Chicken and leek with a bit of this and a dash of that

This recipe originated in my kitchen circa the middle of last week.

It's obvious that chicken and leeks go together like soccer mums and SUVs so it didn't require much imagination to throw these two together with a few other likely suspects and come out with a very fine dish indeed.

* Contains pork, alcohol, butter and cream!


Ingredients

• 6 skinned chicken breasts cut into bite-sized morsels
• 1 large leek sliced into rings
• 1/2 a medium red onion diced
• 2 modest cloves of garlic
• 6 button mushrooms
• 2 tsp minced coriander
• 2 heaped tsp grainy mustard
• 1/2 a pack of smoked lardons
• 1 (or slightly more) large glass of good white wine.
• 1/2 a square pack of puck cream
• salt and pepper to season

A few notes on ingredients. I like to slice my mushrooms very thinly as I prefer the taste to the texture, you might like them just quartered! I chop fresh coriander, then steep it in olive oil in storage boxes and keep it in the freezer - very convenient. I used a Californian Riesling - it's important to keep testing this during the cooking process...

Heat a little olive oil in a large wok-like pan and then throw in a knob of butter. Add the red onion then the leeks and soften. Add the chicken and season. Fry the chicken until it starts to brown then add lardons and reduce the heat.

Add the garlic just after this so that it doesn't burn and turn bitter. Add mushrooms, the corriander and mustard and mix around a bit, then the wine to heat through. Add the cream last thing and do a final stir-through and seasoning.

I served it with wholewheat spag which was lovely but I think it would be better with penne or twisty pasta as the bite sizes would match better.

Enjoy with the remains of the wine!

Chicken Korma

This is arguably the classic dish of Mughlai cuisine; mild, rich and bursting with luxurious flavours – it’s the perfect curry to serve people who ‘don’t like curry’ or who are scared of the heat, because the yoghurt and almond take all the bite out of the spices and turn them into a pleasure rather than a pain.

Ingredients

• 500g chicken breast, cut in 3 cm pieces
• 4 tablespoons yoghurt, beaten
• 2 medium sized onions, sliced finely lengthwise
• 3cm piece ginger, finely grated
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 2 green cardamoms
• 2 cloves
• 4 peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• ½ tsp garam masala
• Pinch powdered nutmeg
• 3 tbsp ghee
• Pinch of saffron
• Salt to taste

Melt the ghee in a pot and fry the onions till golden brown (Do not overfry, otherwise they would give the korma a bitter taste). Take them out and grind them. In the same pot put the cardamoms, cloves, peppercorns, bayleaf with the chicken pieces and fry all of them together till the ghee begins to appear on the surface and the chicken pieces start to look white. Now add the ground ginger and garlic and again fry for 3-4 minutes. Reduce the heat and add the beaten yoghurt. Keep it well stirred. After 5 minutes add the chilli powder, coriander powder, ground onions and salt. Add one and a half cups of water and let it cook till the meat becomes tender. When the gravy thickens add the garam masala powder and saffron and keep stirring till the ghee appears on the surface. Remove from the heat and serve with piping hot rotis or parathas.

The Queen's Coronation Chicken

Let’s get RETRO!!

Wow I haven’t been here for ages, slackest blogger on the planet it would seem but anyway, I’m back!

So for The Wedding last month I was asked to make a very large vat of Coronation Chicken to feed some ridiculous number of people. From some dim recess of my memory I recalled a recipe with red wine, apricot jam, mangoes etc I tried to recreate it and the general verdict was that it was quite a success.

You will need (for about 20 people!!)


10 chicken breasts
350ml red wine
2tsp turmeric powder
3 star anise
1 stick cinnamon
10 cardamon pods
1 tsp black peppercorns
200ml mango chutney
200ml Apricot jam
10 dried apricots chopped into small pieces
2 tbs mild curry paste (like a korma)
200ml double cream
200ml mayonnaise
200ml natural yoghurt
lots of chopped coriander
chopped almonds


for the poaching liquid:

star anise
cinnamon
cloves
peppercorns
bay leaves
cardamom pods
whole bulb of garlic (not need to peel)

And then you need to:


Fill a big saucepan with water, throw in a few of each of the spices listed under the poaching liquid, bring to the boil and let simmer fast for about 10 minutes. Your kitchen will start to smell like Christmas!

Throw the chicken breasts into the boiling liquid three at a time and poach for 20 minutes. Remove the chicken, set to one side and once cool slice into bite sized chunks. Do the next batch until all cooked. If you can be bothered this poaching liquid actually makes a really good base for a delicious Asian styled soup or noodle broth.

Whilst this is going on pour the red wine into a large saucepan and add the star anise, cardamom, cinnamon, peppercorns. Bring to a simmer and reduce to about 150ml.

Strain and return the liquid to the pan. Add the apricot jam, dried apricots, mango chutney, turmeric and curry paste. Simmer gently for about 5-10mins until thick and syrupy.

Remove from heat and leave to cool.

Stir in mayo, cream, yoghurt and you should have a thick yellowish curry sauce.

