Roast Chook on a Thai Fling

Seriously, who's had a good old Sunday roast and covered it in Thai or other Asian flavours?! I recommend it! This is a really rough recipe because you don't need any thing exact to make this wonderful. I'll just give you the gist of what I did.

Just take a chook (or if there's only two of you, a half bird is enough, that's what I did) and marinade it the day before in a paste of garlic, ginger, chili and lemongrass with a little oil and lime juice. Seal the bird in a fry pan briefly and transfer it to the oven and bake it at 200 degrees celcius until half cooked (maybe 45minutes?).

Halve some carrots and peel a couple of small onions and roll them in the left over oil of the frying pan before adding to the oven tray to bake.

When the chook and carrots/onion are cooked, remove from the oven to rest the meat. Slice up some green beans and broccoli (yes, slice that stem into long thin wedges, don't just use the florets - the stem rocks!) and julienne a big knob of ginger. Using the original fry pan with left over flavours from sealing the chicken, stir fry these together (or use whatever vegetables you like, capsicum would be lovely). When the pan gets dry, add a little water, some fish sauce and a few shakes of Tabasco sauce. I might be crazy but I also threw in a hint of balsamic vinegar. When the greens are perfectly vibrant, remove from the heat.

Divide the rested chicken among the plates with the vegetables, and tip the saucy juices from the greens fry up over them. Oh yeah. This is so simple and surprisingly awesome. Since I was feeling like I needed something awesome fast, very little thought has gone into this but I felt it was good enough to share. Maybe I'll get creative next time and make a proper Thai roast with all the spices...

Chickpea and Cabbage Soup

What do you do with a quarter of a cabbage and not much else? You make soup. Cabbage soup?! Are you serious? Um... Yes, if you use your not-much-else and make it delicious. I just made this up an hour ago and I love it! If you don't like the acidity, maybe you might like to temper it with a little sugar? (pft. just take it.) Ready? Here we go!

If having this as a main, I suggest heavy rye sourdough (maybe with melted parmesan on it if you're not vegan!) to soak up the liquidy goodness.

INGREDIENTS:

• Olive oil
  
• 1 onion (diced)
  
• 3 cloves garlic (diced)
  
• 5 Roma tomatoes (diced)
  
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 lemon (juiced)
• 1/2 cup dried chickpeas (soaked overnight, then boiled until cooked)
• 1/2 cup cooking water from the chickpeas
• 2 cups vegetable stock
  
• 1 - 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 1/4 of a cabbage (finely chopped)
• Big double handful of torn fresh basil leaves
• 1 handful of finely chopped fresh parsley
• Cracked black pepper

METHOD:

• Heat a good swig of olive oil in a medium soup pot and fry onion until clear
• Add garlic and bay, fry until fragrant
  
• Add tomatoes and paprika, fry for a minute or two
• Add cooked chickpeas, chickpea water, stock, lemon juice and cabbage - bring to the boil and then reduce to a slow simmer until cabbage is well cooked.
• Take off the heat and stir in torn basil.
• Serves four as an appertiser or two as a main with chopped parsley and pepper on top.