Fajita Filling!

Fancying a quick dinner, I thought about Fajitas but just made up extra filling to go with a light salad and some yoghurt ...

The chicken Fajita Filling is simply chicken strips fried off in a large skillet with some coconut oil, herbs and spices sprinkled over: paprika, turmeric, coriander, garlic powder, sea salt, black pepper and some marjoram, green pepper added then red cabbage.

Serve out with a leafy green salad and a bowl of probiotic natural yoghurt.

Eat, enjoy, feel replete.

Winter Chicken Salad

Cruising around the supermarket, I happened upon some baby kale. Baby kale? Like kale, but the young leaves which can be eaten as salad or just lightly cooked through in a little butter. Massive in vitamin K, vitamins A & C, calcium and manganese if you want the nutritional benefits.

Anyway ...

It's the middle of winter and I'm holding a bag of salad leaves, but inspiration came to me with one seasonal ray of sunshine that I look forward to every Christmas: Clementines.

So, baby kale, clementines ... and there are some chicken thighs in the reduced section. See? When you eat primal, nature (or rather the supermarket) makes your plate for you! It really is, just put real food together. Even if it is salad, in the middle of winter!

Chicken thighs are so simple to cook: just cover with water and commit to the oven for a few hours, the timing is largely irrelevant since a couple will do, four or five will not be too long. Low and slow, so 150C (300F) and just turn it down if you're not ready to eat.

Let's have some baby potatoes, too, sliced, par-boiled and sautéed in a little butter, some red onion and what's left of a couple of bell peppers. Icelandic ash salt and black pepper.

Crowning glory is the clementines. Slice through and dot around the salad.

Dinner is served!

Rice & Peas, Jerk Chicken ... and Breakfast

I'm experimenting with occasional meals that include legumes, just a small, select few: so, Puy lentils, green lentils, red lentils, black beans and gungo beans.

Tonight, it's that Jamaican classic: Rice & Peas with Jerk Chicken ...

Jerk Chicken

My jerk sauce is simple: crushed up Scotch Bonnet peppers, spring onions, sea salt, fresh thyme and olive oil. Massage into the chicken (I went with some drumsticks), slashed ... and commit to the oven for about an hour at 200C (400F?), turning over once during the cooking.

... which leaves us perfectly sufficient time to cook the Rice & Peas.

Rice & Peas

Rice & Peas should not be rushed. Personally, I think of it like a Pilaf but with coconut milk in place of the stock, and if you keep that in mind your Rice & Peas will come out perfect!

Take a large skillet and soften some finely chopped onion in butter.

Add the rice (remember, rice will swell up during cooking, so have a sufficient sized skillet) for which I go with a ramekin amount per person, which will make plenty for a dinner and plenty left over. Just allow the rice to get coated in the remaining butter.

Add a pint of chicken stock and boil hard and fast for about five minutes after which the liquid will be slightly reduced and the rice well on its way.

Add in a 400g can of coconut milk and a 400g can of gungo beans. That's the peas.

Low heat and very gently simmer for the remainder of the time it takes to cook the chicken through. If your rice is fully cooked, just add as splash of water to keep it going until you're ready.

Serve

Serve out a mound of Rice & Peas and lay the chicken alongside.

Drink? Guinness, of course, in my case a pack of Foreign Extra from the Nigerian brewery. Awesome!

Anyone else experimenting with legumes in their primal paradigm?

Breakfast

Leftovers. Breakfast is leftovers ... and something easy enough to come by, say some eggs or a fish.

Sprats for me! I love 'em! Whole, heads, guts in, the lot ... so does my mog, especially the crunchy heads.

Chicken Chasseur

Classic French cuisine ...

Just the word "cuisine" can bring people out in a sweat when they're faced with that notion and put in front of a stove. Couple that with "French" and those people will be running for the door.

But, relax ...

Just because it's French Cuisine doesn't mean it's especially complicated; quite the contrary, in fact, given how rural France is and how much of their cuisine is simple rustic fair elevated to daft levels of culinary highs by Chefs who really should just come down to earth a little.

