Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Would you pay $30 for a chicken?

Normally I wouldn’t, not even for a live layer hen, let alone an eating bird, but in this case, I made an exception.  My friend Ella Dee recently ordered a Burrawong Gaian chook, grown by the lovely Beth McMillan whom I chat with occasionally on Twitter.

ED’s post sent me to Beth’s website, where I was happy to discover that her products are available in the Inner West. A visit to George at Dulwich Hill Gourmet Meats netted us a magnificent organic and free range 1.9kg bird. The first thing I noticed was the colour – Beth’s chooks are both pasture and corn fed, resulting in a rosy bird tinged with gold. Quite different to the white free range chickens we normally buy…

As you’d expect, there was quite a lot of discussion on how to prepare this bird, with both Pete and George adamant that roasting wouldn’t do it justice. We finally decided to gently poach it, and to use the fat and stock to make Hainanese Chicken Rice.

I’ve been making this dish for years, and have resisted posting my recipe in the past because it’s neither authentic nor consistent. Nevertheless, here’s a rough outline of how we make it at our place…

Step 1: Poach the chicken

I cook my chicken following a technique from Terry Durack’s Yum (for those who have been reading for a while, it’s the same method we use for our Simple Chicken Soup recipe).

Chicken and Stock:

• 1 large free range chicken
• 2 slices ginger
• 2 spring onions, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon fine sea salt
• a mix of vegetable oil, sesame oil and fine salt, for brushing

1.  Wash the chicken, removing any loose fat and setting it aside for later. Place the bird, breast up, in a stock pot “just large enough to hold it snugly”, as per Mr Durack instructions. Add enough cold water to just cover.

2. Add the ginger, spring onions and salt and bring to a boil.  Simmer for five minutes, then turn the chicken over and cook for a further five minutes.  Now cover the pot, turn off the heat, and allow the chicken to continue steeping for 40 minutes. Check the chicken by inserting a skewer through the thickest part of the thigh – if the juices run clear without any hint of pink, then the chicken is cooked.

3. Remove the chicken from the stock and sit it on a rimmed plate (to catch the juices).  Brush over the oil mixture, and allow to rest.

Step 2: Preparing the Rice

• long grain rice, washed and drained
• vegetable oil
• reserved chicken fat
• 2 – 3 garlic cloves
• stock from poaching the chicken (see above)
• fine sea salt, to taste

1. Add a little vegetable oil to a wok, and then add the reserved chicken fat, and cook over a medium heat until rendered and crisp. Add the sliced garlic cloves and fry until lightly brown…

2. Add the rice and fry over a medium heat until well coated with the oil and fat…

3. Scrape it all into your rice cooker (we use the microwave) and add the appropriate quantity of stock. Here’s my mother’s tip: taste the stock after you’ve added it to the rice, and add a little bit more salt if needed – you want it to be just slightly too salty to drink as a broth.  Cook your rice by the absorption method until fluffy.

Step 3: Plating Up

1. With a sharp knife or scissors, cut the chicken into serving sized pieces. I can never manage with a cleaver, so my pieces are usually quite large – I remove the thighs, wings and drumsticks, then hack the remainder up as best I can. If you’ve never done this before, a pair of kitchen scissors makes the job easy.

2. We make a simple sauce to accompany this dish by blitzing a few cloves of garlic, some peeled ginger and a couple of spring onions in a small food processor, and then cooking the mixture briefly in a little vegetable oil. Season with salt to taste.

3. Serve the rice with the chicken, ginger sauce and soy. Enjoy!

So…would I buy a $30 chicken again?

Not on a weekly basis, but for a regular once a month treat, definitely. This was, hands down, the best chicken rice we’ve ever made. The minute I tasted the poaching stock, I knew the dish was going to be a hit. I was so happy to have five containers’ worth leftover for the freezer…

Beth’s chicken was very special – the meat was tender and richly flavoured, and the rice was aromatic and delicious. Big Boy wasn’t home that night, but Small Man declared it to be the best he’d ever tasted, and asked if we could save some for dinner the following night. Definitely a big hit!

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In My Kitchen has grown enormously (and gloriously) over the past few months, with nearly fifty bloggers joining in the November gathering! I’m not big on rules (which is why we don’t have a set format or badges), but it’s now becoming quite a bit of work to handle, so I have a couple of administrative requests to make.

