When boiled chicken is better than roast

My husband's not been feeling too good the last few days - some strange bug that's made him feel a bit queasy - so I decided to make him some boiled chicken. How unappetising does that sound - or indeed look? You have to say there are no comparisons between the colour and aroma of a roast chicken and the slightly pallid, slithery looking appearance of a poached one.

Get over that, however and you've got yourself a feast. I covered the chicken - a basic free-range one from Tesco (oops, sorry, but it's been hectic this week) - with water, added a cut onion, two carrots, a bayleaf and a few white peppercorns, brought it to the boil, skimmed it then put it in the Aga simmering oven for about 50 minutes. Breast side downwards for the first 20 minutes then I flipped it over. You can obviously do it without an Aga but don't let it boil. The cooking liquid should barely tremble.

I cut up a leek, two more carrots and a stick of celery and put them in a shallow pan with a teaspoon of bouillon powder and a ladleful of the chicken stock and half-boiled/half-steamed them, adding extra ladles of stock as the stock evaporated until the veg were just cooked. I prefer that to putting them in the cooking liquid as they they get too soggy. Once they were done I added about half the remaining chicken stock, fished out the onion, sliced it and added it to the veg and chucked in a handful of parsley.

I took one of the breasts off the chicken and cut it thickly on the slant, put the slices in two shallow bowls and spooned over the fresh veg and stock. Meal one which would have made four portions (or seconds if we'd been hungrier).


Last night I skimmed the rest of the stock and added a finely grated chunk of ginger, a large grated clove of garlic, a small red chilli, some finely sliced coriander stalks and a finely sliced spring onion brought it to the boil, seasoned it with a little soy sauce and set it aside to infuse.

I took all the meat off one chicken leg and shredded it and cut one of the carrots into fine strips, cooked them in a little of the broth then added them back to the soup. Then I added the chicken, a shredded spring onion, a good handful of coriander leaves and brought the soup to the boil, simmered it a minute then served it. Again, a meal that's delicate on the stomach but full of flavour. Enough for 2-4 helpings

Finally I chopped the meat from the other leg up finely, added a finely sliced spring onion and stick of celery, a dollop of mayo, a bit of chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon and voilà a sandwich filling for two large sandwiches.


So from one five pound(ish) chicken (£5.35 actually) I got 10 servings which isn't bad. You get less shrinkage from boiling a chicken, more moistness and certainly better flavour for these kind of dishes. And perfect food if you're not feeling 100%!

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Chicken, Za'atar and other stories

It's been a hectic few days since we got back from France. Trying to finish one book, publicising another and launching a student cooking campaign. I'm not sure where the time has gone

It hasn't left much time for cooking that's for sure but this weekend we made best use of the annual Organic Food Festival in Bristol and did our weekend shopping there.

Interestingly it wasn't that expensive. Sheepdrove, our local organic butcher had a special offer on frozen chickens for £5 each which was unmissable so Sunday night's meal was built around that. Because it had been a balmy late summer's day (what on earth's happened to the weather since?) we served it warm having stuffed it with herbs and garlic. We also had a huge platter of yellow and green courgettes (above) I'd lightly fried in olive oil and tossed with some blanched green beans and some new crop Desirée potatoes, boiled in their jackets, all from one of my favourite local organic suppliers Wrington Greens. I tossed the courgettes and beans with a fantastic dried herb mix I'd bought in Nice earlier this summer (a fines herbes blend of parsley, tarragon, chervil and chives) which really enhanced their flavour though fresh herbs would have obviously been good too. (Most of ours seem to have shrivelled up while we were away).

The next day we had cold chicken with the remaining veg, some fried up potatoes and garlic and some mixed leaves from Wrington which are always wonderfully flavourful. And there's a huge batch of stock which I'm going to use for noodles tonight and risotto tomorrow. Ten servings from one medium-sized bird which isn't bad.

The other good buy at the festival was a huge bag of Za'atar, a Middle-Eastern blend of dried thyme, sumac and roasted sesame seeds. This particular one had been imported from Palestine by a company called Zaytoun which also brings in a very nice olive oil. You can use the Za'atar to scatter over flatbreads, dips and grilled meats or simply dunk bread in oil and then in the mix. It was actually more than I needed but I felt I wanted to support the producer so I've been giving small jars and bags of it away to my friends.

The only disappointment of the weekend were some ultra-cheap peaches I bought at the local greengrocer which had that awful woolly texture that imported peaches tend to have even at this time of year. I rescued them by skinning them, submerging them in sweet wine, scattering over a few crushed cardamom pods and chilling them for a few hours but they still weren't wonderful. Which underlines yet again that locally grown food is best, organic or not.

