Earl Grey Tea Smoked Chicken Breast

OK so I'm a little late for Chinese New Year but I wanted to get my Valentines post out last weekend so anyone that wanted to had time to make the cookies for their sweety - maybe you can make this for them for dinner and then give the cookies as dessert?

Anyway, this is a very simple recipe - don't let the whole smoking thing scare you. You need to have a window open and an extractor on if possible, and if you are making this for your hot date I would suggest smoking it earlier in the day and re-heating it wrapped in foil in the oven just before serving - then you can get changed and perfume yourself up again so you don't smell like a smokehouse.


Remember to double layer your foil and try to seal it as well as poissible so the least amount of smoke possible escapes. You could use any kind of black tea you like, I am a big Earl Grey fan so used that but I have had salmon smoked with lapsang souchong too which was very lovely. I'd like to try langoustines cooked in this method soon too.

As you can see I've served the chicken with a little salad but it's very nice over rice too with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and finely chopped nori seaweed sheet. I get these little sachets of rice seasoning from my local chinese which had sesame seeds, shreds of nori and some chicken/seafood/vegetable flavoured salt that you just mix in.


Earl Grey Tea Smoked Chicken Breast
Serves 2

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp mirin / rice wine
1 tsp five spice
2 tbsp earl grey tea leaves
3 tbsp rice (any kind)
1 tbsp sugar

You will also need a good amount of tin foil, a wok and a steamer basket that will fit inside it.

Method
Place your chicken breasts into a dish or plastic bag and pour in the soy sauce, rice vinegar, mirin and five spice. Make sure all the chicken is covered and then put in the fridge to marinate for at least one hour.

When ready to cook remove the chicken from the fridge and set to one side. Now line the bottom of your wok with a double layer of tin foil big enough to overlap the rim by a good 2 inches. Sprinkle in the tea leaves, rice and sugar and then put in the steamer basket. Now turn the hob on to high heat.

Pat the chicken breasts dry with some kitchen roll and then cut each one lengthways into two pieces. When the tea and rice starts to smoke, arrange the chicken evenly on the steamer and then cover the wok with another double layer of tin foil, rolling it in with the overlap from the bottom layer to seal in the smoke.

Cook for 12 minutes and them remove from the heat, open up and cut into one of the chicken pieces to see if it is cooked. If not, just seal the pan up again and smoke for a little longer until it is.

Slice the cooked chicken into thin pieces and serve any way you wish.

Nancy's Best Nachos With Mexican Pulled Chicken and Gaucamole

Well I don't know about your part of the world, but in mine it is feeling thoroughly Autumnul. It's dark now when I get up and dusky when I'm leaving work, and there's a sharp chill in the wind, not to mention the onflux of rain we have been hit with.

All these combined mean that now is comfort food season. I want big hot bowls of soup for lunch and carb-tastic tummy warming meals for dinner, and I want them to include some of my favourite fall flavours - pumpkin and squash, ginger, cranberries, apples, carrots and parsnips and nuts of all kinds just to mention a few.

Another of my favourite things to eat when the weather has turned brisk and grey is chilli, it warms you up from the inside out and has even been shown to promote a feeling of wellbeing, which is especially useful in a season where less sun = less vitmain d to keep your spirits up.

Now I can't stand anything too hot, I am a bit of a chilli whuss in all truth - I like the flavour of chilli more than the heat, and I think South American cooking does this the best. Mexican recipes often use dried chillies which are then soaked in hot water and usually blended into sauces or moles (no not the snuffly grey animal) which can have many many ingredients - as is often in foody cultures families have there own recipes which are handed down and are often a closely guarded secret.

Trying to decide what to make from the wide range of Mexican dishes was a tough one, so I tried to think of what I like to do when the weather turns that involve food and then it came to me - I love to cosy up on the sofa with Pete and Cleo eating something delicious and watching movies.

