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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You can never please fussy eaters, but at least I tried... Cod with Black Olives and Tomatoes

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I so lurrrrvvvvvee fish. But, chez Lola and Finn, I am the only one who does. It means that fish is usually only cooked as a special treat for me if Phill is working away. It's a little thing that says, "Yes, you are without the person who keeps you on the straight and narrow, but here is some sea bream to make you feel a little better about it all. Open some wine, it'll all be cool." 

 

But sometimes you need to dispense with a situation in which means that you please everyone but yourself, and make clear to all those doubters the fact that fish is good for you, and judicious choices of fish based on sustainability, coupled with some pretty damn fine ingredients are all you need to create something simple and delicious. That was the line I used to convince the fishyphobes around me with varying degrees of success. Lola and Finn were willing participants and Phill, well, if he didn't like it, he would probably make himself cheese on toast.

 

The simplicity of this dish, which I adapted from my little 'GoodFood 101 Mediterranean Dishes' is ideal for a weeknight where it seems that everything is going on around you like a vortex. Brownies, football, kids' homework, dirty PE kits, those year 8 books that it looks as though I won't get round to marking AGAIN can all be happening whilst this wonderful dish is created by just basically assembling it and leaving it a little while. The rest of your life might be a complete shambles but at least dinner is quite good.

 

The verdict? Well, Lola and Finn actually ate quite a bit of this, and whilst it might not rival the mighty chicken nugget in culinary awesomeness, there weren't as many moans as I anticipated. Phill? Well after dissecting it all with the meticulousness of a brain surgeon, because he was on the hunt for the inevitable bone which he ALWAYS finds, he ate some of it but the old adage is seemingly true: You can't please all the people all of the time. But don't let him put you off; his sandwich filling of choice when I first met him was peanut butter and cheese. It is possible that I am not dealing with a gourmand here...

 

Fish with Black Olives and Tomatoes, adapted from 'GoodFood 101 Mediterranean Dishes or from here

 

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum and Dad and 1 other

 

Ingredients:

 

175g black olives in oil, stones removed

1 large onion, roughly chopped

1/2 red chilli, deseeded, or 1/4 tsp chilli powder (optional - I used a half a red chilli)

1 tbsp. tomato puree

1/2 tsp dried oregano

400g can chopped tomatoes (Buy the best chopped tomatoes you can - I buy the San Manzano ones or chopped cherry tomatoes if you can get them).

4 boneless white fish fillets such as Icelandic cod or hoki, each weighing about 175g/6oz (I used cod)

chopped parsley

lemon wedges

 

 

Method:

 

Preheat the oven to fan 180C/conventional 200C/gas 6.

 

 

 

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil from the olives in an ovenproof pan. Tip in the onion and stir well, leave to cook for a minute or two and then give it another good stir. Add the tomatoes and some salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then add the olives.

 

 

 

Put the fish, skin side down, onto the sauce and drizzle over a splash more oil from the olive jar. Bake, uncovered, for 15 minutes until the fish is cooked. Check the seasoning once again. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve straight from the pan, with lemon wedges for squeezing over. To accompany this, I roasted some small potatoes in olive oil and seasoning.

I'm thinking of France - Provencal chicken

 

 

 

 

Actually, I am often thinking of France. I don't know if I am so disenchanted by this country  that I see France as some kind of example of the good life,  although I think the warm sun, a sense of society and a two hour lunch has a lot going for it. In fairness I could also counter that with the fact that trying to get anything done in August is a thankless task because everyone is on holiday and maybe, thinking about it, it should be. I don't really appreciate the way that so many of us are worked like dogs for so little tangible benefit and maybe a little more time where you could actually stop and appreciate the simplicity of life rather than not seeing any of it because you're sat in front of a computer screen or (insert suitable phrase for whatever is the bane of your working life) for hours on end would be beneficial to all of us.  Anyway, before this gets too overly political, let me just say that I see myself with a little house with a little bit of land -nothing grand, just room enough for a little pool and somewhere to put a table and chairs, and then the rest given over to an array of fruit trees, rows of herbs and a veg plot where I don't have to be concerned about whether my tomatoes ripen or not. Because they will. I have, too many times, converted those sad looking green things withering on the vine in my garden into some kind of green tomato chutney because it's been yet another year of Atlantic storms and general greyness.

