It can be rather tasteless sometimes and has a tendency to dry out more than the rest, especially if overcooked. A good chicken breast, however, is rather like a canvas waiting to be painted upon . . .
I prefer my chicken breasts with parts of the bone still attached, which helps to keep them moist I think.
The other day I decided I was going to try brining them in a simple salt and water brine, only for a short time . . . just to see if it made a difference and . . . guess what?
It worked beautifully . . . these chicken breasts were deliciously moist and tender.
I covered them with a tasty herbed crumb and baked them in a mix of chicken stock and butter until the juices ran clear . . .
Then I turned those pan juices into a delicious gravy which was absolutely wonderful spooned over mounds of mashed potatoes, and of course with that tender flavorful chicken. It was quite a delicious meal actually. I will do this again!
It's amazing what a little salt bath can do. Note - You won't need to season your chicken with any salt as it will have absorbed some of the salt from the bath.
*Country Baked Chicken*
Serves 4
4 TBS fine dry bread crumbs
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried parsley
1/4 tsp dried sage
6 TBS melted butter
1 cup chicken stock
To finish:
2 TBS flour, shaken with 1/2 cup milk
Place
the chicken into a bowl and cover it with cold water. Stir in the 2
tsp of salt and swiish it around. Let the chicken sit in the salted
water for half an hour or so. At the end of that time, drain the
chicken very well and dry with some paper towels.
Preheat the 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5.
Preheat the 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5.
Place
4 TBS of the melted butter in a baking dish large enough to hold all
the chicken pieces. Add the chicken breasts and stir them around to
coat the chicken. Arrange bone side down in the dish.
Mix together the
bread crumbs, salt, pepper, thyme, parsley, and sage. Sprinkle this
mixture over top of the chicken pieces. Dot with the remaining butter.
Pour the cup of chicken stock into the baking dish from the edge of the
dish so that the stock fills the bottom without touching the crumbs.
Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the chicken
juices run clear when pierced with a fork. Remove the chicken pieces to
a heated platter and tent lightly to keep warm, without steaming.
Pour
the pan juices into a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and milk mixture.
Bring to the boil, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens. If
it is too thick, thin with a bit more milk until you get your desired
consistency. Taste and adjust seasoning with some salt and pepper.Serve the chicken and pass the gravy on the side. Mashed potatoes go very well with this, as well as some veg and or salad on the side.
This chicken is really tender and delicious. I really hope you will give it a try! Bon Appetit!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
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I have been a consummate collector of recipes for many, many years. As a girl I used to clip them out of my mother's True Story magazines and Women's Day, Chatelaine, The Star Weekly. I don't know why. It is not like I was allowed to do any cooking until I was much older.
I guess I have just always had a great interest in food and cooking. As a result I have a huge binder filled to overflowing with recipe writings and clippings, and several notebooks as well, the notebooks all being filling with handwritten recipes that I thought sounded tasty or interesting through the years and wanted to save.
The recipe I am showing you today comes from one of my handwritten notebooks. I wish I had been a lot better at taking note of the sources for these, but alas I was not, so where it comes from I have no idea.
I have had it for years and years however, and the fact that it is handwritten probably means it was either from a friend, or from a book I had borrowed from the library.
I had some ham that wanted using and I found this recipe and decided that after so many years of it collecting dust it was about time I tried it!
So today was the day. It is a simple recipe. Simple recipes are often very tasty recipes.
It doesn't use anything you probably don't already have in your kitchen, except for maybe the ham, or maybe you got lucky and you already have that as well.
The ham is ground and mixed with mustard. I chose to chop it very fine in my mini food processor and I used Dijon Mustard because it has a nice bite to it. You could also use deli ham or flakes of ham from the tin.
This gets spread over a scone/pastry type of dough which you roll out very thinly. I added some cheese to the filling, because we like cheese. I toyed with adding some grated onion, but kept it simple this time, with just ham, mustard and cheese.
