Yum Stuff: One Chook Dan Chicken

My friend Dan had been travelling the world for almost 18 months when he came to visit us in New York for dinner. I made the dish below. I had one piece, Mat had another. We then watched in amazement as Dan slowly and methodically ate the rest of it. There, in our kitchen, we watched one man eat almost an entire chicken. He only stopped periodically to exclaim : 'It's so great to have a home cooked dinner!', and to take the occasional breath.

That is how the legend of One Chook Dan was born, and the One Chook Dan Chicken got its name.

One Chook Dan Chicken:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 small to medium sized jar of apricot jam
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3/4 teaspoon black pepper or peppercorns
• 1 whole chicken cut into pieces.

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400° F/200C. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the tomatoes, jam, vinegar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of the pepper. Simmer until the sauce has thickened slightly, about 15 minutes.
   Alternatively, you can just make the sauce cold and pour it on, this gives you more juices to pour over everything at the end.
2. Meanwhile, rinse the chicken and pat it dry with paper towels. Arrange the pieces in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish and season with the remaining salt and pepper.
3. Pour the barbecue sauce over the chicken. Roast, spooning the sauce over the chicken once, until the chicken is cooked through, about 1 hour.
4. Serve with mash or rice, something to soak up the yummy sauce. Broccoli and beans are nice with this. 
   Make sure you get some for yourself before Dan takes it all!

Yum Stuff: Tuna Rice Bake Comfort Dinner

Eating Tuna Rice Bake is like being hugged by your dinner. It's good for when you're feeling a bit sad or a bit sick and need a warm full belly to feel better.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter, and enough for greasing the dish, or grease it with PAM.
• Big tin of tuna in water, drained
• 1 small onion, chopped finely
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• Couple of minced garlic cloves
• 1 package frozen spinach, thawed, drained and chopped, or peas and carrots and corn
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar, plus extra for top. Parmesan is also good.
• 4 cups cooked brown or wild rice
• 2 stalks of celery, cut small
• 1 teaspoon freshly chopped parsley leaves
• 1 teaspoon freshly chopped thyme leaves
• 1 teaspoon chopped basil leaves
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper. Lemon pepper is nice.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a large casserole dish.

In a large pan over medium-high heat, saute onions with 2 tablespoons of butter and cayenne until translucent, add the garlic and the celery towards the end, just enough to soften them a little. Add the spinach and cook for 3 minutes. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together milk and eggs.

Add the tuna, cheese, rice, parsley, thyme, basil and spinach mixture and combine well. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour into prepared casserole dish and top with extra shredded cheese. Bake for 45 minutes until the cheese on top is nicely browned and it's bubbling hot.

*Some people might like to add paprika to this at some stage, I think that's gross. Each to their own and all that.

Yum Stuff: Apple Loaf

Thanks Donna Hay!

This is what I intend to do with the excess apples I have with tiny bite marks in them from last week's apple picking.


It's entirely borrowed from Donna Hay's website, here is the original recipe. I have a bit of a girl crush on Donna Hay. Whenever I make something of hers, it's yummy and easy, she even includes both f and c temperatures, so I don't have to Google it like other Aussie recipes I make here in the US. Then, the people who eat it are really nice to me, and say lots of lovely things about what a good cook I am. I'm not, especially. So, thanks Donna!


I change a couple of things (in brackets).


Ingredients:

• 2 cups (300g) plain (all-purpose) flour
•  ⅓ cup (75g) caster (superfine) sugar
•  2 teaspoons baking powder
•  ⅓ cup (55g) sultanas (I sometimes leave these out, or use chocolate chips instead)
•  ½ cup (125ml) milk
•  ½ cup (125ml) pouring (single) cream (I just use another 1/2 cup of milk, so one in total. It turns out just fine, and I never have cream).
•  1 egg, lightly beaten
•  2 tablespoons white sugar

apple filling

•  2 red apples, peeled and chopped
•  ⅓ cup (120g) brown sugar
•  ¼ teaspoon mixed spice (I use pumpkin pie spice and double it, spicy, spicy)

I do all of this stuff like she says:  

Preheat oven to 160ºC (320ºF). To make the filling, place the apple, sugar and mixed spice in a bowl and toss to coat. Set aside.

Place the flour, caster sugar, baking powder and sultanas in a large bowl, mix to combine and make a well in the centre. Gradually add the milk and cream and stir until a soft dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Roll the dough to a 20cm x 40cm rectangle and top with the apple mixture. Roll the dough to enclose mixture, brush with the egg and sprinkle with white sugar. Place in a 27cm x 7cm loaf tin and cook for 35–40 minutes or until cooked through when tested with a skewer. Serve with double cream or ice-cream. Serves 8.

YUMMO.

Yum Stuff: Lemon Slice

Not my slice, but it will look similar, especially if you add coconut, which maybe I will after seeing this picture. 

Photo credit!

This slice is good, it is so, so good. Mat ate it for dinner once, the entire thing in one sitting. I could easily do the same. I want some right now, just because I've brought it up here. This slice is a problem I have. I love it too much.

Ingredients

• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
• 100g butter
• 200g Granita biscuits, or if in the UK use a packet of Digestives (small size) or if in the US use Graham crackers, almost the whole box but not quite.
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• Finely grated zest of two lemons, or limes or oranges, all are nice

Lemon icing

• 2 cups icing sugar mixture
• 1 lemon, juiced (or lime or orange, depending on your theme)

1. On a low heat, melt the condensed milk and the butter together.

2. While that's happening, smush the biscuits into crumbs in a large mixing bowl (I use a meat cleaver to do this, but do as you feel). When this is done add the coconut and the rind and mix together. This usually takes as much time as it does for the butter to melt - efficient!