 

And if I were somewhere in, say, Provence, I might get on my bike one morning (yes, really!) and go off to the market and buy myself a chicken and a few other bits and bobs, and I might return home and cook something like this and the heady smells of rosemary and garlic will envelop my simple little kitchen just as it did when I made this in my real kitchen. If you want one of those meals which has you feeling hungry half an hour before you are due to eat it because is smells so damn good, then this is the one for you.

 

And, it is so easy to make - far easier than roasting a chicken and the meat is moist, flavourful and falls off the bone.

 

Provencal Chicken, loosely based on the version from the Low Carb Cookbook by Annie Bell

 

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum and Dad

 

Ingredients:

 

olive oil

one medium free range chicken

two - three onions, sliced

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

12 - 15 cherry tomatoes

150ml white wine

2 tsp chopped rosemary

a handful of green and black olives, pitted (optional)

salt and pepper

 

(There is an option to make a type of pistou with this, by blitzing basil leaves with olive oil, but I didn't bother as Lola and Finn are not pistou (or, indeed 'pesto') fans. One day they will discover that just because it is green, it is not horrible...)

 

Method:

 

Sadly blurred, but you catch the drift...

 

Rub a little of the olive oil onto the whole chicken and season it. Then, in a large enough pot that will contain the chicken and the sauce once assembled, start to brown the chicken all over. Remove to a plate.

 

 

 

Add a little more olive oil to the pan and start to sauté the sliced onions over a medium heat for about five minutes or so until they are translucent. Add the garlic and cook briefly until it is fragrant, but take care not to burn it.

 

 

 

Add the wine, the tomatoes and the rosemary and stir together. Season. Place the chicken on top of the sauce and put the lid on the pot. Lower the heat and cook for about an hour or so, until the juices from a knife inserted into the thickest part of the chicken run clear.

 

 

 

At this point, you can remove the chicken to a plate, wrap it in foil and allow it to rest for a little whilst you attend to the sauce. It may be that the sauce is greasy (mine wasn't) but you can allow the sauce to settle and skim any fat off the top. It may also be that the sauce is too liquid. If that is the case, raise the heat and reduce the sauce.

 

If you are using the olives, stir them into the sauce once you have removed the chicken and allow them to warm through. Check the seasoning. It should be very intensely tasting, to counteract the relative blandness of the chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

Serve the chicken and the sauce together - you could bulk this out with potatoes or rice or salad if you like.

 

 

 

 

Eureka! (Or any other loosely connected Greek exclamation...) Chicken with Olives

 

 

Firstly, allow me to set the scene, in the only way I know is appropriate:

 

 

 

It is highly unlikely that I will get anywhere near Greece this year as hopefully we'll be hotfooting it to France during the Summer hols, but, you never know, should the lottery numbers come up this evening I might decide to tag on a little extra holiday on somewhere. Yeh, who am I trying to kid? I can't believe I said 'might'. Let's be honest, should I acquire the profession of 'Lottery Millionaire' later on this evening then you wouldn't see me for dust. Anyway, until that inevitable time where I put my deposit down on some swanky Maserati and leave on a jetplane for warmer climes, I will have to be content with creating Rhodes, Crete, or (insert your favourite Greek island here) with a little bit of creativity in my own kitchen.

 

I am very fortunate to own 'Vefa's Kitchen' by Vefa Alexiadou, bought for me by Phill for a birthday a few years ago and it is one of those glorious cookbooks which is chock full of recipes, glossy pictures evocative of warmer climes, herbaceous hillsides, and the contrast of blue against white; that last image being the epitome of Greece (for me at least) whether it be whitewashed buildings against blue domes, or the fluttering of the Greek flag in a warm summer breeze. Even the cover of this weighty tome is blue and white.

 

I could have cooked anything from this book to be fair, but as I have a brood to feed, I have to choose something that will appeal to all of us (though to be honest, Finn still proves a problem here...) I cooked a very easy dish, chicken and olives, which appealed to Finn (chicken) Lola, (pasta) and me and Phill (olives and it goes well with Mythos).

 

If you are not olive mad like Phill and I, you can of course omit or fish the offending things out when you serve, but I have to say the cooking of olives tends to mellow them out and add an interesting flavour to the dish, but each to their own of course, and I haven't succeeded in getting either Lola and Finn to them yet. My adaptations to the recipe are below, the main one being that I used chicken thighs so I adjusted the cooking time accordingly as a thigh piece is considerably smaller than a quarter of a chicken.

