Day 38 - Pot Luck

Having been spectacularly bad this week at creating much from scratch I decided to make sure I did just that today. Gerry was at work until around 8pm so I had plenty of time to get the brain cells up and running after I hit the gym for a couple of hours. A mini boast here as I completed a 5k run in just over 30mins, 6 mins off my PB!

Anyway, on entering my flat after the gym I was hit by the smell of roasting chicken from another flat and since it was Sunday I decided to follow suit. I fired up the slow cooker and started to lightly brown a 1.5kg chicken in a tablespoon of olive oil for around 10 mins. This then went breast-side down in the slow cooker.  Next I added a large onion cut into 6 wedges to the pan with the remaining oil and cooked these until they just started to brown. I then added 500ml of dry cider, 3 tsp Dijon mustard and 2 tsp caster sugar. I brought the whole lot up to the boil, stirring continuously.

I then poured the liquid mixture into the slow cooker over the chicken, along with 700ml of chicken stock and 3 celery sticks, 3 carrots all roughly chopped. I also added 6 wedges of lemon and 2 tsp dried thyme. I made sure the vegetables and chicken were submerged below the level of the liquid to ensure they would all cook through evenly and thoroughly.

The lid then went on for around 5 hours on High. I was a little concerned about the volume of liquid since it was perilously near the top of the crock pot but luckily it didn't bubble over. Once it was cooked I lifted out the chicken and set aside on a plate. I then drained the liquid into a large dish, removing the vegetables with a slotted spoon to serve on the side. I made a gravy out of some of the stock, adding potato starch to thicken it up slightly and 1 heaped tsp chicken gravy granules. I also accompanied it with roast potatoes and steamed broccoli.

Pot-Roasted Chicken with Lemon

The end result was bloody fantastic. The chicken simply fell off the bone and the flavour of lemon, cider and thyme has really infused in the meat. It was the best roast I've done in quite some time and with minimal fuss. It was also so easy to pick the chicken from the bones for lunches in the week and I froze the chicken liquid as stock cubes for future use.  I highly recommend this method!

Day 30 - Japanese Kitchen

Today I made my first recipe from my new cook book acquisition. It is called Everyday Harumi by Harumi Karihara and features simple Japanese recipes. I'd heard great things about the author and seen her in action on 'Your Japanese Kitchen' shown on the NHK World TV channel. Harumi has often been called the Delia Smith or Martha Stewart of Japan and is well known for her satisfying home cooking. I couldn't wait to get started.

I had almost all the ingredients I needed and I just had get the raw chicken and prawns and then visit the Japan Centre to pick up the potato starch, mushrooms and all important dashi stock. I decided to go easy on myself first time out and made a pretty simple sauce which is suitable to serve as a donburi. The recipe was a Prawn and Chicken Ankake Donburi. Ankake is a typical Japanese sauce and can be served with a variety of different ingredients.  It forms the backbone of many Japanese housewives' recipes.

Just to make clear, this is not my recipe but is taken from Everyday Harumi by Harumi Karihara and is partly paraphrased for speed. It made enough for 2 servings:

• 125g boneless chicken thighs, cut into 2cm pieces
• 50g raw prawns, deveined
• sake - to marinade
• salt and pepper
• 50g shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and thinly sliced on the diagonal
• 60g onion, cut into wedges and then halved again
• 100g pak choi, leaves and stem separated and both cut into 5cm-long pieces
• 25ml soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp sake
• 1/2 tbsp mirin
• 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 200ml dashi stock (I used instant powder as I wasn't able to buy bonito flakes to make my own)
• 1/2 tbsp oil for frying
• the stem of a green leek (I sliced up the leek into long thick strips)
• 20g fresh ginger, peeled and halved
• 2 garlic cloves, slightly crushed
• 1 tbsp potato starch mixed with 1tbsp cold water
• rice to serve

1. In separate bowls, season the chicken and prawns with a little sake, salt and pepper.
2. Prepare all the vegetables as above and set aside.
3. Add the soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar and salt to the dashi stock, mix thoroughly and set aside.
4. Heat the oil in a frying pan. When hot add the leek, ginger, and garlic, in that order, and cook until you can smell their aroma. Then add the chicken and prawns, followed by the mushroom, onion and pak choi.
5. Add the dashi mixture. When it comes to the boil, stir in the potato starch mix to thicken the sauce.
6. Discard the ginger, leek and garlic before serving (actually I left the leek in because I like it!)
7. Serve the anakake on hot steamed rice.

