The Daddy of Chicken Caesar Salads

I've found since leaving University that my ability to sleep in has greatly diminished. It's so frustrating! I find myself wide awake at 7am on a Saturday, my body clock fully expecting me to dash off to work, when all I want to do is embrace the joys of not having to get up and go to work. JJ does not suffer from such an affliction. He would sleep in til noon if I let him. He's one of those people that can nap anytime, anywhere. It's one of the main points of difference in our relationship, made worse by our extremely open plan flat with very creaky floorboards. Try as I might to potter away quietly downstairs, I'll end up crashing and banging around, waking him up anyway.

So to try and avoid disturbing his lie in this past weekend, I sneaked out super early to spend the day wandering around Borough market with a very lovely blog buddy - why can't I spend my whole life wandering around produce markets in the sunshine with awesome friends talking pretty much non-stop about food?? Heaven! The resulting haul included rhubarb, which will feature in the next post, some stunning Sicillian lemons (so pretty I couldn't resist but no idea what to do with them - ideas welcome!) and a rather magnificent chicken. The chicken was simply roasted up and served with Jersey Royal potatoes and English asparagus and enthusiastically devoured Sunday evening. But, given that there's only two of us, there was plenty left over for last night's supper. Enter the king of all chicken salads - the Chicken Caesar!

Salads have such a bad rap. Those lip, lifeless green leaves thrown onto a plate are the root cause of the problem - I've never really understood how restaurants get away with charging so much for them! Side salads. Urgh. Even the name is enough to make me skip the salad and order something far less healthy.

But with the wedding looming ever closer and my diet being ruined by oh so much temptation (mostly my own fault, I'll concede) it's time to get salad happy! And there are so many incredible salads out there. I've never had such praise for a meal as the one I prepared the other night of a selection of deliciously different salads. This could be something to do with a rather amazing cookbook I'm now the very proud owner of, but I'm also going to go ahead and take a little credit. (not much though... It's really all down to the cookbook!)

With the left over chicken, it had to be chicken salad and, of course, there's no chicken salad quite like a chicken Caesar salad. This salad started off innocently enough - chicken, lettuce and a bit of dressing. But somewhere between the lettuce aisle and eggs aisle, we got a little carried away. So this version would, I'm sure, make Cardini roll in his grave, but I'm willing to live with that. You can, of course, par it right back and just serve the dressing on the lettuce but that's just a touch too much like a 'side salad' for my liking!

Caesar Salad
Serves 2 for supper or 4 for a starter

For the croutons:
2 slices white bread, cubes
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper

For the salad:
1 crispy lettuce (Romaine ideally, but hey, it's lettuce. Use whatever you've got)
Half a cucumber, diced
Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon
Diced, cooked chicken, around 1 cup.
Freshly grated parmesan
4 anchovy fillets, minced (optional)

For the dressing:
2 cloves garlic
2 egg yolks
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 floz/125ml olive oil

Place the rashers of bacon on a tray and pop in the oven. Turn the oven to 200C. Apparently, this stops the bacon from shrinking or something...

Toss the bread cubes in olive oil, salt and pepper and place on a baking tray in the middle of the oven to toast, about 10 minutes or so (until golden - this depends so much on how dry your bread is so be prepared for this to take longer).

Crush the garlic into a paste with a pinch of salt. A pestle and mortar would work great here - we don't own one though so just chopping it very finely works well too! Add the egg yolks, worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and dijon mustard and give a whisk around.

Continue to whisk while slowly drizzling in the olive oil. This sounds tough but I have a VERY low tollerance for hand whisking and it took no time at all. Once it's all added it should have the consistency of slightly thickened double cream. Give it a taste and season with pepper and lemon juice. I wouldn't add any more salt as we used anchovies, bacon and parmesan, but if you're not using quite such an excessive number of salty ingredients, do season to taste with salt too.

On a large platter (or individual bowls) lay the lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and chicken. Add a good couple of dollops of dressing and a grating of parmesan and toss to distribute. Crumble over the bacon and scatter with croutons. You can serve with bread too, but it's really hearty in its own right. Devour immediately! The dressing will keep for about a week in the fridge but, as with any lettuce-based salad, leaves should be dressed immediately before eating.

If you're worried about the raw egg component, apparently they can be coddled before hand. I've never tried this but though as I like to live dangerously. That, and I'm lazy. But of course, this might be one of those salads to avoid if you're pregnant!

Rosy xx

Almond Rocket Pesto and a Tart

I'm on a bit of a pesto kick at the moment - especially the more random combinations. We've had a great recipe for regular pesto that's been on almost weekly rotation for a while now but basil and pine nuts can be expensive. And hey, it's always fun to mix things up a bit! So this time it's almond (because they were lying around) and rocket (because, um, it was lying around). And? So good!!! I think I may be obsessed. So many different flavour possibilities!

Pesto's one of those things that's just great to use in a huge variety of dishes. I think stirring it into pasta has to be one of my least favorite things to do with it (although, of course, we still eat it that way a whole lot). A recent discovery was aubergine wrapped halloumi with a smear of pesto on the inside - absolutely delicious but oh so ugly! The photos really don't do it justice so I shall have to make it again and pay a little more attention to its visual appeal before sharing it with you. JJ was close to tears it was so good. Or that might have been the quantity of garlic used... No, it was the halloumi, I'm sure!

