Chicken Dinner Recipe for Two People
How Many Different Ways Can You Cook Chicken?
Chicken is not only one of the most popular foodstuffs in the world, it is also incredibly versatile in the number of different ways it can be cooked and served. Chicken can be roasted, fried, poached, grilled, broiled and more - but usually, when chicken is being served as the main ingredient of a meal, only one of those cooking methods will be employed in each instance. This recipe is a little bit different in this respect in that it sees the different parts of the chicken cooked in different ways to hopefully provide the ultimate eating experience for chicken afficionados. This recipe is not only for a main course but includes an appetizer or starter idea as well.
Everything Chicken Dinner - The Principal Ingredients
In order to prepare this chicken dinner for two, the essential ingredients are one small chicken (around 3 pounds) and 6 whole chicken livers. It may be that you need to buy the chicken livers in a pack containing more than six but they do keep in the fridge in an airtight container for a couple of days.
Chicken Liver Pate Appetizer Recipe
It is important to note with this appetizer recipe that the pate has to be prepared either the night before you intend serving the dinner or early that same morning. This is because it will take a few hours to set to the required consistency. It should then be covered with plastic wrap and stored in the fridge until required.
Ingredients
- 2 whole chicken livers
- Olive oil for frying
- Salt and pepper
- 3 oz real butter (not margarine or other substitute)
- Pinch dried sage
- 2 eggs
- 2 thick slices wheat spelt and rye bread
- 2 handfuls peashoots
- 5 or 6 small cherry tomatoes
Instructions
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- Pour a little olive oil in to a non-stick frying pan and bring it up to a medium heat. Wash the chicken livers in cold water and pat dry with kitchen paper. Lightly season with salt and pepper and fry gently for about three or four minutes each side until cooked.
- Transfer the chicken livers to a chopping board and allow to cool for a few minutes until they can be handled. Roughly chop and mix with a good pinch of dried sage (thyme works equally well). Put the chopped livers in to a small ramekin and very lightly press them down. Do not pack too tightly or the melted butter will not be able to penetrate properly and set the pate. Leave around an eight of an inch gap at the top of the ramekin.
- Put the butter in to a small saucepan and gently heat to melt. When the butter is almost completely melted, lift the pan off the heat and gently swirl it to complete the process. This helps eliminate any risk of the butter splitting. Very carefully pour the melted butter in to the chicken livers to completely fill the ramekin. Cover and leave to set completely. If not thereafter using it immediately, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
- Make sure the eggs have been removed from the refrigerator a couple of hours in advance to reach room temperature. Put them in a pot of cold water and bring the water to a boil. Simmer gently for eight minutes. Take the pot to the sink and run cold water in to it for a couple of minutes while you toast the wheat, spelt and rye bread slices.
- Carefully crack the shells of the eggs on a hard surface. Peel and half each one down through the centre.
- Spread the pate evenly between the two slices of toast. If using it striaght from the refrigerator, dipping the blade of the knife in to boiling water beforehand will make this easier. Half each slice and arrange on a serving plate with the egg halves, handfuls of peashoots and halved cherry tomatoes.
Feel Like Getting Even More Adventurous with Chicken?
Chicken Cooked Four Different Ways Dinner for Two
This dish does qualify in every way as a roast chicken dinner but it is also very much more. It includes roast chicken breast, confit of chicken leg, a deep fried chicken wing and shallow fried chicken livers. All are served with crisp roast potatoes and savoy cabbage.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 whole 3lb oven ready chicken
- 4 chicken livers
- 2 tablespoons goose fat
- 12 small new potatoes
- Salt and pepper
- Olive oil
- 2 tbsp flour
- 4 savoy cabbage leaves
Instructions
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- The first step you have to take in the preparation of this meal is to portion your chicken. You may of course wish to ask your butcher to undertake this task on your behalf but it is not difficult provided you are careful, take your time and use either a sturdy and very sharp knife or - ideally - a Chinese style cleaver.
- Wash the chicken in cold water and pat it dry with kitchen paper. Sit it on its back on a large chopping board. Cut off and discard the parson's nose.
- Cut through the skin and flesh around each thigh where it meets the main body of the chicken. It should then be possible to pop the bone and free the leg by bending it back the way. Remove the wings in a similar fashion. Set the wings and the main chicken body aside, covered but not in the refrigerator as they should be cooked from room temperature.
- Take half the goose fat and divide it in two small pounds in an ovenproof dish, just large enough to contain both leg portions. Pierce each leg portion several times with a skewer or fork all over the skin side and sit one (fleshy sides up) on top of each mound of goose fat. Divide the remaining goose fat between the two legs, season well with salt and put the dish in to an initially cold oven, set to 300F/150C for two hours.
- When the legs are in the oven, add the potatoes (unpeeled) to a pot of salted cold water, bring to a boil and simmer for about twenty-five minutes. Drain the potatoes, return them to the empty pot and allow them to steam and dry for a few minutes. Cover and set aside to cool completely.
- Remove the confit chicken legs from the oven and set aside to rest and cool. Turn the oven up to 400F/200C.
- The cooking time of the main chicken body should be twenty minutes per pound and twenty minutes extra. Lightly oil roasting tray and sit the chicken on it, breast sides up. Rub with olive oil and season well with salt. Put the tray in to the oven for the alloted period of time.
- Fifteen minutes before the chicken roast is due to be ready, lift the chicken legs from the fat to a plate and return the dish of fat to the oven to reheat. Carefully peel the skin from all the cooled potatoes.
- Remove the roast chicken from the oven and leave to rest for fifteen minutes. Add the potatoes carefully to the goose/chicken fat, carefully turn them around to coat with a wooden spoon and cook for thirty minutes.
- The chicken livers should be shallow fried for three to four minutes in a little oil, while the chicken wings should be tossed in seasoned flour and deep fried for five or six minutes until crisp and golden. The tough core should be sliced from the cabbage leaves before they are shredded and fried in oil over a high heat for three or four minutes.
- Carefully slice the breast fillets from the body of the chicken, starting in each instance on one side of the breastbone and letting the bones guide your cleaver down the way. Lay a breast fillet and a whole leg on each serving plate.
- Drain the chicken wings and the potatoes on plates covered with kitchen paper. Add a wing and two livers to each plate before finally adding the potatoes and cabbage for service.
Is this the sort of chicken dinner you would enjoy?
Hopefully, this varied chicken meal is something which you find appealing enough to try. It remains entirely possible, however, to find a number of different ways of cooking the various parts of a chicken and coming up with your own version of this platter. Simply ensure always that the various chicken portions are fully and properly cooked and the only limitations are those imposed by your own imagination...
