dinner

Sticky Barbecue Crack Chicken

chicken, comfort food, dinner

As you can probably guess, January ‘new year, new me’ isn’t happening. I’m already awesome, I only plan to get awesome-er. Definitely a word. The best way for me to do this is by continuing to make absolutely-not-healthy-at-all food like this affectionately named American concoction, Crack Chicken. Crack chicken seems to take many forms, some people cook it in a slow cooker with ranch dressing and bacon, some people bake it whole smothered in barbecue sauce, but this is my version, deep-fried in breadcrumbs, smothered in sauce and baked in the oven until sticky, juicy and a bit crispy. If, like me, you’re 110% over January, I’d suggest you join me in making this for your tea tonight.

Ingredients

  • About 4-6 chicken breasts(depending on how hungry you are/how many people you want to not share this with) cut into thin strips
  • Roughly 200g plain flour, just enough to coat the strips
  • 3 eggs
  • 50ml milk
  • 250g breadcrumbs, any is fine, panko is preferred

For the sauce

  • 300ml Barbecue sauce (you favourite, or mine)
  • 100g muscavado sugar
  • juice of 3 limes
  • lots of cracked black pepper
  • teaspoon of smoked chopped garlic (this is the best, but you can go with unsmoked)
  • a few drops of Tabasco (if you’re feeling daring)
  • finely chopped parsley
  • 25ml vinegar

Also be sure to have a pan of vegetable oil ready for your frying, heat about 1 litre of oil on a medium/high heat until you can fry a cube of bread golden in about 30 seconds. This should take about 10 minutes

Let’s get cracking! First of all, preheat your oven to 180C. Get all of your sauce ingredients into a saucepan and let them simmer together on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. In 3 separate bowls, have your flour, milks and eggs and breadcrumbs(known to us chefs as a pané mix) and coat you chicken in each in that order until they’re fully crumbed. Next, place your chicken pieces carefully into your hot oil and fry until golden. Take your sauce off the heat and once the chicken is ready, stick it all in the saucepan. Give it all a mix around so the chicken is fully covered and transfer the whole lot onto a baking tray with greaseproof paper, spacing them out a bit so they don’t stick together. Bake for about 15 mins, remove from the oven, check they’re cooked and then bung them all in your mouth!

Easy!

Easy Peasy Arancini

dinner, tapas

You’re gonna like this. I mean, REALLY like this. Arancini are delicious, hot, breaded balls of rice stuffed with things, sometimes tomato sauce, sometimes vegetables, this time mozzarella, which turns gooey and stringy when fried. All they are is risotto, cooled right down, rolled into a ball, breadcrumbed and deep fried. Serve these with a nice hot bowl of passata and you’re laughing. Definitely try these for a drinks and dinner party, they’ll go down a storm!

Ingredients

  • 250g arborio risotto rice
  • 1lt boiling water
  • 2 chicken stock cubes
  • 1 finely diced shallot
  • 1 tbsp pesto
  • 1pinch of cayenne pepper
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • a few sprigs of thyme
  • 1tsp oregano
  • 200g panko breadcrumbs
  • 1 pack of pizza mozzarella

Right, make sure your kettle is boiled, you’ll need boiling hot water for this, rice takes a lot longer to cook with cold water and you don’t want that, do you? Get a saucepan on the hob on a medium heat and stick a splash of olive oil in there. While that’s heating up, finely dice your shallot and sweat it off for a few minutes in the pan. When you’re satisfied it’s cooked, chuck in your rice and fry for a minute or two. Whilst that’s frying, in a jug, crush your stock cubes and top with boiling water. Give it a stir and pour about a third of the stock into the pan. Keep your eye on the rice and keep stirring until all the water has been absorbed. Add another third of the stock, do the same again and finally the rest until your rice is almost cooked all the way through. If you want a bit more of a bite to it, add less water at the end. When the rice is cooked to your liking, add the pesto, seasoning, thyme, oregano and cayenne. Stir it all up, pour into a baking tray and chill in the fridge till cool. While thats cooling, cut your mozzarella into cubes, get your breadcrumbs into a bowl and heat up your fryer or a pan of about 500ml oil to 170C. When the rice is cooled enough, pick up a handful about the same size as a golf ball, flatten it slightly, place a cube of cheese in the middle and bring all the edges up to form a seal. Roll it into a firm ball and roll in the breadcrumbs. When you’ve made a sufficient amount, carefully place them in the fryer and fry for about 6/7 minutes or until a beautiful golden brown. Eat them quick before they cool, better to have a burnt tongue but a mouthful of gooey mozzarella than a cool bite of meh.

