Monday 3 March 2008

Jax's fabulous chicken

On Friday night we had a little dinner party. I made one of my all-time favourite dinner party dishes. I.E: Easy, and always impresses. This once upon a time started out as something I found in an actual recipe book somewhere, but it has since morphed into something I can probably call my very own recipe.

Here's what you do:

Get some chicken pieces. I use legs, because that's what I like, but it would work just as well with breasts, if that's your preference. Brown them in some oil. Once brown, stick them into a casserole dish of some kind.

Fry up some garlic, mushrooms, peppers, onions (and/or whatever other kind of veggies you happen to like), and then toss some white wine in, once the onions have gone clear. I am pretty generous with the wine so don't be shy. Cook it a bit so that the wine cooks off a tad. Pour it over the top of the chicken. Layer some pieces of bacon on top. This is the big secret. See, that yummy bacon fat oozes gently down, and the chicken becomes so tender it absolutely falls off the bone. Heaven!!

Cook it at about 180C for about an hour to an hour and a half.

I also made Ann's potatoes, named after my aunt, who was responsible for them becoming a family staple years ago. I honestly don't know where she got the recipe from but they really are a standard in my (and my mom's, and quite probably, my sister's) house these days.

You take the potatoes. Wash 'em. Don't peel them. Cut them in half and lay them out on a greased baking tray or shallow glass dish and score the tops into little squares. (Don't cut all the way through!) Then melt some butter and olive oil in the microwave, mix in some brown onion soup (or french onion, or just plain onion if you live in a crazy place that doesn't believe in brown onion soup) and then spoon it over the tops of the potatoes and stick 'em in an oven at 180C for anything from an hour to about two hours. They're great for meals where the eating time is flexible, like braais (bbqs).

Those two things combined with a big fresh green salad resulted in some pretty satisfied guests. Yay!

3 comments:

Sikander7 said...

Both the chicken and the potatoes were lovely. Well done!

K said...

The potatoes sound good!

Not that the chicken doesn't (in theory, anyway!) If I ever have to feed a lot of carnivores, I will come back and browse your archives. What generally happens when we have people to dinner is that J does the meat dish and I do the vegetarian... or, indeed, J does everything except dessert, which I do.

Unknown said...

The potatoes are good! I do have some vegetarian meals up my sleeve which I shall post sometime. :)