Flaky pastry, chicken and leek filling rich with the aroma of thyme and some fresh green beans for the side. Sounds like a great winter night to me!
I made this dish (adapted from the Donna Hay Winter 2011 issue) when we had guests over for dinner (Hi S and D!). The reviews were positive and there were even leftovers for my lunch!
Details
30-40 min
40 min
1 h, 10 min
Ingredients
- 2 cups Plain flour
- 1 cup FInely grated parmesan
- 150 grams cold butter, chopped
- 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon cold milk
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 6 chicken thigh fillets, chopped (about 900g)
- 40 grams butter
- 2 small leeks, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 tablespoons thyme leaves
- 1/4 cup plain flour
- 2 cups milk
- sea salt and pepper
- Egg or milk wash
Directions
- Prepare your shortcrust parmesan pastry. The recipe says to prepare twice this much, but I'm sure I only did one quantity and it was sufficient.
- Place the 2 cups fo flour, cheese, 150g of butter and salt into a food processor and process for 1-2 minutes until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Add the egg and milk and process for another 2 minutes until a smooth dough forms.
- Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180*.
- In a large frying pan heat the olive oil over a medium heat.
- Cook the chicken in batches until golden and cooked through.
- Remove from the pan and set aside, keeping warm.
- Turn the heat down slightly.
- Add the butter, leeks, garlic and thyme to the pan and cook for around 7-8 minutes or until softened.
- Add the flour and cook out the flour taste for about 2 minutes.
- Then add the milk, salt and pepper and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring, until thickened and no lumps.
- Return the chicken to the pan and refrigerate until completely cool.
- Try to avoid dunking bread into the mixture while it is cooling on the bench. Fail but enjoy the delicious taste of failure.
- Take your pastry out of the fridge and split in half.
- Lightly grease your 31cm pie tin (cooking spray works fine).
- Roll half of the pastry out between 2 sheets of non-stick baking paper (this makes it much easier to line the tin). Your want your pastry to be around 3mm thick.
- Line your pie tin with the pastry and push into edges.
- Fill with the cold chicken mixture.
- Roll the remaining pastry out between the sheets of baking paper to 3mm thick.
- Place on top of the pie and trim any excess pastry. Use excess pastry to make crispy decorations on top of the pie (optional).
- Brush with an egg or milk wash and bake for 35-40 minutes until the pastry is flaky and golden.
Risotto in the pressure cooker? Worth a crack I thought! It probably wouldn’t have occurred to me at all if Not Quite Nigella hadn’t posted recently about her Bolognese Risotto. Only problem – I had chicken I needed to use instead! Not to worry, trusty Google to the rescue. I found this recipe, which I adapted based on what I had in the fridge at the time – here is my version.
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups Aborio rice
- 2.5 cups Chicken stock
- 1/2 cup White wine
- 250 grams Chicken thigh, loosely chopped
- 2 tablespoons Olive oil
- 1 medium Onion, diced
- 2 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup Grated parmesan
- 2 tablespoons butter
- Handful rocket
- dozen Cherry tomatoes, halved
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Heat the oil in the base of the pressure cooker.
- Brown the diced chicken on all sides and remove from cooker.
- Reduce heat and add the onion and garlic. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the rice and stir, coating well with the oil/onion/garlic mixture.
- Add the wine and allow to mostly evaporate whilst stirring.
- Add all the stock and the browned chicken.
- Stir, bring to a simmer.
- Close the lid on the pressure cooker and bring to pressure.
- Reduce the stove heat to low and put on the "low" pressure setting.
- Cook for 8 minutes.
- Quick release the pressure.
- Once released, open the lid and stir through grated cheese and butter.
- Add the cherry tomatoes and the rocket and stir through.
- Season with salt and pepper.
Holidays are a wonderful thing, but when I arrive home the first thing I feel like cooking is a meal with lots of vegetables! I love my vegetables and I notice the tiny portions when you go out to a restaurant (unless it’s a vegetarian restaurant).
There was also a noticable lack of chicken in my diet while I was away – the amazing abundance of seafood in Tasmania had a lot to do with that. So, a quick flick through my new(ish) Nigella Lawson cookbook “Kitchen” found this recipe and thus an easy and quick Tuesday night dinner was born.
Some minor changes to Nigella’s recipe – I didn’t have any apricot jam, so I omitted it. I wouldn’t recommend this – it left the sauce a little bit bland. Also, I used a tin of pineapple (using the juice for the sauce) and threw in the pineapple pieces towards the end. I was actually a little surprised that pineapple wasn’t an ingredient – I’m pretty sure it’s compulsory in sweet and sour (right?).
Overall, I really liked the addition of Chinese 5-spice, which is not a mix I use often. The dish is also packed full of good for you vegetables which made me happy. You can serve with rice, or noodles like I did.
My apologies for the inadvertant blogging hiatus – there was a wedding and a honeymoon to contend with a blogging fell by the wayside. Rest assured, I have a big backlog of posts (lots of restaurant reviews) that will be heading your way over the coming weeks.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons Canola oil
- 1 Red onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 Red capsicums, cut into 4cm chunks
- 1 clove Garlic, finely diced or crushed
- 500 grams Chicken thigh fillets, chopped into rough pieces
- 1 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice
- 300 grams Beansprouts, rinsed
- 150 grams Tin water chestnuts
- 2 tablespoons Apricot jam
- 2 tablespoons Soy sauce
- Large tin pineapple, juice drained and kept aside, pineapple chopped
- 3 tablespoons Tomato sauce
- 2 tablespoons Rice wine vinegar
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Heat the oil in a wok over high heat.