Chicken Chasseur is about as rustic as you can get. Cooked over an open fire, this is Hunter's Chicken, Pollo a la Cacciatore or whatever you want to call it in whatever language.

Chicken Chasseur

Chicken - Thighs, for me: 5 of them
Mushrooms - Portobello in my dinner: 3 large
Tomato - Keep it simple: carton of chopped tomatoes
Tomato Purée
Onion - 1 Medium
Garlic - 3-4 Cloves
Herbs & Spices - Thyme & Ground Coriander
Seasoning - Sea Salt & Black Pepper
Fat - Your favourite paleo fat or Lardons of Bacon

Cut up the chicken pieces into large chunks, or if you have meat on the bone just keep it as-is, so full thigh, full wing, whatever.

Take a large lidded skillet and a little of your favourite paleo fat or if you actually prepared for this, bacon lardons and seal the meat. Medium heat ... don't be nuking this thing!

Toss in a shredded onion and fry off until soft.

Add in sliced mushrooms to soak up all the lovely fat. Garlic, too, sliced.

Pour in a carton of chopped tomatoes and beef up with a little tomato purée.

In with the dried herbs, spices and seasoning.

Top up with water, bring to the boil, lid on and settle over a low heat for a couple of hours to cook through, soften, tenderise and reduce.

Ready to eat?

Just cook off the last of the liquid with the lid off while you boil some potatoes or rice, or cook through some rice noodles. Something starchy, anyway.

I went with lovely creamy mashed potatoes. Mash.

Plate up and gobble down hungrily and hopefully a little messily ...

Spicy Chicken & Mushroom over Roasted Marrow

It's a bit of a use-up meal ...

Take a marrow, or at least a good length of, cut in half lengthways, remove the seeds and commit to the oven at 180C for about an hour. Optionally, drizzle some olive oil over.

When the marrow is about done, shred an onion and some chicken breast.

In a large skillet, melt a little coconut oil, pop the onions in with some flavours: sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, paprika and ground coriander.

Once the onions are cooked through, add in the chicken and quickly cook through before adding in sliced mushrooms and chopped fresh coriander.

Serve out with the marrow down first, chicken and mushroom over, garnished with some pine nuts and a good drizzle of yogurt and lemon juice. I also sprinkled some sumac over.

... for a random bunch of ingredients, just cooked through and put together, it worked very well; testament to the chorus of the ancestral chef: "cook real food and put it together".

Chicken Liver Parfait

Similar to pâté but more creamy ...

Take some chicken livers, it doesn't matter how much; some, and gently fry off in butter.

Blend with cream, at something like a 1:3 ratio of cream to livers.

Spoon into ramekins and seal with melted butter poured over the top and garnished with a thin slice of lemon, sprinkle of Allspice, some green peppercorns and a sprig of dill.

Serve with crisp lettuce leaves.

Chicken Thighs with a Creamy Mushroom Sauce

... a meal of good healthy fats, more good healthy fats and yet more good healthy natural fats.

Fire up your oven to 200C (400F) and get it up to temperature.

Peel and slice some squash pieces into good, larke chunks and settle into a roasting tray. No fat!

Place a wire cooling rack over the tray and place your chicken thighs on - a couple per person. Dust the skin with sea salt, black pepper and a little chilli powder - this will help the skin crisp up.

Settled the tray into the oven for about 45 minutes. As the chicken cooks, the juices and fat will drip down over the squash, so after about 15 minutes, just jiggle the squash pieces to ensure that they've not stuck.

After 45 minutes, remove the chicken from the oven, peel the skin off and set aside. Leave the chicken pieces to rest for a couple of minutes while you prepare the rest of the meal.

In a skillet place some sliced mushrooms and pour over double cream (heavy cream will do if you're States-side). Reduce.

Peel and cut an avocado each into segments.

Now, with the chicken cooled, remove the pieces from the bones, shredding a little.

Line the shredded meat down the middle of a plate, placing the squash pieces one side and avocado slices the other. Pour over the cream and mushroom sauce and crown with the skin, shredded, and some fresh herbs - coriander or parsley.

