Nourished

Lemon

Casserole

Chicken Casserole with Fennel, Lemon, Garlic and Mushrooms

I’ve no idea where this idea came from, as I’d originally intended to make a chicken chasseur.   When I opened the fridge though, I had an excellent head of fennel, amazing lemons, some beautiful pink garlic and some of my new favourite king oyster mushrooms. It reminded me of one of my absolute favourite summer lunches – finely sliced fennel, served with a garlic and lemon dressing, and seared chicken breasts which have been marinated in garlic and lemon juice.  I think it just seemed logical to give it a go…


Not everything is going to work each time you take a punt, but I’m sure there’s a similar Greek dish that I think contain olives…  As I’ve never been to Greece, it’s not something I’ve tasted, but it seemed to make sense in a Mediterranean kind of way…

Ingredients:

4 good organic chicken breasts
4 king oyster mushrooms
1/2 a large head of fennel
2 shallots
3 tablespoons of plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 lemon
2 cloves of garlic
800ml good chicken stock

Method:

  • Butterfly the chicken breasts and cut them in half lengthways 
  • Dust the breasts in well-seasoned flour
  • Heat a tablespoon of butter and olive oil in a pan, and fry the breast until crusty and golden – do not move them around in the pan, you want the crust to stay on the chicken.  Only fry up to three breasts at a time too, so that you don’t overcrowd the pan
  • Removed the chicken and set aside 
  • Roughly chop half a large head of fennel into rough dice
  • Cut of about 1/4 of the king oyster mushroom and set the tops aside, roughly dice the remaining 3/4 of the stalk
  • Chop an equivalent amount of shallots roughly, and then sauté the mushrooms, fennel, two garlic cloves finely sliced and shallots in the pan, scraping up the chicken juices.  Do add more butter or oil if the pan is too dry
  • When everything has softened, deglaze the pan with about a glass of marsala
  • Add 1/2 bottle of white wine to the pan 
  • Finely slice the mushroom tops – I didn’t fry them, I poached them in the pan and in the white wine – because king oyster mushrooms are so flesh and meaty, I wanted to keep them tender
  • Peel a lemon and cut into segments – I cut mine lengthways vertically, then into quarters, then cut the quarters into halves horizontally
  • Put the chicken and lemon segments back into the dish, and add 500ml of good chicken stock
  • Put the casserole dish into the oven for at least an hour, I left mine at 160ºC for two hours.  If you needed it faster, you could raise the temperature up to 180ºC
  • I served mine with green beans.
Notes:
  • If you don’t like lemon chicken, you’re going to loathe this, avoid at all costs
  • If you like lemon chicken, you’re going to LOVE this… It’s much more complex than lemon chicken, the chicken stock adds a certain savouriness that rounds out the sourness of the lemon segments
  • You could easily add marinated olives to this, the saltiness would add another flavour dimension (in fact I even have lemon stuffed olives in my pantry, perhaps I’ll add them next time!)
Chop the fennel and 3/4 of the mushroom stalk into rough dice.
Slice the top of the mushroom top into slices.
The chicken, before it goes into the oven
Chicken casserole with fennel, lemon, garlic and mushrooms

Baking

Lemon Drizzle Cake

All bow to Mary Berry, the queen of baking.  And it’s true, if I’m looking for a traditional bake, I’ll usually look at her recipe first and then move on to check out any variations.  In this case we’ve never moved beyond Mary’s recipe, and it’s the cake the children ask for most.  If made using the all-in-one method in a food processor, it literally can be in the oven in five minutes… C’mon – who doesn’t have time for a five minute cake???

The basic mixture is what the Americans call pound cake – that is that the four main ingredients weigh the same as each other.  Although this can result in a slightly heavier cake than others, it is here lightened with a little baking powder.  The sugar glaze also sinks into the cake, and forms a crust which keeps the moisture inside the cake.

For the cake:
3 large eggs
175g (6 oz) self-raising flour
175g (6 oz) caster sugar
175g (6 oz) softened butter
1.5 level tsp baking powder
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

For the crunchy lemon icing:
100g (4 oz) granulated sugar
Juice of 1 lemon

You’ll also need:
900g (2lb) loaf tin, greased and lined (or smaller presentation cases, as I have used)

