Chicken, Chips & Curry Sauce

Sometimes the simplest food is the best. Get a great product, cook it well and you will always be happy. Saturday night we stayed at home with a couple of beers and a movie. I brought this to the table for dinner and we were salivating.

Perfectly roasted chicken, hand cut baked chips and curry sauce. What's not to like? The chicken cost a few pounds from the 'Ken's', the local butcher. The curry sauce I had made a few nights ago (recipe here), and the chips were just two potatoes. One hour and a half of simply letting them cook in the oven and it was ready. Chicken, chips and curry sauce.

 

 

For the chicken:   

1.2kg chicken (free range ideally)
20g butter, softened
salt & pepper

Set the oven to 190 C. Cut any string off the chicken and gently use your fingers to ease the skin away from the breast of the chicken. Push the butter in the space made and move it around under the skin to cover the breasts. Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper and put into a small roasting tin. Cover with foil and cook for 1 hour. Take chicken out of oven and remove the foil and put back in the oven for 15-20 minutes more. Then take out of the oven and leave to rest on a serving platter.

For the chips:

Leaving the skin on the potatoes, cut them into chips. drizzle with oil and put onto a microwavable plate. Cook in the microwave for 3 minutes to part cook. Pop onto a baking tray, drizzle with oil and season well with salt & pepper. Cook for approx. 20 minutes, until browned.

Serve on a platter with the crispy skinned chicken and heated curry sauce. Eat and enjoy!!

Cauliflower & Kale Soup with Crispy Kale & Parmesan

Another tasty soup recipe for you to try - and its a healthy one too. Kale is such a healthy vegetable which is very high in beta carotene, vitamin k, vitamin C, calcium and is popular worldwide. Its similar to a wild cabbage or collard greens, or the Italian cavolo nero. It makes a very pretty green soup and I particularly like it with the nutty flavour of roasted cauliflower.

We had this for lunch the other day and the smell in the house of the roasting cauliflower, cooking kale and the baking bread was absolutely fabulous! Oh and its not only cheap but easy to make too!

Ingredients:

200g kale, sliced
1 head cauliflower, in florets
3 cloves garlic
1.5 litres chicken stock
a little oil
shaved parmesan to finish

Set the oven to 140 C. Put a couple of handfuls of the kale onto a baking sheet and drizzle very lightly with oil. Season with a little salt and pop in the oven for about 5-8 minutes, until crispy. Set to one side.

Turn the oven up to 200 C. Put the cauliflower florets onto a baking sheet with the garlic (still in its skin) and a drizzle of oil and cook for about 20 minutes, until the cauliflower is beginning to brown. Remove from the oven and tip the cauliflower into a large sauce pan. Peel the cooked garlic cloves and add to the pan. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Add the kale and cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes.

Using a hand blender, blend the vegetables until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Serve in a bowl with the crispy kale and parmesan shavings on top. Enjoy!!