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Grilled lemon chicken and courgettes

Well the AGA is now off - phrew! - and we've got our summer cooking kit organised. Last night I gave the Cuisinart grill a run through its paces and was pretty impressed. I've only ever cooked with a George Foreman grill before which is fine for burgers but not much else - this had a much better system of heat transmission and a heavier lid which seems to cook single pieces of meat and veg more effectively.

I simply took a couple of chicken breasts, separated the fillet and sliced the remainder in half lengthwise to create pieces of a roughly even thickness. I marinated them for about an hour in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic and a teaspoon or so of some particularly nice mixed herbs I brought back from France last month that contained parsley, chives, chervil and tarragon (the classic fines herbes mixture the French use for omelettes). I cut up a couple of courgettes into thick even-sized wedges then rolled them in the marinade too once I'd put the chicken on the grill. Once the chicken was cooked and resting I grilled them too. The whole thing took about 10 minutes (apart from the marinating time, obviously)

I tend to be anti-chicken breasts as a more expensive cut but if you treat them this way - or cut them into strips - you can make two stretch for three people. (Not that we did . . . ) And they do cook quickly, a boon in this sultry weather. You could also cook halloumi cheese this way.

How are you coping with the heatwave? Any tips or particularly successful meal ideas to share?

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Salt and pepper wings

It's been a manic week on the work front so I thought I might dig up a recipe from The Book. (There is a Frugal Cook book in case it's slipped your notice ;-) I also had a rather enticing pic of it I remembered I hadn't published.

The main pleasure of eating chicken wings is the lovely sticky, finger-licking, almost Marmitey goo you get if you cook then sufficiently long, a texture and flavour that sometimes gets masked if you cover them with a marinade. If you can have salt and pepper squid I thought, why not salt and pepper wings? It cuts down on the other ingredients you need to use and makes them more child-friendly. A good dish to make when you have the oven on for something else.

Serves 4
1 kg free-range chicken wings, preferably organic (I bought mine from Sheepdrove Farm in Bristol)
1-2 tbsp light cooking oil
Freshly ground salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4. Put the wings in a large roasting tin - or two smaller ones, pour over a little oil and turn the wings so they are lightly coated with oil. Season generously with freshly ground salt and coarsely ground black pepper and roast for 1 - 1 1/4 hours, turning the wings two or three times. Remove the wings from the roasting tin, rolling them in the pan juices to pick up any delicious sticky bits and leave until cool enough to handle (about 15-20 minutes). Eat warm or cold (but they’re never as good once they’ve been refrigerated) Save the fat from the pan which has a fabulous flavour.

Chicken wings seem to be one of the few 'cheap cuts' that still remains cheap. Have you noticed cheap cuts going up in price?

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My You and Yours chicken curry

If you were listening to You and Yours yesterday you'll have heard me making a chicken curry. It's an odd idea when you come to think of it, cooking on radio. There you are in the studio with a two ring Baby Belling - and a Fire Officer, in case the whole place goes up in flames. (You have to sign a contract which includes an undertaking to use no more than 1 tablespoon of oil!)

The Belling takes a painfully long time to heat up. I turned it on 20 minutes before the programme started and added the oil 10 minutes before we went on air but the chicken still didn't sizzle when it hit the pan. (Sound effects, as you can imagine, are critical. The rest of the time you have to tiptoe round trying not to make too much cooking noise during earnest discussions on more serious topics such as airport expansion)

The point of the exercise was to question whether it was cheaper to cook home made food than to buy it. The agenda of the programme seemed to be that it wasn't. I carefully costed my curry which came to £3.33 for two portions. The presenter pointed out that you could buy a ready made curry more cheaply in Waitrose, let alone a budget ready meal (75p) or a curry in a can (49p)

It was a curious attitude for such a programme to take. I would have thought, like Jamie, they would be all for encouraging people to cook from scratch. The point I made was that there was not only more meat in my curry but that it it tasted fresher and was healthier than most shop-bought versions. At least they admitted the end result was delicious!

The point I didn't have time to expand on is that it's a recipe that you could easily run up with leftovers (do try it with the Christmas turkey). If you're going to cook frugally you need to be flexible, cooking with what you have rather than going out to buy new ingredients. You could use an ordinary onion, for example, rather than spring onions or a combination of double cream and yoghurt rather than creme fraiche. You don't have to use turmeric if you don't have any though if you do it improves the colour. You could use another kind of curry paste - it doesn't have to be korma. And you can pay less for the coriander than I did if you buy it in an ethnic shop and still have plenty over for the rest of the week's cooking. Frugal cooking is all about improvisation.