In a big mixing bowl add the chicken, half the coriander and the sauce. Mix really well and transfer to your serving platter. Sprinkle remaining coriander and the chopped almonds on top and voila! You are ready to go. A dish fit for a beautiful Queen.

This time it's not thyme

Roast Chicken. It used to be one of the best known comfort foods. Delicious, easy to cook, dripping with juicy salty goodness. Then the supermarket rotisserie came along and spoiled it all for everybody. They sold cooked chooks for less than a fresh one, and so all the sensible people went and purchased them instead.

Or were they sensible? A supermarket rotisserie has great skin, but that's where the comparison to a home-cooked chicken stops. They're dry, spindly little battery-hens, often overcooked, flavoured either too simply or with truckloads of horrible stuff like MSG.

Wouldn't you rather have the juicy free-range one in this picture?

The other day, I found savoury at the local hypermarket. Here, they call it thyme, but it's not thyme. It's not rosemary, although that's what it most closely resembles in appearance. It tastes like something in between, maybe with a touch of fragrance like dill, and it's heavenly with roast chicken. And even better, it propagates easily. The cut herbs I bought have now started to grow on their own in some potting mix - simply cut off the bottom of the stem at an angle and plant. Let's hope it continues, because this herb is something special!

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken (no need to remove giblets unless they are in a plastic bag inside)
• 1 lemon
• 1 garlic bulb, halved parallel to root (so it exposes the inside)
• several stalks of savoury
• sweet paprika to sprinkle
• salt and pepper
• 1 tsp butter and 1tsp flour combined for gravy

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180ᵒC. Wash chicken inside and out, pat dry, and then stuff with lemon, garlic and savoury, then generously sprinkle bird with salt, pepper and paprika (particularly salt)
2. Roast for 1 hour, or until the breast is cooked through, basting at least once during cooking (timing will depend on size of chicken - I use a 1400g to feed a family of 4)
3. Reduce juices with the mix of butter and flour while the meat is resting, flavouring with extra salt and pepper if necessary, and chopped savoury.

Notes:
I like to lay the bird on salted potato pieces in a non-stick pan. After it has been cooking for about 20 minutes, I prick the underside of the thighs, and all the fat rushes out, so the potatoes cook in the juices of the chicken. While the chicken is resting and you are preparing the gravy (with juice strained out between the potatoes), blast the potatoes on the top shelf of the oven at top heat if they need crisping up. I also serve with the pumpkin in the previous post, and roasted whole onions, which are simply peeled and added to the same pan as the chicken and potatoes at the same time. Oh, and some frozen peas - cooked of course. What an easy dinner!

Chicken Tikka

It's been a while since I posted something curry-ish. Actually, it' been a while since I posted anything! (Sorree!) So here's a real treat - so fast and simple to make and yet spectacularly, sumptuously tasty with a fine kick in the tail. If you thought chicken tikka should consist of mildly tangy bits of chicken steeped in aniline dye and slapped onto a skewer before being grilled to death, here's another world view - these little kebabs are much more complex and a great deal more fun. This recipe bakes them, but you can always skewer them up and cook them on the barbecue.


One of the few 'cooks cheats' I allow to sneak guiltily into the store cupboard is a pot of pre-fried onions, which makes dishes like this a great deal faster. If you're going to be an ultra-purist, you'll have to finely slice an onion and then fry it gently in a little oil until it browns deeply - but doesn't burn. I prefer the pots myself...

How big are chicken cubes? For this recipe, and using local chicken breasts, I'll usually detach the little strip of meat with the tendon in it and use that for something else, lop off the tail end to about 2/3 of the length of the breast and then quarter the remaining meat to end up with five sort of similarly sized chunks of chicken.

I'm a sucker for serving this with plain basmati rice, a dal (or try this one!) and dry-fried Kerala poppadums, but a tomato salad with a smattering of fried spices is also great. I get my poppadums from the local cold store, where they're tickled to death by the Brit that eats pappad for some reason!

Ingredients

• 500g chicken breast in cubes
• 1 bunch coriander, chopped
• 4 cm fresh ginger, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 5 red bird's eye chilis, chopped
• 150g natural yoghurt
• 50ml cream
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 tbsp fried onions
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp salt

Sling everything but the chicken in the bowl of your blender, processor, whizzer or whatever you use. If you include the chicken at this stage, life is going to get pretty messy. Whizz it and then combine the mixture with the chicken to marinate - ideally overnight, but you can get away with shorter. Line a roasting tin with foil and give it a light brush of oil, then space the chicken chunks evenly on the foil, topping them up with any remaining marinade. Roast them in the middle of a 200C/400F/GM6 oven for 25 minutes or theareabouts, turn off the oven and leave them in for a further five minutes before serving.

Slap-Dash Biryani in the rice cooker

I have always loved Biryani. I suppose it comes from all my childhood memories of cinnamon, and of course where it was used - apple pie, with sugar on pancakes, mixed into Mum's banana custard - all wonderfully sweet and heart-warming dishes. So now the use of it is always associated with comforting, warm moments - and I am doing my best to add it to my own children's sensory memories.

