CHICK'N, BAKER STREET

Chick n Sours, in Covent Garden (and originally Stoke Newington) is hands down my favourite place to go for fried chicken in London. Top quality meat from free range, happy chickens is juicy and crunchy and doused in spicy, tangy vinegar based sauces, and served with pickles and watermelon and smacked cucumbers. Heaven. So imagine my joy to find out that the geniuses behind Chick n Sours, Carl and David, had a new trick up their a sleeves. A fast food joint, serving burgers, wings, chips doused in melty cheese, spicy slaws, lettuce covered in blue cheese and all the other delicious bits and bobs, a mere 10 minutes bus ride from my flat..... uh oh! 

Chik'n is just as I said - fast food, but the very best version of fast food you can possibly imagine. Higher welfare chicken is fried in rapeseed oil (no trans fat and lots of Omega 3 = as healthy as you can get when it comes to deep frying), which is all recycled after being used for frying. In fact, the whole restaurant is run super responsibly, with staff on proper wages, care of duty when sourcing ingredients and getting rid of rubbish, and prices start at £4.95 for the straight up chicken burger (which comes with lettuce, buttermilk and herb mayo, and pickles). And I can't be the only one who thinks these are all good things - there's been a queue pouring out the door every time I've gone past, but the queue moves quickly, so don't let that put you off!

Over a couple of visits I've now worked my way through the majority of the menu. The Chik'n Tiki Sandwich, with hot sauce, buttermilk mayo, pineapple, bacon and cheese is amazing. It's all the things a chicken burger should be - so juicy and zingy, with good crunch and all held together by a burger that stands up to its contents. Then there are the burger options with some or various of the components of the Tiki, plus extras, my favourite being the Chik'n Hot - Sriracha sour cream, lettuce and spicy slaw.

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THE HOLY BIRDS, SPITALFIELDS

I feel like a lot of my eating out in London recently has revolved around specific types of meat. A few weeks ago I was at The Holy Birds, who specialise in poultry and game birds, and last week I went to SMITHS of Smithfield, in Cannon Street for a night of steak options. Both of which were actually pretty good, despite my initial doubts about eating out in The City.

The Holy Birds is a super retro restaurant in between Liverpool Street Station and Brick Lane, just south of Spitalfields market. We headed there from TT Liquor (blog on that to follow) and settled down with some delicious cocktails - a rum punch for him and an excellent whisky sour for me. The cocktail list at The Holy Birds is long, all encompassing and really good value - £9.50 for the very punchy punch, and the same for my whisky fizz.

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CHICK N SOURS, COVENT GDN

I'm the first to admit I'm not a natural photographer, but I can normally get an ok shot of dishes I want to tell you about. With some exceptions. Including these. Normally I wouldn't bother writing up a review when my photos are so terrible, but I can't not tell you about Chick n Sours new site in Covent Garden. So bear with me and my dark and dingy photos! I reckon you should go to the restaurant and see (and taste) the food for yourself!

I've been a fan of Carl Clarke's food for a good few years now, and have reviewed pop ups he's done before, and interviewed the man himself, so I'm not quite sure how I've never made it to his first Chick n Sours site in Stoke Newington (maybe it's the fact it's about 90 minutes away from where I live). Anyway, he's now opened a second site in Covent Garden, and I headed there with Lucy to right the wrongs of not having tried this ridiculously good food yet.

Cocktails are a very good place to start in the basement room that is Chick n Sours new site. The "Sours" part of the name refers not only to the vinegar laced marinades and pickles in the dishes, but also to the sour cocktails, which we tried most of. The winner for me was the Earlham Zombie, made with white, dark and overproof rums, absinthe, orange, grapefruit, passion fruit and citrus. I'd say you probably don't want more than one of these if you want to walk home in a straight line, but that's no fun, so you might as well get stuck in! And you'll eat so much food that it should absorb some of the booze anyway.

So, food. Lucy and I like to sample as much as humanly possible so ate waaaay more than we should! But it's all so good I can't really say there's any dishes worth missing. Just go hungry and wear your stretchy trousers. And start with the sticky disco wings, which are coated in a tangy, spicy sauce that clings to the wings and is lip lickingly good. 

