Witloof Cappuccino and Roast Chicken

Supper we started with a belgian endive soup. This was from a Dutch book by Francois van Arkel, called Amuses.actually quite simple. I'm sure you could do it with any vegetable, but in this case it called for Belgian Endive and I happened to have quite a lot. You basically chop up one head of denive and a shallot, and sweat them in oil for about three minutes. Then you add half a litre of stock, bring it to the boil, then simmer for ten minutes until soft. Then you purée it. Oh boy, was this bitter! The recipe calls for 75 ml cream but I didn't see that cream would ease the bitterness. I added a load of nutmeg, which helped some, and finally threw in about 200 ml of coconut milk. That improved it no end.

Next step is to serve it in little glass cups, with frothed milk on top and some crispy bacon bits.



Main course was roast chicken with roast parsnip and a small salad. My food list doesn't say anything about parsnip. I would think it not compatible with a low carb diet, but then neither is fruit and carrot, both of which are allowed. And I had parsnip in my weekly organic bag, so parsnip it was.

Roast chicken is one of the easiest meals in the world and it depends on the chicken you buy. So buy a free range one if you can, they taste much better because the exercise gives them flavour. Sprinkle it chicken spice mix, barbecue spice, whatever you have. You can stuff a lemon into the cavity, or a bulb of garlic, it's all optional. Put it in a cooking bag, close the bag and stab a couple of holes in it. I usually put the bag with chicken into a dish in case there's any leaking. All of that goes into an oven of about 180C for an hour an a quarter. Just set the timer and forget about it.

I set the timer for 45 minutes so I could add in some thickly sliced peeled parsnip to roast alongside it for 30 minutes. Just put them on top of the bag, it's fine.
It needs to stand about ten minutes before carving, a good time to do some last minute veggies or in this case, cut up some cukes and tomato.



Ah, dessert today! This time I cooked the fruit. I cored an apple, cut it in half across the middle, and stuffed the two cores with nuts and goats cheese, topped it with more goats cheese. I put this in a dish and chucked it in the oven for half an hour alongside the chicken. yeah, when I added the parsnips. It was just so fabulous, I need to make it again.