chicken Archives - Page 20 of 29

November 28, 2012

Okay Frankie, not too bad, this time

The last time I went to Frankie and Benny’s I wasn’t that impressed with my Calamari Salad. I decided back then that if I had a choice then I probably wouldn’t choose them as a place to eat. However having been invited out to a family dinner, I found myself once more sitting down and looking at the menu in Frankie and Benny’s.

To be honest I did quite like the idea of a salad with calamari, but remembering my last experience I thought that wouldn’t be such a good idea.

In the end looking over the whole of the menu, I went with the special menu with two courses for £10.95, which is available every day except Saturday.

For my starter I went with the chicken wings: Buffalo Chicken Wings – Large chicken wings tossed in Louisiana hot sauce. Served with a blue cheese dip and crunchy celery sticks.

You got four half wings that were pre-cooked, heated up and then covered in some weird very hot spicy orange sauce. I wouldn’t have called the wings I got as “large”. As for the blue cheese dip, I went without, not a fan of that. As for celery, well I have never seen the point of celery, really don’t like and yes I have tried and I really really don’t like it. I do like chicken wings, which is why I ordered this dish.

I thought the orange sauce was a little too hot and spicy, so much so that it overpowered the flavour of the chicken. For me spicy is nice, but it should complement and enhance the flavour of the food it accompanies, not overwhelm it. If that is what it does, just eat the sauce on its own.

For my main, I did think long and hard and in the end went with a burger. New Yorker Burger – Our 6oz grilled hamburger topped with BBQ sauce, pepper jack cheese, mayo and bacon, piled high with Cos lettuce and fresh tomato in a toasted sesame seed bun. Served with house fries and tomato-chilli relish on the side.

I forgot to ask for salad so got fries instead. The cheese was very gloopy and sticky, but the burger itself was actually very nice and full of flavour. I love the description of “piled high” as there was one lettuce leaf and one slice of tomato. I wonder if they really think that is piled high!

As I didn’t eat all the fries I did decide to have a pudding. with the £10.95 menu you can have a pudding from a selected range for just £2.25 which seemed a lot more reasonable than the cost of puddings from the main menu. As is the case with puddings from Frankie’s it will either be a constructed ice cream style desert or something heated with ice cream. I went with the Hot Chocolate Waffle – A warm cinnamon waffle topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, smothered in chocolate sauce and topped with crunchy honeycomb.

It was to be honest what I expected, a warmed pre-cooked waffle with ice cream and chocolate sauce, though not enough honeycomb. It was nice, though quite sweet. I should have ordered a black coffee to go with it to offset that sweetness, actually a black tea would have been nice. Something I learnt many years ago was how nice black tea is with very sweet puddings.

Overall I enjoyed my meal, I think my very low expectations were a big factor in that, I wasn’t expecting high cuisine, sophisticated and lever cooking. What I got was typical chain cooking and it was okay.

November 10, 2012

Sainsbury’s Bistro Tuscan Chicken

Getting back late last night, and not feeling 100%, decided to pop into the local supermarket and get something. Sainsbury had their £10 meal deal from their Taste the Difference range.

Their “deal” isn’t as “good” as similar deals you get from Marks and Spencers or Waitrose, you get to choose one main course, one desert and a bottle of wine.

Of course it has to be said that these aren’t really “deals” as the listed prices are over-inflated to make you just think you are getting a good deal. You look at the shelf price and you are expected to “say” wow, this dish costs £7, the desert is £3.50 and the wine is £6.99 that means if I buy all three I am saving £7.49!!!

Come on, really? Well the truth is that though we as consumers like to think of ourselves as rational and see through such promotions, the reality is very different. Consumers like these deals, they work for the supermarket and we buy them.

I recall seeing the similar deal in Marks and Spencers, what I then did was go round and l found similar products on the non-offer shelves for less money than the deal.