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COCOTTE, WESTBOURNE GROVE

If you want finger lickin, healthy chicken I've got just the spot for you. Earlier this year Cocotte was opened in Westbourne Grove by a group of Parisian friends who lamented the lack of healthy rotisserie chicken joints in London. In Paris they're a common occurrence, but not so much in London as KFC and deep fried everything seems to take precedence. So Ziad, Capucine, Eglantine and Romain (who created all the recipes) set up shop and have been dishing up their delicious chicken dishes in the their restaurant (and via Deliveroo) since. Cocotte source all their chickens from a free range farm in La Chapelle d'Andaine in France and then marinade them for 24 hours in their secret herb and spice blend before cooking them on the rotisserie.

Hazel and I popped in on a rainy Monday to eat all the chicken and have a catch up. The menu is short and sweet - you can get a whole (£22), half (£12) or quarter (£7) rotisserie cooked, juicy and tasty chicken with a variety of homemade sauces including garlic mayo, BBQ, Cocotte mustard, chicken gravy, spicy, green or truffle mayo, all of which are £1. Sides range from the healthy - The Nathalie salad (kale, roasted yellow pepper, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, sesame, lime juice, walnut oil and tahini) and the Nini's (broccoli, broad beans, green beans, basil, olive oil, mushrooms and lemon dressing), to the not-so-healthy but bloomin' delicious mac n cheese. We shared a half chicken with the spicy sauce and truffle mayo, a mac n cheese and the The Nini's salad with extra avocado, which was more than enough for two of us. The chicken was expertly cooked and seasoned and the sauces were spot on. Gooey mac n cheese and a bowlful of green goodness was all we needed to go with it.

Cocotte is light and lovely inside, and perfect for either a quick pit stop and bite to eat or a more leisurely meal with mates, sharing one of everything with some cocktails on the side. They're open from midday til 10pm every day so next time you're craving really good rotisserie chicken why not head to Cocotte?

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CHOOKS, EALING

I love finding a restaurant in an area I know really well that I haven't found before. I used to pass through Ealing several times a week, bemoaning the lack of good eateries there. There's a few, but the majority of them I'd give a miss. Recently Chooks got in touch to see if I'd like to try out their new extended menu and I assumed they were a new addition to the area, but apparently they've been there a while - at least since I used to spend time in Ealing. Intrigued to check it out I headed down there with Bron a few weeks ago for a chicken themed feast! Chooks is renowned for marinating and grilling buttermilk chicken, but they've added to their menu and now serve brunch and more healthy options (not that we necessarily went for all of those!)

We started with cocktails which were fine - too cold and not quite strong enough, I've had better (I'd stick to beer or wine if you go) then moved on to the main event. We were hungry and wanted to sample as much as possible...

Starting with Nachos to nibble on while we perused the rest of the menu. The nachos were great - a good amount of all the toppings and still nice and crunchy underneath.

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ROAST JERK CHICKEN & GREEN RICE

It's that time of year when people are thinking more about what they're eating, and maybe following a stricter diet, but that doesn't need to mean we have to cut out all the tasty things. This recipe for roast jerk chicken with "green" rice is so easy to follow and makes enough for 5-6 people, so it's a great option to cook if you've got a few people over for dinner or for a weekend lunch. It's on the healthier side, as I've used wholegrain basmati and wild rice (which is higher in protein than regular rice and has 30 times the amount of antioxidants) but it's still seriously delicious.

Serves 5-6

1 large free range chicken
1 x 330ml can beer
2 tbsp. Groovy Food High Five Oil (a blend of organic virgin cold pressed blend of camelina, avocado, virgin olive, oleic sunflower and toasted sesame seed oils which provides essential omega acids 3, 6 and 9 and Vitamin E)
1 tsp sea salt
1 jar Encona Jamaican Jerk Marinade

300g wholegrain basmati and wild rice (or you could just use wild rice, or red camargue rice)
Handful of greens beans
Bunch of spring onions
Bunch of coriander
2 red chillies
Encona Peruvian Amarillo Chilli Sauce

Preheat the oven to 220C. Rub the chicken all over with the high five oil then sprinkle with salt. Empty (drink) half the can of beer then place the chicken open end down over the beer can and put the whole thing on a roasting tray. Roast the chicken in the oven for 50 minutes. After this time, take the chicken out and spread the jar of jerk marinade over the chicken. I used a pastry brush to do this but if you don't have one you can spread it on with a knife. Put the chicken back in the oven for 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the chicken.

