Je Goûterai - I will taste

Pizza for dinner! Sauce made with garlic, shallots, red wine vinegar, passata and red onion chutney then topped with broccoli, mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes, one sliced regular tomato and bbq chicken :)

No. 34: Coq au Vin with Herby Dumplings – 21.4.12

Oh Gizzi how I’ve missed you!! I’m sorry I left you for Rachel Khoo but you know I’ll always love you!

My big sister bought me Gizzi Erskine’s Kitchen Magic for Christmas and after already loving Gizzi through her tv shows I fell in love with it. Then watching Rachel Khoo on tv made me instantly fall in love with her, making me buy her book as soon as I could. However I’ve been cooking a lot of Rachel Khoo recipes recently so I’m going back to Gizzi!

And yes, I know I’ve already had ‘Coq au Vin’ this week but I don’t care. I really wanted to try the traditional stew version of a Coq au Vin because I adored the flavours of the skewer version I had tried so felt I should give the traditional version a go. And yes, I know dumplings aren’t traditionally French and this is stated in the recipe but they work really well with the stew and add a lovely extra dimension of texture (they’re also really good at wiping up left over sauce at the end of the meal!). This recipe is from her book “Gizzi’s Kitchen Magic”.

Serves 4, preheat the oven to 180oC!

(This list is in the order you use the ingredients)

For the Stew

2 tbsp Olive Oil
8 free-range chicken thighs, boned, skinned and halved (if you’re not sure about removing bones or removing the skin, just ask your butcher to do it)
Pinch sea salt and ground black pepper
16 button mushrooms
4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, chopped into lardons
2 banana shallots, finely sliced
1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp plain white flour
1 tbsp tomato puree
600ml red wine
300ml chicken stock
1 bouquet garni (This is a bundle of herbs tied together to flavour stews and soups which is removed at the end of cooking) Made of Bay leaves, fresh thyme and fresh parsley tied in a bundle.

For the Dumplings
100g Self raising flour
½ tsp salt
1 and ½ tsp olive oil
a small handful of fresh parsley, chopped
3 tsp snipped fresh chives
60ml semi-skimmed milk

• Heat1tbsp of the oil in a large heavy-based, lidded casserole dish. Season the chicken thighs with the salt and pepper and brown these in 2 batches. Cook for 4 minutes on each side and set aside. Throw in the mushrooms, cook in the oil and chicken juices for 5 minutes or until golden and set aside with the chicken. If the bottom of the pan seems dry, add a little boiling water to scrape the bottom of the pan.

• Add the remaining oil to the pan and cook the bacon on a high heat for 2 minutes. Reduce the heat and add the shallots and carrot. Cover with a lid and sweat these for 10 minutes on a low heat, throwing in the garlic at the last minute. Add the plain flour and tomato purée and stir to coat all the vegetables for a minute.

• Slowly pour in the wine, stirring continuously to emulsify the sauce (you’ll see it thicken up as you stir). Add the chicken stock, chicken thighs, mushrooms, bouquet garni and give it a good stir! Cover, place in the oven and cook for an hour, stirring it half way through cooking.

• To make the dumplings, add the the dumpling ingredients into a bowl and mix together. Then divide the mixture to make 8 small balls (these will double in size when they cook). When the stew has 20 minutes left add the dumplings and cover with the lid. Remove the lid for the last 5 minutes so they become golden brown on top.

Not tooting my own horn here, but I think this was one of the best meals I have ever made. It was absolutely amazing! The sauce was wonderfully rich from the wine and the chicken was so soft and tender from being cooked for so long. When you cut open the chicken thighs, they were a rich dark brown/red on the outside but a gorgeous white in the middle. I used Parsnip instead of carrot (due to my IBS) but my point is, is that the vegetables in the dish gave subtle little hints of flavours. There were a lot of different textures in the dish, the soft chicken, the silky sauce, the little pieces of bacon and the soft, chewy dumplings. The dumplings were a really nice addition! I’m not sure what it would usually be served with but they worked really well with the stew and soaked up some of the flavours whilst cooking. I loved this dish and it seems my boyfriend was pretty blown away by it as well!

Sweet Onions with Lentil Stew :)

No. 16: Sweet Onions with Lentil stew- 5.2.12

This week is my low fat week and in a lot of cookery books and such there is a lot of talk about how lentils and pulses are good, rich and healthy alternatives to more wheat based and carb food such as pasta and potatoes. I bought a pack of Puy Lentils and searched the internet for a recipe! I found this one by Nigel Slater on the BBC GoodFood website and it looked so good! I was simply hoping I would actually LIKE lentils as I’ve never had them before!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sweet_onions_with_lentil_01078

Serves 4

a good handful of chopped, unsmoked bacon or Pancetta (you can easily not use this if you want to make this meal vegetarian)
4 medium onions
3 small carrots
½ tsp mild paprika
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ nutmeg, for grating
300g puy lentils
500ml stock (which ever flavour you want)
500ml of water
a handful of parsley
a knob of butter or 1-2 tsps of veg/olive/sun flower oil
100g crème fraiche

• Cook the bacon/Pancetta in a deep pan (I just used a saucepan, I think that’s what he meant!) over a moderate heat so they release their fat. This is then used to cook the other ingredients! And if you’re not using bacon, just use a drizzle of oil to cook your veg :)

• Roughly chop 2 onions, cut the carrots into chuck and add them to the pan. Cover them and let it steam for a few minutes . Add the paprika, cinnamon and grate the ½ of nutmeg into the dish

• Add the lentils, stock and water, give it a good stir and cover. Leave for about 30 minutes or until the lentils have softened!

• Whilst the lentils are cooking, slices the remaining 2 onions and cook them very slowly in the butter. (I would say on a low to medium heat for about 15-30 minutes depending on how you’ve cut them! ) They should turn golden brown and finish this off with a little grate of nutmeg.

• When the lentils are done, add the chopped parsley and serve with a dollop of the crème fraiche and pile the caramelised onions on top!

This is defiantly one dish which is good to stop you from snacking! The lentils are so filling and kept me full for hours! I didn’t use the bacon as I had non and this was a bit of a spontaneous try and I did not use Carrots as I can’t digest them properly!
I over cooked the lentils a little bit so it was a lot thicker than it should be but it was so good! I used shallots to top my lentils which is a really nice change as they are a little sweeter than regular onions I find but I suppose you can use any kind of onion as long as you can caramelise it! I also used cream cheese instead of crème fraiche, again because I had no crème fraiche but it tasted amazing! This dish defiantly needs a creamy substance to go with it because just the texture of lentils after eating them for a while I think can be quite dry. There were rich, deep flavours from the lentils, a creamy, silkiness from the cream cheese and this wonderful sweetness from the onions. Defiantly having this again!