We’ve not saved any money on this “deal”, it’s actually cost you £10. A common misconception is that “deals” save you money. They only do this if you were intent on buying those products in the first place. For example if you went out to buy one loaf of bread at £1.20 and there was a multibuy, two for £2. If you buy two loaves of bread the “deal” hasn’t saved you 40p it has cost you 80p as you were only going into buy a single loaf, not two. I know some out there may say, “but you have another loaf” well yes, but will you eat it? It has to be said that with some offers, even like my example, you do save money if it offsets a future purchase, however if you buy something you hadn’t planned to, then that deal hasn’t saved you money.

Of course what happens with a lot of these deals is that people buy too much of something and in the end they throw it away… that means that deal didn’t save you money!

Sainsbury's Bistro Tuscan Chicken So why did I buy the deal then?

Well I didn’t buy the deal to save £7.49, what I did was buy three things for £10 that I felt was value for money at £10. I went for a white win, a chocolate soufflé and the Tuscan Chicken.

The Bistro Tuscan Chicken instructions were a little complicated (for a ready meal), place the orzo pasta in the dish, bake in the oven, part way through add some water and continue cooking.

I was trying to be quick, so what I did was part cook the orzo pasta, as I was heating up the chicken, and then add this to the chicken before finishing off in the oven. This reduced the cooking time by about 15 minutes!

I really did enjoy this dish, the tomato sauce, combined with the fresh yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes and spinach was very refreshing. The chicken had flavour, well it was thigh meat and not breast which does make a difference. I also liked the orzo pasta which resembles rice, but has a different taste and texture. The olives and spices added depth to the dish and there was enough in the dish for two people. A fresh flavoursome dish that was quick and easy to prepare.

I think next time I will make it myself from ingredients, but if you don’t have the time then this ready meal wasn’t half bad.

October 26, 2012

Airport Sushi

Wanting more than just a snack, but not wanting a huge plate of food, on a recent fleeting visit to Edinburgh Airport, I decided to take a seat at Yo! Sushi.

One of the disadvantages of this branch of Yo! Sushi is the limited menu compared to a typical branch on the high street or in the shopping mall. However once you’ve gone through security, not much you can do about that. In many ways though, Yo! Sushi is perfect airport food, no need to wait for the food, eat as much or as little as you want and paying the bill was quick and easy.

I went with three dishes, chicken teriyaki, a vegetable noodle dish, yakisoba, and later went with a mixed salmon dish. I had to order the noodles and chicken as hot dishes.

I’ve had chicken teriyaki before, and this version was similar, but certainly not the same dish. Previously when I’ve had this dish, the chicken was griddled and then covered with teriyaki sauce.

Here at the airport, the chicken was taken from a hot plate and covered in sauce. It was very nice though, and was full of flavour.

Similarly the noodle dish, pan fried Japanese noodles in a mildly spiced tangy sauce with vegetables, was from the hot plate, but again was tasty, full of flavour.

The vegetables were crisp and the noodles were certainly not sticky. I liked this dish, and added the remains of the teriyaki sauce towards the end of the dish.

Having finished those two dishes off, I still felt hungry, so took from the conveyor a mixed dish of salmon, comprising three slices of premium Scottish salmon sashimi, two salmon nigiri and two salmon maki.

This was delicious, the salmon was fresh and full of flavour and I really enjoyed it.

Overall I really enjoyed my quick meal and I thought (for an airport) it was pretty good value for money.

October 11, 2012October 9, 2020

What did I expect?

We went to the Summerhouse for a meal. I had a chicken curry, which was just okay. Felt like it was something that I would have microwaved from a supermarket, but then what did I expect ordering a curry in a pub restaurant.

I don’t think I would order it again.

May 20, 2012

Barbecued Chicken

I’ve not done a barbecue for ages, my last proper barbecue went a bit rusty one winter and I never got round to replacing it. I did buy a disposable barbecue at some point, but it was so long ago I couldn’t remember when I bought it. Remembering that I had it, I decided I would cook some barbecued chicken thighs. I wasn’t entirely confident that the disposable barbecue would work and as I was cooking chicken and without any way of adjusting the heat (as the grill was fixed) I thought I would need to try a slightly different cooking method than I had done in previous years.