Once you've added the marinade to the chicken and put it back in the oven, put your rice on to cook - rinse the rice then cover with double the amount of water and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook according to packet instructions (30 mins for the type of rice I used). During this time, finely chop the green beans, spring onions, coriander and red chilli.

Once the chicken is done (insert a skewer and check that the juices that run out are clear and not pink) remove from the oven, carefully take the chicken off the beer can, cover the chicken with foil and leave on a plate to rest for 10-15 minutes. Put the sauces from the chicken, and the beer from the can, into a saucepan, scoop the layer of fat off the top, and heat the gravy til it's boiling and reduced by half.

Drain the rice and add all the chopped greens beans and half of the spring onions and coriander. Cover the pan with foil til you're ready to eat.

Carve the chicken up into chunks and top the pile of meat with the remaining spring onions and coriander, and the chopped chilli.

Serve with the green rice, gravy and some Amarillo chilli sauce on the side.

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BUFFALO CHICKEN WINGS & BLUE CHEESE SAUCE

Apparently one in four of us book holidays based on the food we'll eat while we're there, which makes a lot of sense - I wouldn't want to be away for a week or two without being able to eat good food. I think often the best food you get while you're on holiday is the really authentic food, and that which is made using fresh, local ingredients. Travel Supermarket think the same, and recently hosted a street food challenge where five street food vendors battled it out to be crowned champion holiday street food stall. Competitors made dishes from France, Italy, The Seychelles, Sri Lanka and America. I was asked to recreate one of these recipes at home and picked the New York style wings from Orange Buffalo. This is my version of their recipe (as always!)

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A LOT ON HER PLATE - BY ROSIE BIRKETT

A few weeks ago I received a very special delivery - Rosie Birkett's new cookbook, A Lot on her Plate. Rosie is a food writer and stylist and has written for The Guardian, Olive Magazine, Grazia, The Sunday Times and loads more top publications, as well as her own blog, but this is her first solo book. And what a book it is. A Lot on her Plate is full of incredible recipes and beautiful images shot by Helen Cathcart. The book has chapters on breakfasts and brunches, starters, small plates, bigger plates and super suppers, feasts for friends, salads, desserts and drink, and essentials. The majority of the recipes are of course Rosie's but she's also included family recipes and a couple from some of my favourite restaurants, including Dishoom.

I've been reading through the book and wanted to pick out some star recipes to mention here but I had such a hard time narrowing it down - I honestly could've listed every single recipe. Favourites include a breakfast recipe of cod's roe and sweetcorn fritters with avocado and Sriracha (wow!); bavette carpaccio with crispy capers and mustard mayo; chipotle roast chicken; salted butterscotch popcorn cheesecake (it's a girl after my own hear who puts salted butterscotch in a cheesecake); and cumin brioche buns which I'll be making this weekend. Rosie is passionate about seasonal ingredients and buying good quality produce, and this shines through the book. One of my sweetest parts of the book is in the intro, where she recommends kitchen equipment, ranging from the necessary to the nice-to-have, all with wonderful illustrations.

I've already cooked 1 recipe from A Lot on her Plate, and want to share it with you here - a beautiful chicken, tarragon and mushroom cassoulet that the housemates and I devoured on a week night recently. Make this for you housemates and they'll love you forever!

Serves 4

1 large handful cherry tomatoes
Olive oil
25g butter
1 garlic clove, crushed
3 small shallots, finely chopped
Handful fresh tarragon
100g chanterelles
2 large Portobello mushrooms, sliced
50g chestnut or button mushrooms
Bunch parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp white wine or tarragon vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)
8 free range chicken thighs, skin on (I used a mixture of thighs and drumsticks)
150ml white wine
80g kamalata olives, stones removed
500-700ml chicken stock or water
400g tin of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

Preheat the oven to 180C. Put the tomatoes in a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 mins or until they're concentrated and aromatic.

While the tomatoes are roasting heat a heavy based frying pan and add the butter, garlic and half the shallots and cook for 2 minutes, until they start to soften. Add the tarragon, mushrooms, a pinch of salt and some pepper. Sauté for around 5 minutes, until the mushrooms are tinged golden and start to release their moisture. Transfer to a bowl, stirring in the vinegar and chopped parsley, and remove the tomatoes from the oven.

