Diana Henry's Diamond Jubilee Chicken

I finally got round to making this, albeit a day or two late.  Mostly because the only person who I know who would've enjoyed this dish would've been the Queen of my life - my beloved Grandma.  Our Jubilee celebrations were somewhat muted by her absence.  It's been nearly seven years since she passed away and her presence is still keenly missed at significant events.  Especially when they involve the Queen, because when I was little, I genuinely thought she was the Queen.

She used to have the same kind of perm that was hairsprayed to within an inch of its life.  She was short like the Queen, never showed her emotions when she was sad and was the perfect matriarch to keep us all in line; yet would always put herself before everyone else when there was a crisis.

It tastes better than it looks in the picture!

So much so that I honestly believe that she wanted to be so much more; but she was born in a time where women knew their place and did as they were told by their fathers and then their husbands.  That's not to say that my grandad bossed her around - far from it. But just simple things - like what we had for dinner - were dictated by the male of the household.

Whenever I moan about cooking two or three different dinners, I always try and remember that we were bought up eating what made my grandad happy and she'd only get her way over dinner if we went out to a restaurant.  He's a little more adventurous these days, but it took years to twist his arm.

I remember Coronation Chicken being introduced to the household at some big family event or another.  Curry wasn't even permitted so the idea of cold chicken curry was completely radical.  I'll readily admit that I ate a bit and turned my own nose up at it.  I'm not sure if my memory fails me but I swear it had something like grapes or raisins in it.  And that's what put me off.

But as I matured and my tastes changed, I started to enjoy the amazing Coronation Chicken sandwiches I used to get from a tiny artisan deli near Exmouth Market when I was living and working in London.  And I'm sure I enjoyed it at least once when my grandma made it before she passed away.  But of course it's one of those things that I've parked on a 'not without Grandma' shelf since then.  Along with the chocolates that I bought her back from holiday the day before she left us.  They lived in the back of my fridge - moving house twice - until recently when I finally threw them out.

Anyhow, it felt appropriate to try a modernisation of Coronation Chicken to celebrate the Jubilee.  I was torn between this recipe and BBC Good Food's reworking of it.  The Torygraph recipe won out simply because it was more faithful to the original recipe - using fresh mango whereas the Beeb used pomegranates.

Queen of my heart (second left)

Overall, it worked really well together.  The old-fashioned dressing complimented the fresh, modern flavour of mango and avocado and I loved the touch of the crunchy nuts.  My only gripe was that the dressing was a bit tasteless but I'm assuming that it depends completely on the ingredients that you use.  It includes mayonnaise, curry powder and mango chutney.  All of which will vary greatly depending on the brands that you choose to use.  I would normally use Geeta's Premium Mango Chutney, but had run out so bought some of Tesco's Finest Mango and Apricot Chutney.  It was particularly sour and vinegary - not something I'll be using as an accompaniment to a curry.  And the mayo wasn't my usual brand either.  So it took a little tinkering until I was happy with it.  But of course, my quantities will only work for someone else with similar brands and a similar palate.

If you're not all Jubilee'd out and looking for something different to serve for a special occasion, this would be a good sharing dish.  But beware of the industrial quantity of dressing it makes!  You might be eating it for days on end so make sure you like the flavour.

You can find the recipe here.

Apple and Mango Chutney

Sunday night is curry night in the Crowdey household without fail.  Tonight, for pretty much the first time in years, it's not curry night as the husband has the lurgy.

Oops, I burnt the spoon! (but not the chutney)

So, my plan to try out the apple and mango chutney I made out of the nearly rotten mangoes Ocado furnished me with on Friday night has gone awry.

In some ways I'm glad we're not having curry tonight, having just read that Loyd Grossman Korma Sauce has been linked to two botulism cases in Scotland.  We have his Bhuna sauce, but still...

I really must get out the curry recipe book I bought years ago when I first thought about getting all domesticated and find a decent Bhuna recipe in there.  The trouble is I seem to remember it taking three-odd hours to cook and, whilst I'm sure it's worth it, when do I get three hours to myself these days to lovingly cook something.  Nope, don't answer that.

Finished jar needing a label

The recipe is another BBC Good Food one because I wanted something to use up the overripe mangoes quickly - it wasn't a pre-planned exercise, I just had all the ingredients for this particular recipe to hand.

When it's cooking, it smells and tastes very vinegary, but once it's reduced down, it has a lovely sweet and spicy flavour.  I did add a tablespoon of muscavado sugar as it was a little too sweet for me and the molasses flavour of the muscavado helped take the edge off of it.

Looking forward to trying it when it's had chance to 'mature' and may be making more for Christmas hampers although it's a pretty pricey make unless Ocado send you crap mangoes and give you a refund on them :o)

The recipe can be found here.  It's pretty easy to make less (or more) - I just made one mango's worth which made a 1lb jar.

Mango, Pineapple and Lime Sorbet

This sounds like a variation on a theme of Thursday's blog, but after finding myself stuck with copious amounts of mango and pineapple which the child can no longer eat (you should've seen her face as I was chopping it up and had to say no, she couldn't have any) I had to make use of the fruit somehow.

Bonfire night is traditionally fireworks and curry night in the Crowdey household.  Well it was BC.  But now we are AC with Miss AC, the closest we get to fireworks is arguing over why we never remember to phone for the takeaway an hour before we're actually hungry rather than waiting to pick up the phone when we're hungry and are considering cannibalism by the time it arrives.

