Forever Summer (19 page)

1 spatchcocked chicken (approx. 2–2.25kg)

3 long sprigs fresh rosemary

juice of 1 lemon, plus more lemons to serve

1 red onion

100ml olive oil

Maldon salt

Put your spatchcocked chicken into a large freezer bag. Pull the waxily aromatic needles off 2 of the sprigs of rosemary and drop them on top. Now, cut the lemon in half and squeeze in the juice, chucking the empty shells in afterwards. Cut the onion into eighths (I can never be bothered to peel it) and add these to the bag, too. Pour in the olive oil and then tie up the bag and give it a good squidge around before sitting it in the fridge. And this is when, if you have the technology (and actually, as you might have guessed,
my vacuum-sealer has been relegated to the cellar for some time now so, princess-like, I get my butcher to marinate and vacuum-pack my chickens for me) you can, instead of tying, vacuum-seal your bag and keep the chicken in the fridge like that for up to three weeks.

Marinate the chickens for a couple of hours out on the counter, or overnight – or for a couple of days – in the fridge.

To make a quick, brick-red Chilli Chicken, brush the skin of the spatchcocked bird with some sambal oelek, that hot and sharp chilli paste which you can find in every supermarket now, loosened up with a little vegetable oil.

When you’re hungry, preheat the oven to 210°C/gas mark 7, and if you’ve marinated the chickens in the fridge, let them come to room temperature. Lay your flattened chicken, skin side up, on a tin lined with foil, along with the lemon husks and onion pieces, and add the remaining sprig of rosemary torn into a couple of pieces, tucking them between leg and breast. Cook for about 45 minutes by which time the chicken should be crisp skinned and tender within; you can even turn the oven down to about 150°C/gas mark 2 and let it remain in the oven long after it’s cooked through. Somehow, this doesn’t seem to make it stringily overcooked but, rather, infused with golden tenderness.

Take the tin out of the oven, cut the chicken into four pieces and arrange these on a plate, along with the onion bits, then pour over any syrupy golden juices from the tin and sprinkle generously with Maldon salt. Cut a lemon or two into quarters and scatter these clumpily about the chicken.

Serves 4 (and sometimes, I’m afraid, 2).

SLOW-ROASTED GARLIC AND LEMON CHICKEN

This is one of those recipes you just can’t make once: that’s to say, after the first time, you’re hooked. It is gloriously easy: you just put everything in the roasting dish and leave it to cook in the oven, pervading the house, at any time of year, with the summer scent of lemon and thyme – and of course, mellow, almost honeyed garlic. I got the idea of it from those long-cooked French chicken casseroles with whole garlic cloves and just wanted to spritz it up with lemon for summer. The wonderful thing about it is that you turn the lemon from being a flavouring to being a major player; left in chunks to cook slowly in the oven they seem almost to caramelise and you can eat them, skin, pith and all, their sour bitterness sweetened in the heat.

1 chicken (approx. 2–2.25kg), cut into 10 pieces

1 head garlic, separated into unpeeled cloves

2 unwaxed lemons, cut into chunky eighths

small handful fresh thyme

3 tablespoons olive oil

150ml white wine

black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 160°C/gas mark 3.

Put the chicken pieces into a roasting tin and add the garlic cloves, lemon chunks and the thyme; just roughly pull the leaves off the stalks, leaving some intact for strewing over later. Add the oil and using your hands mix everything together, then spread the mixture out, making sure all the chicken pieces are skin side up.

Sprinkle over the white wine and grind on some pepper, then cover tightly with foil and put in the oven to cook, at flavour-intensifyingly low heat, for 2 hours.

Remove the foil from the roasting tin, and turn up the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Cook the uncovered chicken for another 30–45 minutes, by which time the skin on the meat will have turned golden brown and the lemons will have begun to scorch and caramelise at the edges.

I like to serve this as it is, straight from the roasting tin: so just strew with your remaining thyme and dole out. This is wonderful, truly wonderful, with the
braised Little Gem
lettuces.

Serves 4–6.

SICILIAN VINEGAR CHICKEN

This is a wonderfully sour, still mellow, chicken casserole which in winter I love to eat hot, as thin-sauced stew, out of a bowl, and in summer, left to cool to room temperature, its juices thickening on standing. It is also fabulous as a strange, soused salad: that’s to say, absolutely cold, straight – even – from the fridge.

1 onion

100ml olive oil

1 chicken (approx. 2–2.25kg), skinned and jointed into 8 pieces

Maldon salt and black pepper

250ml chicken stock (fake is fine)

125ml dry white wine

125ml red wine vinegar

juice of half a lemon

handful fresh parsley, chopped, plus extra for sprinkling over at the end

small handful fresh basil leaves, chopped, plus extra for sprinkling over at the end

2 large tomatoes

Finely chop the onion and fry it gently, with some salt sprinkled over to stop it catching, in 4 tablespoons of the olive oil in a wide, heavy-bottomed pan for about 5 minutes, until it’s softened but not browned.

Arrange the chicken pieces over the onion and season well with salt and pepper. Pour over the chicken stock, wine, vinegar and lemon juice, then sprinkle the parsley and basil over the top. Bring the pan to the boil and then cover and simmer gently for about 45 minutes.

Remove the lid and simmer away for about another 15 minutes, by which time the liquid should have reduced a little and the chicken itself be well cooked.

