highlights of a trip and a fresh take on the classics

I’m back in UK – back to the cloudy weather, the work-eat-sleep life. My trip to the States was wonderful, though, and there were many highlights, some of which I wrote about in previous posts:

-coming home to yellow crookneck squash, similar to its courgette cousin;

-Georgia ‘Big Red’ peaches, sweet, rich and fruity, just from the orchard;

-creamy Florida avocadoes, as brilliant in a guacamole as sliced in a salad;

-orange cauliflower from Calilfornia (the produce clerk told me they were a cross between carrots and cauliflower, meant to add carotene to the white vegetable, with the orange colour and subtle carroty flavour interesting side effects – the result was tasty served with scallops and grilled yellow squash);

-an outing to the Atlanta restaurant Taqueria del Sol. (I met up with my longtime friend Allison near the end of my trip, and she suggested this restaurant to me. Coincidentally, I had just read about it in the latest issue of Bon Appetit, which puts it in the running for the title of top taco joint in the US, alongside two other competitors. I must say, Taqueria is amazing, especially the fish tacos – tilapia dipped in an egg wash, rolled in corn masa and bread crumbs and deep-fried, then served with poblano tartar sauce and pickled jalapenos. Brisket tacos and carnita tacos are also on the small but exciting menu. My only criticism is that it’s perhaps not healthy enough for an everyday lunch – but fish tacos, made more healthily, certainly are. )

My praises of fresh local produce and taco purveyors aside, I am genuinely glad to be back in the UK. I’m of fresh mind, ready to try out new dishes to compliment old friends. Sunday roast was a summertime version: cold honey-glazed roast chicken, served with corn on the cob and a fennel-orange-red onion salad.

The salad was a recipe from Super Salads, a cookbook I won in a recipe competition (more on that later this week).

Cold honey-glazed roast chicken
(serves 2 for dinner, plus leftovers for lunches (and even another dinner), plus a stock)

1 medium free range chicken
Large bunch of tarragon
Salt/pepper
10 sprays olive oil
Slices of lemon
1 tbsp of honey

Preheat the oven to 215 C.

Line a roasting tin with foil. To prepare the bird, rinse outside and in. Coat the inside with salt and pepper, and the outside with pepper only. Stuff the bird with most of the tarragon, and stick two stems under the skin of the chicken over the breast. Stick two thin lemon slices over the breast too. Drizzle the honey over the chicken and rub all over.

Put the roasting tin with the chicken in the oven and allow to roast for 1 hour and 30 minutes, checking every twenty minutes or so and using a pastry brush to baste the skin and legs. At 1 hour and 15 minutes, check the breast meat and return to the oven, allowing to roast for another 15 minutes at 200 C.

Remove chicken from the oven and allow to sit for 15 minutes before carving to allow the juices to recirculate. Carve, and if serving cold, allow the chicken to return to room temperature before serving. If doing further in advance, place the carved chicken in the refrigerator only once it has returned to room temperature.

This chicken was delightfu, particularly because adding the honey, lemon and tarragon to the chicken didn’t add any extra calories for me, since I don’t eat the skin, but it did help trap in the moisture in the breast meat, and my husband enjoyed the honeyed notes in the chicken skin. Yet another way to serve a meal to please everyone.

The corn on the cob was simple – just follow instructions on the pack, and season with salt and pepper. Perhaps a spray of olive oil or two would help.

The fennel, orange and red onion salad was just okay, in my opinion. A few tweaks would improve it greatly.

Fennel, orange and red onion salad (from Super Salads)
(serves 4)
1 large bulb fennel, sliced thinly
1 large onion, sliced thinly
2 oranges, sliced into rounds
Juice of 1 orange
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Layer ingredients on individual plates and drizzle the dressing over. Serve.

Firstly, I think the red onions must be as mellow as possible – if you cut into it and your eyes immediately water, this is not the red onion for your salad. Other ways to cut the zing – reduce the red onion by half (which doesn’t reduce the flavour of the salad, in fact, I left half of my red onion on the plate to no detriment) OR allow the salad to sit with the dressing on for a bit longer.

The orange juice-balsamic vinegar was lovely, and inspired in my opinion. I shall be using that combination again. It reminded me of my peach-lemon dressing for the bacon-mozzarella-avocado-peach salad I made a few weeks back. I think allowing the red onion – and the fennel, for that matter – to marinate in the dressing would do the dish a favour. And I would double the amount of dressing – after all, it’s just balsamic vinegar and orange juice, so it’s not particularly full of calories but rather flavour.