Weekend Cooking:Chicken and Mushroom Bake

 

Whenever Jamie Oliver puts a new cookbook out, I tend to borrow it from the library before I commit to buying it! This is because while they are always very nice books to look at, over the last few books there just hasn't been that much in them that I want to actually cook!

I was trying to articulate this to my husband recently, and I couldn't quite get it straight why and probably ended up sounding like a bit of a food snob.  I don't know if it is in the quest to become super accessible the recipes have lost their way, or if he just doesn't do flavour profiles that we like to eat. Maybe it is something to do with the fact that some of the ingredients just aren't available here in the same forms and therefore I go that's not the recipe for me. Not sure.

There were some interesting ideas in this book, but the recipe that jumped out most was this one for a Chicken and Mushroom Bake. My husband does most of the cooking in our house, and he said that this was super quick to prepare, and it was very tasty. It almost tasted like a risotto.

We didn't use the mustard suggested and rather than using frozen leaf spinach we stirred fresh baby spinach through at the end. I quite liked the little pops of lemon that were in the dish, but I think we will probably leave that out next time. 

His latest book is Easy Air Fryer. We are on the hunt for some good air fryer recipes so I will be requesting this book from the library. We do have a couple of air fryer books that we picked up from Kmart a few years ago, but we aren't particularly inspired by them. Hopefully we will find some in Jamie's book!

I'm sharing this recipe so we can find it again after the book has gone back to the library.

Chicken and Mushroom Bake (Jamie Oliver)

4 large free-range chicken thighs, skin-on, bone-in
Olive oil
400g (14 oz) mixed mushrooms
1 x 295g (10.4 oz) tin of condensed mushroom soup
1 x 400g (14 oz) tin of butter beans
300g (1 ½ cups) basmati rice
1 lemon
200g (7 oz) frozen leaf spinach
4 teaspoons English mustard, plus extra to serve

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.

In a 25cm x 35cm (10in x 14in) roasting tray, toss the chicken with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of black pepper. Scatter the mushrooms in, tearing larger ones if needed. (For extra crispy skin, fry the chicken thighs until golden before adding the mushrooms.)

Tip in the soup, then drain and add the butter beans. Follow with the rice. Fill the empty bean tin with water and pour into the tray. Finely grate in the lemon zest and mix everything together.

Bring the chicken to the top, skin side up, making sure the rice is submerged. Nestle in the frozen spinach.

Cover with oiled tin foil and bake for 50 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and the rice is tender. Remove the foil for the last 5 minutes to crisp the chicken.

Fluff up the rice and spinach, season to taste, and mix the mustard with lemon juice. Drizzle over the bake before serving.

Weekly meals

Saturday - Coconut Prawn curry and rice
Sunday - Bread rolls with roast beef and gravy
Monday - Out for dinner
Tuesday - Steak, baked potato and coleslaw
Wednesday - Baked Tuscan Chicken
Thursday -Chicken Shwarma
Friday - Takeaway

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page