Chicken Tagine with Caramelised Baby Onions and Honey

The Lake District was beautiful and sunny on Friday evening, sitting in the quiet of the valley watching the deer with their new bambi's was a lovely end to the week. It did rain pretty much continuously from then on in, but it was still a lovely weekend. It stopped long enough to light the bbq for supper, but also managed to soak us thoroughly while out for a walk. The mist was rolling down the hills dramatically as we left but even in bad weather it is still such a beautiful and relaxing place.

So it may be August, British Summer Time, in case you had forgotten, but I think this rainy windy day calls for something a little bit warming... I have mentioned Claudia Roden before, her book Arabesque is never far from hand in my kitchen. A taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon, full of spice and flavour. My favourite section is full of Moroccon tagines, spiced with ginger and cinnamon, sweet with honey and perfumed with saffron...

Claudia uses a whole jointed chicken for her version of this tagine, but as I was only cooking for two I used boned chicken thighs. I find chicken thighs much tastier than breast meat, and for longer cooking times like this tagine, thigh meat is much less likely to dry out.

Start with 150g of shallots or baby onions. Pour hot water over them, in a bowl, and leave for five minutes to blanch. This makes removing the skin whilst keeping the onions or shallots whole much easier. While they are bobbing around in hot water finely chop a small onion and then cook slowly in a tablespoons of olive oil. Cook until soft, for about 5 minutes, and then add half a teaspoon of ginger, half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of saffron. Continue to cook the onion and spices for a few minutes longer.

Chop about 300g of boned and skinned chicken thighs into bite size pieces, perhaps a bit more if you're really hungry. Add the chicken to the pan with the onions and spices, and when it is sealed all over add 150ml of water, the blanched onions with their skins removed and a pinch of salt and pepper. Leave the tagine to cook, on a medium heat, uncovered for about 20 minutes.

While the tagine is cooking you can prepare the couscous. It needs to be in a pan that can go in the oven. Use 100g per person, pour it into the pan and add the same amount of salted water to the couscous, cover and leave for 10 minutes. I used 200g of couscous to 200ml of boiling water with a teaspoon of salt in it. Fluff up the couscous after it has absorbed all of the water, it may have become quite a hard mass, but just break it apart with a fork until it is light and fluffy. Add a glug of olive oil and work it all through the couscous with your hands, getting lots of air into it as you do. Finally put the dish into a pre heated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes. Before serving stir a knob of butter through the piping hot couscous and fluff it up again. Claudia uses 20g of butter, but I think you can get away with a lot less, but just to your own tastes.

To finish the final stage of the tagine remove the chicken pieces from the sauce and set them aside, leave the onions in the pan to continue to soften. The sauce now needs to reduce and thicken up a bit. Add 2 tablespoons of honey and lots more black pepper, you need quite a lot to balance the sweetness of the honey. Just keep tasting it until it suits your taste. Turn the heat up a little and allow the sauce to bubble away and reduce by about half. Finally return the chicken to the pan to heat through for a few minutes.

Fill a bowl with a large scoop of buttery couscous and top with the chicken, sauce and onions. I sprinkled the top with some toasted sesame seeds, you could also use some toasted almonds roughly chopped. The gingery, cinnamon spice is lovely with sweet honey, spicy black pepper and soft onions. It is making me want to cook it again just writing this, I might have to wait until tomorrow...

Spring Chicken Terrine

The Terrine is becoming a bit of a signature dish, every time I invite large numbers of people to dine I usually unveil a terrine. The Little Idiot is the master of them, but I am a fast learner. In autumn and winter we made them with rabbit and pheasant, heavy with garlic and juniper. This one was for picnicking in the Lakes and as it is spring and sunny we decided on a lighter chicken version.

To start you need to poach a good free range chicken, I went for a corn fed one that was lovely and yellow. The poaching is a tip learnt from the St. John recipe books. I always used to roast whichever meat I had chosen, but after poaching the chicken for the Chicken, bacon and caper pie I haven’t looked back... The meat is so much more juicy and tender and tasty.

Fill a large pan with water, an onion peeled and halved, a chopped carrot, a chopped stick of celery, some pepper corns, a pinch of salt and a bundle of herbs such as thyme, parsley and bay leaves. Put the chicken into the pot, it doesn’t need to be entirely covered, you can turn it half way through. Bring it to the boil and then let it simmer for 45 minutes with the lid on, turning the chicken over half way through. When it is done take it out of the water and allow it to cool. You then need to strip all of the meat into bite size pieces from the chicken, discarding any skin and bones.

While the chicken is poaching you can prepare the terrine tin. You need a long deep terrine type tin, or something a bit loaf shaped. Grease the inside of it with butter and lay a few bay leaves on the base for decoration when it is turned out. Line the whole tin with streaky unsmoked bacon, allowing it to flap over the edges so there is enough to turn over the top of the terrine when it is full.

