Simple Meals – Sticky chicken wings

I love a simple meal. This is a super easy recipe I got from Bill Granger’s Holiday. I imagine it would be a great family pleaser -at least I know I would have liked it as a kid. I probably won’t be making it too often due to my new diet (weddings, holidays and winters are not good for my waist line). I did change quantities etc so will give a very general outline of the recipe I used – it is quite robust. If you can, marinade it the night before so you can just pop it into the oven, but I didn’t marinade it and it still worked out well.

Chicken wings (4 per person)
Soy sauce
Sugar
Mirin (Japanese wine)
Ginger - grated
Sesame seeds

Combine soy sauce, sugar, ginger and mirin until sugar dissolves. Marinade the wings for as long as you like. When ready to cook, lift the wings out of the marinade and place in a deep roasting dish and roast for 40 minutes at 200C, turning once.

Meanwhile, reduce the marinade by about half on the stove.

After 40 minutes, pour the reduced marinade over the wings. Bake for another 20 minutes. Sprinkle sesame seeds and bake for another 5 minutes. The wings will get quite dark and sticky.

Serve with soba noodles (dressed with soy and mirin) and some steamed green veg.

On another topic, I had stewed broad beans for the first time this year last week. Spring really IS here! At last! I am already wheeling out the barbie and the salads...

Tajine Madness. The winter of the slow cooked Moroccan ‘casserole’

This was one of our wedding gifts and I have had fun playing with it this winter. Tajine refers to both the pot used to cook meals in as shown above, as well as the dish. It is traditionally served with couscous, rice or flatbread (or all three). The idea behind the pots shape is that the steam rises to the top of the strangely shaped lid which then runs down back into the food, trapping in moisture and hence leading to a tastier result. The design also means the lid can be lifted off without burning your hand To be honest I don’t really know if there is any benefit to the tajines shape, or if a heavy cast iron crockpot or dutch oven would lead to the same result. The benefit of the modern tajines is that they can be heated directly over a flame so that meat can be browned before the stewing (this leads to a more complex flavour). Because of the long cooking times, cheaper cuts of meat can be used and the flavours have more time to develop.

I started off by following a recipe that came with the tajine – beef with dates and almonds.


This is a picture of my first attempt, looking quite retro with the boiled eggs on top! I found that this recipe led to an overly sweet tajine (probably shouldn’t have added the sugar AND the dried fruit they suggested) so decided not to follow any more recipes. The almonds on top provided a nice contrast to the rest of it though (texturally and flavour-wise).

The basic concept is to brown the meat, onions and fry the spices (often cumin, coriander and cinnamon, but I have played around with this) and then add vegetables, water or stock and other flavourings and simmer.

The chicken, preserved lemon and olive version above was more successful and great served with couscous, a salad, a yoghurt dip and some hot harrissa. I am now unfortunately out of preserved lemons so have to make or buy some more before I can play around with this recipe.


The fish tajine I approached a little differently and made a chermoula paste which I used to both marinade the fish and fry in the oil as the spice base. Using the magimix I also got as a present, it is very easy to make spice pastes, in this case a combination of onion, garlic, ginger, parsley, coriander, cumin, lemon and oil. I then made the stock base with some home made chicken stock and added potatoes and oven roasted red capsicum. The fish I only added in the last 10 minutes.

In the spirit of the casserole, this is great to use up old vegies in the fridge and is easy to put together and then leave on the stove for 1-2 hours. Once you develop your favourite/ preferred spice combinations, it is easy to get this meal on.

What’s your favourite tajine recipe?

Easy Chicken Stirfry

Second recipe in my cookbook for my brother...

Chicken, Cashew and Basil Stir-fry
Serves 4
500g chicken breast sliced thinly (free range is better)
Spring onions, 2cm pieces
Garlic
Ginger
Red Capsicum sliced thinly
Other vegies such as celery, carrot, mushrooms, baby corn, zucchini, asparagus, snow peas - sliced thinly
Bok choy or bean sprouts or chinese cabbage
Marinade; 2 tbs White wine, sherry or rice wine, 2 tbs soy sauce, 1tsp sugar, Sesame oil, 1 tbs corn flour
2 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sweet chilli sauce
Cashews (optional)
Basil or Thai basil

If you have time, the best thing to do is marinade the chicken for 30 minutes or for as long as you can. Combine ginger, garlic, white wine, soy, cornflour, sugar and sesame oil in a bowl with the chicken and refrigerate. In the meantime, chop and prepare all the other ingredients. When everything is chopped and ready, start to cook.
The cooking itself will take between 5 and 10 minutes so it is important to have everything ready. Heat a wok with peanut oil (much better for stir frying than olive oil) and fry the chicken for two minutes, until opaque. Add the capsicum and other vegetables (except bok choy) for two minutes only on high heat. Add the bok choy and if you have some white wine add a tbs now too and fry for 1 minute, until bok choy has wilted. Add sauces and stir through wok for 2 minutes until hot, and chicken is cooked through. Stir through spring onion. Add basil and cashews and serve over cooked brown or basmati rice. Some finely chopped red chilli is also good as a garnish.

Note: You can use other nuts such as almonds and as much or as little vegies as you like. The more vegies you have the longer they will take to cook so add the longest cooking vegies first such as carrots and capsicum. You can replace the basil with fresh coriander.

Morroccan Chicken

Another weeknight BBQ recipe. Basically, marinate some chicken breast pieces in olive oil, garlic, chilli, cayene pepper, cumin, corriander, ground ginger, salt, pepper and lemon for as long as you can. Then BBQ!

