To those of you who've been reading attentively, I am embarking upon a challenge to cook at least one recipe from each of my library of cook books within the year. And it started off well this week with a recipe from Thomasina Miers' 'Mexican Food Made Simple'.If, like me, you watch every food show on television until they become one gigantic Great British Masterchef Kitchen, you will know Tommi as the winner of Masterchef 2005. The time she spent in Mexico seems to be a big influence in her cooking and, as well as doing chefy things like appearing on TV and writing books, she also runs a group of Mexican street-food restaurants called Wahaca. You can read more about the chef and her projects at ThomasinaMiers.com.
Dave and I - I don't know if I've introduced you to Dave yet, but he is my long-suffering fiance. So, Dave and I, every couple of weeks, buy a chicken from which we make at least 3 dinners, with a few chicken wraps for lunch chucked in. The usual formula is roast chicken on the Sunday, chicken pasta of some kind on the Monday and fajitas on Tuesday.
Last Sunday, we made our way to the cozy farmers market run by the Tobacco Factory in Bristol and bought our customary chicken. With my challenge in mind, I went straight to the books when I got home to find a new way of cooking our familiar fowl friend. And that was where I found Tommi's recipe for Chicken and Chorizo in an Almond Mole.
As an aside, in the process of finding a recipe for my chicken I have discovered the first problem with my challenge. Having flicked through Mexican Food Made Simple to locate the recipe, I am reminded why I bought the book in the first place and want to cook everything! I shall have to see how I get on with the challenge and may revisit my collection in The Challenge 2 in 2014!
Back to the chicken. As it happens, I actually cooked 2 recipes from this book, because the recipe for the Chicken and Chorizo Almond Mole referred me first to a recipe for cooking the chicken. But, for the purposes of this blog I'm going to work backwards.
The mole, while calling for a long list of ingredients, was simple to make. And it didn't require lots of chopping, because it told me to chuck everything in the blender. I first dry-roasted tomatoes (skin on), onions and garlic (skin on then peeled) and put these in the blender. I then separately fried:
- raisins
- blanched almonds
- stale bread, chilli, thyme (I couldn't find fresh oregano and marjoram), and parsley
- sesame seeds
All this went in the blender.
Meanwhile, I had Dave pounding cloves, peppercorns and cinnamon sticks in a pestle and mortar, which also went into the blender with chicken stock (from the other recipe), tomato puree and chipotle puree. There is also a recipe for chipotle puree in Tommi's book, but I was sure I couldn't get chipotles at Asda and thought 2 recipes from the book was enough for one day. If I ever find chipotles, though, I will be sure to attempt the puree.
The recipe then involved frying chunks of chorizo, adding the mole, more stock, olives, capers and shredded cooked chicken. Ta da! Chicken and Chorizo with Almond Mole done!
As far as the chicken I had cooked earlier, I have never cooked a chicken like this before. Sure, I've made stock from chicken bones, but I've not poached a whole chicken. It involved placing a whole chicken in a pan with carrots, onions, bay leaves etc, covered with water, brought to the boil and then simmered - all in all taking about 40 minutes. Once the chicken is done, leave the lid on and let it cool in the pan. This gives you a light stock and supremely moist chicken.
Dave asked why we don't cook the chicken like this every time, and my reply was that we'd miss the crispy skin - without a doubt the tastiest part of the chicken. But, for those days when we can live without a roast, poaching the plucky fellow does seem to be the way to go for a succulent supper.
The result was a pleasure. There was heat from the chillis, sweetness from the almonds and cinnamon, salt from the capers, olives and chorizo and spice from the... well the spices. Well worth the small amount of effort to create such a complexly flavoured dish!
The recipe allegedly made enough for 6 but we had 2 huge helpings and bagged 3 more dinner-for-twos out of it. I suppose it depends on the size of the chicken, but ours hadn't been particularly large. We also tried to do some sums to work out the cost per portion, made difficult by the fact that I had a lot of the dried goods in my cupboard already. Erring grossly on the expensive side, we figured the whole dish cost about £20, which makes it about £2.50 a serving. We served ours with a bit of rice, and later in the week had it in wraps with some softened red peppers and onions.
With the challenge underway with a resounding success, I cannot wait to chose my next recipe!
Reminds me of the Mexican Drunken Chicken that Sam and I fixed for my birthday! That was yummy, but involved taquila too, (in the recipe and for the chefs)!
ReplyDeleteTequila - it makes me happy!
ReplyDeleteThat might be a good addition to the dish for future, but it makes dishes sweet, and I wonder if it needs it...