First, an apology. I've dropped the ball. There has, I admit, not been a post for...yes, it might be three days. This is because I've managed to escape the grim northern wastes for a while (getting out hours before the snow closed the roads completely...) to stay with the Boyfriend, where there have been interesting things to do which have distracted me from blogging. Enough said, I think.
In addition, I will be gallivanting off for some skiing in France this week, hammering the last nail into the blackened coffin that is my overdraft, so there will be a week-long hiatus from tomorrow until next weekend. My sincere apologies to my dedicated followers. As a reward, though, for your patience, I'll write an extra-long superblog next week and tell you all about the cheap and cheerful ways I attempted to feed myself in snowy Europe, as opposed to snowy Northumberland. So at least you've all got something to look forward to.
And so to recipes. This week, I've been attempting to teach the Boyfriend to cook - and to be fair to him, he's not doing badly. His enthusiasm reminds me of me, back when I first learned to cook pasta! We made ourselves supper one night this week, nothing too sophisticated but just a bit yummy nevertheless.
A bit of a note on shopping - I've found that student shopping always ends up more expensive than you'd expect, even if you're trying to save. My theory on this is that a lot of students end up having to buy things like flour, spices, tinned tomatoes, pasta and so on which the average family house might expect to have in their store-cupboard. If you're a student or trying to save money, I'd remind you that dry goods keep for a long time in your cupboard, so if you do a big 'store' shop at the beginning of the term or the year, you might end up saving more in the long run, especially if you try to pick your recipes based on what you've got in your cupboard.
Also on shopping - I had to look around a bit, but eventually I did find some free-range chicken breasts, which worked out about a pound more expensive than the battery ones. To my mind, it's really worth the money, because if you're going to kill and eat a chicken you ought at least to make sure the bird has had a decent life first. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has done a lot in this direction. Of course, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it, but you might want to have a bit of a think about where you stand.
Boyfriend and I used chicken breasts with the skin on and pan-fried them (the skin keeps them moist and stops them from burning before they're cooked through). We ate them whole, but after eating our supper we decided the dish might be nicer if you chopped the chicken fairly small, cooked it off, and mixed it with the pasta just before eating.
It was utterly delicious, though, and simple as anything to prepare. We sliced an onion and popped it in a pan with butter and olive oil on a low heat, along with a couple of sprigs of rosemary and some chopped garlic. Let it sweat for quite a while, until it's really soft and caramel-y, then we whacked in some marsala or balsamic vinegar and reduce the mixture down until it caramelises fully. At the same time we cooked off the chicken and boiled some pasta and green beans in the same pan (saves on washing up!)
Finally, we deglazed the chicken pan by pouring in some marsala and scraping away at the delicious sticky bits on the bottom of the pan. These are absolutely the best bits and their flavour should never be wasted! We combined the reduced marsala and onions (take out the rosemary sprigs first) with cream and the chicken juices, poured that over the drained pasta and beans, and ate with the fried chicken. Very creamy, totally dreamy.
Here's the recipe, which is based on one from Nigel Slater's Real Cooking:
Ingredients (for two):
2 chicken breasts
Some green beans
A few handfuls of pasta
Olive oil
Butter
An onion
Some Marsala, Madeira, or Balsamic vinegar
Some garlic cloves
A bit of rosemary
Method:
1. Chop the onions and garlic and sweat in a pan with butter, olive oil and rosemary until very, very soft. This may take a while. At the same time, fry the chicken (either chopped or whole, your choice) in some olive oil.
2. Ten minutes before the chicken is done, pour some Marsala over the onions (turn up the heat a bit, as well) and put the pasta and chopped green beans in boiling water.
3. When the chicken is done, deglaze the pan by pouring over some Marsala and scraping at the sticky bits over a high heat, then add this to the onions. Remove the rosemary from the onions
4. Let the alcohol boil off, then add some cream.
5. Drain the pasta when it's done, then add it to the sauce and mix well.
6. Either stir in the chicken or serve it with the pasta to the side.
7. Enjoy.
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