little work...BIG RESULTS!

Well you may be asking "Where have you been?". I know it has been a while since my last blog, I have been slightly distracted (houses arhh.. another whole blog) and slightly uninspired to write. But I'm back and I have been cooking up a slight storm to write about and even remembered to take some photos!

After spotting whole chickens on special I decided to give "Flour and Water Crust Chicken" page 176 a whirl!

Well this was a load of fun and much easier than I thought. Basically you get a whole uncooked chicken that has had the innards removed. Stuff some cut lemons into the cavity and rub the skin with a pounded mixture of lemon rind, sage, thyme, garlic and olive oil, then season with salt and pepper. Not mandatory, however I let this marinate on the chicken for a few hours in the fridge as we had yet another house to look at before I could start cooking!

Once I was ready, I mixed together some flour and water to create a dough. Once the dough was pliable I rolled it out so I could wrap the whole chicken neatly inside the dough with no gaps, thereby steaming the chicken in the marinade.

After some careful wrapping and fixing I placed it into the 220 degrees Celcius, preheated oven to cook for around 2 hours.

Et Voila!

As you can see I did have a little olive oil leakage, but it was only a small amount and it didn't affect the results. Once I cracked open the tough exterior (please do not eat the dough, not soo nice) it looked like this...

I tell you the smell was divine, the intoxicating aroma of sage, lemons and thyme filled the air, surely ensuing jealously from the neighbours! We tried the breast meat, it was perfectly cooked through, moist and the flavours were infused into the meat. So all in all definitely one to be tried when you have a tribe to feed or guests over. I saved the rest of the meat for the following evening and roasted it in the oven. This is also something I suggest as the crispy skin and flavourful meat was a step up from the steamed chicken, so next time I will let it steam for over an hour then crack the crust and bake again to crisp up the skin! Delicious!