Anyway, no matter what kind of pesto I have on hand, I LOVE to use it in tarts. Especially vegetable tarts - it really ups the flavour and helps contrast the sweetness of the vegetables. In the winter, it's a blind-baked tart shell, a coating of pesto, a heap of roasted veggies and a basic quiche filling. But I really don't feel inclined to roast up vegetables in the spring, especially when the season is all about the vibrant greens of new life rather than the dusky reds and russets of autumn. So, very much inspired by this recipe, I went for a substantially lighter, cleaner tart with a thin layer of filling - something that I'll definitely be doing again! Makes the whole thing much lighter and the eggy base doesn't overwhelm the other ingredients.

All in all, this was incredible. I'm ashamed to say that I managed to demolish the whole thing before JJ even got a look in (over two nights, mind - I'm not that bad. I did have to physically restrain myself from eating it all on night one though...). This pastry is surprisingly forgiving - I struggle so much with pastry but I've made this countless times. This time, I really thought I'd done it when I carried on messing around with it but it was just as flakey and perfectly savory as always. Now to perfect my sweet pastry...

Recipes - I will add them later this evening as I totally forgot to copy them down before I left the house this morning!! Oops... But the inspiration for the tart can be found here.

Rosy xx

Butternut Squash, Spinach and Goat's Cheese Risotto

So, hands up who's suffering from tooth ache after all the cake posts recently?? Yep, I still have a birthday cupcake post ready and waiting and of course there will be something sweet for my sweet this Valentine's day (obviously I demonstrate my love via the medium of food!). But today, I thought I'd go with something savory.

I've been inspired by a new found friend to eat much more vegetarian food (seriously girl, publish that parmigiana recipe already, it's to die for! And I hate aubergines). I've also been attempting to eat much more seasonally and locally - a bit of a tough feat in London but thanks to these guys, a whole lot easier than it could be. If you do happen to live in their delivery zone which is, granted, fairly restricted, then please go and check out Farm Direct's website - I can vouch for how AMAZING the produce is and it even comes in rustic wooden crates! Makes me feel very trendy and en mode even though I'm far from either of those! The real bonus? They're super reasonably priced. Ok, so not on the same level as Tesco Value, but as they have no store front and only order what they need, so they can offer beautiful organic produce at frankly bargin prices.

Anyway, enough already with the Farm Direct fan club!! Back to the risotto. This was the product of much experimentation with the basic butternut squash risotto formula. I wanted it to be warm and comforting but not super stodgey - does anyone else get a little tired of heavy winter food?? But something about snow doesn't make you crave salads either. I wanted to keep the rich sweetness of the squash (or pumpkin - I bet that would work equally well) but inject some zestiness with tart lemons and contast with the bite of goats cheese. The spinach really adds to the colour and freshness of the dish, plus makes it feel super healthy!

So it might seem that this is not the simplest risotto but it really is - just give it a go and you won't be disappointed. We probably have this for supper once a week and it's perfect for entertaining as well, especially if you have any vegetarians coming but don't want to faff around with seperate veggie/non-veggie dishes.

The only thing I would say is be careful with the seasoning - I've made this a touch too salty before by using too much stock powder as the squash is seasoned as well. I probably only use 1/2 tsp marigold bouillon powder dilluted in boiling water.

Butternut Squash, Spinach and Goat's Cheese Risotto

Serves: 3-4


1 tbsp olive oil
Knob butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic (depending on size and how much you like garlic), crushed
½ butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cubed
750ml hot vegetable stock (about 1/2tsp marigold swiss bouillon powder dissolved in boiling water)
White wine
375g risotto rice
A good handful (ca. ½ x 235g bag) baby spinach
Goat’s cheese, crumbled
Juice and zest of half a lemon
Another knob of butter
Parmesan
Seasoning (and some parsley and pine nuts if you have any lying around)

1. Place the cubed butternut squash in a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil and season. Roast in a hot oven until nicely golden (ca. 30 mins at 200°C). This normally takes about as long as the rest of the risotto takes to prep and cook so do this first then worry about the risotto once it’s in the oven.

2. Heat the oil and a knob of butter in a deep pan, then add the onion and sauté for 4-5 minutes until slightly softened. Try not to let it brown. Add the garlic and cook for a moment more.

3. Stir in the rice and allow the oil to be absorbed and the grains to become glossy. Add the wine and allow the rice to absorb before adding a ladleful of stock at a time, continuing to simmer gently until the rice is tender* and the liquid is almost absorbed. Stir fairly constantly (but gently so as not to damage the rice) to avoid sticking.

4. Remove from the heat, season to taste then stir in the roasted squash, spinach, lemon zest and juice, herbs, a good grating of parmesan and a knob of butter. Cover and allow it to cook in the residual heat for a couple of minutes. Risotto improves massively by being allowed to rest for a few minutes!

5. Serve scattered with goat’s cheese and pine nuts with a bit more parmesan and pepper on top if you fancy.

*To test whether the rice is cooked, take a single grain between your fingertips and press together. If it is completely soft then it is cooked; if there is any hardness in the centre it requires further cooking.

Blue cheese, such as Gorgonzola, also works well with this recipe. I've even switched the spinach out for rocket before and it works wonderfully.

It’s worth letting the squash really get some colour going on in the oven as the super sweet flavour goes so well with the sharp goat’s cheese.

Rosy xx