A Leg Up

31/07 A LEG UP

Absolute comfort. I feel the best culinary route to extreme contentment is a chicken. In any form it brings instant gratification and warmth. This recipe is a kick-off-your-shoes and get seriously comfortable. It is packed with mellow flavour, only lightly salted. It is in essence a baked casserole, but using drumsticks means that extracting the meat from the sauce is incredible clean and easy. 

The mean on the drumsticks remains so incredibly moist, cooked submerged in a light and heady sauce. The mellowness of a charred leafy vegetable is a heady compliment to the lightness of the meat. Together they are warm, delicious and mellow. I feel serving this to friends you can truly exclaim Bon appetit!

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1kg Chicken Drumsticks
1 Can Chopped Tomato
50g Olives
Thyme
1 Carrot
1 Fennell
2 Chicory
Preserved Lemons (or plain old Lemon)
Salt + Pepper
Olive Oil


What I did - Preheat Oven to 200

Evening fiddling. Not an involved recipe at all. Start by browning the chicken on a griddle or dry pan.
When they colour lightly gold transfer them into a deep baking dish - bones up. Peel and chop the carrot and tumble across the chicken with the olives. Open the tomatoes and drown the dish. The chicken should be half covered. Liberally add pepper, thyme and a couple of slices of preserved Lemons. Cover and bake for 1.5 hours until bubbling away (don't worry you can't overcook this).

While the chicken is cooking prepare the charred greens. Divide the Fennel and Chicory lengthways and char on the same griddle as the chicken. Shouldn't need any oil as the chicken will have left enough. Once wilted and blackened transfer to a shallow baking tray. Salt & Pepper lightly and drizzle with a little olive oil.

Throw into the oven for the last hour or so with the chicken. Once it's all ready, leave to sit for about 15 minutes. This is best on the hot side of warm, rather than scalding. Serve up a half charred vegetable with a couple of drumsticks and some broiling sauce. Best eaten watching a storm outside.

JG

Anime Broth

20/03 ANIME BROTH

The unbound glee I have when a new labyrinth of Asian groceries is discovered is childlike. My eyes dart from shelf to shelf, each laden with (to me) undecipherable tins and packets of produce. The only clues to go on are the glossy and abstract images plastered on each item. Hearing each shrill beep at the counter is like the sonic bleep from my Pokémon Gameboy, a collection of wonderfully alien ingredients . Gotta catch 'em all.

So this soup was born from one such adventure, where I snared a lurid yellow tin of chicken soup powder - an industrial version of the sachets in packet noodle. This isn't in anyway good for you, lurid not pretty, only redeemed by the fluorescent vegetables. Like Nintendo it is fast, immediate and addictive - and will leave you as sharp as a cartoon. I choose you.

 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1L Water
4 tsp chicken soup stock/powder/MSG
1 Carrot
1 Ear Corn
50-100g Ham
1 Egg

What I did - Follow the packet

A variation of the google-translated instructions on the tin of chicken powder, nothing fancy but instantly gratifying. Begin by starting the broth, bring the water with the chicken powder to a boil. While waiting for the heat to rise peel and finely dice the carrot into small pieces - the smaller the faster to cook in this case. Keep in a waiting bowl

Sever all the kernels from the cob leaving it barren and naked. Add to the bowl with the carrot. Take the slices of ham and fold a few times then slice into thin strips so that it unfolds as thin, meaty origami strands. By now the water should be simmering, so add all the ingredients and boil for just under five minutes, enough time to soften the carrot and release all the corns starchy sweetness.

Turn off heat. Crack and beat the egg into the empty corn bowl, stirring constantly mix in the egg and watch it instantly cook into fragile lace-like webs in the soup. Ladle into a large bowl with a handy and transfer to body for instant warmth and restoration. What came first the chicken or the egg? I don't know but both end up as soup.

JG

Killed Bill

17/02 KILLED BILL

We are all students of life, and it may be hard to comprehend but no one will ever call themselves master over their existence. All we can hope is to learn the five point palm exploding heart technique, or how to flick a silken moustache in contempt at the world - two skills only passed down from Pai Mei.

This vaguely Asian bowl was created in a similar state of worldly frustration, with half munched scraps from the fridge. However channeling end of the day exhaustion so masterfully turned out something to lift my grump, a bowl of wannabe Asian - yet intrinsically western - chicken and rice. I roared. I rampaged. And I got bloody satisfaction.
 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1/2 Chicken Breast (cooked)
1 Celery Stick
1/4 Capsicum
1 tbls Hot Chilli Sauce
1 tbls Plum Sauce
200g Jasmine Rice
1 tsp Nigella Seeds
400ml boiled water
Mint

What I did - 

Firstly slice the bit of leftover roast chicken in the fridge (otherwise any fish or meat you have lying around half eaten) into thin strips so that it will tangle and go farther. Then cut the capsicum and celery in the same manner to that they end up as white, red and green slivers. Pour the sticky sauces over and stir together until it has an unhealthy gloss. Leave to marinade and get the heat on.

Heat just being rice. Rice is one of those things which tends to either be great or awful. If theres a rice cooker available tip the rice and nigella seeds in and set to cook. Otherwise, and just as simply. Put the rice into a pot and slick with a drizzle of oil so that the grains don't gloop together when boiling. Fleck with the jet black seeds and then use the boiled water to boil for about 5 minutes, or until they look cooked.

