Tarragon chicken

I have quite a bit of tarragon growing in the garden. Not planted by me, just leftovers from the previous owners. Last year I didn't use the tarragon at all and this year I decided I have to try and use it for something. To be quite honest, I wasn't quite sure what the heck tarragon was. I had to look what it translates to in Finnish (it's rakuuna by the way) as I thought that might help me figure it out. It didn't as I realised I've never used it for anything. So I had to google what I could do with it, and one of the recipes that came up was tarragon chicken. We are very fond of chicken in this house, which you probably are in no doubt of if you have been following my blog. So feeling adventurous I decided to give tarragon chicken a try.

According to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge and wisdom, tarragon is an important part of French cuisine and it's particularly suitable for chicken, fish and egg dishes. It's part of Béarnaise sauce. Apparently it's also a part of a popular green soft drink in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

I used this recipe by Nigella Lawson. It sounded straight forward and easy and didn't include any weird ingredients (although I have to admit I didn't have any vermouth in the house so I thought this is a good excuse to acquire some). I made some small changes to the recipe as I didn't have any freeze dried tarragon and I doubled the recipe as I had four chicken breasts to cook.

Tarragon chicken (serves 4):
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
4 scallions
1 tsp finely chopped fresh tarragon
4 chicken breasts
2/3 cups of vermouth (and maybe then some...)
1 cup (250 ml) double cream
salt and black pepper to taste
3 tsp chopped fresh tarragon

The howto:
Heat the olive oil to medium heat in a large frying pan that has a lid. Add the garlic, scallions and tarragon. Cook for a minute while stirring. Add the chicken breasts curved side down and cook for 5 minutes. Scrape the scallions and remove from the pan if they start to burn. Turn the chicken breasts over and add the vermouth. Reduce heat and let simmer gently for 10 minutes with the lid on. Check that the chicken is cooked by cutting through in the thickest part of the fillet. If not, let simmer for a few more minutes. Remove chicken breasts from the pan, and add the cream. Bring to a boil, making sure to scrape any bits and pieces which may have gotten stuck to the pan. Add the tarragon and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve with potatoes and veg.

The verdict:
I have to admit, I can't say I'm a huge fan of tarragon after trying this recipe. I'm not saying it's bad, it just had nothing on, for example, this amazing sun dried tomato chicken recipe I tried a while ago. But the Culinary Consultant liked it and said he wouldn't mind having it again. So maybe there is use for our tarragon after all.

Chanterelles as far as the eye can see

I'm at the summer house. And I'm online! The joys of 3G devices. Of course I will only be able to log for as long as my iPad battery lasts, as I won't be able to recharge it. But we might be making a detour to civilisation tomorrow so I might be able to kick some more life in it later.

Anyways, on to more exciting things. Like the Finnish forest. We were doing a small hike around the estate today, and oh my what yummy things we found. Blueberries, lingonberries, raspberries and chanterelles. It has obviously been the most amazing blueberry and lingonberry year, because they are everywhere. In abundance. As are the chanterelles. We had a huge bag full of them in no time. For absolutely free! They are so hard to get hold of in the UK, and if you get them, at least they are ridiculously expensive. And they are my all time favourite mushrooms. Not only are the delicious, they are so pretty too. We didn't even really go out mushroom picking, just went for a walk in the forest and picked up the chanterelles that happened to be on our path. And we filled up a big bag. Too bad there is no way I can bring some of them with me back home. Well, I could if we would get around to drying them, but we are so busy picking blueberries and lingonberries and experimenting with some outdoors cooking to have time to go through the hassle of drying the mushrooms. Some of them will be going into my mum's freezer so I will get some the next time I'm visiting.

Of course, the free mushrooms come with a price. They take forever to clean. After years of using only store bought clean mushrooms you tend to forget that mushrooms grow in a forest and tend to have a lot of dirt and other forest-related stuff all over them. But I guess that's part of the charm, to know you have picked and cleaned the mushrooms all by yourself.

In our family, the most traditional thing to do with the first chanterelles of the season is to make oven baked sandwiches with chanterelle sauce and topped with cheese. However, we don't have an oven here so that was out of the question. Ok, technically speaking we do have an oven, but it's one of those wood burning ones which you heat up for hours with wood and then they give off heat for a long time for baking. But the summer house gets so crazy hot if you heat the oven so we do most of our cooking in this fancy wood burning stove/grill in our out-of-doors kitchen. After watching pictures of grilled cheese on Pinterest for months and craving some, I decided the holiday is the wrong time to worry about calories and nutrition plans so I just went for it and made a creamy dreamy chanterelle sauce and stuffed it with some good Finnish cheese between two slices of bread and cooked it all in a cast iron pan which is probably as old as I am.

Chanterelle grilled cheese (serves 6):

One plastic shopping bag full of self-picked chanterelles (two full pans after chopping)

2 onions with greens (from your own allotment of course)

1 cup cheese flavoured cream (Valio Kippari cream)

6 slices of mature cheese (Valio Black label

12 slices of whole grain bread

Butter

The howto:

Cook mushrooms in high heat in two batches in a bit of butter. Set mushrooms aside while sautéing the finely chopped onions, add in the chanterelles and the cream and cook until the sauce thickens. Butter two slices of bread (the "outside" of the sandwich) and add a slice of cheese and a few tablespoons chanterelle sauce between the slices. Cook in butter on a cast iron pan on medium heat until the cheese has melted and serve immediately with some extra sauce on the side. Repeat for the rest of the sandwiches.