• Firstly, if you write an IMK post and would like to have it added to the list, please remember to link back to our blog. This ensures that your readers get a chance to peek into other bloggers’ kitchens as well. Please leave a comment or let me know via twitter once your post is live and I’ll add it to the listing. Don’t count on the WordPress pingback function to let me know – it’s quite unreliable and I’d hate to miss your post!

• Secondly, in order to make it a bit more manageable on my end, please upload your IMK post by the 10th of each  month. This ensures that it will be on the list for at least a couple of weeks and therefore have maximum exposure. It will also enable me to schedule my time a little better.

Many thanks!

. . . . .

In my kitchen…

…is the legendary Lingham’s chilli sauce. This sweet hot sauce has usurped Sriracha as Big Boy’s new favourite…

In my kitchen…

…there are cake boards. There are cake boards e-ver-y-where…(she says, spinning her head like Woody in Toy Story).

On a recent visit to Southern Cross Supplies, I passed a pallet loaded with packets of sturdy boards. I was told that they were “off the books”, and being sold at $2 – $3 per packet. Each packet had between 25 large and 200 small boards. Given that cake boards can be several dollars each, I bought as many as my car could carry, and then started sharing them out with my blogger mates.

This is just part of the pile that went to Charlie and Lorraine. Tania drove over to pick hers up! The only thing better than a bargain is when you get to share it with people you love…

In my kitchen…

…are Linda’s fabulously prolific yellow cherry tomatoes. These have grown so well in our garden – they’re very hardy and seem to be wilt-resistant. We’ve been eating a bowlful every night with dinner for weeks, and the plant is still making more fruit…

In my kitchen…

…is a crock of crumbled English stilton cheese. Never having seen it sold like this before, I couldn’t resist picking up one to try when we were last at Costco…

…it has a wax seal! I love the warning not to throw it on the fire…

In my kitchen…

…is maple butter! Many years ago, a friend gave us some as a gift, and we scraped every last skerrick out of the jar. So when I heard that the lovely Lorraine was going to Canada, I literally begged her to buy us some more. Which she did, bless her, even though her luggage was already overweight…

In my kitchen…

…are a couple of days’ worth of Blue Lake climbing beans. These self-seeded beauties have been an absolute joy in the garden…

In my kitchen…

…is the cover of Charlie’s husband’s Christmas album. Carl is a fabulous Elvis impersonator with a gorgeous crooning voice. We popped the CD into the player in the car as soon as Charlie gave it to us, and it’s been there ever since.

I love it so much that I’ve been playing it constantly – Pete, as you can imagine, is less than impressed at the prospect of listening to the same thirteen Christmas tunes for the entire month of December…

In my kitchen…

…are these very cute mini tart pan liners.  They were also on the clearance pallet at Southern Cross Supplies, for just $2 per 1,000. I picked up a couple of packets each for Carol and I – they’re perfect for her chocolate freckles…

In my kitchen…

…was a five kilo box of Empress cherries from Young. Every year, Small Man’s great Aunt Liz buys him a box for Christmas, and he proceeds to eat almost all of them on his own. Empress is a delicious, early cropping variety…

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Tell me, what’s happening in your kitchen this month?

If you’d like to do an In My Kitchen post on your own blog, please feel free  to do so. We’d love to see what’s happening in your kitchen this month!  Please link back to this blog, and let us know when your post is up, and we’ll add it to our monthly listing. We ask that all posts be uploaded by the 10th of each month, please.

Here are this month’s posts:

Saucy @ Saucy Gander (first IMK and our 50th post for December! Sydney, NSW)

Bernice @ Dish ‘n’ the Kitchen (Calgary, Canada)

Christine @ Invisible Spice (Sydney, NSW)

Leah @ Sharing the Food We Love (Brisbane, QLD)

Sandy @ Vegans Eat Yummy Food Too! (Sydney, NSW)

Mrs Mulberry @ Mulberry and Pomegranate (in Tuscany, Italy this month)

Giulia @ Love at Every Bite (Canberra, ACT)

Sally @ My Custard Pie (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)

Kari @ Bite-Sized Thoughts (Western Australia)

Mel @ The Cook’s Notebook (Brisbane, QLD)

Pat @ A Yorkshire Cook (Yorkshire, UK)