Protein, carbohydrate and fat ... perfect proportions.

Viking Funeral Chicken

What a gorgeous day!

... and what a gorgeous evening.

Family around and keen for a really easy dinner, I just bought in a load of chicken wings and a disposable BBQ.

The wings were simply marinated in Discovery Chipotle Sauce, lime juice, black pepper and garlic powder. Couple of hours, then onto the BBQ:

... which was perhaps just a little hot, hence the title: Viking Funeral Chicken.

In the heat, they'd got a little blackened, but no drama - it came away easily.

As so, with our chicken firming on its journey to Valhalla we enjoyed the food with a simple crunchy salad of mixed lettuce, green pepper, cucumber and avocado. Fries alongside.

Coconut Chicken Curry

Hell froze over!

I'm going to give you a recipe ...

No, really, I'm not kidding, it's not April Fool's Day, I've not been possessed, just that I made up a really cool (well, hot) curry last night and I while I followed no recipe, making it up on the spot, I think it's worthy of writing down.

I know, I know ...

I've been down on recipes for, well, forever, what with all the "what if my dodo eggs are larger than yours?", "what if I can't get Tibetan goat tears?", "what can I use instead of Guatemalan psycho-ward chillies?" ... you get my drift ... and I still don't think it worthy of a recipe, it is worth writing down.

So, here goes ...

Ingredients

2-3 Large Chicken Thighs (see, I've already broken the recipe - is it two? is it three?)

1 Large Onion (yes, define "large")

30g Butter/Ghee (or more, if you like more)

1 tsp Turmeric Powder

6-8 Red Chillies (milder chillies are best - we want colour and flavour, and heat)

3-4 Garlic Cloves (three if they're huge like mine, four, otherwise)

Inch Ginger (erm ... yeah, an inch from a thinner part? or thicker, if you like ginger)

2 tsp Poppy Seeds (I guess Nigella Seeds might do ... Mmmmm! Nigella!)

Half tsp Fenugreek Powder

Half tsp Asafoetida Powder

Halt tsp Black Pepper

Pinch Sea Salt

4 Cloves (more, if you like a powerful aromatic blast, less, if you don't want to feel like you've just been to the Dentist)

Can Coconut Milk (how big a can? I don't know ... 200ml?)

2 tbsp Desiccated Coconut

Method

Forget what's written below and do your own thing ... I did.

I jest ...

Peel and chop the onion in half, shredding each half and committing to a large lidded skillet with a damn good knob of butter or ghee. 30g is good. Turmeric over, low heat, let it caramelise and colour in the turmeric.

Take the chillies (seeded), garlic (peeled), ginger, poppy seeds, fenugreek, asafoetida, black pepper and sea salt, and mash into a paste. If you're like me and don't have (space for) one of those heavy pestle and mortar things, a bowl with the business end of a baseball bat will do ya!

Once the onions are caramelised, pour in the paste, fry off for a short while and then add in the coconut milk and the cloves. Sprinkle in the desiccated coconut and bring to the boil.

Lay your chicken pieces in (skinned), lid on and gently simmer for 30-40 minutes, topping up with a little water as necessary, but in the end you want a reduced, thick and sumptuous dish.

Ready to eat?

Serve on the bone into bowls with rice alongside ... or whatever your favourite rice substitute is. For a full dish, no rice or substitute necessary, cubes of squash or sweet potato will do just perfect.

Serves 2

Naturally, I didn't to any of this and my ingredient list did vary a little ... but, who's counting?

Enjoy!

Now, who's going to be the first to say, "sod chicken, I went with some firm white fish and it was delicious!"?

Poulet Chasseur [Hunter's Stew]

Chasseur Sauce is a traditional sauce in French cuisine, of shallots, garlic, mushrooms, tomato, wine and herbs, the addition of chicken pieces makes it Poulet Chasseur, or Chicken Chasseur as we more commonly know it.

Chasseur is French for 'hunter' and a dish we probably already know from the Italian as Pollo a la Cacciatore, or 'Hunter's Chicken'.

