The Joy of Simple Chicken Dishes

It is strange to think that a chicken in every pot (an ambition ascribed to Catherine the Great, Herbert Hoover, Francois IV and doubtless others) was once a dream. Nowadays the meat is something too easily taken for granted. The cheapo white and nasty supermarket 'bargain' stuff should not be taken at all, but a good quality butcher's bird or free-range ones from the supermarket can still be made so easily into delicious dishes. At the weekend we had two such.

The first was wings marinated (if that is the right word for something relatively dry) with a paste zapped in the  blender - cumin and fennel seed, garlic, a green chilli, pepper (slightly too much, you forget how potent quite new peppercorns can be) salt and star anise - then left in the fridge for three or four hours covered with clingfilm. Rolled in a bit of oil and baked at 190C for 30 minutes, turned regularly, they were sticky and spicy and delicious, one part of an oriental (-ish) meal. I love wings, the sweetest and cheapest chicken on the shelves. The fennel gives it a hint of the KFC, though the Colonel's changeless recipe may oxymoronically have changed since the last time I dared try it in about 1995.

Second was another dish that is simplicity itself, and a reliable way to perk up an uninteresting bird. How very Sid James. The herbs are looking healthy again in the garden, though the bay has never looked less than perfect all through the winter. I took the scissors to par-cel (leaf celery), the first decent-looking rosemary of the year, a load of sage, 8 - 10 leaves of bay, and what thyme I could cut without the operation being terminal to the plant, and rolled a jointed chicken in them once they had been snipped small. With olive oil poured on and seasoned with salt, pepper and some smoked paprika, I again baked them in a roasting tray (or roasted them in a baking tray, with meat the terms are almost synonymous, doubtless to the annoyance of terminological purists) for 50 minutes or so. Nice and moist, the herbs were very much to the fore and the golden skin was fantastic.

How much KFC would I have got for £7, the price of the chicken if memory serves? Useless factoid out of nowhere, Preston my (adopted-)hometown was the site of the first KFC in Britain, opened in 1965. Still doesn't endear the food to me.

Winging It

There is no reason why an austerity cook should not find great ways to tickle the taste buds - survival is not enough. That is one of the gripes I always have with healthy eating gurus, who forget that a nutritious diet of brown rice and cabbage water (or whatever the current fad may be) is bloody miserable - the soul and spirit need nourishment too.

A regular treat for us is chicken wings done with various different sauces or marinades. Here btw is another point on which I agree with Nigel Slater, the wing for me is the best bit of the chicken. I ask for them rather than breast when we eat a roasted bird.

Last night's version was a £2.85 cartonful from Sainbury's cooked in a roasting pan that can go on the hob. I fried them in minimal oil, as the pan is non-stick and the chicken skin gives out plenty of fat. Once they had started browning I poured in a glug or two of soy sauce and a good shake of 5-spice powder, tossed the chicken in this and then put them in the oven (already had other stuff in it) at 180C for 30 minutes. They came out sticky, fragrant and sweet, the best finger-food there is, part of the treat being that we ate them in front of the TV instead of at the table.

A farm shop butcher I use sometimes, a bit out of the way so not as often as I'd like, gave me a whole bag of wings one time, must have been 30 in there, as they couldn't sell them (and I was buying a shipping load of other meats). Free is good. Another even more distant shop (was on my route home when I used to work in industry) threw in free ox kidney and liver, pig's trotters (wonderful things), and fat for use in making pate. Not something that many supermarkets will do.