CDwM Main Course recipe - Chicken with wild mushroom and spinach sauce.

From Bon Appétit

I've cooked this dish a few times before and it's always really tasty. It's sort of an up-to-date version of that old classic, Chicken Tarragon that my mum used to make. Now, having watched quite a few 'Something for the Weekends', I have noticed that Simon has a penchant for this herb, and, I believe, quite rightly so! It's one of those things I don't think we use often enough and tends to be in dried form at the back of the cupboard from the early 1970s! Well, this recipe uses fresh tarragon. You can't make it ahead of schedule, in terms of the day before, but pan frying the chicken and beginning the sauce is something you could do earlier in the evening, before your guests arrive.

For the real recipe, click here, or for my version, carry on reading!

Chicken breasts with skin on, preferably free-range
chicken stock
wild mushrooms
spinach
white wine
cream
tarragon

basmati rice
flaked almonds

Pan fry the seasoned chicken breast until browned, ensuring the skin is crispy.
Turn skin side up, pop into an oven-proof dish and pour chicken stock around them, until it reaches a third up the breasts.
Cook in a hot oven, about 180-200 degrees celcius, until cooked through: about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, fry the butter until sizzling, then add the torn wild mushrooms. Don't shake the pan around; let them sit there for a few minutes first.
When they are soft and browned, add a glass of wine and bubble 'til it's nearly gone.
Add the spinach, cream, I used double, and the chopped tarragon and season to taste.

Serve with the rice: Cook the rice as per the packet instructions, toast the almonds, either in a hot, dry frying pan or in the oven (keep an eye on them, I usually end up making two batches, the first always being very burnt as I get easily distracted!) Once done, combine them with the rice and add a blob of butter to taste.

On the night, I slightly overcooked the chicken and this is something to be aware of! If the sauce isn't quite ready, remove the chicken from the oven, and pop it back to heat before serving. It's a quick and easy recipe but, if you serve it attractively, looks more complex than it really is!

Free Pasta!

Working in London does have its benefits for the OH. He returned home with free pasta a couple of days ago, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was 'Giovanni Rana', stuffed with spinach and ricotta: they must have just brought I out that day as I also saw the tv flooded with adverts for it.

Now, I knew OH wouldn't be full with half of the given packet, so had to think up another idea. For the Tortelloni I simply served it with a sage and butter dressing, the same as I used on the Gnocchi. The pasta itself was thin, and generally held together in the pan, altough a few pieces of 'stuffing' had fallen from their pasta wrap in the packet. The pasta itslef was very tasty, and the thinness helped it not become chewy, while the stuffing was also quite tasty, not as rubbery as some I've tasted!

I also heated some penne and some ragu 'sauce' left over from the Oxtail Stew I had made the night before, which I blitzed with the hand processor. It's always better to use a ridged pasta, such as penne with meat sauces or thick ragu as the ridges 'catch' the sauce and coat it better.

As usual, the OH preferred the penne with ragu, while my choice would be the spinach and ricotta tortellini with sage butter. Each to their own!

Day 1 - chicken with spinach and wild mushrooms

Chicken with Spinach and Wild Mushrooms

Was rather in a rush tonight when trialling my first dish for the forth-coming CDwM. I'd have been in more of a hurry had I not bumped into Titto in the supermarket; he valiantly offered to help pack and it was finished in a flash! As you know, you need to cook with love if you want it to turn out right, and, to be honest, I really didn't have the heart for it tonight: take-away pizza and coleslaw would have been perfect, but, as I've got rather a lot of trial runs to go this week, so I can change my menu if necessary (!) I thought I'd better get started.

Chicken - overcooked, dry and chewy. Need to buy similar sized fillets and cook for no longer than 15 mins after browning. Good colour on top though!

Mushrooms - due to lack of usual packet from Tescos - sorry, would buy form Borough Market if I lived even marginally close - had different types from normal. Need to cut very thin slivers of these type.

Rice - There's a first time for everything! Perfectly cooked. Be careful to serve hot! Leave over steaming water once rinsed with cold water. Only 2 handfuls needed per person, not three. Don't forget about toasted almonds in pan and leave some for top of rice. Needs serving in narrower circles - little glass ramekins?

To serve - rice in one corner, blob of sauce with chicken on top in other.

Tonight's dinner was ok; definitely not a winning dish though! A lot more attention to detail needed, and accurate cooking times.

Petatou

Wanted to blog these photos as this really was a delicious meal! It was inspired by a lovely-sounding recipe from Dan, potato Petatou, from Bourdain's Les Halles cookbook. Dan served it as a starter but I thought it held its own well as the potato dish of a main course.

I chose to grill a pork chop, serve with potatoes and spinach, and I added a little twitst to the parsley oil which was a little balsamic vinegar to give a sharpness to the meal. The balsamic was already in the potatoes themselves, so I knew it would complement the potatoes and the pork.

Thanks Dan, it really was good!

Mushroom and Spinach pancakes

This was meant to be Wednesday's dinner with a traditional asparagus wrapped in pancetta with Hollandaise for starters. Scallops on leek puree and home-made pasta stuffed with ricotta and spinach and a sage butter sauce should have been Tuesday's dinner. The boyf, him again, was out for a work leaving do on Tuesday, however, and really wanted scallops so 'suggested' I swap the two days so he could have the scallops on Wednesday.

This was no skin off my nose as I was having trouble finding rennet to make my own Ricotta-type cheese, so it gave me an extra day! Still haven't found any in a real-life shop - any ideas? And I love these pancakes, always wanting one more, so was happy to eat alone. I think the recipe was originally a Good Food one, but can't remember. Anyway, this is generally how it goes:

First, fry off some chestnut mushrooms and chopped garlic until soft.

Remove from the pan when done and wilt the spinach.

Either use ready-made or make your own savoury pancakes - I always use a Delia recipe, though feel I should be able to remember it without the book by now!

Make a cheese / bechamel sauce. Just mix flour with butter and stir in milk on a hot heat little by little until a thick consistency is reached. Add cheese to taste.

Spoon the ingredients onto a pancake with a little of the sauce. Roll and place into an ovenproof dish.

Dollop over the rest of the cheese sauce and sprinkle a little more grated cheese over the top. I find that the sauce always disappears so add a few more dollops than you think it needs.

Bake at 180 for about 20 minutes.