Simply one-pot, you can make it as high-brow or as low-brow as you like ...

At it absolute simplest, it is a case of adding chopped onion or shallot, minced garlic, whole button mushrooms, tomato purée, perhaps some skinned and de-seeded chopped tomatoes, herbs, such as parsley, thyme, maybe tarragon, black pepper, chicken stock, wine, be it red or white, and all the chicken pieces you can find.

Pieces? Yeah! Once the breast has been removed, the pieces are whatever is left: wings, thighs, drumsticks and anything else you see that looks okay to eat. Chuck it all in! If your paleo proclivities are towards not using wine, then don't. Just the stock will do fine.

Ensure it is covered with stock and wine, and cook for a good 2-3 hours in the oven at, say, 150C (300F?).

Serve with thick, creamy mash and something green. Dinner, done!

I did mine ever so slightly differently ... well, don't I always?

Interested? My method is, I suppose, a little more refined and will give a dish already removed from the bone but all the goodness cooked in.

I simply cooked my chicken through for about 4 hours at 125C covered with nothing more than water and a couple of bay leaves in there. What I get from that is cooked chicken and stock.

Remove the chicken pieces, skin, remove the flesh from the bones and winkle out any gristle and sinew, returning these waste parts and the stock to a pan to reduce. Strain and set the stock aside. You'll no doubt have more than you need for this dish, so you've got a chicken broth already sorted for another day.

Don't shred the chicken flesh - leave it in large and irregular sized pieces.

Shortly before you want to eat, melt some goose fat (or your favourite paleo fat) in a good size skillet, sauté off some mushrooms, add onion or shallot, garlic, a couple of skinned and de-seeded tomatoes, chopped, dried thyme, fresh parsley, black pepper, sea salt, the chicken flesh and now a good glug of wine (red or white, doesn't matter) and chicken stock.

Simmer and reduce while you prepare your vegetables.

Cooked Chicken with Bubble & Squeak [Leftovers]

With cooked chicken pieces and boiled eggs leftover from lunches, wild garlic mashed potato leftover from St Guinness Day, some enoki mushrooms that really want eating and the tail end of a savoy cabbage, simply frying up with a few other ingredients will make a great dinner ...

Cooked Chicken

Slice, fry off in a skillet in butter with some paprika and the enoki mushrooms.

Bubble & Squeak

Steam the cabbage, then combine with the mashed potato and fry off in a skillet in butter.

Serve

Bubble & Squeak down first, chicken and mushroom over. Egg on top. Pea shoots as garnish.

Dinner done! It was champion!

Turkey Tacos

... and breathe.

Friday night! We made it! Another week down and a great weekend beckons.

Let's let our hair down, have a drink and enjoy a really good meal - something quick, easy and nutritious.

On a Friday, we like something spicy. I happen to have some turkey breast in, some chicken breast, some peppers, an onion, chillies ... you're thinking what I'm thinking, right? Accompanied with marjoram, dried oregano, paprika and black pepper, we'll have our taco fillings.

Backup? Slice the meat into strips, slice the peppers into strips, slice the onion, de-seed the chillies and chop into small strips. Brown off the meat, add the onions, chillies and cook through, adding the peppers in last to warm through and just hold some texture.

Meanwhile, some accompaniments ...

Pico de Gallo - Cucumber, tomato, radish, spring onions and olives. Chop up.

Holy Guacamole - Avocado, lime juice and salt. Blend well, then blend some more.

Tacos - We also need tacos! Gem lettuce. Easy!

Beauty! 5 minutes of chopping, 10 minutes of cooking, little more chopping while that's going on and you're done ... dinner in 15 minutes.

Drinks? Tequila beforehand, red wine with.

Chicken Kebabs

Saturday night ... and I'm up for some junk food!

Good job I dropped some chunks of chicken breast into a yoghurt marinade last night, then, wasn't it?

Tonight, we're enjoying simple chicken kebabs over a slaw, in you like, of grated beetroot and parsley.

