ramtops

(I said it was a busy weekend).

The last of last weekend’s roast chicken was languishing in a bowl in the fridge, and the weather forecast was Not Nice. So we decided that A Pie was called for.

Due to the unexpected trip to Lakeland, I started the filling in the tiny slow cooker before I went out. In went two chopped rashers of back bacon, about 30g of finely diced chorizo (oh, chorizo, how I love thee), a chopped leek, and about half a punnet of tired chestnut mushrooms. A small glug of olive oil, a grate of black pepper, some fresh thyme, and I set it on low, and went to Beverley. I’m getting so much use out of that thing, I just love it. I want a medium slow cooker now, but I really don’t think I have anywhere to keep it :(

There was a gorgeous smell when we returned! Once the cake baking marathon was over, I transferred the mix to a deep frying pan, added the chicken and warmed it through. And then, while warding off the Senior Cats, I added about two or three tablespoons of plain flour and cooked that off, and then just enough milk to make a sauce. No idea how much, just until it was right.

Pete manfully rolled out the puff pastry (which came from the freezer – I’m not that daft), and we ate it with mashed swede and carrot, and very nice it was too. And we were so hungry I forgot to photograph it, but I will do so when we have reheated the other half for tomorrow’s supper.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

I’ve written before about everlasting chicken. We don’t throw any of it away, except the bones, and then only when they’ve been boiled up for soup. I sometimes put the last bits of the meat into a pie filling, and bung that in the freezer, and when we had a friend coming for supper the other night, I though a chickie! pie would be nice.

This one turned out to have leeks and mushrooms in it, and a mustardy sauce, and I used up a slab of frozen puff pastry too, so that was a result. There might, possibly, be some room in the freezer soon …

I made a variation on the blackberry cake that I did last week; cut the sugar down, replaced the vanilla with lemon juice, and the milk with plain yogurt (as it needed using up). It came out less light, but actually I think we liked it better. So here it is.

Raspberry cake

1 punnet raspberries

230g caster sugar
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
2 teaspoons lemon juice*
200g marg or butter
about 2 tbsp plain yogurt

Grease and line a 22cm springform pan, put the raspberries in the bottom. Whizz all the other ingredients in a food processor, and pour on top of the fruit. Bake at 180c for 40-45 minutes.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

As it’s a bank holiday weekend here, we decided to splash out on a Chickie! from the wonderful T L Norman on Princes Ave. Pe picked up a 5.5ln bird on Friday morning, and we roasted it on Saturday, with potatoes, and fennel and carrots from the veg box.

Yesterday, we had cold chickie!, and wondered what to have with it. I surveyed the contents of the fridge, which included a celeriac (of which I am not unduely fond), and an elderly sweet potato. A quick google brought forth this rather nice recipe for a celeriac and sweet potato puree, which Pete made, and it was lovely.

We didn’t eat all the puree, so in a rather courageous fusion recipe, we have made a pie filling out of cold chicken, the left over fennel and carrots, and the puree. It is about to be enrobed in puff pastry from the freezer (life really is too short to make puff pastry) and we shall consume it with some spring greens.

It smells OK …

The chicken carcase has gone into the freezer to make soup, and the rest of the cold meat is in a bowl in the fridge – it might be enfreezered too, as we are away next weekend, and have a lot of veg to eat up.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Sorry for silence lately. I moved the domain and the nameservers fell off (professional, eh? :), and we’ve been just swamped with other stuff.

We had a mega party here over the Royal Wedding weekend, specifically *not* to celebrate same. It was a blast, and just as an aide memoire, this is what we cooked:

5kgs of chicken breast was turned into lemony chicken and coriander, with dhal. We bought several packs of chapatti to go with this, and entirely forgot to serve them, so another post looms about that.
5kgs of stewing steak was turned into a sort of French-ish casserole – marinaded overnight with brandy, red wine, orange juice, juniper berries, black peppercorns, garlic, and anything else that looked suitable, then decanted into the slow cooker with a tin of tomatoes and more seasoning and courgette/carrot/onion and some flageolet beans. That which didn’t fit was placed into to the ancient cast iron casserole and oven-cooked as Emergency Backup Casserole. We had three bags of new potatoes to serve with those. Guess what?
For puddings, we did a mega rhubarb and fresh ginger crumble, a lemon and honey cheesecake on a ginger bikket base, a Danish apple rye cake (by special request) and, of course, a chocolate moooooooose.
There were snacking things in the afternoon, including onion and goat cheese tartlets, and sossidge rolls.

It all seemed to go rather well, and we discovered that we *can* feed thirty people at a time. Just :)

The emergency backup casserole was not required, so we fed it to a couple of late stragglers the following day with sugar snap peas and some of the new potatoes, we put some in the freezer, and the last little bit we made into a pie with the remainder of the sausage roll pastry (yes, it was frozen. Kill me now). And here it is.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

There’s always some scratty chicken left after a roast … so today I have fashioned a Pie.

Made a pastry with 9oz wholemeal flour, 2 tsps baking powder, 4oz of Trex and some water. That’s now in the fridge, chilling (man).

Then chopped a leek into slices, 2 carrots into small dice, and 2 cloves of garlic finely (Pete did garlic and carrot). Fried that lot off with a rasher of bacon that needed using up. In went some finely chopped sage from the garden too, then I put a lid on the pan and left it to cook for ten minutes. Then added a couple of spoons full of wholemeal flour (we always use wholemeal these days) and a teaspoon of grain mustard and stirred it all around.

Then added milk bit by bit till the consistency was right, lobbed in the chicken (all shredded up), seasoned it, and left it. I shall marry pastry and filling later, and bake at gas 5 for about 35 minutes.

This will be followed by rhubarb with an oaty crumble topping, which I know is bad, but Pete brought some home yesterday – what can I do?

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

(Or, at least, the filling thereof). We had a roast chicken last week, a 5lb one. It fed four for one meal, we had a stir fry the next night, then Pete stripped the carcass and I made stock, and then soup from the bones.

But the remaining meat languished in the fridge – somehow we just didn’t get to it. So last night, I made it into a filling for a brace of chicken pies.

I took two leeks, chopped them down the middle, and then into fine slices, and sautéd them off in some olive oil. Chopped a pack of back bacon that really did need eating, but was not particularly good bacon, and added that to the pan. When the bacon was cooked, I tipped in the chopped chicken and stirred until it was hot.

Then added some flour to coat it all, a teaspoon of dijon mustard, and then milk until it was the sort of consistency I wanted. All of this went on to a chorus of anguish from five cats, who felt that inside them was a much more suitable resting place for any chicken remains. So they got the duck giblets from the night before – spoilt, you say? :)

It made two tubs’ worth of pie fillings, which will make eight portions of pie – so the chicken did 14 portions, plus soup, for a fiver.