Live For Food

Chicken is probably one of the cheapest meats you can buy today, depending on what cut you get. So I thought I would do a little summary of the various cuts you can buy and what you can do with them.

Whole chicken

Chicken is commonly bought as a whole bird. Your standard bird feeds anywhere from 3-6 people and is usually prepared by roasting in the oven.

If you buy the plastic wrapped type from the supermarket the cooking instructions will tell you how long to cook it for, otherwise use 20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes at 200C.

Whilst they can be basted, stuffed, or have stuff inserted under the skin, you will get a perfectly acceptable result just bunging it in the oven. If you want something slightly fancier try out this classic roast chicken recipe from BBC Good Food.

You can also roast chickens in the slow cooker, although I’ve never got round to trying it myself.

Leftover roast chicken goes well in curries and pies and sandwiches. And also as a treat for the cat who will never leave me alone when I’m stripping a carcass.

You can also make stock using the carcass but I’m afraid this is something I can’t be bothered with.

Chicken leg

A chicken leg consists of both the drumstick and the thigh portions. These also roast well on their own especially if sprinkled with a bit of salt and garlic. Its an economical way of making a roast chicken dinner without having to buy the whole bird.

You also get recipes for oven bake type things and even casseroles for chicken legs however the legs can be quite fatty so if they are submerged in liquid to cook the resulting dish can have a fatty sauce or film on top which is not that great.

Chicken drumsticks and wings

Drumsticks and wings can also be roasted in the oven but unless they’ve got a decent marinade on they tend to dry out.

The following two marinades are nice. The quantities are for 8 drumsticks.

Lemon garlic

2 crushed garlic cloves
juice and zest of one lemon
1 level tablespoon whole-grain Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Oriental

2 tablespoons grated fresh root ginger
1 crushed garlic clove
2 finely chopped spring onions (scallions)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons runny honey
good pinch Chinese five spice powder

Or you can buy them ready marinated or even ready cooked.

Once you’ve cooked them in the oven they can be finished off on the barbecue for 5 minutes for a smoky taste.

Great either hot or cold with a nice salad.

Chicken thighs

Chicken thighs are best in casseroles and stews in my opinion, although they can be roasted or marinated and barbecued in a similar way to drumsticks.  Have a look at my recipe for chicken and bacon cacciatore.

The meat is tasty and soft, and best cooked for at least half an hour say in a stew to an hour and a half in a casserole. I always take the skin off, and sometimes take the bone out too which can be a bit fiddly and messy, but its worth it.

You can also buy thigh fillets which are ready skinned and deboned.

If you’re on a budget thighs are the cheapest cut to buy and probably give the most variety in terms of different casseroles you can do.

For an easy option you can buy packet casserole mixes which just involve putting the chicken thighs, some vegetables, the packet mix and some water in a dish and sticking it in the oven.

Many people think the darker meat is tastier and more tender than the more expensive breast meat anyway.

Chicken breast

Chicken breasts are the most expensive cut of chicken. You may find you can buy frozen packs which are much cheaper but the quality if the meat may suffer. Cheap chicken breasts often have a high water content and taste kind of spongy. They come in all different sizes – a small breast will serve one person, a large one can go between two.

Because the breast meat is naturally tender its suitable for quick cook meals such as stirfrys, fajitas and pasta dishes.

They are also suitable for stews and curries cooked in the hob, whether homemade or using sauces from jars.

They can be roasted in the oven but have a tendency to go dry so I would suggest either cooking them in a shallow layer of gravy with a sprinkling of seasoning of some kind on top, or cooking them wrapped up in foil parcels.

They are also nice stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon.

What’s your favorite chicken recipe?

I like doing different things with sausages, instead of the usual hotdogs or sausage and mash, so here’s a simple recipe which makes tasty roasted sausage and veg. I scaled the recipe down for just one person as I made it for myself when my husband was out for the evening. He’s not a fan of onion so I thought it was a good opportunity. The recipe below however serves 4.

Ingredients:
3 red onions, cut into wedges
3 red peppers, deseeded and cut into quarters
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
8 sausages
250g cherry tomatoes
a few thyme sprigs
1 tbsp clear honey

Method

1 Cook the onions and the peppers
Turn oven to 200C, GM6. Put the onions and peppers in a roasting tin, drizzle over the oil and vinegar and season well. Roast for 10 minutes.

2 Add the sausages
Put the sausages, tomatoes and thyme in and around the vegetables, drizzle over the honey and cook for 30 minutes more or so, turning the sausages after 15 minutes, until the sausages are cooked and everything is golden and sticky.

Serve
With mustard mash or crusty bread.

Notes
Serves 4
Ready in 40 minutes
412 kcals per portion
Not suitable for freezing

Copyright BBC Easy Cook Magazine, Immediate Media Limited
Reproduced with permission

Comments
I used dried thyme as I didn’t have fresh, I used maple syrup instead of honey (as I don’t really like honey), and scaled the recipe down for one person.

Verdict
This was really yummy, with sweet vegetables and meaty sausages.  I will definitely be doing it again. The balsamic dressing  worked really well.  Plus it was quite easy to do as well, as everything was on the one tray. Great for a midweek meal providing you’ve got a bit of time for it to cook in the oven. 

It fascinates me that once upon a time someone worked out that if you pick ears of corn, squish them, keep the powder that’s left, mix it up with butter and water and other things, and put them in the fire, the result would be good to eat.

So what’s the difference between the various baked goods you can make with flour?

Bread

Basic bread is the simplest thing to make with flour. All you need is flour, water, yeast, and a little bit of fat, salt and sugar.

