Tag: Chicken

Mains

Roast Chicken

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This recipe utilises brining to uniformly season the chicken and also to make it more moist. After the brining the chicken is rested in the fridge overnight to dry out the skin so you get really great roasted skin.
The brine is 3.5 % salt.

This recipe is a lot easier to make if you have a large plastic container (6 – 7 liter) that you can place the brine and chicken in. Just make sure that the container fits in your fridge.

Ingredients for the Roast Chicken:
5 liters water
175g sea salt
100g honey
12 bay leaves
6 garlic cloves, skin left on, smashed
2 tbsp black peppercorns
10g fresh rosemary leaves
10g thyme leaves
50g flat-leaf parsley
2 lemons, halfed

One free range chicken, about 1.5 kg
15g thyme (twigs)
Rapeseed oil
Salt
Pepper

Preparing the roast chicken:
Place all of the brine ingredients into a large saucepan. Cover with a lid and boil for one minute, stirring to dissolve the salt. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
Rinse the chicken thoroughly under cold running water. Add the chicken to the brine. Chill in the fridge for six hours.
Remove the chicken from the brine, rinse under cold running water and pat dry with kitchen paper.
Place the chicken on a cake rack and place uncovered in the fridge overnight, this will further dry out the chicken skin.

Preheat the oven to 240C.

Season the inside of each chicken with a light sprinkling of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

To truss the chicken, place one chicken on a tray with the legs towards you. Tuck the wing tips under the bird. Cut a 90 cm piece of kitchen twine and place it on top of the neck end of the breast. Lift the neck end of the bird and pull the twine down around the wings and under the chicken, then bring the ends up over the breast, towards you, and tie the twine into a knot, pulling it tight to plump the breast.

Bring the ends of the twine around the ends of the drumsticks and straight up. Tie as before to pull the drumsticks together and form a compact bird; tie again to secure the knot.
Let the chicken sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes before roasting.

Season the outside of the chicken with a light sprinkling of salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Place a heavy-based, ovenproof frying pan over a high heat. When the pan is hot, add half the oil and heat until hot.
Put the chicken breast-side up into the pan, and then into the oven with the legs facing the back of the oven. Roast for 40 minutes, checking the bird every 15 minutes and rotating the frying pan if the chicken are browning unevenly.
After 40 minutes, check the temperature of the bird by inserting a thermometer between the leg and the thigh. The temperature should read approximately 68C. The chicken will continue to cook as it sits, reaching a temperature of about 73C.
When the bird are cooked, remove from the oven, add the thyme leaves to the pans, and baste the bird with the juices and thyme leaves. Set aside in a warm place for ten minutes.

Carve and serve.

Mains

Barbequed Chicken with Chili-Aioli

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chicken-1I woke today to a pleasant surprise – Delivery of my very own barbeque!
Barbequeing brings back fond memories of my childhood in Sweden where everyone barbeques as soon as the sun manage to stay up for more than a few hours. We did a lot of barbequeing in my family, at one point I think we had something like three DYI barbeques built with bricks scattered around the garden.
This is the first thing I cooked on the Weber. Gutsy flavours for sure but that’s what you want sometimes.I pared it with quite a heady Marsanne which worked quite well. Could also go with a medium bodied red wine.

This makes enough for about 3-4 persons.

Ingredients for the Barbequed Chicken:
700g chicken breast fillets
2 garlic cloves
1 lime
Half a red chili
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp smoked paprika powder
A few dashes of Tamari soy sauce
Salt (smoked sea salt if you have it)
Pepper

Preparing the barbequed chicken:
Start by preparing the marinade. Press the garlic cloves and the lime into a bowl. De-seed and finely chop the chili. Mix in the chili and the rest of the ingredients.
Cut the chicken fillets into 2 cm big cubes. Put them into the marinade, mix around to make them all coated by marinade. Put some cling film on top of the bowl and marinade in the fridge for at least 2-3 hours, preferably more. Take it out about once per hour and mix it around a bit.
Take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before you want to start cooking it.
Thread the chicken pieces on skewers and barbeque for about 6-10 minutes. Turning the skewers halfway through.

Ingredients for the potatoes:
750g Jersey Royal potatoes
A few sprigs of thyme
2 cloves of garlic
5 black peppercorns
Salt

Preparing the potatoes:
Put a pot of water on to a rolling bowl. Add about a small handful of sea salt to it. You want the water to be quite salty, a bit like sea water. Leave the skin on the garlic but crush them a bit with a chef knife. Add the garlic to the pot with the thyme and peppercorns.
Add the potatoes and let them boil for 15 minutes.
Drain and let cool.
When you are ready to barbeque put the potatoes on and turn them regularly. They will be ready in about 6-10 minutes.

