Christmas Chicken, with Sausage Meat Stuffing, and Chestnuts

Christmas lunch is often a complex piece of cooking. This one was no exception. The main components were: roast Maris Piper potatoes, carrots, brussels sprouts, sliced chicken breast, sausage meat and sage and onion stuffing, oven roasted sausages dressed in bacon (pigs in blankets), and a chestnut, onion and mushroom gravy.

The main trick is to get all of the components hot at the same time, and delivered to the plate within two minutes. Everything except the sausages was prepared the previous day. I used three rings on the hob to reheat the sprouts and carrot (in one pot), the chestnut gravy, and the chicken slices in some chicken stock. The roast potatoes were reheated in the microwave. The slices of sage and onion stuffing were toasted under the grill. The pigs in blankets were cooked from scratch in a fan-assisted oven. You have to watch these carefully, since they can be ready several minutes before you expect them to be.

I started with the vegetables, the chestnut sauce, and the chicken, which took three pots. Heated under glass at a low heat.

Ingredients: Brussels sprouts, chopped carrot, sliced chicken breast cooked in some chicken stock. The chicken breasts (four altogether) were cooked the previous day in the oven, in roasting trays and wrapped in aluminium foil. They can be cooked in ten to fifteen minutes at 200 deg C. These pieces had been frozen, and so I left them in the oven for forty minutes altogether, with the heat turned down for the last fifteen minutes, to ensure that they were heated all through.Wrapped in foil this is not a hazardous process, since the chicken is cooking in its own juices, and does not dry out. The chicken slices were very tender when served. 

The Chestnut sauce was made with Merchant Gourmet brand cooked chestnuts, sliced, half a white onion, and diced chestnut mushrooms. Additional ingredients were: a splash of dark soy sauce, a pinch of paprika, two bay leaves, and some oregano. Plus a splash of a dry sherry. 

The second item was the pigs in blankets.These were cooked from scratch at 180 deg C, for a notional 25 minutes. Ovens are so variable, even with an internal thermostat, that they were essentially ready in 15 minutes. I turned off the heat and put them back in the oven to make sure that they were thoroughly heated, and took them out after 20 minutes.

The first list of items were removed from heat after simmering for ten minutes or so.

The third item was the sage and onion stuffing. Because it contained pork sausage meat it was important to make sure it was thoroughly heated. Cooked under the grill, and the slices were turned once using a fish slice (about seven minutes each side - judged by eye). Made from scratch with:

Outdoor bred sausage meat from Sainsbury's, one diced apple, one diced onion, three medium handfuls of porage oats, one beaten egg, 40 g of salted butter,
a teaspoonful and a half of dried sage. Cooked in the oven on the previous day at around 180 deg C, for forty minutes (watched carefully). I used a silicon bread tin, so the stuffing was cooked much like a meatloaf. Sliced when cold, and stored in the fridge. 

I've made stuffing before, but not as good as this one!

The roast potatoes take just five minutes to reheat, so they were the fourth item to be started. I've blogged about roasting potatoes before, so search on roast potato for the details. In this case I used olive oil rather than goose fat, which is a popular choice at Christmas, but isn't strictly necessary to get excellent roast potatoes.

All components of the meal were thoroughly heated and cooked and still hot before serving. All components were on the plate within two minutes, starting with the sausages and the stuffing, followed by the chicken, the roast potatoes, the vegetables and the chestnut and onion sauce. Serve with Cranberry Sauce.

Does this seem like a military operation? Yes it does. It needs to be thought through first, with every part properly sequenced in your head before you start. After that, it is no problem. Especially if the major cooking is done on the previous day.

Bacon with Penne Pasta

Cooking bacon cut into chunks and stir-fried until browned. Add chopped onion, green pepper, carrot and celery. Cook for ten minutes at a medium heat, stirring frequently

Add boiling water and tomato puree, and stir. Cook for fifteen minutes under glass, and add the basil and half a spoonful of smoked paprika.

I used wheat-free pasta, which cooks in the same sort of time as the regular variety (9 to 10 minutes).

Serve the bacon and the salsa on top of the pasta in a pasta bowl. Dress in some black pepper.

