chicken thigh roulade

Well as I usually do when I buy a chicken without the express purpose of roasting it, and sometimes even then, I break it down. If I'm roasting it I'll leave the breasts on the bone but disassemble the other parts, after all there are usually only 2 mouths to feed. Otherwise the breasts come off and separated for 2 meals, the wings off for stock or a quick snack, the thighs usually kept on with the drum and are a portion each, and then finally the carcass is set aside, usually in the freezer ready for stock. I usually view the whole procedure as practice, for what I'm not quite sure, but I have the process down, these days I can break-down, debone and skin a chicken quicker than you can say it.

As with most things repetition makes you look for a break in the usual, so with this latest chicken I broke it down pretty much as normal but took the skin off whole and deboned the thighs, I wanted to do a roulade, I knew I was going to stuff it with ricotta and hazelnuts, heck I knew that when I bought the ricotta well before I bought the chicken, I knew pretty much how I was going to cook it, sous vide for an hour at 65°C (fry it to crisp the skin after), but looking at what I had to work with I wasn't quite sure how it was going to happen. That was until I remembered a certain little package that was sitting hidden in the bottom of the freezer, probably past its usable date, a packet of transglutaminase, activa rm, or commonly named meat glue, I had been thinking of a reason to use it for quite some time but most everything seemed convoluted, not tonight though, I needed something to hold these disparate pieces together.

A trusty small sieve was loaded with the white powder, skin laid down on a sheet of cling film, a dusting of the powder, thigh meat arranged in an even layer—leaving an edge with some skin uncovered—another coating of the powder, the filling shaped down the middle, the edge bought up and rolled tightly with the cling film, using a skewer, holes poked to release air bubbles, another layer of cling film down and used to roll it tighter, holes poked again, another layer rolled tighter, the ends rolled in opposite directions (like a Candy wrapper) tied with string and left to set in the fridge overnight.

The inside of the roulade was seasoned with smoked salt and pepper and the stuffing was made by equal volumes (by eye) of hazelnuts blitzed in the blender and ricotta (with salt and parsley).


Well most of the hard work done, the next day a large pot of water is heated to slightly higher than 65°C and the wrapped chicken removed from the fridge. A few more holes are pierced through the cling film to get rid of any pesky air pockets and the chicken is wrapped tightly again and tied to form a watertight seal. The wrapped chicken is placed in the water bath for about an hour or until the internal temperature reaches 65°C, remove the chicken from the water and carefully unwrap, use a clean tea towel to carefully dry the outside of the roulade, I find rolling it up in the towel to rest while I prep the rest worked best.


Heat about a centimeter of olive oil in a heavy based pan and get it to frying temperature, carefully brown the roulade all over, it will spit like crazy so be careful not to burn yourself. When fully browned place on some paper towels and cover, leave to rest while you sauté some cavolo nero.

Slice the roulade and serve on a bed of the sautéed greens.

Beetroot Relish

As I was rather enthusiastic about the beet greens at the market I ended up with an abundance of baby beets and there are only so many roasted beets one can endure. So with a glut (16 golf ball sized beets) left in the fridge and really not wanting anything to go to waste a canning plan was made. This is pretty much a what do I have in my vegetable draw that needs using and is going to work well together plan. I got a large jar into a 100°C oven to sterilize whilst I prepared the relish.


Get a pot on to a medium heat and add 1 cup of cider vinegar and 1 cup of soft brown sugar. To this add a couple of whole dried chillies, a few allspice berries and grate in a decent thumb of ginger. Bring this to a simmer so the sugar can dissolve. Next grate an apple, granny smith, a medium sized fennel bulb and all of the beets. Add the vegetables to the pot and season with a bit of salt, cover and simmer for about 20–30 minutes, taste and adjust the seasoning. I don't like too much loose liquid, and the beets should be cooked and tender not mushy, so keep it simmering until there's only a small amount of thick syrup left loose, about another 20 minutes. Pour the hot mixture into the sterilised jar and do the lid up tightly, let it cool before storing in the fridge, it should keep for a couple of months, if it lasts that long.

