Chicken Cacciatore

MUNCH RATING: 3/5

I was talking to Steve’s sister about this dish as I was disappointed with the Giada De Laurentiis recipe I’d tried. She said she uses a Nigella Lawson recipe which uses pancetta and cannellini beans. I doubt these are traditional ingredients for this Italian dish, but they add good flavour and texture.

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:
I did adapt Nigella’s recipe by adding more herbs and I just used normal garlic as a substitute for the garlic oil. I also omitted the celery salt as I didn’t have any. I also added some spinach at the last minute for colour and because it needed to be used up!

TASTE TEST:
It’s a nice one-pot dish for an everyday meal, but it’s nothing really special so I will tweak it until I think “Wow!”. I think I will add some chilli next time as I think it would benefit from some heat.

• Serves: 4 (or 2 very greedy people!)

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 75g pancetta cubes
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 6 spring onions, finely sliced
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 bay leaves
• 450g (approx. 4-5) chicken thighs, skinned, deboned and cut into bite size pieces
• salt and pepper
• ½ cup white wine
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• ½ - 1 teaspoon sugar (depends on your tomatoes)
• 400g can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

Directions:

1. Put the oil into a pan with the pancetta, garlic, spring onions and the herbs and fry for a couple of minutes.
2. Add the chicken pieces, stirring well, and season with salt and pepper.
3. Pour in the wine and let it come to a bubble before adding the tomatoes and sugar.
4. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the sauce has thickened.
5. Add the cannellini beans and when they have warmed through serve immediately.

Nigella’s Perfect Roast Potatoes

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

I’ve known of Nigella’s Roast Potato recipe that uses semolina for quite a while, but I haven’t had a chance to try them as Steve’s Mum cooks the Sunday Roast. But she’s on holiday so I had my chance!

But I didn’t follow Nigella’s recipe completely:

• Nigella’s recipe uses goose fat, but I didn’t have any so I used lard instead and the result was still fantastic. The potatoes are super crunchy on the outside, but nice and fluffy inside.
• I scaled the recipe down as I was only cooking for me and Steve and I par-boiled the potatoes for 6 minutes instead of 4.

• Serves: 2
• Oven temperature: Gas mark 9/475°F/240°C
• You will need: a saucepan, a roasting tin

Ingredients:

• 3 medium sized potatoes
• 50g lard
• 1 Tablespoon semolina
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to the hottest possible temperature.
2. Peel the potatoes, and cut each into 3 by cutting off each end at a slant so that you are left with a wedge or triangle in the middle.
3. Place the potatoes into salted cold water in a saucepan, and bring them to a boil. Boil the potatoes for 6 minutes (so that you can insert a knife but the potatoes are still hard in the middle). Drain the excess water from the potatoes using a colander and then tip the potatoes back into the empty saucepan.
4. Sprinkle the semolina over the top of the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Hold a lid firmly on top of the pan and shake the potatoes around to coat them well and so that their edges disintegrate or fuzz and blur a little: this facilitates the crunch effect later.
5. Place the lard into a large roasting tin and heat in the oven until very hot. Then carefully place the semolina-coated potatoes into the hot fat and roast the potatoes in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour or until they are darkly golden and crisp, turning them over halfway through cooking. If the oven is hot enough they probably will not need more than about 25 minutes a side; and it's better to let them sit in the oven (you can always pour off most of the fat and leave them in the tin) until the very last minute.