Chicken with Grapefruit Sauce - a throwback to the 1970s

As a child growing up in the 1970s I was exposed to all kinds of weird, wonderful and, dare I say, exciting food...Angel Delight, Dream Topping, Vesta Chow Mein, Arctic Roll and Smash instant mashed potato to name a few. I've come to the conclusion that being fed these instant foods explains why I now crave good, home cooked food that doesn't contain a whole lot of additives and E numbers. I probably overdosed on them as a child!

Despite my memories of all these dehydrated foods (just add water) I do think that the 1970s was the decade where good, interesting food began to emerge and started to capture the imagination of the masses.  Although I don't remember any of these dishes making it to our dinner table until the '80s at least, I wanted to share just a few of the foods that were really popular at the time and that, for me, define 1970s cuisine:

Duck a l'orange

Trout with Almonds

Prawn Cocktail

Beef stroganoff

Chicken Kiev

Scampi (with chips in a basket)

Coq au Vin

Baked Alaska

Black Forest Gateau

Vol au Vents

Lobster Thermidor (but only if you were particularly well-heeled)

And who could forget... cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks stuck into a potato or an orange covered in aluminium foil!

This recipe has something about it that takes me back to the days when pairings of meat and fruit were seen as the height of sophistication. It isn't from a 1970s cookbook - I have adapted it from one that appears in one of my favourite cookbooks 'Cooking Outside the Box' by Keith Abel (of Abel & Cole fame) from 2006. The original recipe uses blood oranges to flavour the sauce but I've made it with grapefruit instead. The sauce is sharp and fruity and goes really well with pan-fried chicken - delicious! 

If you would like to try this, make sure to get the full experience by putting on some music from c1976 to listen to while you eat it!

Chicken with Grapefruit Sauce

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 tsp flour
50ml white wine
Juice of 2 grapefruit
Salt and pepper
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 tbsp olive oil

Method:
1. Make the sauce first by melting the butter in a frying pan and gently fry the onion until it is translucent. Stir in the flour and cook for a further minute then add the wine and the grapefruit juice.

2. Season with salt and pepper and allow to simmer for approximately 10 minutes until it thickens. Remove from the heat and keep warm.

3. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and fry them in the olive oil for 6-8 minutes per side, or until they are thoroughly cooked through. This will depend upon the size of the breasts. 

4. Once cooked, transfer to serving plates, carve and serve with the grapefruit sauce poured over.

Delicious with spinach, sauteed potatoes or buttered cabbage.

Chef's Salad with Tuna and Cocktail Sauce

This week has been really hectic so far with one thing or another. I've been in London for a job interview which involved an overnight stay and, just as I get back, my hubby has to go away for the rest of the week with his work. The expression 'ships that pass in the night' comes to mind but at least I've got the cat to keep me company! So the key theme for our one meal together this week was speed and simplicity.

While scouring the fridge for inspiration I found some salad leaves, some cherry tomatoes, a cucumber and a few eggs and decided that a salad would tick the box for me being something I could make really quickly and easily that wouldn't require a trip to the shops. I added a couple of tins of tuna I'd found lurking in my cupboard and decided to top off the ensemble with an easy homemade dressing of cocktail sauce. 

I have to say that I did take a bit of a risk with the dressing as I hadn't paired tuna and cocktail sauce together before so wasn't entirely sure whether it would work but found the sauce added lots of flavour without overpowering the delicate taste of the tuna - perfect! I've detailed my very, very simple recipe for the sauce below.

I've called this salad 'chef's salad' as, according to Delia Online, a chef's salad is simply a way of using up whatever ingredients are on hand at the time to create a main course salad. So, assuming there are no hard and fast rules and it's a case of throwing together whatever is available then this salad certainly fits the bill for a chef's salad.

The results were stunning so I wanted to share this simple salad idea with you.