Debi @ Transplanted Cook (Sheffield, UK)

Maureen @ Orgasmic Chef (Sunshine Coast, QLD)

Mary @ Beyond Jelly (first IMK post! Blue Mountains, NSW)

Andrea @ Shabby Chick (Cotswolds, UK)

Jane @ The Shady Baker (Broken Hill, NSW)

Claire @ Claire K Creations (Brisbane, QLD)

Julie @ Once in a Blue Moon 17 (Southern California, USA)

Judy @ Savoring Today (Colorado, USA)

Pam @ Grow, Bake, Run (Perth, Western Australia)

Marianne @ Aunt Shoe (Minnesota, USA)

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella (Sydney, NSW)

Jas @ Absolutely Jas (Canberra, ACT)

Rebecca @ The InTolerant Chef (Canberra, ACT)

Fiona @ TIFFIN – Bite Sized Food Adventures (Brisbane, QLD)

Ladyredspecs @ Please Pass the Recipe (Melbourne, VIC)

Clare @ The Life of Clare (Geelong, VIC)

Mandy @ The Complete Cookbook (Sundays River, South Africa)

Anne @ Life in Mud Spattered Boots (Essex, UK)

Johanna @ Green Gourmet Giraffe (Melbourne, VIC)

Laila @ Table of Colors (Finland)

Marian @ Apricot Tart (Adelaide, South Australia)

Misky @ The Chalk Hill Kitchen (West Sussex, UK)

Francesca @ Almost Italian (first IMK post! Melbourne, VIC)

Sally @ Bewitching Kitchen (Kansas, USA)

Emma @ Gustoso (Brisbane, QLD)

Nancy @ Jamjnr (Shanghai, China)

Diane @ Photographs and Recipes (Massachusetts, USA)

Pamela @ Spoon Feast (North Carolina, USA)

Heidi @ Steps on the Journey (Ohio, USA)

Tania @ My Kitchen Stories (Sydney, NSW)

Charlie Louie @ Hotly Spiced (Sydney, NSW)

Tandy @ Lavender and Lime (Gordons Bay, South Africa)

Joanne @ What’s on the List? (Adelaide, South Australia)

Liz @ Bizzy Lizzy’s Good Things (Canberra, ACT)

Jason @ Don’t Boil the Sauce! (Melbourne, VIC)

Lisa @ Gourmet Wog (Sydney, NSW)

Kim @ A Little Lunch (Oklahoma, USA)

Glenda @ Passion Fruit Garden (Perth, WA)

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As you know, I love trying new things with chocolate, and I usually have no difficulty in finding taste testers. Occasionally though, the experiments can start to pile up.

These bars certainly looked pretty – the dark 70% chocolate tempered beautifully, and I’d stirred through leftover candied rind, almond slivers and glacé ginger. But the flavours were a bit too intense, and after a month or so of sitting in the choccy box, the bars were looking scuffed and a little worse for wear…

So I blitzed them up in the food processor, and used them in our Guinness chocolate cake…

We first blogged about this cake years ago, and I’ve made it a dozen times since. It’s a firm family favourite!

My revised ingredients list for this version is as follows (I’ve copied the instructions below to save you flicking between posts – the original post has detailed photos):

• 250g (1 cup) unsalted butter
• 375g (1¾ cups) soft dark brown sugar
• 4 large (59g) free range eggs
• 250g (1²/₃ cups) plain (AP) flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder, sifted
• 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sifted
• 440ml can of Guinness, at room temperature
• 1 cup (110g) Dutch-processed cocoa powder, sifted
• 200g surplus dark chocolate, finely ground

1.  Preheat oven to 160C (325F) with fan. Spray a 15-cup bundt pan with canola oil spray (or other vegetable oil, just not olive or rice bran oil).

2. Grind the chocolate up in a food processor. Pulse the chocolate until finely crumbled, but be careful not to heat it up too much, or it will melt.

3. In medium sized bowl, stir together the  flour, baking powder, sifted bicarb soda and sifted cocoa. Note that you really do need to sift the bicarb and cocoa, or you’ll end up with bitter lumps in your finished cake. Stir in blitzed chocolate.