3. Make a well in the middle of the crumb mixture and pour the melted butter and condensed milk in. Stir well until it all holds together.

4. Press the mixture into a slice tin, and then roll a glass along the top of it until it's all flat on the top and packed in. If it's been packed well, you can do the icing straight away, but if in doubt, pop it in the fridge and let it set for an hour or two first.

5. Make the icing. I just add a bit of juice to the icing sugar and stir until it's on the runny side, but not so runny that it won't set.

6. This is the hard part - you have to let it set in the fridge overnight! I usually cave and have a piece too soon, but it's mushy, and is much better when it's set.

Slice that slice and enjoy.

Fun Places: How do you like them apples?

This past weekend, we went apple picking in Connecticut, at Beardsley's Farm. They were probably the most expensive apples we'll ever have, given we hired a car to get there and home, but it was worth it. I have two words for you: cider donuts. Both of those words are great on their own, but together, it's really something special. I realise that donuts and donut-related stories are taking up a disproportionately large amount of space on this nascent blog. This is reflective of the space they took in my weekend. I had a donut every day. And every day I was happy. Coincedence?

Apple picking was good fun. It was nice to get out into the countryside. It was beautiful, relaxing and smelly in parts. This is what the country is like, and it's nice to be reminded of this from time to time. As a country kid turned city slicker (who should know better), I wore impractical shoes and got allergies. Maybe there should be more country outings around these parts. We got a pretty good haul, all in all, and like I said: the donuts.

I did a bit of research before we left, maybe too much because all the farms and their features blurred together and I thought we were going to an organic farm with a hayride. We were not, it featured neither of those things. However, the donuts. They did have those. Oh yes, they did.

America is just beautiful, and unlike anywhere I have lived before, almost immediately after you leave the city it just gets gorgeous. Leafy, green, beautiful light, lots of animals. It's fecund verdant out there.

Perusing the Macintosh section of the orchard.

Tiny taste tester makes sure it's all apples.

Fun Places: Smorgasburg Food and Flea Market

People loving the action at Smorgasburg.

Smorgasburg is an extremely addictive bad habit that we've picked up this Summer. I say 'bad' Beastie Boys style; not bad meaning 'bad', but 'bad' meaning:'good'. But also meaning bad, as in bad for my thighs. Very, very bad news for the old thighs. But the taste buds, now those guys are happy! 

'Let's go to Smorgasburg today' the taste buds pipe up of a Saturday morning. 'Great idea' echoes belly. 'Dear God, no' shudder the thighs. 'Pipe down, Nerd, you're overruled' say the taste buds and belly simultaneously (they are bullies).  And with that settled, we head off.

A large outdoor market featuring local and artisan foods, there are a large number of interesting options at Smorgasburg, and they're all good. Slow cooked pork rolls from Porchetta are a big fave, the pizzas made in a mobile pizza oven by Pizza Moto are pretty amazing too.

But it is these that are my weakness, the ultimate diet kryptonite. They are just so freaking good: Dough donuts.

People lining up for their crack donuts from Dough. Holy moly, these things are amazing.

Cafe con leche donut. Largely responsible for my change in pants size.

Littlest donut fan is man of taste.

The view at the Waterfront as you eat your snacks ain't too shabby.

The flea market component is also pretty amazing. On Sundays the focus shifts from food, more heavily to flea. There's a vendor who only sells vintage spectacle frames, which is pretty fun. There's lots of vintage leather bags in great condition, and ugly sweaters to wear ironically if you're so inclined. 

What I most enjoy is the hand-crafts, there are some beautiful pieces of hand-made wooden furniture and art. I don't know what happens to Smorgasburg when it gets really cold and windy, but we'll be rugging up and going as long as they will.

Yum Stuff: Super Yummo Lemon Chicken

This is one of those recipes which is cheap and easy, but really tasty. Basically, it's excellent.

INGREDIENTS

600g chicken thigh fillets or thighs and drums (with skin, go on, treat yourself).

¼ cup soy sauce 

2 tbsp mirin or shao sing rice wine

Zest and juice of 1 large lemon

1 tbsp grated fresh ginger

2 cloves of crushed garlic

3 sprigs of thyme

2 sprigs of rosemary

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp cornflour

METHOD

Put everything except the cornflour into a bowl and stir well to get the honey mixed in. Marinate the chicken for as long as you can, I usually do it in the morning for dinner, but an hour or so is better than nothing. 

Pre-heat oven to 375F or about 200C. Line a baking tray with wax paper (it gets sticky in there).

Heat a non-stick fry-pan over high heat and add all the chicken and marinade. Stir well and turn the chicken until it has started to brown, this takes about five minutes. The sauce will be bubbling away and starting to thicken.

Mix the cornflour with two tablespoons of the sauce from the pan, and then add it back into the pan with the chicken. It will instantly go thick and chunky, but lumps are fine, and in fact make a yummo crispy skin when baked. They are good lumps!

Remove the chicken from the frypan and arrange them on the tray so they've got some space around them.

Roast for one hour. They'll end up with a rich brown glaze on them.

Eat and enjoy! This freezes really well for lunches and leftovers, and goes really nicely with mashed potatoes, rice and Asian greens.