I’ve been reading about the threatened closure of Cappoquin Chickens and one figure leapt out at me - they process 220,000 chickens a week. Just that one factory.

So I dug a bit deeper, and it turns out that about 1.3 million chickens a week are produced in Ireland and over a million more are imported - mostly from Northern Ireland. That means 120 million chickens or more a year. That’s a lot of chicken.

Few of these chickens live anything like a natural existence and if there is one product where I prefer to pay more than I have to, chicken is it. The farmer’s market is my preferred place to buy it, but I’d really love to see free range stocked everywhere, even places like Lidl and Aldi, to make it an easier option.

Yes, free range chicken is a lot more expensive but it definitely tastes better as well as leaving a better taste in your mouth from an animal welfare point of view. In an ideal world I’d buy nothing else - actually in an ideal world I’d have a flock of happy chickens scratching about outside the back door.

But in my less than ideal world I admit that I quite often just pick up a packet of ordinary supermarket chicken breasts - it’s easy, they are there and I’m in a rush.

They are not, compared to their better reared cousins, the most interesting or tasty and a certain amount of guilt about how they lived is always there in the back of my mind.

Still,  no matter what sort of chicken you buy, you may as well cook it nicely once it’s bought.

This Sesame Peanut Chicken is a great recipe based on one a friend gave me a while back, and although it takes a little time because the chicken is cooked twice - first poached, later fried - and there is marinading involved, it fully repays the effort.

To serve 4 people you need:

4 chicken breasts
1 pint chicken stock
1 teaspoon sugar (or splenda)*
1 tablespoon unsweetened peanut butter*
1 tablespoon Tahini
2 tablespoons rice vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger, peeled

Olive and sesame oils for frying
Toasted sesame seeds to garnish

* If you are using sweetened peanut butter leave the sugar out. If you don’t have tahini, just add a little more peanut butter to the recipe.

Put the chicken stock in a suacepan and bring to the boil. Put in the chicken breasts and simmer for 5-6 minutes. Test one at this point - they should be white all the way through. Remove from the stock.

While the chicken is cooking make the marinade by putting all the remaining ingredients into a blender and whizzing until smooth. The result is thick and gloopy and looks horrible, a bit like poo mud, but don’t be put off!

Slice the chicken breasts crossways into pieces about half an inch thick and put into the marinade. Stir to fully coat the chicken.

You’ll need to marinade them for at least 30 minutes, longer is better, I sometimes go to this point in the morning and leave them marinading all day.

Because the chicken is already cooked, frying the chicken pieces is very quick.

Heat a mix of half and half olive oil and sesame oil in a pan. Put in the chicken pieces, with a good coat of marinade still on them, and fry for about a minute (or less) on each side.

The marinade will brown quite fast, be careful not to let it burn.

Sprinkle the toasted sesame seeds over the chicken before serving.

I served these on a bed of sautéed onion and mange tout peas with roast cauliflower alongside. Rice is a also a good accompaniment.

Save the stock - make soup or something, it’s too good to throw away. I often just refreeze it, if anything all you have done is add flavour.

Heads Up on a Bargain

Mascarpone is something I use a lot, especially since I started shopping in Lidl. It’s always been a good buy, €1.49 as against almost €3 pretty much everywhere else, but yesterday it was reduced by 30%, to €1.04.

I don’t see this on the Lidl site, so perhaps it was just a one off or a single store thing, but it’s well worth looking out for at that price.

Tags: Chicken, Peanut Butter, Poll
Posted in Farmer's Market, Recipes | 12 Comments »

I made a big four egg omelette this morning, with some chopped scallions though it, then got into my strop about being sick of this whole thing and wanting steak and didn’t eat any of it.

He ate the lot, which may mean that Gavin has a point about me starving him, though he says he’s fine with what’s going. Only 3 eggs left and 2 more breakfasts, will have a think about that later.

Then of course I was starving in the middle of the morning, but there was some chili left over from last night, so I reheated that. Fine, even tasty, but boring.

When I travel, say to Dublin, I’ll take one route there and a different one home, because I hate repeating myself. This week feels like there is too much repetition of flavour and I think that’s why I got so fed up. The food is fine, it’s tasty, it’s nourishing, there just isn’t all that much variety in spite of my efforts.

Breakfast Cost: Eggs 54c; Scallions 10c; Total: 64c

We both had lunch at home today, Potato and Chorizo Salad, with radish, scallion and a little bit of chopped chili on top.

In spite of my complaining this was actually very nice and cheered me up a bit. He had a couple of slices of crisp bread with it, I didn’t bother as the salad was enough. There is only a weensy bit of lettuce left now, but then lettuce is just crispy water and not a necessity.

Lunch Cost: 10″ chorizo €1.24; radishes 10c; scallion 10c; lettuce 15c; potato 10c; chili 9c; crisp bread 9c.
Total: €1.87

At this point I still couldn’t decide what to have for dinner. My options were:

a. something else with mince (NO!!)
b. something with turkey breast, which didn’t do it for me either, or
c. the frittata I’d planned to do one evening. But I would use chorizo in that and although there is some left I didn’t want it twice in a day.

