Tag: Chicken

Baked Chicken Breast with Cream Cheese Stuffing and Tomato Sauce

Chica Andaluza54 Comments

When you breed chickens for eating, you´re going to have to deal with the chicken, the whole chicken, and nothing but the chicken.

Most of our Fat Boys end up being cut up into individual portions with the skin off – they´re easier to store in the freezer that way and you don´t have to pluck them.  Chicken Breast has always been my least favourite part…typically it can be a little dry and bland.  Now that we get to eat our own chickens, I can at least say that the breasts are neither dry nor bland and taste great just done on the griddle with olive oil and salt and a squeeze of lemon juice at the end.

Some of our chickens are real monsters though – and with no artificial feed.  Just corn, wheat and a long-ish life (at least in terms of chickens for eating) pecking around our olives.  One chicken breast can weigh about 500g and is plenty to feed two.  Sometimes it´s nice to jazz it up a little, and this is a firm favourite.

  • One monster chicken breast or two regular
  • Two tablespoons of cream cheese mixed with one crushed clove of garlic, a sprinkle of salt and a tablespoon of your favourite herb finely chopped (I like basil or chives with this)
  • About four tablespoons of tomato sauce (i.e. made from fresh or tinned tomatoes)
  • Grated cheese
  • Seasoning
  • Olive oil

Split the chicken breast in two without cutting all the way through.  Fill with the cream cheese and close.  Season with salt and pepper and drizzle a little olive oil over, massaging it in all over.

Put into a baking dish and pour over the tomato sauce.  Bake on medium for about 30 minutes.  Check that it is done by piercing it – if the juices run clear, you´re done.  If not, cook for a further 10 mins, check and repeat if necessary.  When cooked, grate cheese over the top, pop it under a hot grill until the cheese is melted and bubbling, and serve.

This is a great prepare ahead dish (up to the stage before you start to cook) and if the breast is large, serve cut into slices with a little extra tomato sauce on the side for your loved ones who prefer things saucy!

One Year On…Pollo en Pepitoria – Chicken in a Saffron and Almond Sauce

Chica Andaluza83 Comments

Pepitoria – what a great word!  However, I couldn´t find a decent translation for it.  The dictionary comes up with “hodge podge” or “fricassée”.  I don´t think either of those translations suit the sophistication of this beautiful looking, wonderful tasting but oh so easy to prepare dish.

It´s often cooked for celebratory meals – probably because of the luxury of the ingredients (saffron and almonds) and the fact that it can be prepared for a large number of people in advance. It seems that it´s a year since I published my first post here on WordPress.  Wow, what a journey it´s been!  From no readers 😦 to a lovely group of new blogging pals who comment, support, encourage and inspire.  I thank you all, it´s great to have you along for the ride.

So, back to the food.  Don´t be put off by the word “luxury”, it´s actually luxurious in terms of quality and not cost.  Most recipes suggest using free range chicken or even an old hen or cockerel for long slow cooking and an amazing taste.  I used our old black cockerel who was no longer doing it for my lady hens…he had a great life, fathered many little chicks and was treated splendidly after his demise in this gorgeous dish.  Ok, on with the cooking.

You´ll need (for approx 6 people depending on the size of your chicken)

  • 1 large chicken cut into portions and floured
  • Olive oil
  • About 20 blanched almonds
  • 1 thick slice of day old bread
  • 6 cloves of garlic peeled and sliced in half lengthways
  • About 1 heaped tablespoon of chopped parsley
  • ½ teaspoon of saffron stamens (or you can use ground turmeric which will add a little flavour of a different kind, but it´s a good substitute)
  • ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves
  • Fresh black pepper for grinding and salt (I used Maldon)
  • About ½ litre of chicken stock
  • 2 large glasses of dry white whine
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 hard boiled eggs

Start by putting a few good slugs of olive oil in the bottom of a heavy based pan that has a lid.  Brown the almonds and garlic and remove. Now fry the bread until browned and remove.  Put the bread, almonds, garlic, parsley and saffron in a jug with about half a cup of stock and blend until you have a thick smooth mixture.

Fry your chicken pieces in the same oil (add more if necessary) until browned on both sides then pour over the almond and saffron mixture,  one glass of white wine, enough stock to cover the meat,  the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper.  Pour yourself the other glass of wine and drink while waiting for the pot to come up to a gentle boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook gently for at least an hour and a half.  I cooked mine for three hours as it was an old cockerel (bless him) and check every so often that the meat is covered with liquid.  If not, add a little water or chicken stock.

