Chicken Terrine
A glass of wine, fresh, crunchy bread and a chicken terrine after a long walk through the country. Or same wine, bread and the same terrine on a buffet table when friends come over. Or just as a midnight snack, when toasts feel painfully inadequate.
So what is it? It is a strong chicken broth, fastened in a jelly, with the juicy chicken meat hiding within. It is delicious with some tartar sauce and bread and here is how you do it.
For two people:
2 chicken thighs
1 carrot
¼ celeriac
1 cloave of garlic
1 parsnip
1 bayleaf
4 all spice
6 coriander seeds
Gelatine
Fresh parsley
Fresh sage leaves (a handful)
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
And this is how you do it:
In a large, stock casserole put the chicken thighs (with skin), the vegetables and the spices. Cook until the vegetable are soft. Turn it off and leave to cool. When cool reheat and take the vegetable and chicken out of the stock. Taste the broth and add the finely chopped parsley and sage. Flavour with some lemon juice. The taste should be nice and strong.
Take the meat of the bones and roughly chop. Take a small container (a small pate dish?) and line it with kitchen cling film. In a little bowl put 1 tbsp of gelatine and add 1 tspn of cold water. Stir it around until the gelatine is very stiff. Put the gelatine into the hot broth and stir until the gelatine is dissolved. Pour a little of the broth into the lined dish (maybe 2 tbsn full) and the add the roughly chopped meat. Fill the dish up with the remaining broth and cool for a few hours.
Eat it with the crunchy bread and some tartar sauce.
Cheap, yummy and delicious
Enjoy !
Veronika's Lentil Soup
Winter is upon us and what more satisfying is there than a nice hot bowl of soup when you come home from work, from walking the dog or from a ramble in the countryside.
This is a very quick recipe what only gets better if it is reheated. And it is very moreish !
For 2-3 people:
2 dl red lentils
½ Onion, chopped
1small clove of Garlic, chopped
1tbsp Olivoil
1,5 tbsp ground coriander
2 tbsp ground cumin
1/5 tbsp Sambal Oelek (careful though it is very strong)
1 litr Chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste.
Fry of the onions and garlic in the olivoil in a soup pot. Add the spices and sambal oelek and stir around letting the spices get some of the heat and start to release its flavours. Add the lentils and stir around letting the lentils melt slightly with the spices. Pour over the chicken stock and let cook for ca 30 minutes or until the lentils are soft and cooked. Please beware that the lentils to tend to stick to the pot if left, so stir quite frequently.
Enjoy !
Veronika's Stingy Pesto
This is not a proper receipt as you might expect in a cookbook of some sort, but it is more of an method. A method to turn sorry leftovers that noone can be bothered with into something mouthwatering and even a simple dish.
The method for my stingy pesto is to adher to the groups of ingredients in a traditional pesto - you have your basil, your parmasan cheese, your pine nuts and your oliveoil. How I read it though is someting leafy green, something cheesy, something nutty and oil. So the greens can be any sort of green you like the taste of, rocket, watercress, parsley etc. The nuts any nuts from macadamian to the humble haselnut. And cheese, any as long as it is hard.
So if you have some sad herbs dying slowly in your fridge, the last little bit of hard cheese that never gets thrown out and some nuts left over from Christmas, blitz it all up and put over freshly made pasta. On the image above I have made a pesto from parsly, almonds, parmesan and olive oil and it is heaven on a piece of fish.
So go for it, experiment and turn your stingyness (I know you have one) into an asset in your kitchen
v
