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.
Showing posts with label par-cel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label par-cel. Show all posts
Monday, 4 March 2013
Monday, 7 January 2013
One Flame Fishy Dish
My favourite evening meal fishy dish is the flexible fish pie, generally made with mash as a topping and with a mixture of white fish and tinned kippers (no bones, loads of flavour). Next to that comes tonight's fish fest, the equally flexible chowder, another one pot and thus one flame extravaganza.
As with just about every soup I make it begins with frying some chopped onion in butter, to which equally finely chopped veg as available in the fridge and shelves will be added: tonight I'd guess carrot, red pepper, and celery. As the garden still has a little stand of par-cel some of that will be chopped super fine with a mezzoluna to be added near the end of cooking. A mixture of chicken or veg stock (if I stir myself I can actually defrost some ham stock which goes equally well, otherwise it is from a cube today) and milk is added, then chunky diced potatoes (either waxy to keep the shape or floury to collapse nicely, it doesn't matter) dropped in to cook (best not to fry them even briefly with the veg, they seem to take longer to cook in the liquid that way) for about 15 minutes, along with defrosted pollack fillet and about a cupful of frozen sweetcorn. A crushed garlic clove gives a nice edge, and lots of pepper.
It is economical - I will only use about £1.25 of fish, and the rest of the ingredients won't take the total above £2.50 - and pretty virtuous, made with semi-skimmed milk, but the juices are fabulous, perfect to soak up with thick slices - more like slabs - of buttered brown bread. Three of us will easily see off a small loaf, so add £0.50p (Morrison's offer on exceedingly tasty seeded wholemeal, £1 for two small loaves).
This will be the New Year's resolution (at least) once a week fish dish for our evening meal; as Saturday's homemade Chinese was veggie I only have one more non-meat dish to keep to my programme. We won't be short of protein, however, Sunday lunch was top rump wet roasted, and a turkey thigh joint (top bargain and very tasty) plain roasted beside it.
That latter meal was not exactly Parson Woodforde, who would regularly have rabbit smothered in onions, chicken, pig's face, a leg of mutton with caper sauce, and a piece of bacon or similar for workaday dinners, but two joints for £12 can seem more generous than one for £15. And we have the remains left for sandwiches, though the thicker of two leftover pieces of turkey removed from the table at the end of the meal didn't make it intact to the kitchen, mysteriously.
As with just about every soup I make it begins with frying some chopped onion in butter, to which equally finely chopped veg as available in the fridge and shelves will be added: tonight I'd guess carrot, red pepper, and celery. As the garden still has a little stand of par-cel some of that will be chopped super fine with a mezzoluna to be added near the end of cooking. A mixture of chicken or veg stock (if I stir myself I can actually defrost some ham stock which goes equally well, otherwise it is from a cube today) and milk is added, then chunky diced potatoes (either waxy to keep the shape or floury to collapse nicely, it doesn't matter) dropped in to cook (best not to fry them even briefly with the veg, they seem to take longer to cook in the liquid that way) for about 15 minutes, along with defrosted pollack fillet and about a cupful of frozen sweetcorn. A crushed garlic clove gives a nice edge, and lots of pepper.
It is economical - I will only use about £1.25 of fish, and the rest of the ingredients won't take the total above £2.50 - and pretty virtuous, made with semi-skimmed milk, but the juices are fabulous, perfect to soak up with thick slices - more like slabs - of buttered brown bread. Three of us will easily see off a small loaf, so add £0.50p (Morrison's offer on exceedingly tasty seeded wholemeal, £1 for two small loaves).
This will be the New Year's resolution (at least) once a week fish dish for our evening meal; as Saturday's homemade Chinese was veggie I only have one more non-meat dish to keep to my programme. We won't be short of protein, however, Sunday lunch was top rump wet roasted, and a turkey thigh joint (top bargain and very tasty) plain roasted beside it.
That latter meal was not exactly Parson Woodforde, who would regularly have rabbit smothered in onions, chicken, pig's face, a leg of mutton with caper sauce, and a piece of bacon or similar for workaday dinners, but two joints for £12 can seem more generous than one for £15. And we have the remains left for sandwiches, though the thicker of two leftover pieces of turkey removed from the table at the end of the meal didn't make it intact to the kitchen, mysteriously.