Carrot and Spinach Soup

       

I had a large box of carrots in the fridge, and I found a bargain bag of spinach in the local store. An ideal combination of ingredients! A simple winter soup made with carrot, cumin, spinach, rosemary, celery, and onion.

Boil half a litre of water. Add four whole carrots, topped and tailed. Add one diced onion, one sixth of a celery plant, finely chopped, and a hundred grammes of spinach leaves, also finely chopped.

Cook for twenty five minutes, until the carrots are soft. Mash for two minutes. Add half a teaspoonful of powdered cumin (or alternatively cumin seeds), and a generous pinch of rosemary. Add the vegetable stock (chicken stock can also be added, or added instead).

Simmer under glass for another forty-five minutes before serving.

Beef Chilli with Peppers and Herbed Chips

Made with ground beef, carrot, green pepper, green chilli, onion, mushroom, and served with herbed oven roasted chips (dressed with coriander, basil, oregano, tomato ketchup, tomato puree, olive oil, bay leaf, and paprika.

Stir-fry chunks of carrot, diced mushroom and onion in olive oil in a large saute pan, until tender (about fifteen or twenty minutes). Move the vegetables to one side of the pan, and add 450g of ground beef. After the beef has begun to brown, stir the beef and the vegetables together, and cook for another twenty to twenty-five minutes at a moderately high heat, stirring every minute or so.

Add the bay leaves (I added two), the beef stock, and the paprika. Add black pepper, a diced half of a green pepper, and four green chillis, with the stems removed. Stir together. Cook for another hour, stirring every five minutes, before serving.

The chips were made from two semi-peeled potatoes, sliced into ovals, and then subdivided into chips. The chips were decanted into a bowl, and stirred through a herby salsa, made with tomato ketchup, paprika, olive oil, oregano, coriander and basil.

Cook the chips in a large glass roasting tray (greased). The oven was preheated to 200 deg C. and the tray was placed in the middle. Cooked for twenty-five to thirty  minutes, and turned once.

Served with freshly ground black pepper.

Bacon, Tomato, Celery and Mushroom Stew

Prepared with about 150g of chunky cooking bacon, cut into gougons, and fried until golden brown. Add finely chopped celery, mushrooms and onion to the stir-fry, and cook until the onions also begin to brown.

Add boiling water (around a cupful) and add a 400g tin of plum tomatoes. Crush the plum tomatoes with a spatula. Stir together and allow to simmer under glass for half an hour to forty-five minutes.

Add the vegetable stock, and the herbs, Sage, Basil and Herbes de Provence. Add a pinch or two of paprika and stir together. Simmer for another ten to fifteen minutes. Serve on a bed of basmati or American long grain rice.

Salted American Pancakes with Brown Pickle

Add two medium eggs to a glass bowl, a heaped dessert spoonful of cornflour, and three desert spoonfuls of whole milk. Add a teaspoonful of salt. A pinch of oregano is optional. Stir the mix together, until the cornflour is blended together with the other ingredients, then beat the mixture with a whisk for a few minutes. Repeat the process two more times.

Preheat a flat non-stick pan containing a brushing of sunflower oil, until a couple of drips of the pancake mixture begins to bubble and brown. Add a ladle full of the mix for each pancake. Cook for two and a half minutes each side. Turn down the heat until the pancakes are ready (if you are using an electric hob). Turn up to a high heat for each of the subsequent pancakes, and reduce the heat during the cooking process.

Serve with a dessert spoonful of brown pickle. Delicious!

Sweet Chilli Houmous Dip with Carrot and Celery

Houmous dip from the Co-op, served with carrot and celery batons.

Houmous is made from chickpea flour, cooked with the addition of an emulsifier such as olive oil, and in this case also with some cornflour in the mix. Also with a little vinegar, sugar, crushed garlic, and chilli sauce.

Batoning vegetables is fairly straightforward if you are using a very sharp vegetable knife, and hazardous with one which isn't. Cut both the carrot and the celery into strips, and then divide into three or four.

Coconut, King Prawns, with Sweet Potato noodles

Coconut, lime Leaves, lime juice, and King Prawns.Thai style king prawns from Vietnam.

A  prawn dish which was intended to be consumed as part of an Asian salad with Asian pickles. I chose to make them the focus of a stir-fry.

