Spiced roast chicken with barley-pomegranate stuffing and georgian aubergine pkhali
Only the purée here is actually Georgian, but the chicken is inspired by Georgian food. It might seem like a lot of aubergine but when you’re only using the insides you don’t end up with much purée.
In the summer you can replace the pomegranate seeds in the stuffing with fresh cherries
Put the barley in a saucepan and cover with water.
Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 25 minutes.
Drain and place in a mixing bowl.
Pour the olive oil into a frying pan and sauté the onion until soft and pale gold, then add the garlic and cook for two minutes.
Add to the barley and leave to cool, then add the seasoning, feta, herbs and pomegranate.
Check for seasoning.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
Brush the aubergines with oil, pierce a few times with a fork, then put them on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 40–50 minutes; they should be completely tender.
Leave to cool.
Remove the excess fat from the chicken cavity.
Season the chicken inside, then put it in a roasting tin and stuff.
If you want to secure the chicken, you can sew it up with kitchen string, or fix with small skewers.
Truss the chicken if you want to.
(I often leave the cavity gaping, the stuffing tumbling out, but it’s a matter of taste and time.
) Mix the crème fraîche with the cayenne and season.
Spread all over the chicken, pushing it between the legs and body as well.
Roast in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes; cover the bird with foil if it starts to get too dark.
Put the garlic in a mortar with the salt and grind to a paste.
Pound the spices in, too.
Add the walnuts, half the virgin oil and half the parsley and pound to a rough paste – I like it with chunks of walnuts – then stir in the rest of the oil, the vinegar, 1 tbsp of water and the rest of the parsley.
Taste for seasoning.
It will seem really assertive but it works with the aubergine flesh.
Split the aubergines in half and scoop the insides into a bowl.
Mash to a rough purée, then stir in the walnut mixture.
When the chicken is done the juices between the leg and the breast should run clear, with no trace of pink.
Allow to rest for 15 minutes, then serve with the aubergine.
You don’t really need any more starch, but a bowl of yogurt is a good thing.
Paprika roast chicken with caraway potatoes, quick-pickled cucumber and soured cream
I serve paprika chicken with different accompaniments, but think this is my favourite combination. You can also try warm potato salad with chopped sweet-sour cucumber tossed into it, waxy potatoes with sautéed smoked bacon (don’t serve soured cream if you use bacon, it’s just too rich), and Savoy cabbage with dill instead of the cucumber. It depends on your mood and the time of year. The chicken is also good served with wide egg noodles instead of potatoes (toss the cooked noodles in melted butter and scatter with poppy seeds before serving).
The chicken itself is very simple. But the extra touches – the thyme and garlic inside the cavity, for example – make all the difference.
leavesfrom 4 sprigs of thymeplus 6 whole sprigs of thyme
1.8kg4lb chicken
salt and pepper
2bulbs of garlichalved horizontally
soured creamto serve
FOR THE POTATOES
400g14oz baby waxy potatoes
10g¼oz unsalted butter
1½tspcaraway seedslightly crushed
Instructies
Cut the ends off the cucumber and slice the rest into very fine slices, they should be almost transparent.
Layer in a colander with the salt, place a plate on top and set over a bowl so that the juices can run out.
Leave for two hours.
Rinse the cucumber and carefully pat dry.
Mix the cucumber with the rest of the ingredients and keep, covered, in the fridge until ready to serve.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
For the chicken, mix the butter with the paprika, cayenne and the thyme leaves.
I usually pound it in a mortar and pestle to make sure all the flavours are mingled well.
Put the chicken into a roasting tin and spread the butter all over, rubbing it over the legs as well as the breast.
Season with salt and pepper.
Put the whole sprigs of thyme and the garlic into the cavity of the bird.
Roast in the hot oven for 1 hour 15 minutes, basting from time to time
The potatoes will take about 20 minutes to cook, so back-time them to be ready when the chicken is done and has rested for about 15 minutes.