The verdict:

Cooking outdoors - brilliant! Self picked mushrooms - awesome! In cream... With cheese. Seriously, if you don't find that as exciting and mouth watering as I do, then you need to have your head examined. Or maybe come over to Finland and go mushroom picking in case you have never had the pleasure before. We have this thing called jokamiehenoikeus ("every mans's right") which means you are allowed to go into any forest to pick berries and mushrooms, as long as you don't go too close to habitation. So it's perfectly legal to drive out into a forest and start picking. And in fact, if you pick berries or mushrooms and sell them, any profit you make is tax-free. I'm not making this up. Apparently only about 10% of all fruits of the forest are picked and used, so there is plenty to go around for everybody who wants a bite. Or a bucket full.

We served the grilled cheese as a starter at our crayfish party (because, to be honest, you need some proper droid as there isn't too much to eat in a crayfish). And they seemed to go down quite well, even with the non-mushroom loving people.

 

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A classic without a twist

It's spring, and everyone and their friend are blogging about asparagus. And at least some bloggers have original ideas (I think this asparagus and mascarpone pasta sounds really delish), whereas I'm just going to do the boring old pancetta wrapped asparagus with poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce. Well, it might be old to many, but not to me. I have to admit, I have never made poached eggs, or Hollandaise sauce. Actually, I'm scared of all sauces, I tend to mess them up, so I tend to stay away. However, today I got inspired by the chefs in Great British Menu taking cooking to the limits of their skills, and decided to tackle the Hollandaise. I stole the recipe from my favourite food blog Voisilmäpeliä.


Asparagus and pancetta (serves 1 as a main or 2 as a starter):
250g asparagus 
5-6 slices of pancetta


Hollandaise:
2 egg yolks
1/4 lemon juice (I used juice from 1/2 a lemon)
50g butter
salt
cayenne pepper


Poached eggs:
2 eggs
vinegar


The howto:
Get the kettle going, you will need lots of boiling water, both for the water bath for the sauce and the poached eggs. Start by preparing the asparagus. I used thick asparagus, so I started by peeling it and boiling for a few minutes (but make sure only two or three minutes, so it doesn't go too soft). If you are using fine asparagus spears, you don't need to do this. Wrap the asparagus stalks in pancetta, if you are using fine asparagus, cut the slices of pancetta in half lengthwise. Bake in 175 degrees C for about 10-15 minutes.

All set to go for the Hollandaise. Water gently boiling, butter melted
and yolk and lemon juice in the plastic bowl ready to go on the water bath.

While the asparagus is baking, prepare the Hollandaise. Start by melting the butter. Next you need to make a water bath. I used a saucepan and a plastic bowl on top as I don't have a stainless steel bowl, which undoubtedly would look much more professional. The main thing is the water should only be gently bubbling, not boiling too hard, and the top bowl should not be touching the water. Add egg yolk and lemon juice in the bowl, whisk on top of the water bath until it starts to get a bit fluffy. Then start adding in the melted butter in teeny tiny drops all the while whisking. Hollandaise is an emulsion of egg yolk and butter, in the same way mayonnaise is an emulsion of egg yolk and oil. When all the butter is whisked in, the sauce should be light and fluffy. Take it off the water bath and season with salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

Hollandaise about halfway through adding the butter.

The last thing to do is to poach the eggs. Bring water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add a splash of vinegar. If you add more vinegar it's easier to get the egg to poach nicely, but there will be a stronger taste of vinegar. When the water is gently boiling, pour the egg into the water. Use a spoon to collect the white around the yolk if the egg spreads around too much in the water. Don't worry if it looks a bit messy, when you get the egg out of the water, it will look nice on the plate nonetheless! Two and a half to three minutes should be perfect to get that wonderful runny yolk.


One serving (half of this recipe) contains 409 kcal (36g fat, 7.4g carbs, 15.5g protein).


The verdict:
There is a reason why this is a classic. The salty pancetta with the soft asparagus and the soft buttery flavour and texture of the Hollandaise go together perfectly. Asparagus can be tricky, as you certainly don't want to overdo it. Baking it in the pancetta protects it in the oven, and I think it turned out perfect, sweet and juicy but still a bit chewy.


I was surprised at how easy the Hollandaise was to make. I guess the secret is the same as with mayonnaise, just make sure to drop in the butter little at a time and keep on whisking vigorously. To be honest, I don't know how a perfect Hollandaise should taste, but I was very happy with mine. I guess I need to find a nice restaurant and have some so that I have a reference point. I used a bit more lemon juice than the original recipe, and I liked that there was a distinct lemon taste, but I would guess the original should be a bit less lemony and a bit more buttery. Also, the sauce turned out very smooth and soft with the little pinch of cayenne adding a little bit of a kick. Apart from slightly overpoaching my eggs, I think this turned out pretty nice and I will certainly be cooking it again. I'm happy I have overcome my fear of sauces, at least my fear of Hollandaise. It really isn't at all as hard as you would think, so I warmly recommend trying it. If I can do it, anyone can.