Another easy meal with an Iberian twist; on the cusp of comfort food and gastropub. The overall time it takes to cook is longer than 30mins, but it doesn't involve complex techniques and you'll get plenty of time to chat with mates or put your feet up while cooking.
This is the recipe for the main dish that is more than enough on its own. But, I'm also adding the link to the recipe for the starter that we had with it in Antwerp with which it works very well. This recipe is for 3 to 4 diners.
Shopping list
A chicken of a size to suit your preference. It also works well with individual poussin and other "lighter" poultry such as pheasant
A suitable number of potatoes, peeled e.g. 2 to 3 per diner
Half a large butternut squash
A decent size radicchio
Half a tin or jar of cooked white beans such as Spanish white haricot beans or even butter beans. If you're feeling really big and clever get your hands on some proper Galician white faba beans (you'll have to do the soaking and cooking thing first)
Chicken stock; liquid, cube or jelly diluted in boiling water — approx. half a cup
A white onion, diced
About 250ml sherry, or ideally Manzanilla
Seville orange marmalade or dulce de membrillo (please, only the quince sort)
A shot or bourbon (optional)
pimentón — sweeter or hotter, your choice
2 cloves of garlic; crushed or finely chopped (optional)
1 small lemon or 1 small bitter orange (and it really does need to be bitter)
1 small fresh pomegranate — roughly ground with a pestle and mortar
100ml single cream (optional)
rock salt — to taste, but err on the side of generous
Cooking Method
Sequencing
This is one of those dishes that requires a little time planning to coordinate a timely serving. So the lowdown is:
The chicken and potatoes take about 1 to 1.5 hours to cook
Be ready to start cooking the vegetables about 20mins before the meal is served i.e. you'll need to make sure they're prepared for cooking before then (approx. 5mins prep time)
You need to start cooking the sauce about 10mins before serving. Most of the sauce elements will be created during cooking. All you need to ensure before starting on the sauce is that the onion is diced, the chicken stock is liquid (already diluted using boiling water if you are using a cube/jelly) and the pomegranate seeds are ground in a pestle and mortar.
The chicken and potatoes
Mix approx. 2 tbspns rock salt and1 heaped tspn pimentón in a saucer. Dip clean fingers into the mix and rub down the skin and cavity of the bird. You will not need to use all of the mixture—put the rest to one side for use later .
Place the bird in a dish that can be covered. Gently pour over approx. 150ml of the Manzanilla. Cover and place in the fridge for at least four hours to marinate
Peel the potatoes and cut into halves (or quarters if using larger potatoes). Make sure there are flat surfaces and sharp edges on each potato segment i.e. don't use whole potatoes
In the oven, heat two roasting pans with enough olive oil to coat their bottoms (Ooh, er, missus!) at 450°C/840°F/gas mark 8. The coating needs to be generous, but not a swimming pool. One pan needs to fit the bird/s comfortably. If it's the kind that has a removeable grille rack, that's great, but not essential (and it needs to be removed for this stage). The other needs to accommodate the potatoes generously. You can use a ceramic oven dish for the potatoes if you prefer
When the oil is hot, remove the pan for the potatoes and place on the top of the stove. Carefully add the potatoes, careful not to burn yourself. Using a spoon, turn all of the potatoes so that all facets are sealed with the the hot oil. Ensure they all end up with the largest, flat surface sitting on the bottom of the pan. Return to the oven
Remove the bird from the fridge. Squeeze the whole lemon or bitter orange gently in your hands so that you release the juice inside without breaking the fruit's skin. Pierce multiple times with a fork and shove into the bird's cavity
If using poussin, you will obviously need to cut the lemon/bitter orange into rough quarters unless you're fancy enough to substitute with large kumquats
Remove the second roasting pan of (very hot) oil and place on the stove. Place the bird in the pan. Ensure all of the skin is coated in the oil. Place the chicken in an "upside down" position i.e. breast-side down. Pour some of liquid from the marinating dish over the top of the bird and return to the oven
For the first 30mins, you do practically nothing, leaving both to cook on a high heat. Certainly, do not touch the potatoes, even if they appear to become dry on the top. Occasionally you might pour a little more Manzanilla marinade over the top of the bird. Keep an eye on the juices in the bottom of the pan. This is a high heat: it can stick and burn easily. If the bird show signs of drying and/or burning, pour in a little water; enough to cover the bottom of the pan in a millimetre or so of liquid. Replenish as needed to ensure there is always liquid in the bottom of the pan
After 30mins, turn all of the potatoes (the bottom side should now be crisp). Baste surfaces that have become dry with oil from the pan, replenishing with a little additional oil if needed (though unlikely)
Remove the chicken from the oven and turn the bird breast-side up. Pour over any remaining marinating liquid. Pour a small e.g. two tbspns of fresh olive oil onto the top of the bird and baste using clean fingers or a pastry brush. If you have a removeable grille rack, insert it into the pan at this stage. Place the chicken, breast-side upwards and return to the oven
Turn the heat down to 175°C/425°F/gas mark 4 and continue to roast, turning the potatoes as needed. Depending on the size of the bird, it should take between another 20 to 40 mins to be perfectly cooked
If the potatoes are nearing the state of crispness you desire and the bird still needs a fair deal of cooking, cover the potatoes and place in a warming drawer/second oven on a low heat if you have one. But, they are fine to leave out of the oven, covered, returning to the oven (turn it back to high) for about 5 to 10 mins before serving. Ensure that they are all re-basted with the oil from the pan if doing so
As the bird begins to a near cooked state i.e. about 5 to 10mins before "perfection" take out of the oven. Carefully, pour out all of the liquid from the bottom of the roasting pan into a heat proof vessel that pours easily