Boil the potatoes in water until they are tender right through, then drain.
Melt the butter in the pan in which they were cooked, add the caraway and cook for about 30 seconds, then return the potatoes and toss with the butter and seeds.
Season with salt and pepper.
Serve the chicken with the roasting juices (they’re lovely and garlicky as well as full of paprika), a bowl of soured cream sprinkled with cayenne or paprika, the potatoes and cucumber.
Chicken legs in pinot noir with sour cherries and parsnip purée
It’s amazing what you can do with some chicken legs and a packet of dried fruit! This dish is dark, rich and rather grand-looking. You don’t have to use Pinot Noir, but the grape does have cherry tones. Any other light, fruity red wine is fine, though.
4skin-on bone-in chicken legsdrumsticks and thighs attached
salt and pepper
1–2 tbsp olive oil
2onionshalved, each half cut into 4 wedges
3garlic clovescrushed
4tbspsour cherry juiceoptional
4sprigs of thymeplus more thyme leaves
1bay leaf
5cm2in cinnamon stick
100g3½oz dried sour cherries
FOR THE PARSNIP PURÉE
500g1lb 2oz parsnips, chopped
500ml18fl oz chicken stock
30g1oz unsalted butter
75ml2½fl oz double cream
freshly grated nutmegto taste
pinchof cayenne pepperor to taste
juice of ½ lemonor to taste
Instructies
Reduce the wine and the stock, separately, until they each come to 250ml (9fl oz) of liquid.
Trim the chicken of any raggedy bits of skin and season with salt and pepper.
Heat the oil in a sauté pan and brown the chicken legs all over.
When they’re a good golden colour – and it is really important to get this as it looks and tastes much better in the finished dish – remove them to a plate.
Pour all but 1 tbsp fat out of the pan.
Add the onions to the pan and cook over a medium-low heat until they are pale gold.
Add the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes.
Pour on the reduced stock and wine, the cherry juice (if you’ve been able to get some), herbs, cinnamon stick and sour cherries.
Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a very gentle simmer.
Return the chicken legs – together with any juices that have run out of them – to the pan.
Season, cover and cook for 20 minutes, scooping the wine up over the chicken from time to time.
Take the lid off and cook for another 20 minutes.
Put the parsnips in a saucepan, cover with the chicken stock and bring to the boil.
Reduce the heat a little and cook until completely tender, about 15 minutes.
Strain, reserving the cooking liquor.
Put the parsnips in a food processor or blender (a blender produces a smoother purée) and process with all the other ingredients, with just enough of the cooking liquor to make a fine silky purée; remember you are not making a soup, the mixture should be smooth but not too thin.
Taste for seasoning and adjust any elements you think are not quite right.
Scrape the purée back into the pan and reheat it gently.
The juices in the chicken will have reduced and you should be left with enough sauce just to coat the chicken legs and the fruit.
Taste for seasoning and sprinkle on the thyme leaves.
Serve the chicken from the sauté pan with the parsnip purée.
Hot, spicy chicken, avocado, black beans andcheese too… almost a chicken version of a great chilli. Different, but glorious.Serve with tortillas, soured cream and feta, Wensleydale or mild goat’s cheese.
Make little incisions all over the underside side of the thighs; don’t pierce the skin.
Make the marinade by mixing everything else in a dish that will hold all the chicken.
Put the thighs in, turn, cover with cling film and put in the fridge.
Leave for at least four hours – overnight is even better – turning a couple of times.
Bring to room temperature before cooking.
When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas mark 5.
Remove the chicken from the marinade and put into a roasting tin or ovenproof dish where it can lie in a single layer.
Put into the oven and roast for 35–40 minutes, or until cooked through, basting every so often.
The chicken should end up a deep golden colour.
It’s really quick to make the beans and salsa, so prepare them while the chicken is cooking.
For the beans, heat the olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat and sauté the onion and peppers together, reducing the heat, until the onion is pale gold and the peppers are beginning to soften.
