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Chicken soup

On July 5, 2011 in chicken, comfort food, dairy-free, dinner, egg-free, gluten-free, healthy recipes, recipes, wheat-free, winter warmers

There’s two types of eaters in this world – those who live to eat and those who eat to live. No prizes for guessing which camp I fall into. What type of eater are you? Is your relationship with food based on passion or necessity?

Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who regard food as fuel and regularly forget to eat. It would save me from having to constantly think about food. It would probably save my waistline too. But on the downside, it would mean the death of this blog. A food blog written by a food hater? Forget it.

A surefire sign of a food lover is a healthy preoccupation with comfort food. In other words, eating when you’re not hungry. Comfort eaters are masters of the art of eating for the sake of it. They’ll find any excuse to put food in their mouths. The most frequently cited reasons being boredom, sickness, procrastination, heartache, depression, joy and tiredness.

Ice-cream, biscuits and chocolate are popular forms of sweet comfort food. Hot chips, pizza, burgers, bangers and mash, anything involving carbs are highly sought after in the savoury department. A common misconception with comfort food is that it has to be unhealthy. This is not the case. Take chicken soup, for example. It’s one of the best comfort foods around and happens to be very good for you. Some even go as far as saying it cures sickness.

In the interests of curbing my reliance on unhealthy comfort foods, I decided to soothe my soul with a big pot of homemade chicken soup. I made the whole thing from scratch, including the broth. This isn’t a mid-week meal as you need to leave the soup in the fridge overnight so you can skim the solidified fat off the surface the next day. It’s really worth the effort. I’ve never tasted soup this delicious.

chicken soup

Classic chicken soup adapted from Taste

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 x 1.4kg (size 14) chicken (make sure it’s free-range)
2 large brown onions, finely chopped
2 cups loosely packed fresh continental parsley leaves
4 garlic cloves, crushed
60 mls (1/4 cup) fresh lemon juice
2 tbs soy sauce
5 celery sticks, cut into l cm pieces
5 medium carrots, cut into l cm pieces
2 medium tomatoes, halved
salt and ground black pepper, to taste
1.5L (6 cups) water

Method:

Rinse the inside of the chicken. Remove the tail and neck, and as much skin as possible from the chicken.
Combine the onions, parsley, garlic, lemon juice and soy sauce in a large saucepan. Cook over medium heat for 5-8 minutes or until the onions are soft. Add the chicken, celery, carrots and tomatoes and season with pepper. Add the water and bring to the boil.
Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 1 hour or until the chicken is tender and comes away from the bones easily.
Remove from heat, cool for 10 minutes and place the soup in the fridge to chill overnight. (This allows the fat to rise to the surface and set.)
Next day, remove the soup from the fridge and use a large metal spoon to remove the layer of solidified fat from the surface.
Remove the chicken from the soup and place in a large bowl. Use your fingers to remove the meat from the bones and shred into pieces.
Discard the bones. Return the chicken meat to the soup.
Bring the soup to the boil over medium heat and simmer until the chicken and vegetables are heated through. Remove the soup from the heat and skim a piece of paper towel over the surface to absorb any excess fat.
Season with salt and ladle the soup into deep soup bowls. Sprinkle with pepper and serve.

 

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Marion’s Kitchen red chicken curry

On June 22, 2011 in celiac, chicken, chilli, curry, dairy-free, egg-free, food, gluten-free, spicy, wheat-free

Do you have a fallback recipe? One that you go back to time and time again like the ex-boyfriend you just can’t shake? One you can cook on auto-pilot and whip up with your eyes shut? I have a love-hate relationship with my fallback recipes – cooking them fills me with equal measures of comfort and guilt. “I should be more creative. I should try something new,” I say to myself as I whip them up for the 100th time.

I’ve had a few fallback recipes in my time – chicken stir-fry, chilli con carne, spag bol, Thai red or green chicken curry. Truth be told, Thai red curry is the most frequent offender. I’ve been cooking it for years in various guises. It usually makes an appearance mid-week when all inspiration is lost and I just don’t feel like bringing out the big culinary guns.

You can imagine my delight at being sent trial packs of Marion’s Kitchen Thai curry kits to review. Remember Marion Grasby from Masterchef season two? She was the amazing cook who looked likely to win the show before she was ousted in a shock elimination.  I remember being positively gutted at the time.

Since leaving Masterchef, Marion has developed her own food range. Aptly named Marion’s Kitchen, the range covers five popular Thai dishes all nicely packaged in colourful boxes with step-by-step instructions. Think of it as Thai for beginners. It’s hard to stuff this up… even if you try!

For Thai lovers like me, it’s a great mid-week meal option if you feel too virtuous to order takeaway but don’t feel like cooking up a storm. On my maiden voyage into Marion’s Kitchen I cooked one of my fallback recipes – Thai red chicken curry. All I needed to add was 400g chicken (I added more like 600g) and 1 cup of vegies. Marion kindly supplies the rest, so all up it costs around $20 for a meal for four people.

