Main: Lemon Crumbed Chicken (potato & carrot casserole with ratatouille
Women’s Weekly Dinner Party Cook Book (the very first one)
Dessert: Passionfruit Tart
David Herbert in the Weekend Australian
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.” —Neil Gaiman
Hello everyone!
So back to my normal week to week Wine Wednesday and I just love this Neil Gaiman quote to start the year. It really sums things up for me because I intend trying new things and no doubt will make mistakes along the way. I’ll share all the cooking ones with you so welcome to the 2021 journey.
Here I am right back at the beginning again. The very first WW Dinner Party Cookbook. My goodness they are lovely simple and delicious recipes. Always easy to follow and not usually ingredients that involve a 10km hike through rainforests to get them. Particularly during these times there is something very comforting about going back to these classic cookbooks. And this week I have selected the lemon crumbed chicken. This is definitely a do ahead for your busy day. I sliced the breasts through so that I ended up with more of a schnitzel which cooks more quickly than the thick chicken breast and won’t dry out in the process. Marinating in the lemon juice and wine for two hours tenderises the breasts and then you can crumb them in the tangy citrusy crumbs and pop them in the fridge to be cooked last minute. If you have time, turn the breasts after the first hour. I was very impressed with the sauce. Scraping all the little bits off the bottom of the pan after frying the chicken and then adding the flour and the reserved marinade with cream made for a luscious flavour. Everyone loved it and it received 10/10. I was told “the flavour is fresh and the citrus cuts through making the taste buds dance”. Wahoooo!
I opted to follow the entire main course menu and cooked the potato and carrot casserole. This is certainly something I have never had before and what a lovely surprise it was with it’s mild sweetness and yet savoury as well flavour. Very interesting. Now this menu is for 4 people but let me tell you it cooks up a huge amount. I have leftover p & c casserole and I’m going to pop it on top of some 50/50 bolognese mince (remember that recipe – it’s on the blog) and make shepherds pie tonight. This casserole is much lighter than you expect and I will definitely do it again. I think that a glass casserole dish, which I don’t have, would show it off a lot better to wow your guests. 10/10 again.
This is probably the very first time ratatouille was introduce here because these recipes go back to the mid 70’s. Of course, I’ve done my own version many, many times but decided to follow the WW version to the letter. Sautéing each vegetable separately and then bringing them together. It was delicious and colourful. You really can’t go wrong with this. 8/10.
On the weekend, the MAV decided he was going to cook the dessert for Wine Wednesday because he saw this recipe in the paper and had it in his head that that was what he felt like. So off I go and buy all the ingredients and inform him that he would need to start the recipe Tuesday night. So it gets to 7pm on Tuesday night and I have finished dinner and cleared up leaving the kitchen to him. The MAV then re-reads the recipe and says “OMG that’s too hard, I can’t do that”! Arrgh, ok no worries. Anyway I decided to start it early Wednesday morning. The pastry is tricky because it’s extremely soft so dampen your hands to work it into the flan dish. I certainly didn’t do a great job of making it look pretty but it tasted fabulous.
The filling made it light and summery but took longer to cook than the 30 minutes recommended. Before baking, it is strained after having sat for 30 minutes which means all the little seeds are gone and I think most people like that. I served it with berries and cream and it was a winner at 10/10.
This is a real winner for the family, hope you give it a go.
Until next week,
from my table to yours with love x
