Roast Chicken with mushroom stuffing & pea puree

I made this for the family on Christmas Eve and it went down a treat. I hope you all enjoyed the festivities!

Ingredients 

1 large chicken

Mixed Mushroom Stuffing

Olive oil

2 C bread crumbs

2 C mixed mushrooms

1 Onion

1 handful of fresh thyme

1 egg

4 cloves of garlic

1 lemon

1 hand full of pine nuts

Sea salt  & pepper

Pea Puree

1 bag of frozen peas

2 C chicken stock

1 Tbsp Parmesan

Pepper & salt

Roast Vege medley

1 large kumara

2 large potatoes

1 red onion

2 carrots

1/2 small pumpkin

1 garlic bulb

4 Tbsp sweet thai chilli

Red wine jus

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 240°C. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, add onion and garlic (finely chopped) and cook for about 5-10 minutes until soft, not coloured. Add mushrooms with the leaves from your thyme sprigs. Turn the heat up to high and fry for 5-10 minutes until the mushrooms go slightly crispy. Remove from heat, grate in lemon zest and season well.  Tip into a bowl and leave to one side to cool.

Once cooled, mix in the pine nuts and breadcrumbs, then add the egg. Cut a hole in-between the skin of the chicken and the meat and create a pocket for the stuffing. Push a quarter of the stuffing into this pocket and roll the remaining mixture into balls and pop around the chicken in the roasting dish. Cut your zested lemon in half and place in the chicken cavity with the remaining thyme sprigs. Drizzle olive oil over chicken and season with salt and pepper.

Follow the roast vege medley recipe from this blog and cook in synchronisation with the roast chicken.

Place in the preheated oven and turn the heat down to 200°C. Cook for 40 minutes, then add your mushroom stuffing balls to the tray. Return to the oven and cook for a further 35 minutes until gorgeous and golden.

Whilst this is cooking, 15 minutes before the chicken is ready, boil your peas in the chicken stock, then drain stock into a bowl and drizzle in the stock until you have enough moisture to whizz the peas into a thick puree. Add the parmesan and season with pepper and salt and whizz to blend.

 Prepare your red wine jus (follow previous recipe from this blog)at the same time you prepare the pea puree. This will be used to drizzle over the meal at the end.

To check your chicken is cooked, stick a skewer into the fattest part of the thigh – if the juices run clear, your chicken is done. Leave to rest for 10 to 15 minutes before carving. This meal should serve 6-8 people, depending on the size of your chicken.

Merry Christmas!

Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary 

My new favourite drink, but only when it is done right...

Ingredients

Spiced Tomato Juice

1 heaped teaspoon of horseradish

1 Tbsp of Worchestire sauce

1 tsp of tobasco sauce

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Pinch of celeriac salt

Ground pepper

Double shot of Vodka

To garnish

2 Green stuffed olives & a tsp of the olive brine

Stick of celery or cucumber

Basil leaf 

Wedge of lemon 

Instructions

There is nothing complicated about this, simply put ice in a jar and the ingredients and shake vigorously. Then to garnish put olives on a tooth pick, put the stick of celery/cucumber in with the lemon wedge and basil leaf and wala!

So delicious!

Music at work (playlist)

What I like listening to while I cook Penny's playlist

Roast vegetable medley

Roast vege medley

Although we are swiftly moving into anti-roast season, for those who love their roast vegetables these are great in a salad. I can't take credit for this recipe however, my friend is a genius with salads and I have been a die hard fan of this method for a while.

New potatoes from the Wellington Vege market

Ingredients

Potatoes

Kumara

Pumpkin

Garlic bulbs

Yams

Sweet Thai Chilli

Olive Oil

Pepper & Salt

or that smoked garlic salt you get from the gourmet section in the supermarket

Instructions

So simple. All you need to do is cut the veges into wedge type size pieces, chuck them in a roast dish with the garlic bulbs, toss them with olive oil, sweet chilli and pepper and salt then pop in the oven and bake at 180 degrees celsius for approximately half an hour.

And boom! You are done. Put in a garden salad with some BBQ chicken or prawns (could be anything) and you are set for a scrumptious lunch.

Aioli

Aioli

The must have in every fridge. With BBQ season on its way this aioli goes with everything and is incredibly easy to make. You can be adventurous with adding herbs and as you may have guessed by the picture lemon juice and lemon rind.

Ingredient

2 eggs

1 litre of grape seed oil 

(same consistency/quality as olive oil without the flavour)

4 garlic cloves

1-2 Tbsp of whole grain mustard

1 c of white wine vinegar

pepper & salt

1-2 lemons

Instructions 

You will need a food whizz/blender of some sort. Crack the eggs into the blender, crush and peel the garlic and add to the eggs then whizz for 10 or so seconds. Add the white wine vinegar, 1 tsp of lemon rind and turn the blender on low - as this is blending you want to start drizzling the oil in slowly until you have reached the right consistency - it should be reasonably thick.

Add the the whole grain mustard, pepper & salt, and lemon juice and whizz again, you can stir if it's too thick. This recipe should make you a substantial supply, however it is so good people whip through it rather quickly. If you like mint - this goes well blended in at the beginning. 

Beef Wellington

So this is a little more fiddly than I am used to, but so much fun to make and incredibly delicious!

Cut in half to serve two.

Ingredients

500 gram piece of beef fillet

1Tbsp rock salt

1 shallot (large)

6 button mushrooms 

1 clove of garlic

1tsp thyme

2Tbsp of red wine

3 Tbsp french mustard

Puff pastry

100grams butter

1Tbsp olive oil

Enough strips of prosciutto to wrap the beef in

Instructions

Firstly run the beef in olive oil and salt and turn oven onto bake at 250 degrees celsius. Once the pan is searing hot put the beef on and turn the heat down slightly; sear all 6 sides till golden. Remove beef from pan and rest.

Finely chop the shallot, mushrooms and garlic. Heat 50grams of butter in pan add shallot and garlic and simmer till transparent then add mushrooms and thyme. Cook for 15 mins adding a pinch of pepper and salt and a dash of red wine.

Cover the beef in mustard, roll the pastry out so its wide enough to wrap the beef in. Place the prosciutto on top of the pastry then spread the mushroom mix on top - place the beef at one end and then roll the pastry over the beef tightly. cut the excess pastry ends off and then fold/tuck the pastry ends in.

Melt the remaining butter and baste the pastry with it. Put the beef wellington in the oven and bake for 15 or so minutes - until pastry is golden.

Coat with the previous red wine jus recipe and wala! 

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