Add the garlic and cook for another minute, then add the cumin, chillies and orange zest and cook for another two minutes.
Pour in the stock, orange juice and seasoning and cook over a low heat until the vegetables are soft.
Carefully rinse the black beans and stir into the peppers.
Season and heat through for a few minutes.
You want the beans to pick up the flavours of the other ingredients; in fact they benefit from sitting in the juices and being reheated at the last minute.
Add lime juice to taste, it heightens and freshens the flavours.
To make the salsa, finely chop the tomatoes, garlic, spring onions and chillies.
Mix with the other ingredients and season well, but don’t make this more than an hour ahead of serving as it discolours.
Once you’ve made it, cover the salsa and let the flavours infuse.
Serve the chicken on a platter with sprigs of coriander, along with the beans, salsa and some cheese and soured cream.
Over the years I have probably cooked this more than any other chicken dish. It’s based on a dish in Alastair Little’s Italian Kitchen (out of print but worth tracking down on the internet) and I’ve changed it only slightly. Alastair Little, who used to have his own restaurant in Soho in London, had a big effect on how we cook… much bigger than he is given credit for. He was the first person, back in the 1980s, to create menus of dishes from the Middle East and Japan as well as Italy, a range that was new to British diners.
Even though there is fennel in the stuffing, I usually serve this with a creamy fennel gratin – bubbling under a Parmesan crust – and a dish of roast tomatoes. Now that’s a great Sunday lunch.
1largeor 2 small fennel bulbstrimmed and finely chopped (fronds reserved and chopped)
1smallonionfinely chopped
100g3½oz pancetta lardons
250g9oz chicken livers, cleaned and chopped
50black olivespitted, half of them roughly chopped
finely grated zest of ½ unwaxed lemon
leavesfrom a few sprigs of thyme
200g7oz waxy potatoes, cut into cubes (no need to peel)
salt and pepper
1.8kg4lb chicken
50garlic clovesunpeeled
250ml9fl oz dry white wine
500ml18fl oz chicken stock
Instructies
Heat ½ tbsp of the olive oil in a frying pan and sauté the fennel and onion for a couple of minutes.
Add the pancetta and cook until it is golden on all sides and the onion and fennel are soft.
Add the livers and toss until they no longer look raw.
Put this into a bowl with the chopped olives, lemon zest and thyme.
Put 2 tbsp of olive oil into the pan and add the potatoes.
Cook until they are tender, stirring occasionally.
The potatoes will stick a bit but that’s fine.
Season.
Add to the olive bowl and toss.
Leave to cool.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
Remove the excess fat around the chicken cavity then stuff the chicken.
Either sew up the cavity, or use small skewers.
Put the bird in a roasting tin and drizzle some olive oil over it, then rub it all over, including into the space between the legs and body of the bird.
Season with pepper and sea salt flakes.
Put into the hot oven and cook for 20 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 and cook for another hour.
When the chicken has 40 minutes left to cook, toss the garlic cloves into the roasting tin, turning them over in the fat.
Check the chicken is done, then put it on a heated platter and cover with foil.
Scoop up the garlic, put in a dish and keep warm.
Remove the excess fat from the roasting tin, then set it over a medium heat and add the wine, stirring to scrape up the bits.
Boil until about 50ml (2fl oz) is left.
Pour in the stock and boil until reduced by three-quarters.
Briefly add the whole olives, then strain the cooking juices and add the olives to the garlic.
Cut the chicken into eight joints and serve with the olives and garlic over the top, with any fennel fronds you removed earlier.
Put the stuffing on the same platter or into a bowl and pour the juices into a jug.
Poussins with indian spices and fresh coriander and coconut chutney
The components here are quite simple, but blend wonderfully together. It’s the abundance of the presentation – get out your biggest platter for the poussins – that makes it seem like a feast. Serve with a mango and spinach salad that you’ve dressed with a nice tart lime and chilli vinaigrette.