So, maybe a day before, although a mere couple of hours should be the bare minimum, drop some chunks of chicken breasts into a yoghurt marinade of yoghurt, lemon juice, turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, fenugreek, asafoetida, black pepper and sea salt.

Let it marinade ... the yoghurt should be good, natural, probiotic yoghurt. I went with sheep yoghurt.

24 hours later ... make up some kebabs with the chicken, mushrooms, bell pepper and red & white onions.

Push then under or on the grill for about 15-20 minutes, until cooked, and meanwhile make up something to go with it: a simple slaw of grated beetroot, for us.

Chicken & Vegetable Curry

Currying in the English tradition goes back to Victorian times, not only as a dish in itself but as a means of spicing up leftovers, and it is this tradition in which this meal came together.

Curiously, Queen Victoria was a great lover of curry and despite being Empress of India ... she actually never visited the country.

Anyway, this curry ...

I'll just tell you about how this started, which meals it's ended up in and how it came to be curry, the ingredients and method will play along as if we're making it from scratch.

I began on Monday when I came home with a great haul of fish and a bag of chicken thighs which were given to me for a song ... £2.40 to be precise, for eight! We're not big meat eaters, but I couldn't pass that up.

So, home, I simply pushed the chicken pieces into the oven covered with water and a couple of bay leaves. Three hours at 150C and the meat was falling off the bones. Meat recovered, cooled and settled into the fridge for another day, I proceeded to prepare all my fish for Monday's Bouillabaisse which used the stock from these chicken thighs and all the trimmings and such from the fish.

That's an aside ...

Tuesday, we enjoyed the chicken pieces bulking out the leftover Bouillabaisse along with more veggies - courgette and aubergine. Sorry, that's zucchini and eggplant.

Tonight, I still have leftovers ... Curry!

My Mrs really wanted Cauliflower Cheese so I focussed the curry on cauliflower and continued the theme of courgette and aubergine, largely a fairly classic Vegetable Curry, but with a good base of chicken.

Phew! From scratch, we'd use the following ...

Ingredients

Chicken - Thighs for slow-cooked, breast for a quick curry

Spices - Turmeric, coriander, cumin, paprika, fenugreek and asafoetida

Sauce - Onion, tomatoes and garlic, and butter/ghee

Veggies - Cauliflower, courgette and aubergine

Seasoning - Black mustard seeds, sea salt and black pepper

Curry Sauce

In a large, heavy-based skillet melt a good amount of ghee or butter and soften an onion, shredded. Low heat, allowing the onion to caramelise.

Add in the spice mix - weights and measures are not so important, but for a large onion, a teaspoon each of turmeric, coriander and cumin, half a teaspoon each of  paprika, fenugreek and asafoetida.

Toss in some chopped garlic and while the onion is caramelising, draw an X into the base of a few tomatoes, immerse in boiling water for a minute, retrieve, peel and chop.

Once the onion is caramelised, take the onion, the tomato and blend together into a paste. Curry Sauce.

Chicken & Veggies

Several choices here ...

With pieces that need longer cooking, like thighs, either pre-cook simply in water then shred the meat from the bones or brown off the pieces in the skillet, pouring the sauce over, add a pint of water and simmer on for a good couple of hours until the meat is falling off the bones. Add in the veggies, perhaps some more water and cook on until the veggies are soft. Maybe 20 minutes? Half an hour?

With chicken breast, simply diced up, brown off, pour the sauce over, add a pint of water along with the chopped veggies and on a low boil, cook through and reduce. Maybe 20 minutes? Half an hour?

Seasoning

Before serving, season with a teaspoon of black mustard seeds, some black pepper and sea salt to taste.

Serve

Serve out and enjoy as-is, perhaps some rice alongside.

Leftovers

Got leftovers? Simply heat up in a pan for lunch with a couple of boiled eggs chopped over. Sorted!

Roast Chicken

Sunday ... and I awoke with Roast Chicken on my mind.

Unable to get it out of my head, I succumbed ... and bought a chicken. Woodland reared, Freedom Food and most definitely NOT corn fed.

