesame oil

For the yaki soba sauce:

100ml light soy sauce

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

  1. Get the yaki soba sauce on: put all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Whack down to low and allow to reduce gently until syrupy. Put to one side.
  2. Heat a little oil in a wok until smoking and add the chicken. Stir fry quickly until the chicken is white all over, then add the garlic. Fry for another 30 seconds and add the stock and chilli sauce.
  3. After bringing the stock to the boil add the carrot and rice. Continue to cook for another minute and then add the courgette, ½ the yaki soba sauce, coriander bunch and rice. Bring back to the boil and simmer for another few minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Taste to see if it needs more yaki soba sauce (if not this can be kept refrigerated for another day).
  4. Remove the coriander and serve in bowls, garnished with onion and a few drops of sesame oil.
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