I wanted something tasty, something not in a bowl, something… well, I wanted steak.

But since steak is out, I took my meagre budget to the nearest shop (Eurospar) and bought what I know to be the best bargain there, 2 chicken legs for €1 each. These really are quite large and meaty and are cheaper than either the chicken thighs or drumsticks in Lidl, which is surprising because Eurospar is normally quite expensive.

We had Roast Chicken Legs with Roast Vegetables, preceded by a bowl of yesterday’s soup.

The chicken was just dusted with Puszta Spice Mix and put into a hot oven (200 C) for 45 mins, each one sat on top of a little bulb of garlic.

The turnip was parboiled for about 20 minutes, mixed with a sliced onion and half a red pepper, then tossed with a good dessert spoon of Balsamic vinegar. I didn’t use any oil because this went in beside the chicken for the last 20 mins to roast in the chicken fat.

The courgette is sliced, salted and left to drain for 20 minutes or so, then squeezed dry with kitchen paper, tossed it in a little olive oil and seasoned generously with black pepper. I roasted them separately from the chicken, as courgettes are very absorbant and they would be soggy and greasy if roast in the chicken fat. They take about 20 minutes in the oven.

Before serving, I split the roast garlic and squeezed the soft flesh over the roast turnip.

This was a simple dinner to prepare, had good robust flavours and tasted nothing like anything we’ve had already this week, which considerably improved my mood.

Dinner Cost: chicken €2; courgette: 83c; turnip 25c; pepper 25c; onion 10c; garlic 16c.
Total: €3.49

Which brings the day’s total to exactly €6.00.

It’s Friday night! A couple of drinks tonight were in the budget from the get go and I’m mightily glad they were, because if I couldn’t have some kind of treat I’d be really stroppy. Though in fact by the time dinner was over I’d got my head back into a good place and I’m absolutely ready for the last 2 days of this.

Bring it on!

Tags: Chicken, Chorizo, Roast vegetables, €50 Challenge
Posted in €50 Challenge | 1 Comment »

I remember the precise moment I first tasted Pesto.

It was on a school trip to Rome, in a small cafe overlooking the Villa Borghese Park, and I was completely blown away. It was without question the most delicious taste I’d ever experienced in my life to that point and it changed how I thought about food.

I’m not saying the Lidl’s Green Pesto, at €1.39 a jar, is likely to have that big an effect on anyone and I know pesto is not much bother to make - I do make it quite often. But when you just want a spoonful or two even a little bother can be too much. And be honest, how often do you actually have basil and pine nuts to hand?

Well, apparantly Lidl don’t often have pine nuts to hand either - this pesto uses cashew nuts instead, with just a token 1% pine nuts, which is presumably to allow them to add “alla genovese” to the label.

The purists may tut-tut and say that it’s not the real deal, but it tastes good enough to qualify as a staple and I always keep a jar handy, it’s a quick and tasty ingredient or flavouring for everyday cooking.

I use it all the time - to flavour mayo, stirred into sauces and soup, on vegetables, as a topping on grilled fish, simply spread on toast and of course with pasta - pasta and pesto has to be one of the ultimate comfort foods.

Last night I used it to make chicken stuffed with pesto and garlic cheese and wrapped in Prosciutto, which is a favourite dinner around these parts.

The picture isn’t wonderful - I need to take the time to use a tripod - but it tasted great.

It’s simplicity to make. Just slice the chicken breasts in two lengthways, almost the whole way through, and flatten them out. Smear one side with pesto, the other with garlic cream cheese (I used Lidl’s Crefee Cheese, which I love), fold the breasts over again and wrap in slices of Prosciutto. Then into a preheated oven (at 190 C) for 20-30 mins depending on size. These took 25 mins.

Aside: Fear of salmonella means too may people overcook chicken to the point of dry stringiness. I’ve seen suggestions that boneless breasts should be in the oven for 45 minutes.

No they shouldn’t.

While you do need to take care that they are fully cooked, don’t cremate the poor things. People regularly complain that chicken is a tasteless and dry meat - 9 times out of 10 that’s because it’s been over cooked.

I always make at least one more of these than I need for dinner, because nice as they are hot they are even better sliced thin when cold to use in sandwiches or with a salad.

For dinner we had them with mushrooms in a creamy sauce, broccoli and roast turnip. This is what it cost to serve two:

Lidl Ingredients: Pesto: 35c, Cheese: 20c, Prosciutto: €1.00, Turnip: 35c; Broccoli: 50c; Mushrooms: 60c; Red Pepper: 15c; Cream: 20c.

Other Ingredients: Chicken breasts €2.00 (These were actually free range and very big and tasty, I found 12 of them at a great price on the reduced shelf in Dunnes a couple of weeks ago and froze them); various seasonings, about 10c.

So a very nice and hearty dinner cost €5.45 for two, or about €2.73 each.

Tags: Chicken, Pesto, Recipes, Staples
Posted in Recipes, Staples | 2 Comments »