Thing Number Thirteen - When Your Oven Blows Up, Make Circassian Chicken!

I had a whole intricate plan for this week's Thing; a plan which went more or less literally up in flames when my oven started making interesting sparking noises and being bright when it wasn't supposed to be bright, and then died a smoky death. (Someone is coming to look at it on Monday. I daresay it'll be expensive.)

So, let's go with Circassian Chicken instead. It's a Turkish dish - sort of a salad - of poached chicken with a bread-and-walnut sauce.

The chicken

Roughly chop a carrot and an onion, pop them in a pan along with a bay leaf or two, and cover with a couple of inches of water.  Bring it to the boil.

Turn down to a simmer, and add chicken. I'm using those chicken breast strip things because they were what was to hand - more properly, you'd use chicken on the bone (even a whole chicken, if you have a big enough pan and enough people around to eat it). I used five bits, which should be enough for two people (me; and the me of tomorrow, who doubtless travels to work in a flying car and has all her housework done by a telepathic robot).

Simmer gently until the chicken's cooked - I gave it ten minutes or so, but obviously bigger pieces would take longer. When it's cooked, turn off the heat and leave the whole lot to cool.

The sauce

Slice up some stale bread - I'm using an old baguette. You're supposed to cut off the crusts, but I really can't be doing with cutting the crusts off a baguette, so I didn't bother. About three slices should do.

Pour a cup or so of the stock from the pan over the bread and leave it to soak briefly...

...then squeeze out the excess. (There seem to be in inordinate number of recipes involving squeezing damp bread. This may be my first time bread-squeezing, but I'm sure it won't be my last...)

Break the bread up (I discarded any determinedly crusty bits of crust at this point).

Grind up a good handful of walnuts (I used my trusty coffee grinder) and add them to the bread.

Chop up and onion and fry in a bit of olive oil until soft and golden.

Add the onion to the rest, and blend the whole lot (I used my equally-trusty stick blender). Add some more of the stock to get the consistency right, if the sauce is too thick. (Apparently I forgot to take a picture of this stage, but really, it's a lot of pale beige-y things blended together. It's not that interesting to look at.)

(Incidentally, wash up the sauce bowl and utensils fairly sharpish after you've used them - it tastes great but it's basically walnut flavoured glue...)

Putting it all together

Shred the chicken.

Mix the chicken with half of the sauce - the other half gets poured on top once it's on the plate.

Heat a little olive oil (or walnut oil, preferably, only I don't have any and I'm not buying it just for this) and add a good shake of paprika. Drizzle this over the top of the now-sauced chicken.

Serve the chicken cold or at room temperature. I had it with rice, since that didn't require the use of my now deceased oven.

The verdict

This would be great at a picnic. It's not too demanding to eat - the bitterness of the walnuts is toned right down by the bread - and it would really suit that sort of idle grazing. It's also very soothing on a day when your oven has burst into flames!