The filling gets rolled up in the dough somewhat like a cinnamon roll dough. You then slice it and lay the slices in your pie/casserole dish.
A rich cheese sauce then gets poured over top and some buttered bread crumbs are sprinkled over that, upon which the casserole gets put into a moderately to hot oven and baked for a good 40 to 45 minutes.
The pastry puffs up around the ham filling . . . the cheese sauce oozes down in between the rolls and bubbles up, and those crumbs get golden brown.
The flavours in this were very, VERY nice. We both really enjoyed it. Do be judicious with your use of salt, as the ham can be quite salty and so can the mustard and cheese.
In fact, if I make it again, and I think I will, I would leave the salt out altogether.
I chose to serve it with some salad and cooked peas and carrots. We both really enjoyed this. It's also nice to know that you can cut the recipe in half, which I did quite successfully, for the smaller family.
*Ham Pie*
Serves 8
black pepper to taste
120g grated strong cheddar cheese (2 cups)
To top:
15g dry bread crumbs (1/4 cup)
(I used panko)
1 tsp melted butter
I love recipes like this. They are simple and yet at the same time special. Not a lot of faffing about and something which the whole family will enjoy. I hope you will give it a go! Bon Appetit!
I picked up some beautiful Black Angus stewing beef when I was at Costco the other day with my friend Tina. Their meat always looks so gorgeous. One of these days I am going to treat myself to a Prime Rib, but I have to save my pennies up first! (It's pretty pricey, but well worth it for a special occasion!)
The packs of meat are pretty large, so I divided it up and froze half of it. Today I used the other half to make a delicious stew for my husband and myself.
With the warming Spring-like temperatures we are having now, there will not be too many more "stew" days left until the autumn.
My husband really loves stews, so I thought I would treat him before it got too hot to stew anything without also stewing yourself!
This is a beautiful recipe which I adapted from Tamasin's Kitchen Bible, the one and only book for every cook by Tamasin Day Lewis.
I love her recipes. They are always excellent and this is one fine, mighty excellent book. If you don't have it in your library already, I highly recommend purchasing it. Its worth every penny.
I think Tamasin Day Lewis is one of the unsung heroes of cookery. She is not overly flashy, quite hippy-ish I would say, but she is very good and her recipes always work without a lot of faffing about.
The type of cooking I enjoy. Solid and steadfast, recipes you can rely on. Gourmet without being fiddly.
She is the sister of the actor Daniel Day Lewis. I used to see her on the television every now and then, but haven't seen her in a long while now.
She's good. If you ever get a chance to see any of her cookery shows, do tune in. She is not a "star" per se, but she could cook circles around most cooks/ television chefs. That lady knows her onions!
This is such a simple recipe, with very simple flavours. Its just stewing beef/steak, onions, carrots, some herbs, a bit of flour and tomato puree and some Guinness.
If you are opposed to using alcohol in your cooking, you can use beef broth, white grape juice or apple juice.
In a dish like this where it is being cooked in the oven for several hours, most if not all of the alcohol will be cooked off, but if you don't want to take any chances, then use one of my suggested substitutes.
Tomato puree, or tomato paste as it is known in North America. I use Cirio, supercirio double concentrate that comes in individual little pots. I like the convenience of it in that I don't have to open a whole tube of tomato puree to get just a small amount, and I love the flavour of it.
It is exceptional. Supercirio Tomato Puree delivers a
genuine and delicate taste that is both distinctive and unmistakably
authentic. Its rich and thick. I love the stuff, and in a recipe where quality counts, this is what you want to use.
The meat in this stew is fork tender and so delicious, with a rich gravy that will have you licking your chops. There are carrots in the gravy, which lend a beautiful sweetness to the dish.
A bouquet garni of rosemary, thyme, parsley, orange peel and bay leaf also adds some lovely flavours. This went down really well with some mashed potatoes and baby English peas.
