Chicken with Lemon and Walnuts

 

The latest addition to the chicken repertoire. There are some surprising elements here - not least, the additions of ginger and black treacle, neither of which is obvious in the finished dish, but where both give greater depth to the overall flavour, and the use of beef rather than chicken stock is not entirely expected either. The end result, however, is delicious. 

As with all stews, this is even better if left to sit for a day or two, and then reheated to serve.

Ingredients:

1 chicken, cut into quarters; salt and pepper; 40g butter; 2 tbs chopped onion; 1 tsp ground ginger; 1 tbs flour; 450 ml beef stock; 1 tbs black treacle; juice and grated rind of 1 lemon; 50g (approx 8) walnuts.

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Heat butter in a large frying pan, season the chicken pieces and then brown them all over in the hot butter, for about five minutes. Remove the chicken pieces to a casserole.

3. Use the butter to soften the onion, again about five minutes, then stir in the flour and ginger, add the stock and bring it to the boil.

4. Add treacle, and lemon juice and rind, and walnut pieces; stir to mix together thoroughly.

5. Pour the contents of the pan over the chicken pieces, then cover and cook in the pre-heated oven for an hour.

Serve.

Progress

 

The hearth, now fully uncovered,
and the 'fornello' which has been released from the roots of the tree
which was
growing on top of it

 

The doorway into 'the hidden room' , now almost fully re-opened

 

The east wall of the ruin; creeper now more under control.

Tonight's dinner:

French Onion Soup

Chicken Breasts in mushroom sauce; salsify

Fresh Pineapple, with Mascarpone

Leftovers

 For starters, on 1 January:

Andibo No Abokado, Kani, Ikura Nose

Toriniku Kenchin-Mushi

&

Soroname No Ama Tofu

Followed by leftover Oden stew, and rice. The four-footed couldn't have been happier!

Tonight's dinner:

(Back to normal)

Ham & Mushroom crepes

Fennel-seed Hamburgers; buttered spinach

Budino Toscano

New Year's Eve Dinner...

 And the menu was:

Aperitif was sake on-the-rocks, with a stick of fresh cucumber, served with crunchy, deep-fried fave beans. 

To confuse matters, two swedish wines were served with the first seven courses (the swedes make wine? Who knew?) Immalan 2020, followed by Aniara Renessans 2020. And then, because the Pauli had brought a splendid 2003 Barolo, we abandoned the warmed sake we'd intended to go with the Oden Stew, and defaulted instead to Italian vintage. For dessert, I'd lost my nerve anyway (I don't actually like Japanese desserts - to my mind, the mouth-feel tends to the 'woolly', and flavour ranges are too chestnuty for my liking...) and so, we had ginger ice-cream, which was light and rich and creamy, with just enough bite.

I'd worried that we might not last until midnight, but in fact we were still ploughing through Oden Nabe (stew, in other words, of  beef, chicken, potato, fried fish balls of shrimp and merluzzo, fried tofu, salsify - because I couldn't source any Konnyaku, and salsify seemed a good substitute - and hard-boiled eggs, all cooked in a complicated broth) when the fireworks began to explode in the distance. This four-footed, unlike her two predecessors, was spooked by the noise, and she ran around being alarmed for a good five minutes, until she was corralled again, under the table. And we could then wind down into the final course, and try not to worry too much about what 2023 might bring!

Tonight's dinner:

Da capo. The fridge is stuffed with leftovers, and we'll be dining 'alla Nonna' for at least several days to come.

Cool Yule...

Christmas morning...

Christmas afternoon...

More Christmas afternoon (spade, out of picture)...

And attendant extra-terrestrial!

Tonight's dinner:

Smoked salmon and pumpernickel (in homage to E.David)

Moules Marinieres (just because...)

Steak frites (as a self-inulgence)

Christmas Pudding (required)

 

Getting stuck in...

 Perhaps optimistically, I blithely promised our geometra  - which is essentially means 'surveyor', but most importantly in this context it means the person who will be filing our planning application with the Comune - that the ruin would have been entirely cleaned out (by me) before capo'd'anno. Which means addressing the fifty years and more of accumulated neglect since the roof was removed from the structure after it had last ceased to be lived in: toppled stonework; beams that had crashed to the ground as floors had given way, over time; broken floor tiles; and mountains of earth and greenery, with three or four trees, of varying degrees of maturity, which had seeded themselves and by now generously over-topped the structure. It doesn't help that it's barely stopped raining ever since we completed the purchase, and so available working days have been limited.

It's been an archaeological voyage of discovery...

Fallen roof-beams, and weeds

Once the worst of the greenery had been removed...

What we'd thought was a blocked-up doorway, turned out to be a hearth - complete with a hook for an iron pot - and a ruined chimney...

.

Progress! Ancient flagstones unearthed as the floor to the eastern room

And ancient terracotta as the floor to the western room

The base of the staircase, emerging from the mud.

And the remains of the (18th Century?) wood stove.

Onward and upward...

Tonight's dinner:

Endives gratin

Sausages in dry marsala buttered spinach

Pear & chocolate clafouti

Pastures new...

We completed on the purchase last week...

 

 

There's debate about how long the work will take. The more optimistic amongst us think we'll be in within a year...and the less optimistic think it will be twice that.

Tonight's dinner:

Portobello Mushrooms, roast with balsamic and herbed breadcrumbs, served with gorgonzola sauce

Fennel-seed hamburgers, with salsify

Pear Tarts