True Biryani is made by pan-frying a spice, onion and meat mix, then adding to par-cooked rice and finally baking the lot in an oven. All this takes about 2 1/2 hours. In these days of gadgets, I make mine in (gasp!) a rice cooker. I cook the meat seperately, because I like to keep it browned and crispy, and although you could serve this spiced rice with anything, from barbecued lamb kebabs to garlic tiger prawns or even on it's own, I like it with chicken.

Ingredients:

For the Chicken:

• 1kg Chicken Drumsticks (skin on)
• 1/2 teaspoons of saffron - soaked in warm water for a minute or two
• a big pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 1 tablespoon of oil
• a little pinch of white pepper

For the Rice:

• 2 cups of basmati rice
• 2 medium carrots - julienne
• 2 celery stalks, fine dice
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 2 onions (I like the red - they are sweeter), sliced finely
• crushed garlic (to taste - I like 2 cloves)
• 1 cinnamon quill
• 5 cardamom pods (split)
• 1/4 teaspoon of clove powder
• 1 chicken stock cube
• water 
• oil for pan-frying

Instructions: 

 

For the chicken - mix all ingredients except the chicken in a bowl, then roll drumsticks in the liquid. Place on an oven tray, sprinkle a little more salt, and then bake at 180ºC for about 45 minutes
 

For the rice - pan-fry onions and garlic until they are deep dark brown, then add carrots and celery, stock cube and a small amount of water and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Put this mix and the rest of the ingredients in the rice cooker with the appropriate amount of cold water for your cooker (in my case this is another 2 cups). Serves 4.

You will notice that the onions will lose their colour. The reasons for browning are two-fold. One, the colour is absorbed by the rice, and two, the flavour of caramelized onions lends a more appropriate flavour.

I like to serve with a yogurt and chilli sauce - but you could also make a gravy with the scrapings of the baking pan, some extra salt, pepper and honey - with flour and water if you like it thick - or water and lemon juice if you like it thin.

Moroccan Spiced Chicken

So this is why you made the preserved lemons a few weeks ago. What? Didn't make them? OK, you can probably buy some. This one is complicated, labour-intensive and fussy. But it really is worth it. You could probably stretch it out over 2-3 days, and just make the chicken and couscous on the day you want to eat. The spice mix works well with lamb also.

Moroccan Spiced Chicken

Ingredients:

2 Fresh chickens, 1.5 Kg each, cut into 8 pieces (4 legs and 4 breasts)

4 cloves garlic

75 ml olive oil

12 mint leaves

Vegetable oil

75 ml Moroccan spice blend (recipe below)

200 ml bulgur couscous (method below)

1 cinnamon stick

20 Medjool dates

75 ml cup white wine vinegar

2 tsp ground turmeric toasted

2 tsp Aleppo chili

75 cup olive oil

150 ml water

75 ml cup toasted Marcona almonds

150 ml finely minced parsley

1 preserved lemon

150 ml caramelized chicken jus (recipe below)

salt to taste

Method:

Marinating and roasting chicken

1. In a mortar, mash 4 garlic cloves, 12 mint leaves, and a pinch of salt

until pasty. Add 75 ml of Moroccan spice blend, and the 75 ml olive oil and mix with pestle.

2. Coat chicken with mixture. Marinate overnight.

3. Season legs and breasts with salt.Coat two cast iron pans with vegetable oil and place the four legs in one pan and the four breasts in another pan with the skin side down.

4. Cook for 8 minutes, then place in a preheated 400-degree oven for 12 minutes (breasts) and 15 minutes (legs), or until cooked through but still juicy.

Method: Turmeric Dates.

1. Simmer dates in water for a few seconds, or until the peel can be easily removed, and do that.Cut dates in half.

Simmer 75 ml vinegar, 75 ml olive oil, 150 ml water, 2 teaspoons turmeric, and 2 teaspoons Aleppo chili, and let cool to ambient temperature.

2. Add the vinegar mixture to the dates, and place in a tight-fitting container so that they are one layer deep with the rounded half facing up.

Method: Bulgur couscous

1. Rinse the bulgur under cold running water for several minutes. Flake the bulghur by hand into individual grains.

2. Place the bulgur into a steamer with the lid off. Steam for 10 minutes on very high heat.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 so that you have steamed and flaked the couscous a total of three times.

(30 minutes total cooking time.)

Finishing the dish

Mound 150 ml of bulghur couscous into the center of an entrée plate,place warm dates and carrots around the couscous, sprinkle with toasted almonds. Place chicken over the couscous, drizzle chicken jus around the plate.

Enough for 8 hungry people.

Moroccan Spice Blend

Ingredients:

1 part toasted cardamom,coarsely ground

1 part toasted cinnamon,coarsely ground

1/4 part toasted cayenne, ground and toasted

3 parts toasted coriander, coarsely ground

3 parts toasted cumin,coarsely ground

3 parts toasted paprika, ground and toasted

1 part mint leaves, coarsely chopped

2 parts coarsely chopped garlic

2 parts olive oil

1/2 part lemon zest, peeled and bruised

1/2 part turmeric, ground and toasted

1/2 part fresh ginger, chopped finely.