The first thing I did was poach the thighs in a pan of simmering stock for about 15 minutes, I did to ensure that the chicken was virtually cooked before placing it on the barbecue. It can be very easy over hot charcoal to have the outside of chicken well cooked and the inside raw. Poaching allowed me to ensure that the chicken was cooked, stayed moist, added flavour and importantly when grilled on the barbecue would brown and take on the smoke flavour. You could “bake” the chicken in the oven first, rather than poaching, but this would take longer and if the chicken browned in the over wouldn’t then be on the barbecue long enough to get that really nice barbcue smokey flavour.

After poaching the chicken, I drained it, let it dry and then tossed it in some olive oil. At this stage I could have added some lemon juice (if I had any lemons) and maybe some mixed herbs (if I had something other than just parsley). In the end I went with just olive oil and a bit of black pepper.

Things didn’t go entirely to plan, the instructions said light the touch paper and it would be ready to cook in about 20 minutes. The reality was that it took closer to 35 for half of the coals to turn grey and I was really glad that I had poached the chicken as I don’t think it would have cooked the chicken properly if I had started off with raw. As a result I only had half of the grill to use, but I wasn’t cooking a huge quantity of chicken so it wasn’t too bad. It would have been nice to spread the chicken out to ensure that the smoke added more flavour, but better some then none.

Serving the chicken with a range of salad and some crispy roast potatoes, as I bit into the barbecued chicken, it bought back a range of memories of eating similar food in a range of places and countries.

Time to get a new, proper, barbecue methinks.

January 4, 2012

BBQ Chicken

Needing lunch and has I had just done a small shop, decided to go to the Sainsburys Cafe. They had a special offer on some of their meals reduced to £2.50 so I went with the BBQ Chicken, even though I think they should spell it barbecue rather than BBQ!

It consisted of half a “roast” chicken, BBQ sauce, in my serving a smattering of coleslaw and a choice of chips or seasoned wedges. It wasn’t bad, and certainly not bad value at £2.50. The chicken was well cooked, so the leg meat was quite moist and tender, but the breast meat felt a little dry. I did think that there was too much BBQ sauce and not enough coleslaw. The chips were crisp and fluffy on the inside. Overall for a supermarket cafe meal, not too bad, but certainly nothing to write home about.

November 26, 2011

Time for Yo Sushi

I haven’t been to Yo Sushi for a while now, even though I enjoyed the meal I had there the last time I was there in 2009. I didn’t think it was that long ago!

Out on a evening shopping trip out with my wife, we decided that we wanted to get a quick bite to eat and as both like sushi, decided that we would go to Yo Sushi.

The first dish we grabbed from the conveyor belt was Assorted Fish Maki, two each of salmon, tuna and prawn and chive maki. These were very nice. I then picked up a plate of Avocado Maki, alas these were quite bland, but did have a nice texture.

We then ordered some hot dishes, which means as we could see into the kitchen we knew were freshly cooked. As might be guessed by regular readers of the blog, I went with squid, well I like squid. The Spicy Pepper Squid, is described as hot coils of spicy pepper squid topped with red chilli. I personally thought it was overcooked and a little chewy, but really enjoyed the dish, the chilli was a nice touch and added some heat to the squid.

The Chicken Teriyaki, grilled chicken in a sweet, sticky soy based sauce was very good, delicious and the sauce was just right. We could have probably eaten three of this dish, but in the end had just one. The grilled chicken was tender and there is something I have alway enjoyed about grilled chicken. This was well complemented by the sticky teriyaki sauce and dressed with sesame seeds.

As I was intrigued and had never had it before, I ordered the Soft Shell Crab Tempura, which was described as soft, tasty and tender soft shell blue crab fried in a crispy and light batter with tempura sauce. I do like crab but had not had soft shell crab before. This dish was mainly about texture, there wasn’t a strong crab flavour, but was quite nice.

Overall it was a really nice meal, though we preferred the hot dishes. We thought it was quite reasonable for the price we were charged.

