The humble chicken forms the base for many of the week’s meals chez Viking. I bloody love chicken, in any of its forms – fajitas, roasted, curried, in a pie, casseroled, the list is virtually endless. Heck, I have even been known to go weak at the knees when I walk past a Nandos and I am not sorry.
I do draw the line somewhere though. The line I draw is at KFC. Do you remember when it used to be called ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’? I do. I’m fairly confident that the only reason they switched to ‘KFC’ was because although their product could be reasonably be described as ‘Kentucky’ and ‘Fried’, perhaps ‘Chicken’ was a little too far a stretch of the truth. And as for their new ‘So Good’ campaign, trying to convince the public that deep fried chicken is a healthy choice, well. I am offended by it on so many levels I’m not sure where to start.
“I’ve been working in the restaurant industry for twenty years” an earnest man tells us while he peruses fresh vegetables in a supermarket. He goes on to inform us that in his restaurant, they only use the finest ingredients – fresh green lettuce, juicy legs of chicken (“hand breaded right here!” as if that’s some kind of high-end fine-dining thing that we’re supposed to be impressed by). Of course, the ad then does us up like a kipper, revealing the man to be a KFC store manager and his products are, of course, ‘So Good’. And, to be fair, they look good, too. Crisp, dry, fried chicken sits in a bucket next to a legion of golden brown french fries. Coleslaw on the side appears zingy and crunchy with carrot and mayonnaise. You’re almost fooled, until you walk past a KFC. Firstly, your nose is assaulted by a spicy, greasy smell. Looking through the window, you see hordes of people troughing greasy piles of putrid mess in to their faces – and this is not the crisp golden feast you saw in the advert. You realise, in that moment, that KFC, and its products, is not only an offense to the human digestive system (not to mention the all-out warfare that it starts on the coronary system), but (more importantly) is an offense to the poor chickens that gave their all-too-short lives to end up in a greasy box.
KFC must be stopped. Or at least their misleading advertising campaigns should be.
So you’re sitting there thinking “Okay Viking. We get that you hate KFC, but what else is my choice? I want a quick dinner that is tasty, filling and healthy.”
Well. I may not be able to provide you with fried chicken, but boy – have I got a recipe for you this week.
Cream Cheese Roast Chicken with Spring Vegetables
“What!” you’re crying “I thought you said this was healthy? What’s cream cheese doing in there?”
Relax. It’s only a teaspoon or so per bit of chicken, it’s not going to kill you. So, anyway, you’re going to need STUFF:
- Chicken thighs or legs (depending on preference – I find that two thighs is enough per person, or one leg. I like the thigh of a chicken, it’s cheap, tender, and very good to eat)
- A handful of bacon lardons (or chopped bacon)
- Boursin cream cheese (I used the garlic and herb variety)
- 3 leeks
- 3 carrots
- 1 or 2 red onions, quartered
- A few cloves of garlic, whole
- A few sprigs of thyme
- Salt
- Pepper
- Tabasco Sauce (optional)
-Olive oil
OK, let’s get prepped. Preheat your oven to 220c/gas mark 7. Top and tail your leeks, peel, and then roughly chop. Top and tail your carrots, peel, and split into quarters, lengthways. Peel and quarter your onions. Peel your garlic cloves and give them a light press with the back of a knife to get them releasing their oils. Place all of your veg in to a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper (and, if you like a bit of spice, a healthy dash of Tabasco sauce) and roast for 15 minutes.
Easy!
While that’s roasting, use for fingers to gently pull away the skin from the meat of the chicken. Take a small amount of cream cheese and make it malleable with your fingers. Hold the skin of the chicken back with one hand and use the other to spread the cheese over the meat. This gets messy as the cheese sticks to your fingers, but the end result is well worth it. Grind a bit of black pepper over the skin of the chicken, and set aside.
Then, in a little olive oil, fry off your bacon until cooked. Place on a piece of kitchen paper to soak up the fat it releases and pat dry.
By now you should have used up the fifteen minutes of roasting for the vegetables. Remove from the oven and arrange your chicken pieces overt the top of the vegetables. Scatter the bacon around the dish generously, drizzle with a little more olive oil and then return to the oven for 45 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through (poke the fattest part of the meat with a skewer or long fork. If the juices run clear, your chicken is cooked).
Spoon a big helping of vegetables in to a bowl, top with chicken, and eat. The cream cheese helps the chicken to retain its moisture – you’ll find a crispy, golden skin wraps a deliciously tender pieces of meat that has taken on all of the garlicky flavours of the cheese, but is not greasy in any way. The vegetables will have a vibrant colour – the greens of the leeks, the purples of the onions and the orange of the carrots will be beautifully offset by the pink of the bacon lardons. It’s one of those meals that makes you happy, and on a lovely spring or summer evening you can take this in to the garden with a glass of crisp, dry white wine, sit in the sun, and be glad that you’re alive.
You’ll notice that, at the bottom of your roasting tin, there will be a lot of meat juices and fats from the cooking process. You can keep these for the next day, add them to some chicken stock with some vegetables, and make a nice chicken soup (made even better if you have any meaty leftovers!)
And there we are, the end of another entry and (as far as I remember) the first one about Chicken, too. I’ll be back next week – I’ve no plans for what to cook for you as yet, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.
‘Til then, folks!
Viking
No comments:
Post a Comment