She's about 1.3Kg and will take an hour and 20 minutes end to end, with 20 minutes rest time for perfection.

What will be on the plate?

Chicken - cavity stuffed with lemon and garlic, settled onto a bed of shredded leeks with butter under the skin and sea salt, black pepper and majoram over.

Shiitake Jus with the juices, some black pepper and thickened with arrowroot

Red & White Cabbage - steamed

Mashed Potato - butter and cream

Chicken

Pre-heat the oven to just shy of 200C (400F?).

Take a roasting tray and line with shredded leeks - the green parts are good.

Open the cavity of the chicken and stuff with lemon and garlic.

Peel the skin back on the breast, sufficient to push a good slab of butter under. Not only will this keep the breast meat especially tender, but will add to the crispness of the skin.

Generous amounts of black pepper, dried marjoram and some sea salt over ...

... and settle into the oven for 1 hour 20 minutes. No faffing.

Veggies

Pling! The chicken is done. Do the obligatory stab in the thigh to reveal clear juices and a hot knife tip when tested against your tongue ...

... she's done!

Retrieve from the oven, carefully lift to allow the juices to flow out into the tray - keep for the jus. Wrap the chicken in tin foil and set aside to rest.

Shred some cabbage and settle into steamers. Steam.

Peel and cube potatoes and get 'em boiling.

Jus

Add just a little boiling water to the roasting tray and boil up on the hob, scraping away at the bottom for all the lovely flavours.

Strain into a pan, taste. Add black pepper and perhaps some sea salt.

Mushrooms go so well with chicken. I had some Shiitake in, so quartered and added to the jus - the mushrooms soak up some of the fat, but if your jus is obscenely fatty you can lay a piece of kitchen towel on the surface and remove - this will collect some of the fat. Repeat, as necessary.

Reduce and check for flavour. Now thicken with a little arrowroot.

Serve

Veggies ready, chicken rested and the jus thickened, it's time to serve.

Make a good mount of potato in the middle of a round plate and spread the cabbage around.

Joint the chicken - cut off the back legs, separating the thighs from the drumsticks, clip the wings off and carve the breast meat.

Serve the chicken pieces on top of the potato and smother with delicious jus, crowning the meat with the mushrooms.

Absolutely, completely and utterly gorgeous!

Carcass

Drop the whole carcass into a large pan of boiling water with a good splosh of cider vinegar, boil on for a couple of hours, strain and you've got the base for a good soup or stock.

Coq au Vin [Snubbed by Escoffier]

Burgundian French - a simple stew of rooster in wine, lardons, mushrooms, onion and garlic.

Specifically, the rooster is an older bird with tougher meat than a chicken, hence the need to tenderise the meat in wine.

Coq au Vin is a rustic, peasant dish and I was keen to see what Escoffier had to say on the matter ...

Nothing! Nada! Nought! Zero! Zilch!

Well, so much for the King of Chefs, eh? Le Guide Culinaire has over 80 pages dedicated to chicken and over 200 recipes therein ... but not one of them details this classic French dish.

So, turning my back on the heights of gastronomy, I relied upon my instincts and decided upon a course where the ingredients and method are really pared back and kept true to the rustic roots of the dish.

Food

Using chicken thighs and red wine, spiced with bay leaves and star anise, slow-cooked with bacon, shallots, garlic and mushrooms in a chicken stock we'll have a simple, rustic dish worthy of any French peasant.

You'll also need something to thicken the sauce, since the traditional flour coating over the chicken is not going to work for us. I used arrowroot at the end.

Chicken & Red Wine

Chicken thighs, skin on. I went with three each. Many recipes suggest removing the skin and I understand why, but we're paleo eaters and not going to be at all phased by a fatty dish. Skin is very fatty and will release all that fat during cooking, leaving us with a bowl of chicken swimming in grease.

We can render some of that out by gently frying off the chicken pieces in a skillet. Gently, so the skin does not overly colour up, but sufficient to release the grease ... which we'll reserve in a ramekin in the fridge for cooking with another time. Schmaltz, essentially.

