Chicken a la Fridge-Clearout

Sometimes you've just got to clear out what's in the fridge.


Here at Transatlantic Towers, there are frequently small amounts of stuff left-over from previous meals - not so much cooked stuff, which tends to be eaten for lunch the following day, but the veggies from a bag that was just too big for two people, the leftover lardons from a previous recipe and various other bits. And rather than throw them out, it's better to use them when you can.

So last night was one of those nights - chuck stuff at a pan and make it work.

It occurred to me afterward that it was similar to Nigella Lawson's 'Coq Au Riesling' recipe, but with the addition of some asparagus I had in the fridge.

I would've taken some photos, but there was no time - it tasted SO good that Gotham Gal and I inhaled it long before I could reach for the camera! Therefore, this isn't so much a recipe as a breakdown of what was lurking in the fridge, and how we used that to make something that turned out very, very good indeed.

Chicken a la Fridge-Clearout

500g chicken thighs and breast, chopped into smallish chunks;
Bacon lardons;
A handful of closed-cup mushrooms
A handful of asparagus spears;
1 largish onion;
4 cloves of garlic;
White wine;
Single cream*;
A big handful of fresh tarragon, finely-chopped;
Salt & pepper (of course).

Pop a large, heavy-based saucepan onto a low heat and pour in a small slug of vegetable oil. Finely chop the onion and garlic and pop them in the pan to sweat down.

After a couple of minutes, once they're starting to sweat, throw in your lardons and let them start to render down a bit.

 Take the tips off the garlic spears and set aside. Chop the top half of the stalk into small chunks, and throw them in the pot. Throw away the woody lower part.

 Finely slice half a dozen mushrooms and put them in as well. Stir everything around in the bacon fat that's starting to exude.

Once everything's sweated nicely and the onions are translucent, throw in about two-thirds of the chopped tarragon, add the chicken and turn up the heat to medium. You're not trying to fry it off, just colour it a bit. Let it all cook for five or ten minutes, swooshing it around occasionally, until the chicken is white overall.

 Turn the heat up to high and after about two minutes, chuck in a glass or so of white wine and stir, then once the alcohol has cooked off turn the heat back down to low and leave it for a minute or two.

Slowly add the single cream, stirring all the time.

Turn up the heat a little, until the sauce is just bubbling occasionally, and cook uncovered until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce reduced to a nice thick consistency.

 Five minutes or so before you plan to eat, taste and add seasoning (you probably won't need more salt) and add the asparagus tips, a couple more sliced mushrooms and the last of the tarragon and stir well.

Serve with something mashy to soak up the sauce, and some lightly-cooked green beans to add texture.

Then go and buy some more stuff to refill the fridge for next time!


*note: the cream wasn't 'lurking in the fridge, but bought fresh. Don't mess about with leftover dairy products! 

I Can Haz Cheezeburger?

So there have been many changes in The Life Of Dungeekin in recent months, including marriage (thanks in large part to a roast chicken recipe) and moving to Transatlantic Towers, our new family home. And it has a MUCH larger kitchen than Vitriol Towers ever did, which has meant much more space for ingredients - and better still, much more space for experimentation.

 That experimentation has recently been focused on the dark art of the cheeseburger. Having uprooted Greater Gotham Gal from the burger-rich hunting grounds of the Upper East Side to the drizzling, McDonalds-dominated wasteland of Oxfordshire, it was essential that I got the hang of cheeseburgers. If you've ever been to NYC and eaten at JG Melon, Shake Shack or any of the other dedicated burger places in the city, you'll understand how what we Brits think of as a dry, bland alternative to an M&S sandwich is, over there, a juicy*, flavoursome thing of wonder from beef to bun.

And you know what? Recreating that proved to be bloody difficult. Attempt after attempt came up short, with mushy meat, disintegrating burgers or charred exteriors concealing raw mince inside. Thankfully the majority of these experiments were done while GGG was still in the States, so I was spared the disapproval of a cheeseburger connoisseur. It became clear that the trick is to keep the meat as cool as possible and be as gentle as possible putting it together. I can't stress those points enough - cool and gentle, cool and gentle!

But now, I think I've finally come up with the recipe and cooking method that works and will give that proper New York cheeseburger experience at home.

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseburgers  

Preparation (makes two burgers):
500 grams of GOOD steak mince. Don't get 'extra-lean', as you need some fat;
2 good burger buns. If you've a baker and can find a range, all the better. Supermarket 'baps' are often too dry and break up;
'American' processed-cheese slices (these are the canonical burger cheese, substitute your preference if you wish;
2 rashers of streaky bacon;
Granulated onion;
TABLE salt (one of the rare occasions when I don't use Maldon Sea Salt);
Black pepper.

Take the mince from its pack, and put into a large bowl. Gently run your fingers through it to separate it all out, then pop it back into the fridge to cool back down.

After 30-odd minutes chilling, take the mince and add granulated onion, salt and black pepper to taste, gently mixing it through with your fingers. Don't be too harsh or use utensils, as that will over-work the meat and make it go sloppy and clump. I use granulated onion to get a good flavour without compromising 'structural integrity' - even fine-chopped onion has a tendency to make the burgers fall apart during cooking. Granulated onion and table salt also work better as they can be worked more fully through the meat than sea salt and chopped onion, so you get completely even seasoning.

Place the seasoned meat back in the fridge for another 20 minutes or so, to recover from your ministrations.

 Once it's cooled again, separate the meat into 4 equal portions. Roll them (gently) into balls, then slowly flatten them out until they're about 1/2" thick at the edge, with a bit of an indentation in the middle of each one.

Take two slices of American cheese, and fold each in half twice. Place them into the indentations on two of your patties. Take the two patties without cheese and gently place them, indentation-side down, on top of the two with cheese on, creating a beef'n'cheese sandwich. Gently (note how everything has to be gentle!) squeeze the edges together to make a partial seal. Back into the fridge - Don't cover or wrap them, as that seems to make them sweat a bit and go mushy - and leave them there for a good couple of hours.

 Cooking:

 Take two frying pans - one with a lid, and one without. Put a small amount of oil in the pan with the lid, and wipe it around the pan, then put the pan on a low heat. Keep the other pan to one side - that one will be getting HOT later.

Gently put the burgers into the oiled pan, and put the lid on. The object here is not to fry them, as they'll fall apart. Instead, let them steam gently in their own juices. It takes a lot longer to cook them this way but they stay together and retain much more moisture. They can take as long as 25-30 minutes to cook, gently turning once or twice. They won't take on much colour, but you will know they're cooking from the sound and smell.

Heat the other frying pan, without oil this time, and get it nice and hot. Cut the bacon rashers in half, and put them in the hot pan to cook until crispy, then remove and keep in a warm oven. Wipe out any excess bacon fat, and put the pan back on the heat.

Prepare your buns with any dressings you want to add, but don't go overboard as the moisture from the burger and dressings will cause the bun to collapse. Toast the bun if you wish, but I've never found that works for me.

When the cheese in the middle of the burgers starts to leak from the edges, you're ready to go. Remove them from the pan, and finish with 30 seconds per side in your hot frying pan to colour them up.

Place your burger on the bottom of the bun, add another slice of cheese on top (to help it all stick together), pop two half-rashers of bacon on top of that and top with the bun.

Eat. Don't forget napkins!


 *This is in no small part due to being able to choose how done your burger is, whereas here they tend to be served one way only - overdone - and even in places like GBK it can be a struggle to persuade them to cook your burger medium. Dang 'Health & Safety' rules.