Chicken with Lemon, Herbs and Maple Sirup

This is a dish that was drawn together by the necessity of a low maintenance dish that didn't need to many complicated ingredients (e.g. anything I had lying around the cupboard was fair game). The finished result was a real hit for the dinner party guest and myself. Will definitely be putting this together again very soon!

Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs, with bone and skin on
ca. 15 gr of butter
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 pickled lemon, just the rind finely chopped* (substitute with fresh zest)
2-3 sprigs of thyme, finely chopped
4-5 sprigs of sage, only roughly chopped
1 tablespoon of maple sirup (Maybe a little more for later on)
salt
pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C. While it is heating up you can add all of the ingredients (except for the chicken) into a small bowl and let the heat from the oven melt the butter. You  want the butter to just melt and this will only take a few minutes.
2. Put your chicken thighs into a baking dish and spread the sauce over them with a brush. Make sure the thighs are covered with it on all sides. Put them into the oven and let them roast for 40-45 minutes.
3. I pulled mine out ten minutes before they were done and drizzled them with an additional teaspoon of maple sirup per thigh.

Side dishes
Forked potatoes: Cook the peeled and diced floury potatoes until thoroughly soft. Drain them well and let them dry out in the pan for a minute. Crush them roughly with a fork and add salt, chopped spring onions and a little olive oil to taste.
Spring greens: Fry off one finely sliced garlic clove in a little olive oil. Add a couple of handfuls of frozen peas and two defrosted spinach cubes (or fresh). Give it a stir, put a lid on top and let it warm through. Season to taste.


*Making your own preserved lemons is really easy and so quick. My apologies for not having posted the directions yet. This will soon be remedied. They are fantastic to cook with and can to my current experience be added to any dish you would add zest to; stews, roasts, soups, etc.

Gniocchi

As my work colleagues are very well aware of, I have an overly present disdain for consuming leftovers. Eating the same dish twice? Life is just too short.

Making a completely new dish out of a past meal is a completely different matter though. And this is where these pillow-y dumplings come to play...

I guess you could also make fish cakes or so out of leftover mashed potatoes... But these gniocchi are far more elegant...

Start out with a one portion amount of leftover mashed potatoes. Add an egg, about 50 gr. of semolina and however much plain flour is needed to make a pliable, non sticky dough. I can't really tell you how much that will be, as it mostly depends on how high the liquid content of your mash is... I can tell you, that it will be more flour than you anticipated. :-) Therefore my recommendation that you start out with only one portion of mash. I'm sure I used at least one and a half cups of flour...

When you have a dough let it rest and cool in the fridge for about 20 minutes.
Take it out, squeeze off one lump and form it into a roll of about a centimeters diagonal. cut off small peaces of that and "roll" it with a fork. Dipping the fork and knife into flour from time to time will prevent the dough from sticking.
And continue until done.


These gniocchi freeze very well. Space them evenly on parchment paper (multiple layers are fine), freeze and fill into a bag to store.

When your feeling hungry, boil water and add salt. Pour the desired portion of gniocchi into the boiling water, pull it off the heat and let it stand covered for two to three minutes.

Topped with sage and lemon butter this is a delicious and somewhat special pasta dinner. (Melt the butter, add the sage. When crispy add the lemon zest, a good pinch of salt and a squeeze of the juice.)

Awful Offal?

Spring is just around the corner. It must be!
At least that's what I tell myself to keep from going crazy. I might be a little bit over-optimistic, but I already cut back all of the woody herbs and my indoor chili plant...
And then I found this little beauty underneath everything else. This will have to tide me over until warmer days arrive.


Later the same day I cooked something with the same herb. And let this be a fair warning to anyone who isn't similarly inclined. I cooked myself some lovely Fegato alla Veneziana, or in plain English Chicken Livers with Sage, Marsala and Onions...
Thank you, please come back and visit soon. (This will not be a recurring topic. I promise)




I will presume that the only people still reading are those who can also handle corresponding pictures.
First of all: I am unsure if this is the original composition of the Venetian Chicken Livers. My father dubbed this dish and the name has stuck.

Ingredients:
Fat for frying
Chicken livers
Marsala
Fresh Sage leaves
One small onion, red or white
Salt and Pepper

First of all you want to marinate the cleaned livers in a generous lashing of Marsala and add a couple of (can be roughly chopped) fresh sage leaves. Leave this standing at room temperature for 20 minutes or half an hour. In the last couple of minutes take a small onion and slice it not too finely.


Heat a frying pan to high heat and fry the livers only in a little clarified butter or oil of choice. Turn them over after a couple of minutes and cook them until they are just done. Put them aside.
In a bit more clarified butter or oil fry off the sage leaves until crispy. (These could be put aside and sprinkled over the finished dish.) In the sage infused fat, fry the sliced onions to taste. I like them to still retain a bit of crunchy texture. Add all of the Marsala used to marinate and let it reduce and cook of the alcohol. Add back the livers and cook them in the sauce for one or two minutes. Adjust the seasoning.
Serve with a couple of slices of crusty bread to soak up the sauce with.


E Guete!