Method:

Prepare all ingredients individually, mix together

Caramelized Chicken Jus

Ingredients:

500 g chicken wings, roasted in the oven until golden brown

grape seed oil

150 ml Marsala wine

800 ml blond chicken stock

75 ml peeled and diced carrots

150 ml peeled and diced shallots

2 garlic cloves

1 bay leaf

6 sprigs thyme

Method:

1. Caramelize the carrots and shallots.

2. Add the roasted chicken wings, garlic and Marsala, and reduce to a glaze. Add the blond chicken stock and simmer for one hour.

3. Strain several times through a chinoise. Place back over the stove top and reduce to one cup.

4. Add the thyme and bay leafduring the last five minutes

3. Place bulghur onto a sheet pan. Let cool slightly. Drizzle with a liberal amount of extra virgin olive oil, flake grains again. Season to taste with salt.

5. Add parsley, preserved lemon zest, 30 ml lemon juice, and additional extra virgin olive oil and salt to taste, set aside.

Thanks to Mark Sullivan for the recipes.

Singapore Chicken Rice

In Singapore, conversations always turn to where the best place is to eat this perennial favorite. Originally from Hainan Island in China, this dish is all over Singapore. My personal favorite is Lau Pa Sat at Newton Circle (Circus). Quick and easy to make also.

INGREDIENTS

For the chicken

2 Kg boned chicken thighs

3 cloves garlic

2 (3 cm) pieces fresh ginger root, peeled

2 green onions

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sesame oil

For the rice

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

2 shallots, finely chopped

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 (3cm) piece fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped

250 ml chopped cilantro (coriander leaves)

500 ml cups chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon salt

400 ml long grain rice, rinsed and drained

Garnish

cilantro sprigs

sliced green onion

1 cucumber, thinly sliced

2 fresh tomatoes, chopped

Chili sauce to taste

DIRECTIONS

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Crush 3 cloves of garlic and 2 pieces of ginger, and add them to the pot. Tie the green onions into a knot, and place them in the pot along with 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Add the chicken

Bring to a boil, then cover and remove from heat. Let stand covered for 40 minutes While the chicken is cooking, heat the vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Fry the shallots,

ginger, and garlic in the oil until fragrant. Add the coriander and rice, and cook, stirring until toasted. Pour in the chicken stock and season with salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer until rice is tender and 'steam holes' appear in the surface of the rice, about 20 minutes.

When the chicken is done, remove it from the pot, and place it under cold running water to tighten the juices. Rub the outside with sesame oil, and chop into pieces. Place pieces on a serving platter. Serve with the rice, and garnishes on the side.

Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary

This is ridiculously easy to do and guaranteed to please - if you want to use a 'Brai pack' chicken (Spinneys' 1kg chook all cut into breasts, thights, legs and wings) then you can feed two and snack on leftovers the next day - just cut back on the other ingredients.

OK, the HDR shot is dead. Here's a traditional snap taken in the time honoured camera-top flash in the kitchen tradition!

This goes majestically with a rough sweet potato mash or a tomato and onion salad.

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts on the bone
• 2 bulbs garlic
• 4 sprigs rosemary, cut up
• 1 lemon, cut into 1/8th slices
• 25g Butter
• Olive oil

Heat the oven up to GM7/22oC/425C.

Spread the butter over the chicken pieces and place them in a baking tray along with the lemon pieces, cut up pieces of rosemary and garlic cloves (leave them in the skins!). Drizzle a splash of oil over the whole lot and a dash of sea salt and black pepper, then slip 'em into the hot oven and leave 'em for 35-40 minutes to cook, crisp and brown.

Now you just have to quaff a cheeky chilled pinot grigio and read a good book while you wait!

Honey Lemon Glazed Chicken with Fregola Sarda

A possible result of the remarkable tides of culinary influences and ideas that wash the shores of the Mediterranean, fregola sarda is a relatively obscure Sardinian pasta - a similar idea to the north African rolled wheat-balls that we know as couscous. Some poor, misled bastards may only recognise the latter in its retailed form as Ainsley Harriott’s Couscous. I feel sorry for them.

There's another Mediterranean similarity in Lebanon's 'mughrabiyeh' or Palestine's 'maftoul', also little rolled balls of wheat about the size of a black peppercorn, although not toasted like fregola. Both are served traditionally as a filling accompaniment to meat, especially chicken.

Fregola sarda, then, are rolled balls of durum wheat semolina (pasta to you, mate) which are then toasted to give a distinctive and wholly delightful vignetted brown colouring ad a totally unique flavour, earthy and rich. It’s good old fashioned peasant food and, like so many good old fashioned peasant foods, is only now available in ‘artisan’ delicatessen packets. You can get it through the Internet, specialist stockists or, if you live in Dubai, from the little shop of rare delights that graces the Grand Hyatt hotel’s Panini, probably one of the nicest places in the city to have a casual and excellent coffee, sandwich and cake.