 

Chicken with Olives, adapted from 'Vefa's Kitchen' by Vefa Alexiadou

 

Ingredients:

 

1 chicken, about 3 1/4lb quartered (I used six boneless chicken thighs, skin on)

salt and pepper

5 tbsp. olive oil

three garlic cloves, finely sliced

1 tbsp. of freshly chopped thyme, majoram or oregano (I used oregano)

5 tbsp. of dry white wine

A can of chopped tomatoes

5oz Kalamata olives, pitted and halved

 

Spaghetti to serve

 

Method:

 

Season the chicken with salt and pepper

 

 

 

Heat the oil in the pan and add the chicken and cook over a medium heat, turning occasionally until browned all over.

 

 

 

Add the garlic and oregano and cook, storing constantly for about five minutes

 

Pour in the wine and simmer until the alcohol has evaporated.

 

 

 

Add the tomatoes, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, (30 if you are cooking chicken quarters) then add the olives. Cook for about 20 minutes more (30 if you are cooking chicken quarters) or until the chicken is tender and the sauce has thickened perceptibly.

 

 

 

Serve the chicken and the sauce over spaghetti.

 

Random and Moreish - Salami (and Chorizo!!) Tarts

 

 

This was the worst and best possible recipe that could have revealed itself for this month's Random Recipe Challenge, hosted by Dom over at Belleau Kitchen.  The best, because I have been rather short of time lately, which I fear is a prelude to my returning to work full time from September when I will have hardly any time at all, and this recipe is, literally, 20 minutes from start to finish. The drawback is that they are so moreish and lasted a matter of minutes as they were slyly snaffled from the worktop by passing Lolas, Finns and Phills... and me. Y'see, this is the thing with appetisers, which is what I suppose these things are - I can't stop at one or two and even if I as at some swanky 'do' somewhere where I had a glass of something white and chilled in one hand, I would still have one hand free to pick and to keep picking at these tasty little morsels...

 

 

 

Anyway, the 30th random recipe challenge was to pick your thirtieth cookbook off the shelf and turn to page 30. The thirtieth book was 'Totally Simple Food' by Jill Dupleix and page 30 had a picture of the aforementioned tarts. The recipe was on page 31 so you'll have to allow me a little wriggle room on that one.

 

 

 

The book...

 

 

 

The recipe...

 

I am a great fan of Jill Dupleix's food. There isn't a recipe that I haven't tried without success. This, though simple, is really no exception to that rule. And as I like a little variety in life, I tried these with slices of chorizo and they equally good if not better, with all that paprika oiliness seeping into crisp puff pastry. Yum, frankly.

 

Salami Tarts, adapted from 'Totally Simple Food by Jill Dupleix

Makes 10 (of the salami tarts - 15 ish of the chorizo tarts)

 

Ingredients:

 

500g of puff pastry, either ready rolled or rolled out yourself.

12 slices salami, about 6cm in diameter, or about 15 slices of chorizo, or a bit of both.

1 egg, beaten

200g Swiss chard leaves (I omitted this)

1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil (...and this)

sea salt (...and this)

freshly ground black pepper (...and this!)

A handful of pitted mixed olives (my addition)

Method:

 

Preheat the oven to 200c/Gas 6

 

 

 

Roll out the pastry quite thinly.

 

Prepare the salami slices, by taking the skin off if you need to (or just taking them out of the packet!)

 

 

 

Place one salami slice on the pastry and cut around it, leaving about a centimetre border around the salami slice. You can then use this as your template for cutting out the other circles.

 

 

 

Brush each pastry round with beaten egg and top with a slice of salami (or chorizo).

 

Bake for 10 minutes until the pastry borders and puffed and golden. Transfer to a wire rack. They will crispen up as they cool.

 

If you are using the Swiss chard, wash it well and place it in a saucepan with just the water clinging to the leaves. Cover and cook over a high heat, tossing occasionally until it begins to wilt and the juices evaporate. Set aside to cool and squeeze out the excess water. Toss in olive oil with sea salt and lots of black pepper.

 

Chorizo!

Chorizo!

 

Serve the tarts slightly warm, or at room temperature, with the chard topping each tart or else do what I did - add a few olives and open a bottle of Spanish wine!