4. In a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

5. Add some of the flour mixture to the batter and mix well.  Then add in some Guinness and mix again to combine.  Continue in this fashion, alternating flour and stout, making sure you finish with a reasonable amount of flour at the end.  The mix may appear to curdle, but the final addition of flour will smooth it out again.  Beat until the batter is thoroughly mixed – it will be quite soft.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. If you’re using a smaller bundt pan, fill to two-thirds full and pour the remaining batter into muffin tins or small loaf pans.

7. Bake for 60 – 70 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out cleanly. If you’re making little cakes as well, remember that they’ll bake much faster – start checking muffin sized cakes after about 20 minutes.

8. Remove from oven and let the cake rest for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

Chocolate Topping
(from Jamie Oliver’s Return of the Naked Chef)

• 100g/3 ¾ oz butter
• 100g/3 ¾ oz best cooking chocolate
• 100g /3 ¾ oz icing sugar (sifted)
• 3 tablespoons milk

Melt the chocolate topping ingredients in a bowl over some lightly simmering water. Stir until blended well and allow to cool slightly. Pour over cake and allow to set.

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Since writing the original post in 2009, I’ve acquired a full-sized 15-cup bundt tin which comfortably accommodated all the batter (it’s too much for the smaller 10-cup bundts). As a result, the cake took slightly longer to bake – about 70 minutes…

The finished cake was spectacularly dark – a product of the higher cacao chocolate in the reject bars combined with the Guinness. The icing provided just enough sweetness to balance out the flavours, and the small pieces of candied rind, ginger and almonds added a surprise to every slice. By day three, the essential oils from the rind had seeped through the crumb, giving the cake a lovely choc-orange flavour.

I think (because it’s hard to be objective about these things) that it was one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever made…

My blitzed chocolate bars produced nearly 400g of crumbs, and I’ve tucked the leftovers into the freezer for a repeat bake. It was lovely not to have to waste them!

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Last Friday, our dishwasher broke. (I can hear my friend Chicago John groaning from here – we’d been commiserating just last week about unplanned expenses.)

The repair man is coming next Monday, and the costs are already promising to be high – with a $159 call out fee from Miele, plus the cost of the new drain pump motor that we suspect we’ll need. Still, these things happen, and we’ve had ten trouble free years from a machine which is in use daily, so it’s hard to complain. (Edit: Folks, the best news EVER! Mo left me a comment below telling me to clean the non-return valve – which we’d never heard of before now – and it WORKED! The machine is draining again, and running perfectly! Thank you so much, Mo!)

As a result though, I haven’t been spending as much time in the kitchen as I normally would, so I don’t have many new recipes to share with you. Instead, here’s a brief catch-up on what’s been happening over the past week…

It’s been raining and unseasonally cold, but the leafy greens are thriving on the extra water. We harvested red amaranth, chard, broccoli raab and the last head of broccoli, and turned them into a glorious red-tinged stir fry…

I took the bread wreath idea and tried it using the dragon tail technique – it worked very well…

The following day, I tempered a large batch of Amedei “9”, my current favourite blend. I made tiny four gram bites – the right size for just a little taste – and larger pieces, for chocolate emergencies…

I’ve been getting ready for Christmas, and was delighted to discover these gorgeous packets of tissue paper at Costco, for just $8 per 160 sheets…

Each sheet is a half metre square…

Finally, I’ve been watching the 50th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who. I say “watching” because I think I’ve now seen it three times. Yes, it was that good!

What’s been happening in your world? And I know I’m spoilt, but I really don’t like washing up by hand, do you?

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This year, we planted fennel in our garden for the first time.

The seedlings grew well, making delicate frothy tops and small bulbs – I think we planted them too closely together to get really big ones. We’ve been eating them thinly sliced on pizza and also in this simple salad.

Every fresh ingredient in this dish comes from our garden – it was a recipe that came about purely by chance, as we had friends coming for dinner and needed a last minute accompaniment. It was so tasty that we’ve made it several times since!

• 1 small fennel
• flat leafed parsley
• fresh oregano
• cherry tomatoes
• extra-virgin olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• fine sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Thinly slice the bulb of the fennel on a mandoline. Strip the leaves from the parsley and oregano, discard the stems. Slice the cherry tomatoes in half. Combine all the fresh ingredients, then dress with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Allow to sit for half an hour or so to allow the flavours to meld, then garnish with a few of the fennel fronds before serving.

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