So what do you eat while watching movies, other than popcorn and naughty big bags of chocolates? Nachos! I know the ones at the cinema are foul, drippy plastic cheese and 'salsa' that looks like runny jam (bleugh!) but these babies will knock your socks off and are really not difficult or that time consuming to make. Of course they are pretty calorific (cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips...) but they are the perfect occasional treat for a movie night in with your friends.

Nancy's Best Nachos With Mexican Pulled Chicken and Gaucamole
Serves 4

Mexican Pulled Chicken Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
2 small or 1 large red onion, sliced into thin rings
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 red chilli, seeds removed and diced very small
2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
pinch of salt and ground black pepper
2 large chicken breasts, skin removed
1 x 142g can of tomato puree
the juice of half a lime

Guacamole Ingredients
2 ripe avocados, diced
1/2 red chilli, seeds removed and diced very small
2 tbsp finely chopped coriander
the juice of half a lime

Nacho Ingredients
1 1/2 bags of slightly salted tortilla chips
100g grated mozzarella
100g grated cheddar
1 x 150ml tub sour cream
2 spring onions, finely chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped coriander

Mexican Pulled Chicken Method
Fry the onions, garlic and diced chilli in the olive oil in a deep pan over a medium heat for two minutes, then add the paprika, cumin, oregano and s&p and cook for a further few minutes until softened and starting to crisp up slightly.

Add the two chicken breasts and cook until they are coloured all over, then add the tomato puree and pour on enough water to just cover the chicken. Put a lid on the pot and cook on medium high heat for 35-45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and tender.

Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside for a moment. Turn the heat down to medium and continue to cook the sauce while you pull the chicken. This is done by taking two forks and literally pulling apart the meat so it looks shredded.

When the sauce has reduced by half add the chicken back to the pan and stir until everything is covered. Set aside and start to build your nachos.

Nacho Construction
Preheat the oven to 200 C / 400 F.

Spread the tortilla chips on a deep sided baking tray and then cover with the pulled chicken. Now take the two cheese and sprinkle them over the top so everything is evenly covered.

Bake the nachos for ten minutes until they are warmed through and the cheese is melted.

Gaucamole Method
Do this while the nachos are baking - just mix all the ingredients together and leave to one side for the flavours to develop for a few minutes.

Final Nacho Construction
Spread the soured cream over the hot nachos and then pour over the guacamole before sprinkling over the spring onions and coriander.

Serve with a cold Mexican beer and a good movie!

Notes
This pulled chicken can be used for many more recipes and is a great weeknight standby. Serve it in buns a la pulled pork sandwiches, roll into flour tortillas like a fajita, stir through some pasta or use in place of mince in a Mexican style lasagna.

The chicken can also be made in advance which would mean making these when guests are coming over would be a doddle - you'd just need the ten minutes of cheese melting and sauce daubing and you're there! Just keep the chicken refirgerated in an air-tight container, but use within a day of cooking - you can't be too careful with poultry.

Feel free to use different cheeses in this recipe too, I just used what I had on hand - the mozzarella is always good as you get the 'stringy' factor and it's nice and creamy against the tomatoey chicken.

Creamy Chicken and Fennel with Handmade Garlic Roasted Gnocchi

Fennel is a new obsession of mine, although to be honest I am yet to do anything more adventurous with it than roast it or use it in this very recipe. I love love love the fresh aniseedy taste, such an unusual flavour for a savoury dish but such a wonderful one that I have loved since first trying it back in February on Pete and I's first anniversary. It is that meal that this dish is loosely based around - a chicken breast stuffed with a mushroom duxelle and wrapped in parma ham, served with roasted sweet potatoes and a creamy white wine and fennel sauce.

We had gone to dinner at a Loughborough restaurant called Browns Lane which I have been going to under it's several different names for about the last ten years. It has always been amazing, and I suggest if you live in Charnwood you check it out one lunch or dinner time. I think it is very reasonably priced for the quality of food you are served and the decor is nice and simple, the eating area being on the first floor while there is a bar (that serves lovely cocktails) on the ground. I like it so much that as I have organised my work's Christmas party this year I have arranged for it to be there. This festive season will most definately be full of deliciousness!

