Chicken – Page 3 – Scandelights

Ovenbaked buffalo chicken wings

Published on May 5, 2014May 2, 2014 by HannaLeave a comment

I really like buffalo chicken wings and cook them quite frequently at home. But sometimes although in the mood for them I sometimes cook something else instead because it seems like such a faff to deep-fry (I don’t have a fryer).

So when I saw a recipe for oven-baked chicken wings on Fröken Dill’s blog I decided to try that approach to compare to the deep-frying.

I stuck to my recipe for buffalo chicken wings but used the new method. And the result? Definitely nice, the skin was crispy and the meat moist but when deep-fried the skin in even crispier and the meat even more moist and tender so deep-frying certainly wins. But with that said, oven baking the wings are great for parties when you need to make a lot or those days when deep-frying appears a bit daunting.

Ovenbaked Buffalo chicken wings, 1 portion

6 chicken wings

2 tbsp mild/neutral oil

salt and pepper

2 tbsp salted butter

1 tbsp hot sauce

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Place the chicken wings in a colander and pour some boiling water over the chicken wings. Leave to dry for a few minutes. (This procedure makes the skin crispier). Massage the chicken pieces with oil, salt and pepper and place on a tin foil covered baking tray. Bake in the oven for about 60 mins (turn at half time), and make sure they don’t burn.

Place the cooked wings in a tupperware container (with a lid). Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Add the hot sauce to the melted butter and pour it over the chicken wings. Put the lid on the tupperware container and shake to distribute the sauce evenly. Serve immediately.

A relaxed dinner with friends

Published on March 11, 2014 by HannaLeave a comment

Last weekend I had two late nights in a row and as I am not twenty anymore (sob) I coudn’t do the same this weekend. Instead I hibernated at home on the Saturday and invited my party happy friends from the weekend before over for a relaxed dinner. It’s obviously a different experience to doing shots at 2am but very emjoyable.

We started with a few nibbles; padrón peppers, sweet green olives (that I managed to find in Sainsbury’s actually) and serrano rolls with lemon crème. Some nice bread would have worked well with this, and a grassy olive oil to dip it in, but we avoided gluten this evening and even though there are great products out there, glutenfree bread just isn’t as nice as a proper sourdough.

We then had a real classic in my kitchen; lavender chicken with lemon, thyme and garlic served with roasted new potatoes and steamed green beans and broccoli tossed in a Dijon vinaigrette with some honey in. The jus is simply the juices from the chicken reduced and thickened with a knob of butter. Delicious!

To finish we had a take on Gino with bananas, strawberries and perfectly ripe mango. I usually don’t buy fruit and veg so very out of season but couldn’t resist the strawberries and they were actually not that bad, but I prefer local produce in season. Hurry up summer!

Chicken a’la king, my version

Published on November 19, 2013 by HannaLeave a comment

When sitting next to the same person all day every day at work, you come to know them quite well. Ria, who I sit next do, and I share most things, including recipes. One day when I found myself with a lot of leftover roast chicken she suggested I’d make chicken a’la king. Although I know it is a classic dish I had actually never eaten it before, or made it. So I got a quick run through of the recipe and added my own little touches. The result, a creamy lovely sauce with chicken, mushrooms and peppers served with pasta or rice. I have no idea if it actually resembles a proper chicken a’la king, but at least it was really tasty!

According to Ria the original recipe contains sherry but I didn’t have any at hand and added a splash of whisky instead.

My chicken a’la king, serves 2

100 g chestnut mushrooms, cut into quarters

1 red pepper, cut into pieces

1 tbsp oil for frying

2 large chicken breasts, already cooked and cut into cubes (alternatively start the recipe by frying raw cubed raw chicken)

250 ml cream

1 tbsp whisky

2 tsp sambal oelek

a splash of concentrated chicken stock

1 tbsp ketchup

1 tbsp maizena (or other thickening agent)

salt, white pepper

a handful chopped parsley to serve

Fry the mushrooms and peppers in oil until they’ve got some colour, about 5-7 minutes on medium heat. Add the chicken to the pan and fry for another minute. Add the cream and whisky and bring to the boil. Season to taste with sambal oelek, stock and ketchup. Add the maizena if the sauce needs thickening. Cook for another few minutes to thicken. Season with salt and pepper, scatter with parsley and serve with pasta or rice.

Tandoori chicken drumsticks and more

Published on September 18, 2013 by HannaLeave a comment

About a month and a half have passed since my summer party back in Sweden and you can really tell that summer’s over. It’s windy, grey and it has started raining again. But I think all Londoners are happy about the fact that we actually had a decent summer this year, so we are mentally prepared to embrace autumn and winter.

Luckily the recipes for the food I cooked for my friends that summer’s day in August works just as well at this time of year – just choose less summery sides.

