Chicken Livers in Orange and Mustard Sauce Poulet Antiboise Stilton Chicken Florentine
Chicken Livers
in Orange and Mustard Sauce (4)
- It's quick, it's cheap, it's delicious,
it's good for you. Oh, if only, if only, people weren't so averse
to liver. Students should eat this from cost considerations (it is
cheap), and gourmands should eat it because it's a tasty little dish, even
though I do say so myself, and everybody else should eat it because it's
pretty healthy. It's very satisfying, and is currently all the rage
in my family in Poland - perhaps coming your way soon. I'd even serve
it as an appetiser, sliced and with melba toast and a little orange mayonnaise,
at a dinner party, if only people weren't so damn averse to liver.
Use cheap ingredients if you want (even though I'm not aware of any premium
on 'prime' chicken offal), and don't feel you have to use olive oil if
you don't want to feel healthy - it doesn't seem to make much difference
to the flavour. Give the mustard some thought, though - I prefer
3 tsp French, with 1 tsp English mustard for that little kick - it makes
the difference.
400 g chicken livers
2 large onions
4 tbsp oil
3 tbsp flour
600 ml orange juice
1 chicken stock
cube, or some fairly concentrated stock
1/2 tsp black pepper
grounds
tsp turmeric
4 tsp made mustard
a little water,
if stock cube used
Coat livers in flour and fry briskly in oil until lightly browned; add
onion, turn down heat and fry until onion just begins to soften.
Add remaining flour to pan, cook briefly, then add orange juice and deglaze
pan. Cook gently for 10 minutes, add remaining ingredients blended
in a little stock or water sufficient to maintain a thick sauce-like consistency,
and poach gently for another 10 minutes. Stir through, season, and
serve with plenty of boiled white rice.
Top
1 medium or large
chicken
1000 g onions
75 ml olive oil
olives, bread,
cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, pepper
Chop onions into ca. 5 mm slices and line a large lidded oven dish with
them. Put the chicken on top, drizzle oil over that and the onions,
and add a little salt, sprinkled over the chicken skin, and some cayenne
pepper if you like it. Cook in a cool oven, about 120 C, for two
or three hours - the onions should just soften and sweeten, but not burn.
Add above seasonings, as desired, and the bread, fried in the chicken fat
as croutons - if you like. The chicken will emerge moist and fragranced
with onions, which may become one of your side-dishes. Sprinkle them
with Parmesan - go on, I dare you.
Top
4 chicken breasts
100 g Cheddar cheese
(or a similar, medium cheese)
50 g Stilton cheese
(or a similar, blue-veined cheese)
40 ml olive oil
2 tbsp flour (preferably
plain, and not wholemeal)
160 ml milk
50 ml dry sherry,
port, or fortified wine
600 g spinach leaf,
young but well-coloured
Bake chicken breasts in a 180 C oven, first covering with either chicken skin or butter, until cooked through. Meanwhile make a roux from the oil, flour and milk. Add sherry, and crumbled or chopped cheeses. Cook gently, stirring often, until cheeses melt. Meanwhile, rinse spinach well, and steam with only about 500 ml water - the leaves collapse rapidly. When the leaves have wilted, it's ready! Drain the spinach well and carefully squeeze dry (don't burn yourself!). Place layers of sauce, handfuls of spinach (spread it out a bit), more sauce, and finally chicken breasts onto plates. Don't top with sauce unless the chicken is embarrassingly pale. Leave each diner to season own plate with salt or pepper.