100g3½oz creamed coconut (in a block), or fresh coconut, grated
2green chilliesdeseeded and roughly chopped
3garlic clovesroughly chopped
2.5cm1in root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
finely grated zest of 1 lime and juice of 2
salt
3tspcaster sugaroptional
Instructies
To prepare the poussins, mix the first seven ingredients together and rub all over the birds.
Gently ease the skin off the breasts and legs of the poussins at the cavity openings and spoon the mixture underneath, too (see technique for Roast chicken with mushrooms and sage butter under the skin).
Place on a large dish, cover loosely with cling film and put in the fridge to marinate for two to four hours.
Bring the birds to room temperature before cooking.
When you’re ready to cook, preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas mark 5.
To make the butter, just mash all the ingredients together in a small bowl.
Using your hands, spread this all over the birds, then put them into a roasting tin and cook in the hot oven for 45–50 minutes, or until the birds are a lovely dark brown and, when pierced with a sharp knife between the thigh and the body, the juices that run out are clear, with no trace of pink.
Cover with foil and leave to rest for 10–15 minutes.
For the chutney, put the cumin seeds in a dry pan and toast until they are fragrant (about 40 seconds).
Put all the ingredients for the chutney into a food processor and whizz to a paste.
(If you want a sweet version, add the sugar. ) Taste for seasoning.
This will be fine in the fridge for three days, but let it come to room temperature before serving, as it sets rather solidly.
To serve, get out your biggest platter.
Boil some white basmati rice and stir plenty of chopped coriander through it.
Spread the rice out on the platter and put the birds on top.
Spoon on the cooking juices – they will make the birds glossy and season the rice, too – and serve with the chutney and a mango and spinach salad.
Saba – also called vincotto – is grape must. You can buy it online from www.melburyandappleton.co.uk, or in Italian delicatessens. You know those rainy November days we get? Make this. You’ll be reminded of what is good about autumn.
600g1lb 5oz seedless black grapes, half on their stalks in small bunches, half off their stalks
4bay leaves
6sprigs of thyme
250ml9fl oz red wine
75ml2½fl oz saba
Instructies
Gently ease the skin off the breasts of the poussins at the cavity openings (see technique for Roast chicken with mushrooms and sage butter under the skin).
Mash half of the juniper berries into the butter, season with pepper and gently spread it under the skin (without tearing the skin).
Season the birds inside.
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas mark 5.
Put the onion and celery in an ovenproof dish that will hold the grapes and poussins snugly in a single layer.
Season and stir in 2 tbsp of olive oil.
Using a wooden spoon (or a mortar and pestle), roughly crush the grapes that are off their stalks so the juice starts to come out.
Lay the poussins and the little bunches of grapes on the vegetables and spoon the crushed grapes around them.
Tuck in the bay leaves and thyme.
Season, sprinkle with the rest of the crushed juniper and drizzle a little olive oil over the grapes and poussins.
Mix the wine with the saba and pour it around the poussins.
Put into the hot oven and roast for 45–50 minutes, or until the grapes are slightly shrunken in places and the poussins are cooked.
You need to baste the birds every so often.
Test they are ready: when pierced with a sharp knife between the thigh and the body, the juices that run out should be clear, with no trace of pink.
Serve, preferably in the dish in which the poussins have been cooked, with buttered cabbage.
Spelt, farro or barley, or olive oil-roasted potatoes, are all good on the side.
This is a plain but luxurious dish that really shows off the best of spring. It isn’t difficult, but you need very good ingredients, both chicken and vegetables. It has one drawback: you should ideally use homemade stock, made from raw chicken (get bones and wings from your butcher) not a cooked carcass. It’s important that the broth is nice and pale but full of flavour. Stock made from cooked carcasses is darker.
A perfect summer dish. It takes little effort and is great to serve in the garden. Don’t go mad with the lavender, it will taste sickly if you use too much.
