Chick Chick Chicken

I am supposed to be writing my thesis, indeed I am and have made good progress today. The people across the way (I say way rather than road, because we live on a sort of little cul-de-sac, they are not far enough away to be across a road) have some kind of building going on today. I think it's temporary as it's quite a new house and there isn't any place for them to do serious remodelling. Anyway, they have some builders who are making the most profound racket and shouting all manner of indiscreet things at one another. It is quite tiresome.

This week's culinary experiences have been brought by roast chicken. We had Nigella's 'praised' chicken (which follows the basic boiling a whole chicken idea that you find in almost any recipe for 'Jewish Penicillin', is served with brown rice and is very tasty) and then leftover chicken in a thai soup. After that we had a wholesome broth of pearl barley and vegetables simmered in the leftover chicken stock. I have since developed an obsession with chicken stock, and as a result cooked my first ever proper roast dinner (chicken, obviously) for a friend who came over.

Here is what i did with the chicken:

Ingredients
1 chicken
1 lemon
1 bay leaf
Sprig each of rosemary and thyme
2 cloves garlic
Sumac (a middle eastern spice used to season meat, available from most International stores)
Seasoning

1. Cut lemon in half and roughly smash up the garlic cloves

2. Place all ingredients except sumac inside the cavity of the bird

3. Make a paste out of the sumac, some salt and pepper and olive oil and rub all over the skin of the chicken

4. Roast in the middle of a moderately hot oven (180 C). Correct cooking time for a chicken is 45 minutes/kg plus 20 minutes extra. My chicken came from Waitrose and helpfully had the cooking time on the pack.

5. Serve with roast potatoes and parsnips, steamed carrots and broccoli, and gravy.

The potatoes were par-boiled for 10 minutes, then shaken, sprinkled with polenta and tossed in a hot mixture of seasoned olive oil and butter. They were deliciously crispy, not as good as those cooked in duck fat but a bit lighter and more suited to those of us with delicate constitutions.

The gravy was made from the gooey bits at the bottom of the roasting tray. Flour was mixed into the fat to make a roux, and then a mixture of leftover potato water and chicken stock was added in. This was whisked briskly for a couple of minutes, then strained through a sieve and served.

For pudding I made a variation on Eve's pudding. This is a traditional english fruit pudding, similar to crumble but with a fat-free sponge mixture (basically identical to Jaffa cake sponge) on the top. I made mine with apple and fig because they were in my freezer.

For the sponge:

Ingredients
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 oz. sugar
2 oz. self-raising flour
pinch of salt
1 tbsp brown sugar

1. Beat eggs and vanilla essence until frothy.

2. Beat in sugar.

3. Fold in the flour and salt.

4. Place sponge mixture on top of fruit in an ovenproof dish.

5. Sprinkle with brown sugar.

6. Bake at 180 C for 30-40 minutes.

Note: I got this recipe from my dad, and it's an old family favourite. It's a nice dessert as it's much lighter than crumble or other alternatives, and is virtually fat-free, so you can have as much vanilla ice cream as you like. I thought he had messed it up and told me the wrong ingredients because I checked it a couple of times and it just was not cooked. Eventually (and I forgot to set the timer so I have no idea how long it was cooking for) it set all of a sudden, and was delicious. It does taste a little eggy, particularly if you use nice free-range eggs, a bit like a pancake I suppose, so beware if that's not your kind of thing.

Anyway, we now have more leftover chicken to make things out of. Probably something thai and curry-like as there is half a tin of coconut milk in the fridge.... and another carcass to put in the stock pot!