Here's a nice supper for two that combines lots of different flavours and textures: crispy lemon chicken, soft caramelized onions, a smooth garlicky yoghurt sauce and a marinated tomato salad.
It might seem like a lot to coordinate, but each building block is just a few easy-to-combine ingredients. I had help in the form of S who cooked the chicken part (he's a whiz with meats).
This recipe is adapted from Australian chef Bill Granger's cookbook called bills: breakfast, lunch + dinner. Actually, it's his cover recipe :). The "sublimely delicious caramelized onions" are aptly named (they rock) and are from Dana McCauley's Pantry Raid.
Yoghurt Sauce
1 cup plain yoghurt
2 cloves garlic, minced
sea salt, just a pinch
Mix together and leave for one hour in the fridge.
Marinated Tomato Salad
two small ripe tomatoes, cubed
sea salt
red wine vinegar
olive oil
Mix together and marinate for one hour before draining. Drain and mix with more olive oil and chopped parsely.
Caramelized Onions
one large sweet onion, sliced
butter
thyme, fresh or dried
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 C cooking sherry
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
Fry the onions, thyme, salt and pepper in butter until they have turned translucent, about 10 minutes. Add sugar and cook another 5 -10 minutes until the onions have browned a bit. Add the sherry and worcestershire and reduce until the onions have absorbed most of the liquids. Use as a building block in the roasted chicken recipe.
Roasted Chicken
4 chicken thighs, skin left on, deboned
sea salt
pepper
lemon, sliced into rounds
1 Tbsp oregano
5 Tbsp olive oil
Lightly oil the bottom of a casserole dish and cover with a single layer of lemon rounds. Spread the caramelized onions over the lemons. Fry the chicken on both sides in a frypan until the sides are browned and crispy. Place the chicken skin side up on the bed of onions. Sprinkle with oregano and olive oil. Cook in a 350 C oven for 20-25 minutes.
Serve with the garlic yoghurt sauce and tomato salad.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Roast Chicken With Garlicky Yoghurt Sauce
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2 comments:
Except for the chicken part, this all sounds really good. Do you have a variety of tomato that you recommend for the salad?
Also, and this is a stupid question, but I am a kitchen moron, so here goes: what temp would you fry the onions at? Or what number on the dial, I guess? I ask because I find onions cook so quickly that they'd be brown within those first 10 minutes you mention. So either I've got them on too high a heat or I'm slicing them too finely.
Hey! Thanks. I think hothouse tomatoes have the best flavour. I usually fry onions on lowish heat between 2 and 4 (the dial is around a quarter turn counterclockwise), but S does it just under the halfway mark at around 4.5 and it turns out well too. Play around. It varies a lot per element. I also slice them kind of thickly (usually 1/2 to one cm thick). A good trick is to sprinkle some water in oil in the pan. The water should boil right away and the oil will quickly crackle and pop really loudly, no pathetic sputters. If the oil is smoking, the temperature is too hot.
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