Vaguely Middle Easter Chicken and Salad

This is the one I nearly blew the house up with my turning the BBQ gas cylinder the wrong way. Anyway, started it on the BBQ but it was frankly a pain, plus the gar ran out so finished in the oven under the grill. Tasty, and easier. Meat and salad combo. 

For the chicken: 

Bone the whole chicken ahead of time and soak for a few hours in velveting mix (a couple of spoons of salt and bicarb in soaking water, in a tub in the fridge). 

Rinse, pat dry, and apply Moroccan rub (or Baharat or whatever you're using) and in this instance a quarter of a preserved lemon, finely diced, applied to the innder side. 

Flatten it out with a BBQ-mesh thing so you can flip it - or just lay out on a rack. Grill. Flip. etc. 

For the salad: 

Baby spinach, grilled pumpkin, grilled courgette, chopped mint, pepitas. 

For the dressing: 

Point of difference - Spoon (or to taste) almond butter, good amount of lemon juice to loosen it up, salt and pepper, couple of spoons of Greek yoghurt. This was a pretty zingy sauce that went well with the chicken. Apply liberally. 

Cut up the chicken prior to serving. 

Chicken and pearl barley stew

 Things I discovered with this dish: 

• It is now very hard to buy any chicken pieces with bones in them in Australia, apart from wings, drumsticks, or whole birds. 
• Pearl barley cooks well when boiled up in a fair amount of stock and then left for several hours, then finished off with a little more heat. 

Given the above lack of bone-in thigh pieces, I prepped this in several stages (bone-in drumsticks are a bit messy to eat in a stew): 

Stock and meat prep (earlier in the day): 

De-bone drumsticks, make stock from bones and some skin with a few of the usual suspect veg and good seasoning, simmering gently as per normal. Meanwhile soak meat in strong brine. No need to cut up. 

Pearl barley

As above, boil up for an initial gentle roll in your fresh and very well-seasoned stock, and leave. (Still early on in the day, looking at a couple of hours here). Heat up again later and finish up as desired. 

The rest

Mirapois veg, plenty of it, good seasoning, one chili (or as desired), fresh oregano or other herbs as wished. Fry off the meat, deglaze the pan. Add meat, veg, herbs, and glaze to pressure cooker with a splash of white wine and pressure cook for 30 mins. 

Then 

Gently strain the cooking juices from the solids, return juices to pan and thicken with some cornflour. Add the pearl barley to this 'gravy', check it's cooked and thickened/stewy to your liking. Gently add the cooked veg and meat, as it'll be pretty damn soft and you don't want to mush it. Serve in bowls with a sprinkling of cheese. 

Hearty and bloody tasty, and probs not bad health-wise either. 

Cajun chicken with pearl couscous

 

This doesn't need a recipe, it's a reminder about another nice, quick and bloody tasty dinner from the Bunster. Cajun spices for the chicken thighs, grilled. Fry your small-chopped veg, mix with your pearl couscous and add plenty of herbs and lemon. The nasturtiums added a nice little pepper kick. And yoghurt is always good. Enjoy. 

Moroccan Chicken

The original recipe does this in a tagine, with a whole chicken. For ease of eating I boned and portioned the chicken prior to marinating/cooking, but next time will only use thigh meat. The breasts get too dry being cooked for so long. The rest is good.

Marinate your chicken in a puree of:

• turmeric
• ginger
• cumin
• coriander
• garlic
• onion 
• preserved lemon 

(Don't bother to salt it as the lemons will do the job)

Add

• pureed onion and chicken liver. 
• more chopped onion
• rough diced aubergine
• some chicken stock. 

Cook in a moderate oven for at least an hour. Serve with cardamom rice and Moorish Crunch Salad. The pic is not mine, as you can guess by the fact that the bird is whole. Mine is eaten. Oh and the original recipe had olives in it but I gave up on that one for the kids.

Tahini chicken and pumpkin salad

Marinade your chicken thighs (original recipe was breast but who grills breast FFS) in lemon juice, tahini and seasoning.

Bake your pumpkin slices (original recipe also to grill - grilled pumpkin is TRULY a bad idea) and layer over a salad with some nice tangy bits - original had mint but it wasn't nearly strong enough.

Make up some dukka with nuts and pank and seasoning.

Microwave up a pack of mini popadums to serve on the side.

Dress the salad, cut and put chicken on top, sprinkle on the dukka (or mix the dukka straight over the chicken after cutting. Or both.) .

Got good marks from the kids. A do-again.

Chicken tikka pittas

A variant on the chicken and falaffel wraps meal that's not unwelcome. Marinate the chicken in tikka paste before grilling and cutting up to serve, with salad, pittas and a yogurt, mint and lemon sauce.

Thai Peanut Chicken Curry

This was originally Thai Peanut Pork Curry made with with pork loin, but I found that doesn't respond well to this style of cooking so chicken thigh next time. Or a fattier cut of pork, possibly. Jolly easy dish and got a big Do Again thumbs up.