So no chance of a dinner recipe trial tonight.  Instead, I dug out the recipe for the aforementioned sorbet which has been kicking around in my BBC Good Food binder for more years than I care to remember.  It was one of those recipes that seemed like a good idea for a palate cleanser after a dinner party, but sadly, I've never held a dinner party in my life - hence no sorbet got made.

Whilst I was contemplating this recipe, I did some research based on the comments that it was too hard to scoop.  I discovered that there are no two ways about the ridiculously high sugar content if you want a relatively soft scoop.  Fibrous fruit like mangoes, strawberries and pineapple work best.  An ice cream maker is not essential although a mixing it during freezing every couple of hours will reduce the number of huge ice crystals.  And you should temper it for fifteen minutes or so before serving.

When the curry arrived, the sorbet was near perfect with just a tiny soft spot in the middle.  By the time we'd eaten and then watched an episode of Frozen Planet - a-MAZING TV! - my sorbet was indeed reminiscent of an ice block.  It was just about scoopable and I should probably have let it temper for fifteen mins before serving as advised, but being impatient to get the blog written, I forged straight ahead.

It was a little icier than I would've liked.  During the research I discovered that egg white may or may not help (beat in towards the end - it doesn't need to be whisked first though) but mostly commerical sorbet and ice cream is kept soft by the use of food grade anti-freeze.  Nice!  So I'll take my pure fruit slightly icy sorbet over commercial soft scoop sorbet every time.

Need to work on the composition of my pictures!

Simplicity in itself and cheek tinglingly tasty.  Based on the comments after the recipe though, I halved the fruit content but kept the amount of lime juice the same as I was wary that some commented it was too sweet.  This was definitely a good move in my humble opinion.

One other top tip is to use a reamer to juice the limes.  I have tried classic glass juicers, various electric ones (although not the citrus press that came with my Kenwood), heating the fruit in the oven or microwave and juicing it with a fork.  But none of these techniques work as well as the wooden lemon reamer I got from Ocado.  It's also a very satisfying activity.  And I just like the word.  Reamer.

• 3 limes - zest one, juice all three
• 100ml water
• 125g caster sugar
• 1 large mango, peeled, stoned and diced
• 1 large pineapple, peeled, cored and diced

1. Put the lime juice, lime zest, water and caster sugar in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for five minutes, removing any scum.  Cool.
2. Blitz the mango, pineapple and lime syrup in a liquidiser.
3. Pour into a freezer proof container and freeze for 4 hours.  Giving it a quick stir every hour or so helps it to freeze better.
4. Temper* for 15 minutes before serving

*Tempering ice cream and sorbet means taking it out of the fridge and leaving it at room temperature (unless the weather is scorchio - in this case, reduce the time)

Mango, Pineapple and Strawberry Smoothie

Okay, okay this is a dead easy recipe and you could accuse me of being very lazy today.  Yep.  You got me.  It's not that I couldn't be bothered.  Just got beaten by plain, old-fashioned exhaustion.

I've been off on an overnight 'jolly' with work on a 'non-course' which was actually used to highlight all my worst points and then tell me that if I pull my socks up, I might get to do something different one day. I don't think baking cakes all day long really figured in their plans for me.

If I'm honest, it was far more than just looking at the negatives that need work, it also celebrated the positives and had a dash of the 'ministry of the bleedin' obvious' about it too.  Sometimes you just need a little nudge to remind you of long surpressed ambitions or to be elbowed in a direction that you'd not really considered before but is acutally quite appealing.

Anyhoo, after a day in the kind of hotel that leaves huge-mongous jars of sweets (sour apples, double lollies, cola bottles...) and custard creams near the water coolers and serves not-too-bad meals and awesome pastries at breakfast, all I wanted was something simple and healthy for my tea.

Please Santa, can I have a camera?

When I arrived home, the fridge was overflowing with the BOGOF fruit I got from Ocado last week that I've not gotten round to eating.  So I grabbed my well used copy of 365 Smoothies and Juices and off I went.

I got given the book several years ago (or maybe I bought it??) when my family gave me a juicer to celebrate moving into our new house.  As I was working from home full time then, I diligently juiced every morning - my favourite being apple, ginger, orange and beetroot.  Cleaning it was a pain in the backside, but the earthy-purple juice with a spicy kick made me feel like I was being the healthiest person in the world despite it being one of my 'fat' periods.

One day, it just turned up its toes and went to the big appliance heap in the sky and I've not touched the book since.  When I got my new Kenwood over a year ago, I never really thought to get making smoothies again with the piles of fruit we get through every week thanks to the child but will definitely be experimenting as part of the challenge.

I don't think you can go far wrong with smoothies.  They always taste pretty good and this one was refreshing and filling.  Only change I'd make would be to add a twist of lime but I didn't have one anyway.

Ingredients - Serves 2

• Half a fresh pineapple, cubed
• 1 mango, cubed and frozen
• 8 frozen strawberries, plus two fresh to decorate
• 400ml orange juice - fresh or frozen
• juice of half a lime.

Throw all the ingredients into a blender.  Blend until smooth.  Serve in glasses decorated with strawberries - and if you have it, a sprig of mint or some candied lime zest.