It's one of those fridge challenge days, and I also haven't been able to tick off my new recipe challenge this week as yet. The challenge is celery really. Celery is always a challenge because a bunch of celery is so big. Well it is here in Australia. I wonder whether it is in England, because English recipes often tell you to use a whole bunch, which would be far too much. Maybe they all just throw away the outer stalks. I don't but I do take care to string them. Anyway first of all I ran through the alternatives in my head, more or less in the following order.
Quiche - well yes, it's a good Friday regular in this house, and celery and bacon quiche is one of David's favourites. But I didn't fancy it. We had indulged in Rachel Roddy's zucchini carbonara pasta dish last night, to which I had added some smoked trout, and although there was no cream in it, it was creamy, so I wasn't in the mood for more creamy. The smoked trout by the way was, I think a mistake - best to keep this dish in its original form. The trout dominated.
That pepper beef stir fry from the Coles Magazine that I mentioned the other day which was indeed very delicious, but we only had it pretty recently, so too soon I think.
A general kind of stir fry with chicken - well maybe - or a braised dish or traybake? Also maybe.
So at this point I decided to surf the net where I found several different versions of that peppery beef stir fry and also several chicken stir fries looking much like this one, but which I thought looked just a bit anaemic. However, chicken was a thought, so I became more speciific with my search but there really wasn't a lot to choose from. Until I added 'guardian' to my search and there was Ottolenghi. Honestly I do try to ignore him, so I went on looking at other people, but they didn't have anything. Not even Nigel.
Writing this, however, just gave me a thought - what about his book Tender Volume 1? And indeed there is a very simple recipe in there which he calls A simple sauté of chicken and celery, which involves a lot of butter and a touch of olive oil, in which the chicken is sautéed, then braised with garlic - celery added halfway through the cooking of 45 minutes. Remove the chicken pour in some vermouth and cook till syrupy. Return chicken and celery, reheat with parsley and lemon and quite a bit more butter. Probably delicious and pretty simple but I don't have any vermouth. I used my last drop on the tarragon chicken dish of Nigel's the other day. Another time perhaps.
So back to Ottolenghi and his Chicken, herb and celery stew with almonds. Now doesn't it look delicious? And isn't 'stew' a reassuring word? It implies it's simple doesn't it? Which is what you need on a Friday. And indeed it is pretty simple - the usual thing - fry the chicken, add the various flavourings and cook. The only extra thing was finishing the whole thing off under the grill to make it a crispy brown, and probably fairly dry. I was really tempted. However. I have breasts not thighs - although that probably doesn't matter too much. I do not have any dried fenugreek leaves and no way of getting any either, and - the final almost blow - no black limes either - or any way of getting them. In England it seems you can get them in Waitrose. So OK - I could leave out the dried fenugreek, though I'm guessing that would change things, and maybe ordinary lime would do. I checked out substitutes and there were several grudging suggestions here and there - yes lime, lemon, sumac. But I was losing enthusiasm even though I had printed the recipe out because it's not in any of my Ottolenghi books. I decided it would probably end up a pale shadow of what it should be.
I gave up for a while and went for a walk on this lovely day, and when I came back decided that I would do my own thing. Something along the lines of a braise that uses that green sauce I made last week. It's a kind of sharp pesto, so if I watered it down as it were with some yoghurt perhaps, or wine to get away from the creamy vibe. No need for extra herbs because there are heaps in the pesto. Perhaps a couple of asparagus too. Maybe a carrot for some sweetness. Definitely onions. Somebody mentioned green peppercorns ... With rice. We'll see.
And David bought blueberries yesterday, and yet more fruit loaf, so I think I'll really lash out and make a pudding - a blueberry bread and butter pudding. It's Friday and there will be wine.
MEANWHILE BACK THEN
October 25
2023 - Making pasta
2021 - Cheese bits
2019 - Za'atar - not what you think
2018 - Nothing
2017 - Vegetable gardens
I was looking forward to all of the things Rosemary mentioned. But an ORIGINAL signature dish. What could be better. Lucky me. Will go with the aged Chardonnay (2005) from Yarrambat Winery a stones throw from Eltham, which we tried at the winery only last week - super wine, super value with superb Rosemary food value . Lucky us Just upgraded to 5 stars.