The meal tasted as I expected because it was very warm and comforting.  It was the first time I cooked with potato starch and I find it a good alternative to cornflour as it is a much stronger thickening agent. I think that in future I might cook off the chicken a little more before adding in the stock and then add the prawns because it took a little longer to cook through then I think the recipe considers above. Although, perhaps I cut the chicken a little too big, who knows. One final thing to note is about the dashi stock. I chose instant stock as I couldn't find the raw ingredients to make my own. Obviously it is a fish stock and tasted as such.  Its always hard to make instant stock quite right when all the ingredients are in Japanese but I worked it out using the ever helpful Internet. 

Anyway, Gerry loved it and said it reminded her of her's mum's cooking, who is Filipino and makes delicious concoctions of this ilk. High praise indeed. Anyway, it's a good one to have in my cooking repertoire as it didn't take long to make and I can imagine would cheer up a particularly grey day!

Chicken and Prawn Ankake Donburi

Day 29 - Friday Night Curry

I decided to give my slow cooker another bash today after yesterday's slightly disappointing affair. Gerry had been through my recipe book and noted that she quite fancied a curry and since it was after all a Friday night I thought it was a good plan. I checked the cupboards and found I had just the right ingredients for a Kashmiri Butter Chicken.  There was a little bit of prep involved before I could add it into the slow cooker so I got cracking.

• First up, I roughly chopped 2 onions, 4cm of peeled fresh ginger, 3 garlic cloves and a quarter of a green chilli (seeds removed).  This was all whizzed up in a food processor until it made a fairly smooth paste. 
• I then chopped up 3 chicken breasts into bite size chunks, not too small though as I didn't want them to break away into nothing. I heated 1tbsp of groundnut oil in a wok and cooked the chicken pieces over a high heat until they were all nicely browned.  These were then drained and set aside on a plate. 
• Next I added 1oz (25g) butter into the wok and cooked the onion paste over a medium heat until it just started to colour. I then removed it from the heat briefly while I stirred in a symphony of spices - 1tsp crushed cumin seeds, 1tsp crushed fennel seeds, 4 crushed cardamom pods, 1tsp paprika, 1/4tsp ground cinnamon, 1tsp turmeric, 1tsp garam masala, 1/4tsp mild chilli powder and a few red chilli flakes. 

Spice Selection

• This mixture was cooked for a further minute until the final ingredients of 1/2pint chicken stock, 2tbsp tomato puree and 1tbsp brown sugar were added and brought to the boil, stirring all the time.
• I transferred the chicken to the slow cooker and poured the onion mixture and sauce over the top, making sure all the chicken pieces were below the surface of the liquid. I popped the lid on and cooked on low for just over 5 hours.
• Ten minutes before plating up I steamed some fine green beans and basmati rice to serve with it. 
• Finally, just before serving, I added in 2tbsp of half-fat creme fraiche to the curry to give it a nice golden appearance.  I garnished with some finely sliced spring onions and had intended to toast some flaked almonds to top it all off but promptly forgot! 

Dinner was served and my oh my, the second slow cooker attempt was so much better than the first! It was creamy with just the right amount of spice and it had a deliciously silky texture. Also, the quantity of ingredients I had used was enough for 4 people so half of it will go in the freezer for another time, which is certainly something to look forward to. Gerry said it's a definite keeper.  However, next time I would make one slight change and use boneless, skinless chicken thighs because I think it would withstand the longer cooking process better than breast and because it's simply a cut with more flavour. However, I used what I had and it still turned out brilliantly!  I'm a happy little cook tonight.

Kashmiri Butter Chicken

Kashmiri Curry & Rice