Back to this recipe however, I am aware that quite a lot of people don't like fennel. If this is the case in your household then either replace it with just 50g of finely chopped celery or leave it out altogether. It will still taste heavenly. I'm pretty sure you'd have to try very hard to make garlic, cream and chicken taste bad. I'd like to think my recipes are more like blueprints for you to amend as you please - that's the real joy of cooking after all.

The little potatoey 'dumplings' are fab with this dish, soaking up the velvety sauce and acting like tiny little garlic breads! I know it seems like a lot of work to make the gnocchi them from scratch but it's not hard at all. Two ingredients! That's all! And a little kneading never hurt anyone, or gentle fork squashing! But I suppose if you really don't want to do it you could just use the store bought variety, just make your own next time OK?

Creamy Chicken and Fennel with Handmade Garlic Roasted Gnocchi
Serves 2 greedy, or 3 less greedy people as a main course

Garlic Roasted Gnocchi Ingredients
500g waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into roughly 2 inch chunks
200g good quality plain flour, preferably Italian 00
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
2 fairly big cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil

Creamy Chicken and Fennel Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large red onion, sliced into short thin lengths
100g fennel, sliced into short thin lengths

10 fresh sage leaves
2 large chicken breasts, cut into fairly small chunks
3 tbsp white wine
1 chicken stock cube
70g chestnut mushrooms, cut into fairly small chunks
150ml double cream

Garlic Roasted Gnocchi Method
Preheat the oven to 200 C / 400 F.

Place the potatoes into a large pot of boiling water and cook until just tender - when you push a knife into one you want it to go in with very little give and for the potato to not fall apart - this took ten minutes for me. Remove from the heat and drain well, then either push through a potato ricer or mash until very very smooth - lumps will be very apparent in the gnocchi.

Leave them to cool for a few minutes and then add the flour, salt and pepper and mix together. When it is combined place it on to a floured surface and knead for a few minutes until it has come together well and has a more dough like consistency. Next divide the ball into four and roll each one into a long sausage shape that is about 2cm thick, before cutting into 2.5cm lengths and pressing a fork gently into each one to create four indents. Set these aside in a bowl while you bring a large pan of salty water to the boil.

Boil the gnocchi in batches being careful not to overcrowd the pan so they don't stick together. The gnocchi are cooked when they float to the surface of the water. Remove them from the pan and let dry out a little on some kitchen towel. When they have all been boiled and dried off place them in a deep sided baking tray and pour over the olive oil and crushed garlic, then mix gently so as not to break them up and put them in the oven to cook while you make the cremay chicken. They will take anywhere between 20-30 minutes depending on your oven heat - you want them golden and crispy, it helps to give them a stir every ten minutes or so.

Creamy Chicken and Fennel Method
Heat the olive oil in a large deep frying pan and then cook off the onion and fennel for a few minutes until they become slightly translucent, then add the sage leaves and cook for a further 3-4 minutes.

Next add the diced chicken and cook until it is coloured all over and no more raw pink meat is visible before adding the white wine and crumbling over the stock cube. Give everything a good stir and then add the chopped mushrooms. Let them soften for a minute or so before stirring them in and cooking for another 7 or 8 minutes until the chicken is cooked through - check by cutting a piece in half and making sure it is white all the way through. Now pour over the double cream and raise the heat slightly, cooking for another 5-10 minutes while stirring frequently so the sauce thickens a bit.

By now the gnocchi should be roasted so plate it up, then pour over the lovely creamy chicken concoction and enjoy!

Notes
I used red Rooster potatoes for this recipe as they are pretty waxy and have a lovely flavour. They're currently my favourite spud!

I think this recipe would also work really well with pork chunks instead of the chicken. Pork and sage is a great combination. Adding a little apple to the sauce would be lovely too I think.

Once again, I would not condone eating this regularly - so much starch and cream is really not good for you, but once in a while in moderation I'd say it's alright to treat yourself to something delicious and calorific! It's a very rich dish too, so I don't think I could eat it regularly if I tried!!!