Red rice salad

I must admit I don’t get to the Sunday markets as often as I’d like, maybe it’s living all the way in the back end of Karori, or just pure and simple laziness, but quite often best laid plans end up being a coffee and eggs on the couch, or if it’s a sunny day, the couch, who am I kidding! When I do manage to drag myself and better half out of the house at a halfway decent hour to hit the markets I always vow I must come every week and proclaim about how much we’re missing out on, which is completely and utterly true. Well we managed it last Sunday, and I managed to latch on to possibly one of my favourite greens, beet tops, unfortunately almost never seen on a supermarket vegetable shelf, well not in good nick anyway. Sautéed and mixed with ricotta and hazelnuts, they make a great ravioli filling, or as below a great addition to a salad.


Red Rice Salad
1 cup red rice
½ cup hazelnuts
capers (in salt)
1 fennel bulb
1 red onion
1 large purple carrot
1 celery stalk
1 large bunch of beet greens
1 clove of garlic
Handful of parsley and celery greens

Place the rice in a pot and pour in 3 cups of water, bring to a boil, put on a lid, reduce to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes. Strain and toss in some good oil (olive or hazelnut), season with a salt, mustard and cider vinegar. I like to dress the rice now so I know the base is well seasoned and will only need tweaking at the end.


Get a pan on a medium high heat, slice up the beet greens, crush the garlic. Heat a dash of oil in the pan, sauté the garlic but don’t brown, toss in the beet greens and cover. Cook until tender. Toss the greens through the rice.

The rest is pretty straight forward. Roughly chop the hazelnuts and toast in a dry pan. Slice and dice the fennel, onion and celery. Soak the capers. Either grate or use a mandolin on the carrot. Finely chop the parsley and celery greens.

Toss all the ingredients together, taste and season with salt (smoked salt is really good with these earthy flavours), adjust the acid with some cider vinegar, and a little heat doesn’t go amiss add a dash of hot sauce if you like.

Sprouts, mayonnaise & chicken

Get sprouting! Well I have been anyway, I’ve been getting into salads, especially heavy on the celery, greens and all, using ingredients I haven’t really thought of using before, like whero peas, wheatberries and quinoa, but most of all I’ve really been digging the humble sprout. The thing about the sprout is you have to have a little forethought or a production line set up as quite frankly they are ridiculously overpriced to buy pre-sprouted. On a positive note, sprouting is easy as pie.

Place quarter of a cup of mung, puy lentils or whero peas in a clean glass jar, rinse and drain a couple of times and then fill up with water, cover with a tea towel and leave overnight. The next morning, drain off the liquid, give the jar a jostle so the seeds aren’t languishing in a pool of water. Repeat the rinse and drain for 3-5 days until the sprouts have got enough sprout for you, 2 days is usually enough for a nice short sprout, but I wouldn’t leave it longer than 5. They’ll keep covered in the vegetable crisper for a couple of days.

I was going to assume that you know how to make mayonnaise before I got into the coleslaw, but I figure I should give it a quick once over. This method is for a stick blender. Use a jar that is just big enough to fit your blender, it’s preferable that the opening is smaller in width than the body of the jar. Add one egg yolk to the jar along with a dash of cider vinegar and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. Start running the blender and slowly drip in some neutral oil, I use a mix of olive and canola(rapeseed), when the emulsion has formed you can start pouring in the oil more liberally, for a lighter mayonnaise you can alternate between oil and water, you should be able to get about 50% water content. Taste and season with salt and vinegar. If the mayonnaise doesn’t thicken try adding more oil or another yolk, if the emulsion breaks or doesn't form, pour the mix into a jug and in the jar add an extra egg yolk and slowly blitz in the broken mayonnaise. It should keep in the fridge for a couple of months.


Anyway back on track to the slaw, take a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise and mix in a crushed clove of garlic, let it sit in the fridge a while so the garlic can mellow a bit. Thinly slice a fennel bulb and red onion, on a heavy bias slice some celery and its leaves, slice the larger green leaves thinly and just roughly tear the smaller yellow ones. Toss it all together in a bowl with some sprouts, crushed pumpkin seeds, smoked salt and the garlic laced mayonnaise.