*Braised Beef with Guinness*
Serves 6 - 81 bouquet garni composed of 2 each springs of thyme, parsley and rosemary,
tied together with 3 bay leaves and 3 strips of orange peel
salt and black pepper to taste
Preheat
the oven to 150*C/300*F/ gas mark 2. Heat the oil in a large, heavy
bottomed flame to oven casserole dish which has a lid.
Note - because there are only two of us I quite successfully cut the recipe in half and it fed the both of us very generously with some leftovers for my husband to enjoy tomorrow.
I cooked it in my Le Creuset medium roasting/braising pot, which worked beautifully. The recipe makes use of a cartouche, or a layer of greaseproof paper between the lid and the pot which helps to hold in all of those lovely meat juices and flavours.
I really do hope that you will try it out. It is simple and delicious. Not a lot of faff, and filled with lots of lovely flavours. If you are a fan of well flavoured tender meat in a lovely thick and delicious gravy, then this is the dish for you! Bon Appetit!
I
love breakfasts over on the continent, which is what we would call
mainland Europe here in the UK. Anytime we have travelled there I have
really enjoyed the Continental Breakfast Buffets with their cereals,
cheeses, meats, fruits, yogurt, crusty rolls, and fresh croissants. You
just don't want to eat bacon and eggs every morning, and these
delightfully fresh buffets provide a lovely change from that!
I make no secret of the fact I am crazy about the flavour of ginger. Ginger tea, ginger cookies, ginger cakes, in stir fries, candied . . . in short however it presents itself. I am having a love affair with ginger. Combine it with lemon however . . . and I am totally smitten, ensnared . . . lost forever. It is combination I find very hard to resist.
I have always loved fried cabbage. I first had it when I was in high school. We cooked it in our Home Economics Class. It was just fried cabbage and it was mixed with buttered noodles.
I fell in love with it then, and I have loved it ever since. It is a dish my family also loved through the years and something a few of them still make, if not all, the older ones at any rate.
My sister pinned this version the other day and from the moment I saw it I wanted to cook it. It comes from a blog called Cakes Cottage.
Admittedly, I immediately fall in love with anything that involves cabbage. Raw, cooked and everything in between, if cabbage is involved I am there!
I thought that the addition of bacon sounded quite tasty. The cabbage and onions actually get sauteed in the bacon drippings. Cabbage and bacon? Count me in!!
I have to say that here in the UK, we have amazing bacon. Our bacon is very lean. Even the streaky bacon, so I added a touch of olive oil when it came time to sauteeing the cabbage.
I added 1 medium carrot, which I chopped into bits, for colour and for sweetness. Carrots are another one of my favourite vegetables. They help you to see in the dark. Its true, my mother told me that and as we know mom's don't lie!
You could also add some other vegetables if you wanted to. But it was nice with just the cabbage, onion and carrot. I do think that possibly julienned runner beans would also be very nice, but then again, I also love runner beans!
I was going to toss it with some fried pierogi, but I didn't have any made, so Todd enjoyed his with some leftover ham and a baked potato leftover from the other day.
Can't you just imagine however, how very delicious this would be tossed together with some fried potato and cheese pierogi? I know! Fabulous!
After I had served his up I thought to myself I don't want a baked potato or leftover ham with mine. I fancy some noodles.
Cabbage and noodles truly are a marriage made in heaven. Big fat egg noodles, or skinny noodles. Rice noodles, or udon noodles. Any noodle in fact!
On its own however, this is fabulously tasty no matter what you choose to enjoy with it. Rich and salty and earthy. I think it is the earthy quality of cabbage that draws me in the most. I can never get enough of it.
I could eat this with a spoon. I could eat a huge plate of this and have nothing else and be in heaven. I could just eat and eat this forever. In fact if I could only bring one thing to eat to a desert island, it would be this. I love it that much!
Fried Cabbage with Bacon & Onions
Yield: 4
Borrowed from a blog called CakesCottage. Quick and easy and delicious. I added a bit of something myself and I think my additions were fabulous, so do see the note at the bottom of the recipe.
