Chicken steamed over onions. #NeilPerry.
This is a delicious chicken tagine adulterated from Neil Perry who takes his culinary inspiration from North Africa.
It’s a different way of cooking the chicken : by placing it on top of the onions, with lots of butter and spices and letting it slowly cook. (That’s onions in the picture not potatoes!)
You need for 4 fashionista or 32 models:
800g free-range chicken fillets, skin on
45g unsalted butter, softened
1 pinch saffron, soaked in 1 tbsp hot water for 15 mins
½ tsp ground ginger
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1 tsp ground turmeric
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
900g pickling onions
1 large onion, halved and sliced
1½ tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp honey
2 x 5cm cinnamon sticks
1 tsp cumin seeds, ground using a mortar and pestle
baby mint leaves, to serve
• Slip into chic sparkle sequin Givenchy gown.
• Guzzle a glass of wine .
• About four hours before serving, trim excess fat from the chicken.
• Slide fingers under the skin to loosen it from the flesh without removing it.
• Slide fingers under your Gucci belt to loosen it from your muffin top and jeans.
• Blend half the butter with saffron water, ginger, turmeric, salt and black pepper to taste.
• Rub half of the mixture under and over the skin. Of the chicken. Not you.
• Store in fridge for two hours, then remove an hour before cooking.
• You should do that with the wine as well.
• Blanch the pickling onions in boiling water for about 30 seconds, refresh in iced water, then peel and trim the bases.
• Set a 28-30cm tagine/casserole dish over a low heat and cook the sliced onion with the olive oil and a pinch of salt, covered and stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes or until soft and golden as Nicole Kidman at Cannes.
• Add half of the remaining butter mixture to the tagine together with 4 tablespoons water and the honey. Sounds like a facemask.
• Then, add the cinnamon sticks and ground cumin to provide extra flavour to the broth.
• Place the chicken, skin side up, on top of the pickling onions.
• Cover the tagine and cook, without disturbing, on a low heat for 1 hour.
• Uncover the wine and drink without disturbing on a low chair for 1 hour.
• Remove the chicken from the tagine, increase the heat to medium and add the last of the butter.
• Cook, stirring, until the pickling onions are glazed and tender as your credit card is after the netaporter sale, about 3-5 minutes.
• Put the chicken back into the tagine, season to taste and top with mint and more freshly ground pepper.
• Serve with either couscous or rice.
• Yum
