--------------------------------------------
Take one Graig Farm chicken (2kg).
Use the neck and heart to make a nice sauce for the bird:
Fry onion, carrot, neck and heart in a tiny amount of olive oil. Add
water to cover. Simmer for an hour or more.
Take the liver. Fry quickly with garlic, and spread on a piece of
toast. Chef's perk.
Grate the rind off a lemon. Stuff the two halves of the lemon up the
chicken's arse.
Mix some Malton salt, fennel seeds, black pepper, lemon rind, and
thyme leaves with a little olive oil. (This is vaguely inspired by a
Jamie Oliver recipe). Smear it all over the outside of the bird.
Roast the bird about 30 minutes, breast down, on a heat high enough to
make your kitchen/lounge all smoky and set off the smoke alarm. Then
turn the bird over and roast for another 45m or so at about 160dC.
When cooking is done, move it to somewhere else and rest the meat.
Deglaze the pan with red wine and water, thicken with some flour and
chicken fat made into a roux. Add the scrapings to the heart and neck
stock you made. Then season it with S+P, Worcester sauce, whatever...
P.S. Eat the lovely tender heart when nobody is looking!!
Serve the bird with the sauce and some broccoli and potatoes.
----
Have a meal or two of chicken on the bone, grilled until bubbling,
with leftover tatties and sauce. Yum.
---
Use the leftover bits of chicken (breast etc) for a nice pasta sauce:
Fry onions, leek, garlic, tinned tomatoes, add some worcestershire
sauce, cook hard. Fry chicken breast hard, seasoning very hard with
cayenne and black pepper, throw into the sauce, stir to mix. Should be
fucking spicy.
---
A week later, use the bones and skin of the chicken ... (you are
supposed to keep them aside in a tupperware in the fridge. didn't I
say that? you'd better go and root through the dustbin) ... to make a
nice stock:
Roast bones until they're brown. Add to a pot with 2 halved onions, 2
carrots, a stick of celery, some peppercorns, a bay leaf. Add water,
simmer slowly for about 3 hours. You should have plenty of time to,
say, clean your bike, while this is happening.
--
Then make your pumpkin soup:
Cut the skin off your pumpkin. Chop into big chunks. Roast until
tender, with olive oil, garam masala, cumin, cayenne, black pepper,
maldon salt. Liquidise with a ladle or two of stock. Reheat. Serve
with toast.
