Saffron and Orange chicken

 Ar another wonderfully fresh and tasty meal from my new Jerusalem cook book by Ottolenghi. The left over from this made amazing wraps the next day.

Saffron and Orange chicken

Ingredients to serve 6
50g honey
1/2tsp saffron
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
300ml water

1kg of chicken breast although i used theighs
4 tbsp olive oil
2 bulbs of fennel
15g coriander
15g basil torn
15g mint leaves torn
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 red chilli thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves crushed
salt and pepper

pre heat the oven to 200c

Top and tail an orange then cut into wedges place into a small saucepan with the honey, saffron, vinegar and enough water to cover.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 1 hour top up with water if needed.  After the hour the orange will be cooked and there will be about 3 tbsp of syrup. at the end.  Process the orange and syrup with a bit more water to make a smooth paste.

Toss the Chicken in the oil, salt and pepper and place skin down on a griddle to crisp up the roast off in the oven for 20 - 30 mins till cooked cover and allow to rest and cool.  Pull off the skin and shred then shred the chicken and coat with half of the orange paste, save the rest for another dinner such as salmon.

To make the salad thinly slice the fennel add the herbs olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper.  Top with the shredded orange chicken and then top off with crispy chicken skin.

Pumkin, Saffron and Orange soup

 Soup is so nice and heart warming especially with this awful weather we have been having, so cold and wet.

In a large roasting pan place peeled and chopped pumpkin, butternut squash, 2 -3 carrots, 1 sweet potato, half a bulb of garlic, 1 large onion, season all with salt and pepper and a good glug of olive oil.  Roast off for 30-40 mins

While roasting prepare the pumpkin seeds.  Heat the oven to 180c toss all below together
60g of pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1tbsp Maple syrup
1/2 tbsp soft brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of black pepper
big pinch of cayenne pepper

spread over a baking tray and put in the oven for 10 mins or till golden brown then leave to cool


Once the vegetables are roasted transfer to a blender to make a paste, i like mine with a bit of texture, everyone to there own if you like it smooth then blend it a bit further.  Add the zest and juice of an orange and 1 tsp of Saffron fronds and fresh thyme then transfer the paste to a pan and add 1 -1 1/2 liters of vegetable stock to break the paste down to a soup at a consistency you prefer, and heat to serve.  Serve in shallow bowl add a big blob of creme fraiche in the middle and sprinkle with the pumpkin seeds to serve.

Cocktail of the month Grand Mimosa

This is the Grand Mimosa or the daddy killer as i call it as 2 of these and daddy is all mine!

1 shot of Grand Marnier 

2 shots of blood orange

Topped up with Champagne or Prosecco

Orange curd butterfly cakes

This weeks theme anything Citrus and Fairy cake

Because the house smells great with fresh baking and its always nice to lick the spoon of your creation and share a slice of cake.

Bitter orange and ginger gammon

We have a tradition in our house for starting to prepare and eat the Gammon a few days before Christmas.

With so much meat suddenly available on Christmas day and not wanting to waste food and feel overstuffed  by boxing day we start early and enjoy a bit of tasty Gammon.  Ali is always in charge of meat over Christmas and he choose a monster gammon.

After soaking it for 24 hours to get rid of some of the salt it took 5 hours to roast it was so huge, the house smelt wonderful and we were salivating while it cooked.

This year we decided to do a bitter orange and ginger glaze as we were getting bored of honey and mustard and maple and mustard.

Here are the ingredients
2 tbsp of Chinese five spice
zest of 3 clementines (or oranges)
6 bits of fresh Ginger (you can use stem ginger too)
1 pot of bitter orange marmalade
1 pot of whole grain mustard

Ali above is blitzing all the ingredients together apart from the whole grain which he put in at the end and briefly blitzed so not to break up the grains to much.

  On the last 30 mins of cooking we put the glaze over the meat and a 150ml of boiling water in the base of the pan and added slices of clementines over the outside and secured with cocktail sticks while it was cooking.  Ali made me laugh as he said with the clementine decoration it looked really 70's. Once cooked the cocktail sticks can be removed and the orange should stay behind on the meat.  If the feasting hadn't started before in our house it certainly has now.