Recipe: Succulent Chicken Breast Rigatoni (aka Teriyaki Mac n Cheese)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

This recipe is really nothing more that a bit of chopping and mixing, simple and tasty. The key is succulent chicken and pasta a touch softer than al dente. You don’t want it to come out as if it came form a tin can, but make it too al dente and it all becomes to much effort to eat!!

Who likes sucking on a cross between a rubber bullet and a piece of chalk? Meh . . .  not so much! Who likes raw chicken? Nobody! 

So, the key to succulent chicken, is not to over cook it! 

Teriyaki Mac and Cheese is fast and simple comfort food, some soft cheese and some cured Mediterranean sausage and you’re ready for bliss!

ingredients (serves 2)

2 chicken breasts (cut into chicken tenders, and left to marinate)

400g rigatoni pasta (dry weight)

for the marinade

1 tbsp teriyaki sauce

1 tbsp medium peri peri sauce

1 tbsp chilli sauce

for the sauce

2 onions (diced and cooked translucent)

50ml EVO

50g italian salami (diced)

50g chorizo (diced)

200g soft cheese

2tbsp garlic onion reduction

for the spring onion vinaigrette (enough for 8)

250ml EVO

200ml cider vingar

1 tbsp sugar

4 spring onions (chopped into thin rings)

This dish is, as with most cooking (specially with pasta), all about timing! Definitely don’t want hard chewy chicken and soggy pasta. It’s about a smooth sauce with a little kick, succulent and tasty chicken, with morsels of Mediterranean cured meats, all mixed with a pasta that holds a little shape and plenty of sauce . . . . now we’re talking!!

Before starting put a kettle of water on to boil.

chicken

Pull the centre piece out of the breast, the kind of mini breast (the bit you make chicken tenders with), and cut the remaining breast into 3 slices the same size, put it all into a food bag or a take away box with the marinade, 30mins is fine, while you put the kids down or a have a glass of wine. Thinking about it the kids will love this recipe! When you feel the chicken is ready put the olive oil into a medium hot frying pan, and using tongs shake off the excess marinade and put it into the pan. Keep the excess marinade. Turn the chicken once to colour each side. The chicken pieces should be golden when you turn them and should be cooked on the outside. Put them on a plate to one side.

rigatoni

Add 2L of boiling water to a pot, add 1tbsp salt and bring the water to the boil. Add the pasta and boil for 9-10min, the pack I had said 12-14mins but if you put it in that long it would come out as mush at the end. Secondly it’ll be inedible if you keep it for lunch tomorrow. Whereas if it’s al dente, it will be fine for tomorrows lunch!! : )

sauce

Using the pan from the chicken, fry off the onions until translucent.

Then add the diced cured meat, and let it render a little fat into the pan. 

Add 2 tbsp of garlic onion reduction (alternatively 1/2 a crumbled chicken stock and a little garlic salt, and 200ml water). Then add the soft cheese and stir in until all the lumps have gone. Add a little water if it’s too thick. It should be the same consistency as cream. Turn the heat down until it’s bubbling lightly, then cut chicken tenders into 1/3’s with a pair of scissors add them to the sauce.

Leave for about 5 mins then turn off the heat and wiat for the pasta.

to serve

Once the pasta is ready drain it and add it to the sauce. Mix well. Serve immediately.

If it’s come out a little under seasoned you can grate some parmesan on it but it shouldn’t need it.

A touch of parsley for that retro garnish look? It’s up to you!!

Personally I went with a rather sharp vinaigrette and spring onion to balance the cheese sauce and compliment the spiciness.

Ski Series Recipe: Chorizo Crisps w/ Balsamic & Pomegranate Dressing served w/ Oyster Mushroom Noisette

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I threw this one together one evening when I realised I'd missed the starter section on my shopping list that afternoon, luckily we were in week 3 and by now I had built up a bit of a larder, had a few stock items, and some backup courses!

Second Attempt - A touch less on the chorizo and next time perfect!

ingredients (serves 4 as a starter)
for the chorizo crisps
200g chorizo (sliced)
50ml white wine
dash of grenadine
1/2 pomegranate (deseeded)
balsamic vinegar (garnish)
cress shoots (garnish)

for the oyster mushrooms
400g oyster mushrooms
150ml Noilly Prat (dry white vermouth or, failing that, white wine)
50g unsalted butter
extra virgin olive oil
parsley to garnish

apparatus
2 heavy baking trays
2 baking sheets

oyster mushrooms
In a large frying pan make the oyster mushrooms noisette as in this post.

chorizo crisps
Make the chorizo crisps the same way as crispy chicken skins [post, and link to come!] just don't boil them, and check them after 15mins!
Mix the pomegranate seeds and the grenadine with a dash of extra virgin olive oil and season with Maldon salt, and a touch of ground black pepper.
Chop a little - 4 or 5 slices - of chorizo into small pieces, and fry in a small frying pan, letting the flavour and the fat seep out. Deglaze with 50ml of white wine and pass through a sieve. Put to one side - it should be a relatively thick and tasty jus : )

Original - Chorizo is perfect, just a little small for crisps!! Use a bigger sausage!

to serve
Lay the chorizo out in a strip, curved if you like. Spoon the pomegranate mix over the chorizo, place the mushrooms next to it and garnish with cress shoots. Serve immediately!

Recipe: Sweet Corn Velouté w/ Chorizo Film

by ferdie, in partnership with Unearthed for Action Against Hunger

This is a pretty standard flavour combination, the film is almost undetectable but adds a strong complementary chorizo flavour to the thyme infused corn soup. Another contributing factor is taking a proportion of the corn and frying it to within an inch of it's life, giving it a charred savoury popcorn-esque dimension to the flavour of the soup! It usually goes down pretty well! 