When the meat is tender, remove from the sauce and turn up the heat to reduce slightly.  Check for seasoning and add the mashed yolks of the 2 hard boiled eggs to further thicken the sauce.  Once it has reached the consistency of a thick pouring sauce, put the chicken back into the pot (or pour the sauce over your chicken if you are going to use a serving platter) and sprinkle with the chopped whites of the hard boiled egg and finely chopped parsley.  Serve with fresh lemon to squeeze over, rice, fried or mashed potatoes and ¡Buen Provecho!

Green Summer Vegetable and Chicken Casserole

Chica Andaluza41 Comments

Now that we are starting to have a little drop in temperatures during the day, and a nip in the air first thing in the morning and last thing at night, we know that autumn is just around the corner.  While this means saying a gradual farewell to summer, it also means an autumnal welcome to the next season and the food and change in cooking it brings.

Off out for a busy morning and knowing I was not going to be in the house while it was still relatively warm, prompted me to cook the first casserole for a long time.  We came home to delicious chicken, vegetable and brothy smells and apart from opening the wine and grabbing the loaf of bread left for us earlier that morning on the gate by Bread Man, there was nothing more for us to do other than set the table and enjoy lunch.

The dish was a celebration of almost the last of many of our summer vegetables.  The bobby (french) beans finally started producing yellow as well as green beans, with kilos of them stored in the freezer for the months ahead.  The green peppers are still doing well, we´ll see how much longer they last.  Our onions have dried out nicely and are sweet and delicious and I had been hoarding the last handful of potatoes we had left from our first ever potato crop.

Into a big pot went two large legs (drumstick and thigh) of our free range chicken, some chopped peeled potatoes, large chunks of courgette given to us by a neighbour along with some whole unpeeled garlic cloves.  A few chopped green peppers, a roughly chopped onion, a few handfuls of green beans and some seasoning finished off the ingredients.  I covered everything with water and bought it to the boil then put a lid on the pot which then went into a very low oven for about 5 hours. You could, of course, cook it much more quickly on the stove top with equally good results if you´re not off out shopping for the morning!

And that was it…memories of summer and anticipation of autumn all in one delicious bowlful.

Am off to London to visit my family tomorrow for a week.  Will try to keep up with all your lovely blogs and posts, but apologies if I can´t always comment.  Looking forward to a proper catch up when I return!

Chicken Paella

Chica Andaluza34 Comments
Guess who loves black pepper?!

I can´t believe I´ve done so many posts without doing one on the famous Spanish Paella!  Paella traditionally comes from Valencia, up towards the north of Spain, and very good it is too.  People think of prawns and mussels when they talk of paella (which here is pronounced along the lines of pie-eh-ya) but there are meat versions and mixed meat and seafood versions, although not many vegetarian ones.

If you can buy proper paella rice, it does make all the difference.  Use long grain and it won´t be able to soak up all the flavours.  Use risotto rice and it will go creamy.  Paella rice plumps up, absorbs the flavour but the grains stay separate.

In Andalucía they tend to make more Arroz or Arroz Caldoso, which translates as Rice or Brothy Rice.  This is exactly the same as a paella, but with more stock, giving a more soupy dish. Whether you make Arroz or Paella, the technique is the same, it´s just the quantity of liquid that varies.

And now, allow me to let you into a little secret.  The beautiful colour of a Paella?  Saffron? Well, sometimes, but most housewives here use artificial colouring.  I was shocked when I found out – perhaps even more than when I realised how expensive saffron is, but I´m just letting you know.  I try not to use anything artificial in my cooking, and have been known to slip a little turmeric in, which doesn´t really affect the taste but gives a good golden colour.  You can also use paella spice sachets which contain salt, garlic, paprika, saffron and ground cloves….oh, and a little colouring too.  There´s no getting away from it.  I leave it to you…make your own mix with a few strands of saffron, or use a mix.  I won´t judge you!

So, here´s how I made this paella.  I can´t claim my version today is typically Andaluz, it was a ”what have we got in the fridge?” kind of day.  The beauty of this is that you can make it however you fancy.

  • A cup of cooked chicken
  • A quarter cup of diced jamon
  • Two cloves of crushed garlic
  • One small onion, finely chopped
  • One long thin green pepper, finely chopped
  • A stick of celery finely chopped
  • A cup of chopped tomatoes
  • About 3 cups of chicken stock
  • One and a half cups of rice
  • Seasoning
  • Olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons of hot pimentón (optional)
  • Paella spices
  • Lemons to serve

You can make this in a large frying pan if you don´t have a paella pan, or a saucepan if you want to make arroz. The paella pan in the photo is meant to serve four (!).  We ate about two thirds of it between the two of us and there was enough left over for a few tapas portions the next day.

