desperance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
desperance) wrote2014-08-24 07:46 pm
desperance) wrote2014-08-24 07:46 pm
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Patchwork pastilla
I've probably roasted more chickens in the last couple of years than in my whole life hitherto. I like roasting chickens. And there's generally half a bird left over, which gives me a carcase and giblets for stock and the parson's nose and the oysters and nibbly bits of skin'n'stuff and of course the liver for chef's perks - and still the best part of half the meat, to do something else with.
Left to myself, I'd just fling it into a wok with lots of rice and veggies and chillies and soy, and sizzle till gorgeous. Top it with an egg, and that's dinner. But m'wife is not so fond of all-in-one fry-ups as I am; she likes to balance more veggies against less rice, and like that. So I look for other things to do with leftover chicken, and the pastilla (or bastilla, or b'stilla) looks like becoming a regular.
I have numerous recipes, all of which start with uncooked chicken of one sort or another; so I have been forced - forced, I tell you! - to improvise, to mix'n'match and invent my own process. Which, at the moment, goes something like this:
Shred the meat off the chicken. Heat the oven to 400F, and toast a handful of chopped almonds.
Chop an onion and a leek (or similar), and sizzle in a little oil with garlic and fresh ginger. Add half a teaspoon each of ground ginger, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and a full teaspoon of sumac. Salt and pepper at will. Add a couple of cups of chicken stock, and simmer until thoroughly soft.
Drain off the liquor, and reduce to one cup. Whisk three eggs with a couple of tablespoons of honey, and whisk that into the liquor over a low heat until it thickens up. Add back the onion mixture, and all your shredded chicken meat.
Melt a lot of butter, and fetch out a pastry-brush.
Butter a nine-inch cake tin or similar, and build up three or four layers of filo pastry, buttering between each sheet. (Important note: if you forget to take the roll of filo pastry out of the freezer until round about now, and find that barely a third of it has defrosted in time, that's perfectly okay; tear off those third-sheets and overlap them as you lay them down, they'll be fine. I may have done that exact thing this exact day, so I know whereof I speak.)
Scatter half the chopped almonds across the buttered filo; pour in your chicken/onion/egg mixture; scatter the rest of the almonds; lay over more sheets of filo, buttering as you go, and fold in all the edges that overlapped the tin.
Slide it into the oven, give it twenty minutes at 400 and then another twenty at 350, and you're done. Tonight I'm serving this with buttered gingered honeyed carrots, green beans and mushrooms.
Left to myself, I'd just fling it into a wok with lots of rice and veggies and chillies and soy, and sizzle till gorgeous. Top it with an egg, and that's dinner. But m'wife is not so fond of all-in-one fry-ups as I am; she likes to balance more veggies against less rice, and like that. So I look for other things to do with leftover chicken, and the pastilla (or bastilla, or b'stilla) looks like becoming a regular.
I have numerous recipes, all of which start with uncooked chicken of one sort or another; so I have been forced - forced, I tell you! - to improvise, to mix'n'match and invent my own process. Which, at the moment, goes something like this:
Shred the meat off the chicken. Heat the oven to 400F, and toast a handful of chopped almonds.
Chop an onion and a leek (or similar), and sizzle in a little oil with garlic and fresh ginger. Add half a teaspoon each of ground ginger, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and a full teaspoon of sumac. Salt and pepper at will. Add a couple of cups of chicken stock, and simmer until thoroughly soft.
Drain off the liquor, and reduce to one cup. Whisk three eggs with a couple of tablespoons of honey, and whisk that into the liquor over a low heat until it thickens up. Add back the onion mixture, and all your shredded chicken meat.
Melt a lot of butter, and fetch out a pastry-brush.
Butter a nine-inch cake tin or similar, and build up three or four layers of filo pastry, buttering between each sheet. (Important note: if you forget to take the roll of filo pastry out of the freezer until round about now, and find that barely a third of it has defrosted in time, that's perfectly okay; tear off those third-sheets and overlap them as you lay them down, they'll be fine. I may have done that exact thing this exact day, so I know whereof I speak.)
Scatter half the chopped almonds across the buttered filo; pour in your chicken/onion/egg mixture; scatter the rest of the almonds; lay over more sheets of filo, buttering as you go, and fold in all the edges that overlapped the tin.
Slide it into the oven, give it twenty minutes at 400 and then another twenty at 350, and you're done. Tonight I'm serving this with buttered gingered honeyed carrots, green beans and mushrooms.