We had a friend over this evening. I made chicken marylands using a recipe from Faux Fuchsia's blog (baked marylands, the skin rubbed with oil, salt, pepper, paprika, chilli flakes, cumin, in a baking dish with cut up potato, lemon wedges and garlic cloves, with some stock in the bottom). It was excellent, and will certainly become part of 'The Rotation' of regular dinner meals in our house.
I like cooking with thighs, marylands and drumsticks because they are incredibly economical. I love darker meat - it is more tender and flavoursome - and it is so much cheaper than breasts. A free-range maryland is generally around $3.50. For the same reason I use a lot of blade and chuck steak. Then I have more monies to spend on things like high quality cocoa powder and organic garlic!
After dinner, my friend and The Daddy inquired about dessert... I hadn't prepared anything, so I decided to quickly bake a batch of biscuits to eat, warm, with ice cream. The simplest biscuit recipe I know is from Nigella Lawson's brilliant How To Be A Domestic Goddess book. The biscuits are smokey, short in texture, and although they feel solid, they crumble and melt away to nothingness in your mouth. They are the perfect biscuit for eating with a glass of cold milk.
Granny Boyd's Biscuits
Sift together 300g self-raising flour with 30g cocoa.
Cream together 250g soft unsalted butter with 125g caster sugar (I use vanilla caster sugar, because it's what I keep in the house). Cream until light and fluffy.
Work in the dry ingredients - "It might look like it needs liquid, but keep working the ingredients in and it will form a dough."
Roll the mixture into walnut-sized balls, and space apart on a baking tray lined with baking paper (the cookies will spread a little). Lightly press each ball down with a fork.
Bake at 170 degrees for 5 minutes, then turn the heat down to 150 degrees and bake for a further 10 - 15 minutes - "It's hard to tell by looking when the biscuits are ready since the dough starts so dark, but they should feel firm on the top, although not hard."
Remove the cookies to a cooling rack - they will harden as they cool.
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4 comments:
These biscuits look great. Kind of like a chocolatey yoyo biscuit without the custard powder and filling. Will have to give them a go. I'm a fan of the maryland too - thighs have so much more flavour. I use them when I want a quick roast chicken style dinner. There are still some things I use fillets for (like katsu curry, schnitzel, stirfires etc.).
Yes! You are exactly right. The texture is sort of like a shortbread, like a yoyo. They are worth having in mind - since they only require 4 ordinary ingredients, don't require chilling, and taste good warm. So the perfect Emergency Biscuit...
Ah yes, I use fillets for schnitzels and stir fries and also sometimes to pan fry with a herb and cream sauce...
If only I had some butter in the fridge (used it all before going to NZ)... Might have to send Mr K up the road!
Yes, send him! I keep spare butter in the freezer but it is such a pain, really, because every time I want to use it for baking I need it soft.
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