Spring Chicken

A colourful pot of nutritious deliciousness and a go-to spring lunch. Moist is a dreadful word, but proves an apt description for the chicken cooked in this way, soothing broth amplified by its archetypal Italian accompaniment of salsa verde, fragrant herbs mingling with the lemony dressing.

Can anyone suggest a 'moist' replacement? Damp doesn't cut the mustard...

Chicken:

Large chicken
2 bulbs fennel, quartered
2 onions, quartered
1 celery heart, broken apart
Salt and pepper
Few stems of fresh thyme
Chicken stock pot
400g baby new potatoes
2 handfuls baby carrots

125g tenderstem broccoli

2 tbsp full fat creme fraiche
400g frozen petits pois

Salsa verde:

2 cloves garlic
juice of 1.5 lemons
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 dsp capers, chopped
3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
6 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
50g parsley, chopped
25g mint, chopped

Put the chicken in a large casserole dish, saucepan and just cover with water. Add 1 tsp salt, a few grinds of pepper, thyme, fennel, onions and celery. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 mins. At this point, add in the potatoes and continue cooking for 10 more minutes. Then, add in the carrots for the final 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make the salsa verde, by combining the capers, eggs and herbs (retain some of the herbs to sprinkle over the top of the chicken). Crush garlic, and stir in dijon mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, whisk gently. Season to taste. Stir into the herby mix and adjust ingredients to taste.

Remove the chicken from the dish, set aside and keep warm. Remove all the vegetables from the pot and arrange in a dish. Remove the fennel, onion and celery and discard (the aromatics will have done their job in flavouring the stock by this point).

Reduce the remaining liquid for around 10 minutes, stir in the creme fraiche and taste for seasoning. Add in the tenderstem broccoli for around 5 mins, until just cooked, then add in the frozen peas and bring back to the boil. Pour over the dish of vegetables. Carve the chicken and arrange on top. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley and mint. Serve with a dollop of the salsa verde on top.

Beetroot & Celeriac Remoulade with Smoked Mackerel

This recipe is an ode to two unsung food heroes. The unassuming knobbly celeriac root has a deliciously fresh, minerally flavour and smooth creamy flesh, which is pepped up here with a grating of beetroot, a lemony, peppery crème fraîche dressing and scattering of parsley and pumpkin seeds.

The iridescent, striped skin of smoked mackerel is best slightly scorched and its rich oiliness proves the ideal foil for the freshness of the rose tinted remoulade. Accompanied a hunk of generously buttered treacly bread, it is, in the words of my sister, YUM.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 medium sized celeriac
4 cooked beetroots
25g flat leaf parsley
Dsp olive oil
50g pumpkin seeds
3 tbsp creme fraiche (full fat ideally)
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 a lemon
3 tsp horseradish sauce
Salt and pepper

4 smoked mackerel fillets



Peel and roughly grate the celeriac and beetroot (I did this in the Magimix). Heat the olive oil in a wide frying pan and toast the pumpkin seeds for a few minutes, until golden and crackling, season with salt and set aside. Finely chop half of the parsley.



Combine the creme fraiche, mustard, horseradish, squeeze of lemon and season. Adjust to taste. Stir most of the dressing into the beetroot, celeriac and parsley. It may not require all of the dressing, but any left over can be eaten on the side. Serve in a wide bowl, sprinkled with the remaining parsley and the pumpkin seeds.

Grill the mackerel, skin side up until heated through - the skin may split. Serve with hunks of bread and butter.