Pizza à la Milla

dinner, pizza

After a crazily busy week with a new job and a new challenge, a day off meant chill food. So homemade pizza seemed to be a top answer. This one is a bit of a spin on my favourite, Fiorentina, which has spinach, eggs and plenty of mozzarella and parmesan on top. All I’ve done is substitute spinach for prosciutto, put a bit of oregano in the dough and away we go! Put whatever you want on your pizza, but this one does it for me.

Ingredients

  • 500g white bread flour
  • 100g semolina flour (you don’t need it but it does make your base nice and crispy)
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2tsp dried oregano
  • 1 sachet of dried instant yeast
  • 1tsp sugar
  • 2tbsp olive oil
  • 325ml lukewarm water
  • Whatever toppings you desire.

Let’s get to work on your dough. Do this in a warm room and you won’t have to wait as long for the first prove to be done. Start by measuring out your water and adding your yeast to it. Mix it and while your weighing out your other ingredients it should go all nice and frothy, like a badly poured pint. But that’s what we want, so don’t fret. Get your flours, salt, sugar and oregano in a mound on the work surface and make a well in the middle with your fist. When your water and yeast is frothy, pour your olive oil into it and begin adding it to your flour. Make a claw with your hand and move it in circular movements in the well whilst adding your water mix. This should incorporate everything well. When all the water’s been added, knead the dough for about 10 minutes until you can stretch a piece of it in your finger and see through it. This tells you all the gluten in the flour has been stretched out and will give you a gorgeous crumb structure when cooked. When your dough’s ready, place it in an oiled bowl with cling film over the top and stick it somewhere warm. The warmth will quicken the proving process, meaning you can eat it a whole lot sooner. When the dough has doubled in size, turn your oven on to about 200C for a gas and 190C for a fan. Now for the fun stuff. Roll out your dough into an rough circle, thick if you like it thick, thin if you like it crispy, like me. If you want to be a tosser (that is right term…..right?) then check out this guy. I’m not too great at it, I won’t lie. When your happy with the shape and thickness, start putting your toppings on. I started with an easy passata base, lots of pepper, prosciutto, chopped cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and an egg. When you’re done with yours, cook it for about 15 mins, check it at 12 and when you’re happy with the bake, grate over some fresh parmesan and stuff your face. Simples.

Proper Cabonara

dinner

This is the proper Italian way of making spaghetti Cabonara, with eggs, pancetta, fresh parsley and pecorino cheese. No cream. Never cream. You get the creaminess from the eggs and cheese. So the first time i made this I kinda ended up with scrambled egg pasta. It was grim, I won’t lie to you. But then i understood that you don’t need heat to cook the eggs, you just need the heat from the pasta and it does the trick a-okay.

Ingredients

  • enough spaghetti for you (or two)
  • 2 eggs
  • 150g diced pancetta
  • a handful of chopped parsley
  • 50g grated pecorino cheese (or parmesan)
  • salt and pepper
  • a knob of butter

Get your pasta on to boil and heat the knob of butter in a frying pan. When the butter has just melted, throw in the pancetta and cook until golden and sticky, this’ll take about 5 minutes. When the pancetta is done, turn off the heat and in a separate jug get your eggs, parsley, half the cheese and lots of salt and pepper whisked up. When the pasta is ready, drain it and get it straight into the frying pan, no heat remember! Pour over your egg mix, give it all a really good stir until the spaghetti is all coated. Portion it all up, sprinkle over the cheese and eat it!

