Thursday 31 March 2011

Don't be afraid to experiment

This is a 'before cooking' view of a dish of sage and onion parsnips. We were heading off on holiday a couple of days after this was taken and I didn't want to have to buy anything new that might go to waste because we didn't have time to use it. 

I'd planned chicken and chips. It was a couple of leg portions of chicken that I'd frozen earlier (when I cooked a chicken a couple of weeks earlier). I defrosted them and gathered the remains of some spuds out of the cupboard. Then I had a gather up of what was in the fridge - two parsnips, half an onion and three tomatoes that had seen better days.

Here's how
Turn the oven on to 200 C to warm up. Put the chicken portions in a heatproof dish. Slice the spuds into chunks, place in a roasting tin and sprinkle a bit of cooking oil over them. Add some seasoning if you fancy it. Celery salt's good. Smoked paprika is too - though it might not go with the parsnips. Just a bit of salt and pepper would be good if you like. 

Cut the parsnips into chunky bits, slice the onion, chop the tomatoes. Put everything into an ovenproof dish and sprinkle it with a very small amount of oil. Add ground black pepper and some sage. (Sage and onion is perfect to go with chicken.)

When the oven reaches temperature, put the chips in and set a timer for 10 minutes. When the timer goes off, put the parsnips in and set the timer for another 10 minutes. When that one goes off put the chicken in and set the timer for 20 minutes. 

When that goes off stab the parsnips to see if they're cooked. If not, give it another five minutes and check again. Keep an eye on the chips to make sure they aren't burning. And there's your dinner.

I made this mixture because those were the ingredients I had. You can mix more or less any selection of veg and pick a different herb as you fancy.

Enjoy!




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