Fregola sarda should not be confused with ‘pepe’, the little pasta balls that make up one of the many (and confusingly named) varieties of ‘soup pasta’ the Italians are so fond of – although it can be used in that role (where it adds a certain cloudiness and a lovely thickness because of the loose starch that clings to the little balls of pasta after they’ve been rubbing about in their packet). It’s more distinctive than that – it’s great as a salad ingredient in place of orzo, for instance; it makes a smashing base for little piles of roasted vegetables and can be served in warm risotto-like mixtures, replacing the Arborio.

Fregola Sarda pasta

Here it’s a base for a Mediterranean-style marinated chicken breast, although if you want to serve two, you can ditch the chicken and just serve the warm mixture of pasta, bacon and courgette.

I love grilling meats – it’s by far my favourite treatment for chicken breast and striploin steaks – and I always line the grill pan with foil to save on washing up but also to collect the juices. It helps if you push the foil down between the bars.

A note on toasting pine nuts. I like to toast pine nuts in a small, dry frying pan, tossing them with such gay abandon that excited archaeologists exploring the far-flung and darker corners of my kitchen often discover long-lost pine nuts.


Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts

Marinade

• 50 ml honey
• 50 ml vinegar
• 50 ml white wine
• 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Sliced zest of ½ lemon

Fregola Sarda

• 150 fregola sarda pasta
• 2 courgettes, chopped
• 25g pine nuts, toasted
• 25g parmesan, grated
• 2 rashers smoked back bacon, chopped
• 1 large shallot, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 50ml white wine

Mix together the marinade ingredients and marinate the chicken for as long as you reasonably can – ideally more than a couple of hours.

Boil a kettle of water and put the fregola sarda in a pan with a splash of olive oil.

Grill the chicken, basting with the marinade so that it browns and crisps, turning it over after about 10-12 minutes. When it’s done, allow it to sit for a short while.

While the chicken’s cooking, cook the fregola sarda. Pour the boiling water over the pasta and cook it for 12-14 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a frying pan, fry off the shallot in the oil, adding the courgettes, the bacon and finally the garlic. Take the pan off the heat and add the wine. When the pasta has lost its hard, chalky core and is ‘al dente’, drain it off and then pour it into the courgette and bacon mixture. Toss it all together, adding the grated parmesan and, finally, the toasted pine nuts

If you’ve timed it right, the chicken will just be done and rested for five minutes – so you can slip the pasta mixture into a warmed plate, top it with a chicken breast (and maybe pour over some of the dark, sticky juices from the grill pan), serve it up with a fine pinot grigio and Robert’s yer father’s brother!

Chicken Parcels

Exciting name, huh? I love these. They’re great mid-week cookery, but smart enough to serve at a dinner – simple, virtually foolproof, achingly tender chicken with a nice, Italian flavour and absolutely minimal effort. In short, we like!

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts
• 12 slices pancetta (or 4 of parma ham)
• 16 basil leaves
• 25g pine nuts, toasted
• 25g parmesan cheese, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped

Put each chicken breast flat on a piece of cling film and fold the film over so that the breast is encased and then beat the living daylights out of it with a tenderising hammer. Don’t overdo it or you’ll smack a whole in the fillet. Try to make each blow directional so that you have a nice flat piece of chicken about 10-12 cm wide. Repeat until the four chicken pieces all give up and let you play with the trainset.

Mix the pine nuts, garlic and parmesan, then spoon this down the centre of each chicken piece. Add the basil leaves to this, then wrap each chicken piece in pancetta/parma ham.

Preheat the oven to GM6/200C/400F.

Brush a dish with oil, add the chicken parcels then cover with a loose layer of tinfoil (you can use baking sheet if you prefer) and pop into the oven for 15 minutes, then remove the covering and cook for a further five minutes. Serve on a bed of crushed tomato accompanied by lots of freshly cooked pasta.

Bali Chicken

This recipe is difficult, not because of the method of cookery or anything like that, but because of the distinctive and rare ingredient that ‘makes’ it. It’s kencur, the root of the resurrection lily and you’ll only generally find this very distinctive and camphorous little aromatic in Bali. So if a friend’s going there on holiday or you’re off yourselves, get a pack of kencur brought back for you and then pop it in the freezer – it freezes like a dream.

This is basically a marinade that's built around many of the ingredients in a Balinese spice mix, or basa genep. I've omitted candlenuts (macadamia), which are used in most Balinese cookery in one way or another, for reasons of sheer saturated fat content if nothing else.

The resulting grilled chicken breasts are uniquely Balinese in flavour and composition – Asian and yet mind-blowingly distinctive. If you're barbecuing, of course, you can use thighs, legs or anything as long as you lengthen the cooking times. The end result remains explosively aromatic.

This, playmates, is a dish that will stay in your memory long after its last, lingering Asiatic notes have played out their sensory threnody.

