A short post today. The tolls of having a full time teaching position coupled with all the lesson planning that inevitably accompanies it has rendered me pretty exhausted both on the cooking and blogging fronts. I do have one thing to talk about though; left over chicken. I have to admit that no amount of waxing lyrical by even my food hero, Nigel Slater can induce me to embrace the pleasures of left over chicken. Like itself after sitting in the fridge for a day, it leaves me cold. Mr Slater claims you can feast of such a bird for days, but I usually cannot even bear to think about it. What is there to like about cold, stringy meat? That's another of my foodie fears, being served a chicken curry or stew where the left over chicken has been cooked so much it resembles miniature worms. Ugh. Despite all this rambling hatred, I am still always tempted by the tantalizing smell of the chicken roasting in shops and the promise of the treasured chicken prize; the crispy skin. I usually devour this as soon as possible, nibble a few pieces from the dense, tasteless flesh and then sigh and wonder what I'm going to do with the rest.
I admit that there are some recipes where left over chicken really shines. Chicken fried rice with thin strands of omelet and some sweet peas is always good, especially when a few drops of sesame oil and a little salt has been added to liven it up with a Chinese flavour. Chicken soup is another classic with a stock made from the bones and left over meat, a few raw wings thrown in to enrich the taste while it simmers for hours with some aromatics like celery, onion, garlic and carrot. If you take the Chinese route again and add some noodles, it is doubly delicious. I once made a chicken club sandwich which was sublime. The chicken nestled between some crisp, sweet bacon and tomato and mayonnaise finishing off the combination to create a sandwich made in heaven with toasted bread adding crunch, but here I stop.
The following recipe is for a pasta bake just bordering on being acceptable to me. The chicken began to do its hideous 'breaking up' routine and started looking alarmingly like string. It was rescued by the vegetables; asparagus and kale, some crisply fried Prosciutto and lashings of butter and cheese which would just about save any dish edging into the fringes of unappetizing. Enjoy!
These images of vegetables frying merrily away in a skillet are becoming increasingly common on this blog.
Home made flavoured butter. 1 cup unsalted butter, melted. 1 tbsp finely chopped thyme and 2 tbsp Marsala.
Recipe: Left over chicken pasta bake
1 cup left over roasted chicken, torn into lumps
4 pieces Prosciutto, ham or bacon, sliced finely
6 mushrooms, quartered
1 handful kale, shredded
8 stalks of asparagus, sliced
1/4 cup Vermouth
1 tbsp sour cream
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp butter
1 cup pasta
1 cup grated cheese
Start boiling the water for the pasta, salted well.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan and fry your Prosciutto or bacon or ham until crispy over medium heat.
Add the mushrooms, kale, asparagus and butter and cook gently until the mushrooms are soft and the kale wilted.
Add the Vermouth and sour cream and let gently putter away for about 5 minutes.
Boil your pasta for about 8 minutes until al dente, drain.
Add the chicken to the vegetables and stir gently over low heat. On no account let the chicken start to break up and go stringy, try to keep it in solid pieces, trust me.
Add the pasta to the chicken and vegetables, mix well and add 1 tsp butter, stir well.
Pile everything into a baking dish, sprinkle over the cheese and bake at 375oF for about 20 minutes.
This is quite a dry dish. If you want more sauce, add a little more Vermouth and sour cream and don't reduce too much.
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