Wine. We want the acidity but not the bitterness of the alcohol, so ... pour about half a bottle (for two people served three thighs each) into a pan and raise the heat to boiling.

You can boil on for a few minutes or risk setting your kitchen on fire with a much more fun method! Strike a match over the pan and after an initial WOOF! you'll see a blue flame which will gradually die down ... when it's gone, so has the alcohol.

Coq ... au Vin

Settle the chicken into an ovenproof dish, like Pyrex or a cast iron Dutch oven, cover with the wine and push a few bay leaves in along with a couple of star anise. Leave overnight, preferably in the fridge.

Lardons, Shallots & Mushrooms

Ready to cook? Get your oven on and set to 150C (300F?).

Fry off some lardons or streaky bacon. Tilt the pan to collect the fat and scatter the lardons over the chicken.

Peel some shallots and add to the chicken. Peel and toss in a few cloves of garlic.

Pour over a handful of button mushrooms each onto the chicken.

Top up with a little chicken stock just to cover and grind some black pepper over.

Into the oven for a couple of hours with the lid off so that the sauce can evaporate and reduce ...

I prefer a couple of hours on a lower heat than one at, say, 175C (350F?) ... your call.

Focaccia!

Traditionally, Coq au Vin would be served with egg noodles or mashed potato.

Focaccia

I could ... but read a recipe for gluten-free Focaccia that I thought would be perfect. It was, or rather would be if we liked that kind of thing but found it very heavy, stodgy and really not to our liking. YMMV. Next time, I'll try some rice noodles.

Serve

Ready to eat? Our Coq au Vin should now be cooked, darker in colour with the sauce well reduced.

Skim off any residual fat from the surface. There will be some, since we have the skins on, but it won't be too much.

Spoon out the chicken pieces, shallots and mushrooms into wide-brimmed bowls and pour off the sauce into a pan. Heat on, add in some arrowroot to thicken. Taste. Happy? Pour over the chicken.

Yum! Sod the Focaccia! It was consigned to the bin. Shame.

The Coq au Vin was delicious! Lovely chicken, superb sauce, very filling and very satiating even without the optional stodge.

Chicken Liver Parfait

Something for a nourishing starter, snack or just because ...

Chicken Liver Parfait, to give it its proper title, "parfait" the French for "perfect", and it is.

Worried? Yeah, I know ... French cuisine ... posh terms, complex processes; but, you know me ... I'll break it down and show you that it's easy and you really don't need a recipe, just real food, a frying pan and a hand blender.

Let's get to ...

Chicken livers. I used 400g raw, trimming off sinews, green areas (which are bitter) and teasing off anything which looked okay. Net result, possibly 350g of liver. This will make two glasses, as pictured.

Where were we? Livers ... now dice them and gently fry them off in a pan with butter. Real butter. Lovely stuff. Don't colour up the liver, just warm it through until it's not pink any more.

Drop it into a blending receptacle. I have a hand blender, so a Pyrex jug. If you have a food mixer, go nuts.

Flavours ...

I popped in a sprinkle of mixed spice - cinnamon, nutmeg and paprika. Just a little. Sea salt, black pepper and a little more melted butter. Oh, and double cream ... just a smidge.

Blend!

Pass through a sieve. Nah! Don't! First, it's prissy and second, it's pointless.

You're done. Spoon into glasses.

Faffy French side note - you can use a spray of Marsala, Sherry or Brandy just to pep up the mix.

Now we need to seal it ... because we're going to keep it for some time ... yeah, right!

But, do this anyway ...

Melt butter. Pour over. Pop into fridge to chill. The butter will act as a natural barrier to keep the liver parfait just so.

When serving, bring up to room temperature, so the butter can be enjoyed. Hungry primals will pick off the disc of butter, eat it and then plunge unwashed fingers into the parfait. Feel free to use the celery and carrot sticks, or just eat them afterwards.

Perfect, eh? Fuck, yeah!

Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream

Wise up sucker! Ice cream, indeed ...

