Roast Chicken and Bulghar Wheat Salad

A summery take on a simple roast chicken - using sage from our garden, lemon zest, garlic and butter as flavour. Eaten with this courgette and bulghar wheat salad, an extra smattering of pine nuts and some cooling, garlicky tzatiki.


To make the taztiki, I grated a cucumber, salted it and left it to drain for 15-30mins. Squeeze out the excess water (there should be a lot), tip into a bowl and mix with greek yoghurt, finely chopped garlic and a little lemon juice. Finish with black pepper and a drizzle of oil.

This is perfect summer eating, there's no pressure to serve it piping hot, indeed it's better lukewarm and eaten casually outside. In fact, you could joint the chicken and BBQ it instead, swapping the butter for olive oil. I'm a fan of uncomplicated BBQs - making one great piece of meat the star so you don't spend hours cooking burgers and sausages. We're recently had success with a huge leg of lamb, marinaded overnight, cooked briefly in the oven and then finished on the BBQ. Sliced thinly and eaten in pittas with tazatiki and tomato salsa - that's my kind of BBQ.
Read more...

Courgette and Pistachio Bulghar Wheat Salad

A zingy bulghar wheat salad packed full of parsley and coriander, pistachios and orange. I also chopped some courgette into small pieces, fried in a little olive oil and added it to the salad, finishing off with a squeeze of orange juice to freshen things up. Pistachios are fast becoming a new favourite, mixed with orange juice, its an exotic combination.

As with most salads, this is a chop and assemble job. As ever, bulghar wheat holds up quite well, so make plenty for lunch and snacks later. Try adding some shredded roast chicken for a more substantial meal maybe eating with a simple tomato salad.


Ingredients

200g bulghar wheat, cooked
2 courgettes
3tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1 bunch coriander, chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 orange, zest and juice of 1/2
75g pistachios, chopped

• Top and tail the courgettes, slice into 4 lengthways and slice into chunks.
• Heat a frying pan with 2tbsp olive oil and fry the courgettes for 5 mins or so until golden brown and cooked through. Season well and a splash of orange juice.
• Mix with the bulghar wheat and add the rest of the ingredients saving some pistachios to sprinkle over later.
• Serve with a spoon of yoghurt and sprinkled with the reserved pistachios.

Read more...

Roasted Tomato and Spinach bulghar salad

This is one of the great salads that I'm loving at the moment. They take a bit longer than your average chop and go salad to prepare but are bursting with flavour and if you make a huge batch, you can eat it for dinner and keep leftovers in the fridge for lunch or for other meals. Simply add the protein of your choice. Try blistered slices of haloumi, fried mackerel fillets, chicken, lamb kebabs or a poached egg.

This salad was inspired by this recipe from 101cookbooks, in all honesty, I took a cursory glance at the ingredients and went by the picture more than anything, so my version is below. Bursting with colour, sweet roasted cherry tomatoes and slow cooked red onions go beautifully with the nutty bulghar wheat spiked with loads of fresh herbs, a little garlic and a handful of spinach (I have a sneaky suspicion that toasted pine nuts or almonds would be a fabulously crunchy addition). A perfect accompaniment to a mezze type affair, try a simple carrot salad, some hummus and flatbreads.

Ingredients

250g cherry tomatoes
250g bulghar
olive oil
juice 1/2 lemon
1 clove garlic
3 handfuls spinach
1 bunch mint
1 bunch parsley

Onions
3 red onions, finley sliced
2tsp brown sugar
1tbsp balsamic vinegar

• First up the tomatoes. Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the tomatoes in half and throw onto a large baking tray. Drizzle with olive, season with crunchy flakes of sea salt, a twist of black pepper and a pinch of brown sugar. Stir well, making sure all the tomatoes are cut side up and roast for 40mins until shrivelled and golden.
• Meanwhile pour the bulghar wheat into a saucepan that has a lid with 1/2tsp of bouillon if you have it or a pinch of salt. Cover with boiling water, bring to the boil, cover and simmer until all the water is absorbed and the bulghar is tender but still with some bite. (you may need to add a little extra water or drain any excess off.
• Heat a large frying pan with 2tbsp olive oil, add the onions and cook on low until completely soft. Add the balsamic vinegar, sugar and plenty of seasoning and cook for another 5mins or so until dark, sweet and sticky.
• To assemble the salad, squeeze the lemon juice over the bulghar and add 2-3tbsp olive oil, the garlic and most of the mint and parsley. Stir well and season to taste.
  