So, finally, I give you the recipes!

We started off with a simple yet very tasty pre-dinner cocktail made from vodka, mummy’s homemade elderflower cordial, lemonade, lime and mint together with some amazing Parmesan biscuits I have posted on here before. Do try them if you like cheese at all, they are simply divine!

As I mentioned before, this was a pretty relaxed party, so the starter was served on platters. On a bed of rocket, cucumber and radishes I had piled squares of Ottolenghi’s caramelized garlic tarte high which looked pretty rustic. I simply adore this tarte and all my friends loved it too – such a crowd pleaser! I also made some rustic baguettes after my blog friend Helena’s recipe. She calls them faux sourdough baguettes and that’s a very fitting description; they’re chewy and nice but far easier to make than real sourdough baguettes.

For the maincourse I served two types of meat; rare roast beef with a homemade aromatic butter and tandoori chicken drumsticks with a minty yoghurt dip. Not all my friends like red meat so I always try to serve chicken as well and although Indian food is far less common in Sweden this went down really well with everyone. I had also made two substantial salads which went with both meats; one with roasted new potatoes, spinach, spring onions and cucumber and one with roasted peppers, courgettes and aubergines with rocket and feta. Both dressed with a nice olive oil and a touch of balsamic.

For dessert I let everybody serve themselves a sundae with vanilla and mango icecream, whipped cream, blueberries, raspberries and homemade oat crisps. Super easy to prepare in advance and very popular with my friends!

Tandoori chicken drumsticks, serves 4

Adapted from Simon Hopkinson’s recipe.

The only labour intensive part of this recipe is skinning the drumsticks, which is especially tedious if you make five batches at once like I did. But I assure you, it is worth it.

1,75 g chicken drumsticks

a pinch of salt

2 lemons, juice only

500 g plain yoghurt

3-4 tbsp tandoori spice mix

Remove the skin from the drumsticks, then cut deep incisions in the flesh with a knife. Place the chicken into a bowl and sprinkle over the salt and the juice of two lemons, massaging into the chicken until well coated.

Mix the yoghurt and tandoori spice mix together in a bowl. Pour the marinade onto the chicken and massage into the flesh. Cover with clingfilm and chill in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the grill to high. Lift the drumsticks from the tandoori mixture and gently shake off any excess. Place a wire rack over a roasting tin and lay the drumsticks upon it. Grill for 20 minutes, turning regularly, or until richly burnished and the chicken is cooked through. Add more lemon juice to taste.

Yoghurt dip

3-4 tbsp plain yoghurt

a pinch salt

a pinch sugar

5 sprigs of mint

1 green chilli, deseeded and sliced

Place all of the ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Serve alongside the chicken drumsticks.

Faux sourdough baguettes, makes 3

Translated and adapted from Helena’s receipe.

3 pea sized pieces of fresh yeast (or the equivalent of dry yeast)

300 ml lukewarm water

1.5 tsp salt

25 ml wheat bran

about 380 g strong white flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water and add the remaining ingredients. Stir until all combined and you have a loose dough. Cover with cling and let it rise overnight or at least for five hours.

Turn out the dough on a floured surface and fold the dough in on itself once so both sides of the dough are floured. Pull the dough into a rectangle shape, about 15 x 25 cm. Divide into three equally sized portions and flour all around. Twist the dough pieces into baguettes and place them on a baking tray covered with parchment paper. Let rest while preheating the oven to 275C. Before placing the baking tray in the oven spray the inside of the oven with water both up and down, which will contribute to a nice crust. Bake the breads for 13-15 minutes, the leave to cool on a wire rack uncovered.

Aromatic butter for meat

250 g softened butter

2-3 tsp paprika

1 garlic clove, pressed or grated

1 handful parsley, finely chopped

salt

white pepper

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, season to taste. Using clingfilm shape into a roll and cover it with cling. Leave to set in the fridge. Slice before serving.

Barbecued spatchcock chicken with lemon, honey and fresh herbs

Published on August 14, 2013 by HannaLeave a comment

I’ve been wanting to try to barbecue a whole chicken spatchcocked (butterflied) as it cooks quicker than keeping the bird whole. This way the bird is still in once piece but flattened out, so it still holds the moisture but almost cuts the cooking time in half.

To insure a juicy bird I marinated it in rapeseed oil, honey, fresh rosemary, thyme and lemon zest and I grilled it with the lid on for most of the time, keeping an eye on the temperature. Afterwards I let it rest before serving and the meat was indeed moist and full of lovely flavours both from the marinade and the charcoal.

Served with barbecued corn on the cob and a potato salad with tomatoes, green beans and Dijon vinaigrette this was a lovely summer meal!