Ingredients:
- 6 rashers of streaky bacon
- 1 large brown onion, peeled and diced
- 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 medium head of white cabbage, trimmed, cored and sliced
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped
- The following to taste:
- salt, black pepper, onion and garlic powder, paprika
- a knob of butter (optional)
Instructions:
- Heat a skillet and then cook the bacon rashers over medium heat until just crisp. remove and set aside on paper kitchen towelling to drain. Crumble and keep warm.
- Add the onion and carrot to the bacon drippings. (Over here our bacon is very lean so there wasn't many. If you find that is the case, add a small splash of olive or rapeseed oil.) Cook, stirring to soften. when it begins to caramelize somewhat add the garlic. Cook and stir until fragrant. Add the cabbage. Cook, tossing and stirring, until the cabbage begins to soften. Season to taste with the seasonings. Add 60ml (1/4 cup) of water and cover. Cook and steam over low heat until the cabbage has softened. Stir in the bacon crumbles. Taste and adjust seasoning as required. If desired stir in a nob of butter. Serve hot.
notes:
What I did:
The cabbage was very good on its own and my husband enjoyed. Once I had served him his (as a side dish) I added a splash of dark soy sauce, a splash of mirin, about 1 TBS of hoisin sauce and a pack of Udon noodles, and tossed all together, heating it all through. It was fabulous. Quite simply fabulous. Nummo!
The cabbage was very good on its own and my husband enjoyed. Once I had served him his (as a side dish) I added a splash of dark soy sauce, a splash of mirin, about 1 TBS of hoisin sauce and a pack of Udon noodles, and tossed all together, heating it all through. It was fabulous. Quite simply fabulous. Nummo!
This is how I enjoyed mine on the day. With big fat Udon noodles and a splash of soy sauce. It was incredibly yummy!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: theenglishkitchen@mail.com
Well, I did a bit of housekeeping on here yesterday and I lost my old blog theme. I did save the html to a word document, but I have no idea of how to sort that type of thing. I managed to keep my header, so I guess I should be happy for that. And I guess I do like the cleaner look without any busy background, and I like the way the blog posts are showing. It is a neater, tidier look and I can live with that! Growing pains, they are never easy are they?
Over these past couple of months not a lot of new cooking has been going on due to the fact I was writing my cookbook, but I manage several new recipes a week, which was pretty good I thought. I cooked a few cringe worthy things also that I would never show you. Thing which I thought might be really tasty, but which ended up being blecch. I hate it when that happens, but it does every now and than.
This banana loaf recipe is one I got from The Complete Canadian Living Cook Book. I have had the book for yonks, but haven't really cooked a lot from it. I have made it my goal this year to try to cook more things from the books I have, and if I find a book that doesn't have a lot of redeemable recipes in it, then I am getting rid. Life is far too short to carry excess baggage, like too many cookery books.
This is a fairly decent banana loaf. It is pretty dense however and heavy. So I suppose whether you like it or not will depend on what you are looking for. If you want dense, then you have struck gold. If you are wanting more cakey, keep looking . . .
I do have some really good Banana Loaf recipes on this site. This one is extremely good and so is this one.
My absolute all-time favourite one is this one, and that's probably because it is incredibly moist from the sour cream and more cake like. I like cake. My ex-bosses husband used to request this once a week. He liked it toasted and buttered. It is very good.
There are plenty of chocolate chips in this one I am showing you today. It is not overly sweet either. I used a really good quality chocolate chip, almost more bitter than sweet. I think milk chocolate chips would be better actually. In any case it was very nice buttered and served with a hot drink. I hope you will try it and then let me know what you think!
*Banana Chocolate Chip Loaf*
Makes one 2 lb loaf (9X5)Note - I've been using those pan liners which are like muffin cups a lot lately. They are so simple to use and nothing sticks as they are silicone coasted. I highly recommend!
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