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 180ºC / 350ºF / Gas Mark 4.
  • Beat together the eggs, flour, caster sugar, butter, baking powder and lemon zest until smooth in a large mixing bowl and turn into the prepared tin
  • Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 35 mins, or until golden brown, shrinking away from the sides of the tin and springy to the touch.
  • While the cake is still warm, make the lemon drizzle topping. Mix together the sugar and lemon juice, and pour over the warm cake
  • Do keep going back to top up the glaze until you can see it isn’t being absorbed any more.  In my photographs, the cake on the left was glazed a couple of minutes before that on the right – both had the same amount of glaze, but you can see that the one on the left has absorbed more glaze
  • Leave to cool a little and loosen the sides of the cake, then lift the cake out of the tin (or, if using presentation cases, clearly you can leave the cake alone until you need it.  This will keep it fresher for longer
Notes
  • If the mixture looks too thick, add a little milk to slacken it
  • If using a food processor, try not to over mix the batter, as it will over-develop the gluten – just mix the batter for long enough to bring it together
  • If you do make it in the traditional way (beating the butter and sugar) you will get a better cake – depends how much of a purist / sadist you are – I now do it the full form way!
  • My batter looks a little orange.  Because I was using small eggs, I’d put in four to make it up to the right quantity, giving me one extra yolk.  I was also using Clarence Court eggs, and their yolks are a very rich colour
  • I don’t use the recommended quantities for the glaze, as I often have very large lemons (from lovely Natoora – yummy Amalfi lemons!).  So, I juice my lemon, and then add enough sugar to give you a firm enough glaze.  Works perfectly well, and doesn’t seem to overdo the sugar glaze – of course this may be because I’m putting it across two smaller cakes
  • If using slightly smaller cases, do reduce the cooking time accordingly
  • The mixture makes two cakes in the cases I use, and they take around 25 minutes to cook
  • The little presentation cases are available in bulk from Bakery Bits
  • This makes an excellent tray bake too – if using the tray bake size from Lakeland, give the cake about 20-22 minutes…


This recipe is taken from Mary Berry’s Stress-free Kitchen

    Almond

    Almond and Citrus Drizzle Cake

    The girls are always asking me for lemon drizzle cake – it seems that the school makes a fabulous one for snack time.  Of course I couldn’t go with a standard version, and wanted to incorporate a couple of different ideas. As well as lemons, I wanted to use blood oranges for a fuller scent load, and a pink icing.  And given my recent obsession with frangipane and nut flours, I also wanted to include a little ground almond into the cake, though I suspect you could probably swap that for polenta too.

    Ingredients:
    Cake:
    300g butter, softened
    300g caster sugar
    zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
    zest of 2 blood oranges
    5 eggs
    200g self-raising flour
    1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
    100g ground almonds

    Sugar glaze:
    juice of 2 unwaxed lemons
    juice of 2 blood oranges
    100g caster sugar
    icing sugar

    Method:

    • Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan. Using a 2lb loaf tin, either grease and line it, or pop-in a liner.  (I made two smaller cakes)
    • Zest all of the citrus fruits, and then juice them.  Keep separately
    • Cream the butter and caster sugar together until light and doubled in volume and pale.  Add half of the zest, then add the eggs, one at a time, and beat thoroughly in between
    • Add the ground almonds, and combine
    • Add the flour, and mix until just combined
    • You want the mixture to have a soft dropping consistency, so if required add a little milk.  This may not be necessary, depending on how dry your almonds are
    • Pour into the tin(s) and bake for 50-55 minutes or so (35-40 minutes for smaller tins).  A toothpick or cake tester should come out clean, although there may be a few (almonds) crumbs stuck to the tester.
    • For the icing, mix together the caster sugar and the juice.  Warm briefly to allow the sugar to dissolve.  
    • Pour the glaze over the top of your cake, piercing it with holes if you want it to saturate the cake
    • Mix the remaining glaze with some icing sugar, to your chosen consistency, and mix in the remaining zest.  Coat or pipe or zigzag as appropriate
    • Allow to cool in the tin before turning out.
    Notes:

    • The mixture may look curdled – this is the impact of the zest – don’t worry about it
    • I like to combine the almond before the flour, as you don’t want to overwork the gluten in the flour
    • The bicarbonate of soda reacts with the acid, adding further lift to the batter.  You could use baking powder, but I used this specifically because of the acid reaction
    • I spooned the glaze on top of the cake and allowed it to soak it.  Having thoroughly saturated the cake, I mixed the remaining juice with icing sugar, until reaching a spooning consistency.  This is obviously a lot of sugar, but let’s not forget I’m making this for the kids… Because I used blood orange juice, it was also pink, but that was part of my plan! If you want a more professional teatime finish, you can either use just lemon juice, or pipe it onto the cake in a more zig-zag pattern
    The cake batter before baking
    Spoon the cooled syrup over the cake, having pierced several holes into it
    The finished article, you can see the moisture layer all around the edge of the cake

    Yes it’s garish and pink – if you don’t want pink icing, don’t use the blood
    orange juice in the icing layer.  You can still use it in the syrup for flavour.