Return the pan to the heat with 1 tbsp. olive oil. Add the chicken, skin side down, and fry until golden - turning once they are. Once all sides of the chicken are golden, transfer to a plate, add the remaining shallots to the pan and fry for around 4 minutes.

Deglaze the pan with the white wine, making sure you scrape up the crispy bits from the bottom of the pan. Place the chicken back in the pan, with the olives. Pour in the water or stock until it's covering the chicken and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 30-35 minutes.

Add the roasted tomatoes to the chicken pan and stir, then add the cannellini beans. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the mushrooms and simmer for another 7-10 minutes. Garnish with tarragon leaves and serve with crusty bread and a nice green salad.

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A BOWL OF CHICKEN WINGS

I've posted a recipe here before (many years ago) for sticky, spicy chicken wings, but I wanted to put a slightly different, even easier, recipe, as the ones I cooked last night were devoured in minutes - even though there were so many of them!

I love easy dinners that can be whipped up when I get home from work and this is one of them. A little forward planning in the morning and they're even better.

Serves as many as you can share them with

800g free-range, organic chicken wings (I always buy free range anyway but when buying chicken wings, organic is essential - non-organic chickens get injected with drugs and hormones throughout their miserable lives. These drugs and hormones are injected into the wing, where they mostly stay. So if you're eating non-organic wings, then they're full of nasties - just don't!)
3 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp grainy mustard
1 tbsp Worcester sauce
Juice of 1 lemon
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

In the morning, before you got to work, mix the honey, mustard, Worcester sauce, lemon juice, a splash of olive oil and salt and pepper together in a bowl. Add the chicken wings, mix well so they're all coated, cover the bowl and put in the fridge.

When you're ready to eat, preheat the oven to 200C. Once it's reached this heat spread the wings out on a foil covered baking tray, pour the remaining marinade over them, and put the tray in the oven. After 20 minutes of so take them out and pour off 80% of the liquid. Put them back in the oven for another 20 minutes so they have 40 minutes in total.

We ate ours with olive oil mash, and a watercress and avocado salad, but serve them with whatever takes your fancy, or hide in a corner and eat them all to yourself!

 

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#CURRYSINTHEKITCHEN

Last week I was invited to the Underground Cookery School, near Old Street, for a cookery class with 20 other food bloggers, hosted by CurrysPCWorld, for #currysinthekitchen. All week I was wondering what the correlation between a computer shop and a cookery class was (bar the obvious fact that we food bloggers use computers to blog - which I didn't think was the link) but all became obvious when we arrived - CurrysPCWorld now stock kitchen gadgets! Ta-da - the reason we were there!!

Despite my best efforts to arrive cool, calm, collected and on time, I arrived half an hour late, flustered and in my normal state of everything at a million miles an hour. I was greeted by the CurrysPCWorld team, their PRs and the guys who run the cookery school, who had an apron waiting for me, ready to don for our cookery class. Camera out, apron on, I was given a glass of bubbles and told to help myself to trays of arancini, sausage rolls and smoked salmon on biscuits to nibble on before we got busy in the kitchen.

I have to say at this point, that although I had a super fun evening, I was a little disappointed at the level of cookery class we were given - it was all a bit... basic. I didn't learn anything. We were cooking a chicken curry, and a pear soufflé, but lots of the ingredients were pre prepared, due to time constraints, and it was more like a cooking demo than what I'd imagined the cookery class would be like.

We started with the chicken curry, for which we boned and chopped chicken drumsticks, then added various ingredients to the pan, most of which were chopped, mixed and ready made for us. Onion, garlic, ginger and chilli went in, followed by the curry sauce the chefs had made earlier for us, coconut milk, our chopped chicken, and some pre-chopped carrot and potatoes. A quick stir, and we poured it into mini Le Creusets, which went into the oven while we moved onto pudding.

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STICKY BBQ SAUCE

You may have seen the recipe I put up for barbecue sauce a couple of months ago. And while that is still my go to recipe for barbecue sauce, I came up with something at the weekend which is quicker and easier to make, but still tastes really good. You can get a batch of this ready in 20 minutes, and it will keep in a sterilised jar in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

I made this to go with our Big Lunch that I hosted yesterday with Grub Club, and it was the perfect accompaniment to the warm and cold meats, and salads that we ate. I've already had a couple of requests for the recipe so thought I'd put it up here.