An ideal match to the crisp cool slaw is a hot and spicy chicken wing, or in this case drumstick, I've covered hot wings so many times on here it's not funny but this time it's my oven "fried" chicken drumsticks. You end up with a crusty crisp coating and fall apart moist flesh below. In a large bowl add a good few tablespoons of tapioca starch, you can get this from a good Asian supermarket or here in New Zealand pick up arrowroot from the baking section of the supermarket, it's not arrowroot but just tapioca starch, mix in a sprinkling of salt, smoked paprika, hot chilli powder/flakes, spice it up as hot or mild as you like, and coriander powder. Toss the drumsticks in the mix to coat and place on a plate, cover and refrigerate overnight. When you're ready to cook, preheat the oven to 220°C, prepare another mix of tapioca starch and spices, toss the drumsticks in the powder to coat, arrange on a baking tray and cook for 30–45 minutes turning twice. If you really want to go for extra lush drumsticks melt some butter with hot sauce and crushed garlic and when the chicken is fresh out of the oven toss in the butter sauce, you won't regret it but your hips might.

Wheatberry salad

I feel I may be taking inspiration yet again from the same source, but it has been a good few months of eating rather too healthy and no drinking so I'm enjoying heading out now and then, and I am a creature of habit, when I find somewhere/thing I like I tend to stick to it. If you're unsure where I'm talking about I suggest heading over to my Twitter or Instagram feed.

Toast one cup of wheatberries in an oven set to 170°c for 10 minutes, transfer to a pot and cover with 3 cups of water and a good dash of salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to a minimum. Cook for 30–35 minutes, or until the wheatberries still have a bit of a chew but are generally tender. Drain the wheatberries and transfer to a bowl, toss through some good olive oil, I also like to adjust the salt levels now too, a few flakes of a good smoked salt does wonders.

Gently poach a chicken breast in stock with a couple of bay leaves, fennel fronds, parsley and chilli, oh and salt. Leave the cooked breasts to cool in the liquid until it can be safely handled, shred the meat, don't go overboard we still want decent prices of meat, keep the shredded meat in the cooking liquid until ready to serve so it remains moist.

The rest is all just mise en place, finely dice a red onion and fennel bulb, get some sprouts out, sango is a nice spicy choice, a decent portion of micro herbs, very finely chop some parsley and fennel fronds, thin slices of radish make a nice addition, make a dressing, high acid content is the goer for this, good dash of a quality cider vinegar and a nice peppery olive oil seasoned with a bit of smoked salt.

Now it's just a matter of assembly, as with most salads containing leafy greens leave it to the last minute, set aside some of the sprouts and micro herbs to garnish, toss the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl, add the dressing and moisten with a little of the poaching liquid, taste and either season or dress as required. Transfer a portion to a dinner bowl and garnish with some of the herbs and sprouts set aside.

Almond sponge with figs

It often surprises me when baking what a difference technique has, take a sponge cake for example, the basic being equal parts egg, sugar, butter and flour (a little baking powder, salt and vanilla). Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs and flour and you have a pound cake, Whisk the eggs and sugar together, then add the flour and melted butter and voilà a sponge instead. Two quite different cakes, the same ingredients, same ratios, just put together differently.

This recipe should ideally be done by weight, but if you can’t be bothered weighing your eggs the minimum weight (NZ) for size 6 is 53g, 7 is 62g, and 8 is 68g.

200 grams Egg (3 size 7 eggs)
200 grams Sugar
200 grams Butter
150 grams Flour
50 grams Almond meal
6 grams Salt
1 tsp Baking powder
10 ml Orange blossom water
Jar of preserved figs (or fresh), quartered
Raw Sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 170°C.


Line the base of a spring-form cake tin with baking paper and coat the whole interior of the tin with butter. Sprinkle the base with raw sugar and arrange quartered figs.

Whisk the sugar, orange blossom water and eggs together until they have become pale yellow, and tripled in volume.

Sieve in the flour, almond meal, salt and baking powder. Gently fold through.

Melt the butter and stir in.

Pour the batter into the tin, tap the tin on the bench to remove any excess air bubbles.


Bake for 35–45 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and a skewer inserted comes out clean.


Allow to cool in the tin on a rack until it can be handled without burning yourself, remove the springform and turn out on to a serving plate.

Creamy rice with pork sausage and thyme

Well I should start with a slight disclaimer, the idea of this dish is completely and utterly ripped off, or humble homage to the original, from Loretta on Cuba St. It makes a hearty dinner or a filling warming lunch it can be tweaked and tinkered with to your hearts content. It's a little less labour intensive than risotto, and a little more forgiving, as we're not aiming for al dente but well cooked rice, not falling apart though.