Soften your onion, celery and pepper in olive oil and then add the crushed garlic.  When the garlic has softened, add your pimentón (or chilli powder) and spices and stir in. Now add your tomatoes and cook gently for a minute or two then put your chicken, jamon and stock in and allow to boil.  I find that for a paella I use double the quantity of liquid to rice, 3 times for arroz. 

When the liquid is boiling, add the rice and some seasoning, stir it all around and reduce the heat.  I often partly cover the dish with a large lid.  You don´t need to stir it like a risotto, some will stick on the bottom, but in my house we fight for those bits!  I can´t be more precise about quantities as a lot will depend on how much liquid your rice absorbs. Have a pot of boiling water or stock on the side and if you feel it´s cooking too quickly add a little more.

When the rice is almost cooked, but not quite there, turn it off and cover it.  Use tin foil or a lid.  These last few minutes “resting” are important.  Here they say that arroz can be “mal cocinado, pero bien reposado” which means badly cooked but well rested.  Hopefully yours will be both bien cocindao and bien reposado!

Laid back and rested rice

And that´s it, serve with plenty of lemons to squeeze over and a glass of your favourite wine.

I´ll do a seafood version soon – my two best girlfriends in the world are coming to stay tomorrow, so no doubt we´ll have plenty of cooking, eating and wine drinking sessions together that I can share with you all!

Chicken Pinchito Salad

Chica Andaluza10 Comments
A tickle of spices...

Pinchos, or Pinchitos, are Spain´s answer to Kebabs.  Despite their “Moorish” (i.e. Arabic) origins, they are usually made of pork, but you can also find them made of chicken.  This is typical Feria food, cooked in front of you at the bar, speared with a slice of bread, and if they use metal skewers, you just hand them back when you´ve finished eating!

The spices which the cubes of meat are rubbed in can vary slightly, shops and butchers sell their own mixes.  Typically though it´s a mix which is like Ras el hanout, which is used widely in North Africa, from which Andalucía receives many food influences. 

When we went to Morocco earlier this year, we bought a supply of spices to see us through a few months and because it´s so good, I didn´t want to just save it for kebabs. 

Beautiful Spices...

Here´s an easy salad, which (if you have any kind of spice mix you like to use on meat) you can pull together from store cupboard ingredients.  This recipe made a light supper for two.

For the salad

  • Two chicken thighs deboned, cubed and rubbed in 1 heaped tablespoon of spice mix and seasoned with salt.  These are then cooked on the griddle (plancha) with a small amount of olive oil and left to cool
  • 6 rashers of streaky bacon cooked for 6 minutes in the microwave then left to cool and roughly chopped
  • 2 medium cooked potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • Half a cos lettuce finely chopped
  • Half a cup of pitted black olives, roughly chopped
  • One small green pepper, finely sliced

For the dressing

  • Half a cup of mayonnaise
  • Two tablespoons of milk
  • An additional teaspoon of spice mix
  • A squeeze of lemon juice
  • Salt and Pepper

Mix all the salad ingredients in a large bowl then in a jar shake together all the dressing ingredients.  Pour over the salad and toss well to get all the dressing into the leaves.  Would also be good with some croutons.

Spring Chicken One Pot

Chica Andaluza12 Comments
 
Bedding Down for a Slow Braise

Now, before I get going I have to apologise that I haven´t posted a photo of the finished dish!  It´s been a cold, wet rainy day up the mountain after a very stormy night.  Big Man, the two dogs and I were tired and grizzly after a night of no sleep and needed comfort food to fill our bellies and soothe our frazzled nerves.  I can only think that we were so in need of something calming that we were tucking in and sipping a glass of Rioja before I realised that I hadn´t snapped the finished result. Apologies, it was a delicious bowl of braised chicken, spring vegetables and steaming mashed potatoes.

Because we don´t have a machine to pluck our chickens for us, and as I don´t have the patience to pluck chickens “en masse”, they are skinned after dispatch and usually cut up and frozen.  One chicken was kept whole so that I could cook a one pot dish, and today was its day.  I cooked it slowly on the hob in a large tagine that I have, but it can equally well be cooked in a heavy based saucepan with a tight fitting lid (I think they may be called Dutch Ovens in the US) either on the hob or in a very slow oven.

