Bloody Great! Chicken with Marsala, Olives and Blood Oranges

So, here I am continuing to bore you with my new found virtuosity. I have no idea whether this recipe is truly healthy, whatever that means, but my word… it made me feel good. In fact, the fact that I was able to muster this up on a school night is testament not only to my new found energy (well…actually, I don’t know whether I would take it that far. I merely decided to swerve the marking of year 9 books in order to eat because I was that hungry I could have eaten my own arms) but also the ease in which this amazing tasting dish can be created. Yes, even on a school night.

This divine tasting dish is from Diana Henry’s ‘A Bird in the Hand’. It is likely, due to amount of chicken that is being eaten in the household lately, that I will be cooking my way through this frankly fabulous tome of chicken recipes. I haven’t read one yet that I know I wouldn’t like. This recipe uses that seemingly rare beast, the blood orange, which is a particular favourite of mine, their sanguine juice and flesh slightly acidic tang adding colour and flavour to anything and everything. I got mine from the local farm shop, Windy Arbour, in Billinge.

I used chicken breasts on the bone for this one, instead of jointed chicken pieces. Personally I’d have been happy with any part of the chicken but I seem to be surrounded by people who don’t want to deal with too much in the way of bones, so chicken breasts it is. What I will say though is the way of cooking this kept the chicken incredibly moist and seemed to infuse flavour into what I think is sometimes the blandest cut of the bird. Anyway, happy bubs, happy Phill, happy me.

I served this cooked with spelt which had initially been sautéed with onions, and then braised in chicken stock, finished with a sprinkling of parsley. All together it was seriously delish and it’s one that I will be cooking again, as soon as the blood oranges make their welcome appearance.

Chicken with Marsala, Olives and Blood Oranges from ‘A Bird in the Hand’ by Diana Henry

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum and Dad, twice (4 – 6 people)

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium British free-range chicken, jointed into 8 (I used chicken supremes)

2 small red onions, halved and cut into crescent moon-shaped slices

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

100ml dry Marsala

Juice 1 blood orange, plus 2 blood oranges

8 fresh thyme sprigs (I used 1 ½ tsp of dried thyme)

1-2 large handfuls good quality green olives

A little caster sugar

Heat the oven to 190°C/fan170°C/gas 5.

On the hob, heat the olive oil in a broad, shallow casserole or ovenproof pan in which the chicken joints can lie in a single layer (I used my oval cast iron casserole) Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then brown on both sides, skin-side first, over a medium-high heat. Be careful not to turn the chicken pieces over before they come away easily from the base of the pan, otherwise you will tear the skin. Transfer to a plate.

Drain off all but a couple of tablespoons of the oil, then add the onions to the pan. Cook over a low-medium heat for around 5 minutes or until the onions begin to soften. Add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes.

Add the marsala to the pan and scrape up all any flavourful sticky bits on the bottom. Add the blood orange juice. Return the chicken – and any meat juices – to the pan, skin-side up. Season, then add the dried thyme. Bring to the boil, then take the pan off the heat and put it in the oven for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut a slice off the bottom and top of each whole blood orange so they have a flat base on which to sit. Using a very sharp knife, cut the peel and pith from each orange, working around the fruit and cutting in broad slices from top to bottom. Slice the oranges into rounds and pick out any pips.

Take the chicken out of the oven, then add the olives and lay over the sliced blood oranges (the oranges should stay on top, out of the liquid). Sprinkle the orange slices with a little sugar, then return the pan to the oven and cook for another 20 minutes. The juices should have reduced, the orange slices should be golden, even caramelised in patches, and the chicken should be cooked through.

Spoon over some of the juices, then serve immediately. I served this with pearled spelt, cooked with onions in chicken stock.

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Cake, Italian stylee, and it's not Panettone! Buccellato, or Raisin and Aniseed Cake

 

 

I really need to up the cake quota on this blog! I quick glance through will reveal plenty of one pot wonders but not enough cake, and life needs cake, so in the spirit of evening things up a little and also because I am practising escapism through cooking Mediterranean stylee, here is a moist, delicious and versatile cake by the name of 'Buccatello', or raisin and aniseed cake if you happen to be just pretending to be Italian.

 

This cake is a celebratory cake (it says in 'Lazy Days and Beach Blankets', from where this recipe is from) and that kind of justifies the addition of a bit of booze to this cake. It's also a yeasted cake so once it is a little past its best you can bung it in the toaster and spread a bit of jam on it. What's not to like?

 

My addition to this was a late one. When it came out of the mould I thought that this cake did not look celebratory enough, so I mixed up a bit of icing sugar and lemon juice and drizzled some icing over the top. I think this would also look so pretty and celebratory with some summer fruit piled into the middle of the cake.

 

Raisin and Aniseed Cake, or 'Buccatello', adapted from  'Lazy Days and Beach Blankets', by Various.

 

Ingredients:

 

Sachet of dried yeast (or 20g fresh yeast)

150ml milk, warmed

400g plain white flour

115g caster sugar

2 eggs beaten, plus an extra egg white to glaze

50ml Marsala or Vin Santo

50g unsalted butter, melted

finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon

1 teaspoon of aniseed

50g raisins

sea salt

 

For the glaze.