1 Cup arborio rice
1 Litre chicken stock
2 Good pork sausages, removed from casings
1 Medium fennel bulb, finely diced
1 Medium onion, finely diced
3 Cloves of garlic, crushed
1 Tsp black pepper
1 Tsp chilli flakes
1/2 Tsp bay leaf powder
6 Sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped off
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
2 Anchovy fillets

If you feel like being a little more indulgent, add 3 tbsp of cream or butter and a third of a cup of grated parmesan to the ingredient list.

Place a pan over a medium heat and add a slug of good olive oil. Soften the onion, garlic and fennel, add the pepper, chilli, thyme, bay leaf powder and cook through.

Add the sausage and anchovy fillets, sauté, breaking the sausage apart, try not to colour too much.

When the sausage has given up its fat, but not browned too much, tip the rice in and stir through. Give it a chance to get coated in the fat and cook a little.

Pour in the vinegar and cook it off.

Tip in a third of the stock and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, cook until almost absorbed, about 5-7 minutes, add another third and cook for a further 5-7 minutes.

Repeat with the last third, you don't want it too thick, the rice should of given up a lot of starch so the liquid should be lush and glossy, while the rice is still loose stir vigorously to release more starch from rice and make the liquid more creamy and homogeneous. Taste and season.

To really gild the lily, beat in the cream and parmesan cheese.

Serve a generous ladleful in a bowl and drizzle over a little peppery olive oil.

sweet, sour, salty braised pork with hand pulled noodles

I’ve covered hand pulled noodles before on this site, so this is not a rehash of the noodle recipe, how to make the slurpy tasty noodles can be found in previous posts. The following is a tasty sweet, sour, salty braised pork dish that is unctuous, sticky and delicious. Served with the liquids and vegetables tossed through the fresh cooked noodles and topped with slices of the wobbly caramelised pork belly, makes for an insatiably devourable dish.

Pork belly, bones removed (put in the braise if you have them)
2 Oranges, zest and juice
1 Large chunk of ginger, peeled and grated
5 Cloves of garlic, grated
Large Bunch of coriander, leaves chopped and root set aside
4 or 5 large dried red chillies
1 Large fennel bulb, sliced thinly
1 Large onion, sliced thinly
3 Tbsp of fennel seed
6 Allspice berries
Soy sauce
Fish sauce
Oyster sauce
Palm sugar (or brown)
Rice wine vinegar
500ml Chicken Stock
Salt

Preheat the oven to 160ºC, fan forced.

Heat an oven proof casserole pan over a medium high heat, or use a large frying pan and transfer to a dish later, season the pork belly all over with salt and then place skin side down in the pan and brown for about 5 minutes, flip and brown on the flesh side.

While the pork cooks, grind the allspice and fennel seeds together. Combine about 2-3 Tbsp each of the fish, soy and oyster sauce, also grate the same amount of palm sugar, you may require more depending on how sweet your oranges are.

Remove the pork from the pan and set aside. Sauté the onion and fennel until translucent, add the garlic, ginger, dried ground spices, chillies and coriander root. Cook until fragrant. Pour in the orange juice and zest and reduce. Add the fish, soy and oyster sauce along with the palm sugar and chicken stock.

Simmer for a few minutes, taste and season with oyster sauce, sugar and rice wine vinegar. You want a good balance of sweet/sour/salty, you need enough sweetness so it will become a lovely sticky sweet and sour sauce.

Stir through a handful of coriander leaves, keep some aside for garnish, nestle the pork into the sauce and cover. Cook for 2.5 hours. Remove the lid and cook for a further 30 minutes.

Slice the meat with a sharp knife and let it rest in the sauce while you prep and cook the noodles. Toss the cooked noodles with some of the soft fennel and onion and a good helping of the liquid, top with slices of melt in the mouth pork, garnish with mung bean sprouts, chilli oil and coriander leaves.

Grape Bread and Chestnut Purée

Slightly sweetened and only a little butter enriched bread makes an ideal match to a warm cup of coffee on a lazy weekend afternoon, and topped off with some sweetened chestnut purée spread it’s addictive.