If you can't get kencur, I suppose you could try galangal instead, but it's really not the same... If you can, give it a scrub, but don't bother skinning it. The Balinese certainly don't!

Ingredients

• 900g (4) chicken breasts
• 1 tbsp kencur, washed
• 1” fresh ginger, chopped
• 1 large red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp palm sugar (date syrup or ‘dibs’ will do)
• ½ tsp powdered turmeric
• 100ml lime juice

In a small blender bowl, mix all the spices and lime juice but not the turmeric and then whizz them to a smooth, slightly watery pulp. Put the turmeric in a roomy bowl, add the whizzed stuff and then stir in the chicken breasts. I’ve laid it out this way purely because turmeric is so messy and stains every utensil, and your fingers, yellow.

Let the chicken marinate at least an hour, then grill it, basting with marinade, for about 5-7 minutes each side so that it has just firmed up, started to brown and is cooked through.

Serve with rice and salad and perhaps a spoon of mayonnaise blended with red chilli.

Rajasthani Kebabs

This is a different Indian kebab recipe, claiming to hail from the Northern Indian state of Rajasthan and certainly pretty typical of the cuisine of Northern India. I've grilled this, but it makes an equally good barbecue marinade and if you decide to use it for a barbecue, I'd use legs, poke them a bit with a knife beforehand to let the marinade get right in there (give 'em a slash, even) and marinate them for longer.

You can make double the onion/yoghurt marinade mixture and then freeze half, BTW: it freezes like a dream and means a virtually prep-free dish next time around!


Ingredients

• 1kg chicken breast in 2 cm cube
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, halved and finely sliced
• 8 cloves garlic, sliced
• 3 tbsp nibbed almonds
• 4 cm fresh ginger, chopped
• 4 tbsp yoghurt
• 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp salt

Put the chicken, salt and lime juice in a bowl and thoroughly mix them up. Marinate for at least an hour.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry off the onion over a medium heat until it starts to brown. Add the garlic and almonds and carry on frying until everything’s quite browned off. Remove from the heat. Put some 5 tbsp water into a small blender bowl and add the cooled onion and garlic mixture, the garam masala, the salt, the yoghurt and the red chilli powder. Give it all a good whizz, then pour this marinade mixture over the chicken and leave it steep for at least a few hours and, ideally, overnight.

Thread onto skewers and grill over a medium heat for a good 7-10 minutes either side, until the chicken whitens and then the marinade browns off in patches.

“Kung Po” Chicken – Chicken with Cashew Nuts version 2

This is a slightly different version of Chicken with cashews nuts from the one I posted earlier.

In fact the tastes between the two recipes are very different and due in main to something called Chinese Black Vinegar or Chinkiang vinegar. I am lucky enough to have a bottle of this at home which I bought from a Chinese supermarket quite a long time ago. If you don’t have it, or can’t find it, substitute it with balsamic vinegar.



This version is certainly the more ‘authentic’ of the two.

You will need:

400g chicken breast, diced into bite sized pieces
100g raw cashew nuts
1 red pepper (or green, or both), deseeded and cut into 1cm squares
1 onion, quartered, chopped into big pieces
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 knob of fresh ginger, chopped fine
5 or more Kashmiri chillis, or other dried ones (about 10g)
2tbsp dry sherry
3 spring onions, chopped into 2cm long segments


For the seasoning:

1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp dark soy sauce


For the Sauce

2 tsp cornstarch
4 tbsp good chicken stock
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp Chinese Black Vinegar
1 tbsp dark soy sauce


And then you need to:

The presentation of the food is quite important in these sorts of dishes so when you chop the chicken try and cut the breasts into equal sized smallish (1 cm) cubes.

The dried chillis do not impart much heat, they give a slightly smoky flavour to the dish and they do of course add quite a bit to the presentation. If you want a bit more heat blast add a finely chopped Thai chilli as well at the same time as you throw in the onions and garlic.

Place the chopped chicken in glass bowl with the seasoning ingredients. Give it a good mix to make sure everything is coated and leave to marinade for about 15 minutes.

Add all the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl and mix.

Either in a dry wok or in a hot (200C/400F) oven roast the cashew nuts. In the oven this will take about 5 minutes only. Once the nuts have browned nicely put to one side.

Heat the wok over medium high heat, add about 1 tbsp of ground nut oil and when it is very hot throw in the dried chillis. Give them a quick flick, and then add the onions, the garlic and the ginger. Fry very quickly for no more than 30 seconds and then add the chicken. With the cornstarch in the marinade it will likely stick a bit to the bottom, don’t worry, keep stirring and flicking and scraping the yummy bits off.

After about 30 seconds add the dry sherry.

Keep stir frying until all the sherry has evaporated, which will only take a minute.

Add the red pepper and the sauce ingredients. Keep giving it a really good stir, for about another minute.

Once the sauce is lovely and thick, add the spring onions and the cashews give them a couple of good flicks around the wok, and then tip the whole lot onto a large warmed serving platter.

Serve straightaway.

From the time you’ve heated the wok to the time you tip out the food it should take you less than five minutes. The Chinese are the true masters of fast food.

