Poussins - the very little chickens

Sorry to any veggie readers of this blog. Tonight was all about the main event, roast poussins with root veg mash and steamed broccoli.

So I had a couple of poussins hanging around that needed eating up, and my sister came over tonight to discuss the world and everything in it. I thought they'd make a nice and very filling one course supper - she is the size of a twig, and there was no way either of us would have got close to finishing this with either a starter or pudding, let alone both.

The poussins were from Gressingham farms and bought from Waitrose, the only supermarket I really trust (apart from maybe the Co-op) to ensure that farmers get a decent deal, and to make sure the meat they sell is ethically farmed. This really is a meal with very little input - it's all about the main affair.

The poussins are roasted with a lemon slice in the cavity, sprinkled with Maldon salt and ground black pepper, with decent smoky bacon over the top for the first hour of cooking. I took this off and laid in the pan for the last 15 minutes (the pack said they'd take 40, by which time the meat was still very raw and inedible).

Meanwhile, I steamed turnip, swede, pumpkin and carrot for the mash, made as for the last post and added a whole small soft goat's cheese. This was better than last time - I really think they gluey culprit then was the potato - but still not up to the three veg mash of love and memory from last year. That celeric, swede and turnip combo with hard goats cheese is, I think, the only way to go.

However, this, with a little homemade gravy from the juices and some steamed broccoli went down a treat. I'm not sure a roast chicken wouldn't have been easier and cheaper and less wasteful, but worth a try.

Curry-time

After a lovely roast chicken last night (thank you Waitrose and Nigel Slater), there was tons of meat left. I picked off most of it and then boiled the carcass for chicken stock, to freeze and form the basis for some tasty autumn soups. The best thing about a free range chicken is the amount of meat on it - I ended up throwing away some of the bits left on the bones from the stock, mainly as I didn't have time to turn it into soup straight away. It still seems like a waste (which of course it is) but for under a tenner we've had today and yesterday, two fantastic main meals for two, some roast chicken for sandwiches and it'll be the basis for at least another couple of meals in stock form over the next few weeks.

So I was left with a large bowl of roast chicken, and I thought I'd make the most of it and turn it into curry. BBC Recipes came good with an excellent and easy Jalfrezi recipe, which didn't take too long to make. It's also a good store cupboard stand by, as I've usually got most of these ingredients in apart from fresh chillis and coriander, which the local corner shop always has on hand. It's really cheap too.

The sauce:

1/2 a large onion, chopped (you'll use the other half in a minute)
2 - 3 cloves of garlic
1 green chilli, chopped
1 tin plum tomatoes
1/2 pint of water
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric

The meat and veg:

2 or 3 chicken breasts (or the remains of last night's roast, yum yum)
1 red pepper
The other half of the large onion, chopped
2 red chillis (I used a large thin one)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsps garam masala
Handful of fresh chopped coriander leaves

1. Chop the chicken and coat in the smaller quantities of cumin, coriander and turmeric from the meat ingredient section. Leave to marinade whilst you're doing everything else.
2. Fry half the onion, the garlic and green chilli til softened and browned. Add 1/2 pint of water and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Whilst that's cooking, whizz the tomatoes in a food processor til smooth. Chop the rest of the onion, red pepper and chilli and sit to one side for a moment.

4. When the onions have been simmering for 10 mins, in a separate pan, heat a splosh of oil and fry the larger quantities of spices from the sauce ingredient section. Give them a minute to toast and add in the tomatoes. Leave both pans simmering on the stove for ten minutes.

5. Then, process the onions in the processor til smooth and add to the tomato mixture. These simmer together for 20 minutes (and smell lovely and curry-like). You can make this sauce up in batches and freeze ahead, meaning a quick home made curry on a cold night - something I'll be doing over the weekend, I think!
6. Fry the chicken in a frying pan, adding the reserved onion, chillis and pepper after a couple of minutes. Cook together until the chicken is cooked through and the onions are softened.

7. Add the chicken mixture to the sauce and simmer together for a further 20 minutes. Before serving, add the chopped coriander and garam masala. You can serve this with chapattis, rice or naan bread (I sent Jonno to the takeaway to buy proper naans - the ones you can home bake in the oven are horrible, and I don't have a tandoor, nor sadly the space and money to invest in one). So, ta da, the finished product:

It was lovely, pretty low in fat, and far nicer than almost all takeaway curries. It's just so easy to make. I'd like to say just like Mum made but she always swore by Patak's curry pastes, which to be fair are pretty good.

It certainly got eaten up! It's meant to be good for four people, but given the quantity of meat it did one portion for me and two and a half for Jonno. I think it's personally a little dry for much more meat than I added, so tweaking this for more people in future, I'd add more water to the onions earlier on, and maybe a couple of tins of tomatoes - if fussy, I'd make up a massive batch of the sauce, freeze in medium sized portions and then add the meat once I knew how the sauce would work out. It also wasn't quite hot enough for my tastes, so I'd probably either use a scotch bonnet instead of the red one, or use two long red chillis instead. Let me know if you try it! More curry recipes coming soon.

Travels and flowers

Oh dear. My attempts to avoid budget airlines and becoming more-carbonly-neutral do not seem to be working out quite as planned this summer, partially because many of our favourite people live away (and my favourite band released teasing European dates without English dates...)