Anyway if you want to have a crack at the recipe you'll find it on the You & Yours website, along with some other thrifty recipes from You & Yours listeners. I think I can safely say you'll find it better than a can ;-)

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Beer-can chicken

I've been invited by Kate of A Merrier World to take part in this month's blogging event on her site, a very worthwhile attempt to join Jamie and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in persuading everyone to eat free-range chicken. It's called Let Them Eat Chicken and Kate has written very passionately on the subject here

I was going to submit a recipe from my recent post 4 days eating from one chicken but then I remembered the best chicken recipe of all - and the perfect one for this time of year - Beer-can Chicken.

When I discovered this last year I just couldn't stop making it. It's that rare recipe which is simple and delicious and fun to make. A real show stopper. Basically it's a chicken barbequed over a half empty beer can. The steam from the beer keeps the flesh moist while the (admittedly rather undignified) position the chicken is in keeps it basted and the skin beautifully crisp.

Like Kate I'd obviously use a free-range bird to make it. My butcher was selling half price organic chickens recently but they were a bit big for this recipe (though you can use a 550ml can with a bigger bird as you can see in the picture above) So I'd probably just use a free-range supermarket chicken but, given the struggle Hugh FW has recently been having with them, possibly not Tesco's ;-)

Beer-can chicken
Serves 4
1 small to medium-sized chicken - about 1.3-1.5kg (3lb-3lb 5 oz)
About 1 tbsp jerk seasoning or other spicy rub
A little oil
A 330ml can of lager (or stout which gives the chicken a slightly smoky flavour)
You also need a barbecue with a domed lid.

Rinse the chicken inside and out and dry thoroughly with kitchen towel. Remove any surplus fat from the carcass and sprinkle the inside of the chicken with about 1 tsp of the rub, rubbing it in well. Oil the outside of the bird then sprinkle the rest of the rub over the chicken and rub it in well. Leave the chicken in a cool place to absorb the flavours for half an hour or so while you fire up the barbecue. Pour half the contents of the beer can into a glass (this is important otherwise the beer will gush out over the coals) Lightly oil the outside of the half-empty can and lower the chicken onto it so that it stands upright propped up by its legs. Set the can on the barbecue rack, lower the barbecue lid and cook over an indirect heat for about 45-50 minutes until the juices run clear when you pierce the leg with a skewer. Holding the can with a pair of tongs very carefully remove chicken from the can and set aside on a serving plate. (This is ideally a two person operation!) Rest for 5-10 minutes then carve and serve with a barbecue sauce or a salsa

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Four days eating from one chicken

Our local butcher was selling organic chickens at half price at the end of last week so we’ve had a real chicken fest over the weekend. I bought a 2.2kg (roughly 4 3/4 lb) bird for just £7.82 instead of £15.64 which has so far yielded a generous 10 servings. And there’s still some superb stock left for a soup.

On Friday I roasted it with garlic and herbs and served it with a salad and broad beans in parsley sauce

On Saturday we had a salad of chicken, asparagus and crispy bacon with tarragon mayo.


On Sunday I stripped the carcass and made stock with it. I used the remaining meat, along with some more asparagus, broad beans, peas and tarragon to make a creamy pie filling using some of the stock and some added crème fraîche. I used roughly two thirds to make free form ‘pies’ for friends in the evening, baking puff pastry lids in the oven and using them to top the filling. (See above. Much quicker and more economical than making a pie as you don’t have to have the oven on for as long.)

Last night I used the last of the asparagus and tarragon to make a risotto for the two of us and stirred in the final portion of chicken pie filling. This worked really well, giving the risotto a really rich, creamy consistency. I also added a little grated pecorino which I’ve discovered is cheaper than parmesan.

I suppose the flavours of all these dishes was in a similar register but just different enough to make us feel we weren’t living off leftovers. It certainly didn’t feel remotely like frugal food.

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Mexican salsa chicken

A hectic couple of days testing and writing up recipes. This is the stage of a book I don't enjoy. It's a bit like being 8 months pregnant. You wonder why you did it but it's too late to go back ;-)

However I'm more than happy with the last recipe of today. In fact I can't wait to make it again. It's an idea I picked up from the American food blog Serious Eats on which one of New York's most famous chefs Mario Batali was writing about a meal his Mexican babysitter (well, presumably his children's babysitter) made regularly for the family. It's based on tomatillos, a fabulous sharp tomato-like ingredient it's difficult to find here in the UK but I wondered if you could substitute tomatoes. The answer - happily - is that you can. My daughter, Kate, who is obsessed with salsa is just going to love this.