Barbecued spatchcock chicken with lemon, honey and fresh herbs, serves 4

1 large free range chicken

50 ml rapeseed oil

2 tsp honey

zest from 1 lemon, I used a potato peeler – no need to finely grated zest

10 stalks of rosemary and thyme

salt, black pepper

Mix the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl. Cut away the back bone on the chicken and butterfly it. Season with salt and pepper, put the bird in a large ziplok bag and pour the marinade into it. Massage the marinade onto the chicken and let it marinate for an hour in room temperature or up to 24 hours in the fridge, just make sure to take it out of the fridge an hour before cooking it.

Barbecue both sides of the chicken on high heat without the lid until brown all around, about 5 mins per side. Put the lid on and barbecue in 150C for about 30 minutes (or until clear liquid from the thigh joint). Leave to rest 5-10 minutes before serving, adding a little butter while resting.

Buffalo chicken wings with blue cheese dip and avocado salsa

Published on January 24, 2013 by Hanna2 Comments

At the moment there are barbecue restaurants wherever you look in London, but some dishes are just as easily prepared at home as in restaurants, like these scrummy buffalo chicken wings.

As much as I like a certain twist on some classics, some things are just left alone. Like these wings. The combination of crispy skin, tender chicken meat, hot buttery sauce and cooling blue cheese dip is invincible. It is just the celery I am not that keen on, so I substituted it with something else green; an avocado salsa with red onion and coriander. It fits too, even though it is not a classic combination like cheese and celery.

The most important thing when cooking chicken wings is the crispy skin. And it is far easier achieved than you think. All you need is some boiling water and a colander. The hot water makes the skin cells contract and tighten resulting in crispy skin when cooked. Second most important thing when cooking wings is the sauce. It should be Frank’s Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, which I picked up in my local London supermarket. But failing finding it, the likes of Tabasco works too.

Buffalo chicken wings, serves 1

With chicken wings I refer to the de-jointed pieces. Six is a small portion, so just double, quadruple and so on, but then fry the wings in batches.

6 chicken wings

500 ml neutral oil for deep-frying

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp hot sauce

Place the chicken wings in a colander and pour boiling water oven them. Leave to drain. Heat up the oil in a large saucepan. Once it is really hot (try with a piece a bread – if it turn golden it is hot enough) add the chicken wings and fry for about 7 minutes until cooked through and golden brown. Drain on kitchen towel.

While the chicken is frying, melt the butter in a saucepan. Once melted, add the hot sauce and keep warm.

Place the fried chicken wings and spicy butter in a large tupperware box with a secure lid. Toss to coat evenly.

Serve with crusty french bread, avocado salsa and blue cheese dip.

Blue cheese dip, serves 4

200 ml sourcream

2 tbsp mayonnaise, preferably Hellman’s

2 tbsp crumbled Stilton

salt, white pepper

Mix all ingredients until smooth. Season.

Avocado salsa, serves 2

1 avocado

1/2 red onion, finely chopped

1/2 lime, the juice

1 handful coriander, chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

salt, black pepper

Dice the avocado and place in a bowl. Mix with red onion and coriander. Squeeze in the juice of the lime, add a glug of oil and season. Eat immediately or cover with cling film to keep the avocado from browning.

Smooth chicken liver mousse with red wine and thyme

Published on December 6, 2012 by Hanna1 Comment

I had a little gathering on the first Sunday of Advent treating my friends to some traditional Swedish Christmas treats as well as some other things. We started off with this heavenly smooth chicken liver mousse served with crispy crostinis. It went down really well and I am very pleased with the flavour combination of liver, red wine and thyme.

Even if you are not a serious charcuterie or offal fan, a chicken liver mousse is always a good place to start. Chicken liver is very mild in flavour compared to calf’s or lamb’s liver. And the other ingredients in this mousse don’t really enhance the liver flavour; it mere complements it.

To make the crostinis, all you need is a day-old baguette and some oil. Slice the baguette in 5 mm thick slices slightly on the diagonal and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with a nice olive or rapeseed oil, place in 200C oven until crisp and golden brown; it takes about 15 minutes.

Chicken liver mousse with red wine and thyme, 1 batch

1/2 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, grated

1 tbsp oil for frying

450 g chicken livers (about 350 g once tubes/tendons removed), roughly chopped

1tbsp butter + 1 tbsp butter

50 ml red wine

1 anchovy

1/2 tsk dried thyme

salt and pepper

65 ml double cream

Fry the onions in the oil on low heat until translucent, add the garlic and fry for another minute.

Turn the heat up and add 1 tbsp butter and the liver. Fry until the liver pieces are cooked all the way around but pink in the middle. Add the anchovy (whole), more butter, red wine and thyme. Fry while stirring until half the liquid has evaporated. Add salt and pepper.