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MY FAVORITE BUTCHERS....

I love cooking and eating meat. When I got with the boy, he claimed to be a vegetarian, but a few meat meals cooked by me soon changed that, much to my family's relief (my brother declared that he liked him a lot more now that he knew he wasn't a proper veggie!) That being said, we don't eat meat everyday, as I think it should be a treat, not a staple of our diet. I am also very strict about where the meat we eat comes from. It HAS to be free-range, and ideally organic, although I'm less strict about that, as the regulations to become organic certified are so difficult for farmers to comply with, and often beyond the control of an individual farm.

So, I thought I'd put together a list for you of my favorite UK butchers/meat suppliers. Most of the list are London based, as that's where I am, but there's a couple in there from further afield, and the majority of them also do deliveries.

The list is not in any order of preference - I really like all these butchers.

LONDON:

Wyndham House Butchers

Wyndham House are my local butcher of choice. They have various branches in London; Borough Market (poultry only), Fulham Road and Chiswick High St, which both stock their full range of beef, lamb, pork, poultry, cheeses and pickles and biscuits. As it's close to me, I visit the Chiswick branch most often, and feel like a kid in a sweet shop in there. Not only do they have all the cuts of meat my heart desires, but they make fantastic sausages and burgers that they sell as well. Add to that their fine selection of cheese and it's almost a one stop shop for my food needs!

I am lucky enough to live within delivery distance of Chiswick's Wyndham House, and as long as the order is over £10 then delivery is free. You really can't get better than that!

Wyndham House in Chiswick are at 229 Chiswick High Road. For details of their other branches, go to www.wyndham-house.com.

The Ginger Pig

The Ginger Pig have 5 branches in London; Shepherds Bush, Marylebone, London Bridge, Hackney and Waterloo. All the meat they sell comes from their own farms in Yorkshire. Their London outlets sell beef, pork and lamb, and they do an excellent range of handmade sausages, in flavours like prune and brandy, sage and onion and the more traditional Cumberland. Their handmade pies are also worth sampling!

The Ginger Pig run butchery classes at their Marylebone branch, where for £135 per person you can spend an evening, or Sunday afternoon, learning about how to butcher an animal, how to cook the various cuts, and where the meat comes from. The butchery courses also include a meal, cooked from the meat you've butchered, as well as a very generous piece of meat to take away with you. I think it's great value for what it includes, and you can pick which animal you'd like to do the course on.

For more info on the butchery courses, and details of where to find their shops, visit www.thegingerpig.co.uk. The Ginger Pig do not do deliveries themselves, but they are part of www.hubbub.co.uk - who will collect all your shopping from your local high street and deliver it to your front door!

Allen's of Mayfair

Allen's are based on Mount St in Mayfair, and although it's been a couple of years since I visited their store in person, I can spend hours browsing their website, and particularly their really good value boxes of meat. http://www.allensofmayfair.co.uk/products/selection-boxes. They deliver across London and stock a whole range of raw and smoked meats. Allen's of Mayfair also do butchery courses, for £150, and must be booked with a voucher, that you can purchase online or in store.

Chiswick Farmers Market

Chiswick Farmers Market takes place every Sunday morning from 10am til 2pm, and is on Market Drive, W4 2PX, near Hogarth roundabout. It's a funny little setting for such a great market - tacked on to the side of the market is a Masonian bar...!! But they've got some fantastic produce on sale at the market, and it's definitely worth a visit. They've got beef, lamb and pork from March House Farm - http://www.marchhousefarm.co.uk/, raw, organic milk and cream from Hook and Son - http://hookandson.co.uk/, and poultry from Paul's Poultry.

Details of how to find the market are at http://www.thefoodmarketchiswick.com/.

J Parsons (The Cookery)

J Parsons are on Stoke Newington High Street, and stock all the regular meat you'd expect to find in a good butcher, plus various smoked meats and condiments as well. When I lived in the area I would always go to J Parsons for good value, free range shoulders of lamb. J Parsons are at 113 Stoke Newington High Street.