Then, using a spatula, butter or fish knife, smear Seville orange marmalade (or membrillo) over the browned skin to roughly the thickness of toast with a light covering of jam. Pour enough water into the bottom pan to cover it in a couple of millimetres of liquid. Return the bird to the to the oven
Turn the heat back up to 450°C/840°F/gas mark 8. (And return the potatoes, uncovered, to the oven if you removed them). Keep an eye on the bird and potatoes as you make the sauce, ensuring they don't burn. Turn off the heat when ready
Remove the chicken from the oven and allow to "rest" in a carving platter about 10 mins before you are carve
The sauce
Pour a little olive oil Into a small but deep-ish frying pan e.g. an omelette pan, and heat on a high temperature. Add the diced onion (preceded by the garlic if used). Stir continuously until it starts to turn golden; add the remaining Manzanilla (and shot of bourbon if used)
Once the booze has cooked off and almost entirely evaporated, add some of the roasting juices; no more than about a third of a cup. At the same time, add the ground pomegranate seeds and their juice. Reduce the heat slightly and stir steadily
Add the stock liquid, a "sip" at a time and stir in with smooth continuous stirring
Bit-by-bit, add the stock, roasting juices and the salt and pimentón mix until you feel it is right. It's unlikely you will need to add everything
Pour the sauce into a gravy boat/sauce dish through a sieve, ensuring that you remove all of the gritty bits and the grotty pieces from the pan and the sauce. Return the pan to the stove and turn down to a medium heat. Add the white beans without draining them thoroughly. Stir as they warm, making sure they don't stick. Pour the sieved sauce back out of the gravy boat into the frying ban, gently mixing it with the white beans. If you wish to add the single cream, you do it at this stage, stirring it through until evenly distributed. Turn off the heat and leave in the pan. Decant once again to the gravy boat/sauce dish if serving in that manner, otherwise plate directly
The vegetables
Two of God's greatest creations and nothing could be simpler to cook well.
Butternut squash — I recommend using the phallic half rather than the bulbous, but the method is the same.
Scrub the skin clean under cold running water using a clean traditional brush. Cut into "cartwheels" or quarters, removing the pips but leaving the sinews intact (you scoop them out with a tablespoon once the butternut is fully cooked before plating)
Place into a pot of salted water with enough water to cover and let them "swim" a little. Cover and bring to the boil on a high heat.
Once they've boiled for a few minutes, recover, turn down the heat and allow to simmer for approx.15mins
NB: No, there is no justifiable way to microwave butternut squash! And, contrary to TV chefs that know no better, it is not a vegetable that tastes good al dente. If it's not cooked properly, its true flavours are not released. Trust me: I spent 20 years in the UK before this beloved childhood veggie even appeared in supermarkets here.
Radicchio — Like many vegetables of the same trope (broccoli, cauliflower, etc.) it is particularly well suited to microwave steaming. Obviously, it works perfectly well if steamed in the more traditional manner that takes longer. But, please don't give me some mumbo-jumbo about hating microwaves because of some Kirlian photograph you saw (I kid you not) or any other crystal-waving, irrational reason to not use microwave ovens.
Again, like all veggies of its ilk, radicchio is best steamed in a microwave on a medium power for a slightly longer time than at a higher power for less time. Thus..
Wash and break by hand into florets. Place in a microwave steamer with a little water in the bottom of the dish, seal and microwave on a medium power for approx. 6mins.
OR place the florets into a traditional stove-top steamer and steam for approx. 12 to 15mins. When perfectly cooked, a fork should easily pass through it but it should not be "soggy"; overcooked
Pull all theses elements together and decant to serving dish and serve or plate and serve with the remaining sauce for those who desire it.
Variations
Okay, so this is a chicken recipe, which means that unfortunately until veggies actually enter the debate on whether (commercially viable) lab-grown chicken is "ethical" or not, this isn't one for which I have ready alternatives.
With other birds, it works well; anything that has lighter meat such as pheasant or guinea fowl that hasn't been hung for weeks and weeks; turkey (parts of or a joint; seriously piggy if you go whole turkey) or even quail. It does work with duck, but you need to drain the excess fat more regularly and I would suggest that the duck works much better with the shot of bourbon (I have done it both ways). Did you say "swan"...?
If you want a deeper smokier taste to the sauce, substitute whisky for the bourbon, but I suggest you wait until I manage to transcribe my recipe for a great whisky sauce for poultry.
On the vegetable front, obviously there are plenty of other options for accompaniments and I'm not even going to go through them all. But, I would say that this dish and its sauce works best with vegetables that have a strong character of their own. Get creative.
The garlic debate — When I first knocked up this recipe, I simply assumed the garlic was essential and that may well be what all you vampire slayers conclude. But, as a result of making it in the middle of nowhere without a hope in hell of finding an open supermarket to provide that forgotten ingredient, I learned that the garlic might actually overpower some of the wonderful, subtler flavours in this dish. As a result, I practically never make it with garlic (or the single cream) anymore.
Pairings
This is another of those dishes that really needs some serious Karel input. And as soon as I have it, I'll add it.
My gut instinct has always been that this is a dish that breaks the rules by being a poultry dish being better suited to a red than a white, especially if you precede it with a white and the starter I've often served before it.
I've served and tried it with a range of reds over the years. Perhaps oddly, I've never found the right Spanish red, most of what I've tried being too heavy and woody. But this Italian wine from Campania, Naima Viticoltori de Conciliis (2016, I think) certainly worked a treat.
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