It´s a simple dish with only a little preparation, then you go away and forget about it for a few hours whilst enjoying the smells of slowly braising chicken wafting through your home. 

Here´s how to do it…

  • One whole chicken (with or without skin) or chicken pieces for however many people you are cooking for
  • About 3-4 carrots per person, peeled and cut into large chunks
  • A cup of broad beans per person  (but  feel free to use whatever vegetable is seasonal)
  • Half an onion roughly chopped per person
  • A tablespoon of chopped parsley and of olive oil per person
  • Grated lemon rind to taste and the juice of half a lemon per person
  • Seasoning
  • About 2 medium potatoes per person, peeled and quartered – keep these in a bowl of water until needed
  • Extra olive oil
  • Milk (optional)

Mix the carrots, beans, onion, parsley, lemon zest, juice and olive oil in a bowl.  Season to taste.

Crunchy Spring Vegetables

Put half the vegetable mix at the bottom of your cooking dish then place the chicken on top.  Use the rest of the vegetables to fill the chicken cavity and tuck and the lemon shells in with the chicken.

Rub a little olive oil, salt and pepper over the chicken, put the lid on and place on a low heat.  This needs to cook very slowly for about two hours.  Check every so often and if it looks as though it´s drying out, add about half a glass of water.  If the lid of your pot fits well, you should find that the chicken starts to cook in its own steam.  When the chicken is almost cooked (i.e. it looks cooked on the outside but the juices do not quite run clear when you stab a thigh with a skewer), remove the lemon shells and put the potatoes in on top of the bed of vegetables and around the chicken.

The potatoes will take about another half an hour to cook, by which time the chicken will be cooked.

Remove the potatoes and mash with a little milk or the juice from the chicken and vegetables – it´s your choice!

Serve the chicken with the vegetables and mashed potato.  Now you only have one cooking pot to wash up and, if you have them, you can use any leftovers plus the bones to make a delicious stock for another day.

Chicken, Chive & Sweetcorn Fritters

Chica Andaluza8 Comments
Don´t Burn Yourself!

Having spent the day rushing around and generally being a busy bee, I wanted something quick and easy for a light supper.  Leftovers from a chargrilled chicken dish made the night before included most of a chicken breast, so I decided to make some fritters and serve them with a big mixed salad.

Here in Andalucía they often make fritters with salt cod (which has been soaked and desalted) and serve them with Molasses (or sugar cane honey as it´s called here) drizzled over. When I was first introduced to this concept, I wasn´t sure it was going to be for me.  The idea of sweet and salty mixed together seemed strange, but then I thought about how in the UK we often eat meats with fruit sauces (pork with apple sauce, turkey with cranberry) and realised that it wasn´t such a weird idea.  I´m so glad I did give it a go as it´s a fantastic combination and works really well with these fritters. 

Beautiful Jar of Miel de Caña

If you just can´t face the thought of Molasses though, a sweet chilli dipping sauce or mayonnaise also tastes great with these little fritters.

Ingredients used (which are approximate) made 14 fritters.

  • 1 x 150g sweetcorn which I blended to make creamed corn (we can´t get it here)
  • Half a large or one small chicken breast, grilled and then finely chopped
  • 4 heaped tablespoons of self raising (or cake) flour
  • About half the empty can full of milk
  • 2 tablespoons of finely chopped chives
  • 1 egg
  • Seasoning
  • Oil for frying (I used olive oil)

In a bowl add the flour and egg to the sweetcorn and mix well. Gradually add the milk until you get a paste the consistency of a thick porridge. You may not use all the milk, or you may need a little more, it will depend on your flour.  Add the chicken and chives and season to taste.

Heat your oil in a deep frying pan and when ready, drop heaped tablespoons of the mixture in, flattening them out slightly with the back of the spoon. 

Each side will take about a minute to cook, remove, drain and serve.  And if you´re feeling Spanish, you can call them Tortillitas de Pollo, Cebollina y Maiz. Olé!

Chicken, Egg and Bacon Salad

Chica Andaluza4 Comments
Shame there were no leftovers...

I´m not sure that this one can exactly count as a recipe, as it´s more a “chuck it together and enjoy” kind of dish.   Here in Spain the main meal of the day tends to be at lunch time.  Even in cities where people work in shops and offices, there is still a tradition to shut at 2pm and then re open at 5pm.  Lunch is taken very seriously!  The evening meal is rarely eaten before 10pm, which was a bit of a struggle for me at first, even though I usually ate at about 8pm in the UK.  Over time I´ve got used to it, especially now that I´ve realised that the evening meal is generally something very light.  A soup, or salad perhaps.