J's best friend Phil has been living in Delft for the last year or so. We've been over to see him once, and saw him again at a Belgian festival last summer. Phil's also made it over here a couple of times - but not nearly as often as we'd like to see him. After much discussion we're going over for the weekend in mid-July, and I thought I'd try and see what the trains were like. Unfortunately - woeful. The journey times (even taking into account getting to/from airports at either end) are twice as long, and cost twice as much. It appears impossible to travel by train between London and Rotterdam without taking out a small mortgage, so VLM it is. I can't wait to see Rotterdam, too - apparently it's even prettier that Delft, which has already stolen my heart as one of the loveliest Dutch cities. The picture on the left wasn't taken wonkily - the church really does lean over to a disturbing degree.


We had such a good time the last time (even if we did end up looking like this by the end of the evening after one too many extremely strong Dutch beers) that it wouldn't feel like summer really without a trip over to say hello and see Phil and his partner Janneke's new place.

On the home front, the garden is changing daily as more and more of the climbers and pots start to flower. The mysterious plant Anne gave me (and swore was very pretty) has now flowered. I'm still not sure what it's called, but look: purple and gorgeous! The first three to blossom are the first of many, too, if the buds do what they look as if they will (and the slimy beasts don't get there first). The daisies are also going great guns; this happened after a little bit of deadheading whilst having a cigarette a couple of afternoons ago. The only thing I'm unsure about is the shocking pink geranium... it didn't look like this in the garden centre, honest...

Scratch mid week meal

I really, really couldn't be bothered to go to the supermarket in the snow this evening. That and the fact that I had loads of root vegetables left from Sunday's feast and thanks to some decent advice in cookery books, a reasonable store cupboard, means that a really good midweek supper is possible in about half an hour. However you do have to be either a) organised enough to make and freeze your own meatballs (I mean, really) or b) a bit of an Ikea addict and have the habit of picking up a packet of their lovely frozen swedish ones whenever you need some new glassware. The latter is me. Especially given my frequent glass smashing habit.

So I started the meatballs first. 1 chopped onion, 3 cloves of garlic chopped fine *thank you God for food processors*, cooked til soft in 1 tbsp of olive oil. Add your meatballs dependent on appetite of hungry man. Then I added half a glass of rose that happened to be hanging around in the fridge, a carton of chopped Italian tomatoes,a slug of tasbasco and a small glug of balsamic vinegar. Seasoned well and cooked over a medium to low heat for 25 minutes cooks the meatballs through and reduces off some of the sauce.

In the meantime, I chopped two large carrots, a palm sized piece of celeriac and the same size of swede to 1 cm dice and boiled til slightly soft - about ten minutes. This then goes in the food processor with some butter and quite a bit of goat's cheese, diced quite finely but not quite to a puree and again seasoned well. All the veg is organic and British (for about 5p more a kilo than imported and non-organic - well worth it).

It's now sat on top of the stove awaiting a last reheat when J comes home, smelling lovely and having had a sneaky mouthful, tasting pretty good too.

Update: That was amazing. The root veg mash was creamy with the goat's cheese (I have a feeling it was better reheated, giving a chance for the cheese to melt in and cook slightly) and a little bit sweet, making it the perfect companion with the sweetish tomato sauce, just slightly acidic with the balsamic. I'm definitely making this again.

Scratch Sunday lunch and going ethical

J and I went to see friends at the weekend - old housemates and assorted friends, girlfriends and boyfriends in Holloway. We turned up with wine at 1pm as requested only to find everyone very hungover and a fridge empty apart from a value chicken and some drumsticks... Miraculously not Sunday-morning hungover myself (too many Christmas parties in the week meant an early booze free-ish Saturday night) and with nine hungry people, there was only one thing for it. Armed with the roast chicken recipe from last week, I sent J to the shops for a few vital supplies (ready made yorkshire puddings, potatoes and a lemon) and started cooking. The afternoon was vastly improved by Jen's addition of mince-pie-loveliness for pudding... Jus-rol ready puff pastry, rolled out thin; spread mincemeat on top, sprinkle with lemon zest, roll into sausage shape, cut into inch-long pieces and bake at GM4 til it's done, served with custard or ice-cream (or both if you're J and greedy).

The meal itself was fine - veg, roast regular and sweet potatoes, yorkshire puds, roast chicken and gravy - but the meat really lacked the flavour and texture of the chicken from last weekend. And no wonder. Battery reared broilers with a horrible quality of life = unappetizing, fatty meat that no amount of butter, fresh herbs, lemon and garlic can save. The drumsticks were slightly better but I don't hold out much hope of the soup from the resulting stock. As I've been cooking a lot more lately, but buying fairly good quality ingredients, it really made me think again about how we eat.

Following on from last Sunday's revelation about food quality, late in the day by north London standards, I'm starting to think far more about the ethical dimension of what I put on my plate. I've already become one of those annoying people who asks whether the fish is farmed when eating out, and I've decided very literally to put my money where my mouth is from 2010. As of January 1st next year, we're eating seasonal, free range, organic food from small local suppliers as often as possible. That's not to say there won't be the occasional trip to Sainsbury's (particularly for that emergency bottle of wine). And no, I'm not starting with an organic veg box - mainly because I don't want to throw away box after box of turnips - there's only so much root veg soup one girl can eat, particularly when I can't heat it up in the office the next day. Some weeks we eat out most nights. But lots of the time I cook most nights, and I'm becoming more and more convinced that if enough of us at least try, then we can make a difference to supermarket buying patterns and farming techniques. This also extends to making meat an occasional treat rather than the centrepiece of every evening meal.

Now if someone just can tell me where I can buy a regular, tasty, good-for-the-enviroment-and-my-wallet lunch every day without swelling the ever-growing coffers of Pret a Manger, I'll be on to a winner.