Garlic and Lemon Thyme Roasted Chicken and Purple Sprouting Broccoli Calzone

I'm fussy when it comes to pizza. I need a thin crust and good quality toppings, thick doughy bases and too much pizza sauce with a smattering of bad quality mozzarella are not to my liking. We need a good pizza place here ASAP, Loughborough is home to far too many lame take-out dives serving foam based doner kebab topped abominations. But we shall leave such disgusting thoughts behind us and move on to the good stuff...

I find vegetarian toppings much more to my liking on pizzas, lots of light elements rather than strong spicy meats so you can taste each ingredient as well as a light well thrown base. Don't worry, I'm not asking you to throw your pizza bases for this recipe, I'm pretty sure if I had tried we would have ended up with a cat running around the flat in a ghost-like costume made of dough. Never a good thing.

What is a good thing however, is the whole premise of a pasty style pizza. A crisp outer shell with a softer inner edge that gives way to a generous pile of cheesy tomatoey goodness. In this recipe I have used chicken and broccoli, purple stemmed broccoli to be exact - lots of subtle flavours that you make sing with a wonderful herb combination of lemon thyme and oregano. Roasting the chicken and broccoli is also a great flavour intensifier and removes the extra moisture which would produce the awful result of a soggy calzone.

You will get either two very large or four medium calzones from this recipe. Pete and I shared one large calzone and I would suggest serving it with a sharply lemon and oil dressed salad and a smile.

Garlic and Lemon Thyme Roasted Chicken and Purple Sprouting Broccoli Calzone
Serves 4

Pizza Dough Ingredients
325ml water, luke warm
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp caster sugar, preferably golden
1 x 7g sachet of dried yeast
500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp salt, finely ground

Creamy Ricotta Pizza Sauce Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
2 medium red onions, diced small
2 tsp dried oregano
6 medium-large vine ripened tomatoes, diced small
200g ricotta cheese (one standard size pot)

Filling Ingredients
170g pancetta, diced very small
2 tbsp olive oil
200g purple sprouting broccoli, cut into 1-2 inch pieces
500g chicken breast, cut into 1.5 inch chunks
4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
3 tbsp lemon thyme leaves, freshly pulled from the sprigs
3 tbsp parmesan, finely grated
300g mozzarella, grated

Pizza Dough Method
In a jug or bowl mix the water, olive oil, sugar and yeast well and set to one side for a few minutes to 'come alive' while you place the sifted flour into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the yeasty mixture into the well and stir together with a fork gradually incorporating the flour. When it starts to come together place the dough onto a clean and floured surface and knead it until you have a springy, smooth dough - this should only take a minute or so. Place this into a floured bowl, sprinkle the top of the dough ball with more flour and cover with a damp clean tea towel. Set this aside in a warmish place to rise for about an hour, it will pretty much double in size.

Pizza Sauce Method
Preheat the oven to 200 C / 400 F.

Heat the olive oil in a deep non stick pan and add the diced onions. Cook for 2-3 minutes and then sprinkle over the dried oregano. Cook for another 2-3 minutes, add the diced tomatoes and stir well. Cook on medium high heat for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes have melted down into mush and you have a fairly thick sauce. Turn off the heat and leave to cool for 5 minutes before mixing in the ricotta cheese. Leave this off the heat to cool while you roast your fillings.

Filling Method
Place all the ingredients into a roasting tray and mix around so everything is coated with the oil, then cook in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, stirring halfway through the cooking time.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for ten minutes. Pour onto a chopping board and dice everything down into roughly 1cm chunks, cover and leave to cool completely.

Building The Calzone
Remove your risen dough from it's bowl and knead again on a clean floured surface. Give it some welly and punch it about a bit this time to get the elasticity going, then cut into either two or four chunks depending on how many calzone you are making.

Roll the chunks of dough out into rough circles that are about half a cm thick. Place one onto a baking sheet and slather it with a good layer of the creamy tomato sauce. Sprinkle over some of the parmesan and then pile up some of your filling covering only one half of the base. Cover that with a good layer of grated mozzarella and then fold the non-topped side over the top of the fillings and press down around the edges to seal it closed.