Flavour 1: Sweetcorn

Flavour 2: Chorizo (pronounced cho-ree-tho)

INGREDIENTS (serves 6)

Sweetcorn Veloute
8 cobs sweet corn (if you're going to use tinned use 4 tins unsweetened corn 280g each)
4 tbsp EVO
1.0 litre veg/chicken stock (or 2 pints water + 2 stock cubes)
10g lemon thyme
50g butter
1 tsp table salt
250 ml double cream
1 large onion (finely chopped)

Chorizo Film
75g chorizo diced
50ml milk (semi skimmed fine)
150ml single cream

Lemon thyme imparts a wonderful fresh depth to the soup.

METHOD
Blend 3/4 of the corn until smooth and put aside.
Put stock, and cream in pot with bouquet garni of thyme and extra virgin olive oil.
Set to boil, then simmer for 20 mins to infuse with the lemon thyme.

Charring the sweetcorn adds an extra facet to the flavour.

Put remaining 1/4 of the corn in pan, with chopped onions and saute with butter until it's almost starting to burn, in fact the odd charred one will add to the flavour the frying brings out.
Blast the charred corn and onion in blender until smooth.

The chorizo film is an infused cream:
Pan fry finely chopped chorizo, let the fat seep out, add the cream and mix simmering to soak up the flavour of the chorizo for about 10 minutes, after which it will have taken the colour of the paprika from the chorizo, blend the mix, if the mix is a little too thick to sieve return it to the pan and add a little milk to loosen it, then sieve it, squeezing the mix down with a wooden spoon to extract as much flavour as possible. 

Put it into a squeazy bottle and, once cooled, into the fridge until ready for use.

TIP: If you want to make a chorizo and leek pie you can get away with not blending the chorizo and cream, simply loosen it and sieve it and keep the chorizo back to mix with leek for a nice pie filler!

Serve me! serve me!

When nearing time to serve, remove the chorizo cream from the fridge, to bring it to room temperature.
Finally remove the bouquet garni from the stock and add all the sweetcorn purée. Bring to the boil and simmer not more than 10 minutes or the colour will become dull.

Here you can see the cream starting to spread to form the film.

To serve ladle the soup into bowls and squirt the cream gently (so that it doesn't go under the surface) in a circular motion onto the surface of the soup. Initially it will form lines, but as the cream warms through it will spread to form a film on the surface of the soup. Garnish with a sprig of thyme and serve immediately.

This is a version we did in partnership with  Unearthed for Action Against Hunger 

Me thinks this one sneaked past quality control - served in a bit of a rush! Ahem!

Sweet Corn Veloute w/ Chorizo Film
We used Unearthed spanish chorizo, pre-sliced.
You can find the whole 8 course menu we served here.

Sneaky Chorizo

This week we put on a few hits including our signature "Fish and Chips" which we were told we totally undersell by calling it that. The tuna sashimi together with my homemade crunchy chips always pleases our guests and their reaction to it is always lovely to hear! Uyen's carrot and coriander salad with it's super refreshing dressing, always makes my taste buds tingle with delight : )

I had a bit of fun doing the test runs for one of the the seared trout with ginger and lemongrass broth, will post recipe later this week. Who would have thought this:

Turns into this!!!!

This weeks menu:
Turkish Garlic Bread w/ Beetroot Dip
Sashimi Tuna & Chips
Spicy Chicken, Carrot, Mooli & Coriander Salad W Prawn Crackers
Miso Aubergine
Rainbow Trout w/ Lemongrass, Lime & Ginger Broth
& GlassNoodles, Pak Choi & Beansprouts
Sweet Potato w/ Chorizo Red Wine Jus & Rocket
Lime & Chilli Chocolate Topped Mousse

I love our guest's reaction to the Egyptian Beetroot dip, it's sooo bright purple, looks like it should be used to colour in crazy cartoons! "I don't really like beetroot but the dip is fantastic!" Yup, especially when combined with some fresh garlic Turkish bread, golden with butter from the oven, soft on the inside and crunchy on the out, fantastic combo! (So I'm told that is...) 

Dip me, dip me!

Love to load a bit of refreshing salad onto one of these babies, taste explosion loveiness!

Sometimes we have a little battle about my menu designs, and Uyen insists on dropping something, and sometimes rightly so (pretty rare tho!), this weeks menu was all over the place in terms of geography, South East Asia, Africa, Mediterranean, and America- key limes - India would have been there too but the spicy coconut mushrooms got culled. I'm glad I insisted on keeping the chorizo, soft and juicy spicy sausage cooked in red wine and served with roast sweet potatoes and rocket, drizzled with the red wine jus, cracking! Our guests liked it too, which is always nice specially if we've not put it on the menu before, there's always a bit of trepidation, only one leaf of rocket came back : ) taking that as a good sign! 

Must add a little note, I picked up the chorizo from a great little place just off the Holloway Road, I cannot emphasise enough how good it is. It's a cafe deli combo and they take a great deal of care in sourcing their ingredients as you can tell when you bite into anything they serve you. It's called Le Peche Mignon and I totally recommend it: great coffee, great food and very friendly folk!

Lime and Chilli Chocolate Topped Mousse

Where's mine? Do I get some? Do I? Do I?

This weeks guests were lovely - we've been very lucky in this respect - including Cass Titcombe, Chef/Owner of  Canteen and also has a funky book out called 'Canteen, Great British Food'.

Doing more test runs this week recipe posts to come! Sx