Tea Smoked Chicken Breasts

This is a great dinner party recipe, everybody always ooohs and ahhhs over it. This recipe really should be done with duck but unfortunately duck breasts are so expensive here in Dubai that we never buy them. However, if you can, go duck.

How I serve it is to have a large platter of beautiful yellow and aromatic pilau rice, then slice the smoked chicken up, spread over the top of the rice, spoon the satay sauce on the top and sprinkle with coriander leaves and chopped spring onions.

This is great stuff let me tell you!

In order to smoke the chicken you will need a wok with a lid and a wire rack that can sit above off the bottom of the wok. I have a round cooling rack at home that is just the right size and fits about half way up the inside of the wok.


You will need:

For the smoking:

50g Tea leaves
50g Uncooked rice
3 tbsp Brown Sugar

You can add to the smoking mixture:

Chopped lemongrass,
Cinnamon pieces
Coriander seeds

For the chicken marinade:

2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp salt
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground five pepper mixture (black, white, pink, green and allspice)





And then you need to:

Line the wok and the lid with silver foil. Put the smoking ingredients on top of the foil at the bottom of the wok.

Combine the marinade ingredients and sprinkle the mixture on the chicken breasts. Cover with clingfilm and leave to sit for about 4 hours or more.

Put the wire rack in the wok and place the chicken fillets on top. Put on the lid, making sure you have a very tight seal. Turn on heat to about medium and leave for 30mins. No peeking!

The tea will burn and smoke gently, the chicken will brown nicely and will taste yummy!

Once cooked, slice the chicken and serve.

Chicken Saltimbocca

The classic version of this delicious Italian dish calls for veal, but it is pretty damn good with chicken. I have also used flattened pork fillets and it worked well.

The Real Nick can probably tell us what the name of the dish means if we ask him nicely!

There is something incredibly satisfying eating a luscious roll of golden chicken with cheese oozing out and a sweet, strong thick sauce. This is great wholesome fare.


You will need:

4 chicken breasts (or veal or pork)
4 slices prosciutto or parma ham
100g fresh mozzarella or gruyere cheese.
8 sage leaves
2 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp EV olive oil
25g butter
50ml marsala sherry
100ml white wine
50ml good chicken stock


And then you need to:

Lay the chicken breasts one at a time on a wooden board, cover with a sheet of clingfilm and using a rolling pin flatten it out by giving it a damn good beating. Ohh yeesssss!

Sorry, where was I?

Then lay a slice or prosciutto and a quarter of the cheese on top and press it down. Lay 2 sage leaves on top and gently roll up the fillet so that the cheese/ham is on the inside. If you need to ‘pin’ it closed with a cocktail stick.

Put the flour on a flat plate and season it with a good grind of sea salt and black pepper.

Roll the fillets in the seasoned flour.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add the butter and the oil. When hot add the chicken and cook for about 3 mins on each side until golden. Add the marsala, stock and wine and cook for about 5mins until the chicken is cooked through. You can add 1 tbsp of double cream as well if you want an even richer sauce.

Remove the chicken fillets and place on warmed plates. Turn up the heat to quickly reduce the liquid left until you have quite a thick sauce. Pour over the chicken fillets and serve with mashed potatoes.

What I quite like to do is place a dollop of basic tomato sauce in the middle of a warmed plate, then put the chicken on top and then spoon over the sauce. The tomato sauce really brings a wonderful addition to the flavours.

Enjoy!

Khalonji Chicken

In general, almost any yoghurt-based marinade works brilliantly with chicken: tarragon and mustard, chili and spices or mint: there's a whole lot of experimenting to do and it's pretty hard to go wrong. Alternatively, there are true classics like shish taouk, which can be made with an oil-based marinade or a yoghurt-based one (the recipe linked is oil-based, just replace the oil wiht a couple of tablespoons of yoghurt).

This version is a mildly spiced, subtle marinade that'll give a tender result time after time, ideal for the grill and a rice/salad accompaniment but also fantastic when barbecued. The more time you can leave everything to marinade and combine, the better!


Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts, halved lengthways
• 4 tbsp yoghurt
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp onion seed (kalonji)
• 1 tsp garam masala
  
• ½ red onion, finely diced
• 2” fresh ginger, grated
• 4 cloves garlic, grated
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper

Mix everything together and then add the chicken. Marinate for as long as you can, then lay the chicken pieces out on a foil-lined baking rack and grill for 5-10 minutes (depending on the ferocity of your grill!), until the surface of the chicken shows brown flecks and the meat has started to firm up, before turning to brown the other side. Serve!

Thai Red Chicken Curry

Is there anything in the world to match the sheer variety of Thai food? It zings and pops, crackles and splashes: a brilliant orchestration of freshness, flavour and texture. And yet we always seem to come back to the 'old staples' - this being one of them. But damn, it's good.