Ingredients for the chili-aioli:
2 egg yolks (in UK I recommend Burford Brown Clarence Court eggs), at room temperature
2 garlic cloves
1 – 2 limes
250 ml groundnut oil (or any other neutral oil), at room temperature
0.25 tsp red chili paste
Salt (smoked sea salt if you have it)
Pepper
A bit of cayenne pepper

Preparing the chili-aioli:
Press the garlic and one of the limes into a glass bowl. Add salt and pepper, egg yolks and chili paste. Whisk together with a balloon whisk.
Slowly add the oil first to ensure that the emulsion is forming, whisking constantly. Whisk until all the oil has been incorporated.
Check for seasoning and some cayenne pepper if it’s not hot enough. Add more salt, pepper, lime juice if needed.

Stocks

White Chicken Stock

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chicken_stockWhite chicken stock is chicken stock where the chicken carcass or whatever you are using have been blanched instead of being roasted or sauteed.
By blanching the chicken first some of the fat and impurities gets removed and can easily be discarded with the blanching water, this results in a clearer stock.
After the stock has been made it’s important to store it in the refrigerator overnight. This makes the fat set on the surface of the stock where it can then be scraped off and discarded. After that the stock can be stored in the fridge for up to five days or the freezer for about three months. Make sure you mark the container you are storing the stock in with the date it was made.

The stock can of course be used for a variety of uses… stocks, braising vegetables, cooking lentils, sauces etc. etc.
It’s a bit of work but it’s so much better than stock you can buy in the supermarket!

This recipe yields about 1.5 liter of stock.

Ingredients for the White chicken stock:
1.5 kg chicken wings (preferably organic)
200g carrots, cut into chunks
2 leeks, white part only, cut into chunks
Half a celery stalk, coarsely chopped
1 onion, studded with 2 cloves
150g button mushrooms, thinly sliced
Six whole black peppercorns
1 bouquet garni (one leek leaf, six parsley stalks, one bay leaf, one sprig of thyme. Herbs wrapped in the leek leaf and tied at both ends with kitchen string.)

Preparing the White chicken stock:
Start by blanching the chicken wings. Put them in a casserole or stock pot (at least 6-7 liters big), cover with 3 liters of cold water. Put the pot on high heat and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the chicken wings from the pot with tongs or a spoon, put into a large colander and rinse thoroughly under cold water. Set aside and throw away the water in the pot and wash it out. The reason why we remove the chicken wings from the pot in this way is to not poor the impurities and scum from the pan over them while in the colander.
Return the chicken wings to the pot and cover with 2.5 liters cold water. Bring to the boil over a low heat and then immediately lower the heat and keep at a simmer.

After 5 minutes of simmering, skim the surface of foam and fat, then add all the other ingredients.
Cook gently for 2 hours, skimming the surface whenever necessary to keep the stock as clear as possible.
Put a bowl large enough to hold the stock in the sink or in a larger bowl. Fill the sink (or bowl) with cold water and add a few ice cubes.
Strain the stock into the smaller bowl through a chinois (a fine-meshed conical sieve) lined with muslin. Let cool in the bowl.
Transfer to a container and put in the fridge overnight. The next day you can easily remove any fat that will at this point have gathered at the surface of the stock.
Refrigerate and use within 4 or 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months (I mark the container with painters tape so that I can write the contents and date produced).

Mains, Pasta

Pasta salad with chicken breast

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This is a pasta salad that I keep returning to and I cook it pretty much all year around, biased towards the warmer months of the year though.  It’s best in the summer when one can barbecue the chicken.

Ingredients for Pasta salad with chicken breast:
4 chicken breasts
400 gram penne
1 red onion
1 red chili
500 gram cherry tomatoes
100 gram mozzarella
20 or so black pitted olives
Olive oil
Half a pot of basil
4 cloves of garlic
White wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper

For the butter:
200 gram room tempered butter
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp black pepper
1 shallot

Preparing Pasta salad with chicken breast:

Preparing the chicken:
Start by preparing a simple marinade for the chicken. Mix one part of white wine vinegar and three parts extra virgin olive oil. Chop the garlic cloves finely and mix with the oil and vinegar. Add some chopped basil as well.
Put the chicken filets in a bowl or oven dish and poor the marinade over. Cover with cling film and leave the chicken in the fridge to marinade for an hour or so.

The butter:
Chop the shallot very finely. Mix it with the butter, vinegar and black pepper in a bowl. You can also add some pressed garlic if you want. When it’s all mixed put it on a piece of greaseproof paper and make into a roll. Put the roll in the fridge so the butter becomes more solid again.

The salad:
Finely chop the red onion. Cut the chili lengthwise and take out the kernels. Chop the chili finely as well. Cut the olives in chunks if you want. Put everything in a bowl and tear the mozzarella in pieces to put in as well. Mix everything a bit.
Cook the pasta and let it cool if you want to serve a cold pasta salad or cook it later if you want the pasta to be hot. Mix the pasta with everything else in the bowl.

Turn on the oven at about 150 C (for fan assisted oven). Put some of the shallot butter in a frying pan and let the chicken fillets fry for a few minutes on each side. Then put the frying pan in the hot oven and let the chicken cook for about 15 – 25 minutes or so.

When the chicken is finished put the chicken fillets on top of some salad on the plate and then put a slice or two of the butter on top of the chicken.