1.8kg4lb chicken, skin-on, jointed into 8, or 8 good-sized skin-on bone-in chicken thighs
200ml7fl oz medium white wine
3tbspwhite balsamic vinegar
4tbsplavender honey
5smallslightly under-ripe peaches
8sprigs of fresh lavender
Instructies
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas mark 5.
Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a frying pan, season the chicken joints and brown them on each side so they get a good colour.
You can do this in batches.
Put the chicken joints or thighs into a very large, broad, shallow ovenproof dish (both the chicken and the peaches need to be able to lie snugly together in a single layer).
Pour the oil out of the pan but don’t clean it.
Return it to the heat and deglaze the pan with the wine, scraping to dislodge all the bits of flavour there.
Boil this until it has reduced to about 100ml (3½fl oz), than add 1½ tbsp each of the balsamic vinegar and honey.
Stir to dissolve the honey, then pour over the chicken.
Halve and pit the peaches and cut each half in two.
Dot these in around the chicken.
Season with salt and pepper.
Brush each piece of peach with a little olive oil, then whisk the remaining honey and balsamic together with a fork.
Drizzle this over the chicken and peaches and scatter with the lavender (leave some sprigs of lavender whole, use just the flowers from others).
Roast in the hot oven for 40 minutes.
The chicken should be cooked through and glazed with the honey and the peaches should be slightly caramelized in patches.
If you stick the tip of a sharp knife into the underside of a thigh, the juice that runs out should be clear.
Serve in the dish in which the chicken has cooked (you can transfer it all to a warmed platter if you prefer, but be careful as the peaches will be soft and could easily fall apart).
Serve with olive oil-roast potatoes and green beans.
This is such a good dish, hot and heady with the flavours of South America. You don’t actually have to have prawns in it, some versions just have chicken. If you want to leave them out, then increase the amount of chicken by 200g (7oz). But chicken and seafood go really well together, so do try it this way.
1½tbspsunflower or groundnut oil or whichever you prefer
salt and pepper
1largeonionfinely chopped
2red pepperscut into cubes
3garlic clovescrushed
2.5cm1in root ginger, peeled and grated
3red chillieshalved, deseeded and sliced
250g9oz tomatoes, chopped (I don’t bother to peel or deseed)
pinchof soft light brown sugar
300ml½ pint chicken stock
2x 160ml cans of coconut cream
300g10½oz MSC-certified shelled prawns (either tiger or king prawns)
10g¼oz toasted and roughly ground cashew nuts
10g¼oz toasted, ground peanuts
4tbsproughly chopped coriander leaves
shaved coconutto serve
Instructies
Cut each thigh into two or four pieces (smaller thighs – and they do vary a lot in size – should just be halved).
Put into a bowl with the juice of two of the limes and the cayenne, cover and marinate in the fridge for about 45 minutes.
Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
Heat the oil in a sauté pan, lift the chicken out of the marinade and brown it in batches.
You want to get a good colour all over, but not cook the chicken through.
Season as you brown the pieces.
Remove each batch with a slotted spoon as it is ready and put in a bowl.
Add the onion and peppers to the oil in the pan and cook until these are softening but not brown.
It will take about eight minutes.
Add the garlic, ginger and chillies and cook for another minute, then add the tomatoes, season, stir everything together and cook for another two minutes.
Reduce the heat and cook until the tomatoes are quite soft and slightly losing their shape, about five minutes.
Make sure the mixture doesn’t get too dry.
Add the sugar, pour in 200ml (7fl oz) of the stock and bring to the boil.
Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Return the chicken to the pan with any juices that have run out of it, then stir in the remaining stock and the coconut cream.
Bring to a simmer and cook gently for 20 minutes.
Stir in the prawns and cook for about three minutes; you will see the prawns turn pink.
Stir in the remaining lime juice and the nuts and check for seasoning.
This dish can vary in thickness: it can be quite thick; it can be soupy.
Add more stock or water if you want it to be more soupy.
Sprinkle on the coriander and coconut and serve with boiled rice and lime wedges.