Strain the rice and tip into a bowl. Then rudely interrupt the steaming white with the marinated leftovers. The residual heat is enough to make the ex-fridge scatterings nicely warm and let the marinade soak through the rise. Samurai some fresh mint for aromatic decoration.

JG

Chicken Run

17/12 CHICKEN RUN

Hunting, shooting and fishing: a country weekend roasting in your oven. A winter treat that dares you to ever leave the house again. Hibernation was my plan, the most attractive way of spending dark winter nights. Roasting a chicken is probably the easiest animal to tackle - but there always is the fear of the bird shrivelling, drying up like it died of thirst on an american salt lake.

I found a solution to keep that bird dead yet alive. Traditionally roast potatoes would accompany the bird to its grave, and not add much other than starchy bulk. Instead roast with a cauliflower that softens perfectly to absorbs the chicken juices before they evaporate into oblivion. I used a makeshift béchamel sauce, really just milk and flour, to help trap all the flavour and give the chicken a soft nest to lie in. Rest in peace chickadee, your sacrifice shall be consumed with love and warmth. 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1 Chicken
1 large potato
1/2 Garlic
1 Cauliflower
25g butter
1 cup Milk
50g Flour
50g White Cheese
Paprika
Japanese Chilli
Salt + Pepper
Thyme
Nutmeg
Rosemary

What I did - 

Prepare the chicken, which is no harder than throwing whatever melange of spices you have handy. The fun here came from that elusive Japanese chilli powder reserved for sushi restaurants, but get your hands on some, and liberally dust the chicken. I had a few old potatoes so i stuffed them in the chicken with some garlic, but not essential. Let it sit marinade you prepare its fluffy white bed.

The cauliflower provides the right mix of hearty roast vegetable, without a huge amount of starch which soaks up and drys all the chicken juices, instead it relishes the roasted lubrication. decapitate all the heads off a cauliflower and with a large knife hack them roughly into smaller segments. In a large pan belt the butter until it stars to bubble and then quickly add in the flour off the heat, whisking fast to eradicate lumps. Then continue to whisk in the milk until it is magically thick and creamy. Tumble in the cauliflower and turn through the white sauce until thinly but completely coated. Now grate the cheese and nutmeg and turn once more.

The chicken is ready for its creamy nest, so tip the cauliflower into a baking dish wasting none of the white sauce. Push to the edges so that there is a small space for the chicken so squeeze in. Pack the cauliflower tightly around the bird and drizzle one final slick of olive oil. Bake takes two hours and should be served immediately, so become friendly with your oven timer.The entire dish should come out a uniform golden brown. If slightly charred above no matter, it will be gloriously juicy once your knife massacres it.

JG

Voodoo Brew

25/10 VOODOO SOUP

Voodoo. Who do? You do. Do what? Fix everything... this magic chicken brew does its best. While I know it doesn't look all that, there is survival in its simple warmth. The recipe was created as a by-product of my Halloween costume for which the bones of 4 roast chickens are needed. This was my way to use all the birds before they became a couture necklace.

The soup should be peppery and full of flavor yet still light, thanks to aromatic celery-chili-ginger mix. The onion become translucent noodles-like tentacles, giving some body to the broth. The clearer the brew the better for the soul - perhaps it conjured a Voodoo spirit - and this certainly revived this tired bag of bones. If not see a witch doctor.

Ingredients (all from leftovers) - 

500 ml Chicken Stock (& 1 L boiled water)
1 Roast Chicken
1 Onion
Celery Stems
Rosemary
Ginger
Salt + Pepper


What I did - 

To make the stock you can pretty much do anything, so long as you have a couple of roast chicken carcasses saved up. Its important to use a roast chicken which you otherwise would throw away as there is so much more flavor in a massacred roast chook than bought stock bones. Of course you can just use bought chicken stock because who can really bother all the time. But if you are making the stock, a process I feel akin to meditation, put the chicken carcasses (x2) in a large pot. Add a few vegetables, I use a carrot, onion and the otherwise inedible base of a celery. Spice up your life-broth with some salt, pepper and chili flakes. Honestly add anything that takes your fancy, cover everything with water, simmer for a couple of hours then strain stock out.

Now assuming that you've bothered, or just have chicken stock at hand the soup can be brewed. I start by reducing a sliced onion in a heavy pot. Add a pinch of salt to help draw out the moisture and speed up the process. Stir occasionally to avoid burning. In the meantime prepare the chicken just ensure that there is only the flesh, no skin or bones, and slice thin but wide. Tumble the white meat in and sear for a few seconds, until it just starts sticking. Add the stock and let simmer.

Add the sprig of rosemary, hunk of ginger and celery leaves, keep tied with string or large enough to remove at the end. Cover with boiled water and salt heavily. The Salt will keep the flavor from disappearing in the water and the celery will help to keep the broth light.

Boil gently for an hour with the lid perched on the edge to let steam escape. The broth should reduce by a third or so, then is ready to revive. Shake in a hit of pepper and remove the Rosemary and Celery before serving. Doesn't look perfect but the amber broth, translucent onion 'noodles' and chicken slivers has a magic that can revive even the most tormented soul.

JG