• Thin sliced onions
• Cubed aubergine 

Fry these up first (remembering to season), then when they're beginning to see reason add 

• as much Thai Red Curry Paste as is to your liking
• A tin of coconut milk 
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter 
• Sliced chicken thigh meat 

You'll probably have to top up with some water. Once they're done add a 

• Head of broccoli, separated

Finally take off heat, stir in a 

• good quantity of fresh lime juice and sprinkle over with 
• Peanuts, fresh chopped coriander and chili flakes, all as desired 

Serve with some 

• Flat rice noodles, dressed with peanut oil

Sticky chicken with Coconut Rice and Choi Sum

Well the title's pretty much the recipe but anyway. I did it with drumsticks but the kids (being lazy of eating off the bone, I suspect) requested the same but with chicken kebabs next time. Well there you go.

For the marinade: 

• Hoi sin sauce (fair amount for six people, about a third of a cup) 
• Sweet chili sauce (a fair dollop) 
• Dollop of honey 
• A splatter of Sambal Oelek or however hot you want it 
• Sprinkle of Five Spice 

Mixy-mixy the chicken (OK I'll do cut up thighs next time, and kebab them later). Cook when appropriate.

For the rice: cook it with a tin of coconut cream and make up the rest with water. I chucked in a few Kaffir Lime leaves, whole. it turned out really nicely.

Once the chicken an rice are both pretty much cooked: 
Cut the choi sum into 5cm lengths, toss with a glug of Chinese cooking wine, and arrange artistically in and around the chicken in a nice fresh serving dish. Cover with foil and pop back in the oven for a further 5 minutes just to heat/wilt the greens. Serve fragrantly.

Chicken meatballs with aioli, salad and giant croutons

I don't know much about this except what it is. Another Bunny Special. Looks tasty. Might try and re-create. I did find the video of Bunny finishing preparing it - about 45 seconds in, if that helps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldbfd8qZWuM

Spiced grilled chicken and coleslaw healthy dinner

Not even going to put a recipe up here because it's obvious what's happened - just a reminder that it's a nice combo and a rather pretty way to serve it. 

Thanks for another delicious dinner, Bunny! x

Grilled chicken with dukkah pasta

Dukkah - mixed nuts, lots of green herbs, in a blender, with olive oil and lemon juice (plenty of it). Make a large dukkah to the pasta ratio - in fact more like a paste than dukkah.

Grill the chicken, slice and serve absolutely plain apart from salt. (Breast.)

Boil pasta, with broccoli at the last moment. Mix dukkah in, season and add olive oil and lemon juice to taste.

Serve side by side.

Kids verdict: 'Fresh'

Super healthy.

Italian White Bean and Chicken Stew

Rather nice one, this – very hearty, but still quite nice and ‘clean’. Recommend for cold days when you want to set the grumps aside.

Need:

• plenty of chicken red meat, off the bone and cut into chunks

• Cannellini beans

• Onions, fennel, garlic, fresh tomatoes diced, plenty of courgette

• Basil and oregano (fresh).

1. Coat the chicken chunks in oregano, season, brown. Extract from pan.

2. Thinly slice onion and fennel, soften (I added a carrot – didn’t do any harm and a bit of colour).

3. Return chicken to pan, add a bit of stock, simmer down (the broth, not you).

4. Add cannellini, chunked tomatoes and courgettes, minced garlic. Season to taste.

5. Mix in reserved fennel tops chopped, and the basil (actually I forgot the basil – was really nice anyway).

Served this one with little bread-balls from a basic pizza dough.

Poached chicken in citrus Wakame Broth

All the comfort of Jewish Chicken Soup, minus the schmaltz, plus Thai freshness and clarity. One to be enjoyed in health and in sickness.

1. Prepare a stonker of a good chicken stock. Any free-range chicken carcass will do.

2. Soak 5g of wakame in some water, drain when rehydrated, and chop coarsely (swearing optional but keep the chunks to about 2-3 cm square).

3. Chop and mince the Usual 3 (garlic, ginger and chilli). Also add a couple of kaffir lime leaves… Just discovered they sell these things in jars, shredded and preserved.. SO much better than the desiccated items we’ve been forced to use so far, really give a kick.

4. Add to the 1 litre of the stock, and poach a couple of chicken breasts in it (this is for 3 very hungry people). For about 10 minutes, then let cool in the broth for another 10 while you:

5. Cook the soba noodles (100g approx). I see no reason why one wouldn’t do this in any residual stock you may have left – plus extra salt.

6. Strain the noodles. Extract the chicken from the stock and slice/shred thinly, and then strain the poaching stock of its store of solids. Return to pan.

7. Chop some bok choi, put into the strained stock, and simmer ever so slightly just to take the rawness of – heat it up, even.