OUTSIDE LONDON:

Colleton Red Ruby Devon

These are not really butchers as such, but more producers from whom you can order your beef for delivery. Simon and Grania Phillips rear Red Ruby Devon beef on their North Devon farm, where the cows are reared naturally and the meat is then hung for 3 weeks before being sold. They have animals ready throughout the year, and if you email them, then they will let you know when they have meat for sale. You can buy a quarter box (100lbs) or an eighth box (50 lbs), and it costs £4.40 per lb. A standard box contains fillet and rump steaks, sirloin, topside, silverside and rib for roasting, brisket, forequarter and roasting joint for pot roasts, and mince, shank, braising and stewing steak. So if you've got a big freezer, it's a great investment to make! Especially if you have a family to feed.  They also do a smaller BBQ box. Their beef is some of the best I've ever tried.

For contact/ordering details, recipes and more information about their happy cows, go to www.colletonredrubydevon.co.uk.

Oxenpark Farm, Devon

Another Devon farm who supply fantastic meat is Oxenpark Farm. They are a small farm, found just over the Somerset/Devon border, where they rear hardy native breeds of cows, sheep and pigs, as naturally as an animal can be reared. Although they don't have certification, they farm organically, and you can really taste it in the delicious meat they produce.

I recently had a delivery of 2kg beef topside, 2kg of mince and 2kg of braising steak from them, as well as some of their homemade salami, and some trotters and hocks. Including delivery it only came to £75. For a price list, contact the farm at www.oxenparkfarm.com. You can order various size meat boxes from them, or half an animal. They also sell local honey and some delicious looking preserves - I'm going to be ordering their primrose and muscadet jelly and chilli jam made with victoria plums next time, to play about with in recipes. 

Lush's Butchers, Somerset

The local butcher near the village where I grew up had something of a reputation for their fine produce. Lush's in Castle Cary sold locally bred, well cared for meat, and was sure to have a queue out the door pretty much every Saturday morning. However, they have recently closed down, much to many people's dismay. It's not all bad news though. They have announced that they will be opening a farm shop close to where they were based in Castle Cary. They'll soon be opening their farm shop doors at the farm where you turn off the A37, towards Babcary, which isn't far from Podimore roundabout on the A303. 

With such easy access to really well reared and cared for meat, there really is no excuse to be buying wet-aged, vacuum packed meat from supermarkets anymore. 

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COCK N DOODLE WITH MUMMA SCHNITZEL

Last Friday I spent the first vaguely sunny evening of the year on a rooftop in London Bridge. With the last of the sun’s rays shining through, I joined about a hundred others at Mumma Schnitzel’s latest venture. I had heard of Mumma Schnitzel before, as they’ve popped up at various street food events over the past year or so, but I hadn’t actually got round to trying their food myself. I was really impressed!

The Cock-N-Doodle evening was put on by Platterform, who bring food, drink and entertainment together to create pop up food events (www.platterform.com). This time, it was cocktails, Mumma Schnitzel’s chicken and a doodle wall to draw on. Mumma Schnitzel is run by 2 brothers and one of their girlfriends, who are a really lovely bunch. It was really nice to meet not only these chicken wizards, but their mum’s too, which felt wholly appropriate given the name of the venture!

Tickets for the event cost £15 and this included a cocktail on arrival, chicken schnitzel bun and sides, and a Mumma’s 99er for pudding.

The evening took place at the Skyroom, between London and Tower Bridge, on a 5th floor rooftop with amazing views. I started off with a Jerk n Stormy cock-tail, which was Pampero Especial rum with Jamaican Jerk bitters, lime and ginger beer – my perfect kind of drink!!

 

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WEEKEND WONDERS - DUCK SALAD / STICKY CHICKEN THIGHS / CAKE

One of my favorite things to do on lazy, quiet weekends is to make a den/nest out of as many duvets and quilts as I get my hands on, in front of the fire, and then serve picnics of delicious food to the members of the nest! Most of this weekend was just me and the boy - perfect - and I cooked up lots of yummy treats for us. Here are just some of them.

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SMOKEY BARBECUE SAUCE

Barbecue sauce goes well with lots of meals. We eat it with this pulled pork recipe, but it's equally as lovely with chicken, prawns or anything straight off the barbecue. It will also keep for a couple of weeks in your fridge, so the recipe below makes enough for more than 1 meal.

Don't let the list of ingredients put you off. This is a one pot sauce and not at all complicated. If you don't have mushroom ketchup, add extra Worcestershire sauce. And if you don't have any tomato passata, you can use ketchup, but if you do this, you need to halve the amount of sugar you use.

