Winter chicken stew and Yorkshire puddings

Sunday October 28, 2007 

It’s Sunday at last, and I’m just about to plunge into the last part of the house readying tasks before Graham returns this afternoon.

Following on a chance remark on the subject of house clearning a little while back I dug out my copy of Gary Thorp’s Sweeping changes — discovering the joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks. It’s a charming, thought-provoking book, one of those that’s good for the soul and I recommend it to anyone.

Didn’t help me with my chores, sadly. I find that a good, thorough, stream of curses and obscenities is more my style. I wonder if I have lost my Zen?  Or is it that, in being honest and thorough in my cussing, I have discovered it at last?

Hey ho.

I mentioned my special winter chicken stew recipe the other day. This is a good, thick, flavoursome chicken stew fit to keep the winter blues on the right side of a wind-blasted window.

It’s a slow cooker [crock pot] recipe designed to be served in 7-inch tall-walled yorkshire puddings, one for each person, and intended to be put on to cook sometime in the morning so’s the kitchen is clear for half an hour before it’s ready at dinner time, allowing time and space to do the yorkshire puddings.

For the stew:

• 1 to 1.5 cups of diced chicken pieces for each person
• Root vegetables:  potatoes, parsnips, carrots, swede… whatever you can get
• Green vegetables: head of celery, green peas, chopped french beans… etc.  If you have a bit of lettuce left over, chuck that in, too–it’ll dissolve completely but will add greatly to the flavour.
• The essential vegs apart from the spuds are the carrots and celery
• Chicken stock or buillion-cube(s)
• Cornflour for thickening (or the thickener of your choice)
• Salt & pepper for seasoning
• Worcestershire sauce for extra oomph
• Good olive oil

Put the crock pot on to pre-heat. Clean the vegetables and slice the root vegs to about 1/4 inch if you like ‘em soft, 1/2 inch if you like ‘em a bit on the crunchy side. Slice the celery similarly. Separate out half of the carrots and chop them small.

Put two tablespoons of olive oil in a deep-ish pan and heat to smoke level.

Toss in the chopped half of the carrots, the onion and all the celery, sprinkle with Worcestershire sauce, and cook vigorously, stirring all the time, until lightly brown. This is my own magic trick, adding greatly to the flavour, so much so that you may omit the meat if you wish.

Add the chicken pieces and continue cooking until they change colour.

Add the remaining root and green vegetables and cook on a lower heat until they begin to soften.

Stir in just enough stock to turn the mix liquid without drowning it.  Remember, slow cooking tends to make stews rather runny and you don’t want that.

Bring on until just under the boil, season to taste, remove from heat, and transfer the mix into the crock pot with a slotted spoon, leaving as much liquid in the pan as possible. This is where you need your judgement to tell you if the mix is liquid enough and to adjust as necessary, using a small dollop of cornflour, well stirred, to thicken, or a drop of stock to thin. Now add the liquid to the rest and stir in gently.

Cover the crockpot and set to cooking.

When you’re ready, prepare the yorkshire puddings, place one on each heated serving plate, and dollop the stew in generously. Garnish with a little fresh parsley but I doubt if you’ll want anything on the side.

I haven’t been able to find my yorkshire pudding recipe yet (I tend to use puds and batter mix from the supermarket freezer these days) but I shall, and I’ll post it when I unearth it. Meantime, there are lots of recipes on the Internet if you don’t have one of your own; remember that the inner secret of a successful yorkshire pudding is a very hot oven.  If you don’t fancy or can’t face yorkshire pudding, I recommend laying two or three of those delicious American ‘biscuits’ on the plates and pouring the stew over; you’ll probably need a slightly runnier stew for this, though.