Monday, 17 September 2012
Chicken Burgers Needn't Be Sad
Saturday's evening meal here tends to be a bit more relaxed, finger food stuff, and this week we went down the burger route. That need not mean some vile mechanically recovered slurry dried and reprocessed with 50 per cent salt. I used £3 worth of Sainsbury's chicken thigh fillets zapped to a coarse consistency, with some onion, a whole red chilli for a bit of kick, parsley and par-cel from the allotment, and freshly-ground spices -pepper, cumin and fennel, the lot held together with a large egg and seasoned with salt.
The only drawback to cooking these is that unlike say lamb or beef burgers you really need to make sure they cook all the way through - raw chicken is not good for you. So they were made as flat as was practical, and then fried over a medium heat in a bit of olive oil and turned regularly until the outside was crisping up nicely. I have to admit to putting them in the microwave for a couple of minutes at the end to make sure any nasties had been killed off.
Served in the flat-breads about which I wrote some time back, and with a simple salsa of tomatoes, green chilli, parsley and onion turned into mush by the spice grinder there was plenty of flavour and the crispy outside was a treat.
The only drawback to cooking these is that unlike say lamb or beef burgers you really need to make sure they cook all the way through - raw chicken is not good for you. So they were made as flat as was practical, and then fried over a medium heat in a bit of olive oil and turned regularly until the outside was crisping up nicely. I have to admit to putting them in the microwave for a couple of minutes at the end to make sure any nasties had been killed off.
Served in the flat-breads about which I wrote some time back, and with a simple salsa of tomatoes, green chilli, parsley and onion turned into mush by the spice grinder there was plenty of flavour and the crispy outside was a treat.
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
An Omelette and a Glass of Wine
Real austerity of course would mean doing without the second part of that pairing (the book by Elizabeth David my introduction to her writing by the way, a step change in my culinary existence), but the simplicity of an omelette and its easy co-existence with a glass of wine mean they are cosmically made for one another. And the wine, unless an addition to the eggs clashes, can be either red or white, full bodied or thin. Just not sweet unless you are going pre-war with a jam omelette.
Last night's first course was an omelette, with a load of Parmesan grated in with the beaten eggs, a pinch of salt and a turn of pepper. Fried in olive oil and butter it was ready in five minutes from cracking the eggs to table, which doubtless some 'easy-cook' microwaved dish for twice the price or more would also take to prepare.
We have 'free' eggs from our own hens (and tasty too with all those worms and things they forage when let out), but even bought the four eggs and cheese, enough to feed the two of us (one absentee last night) would have cost around £1. I often include herbs from the garden as a clean-tasting way of changing the flavours, and they are essentially for nothing: parsley, par-cel (leaf-celery for those not in the know, easy to grow and prolific, no sticks to speak of but tons of taste in the leaves), tarragon...
Omelettes are not for every day, though nutritionists (as so often) cannot make their minds up about the 'dangers' of eggs. But they are for regular consumption.
The book An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, as mentioned above, was something of a game changer for me, but an omelette was the first thing I ever learned to cook, and very badly too, as a sixth former. Onion fried for 30 seconds if that, bacon cut into thin bits the same, sometimes tiny potato cubes too, before the eggs were added. But it was a start, and I learned from my crunchy under-cooked mistakes. Making omelettes was how I started my son cooking (rather earlier than the sixth form), and he has fared a lot better than I did.
Last night's first course was an omelette, with a load of Parmesan grated in with the beaten eggs, a pinch of salt and a turn of pepper. Fried in olive oil and butter it was ready in five minutes from cracking the eggs to table, which doubtless some 'easy-cook' microwaved dish for twice the price or more would also take to prepare.
We have 'free' eggs from our own hens (and tasty too with all those worms and things they forage when let out), but even bought the four eggs and cheese, enough to feed the two of us (one absentee last night) would have cost around £1. I often include herbs from the garden as a clean-tasting way of changing the flavours, and they are essentially for nothing: parsley, par-cel (leaf-celery for those not in the know, easy to grow and prolific, no sticks to speak of but tons of taste in the leaves), tarragon...
Omelettes are not for every day, though nutritionists (as so often) cannot make their minds up about the 'dangers' of eggs. But they are for regular consumption.
The book An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, as mentioned above, was something of a game changer for me, but an omelette was the first thing I ever learned to cook, and very badly too, as a sixth former. Onion fried for 30 seconds if that, bacon cut into thin bits the same, sometimes tiny potato cubes too, before the eggs were added. But it was a start, and I learned from my crunchy under-cooked mistakes. Making omelettes was how I started my son cooking (rather earlier than the sixth form), and he has fared a lot better than I did.
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