2 tbsp butter
1 large onion
5 cloves garlic
1 tbsp fennel seeds
200ml rice vinegar
150ml red wine vinegar
600ml tomato passata
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp mushroom ketchup
70g brown sugar
1 tbsp honey
2 bay leaves
Sprig of thyme
1 tbsp english mustard
1 heaped tsp paprika
Salt
Lots of pepper

Heat the butter in a medium sized saucepan, over a medium to low heat. Chop the onion and garlic and add to the pan. They don't need to be chopped with any care, as the whole lot will be blended at the end.

Cook the onion and garlic gently until they become translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the fennel seed and fry for 2 more minutes, stirring as you go. Now add the vinegars, tomato passata, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom ketchup, sugar, honey, herbs, mustard, paprika, salt and lots of pepper, and bring up to a simmer.

Stir regularly and leave simmering for around 30 minutes, or until the liquid has reduced by half and starts to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 5-10 minutes.

Remove the bay leaves, and blend the sauce. Serve cold with whatever you like, and enjoy!

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FOOD FOR/AFTER A TUMMY BUG - BROTH AND COCO WATER

There's a horrible tummy bug going round, as there normally is at this time of year, and my boyfriend was struck down with said bug at about 1am on Monday. A visit to the doctors on Monday morning was pretty unhelpful - the doctor said "It's ok, the human body can survive without food for a month" - seeing as I think it's up to a month, and then you die, not very helpful info, doc! 

Dioralyte was the only thing he could recommend, but the ingredients list of Sodium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Glucose and Disodium Hydrogen Citrate didn't sound too appealing. So after an afternoon's sleep, I knew he would need something to replace all the salts and sugars he'd lost over the last 18 hours.

In order to get the potassium (brilliant for getting the body over dehydration) and sugars back into him that he needed to rehydrate, I picked up a (pint) can of coconut water. This went down a treat, drunk in small sips.

Next thing needed was the salts he'd lost. I read a bit on the internet about cures for tummy problems, and fennel tea, and ginger were often mentioned. Chicken soup has always been used to encourage a speedier recovery from these kind of things, so I decided to make a clear broth, incorporating all the stomach healing ingredients I'd read about. Here's what I made:

CHICKEN BROTH WITH FENNEL, LEMON AND GINGER

Serves 3

1 litre of chicken stock (I had some of my own stock frozen so used this)
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 thumb sized piece of fresh ginger
1 clove of garlic
Juice & peel of 1 lemon (try to peel this off in wide strips, like how you'd peel an apple)
1 tsp soy sauce
1 nest of egg noodle per person
1 spring onion

Put the chicken stock, fennel seeds, grated ginger, a small bit of grated garlic (I used a third of a clove) and lemon peel into a saucepan and bring up to a slow simmer. Add the soy sauce. Taste and adjust quantities of any of the ingredients, but you want a nice broth, not a strong overpowering flavour of anything.

Whilst the broth is simmering, boil a kettle and pour the boiling water over the noodle nests and cook as per packet instructions (mine were to boil the noodles for 3 minutes).

Remove the cooked noodles and drain the water. Place a small amount of noodles in each bowl. Once the broth has simmered for around 10 minutes, squeeze in a small amount of the lemon juice, remove from the heat, and sieve onto the bowls of noodles. Add a small amount of finely chopped spring onion and serve.

You can omit the noodles, depending on how well the patient feels! Mine needed a bit of energy so I served it with noodles, and it went down very well. He's now very much on the road to recovery!

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SO SIMPLE ROAST CHICKEN

1 large, free range chicken
Bag of potatoes
Bag of carrots
2 onions
1 garlic head
Butter
Half a lemon
Greens
Green beans
Small glass of white wine
Large glass of chicken stock

Turn the oven up to the highest it  can go. Take the chicken out of the fridge.

Roughly chop a couple of potatoes, the bag of carrots, and the of onions. Place in the bottom of a roasting tin with a glug of olive oil and all of the garlic cloves. Smother some butter over the chicken, put half a lemon in the chicken's cavity and place on top of the veggies. Loosely cover the chicken with foil. Reduce the oven to 210C and put the chicken in.

Boil a bag of potatoes. Remove the potatoes from the water 5 minutes after it's started boiling, drain and scatter on a pre-heated roasting tray of oil. Put in the oven.