Simple Cocktail Sauce Recipe

Note: This recipe is for the British style of cocktail sauce also known as Marie Rose sauce. It produces a thick sauce with creamy, tangy taste. Ketchup can be used in place of the tomato puree and, if using ketchup, the wine vinegar can be left out.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tsp white wine vinegar

Method:
Mix the mayonnaise and tomato puree in a bowl until combined. Stir in the white wine vinegar.

Easy!

Sesame Soba Noodles

My daughter will be going back to Uni at the weekend and won't be home again until the summer. I will miss her but the house will be so much quieter - especially at lunchtimes! 

When I'm busy I'm happy to grab a quick lunch on the hoof but for my daughter, lunch has to be interesting and varied and is something to take a bit of time over. Personally I think she's got too much time on her hands but she maintains that lunch is just as important as any other meal of the day and I have to say that you can't argue with that can you? I do think that we overlook, and, dare I say, skip lunch too often, usually because of the demands of our busy lives. 

A couple of months ago, I posted about lunch for 1 week using flour tortillas but thought I'd post another favourite lunchtime recipe - Sesame Soba Noodles. It's a favourite due to the fact that it's eaten cold so can be prepared the evening before, stored in the fridge in a plastic container overnight and then popped in my bag to be eaten wherever and whenever the next day. If you do this though, don't forget to pack a fork or some chopsticks as well - this is NOT finger food! 

This recipe produces a light meat-free lunch full of Asian flavours but the recipe is really flexible (see notes below). Soba noodles are made using buckwheat flour but the brand I used also contained wheat flour so if you're on a gluten-free diet check the packet first.

Sesame Soba Noodles

Notes: I use soba noodles in this recipe for no other reason than they have a slippery texture that means they don't stick together as much as other noodles if left to chill in the fridge overnight. Other types of noodles would be just as nice but may need a bit more dressing, especially the thicker ones.

The ingredients are variable - I've included the ingredients that I used the day I took the photographs but small sticks of carrot, thinly sliced mange-tout or small sticks of leek are lovely too. For a more substantial lunch, chicken or prawns could be added - just use your imagination.

Serves 2-3 depending upon your appetite

Ingredients:

150g soba noodles

½ red chilli - deseeded

2cm piece of ginger

1tbsp coriander leaves

6 spring onions

1 stick celery

1tbsp sesame oil

1tbsp white rice vinegar

1tbsp soy sauce
1tsp sesame seeds

Method:
1.Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add the noodles. Cook for 2 minutes (or according to the instructions) then drain and leave to cool.

2. Finely chop the chilli, ginger and coriander leaves, slice the spring onions and cut the celery into matchsticks. Mix into the noodles.

3. Combine the sesame oil, vinegar and soy sauce together and pour over the noodles. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Easy Peasy Prawn Thai Red Curry

I've got an eclectic mix of meals on the menu this week due to the fact that our freezer desperately needs a defrost and, as I hate waste, I've made it my mission to cook as many of its contents as I possibly can before I have to switch it off. 

So after planning some interesting meals that uses up most of my frozen food, I'm left wondering what delectable dish I can create with what's leftover - half a bag of spinach, a few ice-encrusted carrots, a dozen hash browns and a small lump of uncooked shortcrust pastry. Answers on a postcard please!

I did find one item tucked away in there that I had forgotten about - a nice bag of juicy prawns. I therefore had to make a difficult choice - would it be prawn cocktail or prawn curry? I decided on prawn curry as I hadn't made it for ages. I've got a recipe that's full of Thai flavours but is unbelievably quick and easy - there's no grinding of spices and very little chopping, and, because prawns don't need to cook for long the whole dish can be whipped up in a matter of minutes. I usually serve it with rice and, honestly, the rice takes longer to cook than the curry itself.

Notes: Any type of prawn is good in this - a simple bag of defrosted cooked prawns works well but if you want to splash out on fresh king or tiger prawns they will be amazing. I used a mix of the frozen prawns from my freezer plus a small tray of king prawns I bought from the supermarket.