• Fold in the spinach and tumble onto a large serving platter. Top with roasted tomatoes, onions and the rest of the herbs.
  

Read more...

Fajitas

Another student recipe, perfect for eating with a big group of friends. Surprisingly healthy, this is ful of veggies and will make a couple of chicken breasts go a really long way. We also had some sliced chillis on the side so you can make it really spicy if you're into that kind of thing...

Thinly sliced chicken breast, marinated in a punchy mix of paprika, ground cumin and ground coriander. Fry it up with lots of sliced onions and peppers. Load this onto your tortilla, top with some grated cheese, guacamole, a fresh and zesty salsa and a big dollop of soured cream (or yoghut). Then roll it up and stuff it into your mouth - be prepared for a bit of a mess.


Ingredients

Chicken
2 chicken breasts, sliced
1 tsp ground corriander
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp paprika
2 onions, sliced
2 red peppers, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 chilli, finely chopped

Guacamole
1 avocado
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 lime
2tbsp yoghurt

Tomato salsa
200g cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 red onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cucumber, finely chopped
1/2 bunch coriander, chopped
1 lime
1tbsp olive oil

To serve:
200g grated cheese
1 small pot soured cream
8 tortillas, warm

• Put the chicken in a freezer bag and sprinkle over the spices.Close the bag, massage the spices into the meat and leave whilst you prepare the rest of the vegetables. Ideally, you'd leave it overnight to marinate in the fridge.
• Heat a large frying pan with a little oil, add the peppers, onions, garlic and chilli and cook over a high heat until softened.
• Remove from the pan and add the chicken, cook for 5 mins or so until browned. Add the onions and peppers back to the pan and cook for another few mins. Season well.
• For the guacamole, scoop the flesh out of the avocado and mash well, add the garlic, juice from the lime and yoghurt and stir well. Season well.
• For the salsa, simply mix the tomato, onion, cucumber, coriander and garlic together, squeeze over the lime juice, drizzle over the olive oil, season with salt and pepper and stir well.

Read more...

Lovely Roast Chicken

The simplest things in life are often the best. A classic roast chicken, one of the easiest things to make, yet so tasty and comforting. Of course, I always buy the best quality I can and eek out the whole chicken to get as many meals as possible. See these tips from Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and River Cottage.

I roasted it up on Sunday in plenty of herby, garlicky butter and we feasted on it with some roast butternut squash and cauliflower cheese (see below). Then came the messy part, I pulled off every last shred of meat for use in a vietnamese(ish) chicken salad, and the scraps will go into a soup with various odds and ends from the veg box. The carcass and giblets can then go into a pot for several hours with a carrot, onion and some bay to become a thick and wobbly stock. Of course, more often than not, I don't exactly feel like making stock late on a Sunday night, so I chuck the bones in the freezer, ready to make a big batch at a later date.

Ingredients

Serves 4

1 free-range or organic chicken at room temperature
50g soft butter
2 fat cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 handful herbs such as sage, thyme, rosemary, marjoram
1 lemon

• Remove any trussing and giblets from the bird, give it a quick rinse inside and out, pat dry and place in a large roasting tin.
• Make two slices in the thighs all the way to the bone, this will allow the bird to cook more evenly so you end up with succulent breast meat and tender thighs.
• Put the butter in a bowl with the garlic, herbs, salt and pepper and the zest of the lemon. squish th emixture together with your fingers.
• Gently prize the skin away from the breast so you're left with a gap, squeeze half you butter in between and rub it all over the breast. Smear the remainder over the thighs. Cut the lemon in half, squeeze a little over the bird and put the rest in the cavity.
• Place in the middle of a hot oven for 30 mins until the skin begins to crispen, now turn it down to 180C and cook for a further 40mins.
• You can tell the chicken is done by poking a knife into the chicken where the thigh joins the breast; the juices released should run clear.
• Take the bird out and allow to rest for 20-30mins before carving.

Read more...