After 40 minutes baste the chicken with it's oils and juices and take the tin foil off.

After 1hr 15mins, get the chicken out of the oven. Drain it's juices into the roasting pan, move onto a wooden board and cover with tin foil and a dishcloth. Leave the chicken to rest for 10-15 minutes. During this time move the potatoes up to the top rack in the oven, give them a shake, and turn it up as far as it goes.

Steam some greens, chard and/or beans for 4 mins.

Remove the carrots, onions and garlic cloves from the roasting tray for serving later. Add a splash of white wine and a generous amount of chicken stock to the gravy and bubble down. Drain the fat off the top before serving.

When the chicken has rested, carve and serve with the roast potatoes, carrots and onions, and greens.

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WHY I LOVE LEFTOVERS!!

A nice roast on Sunday is an almost essential part of my weekend, and I'll put up my recipes for roast beef, yorkshires, potatoes, carrots, greens and red wine gravy, and for roast chicken, sweet potatoes, greens and delicious yoghurt sauce soon. But below are three great recipes for using up leftovers after Sunday roasts.

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP:

Uses - leftover roast chicken and cabbage.

Sunday:
After you've had your roast chicken, pull all the meat off the bones and put the meat in tupperware in the fridge.

Now you need to make your chicken stock. Put the chicken carcass in a large saucepan. Add one chopped onion, some cloves of garlic, a bay leaf and some pepper. For this recipe I add a stick of lemongrass to the stock mixture as well. Add 3 litres of water, bring to the boil and once boiling, bring down to a simmer. Leave this to simmer for 4 hours, making sure you skim the fat off the surface now and again. Sieve the stock once done, and after it has cooled down, keep it in the fridge.

Monday/Tuesday:
Bring the chicken stock up to a gentle boil. Add a splash of fish sauce, 4 chopped spring onions, a thumbnail size piece of grated ginger, a chilli chopped into rings and some cooked egg noodles. Allow to cook for 3 or 4 minutes, then add lots of coriander and sprinkle the
leftover cabbage and shredded roast chicken over the top. Stir it once and serve.

ROAST BEEF SANDWICH WITH HOMEGROWN ALFALFA:

Uses - leftover roast beef

It's a classic, with my own homegrown twist. I bought some alfalfa seeds last week and they have produced bundles of delicious sprouts - do try to grow them yourself, they require a minute's attention a day and work out to be around 3p per portion!

Take 2 slices of wholegrain bread. Spread both pieces with creme fraiche. On one piece add wholegrain mustard and on the other, horseradish sauce. Take 2 slices of cold roast beef, a slice of tomato, a sprinkle of chopped red onion and add a handful of alfalfa spouts. Close together and enjoy!!

BUBBLE AND SQUEAK:

Uses - leftover roast potatoes, cabbage and broccoli

Add a large knob of butter to a thick based frying pan. Add your roast potatoes, cabbage and  leftover broccoli if you have some. Using a fish slice mash down the veg and potato mix in the pan. Fry over a medium heat for 5-10 mins. Once the bottom is beginning to go golden, break up the mixture and then mash it all down again. Repeat this process for 30 minutes or until your have nice golden crispy bits everywhere. Serve with sausages, pie, beans or salad.

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STICKY SPICY CHICKEN WINGS

Last year, when cooking roast chicken for friends, one of my very fussy friends ended up  with a plate with chicken breast and a wing on, before moaning about being served chicken on the bone! A couple of weeks later though and he devoured two portions of these sticky chicken wings and said it was one of the best things he'd eaten!

You need to marinade the chicken for as long as possible before hand - half a day is ideal.

2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil
Handful thyme
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp allspice
1 lemon, juiced and zested
700g free range chicken wings

Mix the soy sauce, honey and oil together. Add the chopped thyme, nutmeg, ginger, chilli, garlic, allspice and juice and zest of the lemon and pour the marinade over the chicken wings. Cover the dish with foil and put it in the fridge. Leave to marinate for up to 6 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Tip the chicken wings and marinade out onto a pre-foiled baking tray (make sure you cover the baking tray in foil; the sauce is so sticky it's a nightmare to wash off the tray!) and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the wings every 10 minutes so you can spoon the sauce back over the wings.

I serve 3 or 4 chicken wings per person and are delicious with mashed buttery sweet potato and steamed cabbage or peas.

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