If you can’t manage to work your way through an entire loaf, sandwich together slices of the bread with chestnut purée spread, arrange in a casserole dish. Whisk 3 eggs with 25 g sugar until tripled in volume, stir in 500 ml milk, pour over the bread, leave it to rest for 30 minutes, bake at 180°C until the top is golden and the custard set, best bread and butter pudding ever.

Grape & thyme bread

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The night before
2 Tbsp Raw sugar
300 ml Warm water
100 g Flour
1 tsp yeast


Dissolve the sugar in the warm water then stir in the yeast, leave it to stand for 10 minutes, until the yeast has bloomed. Add the flour and mix thoroughly. Cover with cling-film and leave overnight.

The morning after
50 g Butter, melted
25 g Raw sugar
400 g Flour
12 g Salt
Grapes, about 18
Thyme, fresh leaves
Raw sugar for sprinkling
Butter for brushing


Mix together the dry ingredients, add the flour mixture and butter to the yeast, which should be bubbly and aromatic, stir together and form a rough ball of dough, cover and leave it to rest for 5-10 minutes.

Tip the dough on to the bench and knead until smooth and elastic, about 15 minutes, letting it rest every couple of minutes while kneading helps the flour hydrate and will speed up the process. My preferred method for kneading, at the moment, is to roll the dough out into a log shape, fold in half and repeat. This seems to speed up the kneading process and results in some seriously fluffy bread.

Place the dough in a bowl and cover, leave it to rise in a warm spot for about an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Knock back the dough and leave it for another hour to double in size.


On a lined baking tray, shape the dough by forming it into an elongated rectangle tucking the ends under, use your fingertips to dimple and push out the dough. Push in the grapes into a regular pattern. Cover and leave it for about 30 minutes to rise.

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.


Brush the dough with melted butter and sprinkle over thyme leaves and raw sugar.


Bake for 40 minutes in the top third of the oven, when cooked the bread should sound hollow when tapped on the underside. Remove from the oven and cover with a clean tea towel, leave it cool for a while, if you can, before tucking in.

Chestnut purée spread

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This is pretty simple and well you could go the extra step and roast/poach fresh chestnuts but they’re not always readily available, but I find a can of plain chestnut purée does the trick.

440 g Chestnut purée
200 ml Water
100 g Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla paste
Decent pinch of salt


Place a pan over a medium heat and add the sugar, leave it to dissolve and slowly caramelise, be careful not to burn the sugar. Add the water to the pan, it will spit and hiss a little so add with caution. When the caramelised sugar has dissolved stir in the vanilla.

Break up the Chestnut purée in a bowl, and little by little whisk in the sugar syrup to form a thick paste, you may not need it all. Taste and season with salt. I like to pass it through a sieve to get a perfectly smooth paste.


It should store in a sealed container in the fridge for a couple of weeks, if it lasts that long!

Pressure cooked meat sauce

This is one for the pressure cooker club, if you’re not a member I guess you could slow cook it, but it’s really not the same, there is something about cooking under pressure and using next to no added liquid that really pumps up the flavours in the sauce. If you’re on the fence about owning a pressure cooker and have heard nothing but horror stories, the days of exploding pots of hell are well and truly over, the modern pressure cooker is quite unlikely to erupt, and heck you can even get set and forget electric models which are great for freeing up a hob and not adding to the heat in the kitchen, not a bonus on a cold day though.

Melt in the mouth beef nestles into the indentations of the orecchiette pasta, giving an almost perfect ratio of meat/sauce/pasta with each mouthful. It’s definitely my go to quick and easy sauce. It’ll make you think twice about cooking up a batch of mince based sauce again, primal cuts give better flavour and texture, you get to control the fat going in, and as it’s slow/pressure cooked it breaks down to melt in the mouth tender pieces.


500 g Chuck steak, cubed
2 Onions, diced
200 g Tomato purée
1 Carrot, diced
1 Bulb of garlic, peeled
Handful of parsley, chopped
3 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 Tbsp Tomato paste
Salt
Pepper
Hot sauce, to taste, or chilli flakes

It's dead simple, put everything into the pressure cooker and cook on high pressure for about 40 minutes. Let the pressure drop naturally. Use a wooden spoon to break up any lumps of meat. Taste and season with salt, pepper and white wine vinegar. Stir in another handful of chopped parsley. Serve stirred through orecchiette.