There are commercially available curry pastes available in most supermarkets: they come in a little tub. I tend to use the Thai ones rather than Ainsley Harriott's ThaiTastic Taste Experience Red Curry WonderTM. If you can get to Sharjah's amazing Green House Supermarket, then you can buy home made curry pastes. But if you're really hardcore about that curry, you'll make your own paste.

If you like your red curry ball-breakingly hot, then increase the amount of curry paste to about 1 tbsp per chicken breast. I don't, this is a relatively mild curry that nevertheless will definitely let you know you're eating a Thai red curry! If the heat ever gets too much, some coconut milk will help out.

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts (approx 1kg) cut into 2cm cubes
• 8 tsp red curry paste
• 1 tin coconut milk
• 2 tsp nam pla
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 8 cherry tomatoes
• 10-12 chunks fresh pineapple
• 4 tbsp vegetable oil

In a wide-bottomed pan, fry off the red curry paste in the oil over a high heat, then add the chicken, stir frying it to mix the paste up and also whiten the chicken. Slosh in the coconut milk and stir it in to heat up. Add the tomatoes. Let it be for a minute or so until it's starting to bubble, then turn the heat lower (not minimum, but not far off it) and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the nam pla, soy sauce and pineapple and cook for a further five minutes. Serve with plain boiled rice and somethingcool, crisp, sharp and white.

An Asiatically Inclined Pasta Dish

The One Cafe used to have a marvellous chicken pasta dish on its menu called Pasta Dou Chi, which was much beloved of the wiff. Having successfully blagged a menu and noted its composition, I then proceeded to make it at home. Over the years, as one ingredient or another was or wasn’t to hand, it’s morphed. The original, in case you’re interested, used water chestnuts, wilted greens and black bean sauce. This one doesn’t!

This recipe serves a hungry two as a main meal but it'll happily do four as a light one...

Ingredients

• 500g chicken breast
• 2 tsp toasted sesame seeds
• 300g conchiglie pasta
• 225 broccoli in small florets
• 100g small button mushrooms, halved
• 2 sticks celery, finely diced
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 100ml white wine
• 1 tsp cornflour
• Chopped fresh coriander to garnish
  

Marinade

• 4 star anise
• 2 tbsp kecap manis
• 1 tbsp light soy
• 1 tbsp teriyaki
• ½ tsp sesame oil
• 30ml white wine

Chop the chicken breast into 1.5cm pieces or thereabouts. Mix together the marinade ingredients and let the chicken steep in these for a good while - overnight's great.

Blanch the broccoli: have a bowl of cold water to hand, ideally with a couple of generous handfuls of ice in it and then plunge the broccoli into a pan of boiling, salted water for 30 secs or so - for sure no more than a minute, remove it into a strainer and then slip it all into the ice water. This will keep it a little crunchy but also preserve the vibrant colour.

Have a pan of water on the boil ready for the pasta.

Fry the onion in the oil to soften over a medium heat, then turn the heat to high and add the mushroom and stir fry for a couple of minutes before adding the chicken and stir frying to colour it. Add the celery and fry it up, then take the heat to low. Mix the cornflour, wine, vinegar and honey together, then add to the chicken and turn the heat to low.

Cook the pasta – add ½ tsp salt to the boiling water, let it froth up and then add the pasta, Slip a teaspoon of good olive oil into the water and stir it up to stop the pasta clumping. It needs to be ‘al dente’ so, depending on what pasta you use and whether it’s dry or fresh, do it for a little under the recommended cooking time. For dried conchiglie, I’d give it nine, max 10 minutes.

As the pasta’s boiling away, give the chicken the odd stir and check your Bebo page or pour a glass of cheeky Orvieto. You could also give the sesame seeds a quick extra toasting in a small pan before sprinkling it on the chicken just before the pasta cooks. As soon as the pasta’s cooked, drain it and add it into the chicken mixture along with the chopped onion. Stir it in to warm through and then serve it up with a smattering of chopped fresh coriander to finish it off!

Tikka Marinated Grilled Chicken

This is a traditional Indian recipe for grilling chicken - the richness of the marinade gives chicken a lovely depth of flavour, and the yoghurt helps to keep it moist and tender. There are two ways of cooking the chicken, depending on which part you're using. Grill cubes of breast meat on skewers hot and fast and you'll have tender, juicy kebabs. If you're doing joints or legs on the bone, grill them much more slowly to ensure that the chicken is fully cooked without being burnt on the outside.

Ingredients

• 4 breasts/legs good quality organic or free-range chicken
• 500ml yoghurt
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp cayenne or chili pepper
• Pinch ground ginger
• 1 tsp salt

Prepare your chicken - cut breasts into equal size cubes, score larger pieces. Season.

Mix everything together - yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne or chilli (if using) and ginger - you should have a fairly thick paste, stiff enough to stick to your chicken.

Add chicken and stir to ensure everything is well coated, then cover and let it marinate in the fridge for about 3 hours.

Light your barbecue, and let the charcoal burn down to white in colour.

Grill larger pieces of chicken slowly on a moderate part of your barbecue. When nearly cooked, grill the kebabs over a higher heat to ensure everything is ready at the same time.

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai