Delicious Chicken Dish

It''s been quite difficult deciding which recipe to use as our first entry in this blog. All of the recipes in the original recipe book are delicious, but seeing as Mandi had guests for lunch, we chose the recipe below as it easily feeds a lot of people. As mentioned in our introduction, Mandi cooked the original recipe and I put a modern spin on it - pimping it.

Photograph of the original recipe from +/- 1985

Recipe:  Delicious Chicken Dish - Original

Boil 1 chicken.  Debone and cut into pieces.  Not too small.

Add:      1 Tin Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce

                1 lrg Pkt Cheese and Onion crisps

                1 tin mushrooms (not creamed)

                1 tin pineapple pieces (not crushed)

                2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Mix all the ingredients through.

Place mixture into casserole dish and cover with a thick layer of cheddar cheese

Bake ½ hour in oven at 180 degrees

This dish serves 6 easily

This dish brings back such fond memories of our family sitting around the table on Sunday afternoons.  Mom had taken it from a work colleague of my father’s where they had lunch on an occasion and it became a firm favourite in our home for many years until all the children left home and the recipe made too much for just two people.  It was one of those recipes that, with each bite through the crisply grilled cheddar cheese on top, brought new flavours into the mouth.  The crunchy pineapple pieces, the tangy cheese and onion of the crisps and the mayonnaise that blended all the flavours together had us going back for seconds.  So simple and easy to make and yet when it is served it would give your guests the idea you spent hours in front of the stove.  Its really not complicated.  The ideal recipe for any housewife that has to fill four hungry stomachs around the lunch table.

Hard act to follow.....  

 

It took ages to decide how I would pimp this recipe. I kept reading it over and over, smelling the aroma of grilled cheese, feeling the texture of the chips in my mouth. I didn't want to make it unrecognisable, but in modernising it there were aspects of the recipe I needed to change. I tried to keep all the original ingredients, just use them differently.

Recipe: Delicious Chicken Recipe - Pimped version

 

1 chicken, cooked and deboned

200 g mushrooms - fresh - quartered

4 large tomatoes - skins removed

50 g tomato paste

2 tbsp. mayonnaise

1 large onion - chopped

1 garlic clove - chopped

100 g olives

2 tbsp. butter

250 ml white wine

salt & pepper

parsley to garnish

Feta cheese

Squid Ink spaghetti (black spaghetti)

 

I cooked the chicken beforehand in a pot of water with salt, chicken spice and oregano.  Once cold, I removed all of the meat and kept it separate.

 

Melt the butter in a pan on the stove.

Add the chopped onion and garlic and fry until translucent.

Chop the tomatoes and add to the onion mixture

Add the tomato paste and mayonnaise

Season with salt and pepper

Add the chicken

Add the wine and mushrooms and simmer until the mushrooms are cooked

Add the olives

Taste and season if necessary

 

Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packet.

 

To serve, place spaghetti in bowl.  Top with chicken mixture and crumble feta cheese over the top.

 

I had already worked on my idea when my father sent me a curve ball - the recipe needed a can of pineapple pieces!!  Pineapple pieces would not go with what I had in mind, so I used olives instead.

 

I have cooked the original recipe for my family on a few occasions - always a winner.  When I dished up lunch today, the black spaghetti was eyed with suspicion.  Spaghetti Noir tastes just like your usual spaghetti.  When you cook it, you get a slight whiff of seafood, but it definitely does not infiltrate the spaghetti itself.

 

The overall consensus was that they prefer this recipe to the original.

 

One recipe done, 51 recipes to go :)