Mexican salsa chicken
Serves 4-6

1 kg chicken thighs or thighs and drumsticks
750g ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped
1-2 mild onions (about 200g in total) peeled and roughly chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1-2 chillies, de-seeded and roughly chopped
rind and juice of 2 limes (preferably unwaxed)
A good bunch or large pack of coriander, well washed and trimmed
3-4 tbsp olive oil
1-1 1/2 tsp salt
2 spring onions, trimmed and finely shredded (optional)

You will also need a large casserole or deep frying pan

Remove the skin from the chicken thighs and drumsticks. Skin the tomatoes by making a cut in the skin, pouring the boiling water over them, leaving them for a minute then plunging them in cold water. Put the peeled chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, chillies and rind and juice of the limes in a blender or food processor. Cut the stalks off the coriander, chop roughly and add them to the blender goblet then whizz together until you have a liquid but still rough-textured sauce. (You may have to do this in two batches.)

Heat 2 tbsp of oil in the casserole or frying pan and tip in the salsa. Add 1 tsp salt and the skinned chicken, turning it in the sauce, Bring to the boil then turn the heat down low and simmer for about 45-50 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the salsa reduced and thick. Roughly chop half of the coriander leaves (about 3 heaped tbsp) and add them to the pan. Stir and cook for 3-4 minutes then check the seasoning, adding more salt if you think it needs it.

Serve the chicken with warm tortillas or with brown rice, drizzling over a little olive oil and scattering over some more chopped fresh coriander and some finely shredded spring onions, if you have some. (It doesn't have to look quite as leafy as it does in the picture. I just got a bit over-excited as I usually do when coriander is around.)

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Why I love dried limes

Shopping splurge vindicated! Well, almost. I made this fantastic Iranian-style chicken stew last night with half of the fresh herbs and the dried limes I bought. It was loosely based on a recipe in Sally Butcher's Persia in Peckham, the book I told you about yesterday but since I seem to have got fixated on lamb lately I used chicken thighs instead and went off on a tangent from there.

The essential ingredient is dried limes which is one of those addictive ingredients that you can't stop craving once you discover them. They're unprepossessing little brown husks which you pierce then pop in a chicken soup or chicken or lamb stew to release their exotic musky fragrance and sweet-sour lemon flavour.

If you feel a bit nervous about the idea imagine them with handfuls of fresh herbs including stacks of the equally addictive coriander. It's a great dish to serve for adventurous been-everywhere-eaten-everything friends. I've posted the recipe on my student website beyondbakedbeans.com today.

Incidentally, I found a really good guide to Iranian food on the American food website Chow you might enjoy reading here

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Chicken stock rules!

Any of you who have been in a professional kitchen will know that most chefs have a pan of stock or demi-glace sauce on hand to deglaze their pans. Well, you can do the same just as effectively with chicken stock.

The carcass of the chicken I bought a couple of days ago has made the most fabulously rich, jellied stock which I was saving for a soup or risotto. But the Toulouse sausages I was frying for lunch today produced such great stuck-on pan juices I had to prise them off somehow* and the stock was conveniently at hand. Two or three ladlefuls and I had some really intense rich pan juices that went perfectly with the accompanying lentils (cooked with garlic and parsley). I could have used a little wine or wine and stock combined but sometimes wine can make a sauce too acidic if you haven't time to cook it down.

And there's still enough stock for the soup . . .

* Incidentally you can't do this once the pan juices have burnt so it's worth keeping the temperature low when you're frying

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When not to follow a recipe

One of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately is how important recipes are. Or rather aren't. Basically they're a set of guidelines. Too often we take them as gospel.

Certainly I did when I first learnt to cook. Unless you're shown how to cook you tend to take instructions literally. If a recipe says 2 large eggs and you only have medium eggs you go out and buy some. If it says a pinch of cayenne and you only have chilli powder or hot paprika you don't know you can use those perfectly well.

Frugal cooking is about making use of what you've got rather than continually buying new ingredients, often for just one recipe. Last night was a case in point.

I'd bought this big bag of chicory (see yesterday's post) and decided to make a Simon Hopkinson recipe I remembered of chicken baked with chicory and bacon. (There was some bacon left over in the fridge.) The chicken pieces in the supermarket clearly came from mass-produced poultry so I bought a free-range Label Rouge chicken - on special offer - and jointed it, gaining a carcass for stock in the process

Couldn't remember what other ingredients there were in the recipe and came home to find I needed two lemons. Fortunately there was a rather elderly lime lurking in the bottom of the fridge so I used that and some tarragon vinegar instead, deglazing the pan with the vinegar to get rid of the vinegary taste. (Could obviously have used ordinary white wine vinegar) No chicken stock either yet so used some vegetable bouillon powder and some white wine as recommended. Never a problem to find wine in this household but I could have got away without it.

I also used less chicory than the recipe recommended because I wanted to save a couple of heads for today.

Despite all the changes the dish tasted great and cost me less than it usually would.

Am in danger of getting intolerably smug.

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