I served it with a morrocan inspired couscous which included star anise, cardoman, cayene, cumin, corriander, sulatnas and dates, finshed with chopped almonds. A garden salad dressed with red wine vinegar and some yoghurt dip made from yoghurt, garlic, mint and salt.

Easy!

My mothers chicken soup

I am not feeling well.

A cold has been creeping up on me since Monday night when I went to see Tori Amos at Hamer Hall. I then sent it into overdrive by going out last night and drinking a little too much red wine. Today i was meant to play soccer, but all I have done so far is read recipe books and eat some chicken soup which was in the freezer from one of my big batches I made a couple of months ago. mmmmm

I think most people have a chicken soup recipe that they think is the best and make in winter when the dreaded cold has taken hold. But this really is the best chicken soup recipe ever. My mum made it for me as a child, and over the years I have altered it to include ginger and lemongrass, but the basic recipe is the same. Even fiancee Nathan now calls it the best chicken soup, though maybe the fact someone else makes it for him when he feels crook is why he likes it so much...

The best ever chicken soup recipe

Makes enough for about 6 serves, I usually freeze most of it

6-8 chicken drumsticks, excess fat removed

bay leaf

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

lemongrass stalk finely chopped

ginger finely sliced

cinnamon and nutmeg

2 onions, coarsely chopped

2 carrots, coarsley chopped

celery pieces

handful of basmatti rice

large bunch of parsley (flat leaf)

lemon to serve

Combine chicken, bay leaf, carrots, celery, cinnamon, nutmeg and onion in a large pot and cover with water. Season with salt and pepper and simmer for at least one hour

Strain stock through a seive, removing the chicken pieces to a plate and discarding everything else. Add the garlic, ginger and lemongrass to the stock and simmer 20 minutes. At this point I usually refrigerate the stock overnight and the next day remove the layer of fat that floats to the top. The next day, remove the chicken from the bones, add to the stock and bring to the boil.

Add the rice after washing it thoroughly and boil 15 minutes. Chop the parsley and add to the soup and allow to cook for at least 5 minutes. Serve with a good squeeze of lemon.

How one chicken can feed two people for a week

A couple of months ago, i read an article in The Age by Brigette Hafner describing a 'pot au poulet'; a one pot chicken meal, which I saved to my files thinking it would be a great winter warmer, and then promptly forgot about it. There is nothing I like more in winter than chucking a few things into a pot and letting it simmer for a couple of hours, warming the house with heavenly smells and allowing all the flavours to meld together. Last weekend, after running myself ragged around town doing errands, I started craving a hearty warming meal, and as the cold winter weather reappeared (as it likes to do of and on again in Melbourne until November), my thoughts turned to this recipe. So of I went to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon in search of a large organic chook. As I had missed all the markets I found myself in a shopping centre and NOT ONE SHOP had an organic chicken. After cutting my losses and buying the best looking chook I could i returned home to start my pot.

This recipe was as simple as it gets. Chuck a chicken, some herbs, leeks, celery, carrots and garlic into a pot with wine, stock, spices and some kipfler potatoes and turnips (though I accidentally bought parsnips instead... ) and simmer for 2 hours.

The uncooked pot

After 2 hours the chook was removed to a serving platter with the potatoes and parsnip and served with grilled sourdough rye bread and creme fraich mixed with horseradish. I also steamed some silverbeet and doused it in lemon.

Notice there is no photo of the finished product? That is becasue it didnt look so good with everything a bit mushy and the chicken falling to pieces. The chicken was nice, but most of the flavour had gone into the stock, and if it wasnt for the creme fraich, the dinner would have been a bit plain. Thank god for creme fraich, it makes everything better.

So, the left over chicken breast was used to make sandwhiches for work the next day ( a whole chicken for 2 people is way too much, even if you do live with a bottomless pitt called nathan). By Tuesday I was starting to feel the ill effects of the weather and had a bad cold coming on. All i wanted was soup, made using the stock from the pot au poulet, and at Brigette's advise, i was planning on making an onion soup, as I had never made one before, and it sounded like something that would be good for a cold.

Of course I was feeling rubbish so Nathan offered to make it for me. It is nice to have boys around sometimes.

After consulting my trusty Cooks Companion and finding Stephanie Alexanders version way too lenthy, I gave Nathan the recipe from Leane Kitchen's cookbook. Recipe follows, with slight modifications...

French onion Soup

650g small brown onions

flour, butter

2 cloves garlic

sprigs of thyme, rosemary, a bay leaf

1 cup white wine

2L stock

baguette (day old)

gruyere cheese

Slice the onion into thin slices and fry in 60g butter at low heat for around 30 minutes until starting to caramelise and smells good, stirring frequently. Add the finely chopped garlic with 2 tablespoons of flour and fryfor 2 minutes at low heat. Add the herbs, stock, wine and salt and pepper to taste and bring to a simmer. Leave for 25 minutes until the onions have resorbed the moisture.

To serve, cut baguette into slices and grill on the both sides, then add shredded gruyere and grill until melted. Put cheesy bread into soup bowls and ladel soup over the top.

This soup was really really good. And I think that was becasue of the stock. Nathan you did a great job though, thankyou! We ate this for 2 nights and I am starting to feel much better. Making stock with a whole chook and lots of vegies seems to be a brilliant way to do things, as the stock was much more flavoured than my usual stock made from chicken drumsticks, and so I just might start doing this more often...

So that was 4 meals for 2 from one chook. Pretty good I think!