 

Three tablespoons of icing sugar.

The juice of half a lemon (use the lemon you zested for the cake)

 

Method:

 

 

 

Mix the yeast with the warm milk until dissolved then allow to stand.

 

 

 

Sift the flour into a bowl and mix with the sugar and a pinch of salt.

 

 

 

Make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture, eggs, Marsala, melted butter, lemon zest and aniseed.

 

Mix until the dough comes together (I used the dough hook on my mixer but you could use a palette knife). The dough will be soft.

 

Knead until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.

 

Knead in the raisins.

 

 

Roll the dough into a sausage shape and place into a well buttered ring/savarin/kugelhopf mould, pushing the ends together.

 

 

 

Cover with a damp tea towel and and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour and a half or until the dough doubles in size.

 

Preheat the oven to 180c

 

Bake in a preheated oven for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown.

 

 

 

Leave to cool in the tin and when just warm, turn out and cool.

 

Mix the lemon glaze by combining the icing sugar with the lemon juice. You want a dropping consistency that isn't too runny. You might need to mix together the icing sugar and lemon juice in stages to get the consistency you want.

 

 

 

Using a spoon, drizzle the lemon glaze over the cake.

It's not all about Scouse. Introducing Wet Nelly, the pudding that sticks to your ribs.

 

 

The dish that is synonymous with Liverpool is Scouse, a version of which has graced this very blog right here and is one of those heartwarming (Northern) dishes that makes grim months like November and January seem bearable. It is poor man's food but you'd never know it because it's too damn good to be ever thought of as poor.

 

Which brings me to a poor man's pudding, for dinner shall not be complete without something for dessert. There are lots of cakes associated with the North, with numerous towns having some sort of confectionery that they call their own. 'Wet Nelly' is probably the one you have never heard of. A native of Liverpool, (and its environs, it will be argued) she is closely related to Nelson cake (google it) but here she is smartened up a bit with a dash of alcohol and a pastry crust. More 'Mildly Moist Elizabeth' than 'Wet Nelly', maybe.

 

I googled the recipe after visiting Speke Hall recently with the family. By virtue of their dad, they have some sort of connection to Speke Hall and Lola and Finn spent a lot of the time telling anyone who would listen that they were here to visit Grandma's house. We wound up at the cafe and after having a bowl of Scouse each (no longer poor man's food here, £6.75 for a smallish bowl and it was virtually blind - buck your ideas up please National Trust!) I spied the Wet Nelly. I had to make one. So a few minutes on Google and here you are.

 

Here we are! Speke Hall! Back to claim what is rightfully ours!!!

 

My adaptations were that I soaked my raisins in Marsala because it was out on the work top and I couldn't be bothered finding the rum, which the recipe suggests. My quantities for sweet pastry will leave with you with half left which you can freeze and then be moments away from whipping up something a bit tarty, which I like to do, often. If that isn't your thing, then just half the quantities for the sweet pastry listed below.

 

'Wet Nelly', adapted from the recipe from Tom Bridge: Cookery Detective

 

Serves 6, very well indeed

 

For the pastry:

 

8oz/225g plain flour

 

4oz/110g unsalted butter, straight from the fridge

 

3oz/80g caster sugar

 

1 large egg, to bind

 

For the filling:

225g / 8 oz trifle sponge or sponge cake or broken biscuits crumbled (I used trifle sponges blitzed in the food processor)

110g / 4 oz raisins, soaked in a little dark rum (I used Marsala, a couple of tablespoons)

Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

4 tbsp full fat milk

4 tbsp golden syrup

Beaten egg to glaze

 

 

Method:

 

 

 

Start by soaking your raisins. By the time you are ready to make the filling the raisins should have plumped up.

 

 

 

To make the pastry, blitz the flour, sugar and cold butter together in a food processor, or rub together by hand until you get a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs.

 

 

 

Add the egg to bind the pastry together.

 

 

 

Wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for about an hour or so. It is quite a squidgy pastry and will need to be chilled sufficiently.

 

When the pastry is ready, butter a suitable pan. I used an 8 inch (20cm approx) fluted loose bottomed flan tin.

 

 

 

Flour a board and roll out enough pastry to line the bottom and sides of your pan. You can do a bit of a patch job if the pastry is proving difficult to handle. Trim the edges.

 

Set the oven to Gas Mark 5, 190c /375f

 

 

 

Mix together the sponge crumbs, raisins, lemon rind and juice, milk and syrup.

 

 

Place the mixture into the pastry case.

 

 

 

Roll out some more pastry to cover the filling and before placing the lid on top, brush the edges of the pastry in the flan tin with some beaten egg so that the sides and pastry top will stick together when they're crimped. Seal and crimp the edges and then brush the top with beaten egg.

 

Not too fussed about the odd crack. I am about to drown it in custard.

 

Bake in the centre of a pre-heated oven for 30 minutes. or until browning on top. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little.

 

 

 

Serve warm with custard.

April 2014 - I have just discovered my fellow blogger, Phil from the excellent blog 'As Strong as Soup' has produced a razzle dazzle, upmarket version of this fine Liverpool delicacy. You can read about and learn how to make it here.