This recipe serves 3 - 4

Prawn Thai Red Curry

Ingredients:
1tbsp vegetable oil
Bunch of spring onions (trimmed and chopped)
2cm piece of fresh ginger - finely grated
400ml can of coconut milk
2tbsp red curry paste from a jar
1tbsp fish sauce
500g cooked peeled prawns
1tbsp chopped coriander

Method:
1. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the spring onions until soft taking care not to burn them.

2. Add the grated ginger, coconut milk, red curry paste and fish sauce. Heat the sauce through to almost boiling.

3. Add the prawns and cook very gently for about 5 minutes until the prawns are warmed through. Stir in the chopped coriander.

4. Serve with plain boiled long grain, basmati or jasmine rice.

This recipe has been inspired by a recipe in a book entitled 'What's Cooking? Thai' published by Paragon.

Chicken in a Parcel with Soy, Ginger and Noodles

This dish puts in a regular appearance in our house for dinner during the week. It's an unbelievably quick and easy recipe, totally delicious and is bursting with oriental flavours! It involves cooking a chicken breast in a foil parcel in the oven, to which I add ginger, soy sauce and a spring onion. I love it so much I don't experiment with it at all but I'm sure it would work well with with a nice bit of Thai curry paste a drop of fish sauce and some coconut milk mixed together in place of the soy sauce.

The noodles are cooked with spring onions, soy, coriander and sesame oil - the combination is really delicious. I always try to use the reduced salt variety of soy sauce - it has the same great taste but as it's lower in salt it's much better for you.

My daughter cooks this chicken a lot at Uni as it's so easy and has it simply with plain boiled rice - there is plenty of sauce when it's cooked to give the rice a nice flavour but I think the noodles complement the chicken perfectly!

This recipe serves 2

Ingredients

2 Chicken Breasts

400g packet of ready-cooked noodles or 2 (or 3 if you're hungry) nests of dried medium egg noodles
Bunch of spring onions

Half a small pack of fresh coriander 

5 tbsp of dark soy sauce 

Thumb size piece of ginger

1 tbsp sunflower oil 

1 tsp sesame oil

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/ 180°C fan assisted oven / Gas Mark 6.

2. Cut two pieces of aluminium foil large enough to enable a chicken breast to be completely sealed in each. Place a chicken breast on each piece of foil and turn the edges up so that when the liquid is added it stays in the middle with the chicken and doesn't run out.

3. Slice half the ginger very thinly and place on the top of the chicken breasts - there is no need to peel it. Cut 2 of the spring onions into 3 or 4 pieces and lie these across the chicken breasts over the ginger.

4. Add 2 tbsps of soy sauce to each chicken breast.

5. Carefully seal the chicken breasts tightly in the foil so that the liquid cannot escape during cooking and place them in a shallow baking tin. Cook in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the chicken is thoroughly cooked through.

6. While the chicken is cooking prepare the ingredients for the noodles. Slice the remaining spring onions in large slices. Peel and chop the remaining ginger into small, thin strips. Chop the coriander finely.

6. If using dried egg noodles, place them in simmering water and cook according to the instructions on the packet and drain when cooked.

7. About 5 minutes before the chicken is ready heat the sunflower oil over a medium heat in a frying pan or wok and add the spring onion and ginger. Fry gently to avoid burning the onions.

8. When the spring onions have softened slightly add the noodles and turn in the frying pan or wok to warm the noodles and ensure they are coated in the oil. This will only take 3-4 minutes.

9. Add the remaining 1 tbsp soy sauce to the noodles along with the coriander and sesame oil and continue to turn them to evenly disperse them through the noodles.

10. When the chicken is ready, remove from the oven and  serve with the noodles. The chicken can be served still in the foil straight onto plates but I prefer to remove the chicken and pour the sauce over.

11. Remember to remove the ginger from the top of the chicken before you eat it - unless you like the strong tangy taste of lightly cooked ginger that is!

12. Enjoy!