8. Montage time. Combine wakame, some fresh bean sprouts, the bok choi, the strained noodles and the chicken together with the stock and add 80ml of zesty fresh lime juice, and a couple of spoons of Nam Pla. Technically you’re meant to assemble this in the dish and pour a bit of the stock over it but judicious scooping from the well-mixed pan should probably do it. Fresh, zingy, light yet satisfying. I believe the Health Points are at pretty much maximum level. Enjoy!

Braised chicken with Lemon and Honey

Another lemon-chicken variation - different enough though to have a seperate entry. You cut up a chicken into pieces, and fry off and brown them on a high heat, extract. Fry up a sliced red onion on a lower heat, in the same pan. Add 12 cloves of garlic (peeled but not cut up) during the last minute of frying. Return the chicken to the pan with the garlic and red onion, add 1 lemon cut into cubes, 200 ml ish of chicken stock (we didn't have any fresh so we used powdered stock and wine instead), and 125 g honey, and simmer away for a good 15 minutes or until the chicken's done. Then extract the chicken once more and put under a grill to toast up again while you turn the heat up on the remaining sauce and bubble and reduce away. Serve the chicken with the reduced sauce poured over and some fresh organo leaves on top.

It's a right hum-dinger of a way to serve chicken, and we had it with 'Shepherd's' salad with feta and some slices of sourdough bread (homebaked today, mind you, homebaked...).... divine.

Lemon chicken

Lemon chicken

Pre-heat oven to 160 gas mark (very slow if elec.) Put chicken pieces (preferably thighs) several unpeeled cloves of garlic, fresh thyme, two lemons cut in eight pieces in roasting tin , sprinkle with oil and white wine and pepper; mix all together, make sure chicken pieces are skin side up, cover tightly with foil and roast for 2 hours. Remove foil and roast for 30-45 minutes longer at 200 temp. Turns out brown and almost caramelized. Scatter more fresh thyme on top. Delish and simple.

Barbecue Chicken with Chermoula Rub

Turned out pretty darn tasty. Definitely recommend - very nice way to add some interest to our old friend the Chicken. (Cluck.) Now, the recipe I have says just to spatchcock the bird, marinate, and barbecue like that. We found (as is so often the case) that of course the breast cooked much faster than the brown meat - not aided by the fact that spatchcocking brings the breast in closest contact with the grill in the first place. So next time we'll be jointing it up and putting the brown meat on first, so that it all finishes at the same time (don't want to overcook the breast either, do we). What you'll need to do is:

• Get a chicken (free range, please, we're not into torturing birds, just eating them) and joint it up.
• Make the rub, of:

Fresh herbs: coriander, parsley, 3 cloves of garlic, chopped fresh ginger (plenty of all the herbs) and
Dried herbs: 1 tsp each of paprika, cumin powder, coriander powder, salt
Combine into a good rub with the juice of 1/2 a large lemon and good slosh of olive oil, and add chopped chili as well to taste (I put some in and Lara was fine, seems to blend in quite nicely).

• Ensure that the chicken and the rub become very intimately acquainted and cover them to consider matters together for at least an hour. We left it for about two hours while we went to the beach, seemed to work just fine.
• When you're ready, stick it on the barbie. We served this with rice but you can of course do as you please. I would however recommend the salsa we made to go with it, which was:

a base of finely diced tomato, green pepper and red onion, seasoned with salt, lime juice and olive oil - with the particular flavour of the day being fresh mint and sultanas. Went really nicely with the spicy chicken. Make plenty of it as everyone wants more!

Chicken Peanuts (Satay Chicken with Oriental-ish Rice Noodles)

Bit of a cheat really, as I only used a packet of satay marinade. However, I believe these are readily available world-wide so:

First:

• Marinade your chicken-chunks in satay sauce (mine said two hours - what does yours say? I ignored mine and marinaded for about ten minutes, it was great).
• Prep up some sliced peppers, mange tout, fine-sticked ginger, whatever you feel like putting in with your rice noodles. Probably don't make it more complicated than a couple of veg).
• My recipe said some lemon zest and some scallions as well - they go in after you've fried up anything you want to fry.

Then:

• Skewer your chicken chunks and barbecue / grill.
• Prep your rice noodles - mine said 2 minutes' soak in water and and don't expect yours will be much different.
• Fry up any of the veg you want to.
• Drain your rice noodles, add to the veg, add the scallions and lemon, pour on some soy sauce/peanut oil, and add some nuts - preferably dry salted peanuts in this case, I'd guess. Arrange on a plate.
• Put the ready chicken on top. Serve. I find alcohol usually helps as an accompaniment.

N.B. - This is the very-tame-version for those with children not accustomed to anything hot. Naturally, chili flakes/slices etc would certainly not go amiss in this. However, as our circumstances differ, I just served it with a bottle of chili sauce on the side. Works wonders.