Triple Decker Club Sandwich

These are inspired the by The delightful Rose in Oxford, in fact just looking for a link to the website is making me drool. Many mornings, lunches and afternoons have been happily spent here drinking vanilla tea, eating scones and everything else. It's all organic, made from scratch and outrageously good.

The club sandwich is legendary, layers of chicken oozing with mayonnaise and avocado, crispy bacon, lettuce and tomato. A heart attack on a plate, maybe. The best way to start the weekend, definitely. This is my version - I like to secure the little triangles with cocktail sticks not just for looks, this helps hold the entire creation together. For next time I'm planning on having this with a handful of crisps to wedge into the sandwich, a guilty pleasure if you will.

Ingredients

Makes 2 rather large sandwiches

6 slices bread
150g cooked chicken, shredded
2 tomatoes, sliced
6 rashers streaky bacon
1 avocado
2 tbsp mayonnaise
handful lettuce, shredded

• Toast your bread. Meanwhile cook the bacon in a frying pan until golden and crispy.
  
• Cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and scoop out the flesh. Mash in bowl with a little salt and pepper, and 1tbsp mayonnaise.
• To assemble the sandwiches spread half the avocado onto one slice of bread and top with half the chicken and another slice of bread. Top this with half the bacon, tomatoes and lettuce. Spread half the mayonnaise onto the third slice of bread and complete. Repeat for the other sandwich.

Read more...

Marinaded chicken salad à la Kat

This is a 'guest blog' if you will from my good friend Kat, a fellow food fanatic, although a job in the city means daily blogging (and cooking!) isn't really feasible...

I invited a friend over for lunch, and, excited at the thought of a girly lunch images of chocolate, wine and generally debauchery, maybe even cheese, went through my mind... alas! Not so! My lunchtime guest requests a healthy light lunch, due to a colonic irrigation session later that day. Hmmm. Neither sounds appealing for a Sunday.

However, I decided to make a marinaded chicken salad - making the chicken by throwing the marinade into the blender took seconds, and meant that I had it almost taken care of before I went out on Saturday night. That was appealing.

This chicken would be excellent with a more simple salad, perhaps with potatoes in there too, or perhaps make a basic pasta tomato sauce and throw the cooked chicken on top at the last minute for a quick pasta dinner.

My secret to the best flavour is a really hot pan (my long suffering boyfriend has to keep reaching up to turn off the smoke alarm whenever I cook!) as this really makes the meat delicious.


Marinaded chicken salad a la Kat - Serves 2

1 large free range chicken breast

For the marinade:

3 sundried tomatoes

1 tsp paprika (smoked if possible)

½ lemon juiced

1 fat garlic clove

some fresh herbs - I used corriander

1 squirt tomatoe puree

For the salad:

½ bunch asparagus

2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes, cut in half

2 handfuls of green beans or mange tout

A courgette

1 handful spinach leaves

1 carrot, grated

Some more fresh herbs to taste

½ lemon, juiced

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Add the marinade ingedients to a small blender, and whizz together until they form a paste.Slice the chicken breast into a few slices (ideally about 6-8), and put into a freezer bag. Add the marinade paste and carefully squidge it around with the chicken, trying to coat it as much as possible.

Tie up the freezer bag and leave in the fridge (you don't have to do this bit, but it tastes sooo much better if you do) for a few hours or overnight.

When ready to make the salad - remove the chicken from the fridge. Have a big pan of water heating up (with the lid on!!) ready to blanche the beans/mange tout and asparagus. Meanwhile, chop the courgette into slices, and pop in a hot pan with a dash of oil to lightly cook. Peel and grate the carrot, halve the cherry tomatoes. Wash the spinach leaves and place in two bowls, and scatter the grated carrot on top. Cook the asaparagus for a couple of minutes in the boiling water before adding the mange tout/green beans - how cooked you like them is up to you, but I reckon 2 mins for mange tout and 2-4 for green beans. they should look bright green still.

Meanwhile heat up a large frying pan and add a dash of oil to coat. Lay the chicken slices in, and cook on a high heat until looking crispy (and no longer pink in the middle if you want to check) - should take about 2-3 mins each side. Arrange the mange tout/beans, asparagus and courgette on top of your spinach and carrot, and the cooked chicken. For a quick dressing, whisk together some 4 tbs olive oil, juice of half a lemon and 2 tbs balsamic with 1tbs water. Voila!

Read more...