Of course, there are times when the evening meal is something more elaborate, but that tends to be related to an event, in which case you wouldn´t go to bed early (that´s around midnight here!) but more like somewhere between 3am and 7am…crazy hours.  Of course, that gives you time to digest dinner, dance it off, and perhaps even indulge in a breakfast of hot chocolate and churros before going to bed to sleep off the festivities.

Last night was just a regular night.  We fancied something light but filling, so I made one of our favourites –  Chicken, Egg and Bacon Salad.

Ingredients are rather approximate – use what you have to hand.  We used:

  • One lettuce heart roughly chopped
  • Two small-ish potatoes (boiled in their skins then peeled and roughly chopped)
  • Two hard boiled eggs, quartered
  • One large chicken breast, griddled
  • 4 rashers of streaky bacon (griddled)
  • 1 small packet of anchovies in olive oil
  • Olive oil
  • Lemon juice
  • Seasoning

I also made an extra dressing, which make enough for another salad

  • Half a small tub of natural yogurt (half a 125 tub)
  • The same quantity of mayonnaise
  • The juice of half a lemon
  • A tablespoon of milk
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

There´s no method to this, just combine the salad ingredients, season and dress very lightly with olive oil and lemon juice.  You can leave this out if you like lashings of the yogurt and mayonnaise dressing.  It´s entirely up to you.  For the dressing, just put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix until you´ve got a smooth, fairly runny sauce and drizzle over the salad.

Other ingredients which are good in this salad, which I guess has a touch of the “Chicken Caesar” about it, are avocado, croutons, grated hard cheese….go on, give it a go!

Chicken with Mushrooms and Artichokes

Chica Andaluza1 Comment

Once you´ve planted a couple of artichoke plants, they seem to last for a couple of years.  As long as you keep cutting the “fruit”, more keep on growing.  A couple of weeks ago we cut more than we needed, so stop them from getting too big and tough and a peeled off the outer leaves to reveal the hearts, blanched them in water with lemon juice to stop them turning black and then froze what we didn´t use.

As we now have more artichokes blooming, I thought I should use up the batch from the freezer (although a tin of artichoke hearts would do just as well).  I also had some chicken breasts which would go well with the artichokes in a lovely dish with a thick sauce.  Neither Big Man nor I are huge fans of the chicken breast, but when you rear your own chickens for eating, you´re always going to have them!

Ingredients for this dish for two are

  • One large or two small chicken breasts, cut into small cubes
  • A tin of artichoke hearts or about 8 fresh ones (prepared as above), sliced into quarters
  • Half a dozen medium sized mushrooms, thickly sliced
  • Two fat cloves of garlic, thickly sliced
  • Two cloves, ground (or about a quarter of a teaspoon of ground cloves) with about 5 peppercorns (or use half a dozen twists of freshly ground black pepper)
  • Half a teaspoon of paprika
  • A pinch of saffron soaked in a tablespoon of water (if you have a packet of paella spices, you can use half a packet in place of the cloves, pepper, paprika and saffron)
  • Two thick slices of day old bread, crumbled roughly
  • A bay leaf
  • A sprig of thyme (optional)
  • Salt
  • Olive oil
  • Water
  • A glass of white wine (optional) plus one for drinking while cooking (not optional in my kitchen)

Start by lightly browning the chicken in a little olive oil in a deep frying pan or a wide saucepan.  Then add the garlic, artichokes and mushrooms and fry gently until the mushrooms and artichokes start to brown.

Browning Nicely

Add the spices and herbs and season with a little salt.  Pour over the wine and enough water to comfortably cover everything and simmer, without a lid, for about 15 minutes. 

When the liquid has reduced by about half, but is still watery, remove the herbs and then add the bread crumbs, stirring as you do this.  You will simmer this for another 5 minutes stirring a couple of times.  The sauce will come together and will look smoother, with some texture from the bread after a couple of minutes.  You want to end up with a sauce roughly the texture of a thick gravy.  If it looks too runny near the end of cooking, add another half a slice of bread.  If it´s too liquid, just simmer until it gets to the consistency you want – it´s down to you! Check and adjust the seasoning, and you´re ready.

This can be prepared ahead and reheated, and takes about 40 minutes to prepare from scratch.

Looking Rustic

Delicious served either as a “spoon dish” (as they call dishes the consistency of stew which are served in bowls and eaten, as expected, with a spoon) if you prefer the sauce more liquid with bread and a side salad or with some green beans,  mashed potato or rice.