The prawns were heated in a steamer for about ten minutes.

The noodles were made with sweet potato and onion. The noodles were spiralised sweet potato, and onion, and stir-fried in a pan at medium heat, along with two small carrots, grated and sliced red pepper. The noodles, carrot and sliced red pepper were decanted onto a plate with a spiral of dark soy sauce.

Ready in fifteen minutes at a medium heat. Stirred frequently to prevent burning. Delicious!

Egg and Mayo with a Lettuce, Cucumber, and Red Pepper Salad

Sometimes it is good to have a salad in the winter. Two boiled eggs, cooled and sliced, mixed with two dessert spoonfuls of mayonnaise.

The vegetable part of the salad consists of cucumber, chopped iceberg lettuce, three spring onions, chopped salad tomato, and chopped marinaded red pepper. Normally I would add some grated carrot to the mix, but did not in this case. Mix in a bowl, and dress with a drizzle of  olive oil, coriander leaf, and serve with black pepper.

Sweet Potato and Red Pepper Soup

After experimenting with spiralizing sweet potato and onion, I used the leftovers as the basis for a soup. I chopped both the remains of the sweet potato and the onion into small cubes, and did the same for a third of a fresh red pepper.

I added all three ingredients to a small pan containing boiling water. (just big enough to make soup for two).  After a couple of minutes, I added about 100g of tomato passata. Then some herbs - oregano, and basil. I also added about a third of a teaspoonful of smoked paprika, and three shakes of sea salt.

The soup was cooked under glass at a low heat for an hour. Simple to make, and delicious.

Bacon and Tomato Pasta

Penne pasta with a tomato and parmigiano regiano sauce salsa, with bacon chunks, garlic and herbs.

I cooked the bacon first at a medium heat, together with the garlic, which takes around fifteen to twenty minutes, until the bacon pieces are slightly browned. Then I added boiling water and pieces of the cheese (about 75g). Cooked for twenty minutes to half an hour until the cheese has melted, stirring frequently.

Then I added about 150g of tomato passata, plus the herbs basil, oregano, and a pinch of paprika. Added a dash of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce. Stirred together thoroughly. This is essentially a neopolitan style salsa, which is the basis of many excellent Italian meals.

I left it  to cook at a low heat under glass for another twenty minutes to half an hour. During which time I prepared the wheat-free, gluten free pasta from Sainsbury's. I boiled water, and added about a third cupful of the dried pasta. I also added a quarter teaspoonful of turmeric, for both flavour and colour. The pasta was stirred frequently to prevent sticking.

The pasta was ready to serve in ten minutes. I spooned the salsa into a pasta bowl and used a slatted spoon to capture all of the bacon chunks. The pasta was drained, and decanted into the bowl. The dish was served with black pepper. Delicious!

Unsmoked Gammon with Winter Vegetables

Boiled potato, steamed carrots and Brussels Sprouts. The main ingredient was unsmoked slices of gammon (carved from a roasted joint the previous day), served with a gravy made with chopped green peppers and onion. The gravy could be blended if you prefer.

Boil the potatoes for twenty minutes and steam the carrots for the same amount of time. The sprouts take less time - ten minutes should be enough.

The peppers and onion were cooked in a vegetable stock and some onion gravy granules (Bisto brand). Add the slices of gammon after about fifteen or twenty minutes. Cook under glass for another fifteen or twenty minutes. A small dash of sweet chilli sauce was added in the last five minutes. Not necessary, but I like the edge of heat it gives.

Basa Fish with Pan-Fried Mushrooms

Baked Basa Fish with pan-fried mushrooms, served with freshly ground black pepper.

Basa fish (river cobbler, catfish) from Morrisons. Preheat the oven to 200 deg C. The fish fillets were placed in a greased non-stick roasting pan, and cooked for twelve minutes. Basa fish often is filleted to contain no bones, as was the case with these fillets. A delicate flavour - the kitchen does not smell of fish for a couple of days. Often sourced from fish farms in the Mekong Delta.

The mushrooms were pan-fried with sunflower oil at a medium heat for about seven minutes, but could have been cooked with a knob of butter instead (expensive these days in the UK!). Serve with black pepper.

Can be served with roast potatoes, or oven-roasted chips in a spicy salsa.