Remove from heat and pour into a food processor. Add the cream and mix until as smooth as possible. Season to taste with salt, pepper and maybe a pinch of sugar. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve, into the serving container. The mixture is a bit liquid at this stage but it will set in the fridge. Refridgerate for several hours (about 4-5) for the mousse to set and the flavours to develop.

Turkey mince lemongrass scewers

Published on September 20, 2012 by HannaLeave a comment

I confess – I am a cookbook junkie. There are piles of cookbooks to read at home, and it usually takes me some time to go through them, yet I buy more cookbooks.

One wonderful cookbook I got sometime last year and have been neglecting since is Om jag var din hemmafru (If I was your housewife) by Lotta Lundgren. It has great recipes, amazing layout and pictures and still I haven’t had the time to try many recipes. But last week I actually managed to try one more.

I tried chicken mince scewers on lemongrass, but I actually used turkey mince as I can not find chicken mince anywhere in this country and I still had my food processor in a moving box, otherwise I could have minced the chicken meat myself. It worked very well with turkey mince however, you just need to be more careful with the oven cooking time as turkey is so lean it easily can get dry.

Lotta’s chicken (turkey) lemongras scewers, serves 4

Adapted and translated from Lotta Lundgren’s recipe.

4 chicken fillets / 500 g turkey mince

2 thumbs of ginger

4 tbsp plain flour

12 lemongrass (I divided three lemongrass in four instead)

½ tsp salt

100 ml toasted peanuts

(50 ml sesame seeds – I omitted these)

Trim the meat and mince. Peel and grate the ginger, squeeze out the juice and mix with the mince, flour and salt.

Coat your hands with oil or water and divide the mixture into 12 portions. Place a lemongrass in the middle of each mince portion and shape into an oval. Repeat with the remaining mince and lemongrass scewers.

Crush the peanuts. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan. Mix with the peanuts.

Fry the scewers on all sides until golden brown. Then place on a baking tray and let it cook until done in the oven, about 15 minutes in 175C. Sprinkle with the nut mixture when finished and either serve with a salad or with rice and a cold sweet chilli sauce (creme fraiche + sweet chilli sauce + salt).

Lavender chicken

Published on May 1, 2012 by Hanna7 Comments

Here’s another recipe with inspiration from The Little Paris Kitchen. Unfortunately the recipe is not to be found on the BBC website, only in Rachel Khoo’s cookbook, but after seeing the program it was quite easy to make my own version. It worked really well, my dinner guests can certainly guarantee that.

I served it with simple sides so the chicken took centre stage. Green beans and new potatoes also work with the French theme. For the sauce I just reduced the juices from the pan and added some butter to it. Truly delicious!

Lavendel chicken, serves 4

With inspiration from Rachel Khoo.

1 whole organic cornfed chicken, 1.5 kg approx

Marinade:

3 tsp dried lavender

2-3 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1 lemon, the zest and juice

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp mild olive oil

salt

black pepper

For the sauce:

2 tbsp butter

Cut the chicken into any pieces you like. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade in a big mixing bowl and cover the chicken with it. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave in the fridge for 24-48 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200C and remove the chicken from the fridge. Place the chicken pieces in a roasting tray and cook in the oven until the meat juices are clear, approx 40 minutes. Let the meat rest under tin foil while making the sauce. Pour all the juices from the roasting dish into a saucepan and reduce till about half. Whisk in the butter and serve with green beans and new potatoes.

Chicken drumsticks with za’atar marinade

Published on March 26, 2012 by Hanna2 Comments

I discovered the lovely herb blend za’atar on my trip to Syria about a year ago. It consists of sesame seeds and dried thyme, but depending on the blend it can taste quite different. I bought a large bag of my favourite blend, a special blend a Damascus spice wholesaler made so it is probably one of the best you can get.

I love to cook with this blend and have used it in a few different dishes. Last week I marinaded drumsticks in a mixture of za’atar, lemon juice, Japanese soy, olive oil and garlic for about 48 hours and the cooked chicken was lovely and moist and coated of a golden layer or the marinade.

I used dried limes (also purchased in Syria) and whole cardamom pods to flavour the rice, which is popular in the Middle East. Once drained and the spices removed I sprinkled some sumac on it for extra flavour. The sauce is a simple mix of creme fraiche/soured cream, sambal oelek and fresh lime juice.

If you don’t want to eat the chicken with rice for supper the drumsticks work well on a picnic as well.

Chicken drumsticks with za’atar marinade

6 chicken drumsticks

4 tbsp za’atar

1/2 lemon, the juice

2 tbsp Japanese soy

2 whole garlic cloves

1/2 olive oil

salt, black pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a large ziplock bag and shake to combine. Leave in the fridge to marinade for at least 24 hours, but preferrably 48. Cook in a 200C oven on a rack with a tin foil covered roasting tray below for about 20 minutes.