October 24, 2011

Chicken Kebabs

I quite like kebabs, but I still have not perfected a technique that ensures that all the food on the kebab is evenly cooked and ensuring that the meat is “actually” cooked.

I recently made these chicken and chorizo kebabs and though the veg and chorizo was cooked, the chicken was still a little underdone.

I had done them under the grill, usually I would “roast” them at the top of a hot oven in order to cook them evenly, but then you don’t get that crispness on the edges. I am guessing that the ideal solution is to grill the vegetables separately to the chicken.

September 29, 2011September 5, 2020

Teriyaki Chicken Donburi

Having to stay overnight in London for a meeting I needed somewhere to eat and as I had enjoyed my last meal at Wagamama decided to go to the branch in Covent Garden.

I did consider having a ramen, but thinking that I always go with ramen so time to go with something different I thought. I looked carefully over the menu and in the end I went with the Teriyaki Chicken Donburi.

Grilled juicy chicken glazed with orange teriyaki sauce, sticky white rice with thin sliced carrots, pea shoots, spring onions and sesame seeds and a side of spicy kimchee.

I really did enjoy the dish, the combination of chicken, sticky sauce and rice combined with the freshness of the carrot and pea shoots worked well. The sauce has sweetness and sourness and though I expected strong orange overtones, but there weren’t any.

In case you were wondering I decided to give the kimchee a miss…

August 7, 2011October 25, 2020

Poached Chicken

Most Sundays we have a traditional roast dinner. This week I only had skinless chicken breasts in the fridge and I have always found roasting chicken breasts usually results in dry tough chicken. If using chicken portions, my preference is to use chicken thighs and legs.

So, in the end I sliced into the chicken, added a stuffing consisting of onion, mushrooms and basil. This I then wrapped in foil before poaching for twenty minutes. After cooking, I let them rest for at least five minutes before opening the foil parcels and slicing them.

With them I did some roast potatoes. Firstly you need to use the right kind of potatoes. It’s not as simple as buying any kind, the cheapest or whatever. This time I went with King Edward (as that was all that was available in the shop, well there were other varieties, but no Maris Piper.

After peeling and cutting into chunks the potatoes are blanched in boiling water for about 7-10 minutes depending on the size of the chunks. Now the size if dependent on how you like your roast poatoes and how long you have to cook them. Obviously smaller chunks means a shorter cooking time, whilst larger chunks though take longer are preferred by some people.

While the potatoes are blanched, place the roasting tray into the oven, with a good splash of olive oil and one of sunflower oil. The key here is to heat the pan and the oil. I put the pan into the hot oven (with the oil added) for at least five minutes, not too long though.

After blanching the potatoes, drain and the key here is to let the heat dry the potatoes. If they go into the pan “wet” they won’t crisp up well. The next stage is to slightly “bash” the potatoes by shaking the colander or sieve, this will aid the crisping process too. Then remove the roasting pan from the oven and add the potatoes, turning them and maybe a little more “bashing”.

You should also ensure that the potatoes are not too crowded, in other words they need air to be crisp.

Cooked for thirty to forty minutes (larger potatoes take longer). It is a good idea to turn the potatoes half way through to ensure a more even crispness. The end result should be tasty, crisp potatoes with a fluffy centre.

I also roasted some parsnips, carrots and onions. These I just cut into chunks. Place in a bowl, add some olive oil, mix to ensure the vegetables are well coated before placing in a hot oven for about twenty to thirty minutes.

In addition in another roasting pan, I took some diced onion, sliced courgette, mushrooms and halved cherry tomatoes, these I roasted with a good dash of olive oil for ten minutes before adding some cubes of bread that soak up the juices and crisp up. Usually I will add these ingredients to the roasting tray I have roasted the meat in. However as I was poaching I just used a plain tray.

For gravy I made my own with a roux of butter, oil and flour to which I add stock and some red wine. Cook for at least five minutes.

To add colour and freshness I steamed some carrots, green beans and broccoli to serve with the meal.