Blanch the tomatoes by putting them in a bowl and pouring over some boiling water from a kettle. Leave them there for 3 minutes or so then tumble them out, skin them, quarter them, remove the viscous glob of seeds and roughly chop the pink-red flesh. Mix them in a small bowl along with the remaining olive oil and some salt and pepper. I should admit here that I sometimes don’t bother to blanch and peel the tomatoes, simply just deseed and chop them.

When the chicken is ready, remove the pieces to a large shallow bowl and, if you want the sauce any thicker, let it bubble away over a high heat to reduce further. If you’ve taken the blanched, peeled tomato route, then stir the tomato mixture into the sauce and pour it over the chicken waiting in its dish. If you’ve simply chopped the unpeeled tomatoes, then first pour the sauce over the chicken and then tumble the tomatoes around and, scantily, on top. Just before serving – which could be now or a whole lot later – sprinkle over a little more parsley and basil.

Serves 4.

PICNIC-FRIED CHICKEN

I have to say, I am not a girl who goes in much for picnics, but I love picnic food. This is fried chicken as they make it in Italy: cut up small (you really have to bully your butcher on this one, or be a mean wielder of a cleaver yourself), marinated lemonly for edge and tenderness, then dipped into peppery flour, thence into beaten eggs and fried in olive oil. Actually, this is not quite as they make it in Italy: I introduce an Anglo note with the addition of English mustard powder (in the marinade as well as in the flour for dredging) to satisfy my need for heat. Cayenne would do the same job, of course, though use it more sparingly.

1 chicken (approx. 2–2.25kg), cut into small pieces of about 5cm (I get about 22 x 50g pieces)

juice of 2 lemons

4 tablespoons olive oil

pinch of salt

good grinding of black pepper

2 cloves garlic, bruised

2 tablespoons English mustard powder

olive oil (not extra virgin) for frying

for the coating:

3 eggs

zest of 1 lemon

pinch of salt

125g plain, preferably Italian 00, flour

2 tablespoons English mustard powder

Put the chicken pieces into a large shallow dish and marinate in the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic and mustard powder for at least an hour, but if you cover the dish (or use the plastic-bag method) and put it in the fridge, you can leave it all marinating for up to a couple of days. Just make sure, when you want to fry it up, that it’s really got to room temperature first.

When you’re ready to get going, beat the eggs and lemon zest together in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. Mix the flour and mustard powder together on a large flat plate, or easier still mix up half and just repeat once you’ve got through your first batch.

Pour in enough oil to come about 1cm up a large frying pan and heat till sizzling. Then dip the chicken pieces in the flour then the eggs, coating on all sides, and put carefully into the hot oil. Cook the meat until golden and crispy, about 15 minutes. You will have to be patient about this and proceed batch by small batch: don’t crowd the pan or the temperature of the oil will drop too much and the chicken will be greasy rather than crisp and crunchy.

I love this warm rather than hot – and cold’s good too – eaten with my fingers and dipped into some more English mustard (though made up, rather than powder this time) as I go. Spritzed with lemon and sprinkled with Maldon salt is also fabulous.

Serves 6–8.

SAFFRON-SCENTED CHICKEN PILAF

Call me Scheherazade, but I’m in my turquoise gauze veil and jewelled slippers for this one. The cinnamon and lemony yoghurt marinade gives the chicken a soft, perfumed tenderness; the saffron in the rice, itself studded with nuts and the musky breath of cardamom, is almost lit up with gold. Cook this and people will want gratefully to strew your path with rose petals for evermore.

500g chicken breast, cut into 2 x 1cm pieces (please don’t get your ruler out: I mean this as an approx. guide only)

1 x 200g tub Greek yoghurt

juice of half a lemon

quarter teaspoon ground cinnamon

half a teaspoon saffron threads

1 litre chicken stock (instant bouillon concentrate is, as ever, fine)

15g unsalted butter

2–3 tablespoons groundnut oil

500g basmati rice

3–4 cardamom pods, bruised

juice and zest of 1 lemon

50g cashew nuts

50g flaked almonds

25g pine nuts

3–4 tablespoons shelled pistachio nuts

small bunch fresh parsley, chopped

Marinate the chicken pieces in the yoghurt, lemon and cinnamon for about an hour. Soak the saffron threads in the chicken stock.

Over medium heat, in a large pan with a lid, melt the butter along with 1 tablespoon oil and add the rice, stirring it to coat until glossy. Pour in the saffron and chicken stock, add the cardamom pods, lemon juice and zest and bring the pan to the boil, then clamp on a lid and turn the heat down to very low; a heat diffuser, if you’ve got one, would be good here. Cook like this for about 10–15 minutes, by which time the rice should have absorbed the liquid and be cooked through.

While the rice is cooking, shake the excess yoghurt marinade off the chicken using a sieve. Then fry the meat in a hot pan with the remaining spoonful or so of oil, and do this in batches so that the chicken colours rather than just pallidly stews to cookedness.

When the rice is cooked, take it off the heat and fork through the pan-bronzed chicken pieces. Toast all the nuts except the pistachios, by simply shaking them in an oilless frying-pan over a medium heat until they colour and begin to give off their waxy scent, and then add them to the pilaf along with the chopped parsley. Pile everything on to a plate and add a fabulously green sprinkling of slivered or roughly chopped pistachios.

Serves 6.