What makes bread bread is two things:

Yeast – the raising agent

Strong flour – bread flour has a high gluten content compared to normal flour which traps the gas made by the yeast and helps the bread to rise

A basic bread recipe uses about 65ml of water for every 100g of flour.

Pastry

Pastry is a dough made from flour, shortening and water. It’s used as a base or covering in dishes such as pies. It can also be the name for baked dough products like Danish pastries.

Shortening means fat that is solid at room temperature like butter, lard or margarine.

Pastry is made by mixing the flour with the fat. A crumbly shortcrust pastry has a ratio of roughly 1 part fat to 2.5 parts flour, with a few spoonfuls of water.

The flaky or puff types of pastry are made in layers, and the fat is not mixed in as thoroughly.

Sweet pastry can be made with the addition of sugar and other ingredients.

Pastry is made with plain flour and no raising agents are added.

Cake

A basic cake is a mixture of flour, butter or margarine, sugar, eggs and maybe fruit.

A sponge cake is made with equal parts of flour, butter, sugar and eggs and makes a runny batter.

Fruit cakes often have twice the amount of flour to butter and sugar, less eggs and the addition of dried fruit.  The batter is generally stiffer.

Cakes are normally made with self raising flour, or a mixture of plain flour and baking powder to ensure they rise. Many cakes are made to be light and fluffy.

Biscuits

Biscuits mean different things to different people.

Biscuits in the US are more like what we in the UK call scones. They are a small soft fluffy cake-like bread leavened with yeast or baking powder. They are often eaten with gravy.

Biscuits in the UK are small, crispy baked goods.  In the US these would probably be called cookies. However in the UK a cookie tends to be thought of as a type of biscuit that is large, round and soft or chewy, often with chocolate chips or raisins.

Many UK biscuit recipes are not dissimilar to cake recipes however they generally have a high proportion of flour compared to other ingredients or a low liquid content so that a stiff batter, or dough that can be rolled out is formed.

One way to tell a biscuit from a cake is that biscuits go soft when stale whereas cakes go hard.

I have no idea what cookies do as they never last long enough to see in our house, but I suspect they may he closer to cake than what the English traditionally think of as a biscuit.

Recently I have made biscuits and cookies, and I do a cake every now and again. I’m afraid I rarely make pastry as its so easy to buy ready made. Sometimes I make bread in my bread maker but never just on its own. Life is much easier for us than it was for those first people who squashed up some wheat!

The first time I tried olives was in halls of residence as a student. The meals in halls tended to be a bit school dinnerish anyway, and I thought the olive was horrible.

It was years later before I tried one again. I think I was probably offered them as an appetizer pre dinner once and tried again. I didn’t find them as bad.

Slowly they grew on me, and whilst not my favourite food I have a couple of recipes I use them in – a nice baked Italian fish recipe, and pizza recipes, and I also buy them to snack on. They make a good snack if you are eating low carb.

Where olives come from 

It took me a while to realise that an olive was a fruit that grows on a tree. They are native to the Mediterranean climate, which is presumably why the Mediterranean style diet has a lot of olive oil in it.

I don’t know how on earth the first person ever decided he could make olives edible. You can’t eat them straight off the tree, they must be cured or pickled.

Olives come in many varieties, and the colour indicates how ripe they are. They go from green to purple and different varieties are harvested at different stages of ripeness.

To cure olives you can use any of the following: water, lye, brine, or dry salt. Lye is sodium hydroxide – basically a food grade version of the stuff you clean drains with, caustic soda.

The different methods of curing affect the flavour and texture of the olive. The longer an olive is cured in brine the less bitter it becomes.

Different varieties of olives 

You will see all kinds of olives in your supermarket. You can buy them in jars, or off the deli counter.

The two types of olives I buy most regularly are Kalamata olives, which are medium sized, plump and a purply black colour, and Manzanilla olives, a small green olive.

The Kalamata olives are good for cooking with, and the Manzanilla are my favourite for snacking as my supermarket do them in little tubs of flavoured oil.

You may also see the following types of olives:

Cerignola: mild flavoured large green and black olives

Nicoise: chewy small brownish purple olives – used in Nicoise salad

Sicilian Green: large dense sour green olives

Olives are a healthy, nutritious food, but like nuts, don’t eat them in huge quantities because of the high fat content.  So if olives are something you haven’t tried, why not give them a go.  Perhaps start off by popping a couple on your next pizza, or adding a couple to your next salad, and see what you think!

Time for a treat recipe! Something with chocolate…yum yum.

Ingredients:
175g plain chocolate, chopped
60g unsalted butter
175g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, at room temperature
150g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g icing sugar

1 Melt the chocolate
Turn the oven to 160C/GM3. Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a small pan of simmering water, or in the microwave, until smooth. Leave to cool for a few minutes. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt.

2 Make the dough
Beat the eggs and sugar with an electric whisk for about 2 minutes, or until pale. Reduce the speed and add the chocolate mixture and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and continue to mix on a slow speed until blended together. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 1/2 hours (or for up to 2 days, if you like).

3 Shape and bake
Put the icing sugar into a small bowl. Shape the dough into 4cm balls and roll in the sugar. Put them on baking sheets lined with baking paper and press down lightly with your hand to flatten. Bake for 12-15 minutes for soft centres and set edges. Leave to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, and then put on a rack to cool completely. They will keep well in an airtight tin for about 5 days.

Notes
Makes 20
Takes 35 minutes plus chilling and cooling time
148kcals each
Suitable for freezing

Copyright BBC Easy Cook Magazine, Immediate Media Limited
Reproduced with permission

Verdict
These are really yummy cookies! In fact, they are more like chocolate brownies in cookie form. Don’t worry, you won’t need to keep them in a tin for more than 5 days because they will all be gone way before then!