Marion's Kitchen red chicken curry

Marions Kitchen » Marion’s Kitchen BBQ Chook Red Curry

The ingredients list is refreshingly devoid of additives, and I love the inclusion of a dried spices pack to add some extra punch to the curry. Marion suggests crushing the dried chillies if you want extra heat.

Step one: heat oil over medium heat and fry the curry paste for a couple of minutes until it starts to smell beautiful. This allows the fresh ingredients in the paste to release their flavour and aroma.

Step two: pour in the coconut milk and 1 cup of water. You can tell the quality of a coconut milk simply by looking at it. If it’s rich and creamy like this one, you know it’s good. There’s one step missing on the instructions at this point. You need to bring the coconut milk and water to a gentle simmer before the next step.

Step three: this is my favourite step. Add the fragrant dried herbs and fish sauce. The herbs come in a sachet and contain dried basil, dried kaffir lime leaves and dried chilli. For more spice, Marion recommends chopping up the dried chillies before you add them. For less spice, don’t use any dried chillies and add an extra 1/2 cup water. Wait for the curry to start simmering again.

Step four: add the drained bamboo shoots and raw meat. Marion recommends adding the vegies at this point, but I holded off adding mine until the chicken was mostly cooked as I didn’t want them to overcook. The timing depends on the type of vegies you’re cooking. Pumpkin and eggplant will take longer than green beans and zucchini, for example. Then, simmer until the curry is cooked and serve with rice.

So, what’s the verdict? The red chicken curry gets my thumbs up. It’s full of flavour and rich in colour and makes for a great mid-week meal.

Also available in the Marion’s Kitchen range are Thai green curry, Thai basil and chilli stir-fry, Thai fish cakes and Thai satay sticks. Available from IGA, Woolworths, Foodland, Franklins, Drakes, Kemmenys and other retailers. RRP $6.99.

 

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Chicken salad

On March 27, 2011 in celiac, chicken, dairy-free, egg-free, food, gluten-free, healthy recipes, Israeli food, salad, Sydney

Too much of a good thing is never a good thing. Take Thai food, for example. Sydney is positively saturated with it. There’s more Pad Thai’s in this city than you can poke a stick at. Just close your eyes and a new local Thai takeaway joint is likely to appear before your eyes. What I would give for a good local Vietnamese, Turkish or Moroccan restaurant, but no, we have about 20 Thai restaurants instead.

To help salvage my jaded taste buds from Thai overkill, I treated them to something different this weekend – Israeli food. There’s this charming little cafe up at Bondi Junction that makes my heart swell with happiness. It’s called Savta and it dishes up the most delicious Israeli food you can imagine. Not that I’m an expert on Israeli food, but believe me, if this cafe is anything to go by, then it’s worth ditching your green chicken curry for.

Savta is one of those blink-and-you-miss-it cafes as it’s hidden at the back of a mall. What it lacks in location, it more than compensates with food and service. The owner is one of the friendliest and warmest guys around and always has a big smile on his face. And did I mention value for money? The servings at this place are huge and you’ll pay half of what you cough up on Campbell Parade.

The only issue you’ll have is deciding what to order. The brekky menu is equally as good as the lunch menu. They do a great mezze plate. Paul swears by the kefta sandwich with gherkins. Then there’s the awesome Israeli breakfast that is guaranteed to fix the worst hangovers – chopped tomato and cucumber salad, dark olives, labneh (a soft cheese made from yoghurt), omelette and pitta.

They also do the best Shakshuka in town (eggs cooked in tomatoes and spices). On this occasion, I went for the za’atar chicken and roasted pumpkin salad which I have crowned as Sydney’s best chicken salad. It was brimming with flavour and generous chunks of chicken mixed with diced avocado, red capsicum and red onion. My only disappointment was not being able to polish off the whole lot.

As for the za’atar, well it was amazing and I’m keen to try it at home. Za’atar is a Middle Eastern spice blend of thyme leaves, sumac, sesame seeds and salt. You can use it to season meat or eat it with bread and olive oil. Yum! All up, the bill came to $32. Not bad for two meals and two really good coffees.

To experience Savta for yourself, you’ll need to go either during the week or on Saturday (not open on Sundays). Just be sure to order by around 2pm on Saturday as the kitchen closes around then.

Savta
Shop 5/ 4-12 Waverley St
Bondi Junction 2022
(02) 9369 4222

Meanwhile, here’s my version of their Za’atar chicken salad

Chicken salad

Chicken salad

Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
2 tbs za’atar
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 pkt English spinach leaves
1 avocado, diced
400g butternut pumpkin, peeled, deseeded, cut into 3cm pieces
½ red onion, sliced
½ cup chickpeas
1 red capsicum, chopped

Za’atar (compliments of Mid East Food)
1/4 cup sumac
2 tablespoons thyme
1 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds
2 tablespoons marjoram
2 tablespoons oregano
1 teaspoon coarse salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place the chopped pumpkin in a roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast the pumpkin for about 30 minutes or until cooked through.