Ginger, chilli and lime chicken with chimmichurri.

dinner

Okay, chimmichurri sounds like a weird voodoo  doctor’s chant but I assure you it’s anything but. It’s a beautifully sharp, garlicky sauce with hits of coriander and wholegrain mustard. A low fat sauce that goes very well with steak, but lends a tangy kick to this hot and sticky dish. It’s pretty fun to say, too!

Ingredients

  • 2 big breasts of chicken
  • 50ml chilli infused olive oil (post coming soon!)
  • 100g muscavado sugar
  • 3 chopped cloves of garlic
  • zest of 2 limes
  • 50g grated fresh ginger
  • a pinch of salt
  • a pinch of pepper

For the chimmichurri sauce

  • 100ml red wine vinegar
  • 50ml water
  • 100ml olive oil
  • 1 tsp wholegrain mustard
  • 2 cloves of garlic finely minced
  • half a red onion very finely chopped
  • a handful of chopped coriander
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch of pepper

First put all of your ingredients for the chicken in a large bowl and give it a good mix til everything is totally coated. Then get your oven onto about 140C Gas mark 2, were going to take this nice and slow and it’ll be you getting the rewards for your patience. Put the chicken into a deep-ish baking tray, cover with tin foil and cook for about 3-4 hours. While it’s cooking, make your chimmichurri. It’s easy, just whisk together all of your wet ingredients and then mix in the onion, garlic, coriander, salt and pepper. Easy! So after your chicken is ready to go, slice that baby up, get some babyleaf salad on your plate and spoon over that delicious chimmichurri. You’re good to go!

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

chicken, dinner

This fried chicken recipe is the absolute best. My boyfriend’s favourite ‘cheat day’ meal. It’s a simple dinner to put together, gorgeous with a celeriac and apple coleslaw (post to follow) and some baked sweet potatoes. Now i get that marinating the chicken sounds like a drag, but once you’ve done it and you’ve got it in the fridge ready, the flour will start doing beautiful things to that chicken, really injecting the flavours into the drumsticks. The use of the buttermilk as opposed to normal milk just gives you a wonderfully crispy outside and more depth of flavour. Trust me on this, you need to buttermilk.

Ingredients.

  • a pack of chicken drumsticks (6/7 is about right)
  • 400g plain flour
  • 4 tsp dried thyme
  • 3 tsp salt
  • 3 tsp pepper
  • 2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
  • 1 carton of buttermilk
  • a deep fat fryer or a deep pan filled with vegetable oil.

First of all, in a large bowl, thoroughly mix the flour, herbs and seasonings. Then add your chicken and give it a really good coating of the flour. Cover the whole bowl and leave in the fridge for at least an hour. The longer you leave it, the better it’ll taste. Next up, preheat your fryer or oil to 190C, and preheat your oven to 170C. You will need a thermometer if you don’t have a fryer, it’s just to make sure you don’t burn the chicken before you’ve cooked it! Next take your chicken out of the fridge and get your buttermilk in a separate bowl. Carefully place the drumsticks into the buttermilk, give them a good dip and return them back to the flour for a final coating. When you’ve made sure they’re all fully floured, carefully place them in the hot oil, moving them around so you don’t catch the coating on the basket or bottom of the pan. After a few seconds of moving the chicken around, set a timer for 7 minutes. This is the perfect amount of time to give you that golden, crispy skin. When all of the drumsticks have been fried, transfer them onto a greaseproof-paper covered baking tray. Cook them for a further 30 minutes on the middle shelf in a fan oven (180C for a gas oven). The additional cooking in the oven will not only ensure the chicken is fully cooked, it’ll make it seriously juicy and luscious inside. This goes really well with the homemade mayonnaise….just saying!