Repeat until you have all your calzones made and then bake in the still preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until they are crispy and just starting to go golden. If you have any of the sauce left, heat it up gently in a pan and serve alongside the calzones to dip your crispy crust edges into.

Notes
Please do use purple sprouting broccoli if you can get it, it has a more pronounced flavour and less water content than the bog standard green stuff.

The creamy tomato and ricotta sauce in this recipe is a good staple to have in your repertoire - use it as a sauce for pasta, pour it over chicken breasts and top with cheese and breadcrumbs before baking or even use it cold in a sandwich as an extra spreading of delicious moisture.

I know it seems like a lot of effort, but homemade pizzas are always so much better than any take away or premade thing you could buy. Even if you only make them once a year as a treat you should give these babies a go.

Chicken and Chorizo Stew

So obviously, I like to cook. It relaxes me, makes me feel accomplished when I come up with new recipes and improvements to existing recipes... and then you get to eat. Eating is good. Yes.

But sometimes after a long day at work, I'll get home and think 'Bleugh... I really can't be bothered to cook tonight'. Now I'm not saying that I never buy ready meals, as I am usually on some form of diet I do get low fat frozen meals but they never taste great and they have all those nasty little additives and preservatives and colourings in that we could all definitely do without. So the solution to this? Make your own ready meals!

This is quite a big thing around the blog community at the minute, there are lots of OAMC (Once A Month Cooking) recipes and planning tools popping up all over the place. I'm not that dedicated to the cause, most nights I do like to get home and potter about in the kitchen cooking up dinner listening to some good tunes or one of my many, many, MANY Vincent Price radio recordings. However, I know a lot of people have much harder jobs than I and spending one day cooking up a months worth of meals that will save hours for the rest of the month will be very appealing to them, so here is a recipe to add to the plan.

Chicken and Chorizo Stew
Makes around six 250g portions

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
300g onions, cut into fairly large chunks
3 medium cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
225g chorizo sausage
400g mixed coloured peppers, cut into around 1" chunks
800g chicken, cut into around 1.5" chunks
Large pinch of Maldon salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
150ml single cream
1 chicken stock cube
400ml boiling water
2 tbsp cornflour

Large soup/stew pot or casserole dish
Six foil food containers with card lids
Permanent marker

Method
Fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil on a medium heat until soft and then add the chorizo and cook for a further five minutes - the chorizo will release its fat and tint the onion a lovely orange colour.

Tip in the mixed peppers and fry for another five minutes, then add the chicken and cook until the chicken is coloured all over. Season with the salt, white pepper, cayenne and smoked paprika and let cook for ten minutes stirring quite often before adding the cream and mixing thoroughly.

Dissolve the stock cube in the boiling water and add to the pot, stir well and turn the heat down to medium low. When the pot comes to a strong simmer stir again and leave to cook through for 30 minutes. You want there to be a good amount of liquid left and it will seem quite watery - you now stir in 2 tbsp cornflour to thicken the sauce, mixing well so you don't get any lumps.

When combined, take off the heat and leave to cool for half an hour. Decant the stew into the food containers and mark on them the date that it will be in one month - this is your use by date.

Leave to cool completely and then freeze. To reheat straight from frozen place the container on a baking tray and cook at 160 C / 320 F for 45 minutes. Serve over rice or pasta or for a more special meal with some cheesy roasted potatoes.

Notes
I get my foil containers from Wilkos, they come in packs of ten for about a pound.

If you don't like spice, just leave out the cayenne pepper - the smoked paprika doesn't add heat, just a smoky sweet flavour that emphasises the chorizo really well.

This could easily be made vegetarian - I think replacing the chicken with mushrooms, aubergine pieces, tofu or sweet potato would work wonderfully.

The meats could also be changed, pork should work well as would a fairly firm fleshed fish such as monkfish or even some nice big prawns.

Please don't forget to write the use by date on the containers, we don't want anyone getting ill from eating a nice dish of year old zombified stew!!!