To make the za’atar, grind the roasted sesame seeds in food processor or with mortar and pestle. Add remaining ingredients and mix well.  Place in a glass or ceramic bowl.

Add chicken breasts to the za’atar mix, drizzle with olive oil and toss until combined. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

Cook chicken on a hot grill, turning occasionally. Set chicken aside and allow it to cool before slicing it into bite-sized pieces.

Make the salad by mixing the baby spinach leaves, avocado, capsicum, red onion, pumpkin and chickpeas in a big bowl. Top with chicken, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with cracked pepper.

In the mood for more salad recipes, check out my pumpkin, date and macadamia salad.

 

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Chicken pie

On September 19, 2010 in chicken, comfort food, cooking, dinner, pies, recipes, winter warmers

Spring may have sprung, but don’t put your pie dishes away just yet. That’s right, people, winter cooking is alive and well at Food Crush. I have a pie recipe that will not only float your boat, but will have you eating hot toasty pies all the way through spring and summer.

This tasty treat comes to you all the way from the pie capital of the world, England. Paul’s mum, Jill happens to be a great cook, and she kindly agreed to share her beloved pie recipe with us. The basic recipe has stayed true to form throughout the years, but has seen a few incarnations in recent times, such as the addition of mushrooms, peas, wine, lemon and tarragon. On this note, I declare the best chicken pie in the world. Enjoy.

Chicken pie

Chicken pie is good for the soul.

Ingredients:
8oz (225 g) shortcrust pastry
2 chicken breasts
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced
1 tbs butter or margarine, melted
1 tbs flour
150-200ml milk
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp fresh thyme
salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Defrost frozen pastry and set aside.

Melt 1 tbs of butter in a fry pan and cook the chicken breast until browned (you can bake the chicken in lemon and herbs, if you prefer). Remove chicken from the pan and set aside.

Make a small roux sauce using the juices, some more butter if needed and 1 tbs flour. Gradually add approximately 150 -200 ml milk plus 1 tbs lemon juice, a good teaspoon of fresh thyme, salt and pepper. You want the sauce to be thick.

Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces and place in pyrex plate or pie dish. Stir sauce into the dish and top with sliced eggs and more pepper. Cover with pastry and cook in a hot oven 200c for 10-15 mins then reduce temp for a further 20-25.

Remove pie from oven and serve with jacket baked potatoes and some greens.

In the mood for more pie? Why not try this tasty fish pie recipe?

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Larb gai (spicy chicken salad)

On July 25, 2010 in chicken, dairy-free, dinner, healthy recipes, recipes, salad, spicy food, Thai food

My recent trip to Thailand was the inspiration behind this tasty treat. It took more than the promised 25 mins to prepare, but it was all worth the effort. If you’re into Asian food, then you will love the spicy, citrusy and crunchy flavour combo of this Thai classic.

If you can’t find fresh galangal (I found it at my local grocer), you can use fresh ginger instead. Pork mince would probably work well with this recipe as well. I didn’t have kecap manis at the time, so I threw in some soy sauce instead. And I used brown sugar instead of palm sugar. Let me know what you think of the ground rice that you sprinkle on top of the dish. It reminded me of eating crushed peanuts, but with a rice-flavour. Quite cool for something different!

This dish is like the Thai version of sang choy bow.

This dish is like the Thai version of sang choy bow.

Apologies for the bad food photography. I don’t think Donna Hay would be impressed.

Recipe (from Women’s Weekly’s ‘The Complete Book of Modern Classics):

2 tbs long-grain white rice
1 tbs peanut oil
2 fresh small red Thai chillies, seeded, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbs finely chopped fresh galangal
750g chicken mince
1 Lebanese cucumber, seeded, sliced thinly
1 small red onion (100g), sliced thinly
100g bean sprouts
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh Thai basil leaves
1 cup loosely packed fresh coriander leaves
4 large iceberg lettuce leaves

Dressing:
1/3 cup lime juice
2 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs kecap manis
2 tbs peanut oil
2 tsp grated palm sugar
1/2 tsp sambal oelek (use a mild sweet Thai chilli sauce if you don’t like the heat)

1. Place ingredients for dressing in screw-top jar; shake well.

2. Heat dry wok; stir-fry rice until lightly browned. Blend or process rice until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

3. Heat oil in same wok; stir-fry lemon grass, chilli, garlic and galangal until fragrant. Remove from wok. Stir-fry chicken, in batches, until changed in colour and cooked through.

4. Return chicken and lemon grass mixture to wok with about one-third of the dressing; stir-fry about 5 mins or until mixture thickens slightly.

5. Place remaining dressing in large bowl with chicken, cucumber, onion, sprouts and herbs; toss gently to combine. Place lettuce leaves on serving plates; divide lab salad among leaves, sprinkle with ground rice.

Serves four.

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