I've been waiting to get my hands on this book for a while, now that the popularity of it has died down, I can finally borrow it from the library. I merely mentioned the word 'kiev' and that pique my husband's interest. He had no idea what it was, for me however, it conjured up memories of school dinners - mainly tom toms which were breaded chicken in the shape of spheres with, wait for it, tomato ketchup in the insides! Obviously chicken kiev is not the same, but the idea is, a breaded chicken with a buttery herb filling oozing out when you cut through it.
Anyway, Hemsley + Hemsley's recipe for Chicken Kiev is here.
Yay or Nay: Yay
I have to say I was skeptical at first because the outside is breaded with almond meal as opposed to a breadcrumb or panko but it helped balance the richness and full-fatness of the parsley butter. My only gripe with this, was that all the butter had melted out of the chicken breast as I had butterflied it, so next time I would cut a mini pocket instead so try and retain the parsley butter inside the meat - although I don't know if that would help either!
I love a good pie, mainly because of the crust more than the filling! I've used Jamie Oliver's recipe for a while now and figured I'd share it here. I got this from his cookbook Comfort Food but I found it here on the 'net!
Yay or Nay: Yay
So easy to make and even easier to eat!
Last week was a bit of a dud week in terms of new recipes. I had a whole stack of new recipe books but being snowed under by work I had to resort to fail proof dinners. This coming week there will be a new and interesting recipe that I haven't ever made before so I'll be leaving my comfort zone on that one.
Meanwhile, I love The Great British Bake Off (TGGBO) and the colder nights mean catching up on the latest series and being inspired by some delicious baked goods. One of the most recent technical challenges is one of my favourites, the Bakewell tart. I love the almondy taste of frangipane and a crispy, buttery base all tied together with fruity raspberries. I have cake slash tart as I don't really like icing so with the cake recipe I get to have the bakewell flavours without all that excess sugar. I could have made it without the base but it wouldn't be a tart without one! So I combined the two together; the tart base was from here and the cake from here!
Yay or Nay: mid-Yay to the cake, Nay to the base
The base was more crispy and flaky as opposed to buttery and crumbly for me so I had to give it a Nay. For a savory pie this recipe would have worked better, I admit that I did add more water and less butter than the recipe but I think I was expecting more of a shortcrust. The cake however was good, held together although hard to spread when wet. There wasn't a huge almond taste to it (I didn't have any almond extract) so was mild but worked as a vanilla-like sponge. I would however, put waaaay more raspberries in it as I thought I covered the middle but once it was baked they disappeared a little.
