Lemon and Garlic Chicken- Slow Roasted Goodness

This turned out to be the perfect dish for us during this weekend. The time spent preparing the ingredients is minimum, but the result is perfect. While the chicken is cooking, you have time to watch some bad TV to do other things around the house, but because is slow roasted, the chicken is very tender and juicy, so nobody will complain.

You use few ingredients, but with great impact and flavor:
1 free range chicken, cut into pieces
2 lemons, cut into chunks (we peeled most of the skin because it was very waxed)
7-8 garlic cloves
some thyme
1 glass of white wine
3 tbsp oil

Place the chicken in an oven tin, add the garlic, thyme and lemon, then the oil and rub the chicken on all sides to soak in the flavors, then pour the white wine. 

Cover the tin with foil and put in a preheated oven for 2 hours at low heat, as Nigella suggests :).

After 2 hours, remove the foil and let the chicken cook for another 45 minutes, at medium-high heat this time.
As you can see, we used free range chicken, it was pretty wild, a fatty compared to the ones we usually find in stores. The skin is thicker and it won't win first place in looks, but the taste is so much better. Cooking it this way just brings out the best in it.

The lemon, alongside the wine and the slow roasting, makes the chicken sooo tender, but also caramelises the skin in the end, when the foil has been removed. Delish!!! Try to think of a reason not to try it....see? No reason not to try it.

Enjoy,

Meatballs Madness (I) Meatballs with Ricotta and Sun-dried Tomatoes

Did you ever think about who was the first person who thought of saying meatball madness? Who ever saw an indefinite amount of meatballs and screamed: This is madness! I keep imagining some 17th century dude, in his tight pants, being absolutely bedazzled by the sight of meatballs. So, with that image in mind, I decided I need to have  reason to say meatball madness, thereforeI had to cook some tasty  beef meatballs. 

I used: 

• 500 grams of minced beef, 
• 1 medium onion, finely diced, 
• 3 cloves of garlic, 
• 150 grams of ricotta cheese,  
• 100 grams of sun dried tomatoes and about 3 tbs of the oil they were kept in, 
• parsley,  
• thyme, 
• 2 eggs, 
• flour, 
• salt, 
• pepper, 
• some oil for cooking. 

Just mix all the ingredients together really well, except the flour. 

Make sure the onion, tomatoes, garlic and herbs are all finely chopped,  so you can mix then evenly.  Add the flour to thicken the composition, I used around 150 grams, both for putting it in the meat and for lightly flouring the meatballs. Heat up some olive oil on medium high heat, and fry you golf ball size meatballs until golden brown on all sides,  shouldn't take long. 

As a side dish, I just boiled some delicious,  fresh green beans and seasoned them as mentioned here. 

This meatball recipe, with  definite Italian influences is light, fresh and a delicious way to bring some ordinary and common meatballs to the next level. The ricotta make them moist and very light. There is definitely gonna be a next time cooking these.

Enjoy,

Express Post: Garlic and Thyme Bread

Ok, some maybe some of you read one of our most recent posts and saw a crispy looking bread behind that mouthwatering fish stew. 

So, as to have the complete picture, we decided to bring the bread also in the spotlight, it most certainly deserves it. We saw this being made by Jaime Oliver and, despite not being more than some glorified bread, it really went well with the stew.

So just grab a ciabatta or another type of medium-density bread and make cuts along the length and width of the loaf, so that you create some sort of cubes. Be careful not to cut all the way through. Stuff sliced or crushed garlic and fresh thyme leaves (even better, flowers) in the created spaces.

Sprinkle a generous amount of olive oil on top and pop it in the preheated oven (“full whack” as Jamie would say) for around 10 minutes. We went for a crispy outcome, you can always reduce your cooking time. So there you have it, garlic and thyme bread, easy mode, super tasty and with many more possibilities of adding flavors like rosemary, sundried tomatoes, zucchini or just herbed oil.

Enjoy,
Mr. G.