We've got paleo ice cream, here. Chicken Liver Parfait, to give it its proper title, "parfait" the French for "perfect", and it is.

Worried? Yeah, I know ... French cuisine ... posh terms, complex processes; but, you know me ... I'll break it down and show you that it's easy and you really don't need a recipe, just real food, a frying pan and a hand blender.

Let's get to ...

Chicken livers. I used 400g raw, trimming off sinews, green areas (which are bitter) and teasing off anything which looked okay. Net result, possibly 350g of liver. This will make two good ramekins - the picture at the top is after I had a go at it in the fridge, feeling peckish in the middle of the night.

Where were we? Livers ... now dice them and gently fry them off in a pan with butter. Real butter. Lovely stuff. Don't colour up the liver, just warm it through until it's not pink any more.

Drop it into a blending receptacle. I have a hand blender, so a Pyrex jug. If you have a food mixer, go nuts.

Flavours ...

I popped in a sprinkle of mixed spice - cinnamon, nutmeg and paprika. Just a little. Sea salt, black pepper and a little more melted butter. Oh, and double cream ... just a smidge.

Blend!

Pass through a sieve. Nah! Don't! First, it's prissy and second, it's pointless.

You're done. Spoon into a ramekin.

Faffy French side note - you can use a spray of Marsala, Sherry or Brandy just to pep up the mix.

Now we need to seal it ... because we're going to keep it for some time ... yeah, right!

But, do this anyway ...

Melt butter. Pour over. Pop into fridge to chill. The butter will act as a natural barrier to keep the liver parfait just so.

When serving, bring up to room temperature, so the butter can be enjoyed. Hungry primals will pick off the disc of butter, eat it and then plunge unwashed fingers into the parfait.

Perfect, eh? Fuck, yeah!

That's the chocolate ... now, the vanilla ...

Parsnip Cream - a simple blend of one parsnip, boiled, drained and blended with cream. That's it. One decent sized parsnip makes one ramekin (above).

Serve with celery sticks, carrot sticks, whatever sticks float yo' boat.

Did I mention liver is a paleo superfood? Chicken, parfait; Lamb, perfect; cow, beauty!

Do it, have fun, don't worry about quantity and ratio, just clean up, dice, cook, blend and lightly wet up ... preferably with butter and set in the fridge.

The inspiration came from a visit to our local pub which just happens to have all manner of awards, accolades and general industry good-feeling, including Yorkshire's Pub of the Year for gawd knows how long ... and they've a mighty fine restaurant alongside.

... which put out a lovely piece of venison with duck liver parfait for my Mrs on her birthday this weekend passed, washed down with a damn good Perrier. Laurent Perrier, naturally.

So, Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream. True, there's cream in them, there pots.

Roasted Chicken Thighs & Veggies

Sunday Dinner ... done easy.

Chicken thighs and veggies. I went with Jersey Royal Potatoes (get 'em while they're still in their short season) and some butternut squash, then marrow, carrot and spring greens all steamed.

With 45 minutes total cook time, get your oven pre-heated to 200C.

Prepare a roasting dish with your favourite paleo fat (yes, goose fat for me), into which you place the veggies you want to roast: potatoes and butternut squash. Poke in a number of cloves of garlic (skins on), some lemon wedges, chopped leek, sprinkle sea salt over, herbs, too: parsley and thyme.

Cover with foil and into the oven for 15 minutes.

Remove the foil and lay the thighs over.

Commit to the oven for another 30 minutes.

Towards the end of the cooking time, steam any other veggies you want: marrow, carrots, spring greens and podded peas, here.

Tip the lot out onto a large plate and place in the middle of the table, each person helping themselves.

Remember to reserve the bones for broth!

Spring Garlic Chicken Broth

Two poussin carcasses, the cooking lemons, a splash of cider vinegar and get it on a low simmer for several hours ...

Several hours later ... the carcasses will have released all their goodness and you'll be left with a very flavoursome and VERY micronutritious broth.

More flavour? I shredded three leaves of wild garlic into it.

Wow! WOW!!!