Next prepare the sausage meat, you can get it from the butchers, or in large packets in the supermarket, or take it out of some actual sausages, but make sure they are plain ones as you will add your own flavour. The amount will depend on the size of your tin, I think I used about 750g. Empty it into a big bowl so you can begin to season it. Add a teaspoon of chopped lemon thyme, a teaspoon of normal thyme leaves, some salt and pepper and a splash of brandy. As we were going for springy and fresh we added the zest of half a lemon, 4 or 5 crushed juniper berries and a clove of garlic finely chopped. Finally I toasted some blanched almonds, chopped them up and added to the mix. It is not an exact science and has been different every time so far, but always good. If you can get hold of some chicken livers, chop about a handful and add to the mix.

Mix everything together with your hands and spread a layer of the sausage mix over the base of your tin, on top of the bacon, about 1cm deep. Then add a layer of chicken meat about the same depth. Continue adding alternate layers until the tin is full to the brim and turn the bacon over and in to seal everything up.

Next you need to cook the terrine. Cover the tin with buttered grease proof paper and tie it with string tightly around the top to seal it as best you can. Place the terrine into a large baking tray and pour in boiling water to just over half the height of the terrine tin, to create a bain-marie. Put it in a low oven at 150°C for about an hour and a half. Check it after an hour however, it is ready when the terrine has shrunk a bit and come away from the sides of the tin.

Take it out and let it cool on the side, grease proof paper still in place, with a weight on top to press it. Finding the right sized weight has always been a problem for me, a wine box with books and pans balanced on top this time round... A brick would probably be the ideal shape. This weighting makes sure the terrine has the correct pressed firm texture. Don't put a good book straight on it however as a little juice and jelly might ooze out.

Leave it to cool and press overnight as a minimum, after this it will happily sit in the fridge for a few days before you need it, the flavours only improve... When you are ready to serve, run a knife around the edge of the tin and tap it out onto a board. Slice up and serve with a good chutney...

Chicken, bacon and caper pie

I went out for martinis last night, to Popolos in Newcastle. We were celebrating the American's engagement; The Little Idiot, the Blonde, Boozer and Greggles were all in attendance and it was a very good night. We started with violet martinis, which taste of parma violets and are pretty much just vodka. They are dangerous, but delicious... We then moved on to apple martinis, which may explain feeling a bit fuzzy this morning. It's a good job we'd had a lovely big bowl of seafood pasta and warm bread at Greggles and the Blonde's before we started on the cocktails.

I am finding sustenance in left over chicken pie after having already had a walk to town, a look at the Sunday market on the Quayside and a wedding fayre at The Baltic this morning. I'm exhausted already but at least there was free cake...

The Little Idiot and I spent Friday evening making chicken pie. The recipe was from Beyond Nose to Tail by Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Gellatly. Their restaurant St. John is one of my favourite place to go when I'm down in London. The recipe is actually for Chicken and Ox Tongue pie, but ox tongue proved hard to get hold of after work on a Friday, so we adapted it to suit. I'll tell you the version we made.

Poach a whole chicken in a large pot with a chopped leek, a few cloves of garlic, a chopped onion and some peppercorns. Let it simmer for 45 minutes. Keep the stock for other things it's delicious. They often poach meat in this book and it makes for a delicious pie, the meat is really juicy and tasty compared to roasting it.

While the chicken is poaching slice 2 onions into chunky rounds and cook them in a knob of butter 'until totally submissive'. About half an hour we found. Then fry off 5 or so slices of streaky bacon after the onions in the same pan.

Remove the chicken from the bone and cut it all into pie-size chunks. Mingle the chicken, onions and bacon all together in your pie dish.

Now make the white sauce. Melt a knob of butter in a pan and add a handful of plain flour, stir for a few minutes. Don't let it colour but let it cook a little until it smells biscuity. Start to whisk in the whole milk. The recipe asks for 1.2 litres of whole milk but we didn't actually use that much. I'd say about 800/ 900ml. Whisk it in a little at a time as it thickens and add a little of the chicken stock towards the end. You're aiming for a silky creamy sauce.

Add a big handful of capers to the sauce, extra fine ones if you have them. Season the sauce and then pour it over the chicken, bacon and onions.

The recipe is for puff pastry, but I accidentally bought shortcrust, it didn't make any difference, it was still delicious. You can make your own if you want, but the shop bought ready rolled sheets are very good. Place it over the pie and brush it with a beaten egg for a lovely golden pastry crust. Cut a cross in the centre of the pastry for the pie bird to poke through. This is Peter, our pie bird, I've been wanting to introduce him for a while... If you don't have a pie bird just leave a cross in the middle to let the steam out.

Bake it in a hot oven, about 190°C for 30 to 40 minutes. It really feels like you've achieved something with your own pie. A labour of love. This one was delicious.

1 whole free range chicken
1 leek
3 onions
4 cloves of garlic
a few peppercorns
2 knobs of butter
a handful of plain flour
800/900ml whole milk
a big handful of capers
1 sheet of puff or shortcrust pastry
1 egg beaten
salt and pepper