- Add the onion and cook until translucent.
- Turn down the heat slightly and add the capsicum and cook until soft (about 5 minutes).
- Add the chicken to the onion and capsicum and add the Chinese 5-spice and garlic.
- Cook, stirring frequently, for another 5 minutes until chicken starts to brown.
- Whisk the apricot jam, soy sauce, pineapple juice, tomato sauce, rice wine vinegar and salt and pepper to form the sauce. Be sure to taste!
- Add to the wok and put a lid on a cook over a low heat for about 15 minutes (to cook the chicken through).
- Stir in the beansprouts, water chestnuts and pineapple and heat through.
- Serve with rice or noodles.
I’ve been a bit quiet on here for the last few weeks as it seems a bit trite to write about food when so many people in Brisbane, Queensland and the greater East Coast of Australia have been affected by flooding. My hometown of Brisbane was badly hit last week and some of my favourite suburbs were inundated. Houses, businesses, and even lives have been lost. It’s devastating to see this happen to a place you know and love. If you’re interested in donating, you can do so here: http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/
However, life does, inevitably, go on. And through it all, we still need to eat. This is a quick and easy recipe, perfect for a mid-week dinner. I hope you enjoy it.
Ingredients
- Dried pasta (quantities depend on type of pasta and serving size)
- Large bunch Basil, washed
- 1/4 cup Slivered almonds, or pine nuts
- 1 clove Garlic, crushed
- Olive oil to taste
- Pecorino or parmesan to taste
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 150 grams Chicken, diced into bite sized pieces
- Handful Cherry tomatoes
Directions
- Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil.
- Cook your pasta according to directions. I used spinach fettuccine.
- Drizzle some olive oil in a frying pan and fry off your chicken pieces until golden brown.
- Meanwhile, prepare your pesto. In a small food processor (or mortar and pestle) add basil, almonds (or pine nuts), and garlic. Whizz briefly until combined.
- Add grated parmesan or pecorino and olive oil to taste. Whizz again until combined.
- Add salt and pepper to taste, and adjust ingredients based on personal preference.
- Once your chicken is cooked, throw the cherry tomatoes into the pan to heat up.
- Drain your pasta.
- To serve, combine pasta, chicken, cherry tomatoes and pesto and toss until evenly distributed. Finish with a bit more cheese.
- The leftover pesto can be kept in the fridge for several days, or covered in olive oil and kept for slightly longer. Pesto is also great on sandwiches.
I have been a bit uninspired in the kitchen of late (yes, it happens to us all). I’ve been cooking, just nothing terribly interesting.
However, I did have this one in my drafts folder, and thought it worthy of a post. I love Moroccan food, and we even lugged a tagine home from Morocco in our carry-on luggage! So, I gave the tagine a soak overnight and we made this dish the following day: Chicken tagine with preserved lemon and green olives.
Serve with cous cous.
A note about preserved lemons – we used lemons preserved by J’s sister. I have yet to preserve my own (limited pantry space at the moment – once we move and summer arrives stay tuned for some serious jamming and preserving!), however I understand it is incredibly easy. Here’s an easy recipe from Poh’s Kitchen.
An original recipe! How novel!
I bought a free-range whole chicken the other day and butchered it into more manageable servings myself. Originally, I intended to use the thigh parts (I believe if you request chicken Marylands from a butcher you will get a similar cut) in a chicken and lentil dish. However, I looked at a few recipes and decided to wing it (hehe, pun!).
Thus, a recipe for my originally named slow-cooked chicken with leek, capsicum and celery. Otherwise known as using up the vegetables in Leah’s fridge…
Details
20 min
50 min
1 h, 10 min
Ingredients
- 2 Chicken thighs (Maryland)
- 4 stalks Celery, chopped
- 1 Leek, chopped
- 2 Green capsicum, sliced
- 1 Tomato, sliced
- 1/2 cup White wine
- 1 cup Chicken stock
- Water, as needed
- 2 cloves Garlic, chopped
- handful Fresh oregano, chopped
- 1 Bay leaf
- tsp Olive oil
- 1/2 tsp Butter
- 1 tsp Cornflour, mixed with a little water
Directions
- Heat butter and olive oil in a large frying pan until sizzling . Season your chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
- Turn down the heat slightly and then add your chicken pieces, skin side down. Cook until brown, probably 5 minutes. Turn over and brown the other sides, including the sides and ends of the pieces.
- Remove chicken from pan and put on a plate lined with paper towel.
- Reduce heat slightly and add leek and celery. Cook for about 3 minutes until the leek starts to caramelize. Be careful not to burn it.
- Add the capsicum and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Add garlic, oregano and bay leaf, then add wine and turn up heat until it reduces slightly.
- Add chicken stock and tomato and return the chicken pieces to the pan. Add water as needed, until the liquid is about 2/3 the way up the side of the chicken.
- Reduce the heat to low, and simmer, with the lid on but askew for about 40-45 minutes until the chicken is coming off the bone.
- Take out the chicken and the bulk of the vegetables and put in serving bowls.
- Turn the heat up to high and reduce down the juices. You can add the cornflour here to help thicken it up, just stir in the water/cornflour mixture and reduce the heat slightly. Keep stirring and it should thicken up. Remove the bay leaf, season to taste and then pour the sauce over the chicken and vegetables.
- Top with parsley and serve with crusty bread, cous cous or a carb of your choice.
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