Minnie the moocher
Y’know, when we started this whole chicken thing, waaaaay back when the wondrous Hugh was starting his Chicken Out campaign, lots of people said to us how they have their own little personalities and you get quite attached to them. At the time we just laughed and thought ‘yeh, right, isn’t it funny how people always want to give dumb animals a personality’. But, dearest reader, it’s really true. Take Minnie the crap Rhode Island Red (they’re supposed to be dark red, but she’s a kind of pale ginger), for example. Her perpetual escapology drove me mental at first. Whatever kind of fencing I put up, however much I clipped her wings (they were practically stumps at one stage) I couldn’t keep her contained, but now I’m actually quite happy that she just wanders around. I love looking out of the window when I’m at the kitchen sink and seeing her bimbling round the garden with her best mate Chilli the Black Rock:
She’s also completely and utterly in love with Hubby, which we all find absolutely hysterical. I think it started when she first followed him as he mowed the lawn and uncovered all sorts of tasty goodies. Now, within two seconds of the garage door clanging, you’ll see Hubby pushing the lawn mower round the garden, followed by a hopelessly infatuated Minnie in hot pursuit, doing that ridiculously comical ’Lee Evans’ fast walk that chickens do so well. He had to take a strimmer to the garden heart today, and ended up having to put her inside the coop lest he gave her an unintentional haircut (see, he loves her really – he only swears at her when he thinks anybody’s listening):
I’m pretty convinced that she actually sees herself as a human, following me back into the kitchen after I’ve hung out the washing, and pootling happily around, pecking at crumbs on the floor whilst keeping up a perpetual little burble of contented clucking.
This evening she spent the entire time perched on the handlebar of #2′s bike. Eventually it got so dark that we had to gently lift her off and pop her into the coop.
Tomorrow I’ll have a chat with her and remind her she’s a chicken. After we’ve had our Cheerios together, obviously.
Spicy (or not spicy) lentil dhal
So the ongoing battle here at English Towers is between the chilli lovers and the not-so-chilli lovers. Hubby and #1 would have us eating amounts of chilli that, frankly, would have normal people running madly around in circles, flapping their arms and making choo choo noises with steam coming out of their ears, whereas me and the small, accident-prone version can only handle a gentle amount of spice. Pizza making is always contentious with the chilli monsters wanting whole slices of red chilli on theirs, and curries, frankly are a minefield. This dhal, then, has had several incarnations – starting from the 2 tsp crushed chilli version that was truly, ridiculously, spasm-inducingly hot, to this version which is gently warming with a nice hit at the back of the throat. But hey, if you’re a chilli thug, whop in the whole 2 tsp and warn the family to take a step back – it’s got a kick like a very cross mule:
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 scant tsp dried chilli (or 2 heaped tsp if you’re a chilli monster)
2 tbsp oil
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp grated ginger (I keep mine in the freezer and grate it from frozen)
750ml chicken stock
200g red split lentils
1 tsp garam masala
So firstly, take a dry frying pan, put it on a low heat and put in the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, coriander seeds and the dried chilli. Let it toast very gently, stirring constantly, just until you see the very first bit of popping and your nose is filled with lovely toasty spicy smells. Watch it carefully as it burns easily (oh and feel free to go ‘ooh’ and ‘ahhh’ at my immaculately clean hob – I’d just spent half an hour removing the remnants of the rice which boiled over just to piss me off):
Bung the toasted spices into the pestle and mortar and grind them into a powder. If you can’t be arsed with this bit (which makes an excellent dinner party showing off display), just use the mustard seeds as they are and use ground cumin, coriander and chilli instead. It tastes just as nice (shhh).
Now, take a heavy-based pan and pour in the 2 tbsp oil. Bung in the sliced onion, sprinkle with the salt and fry gently until softened. Now add in the spice blend along with the turmeric, sugar and grated ginger, stirring well until it’s all pasty and combined.
Pour in the chicken stock and add in the red lentils. Bung a lid on and leave to cook for about 20 minutes by which stage the lentils will be soft and fragrant. Stir in the garam masala and taste for seasoning.
Serve with some easy cheaty flatbreads, or for a more substantial meal you can add the tandoori chicken and some basmati rice too. Some nice raita made with plain yoghurt, grated cucumber and a handful of chopped fresh mint wouldn’t go amiss either.
This is another healthy recipe (blimey, that’s two in a row) and the veg quota can be easily oomphed up with, say, a couple of handfuls of spinach (I buy those bags of baby spinach and bung them straight in the freezer) or some chopped tomato. I did it the other day with some roasted butternut squash and it was very nice indeed. Just go steady with the chilli if you don’t want your guests doing the locomotion around the garden (whoop whoop!).
In which Evil Stealth Chicken has her wings clipped
So chicken news, then. It’s all going very well, actually. Stig the cockerel went back to the chicken breeder. We were going to keep him, but he kept practice-bonking poor Minnie and she was getting quite flustered by it all (not to mention the questions this brought up at the dinner table: ‘does Minnie like it when Stig keeps doing that, Mummy?’). I’ve been promised another girl at some point, but the two we’ve got seem quite happy. Yesterday was sunny and warm and I spent a happy afternoon digging up the last of the spuds while my small feathery helper carefully inspected each freshly turned spadeful for any tasty morsels, and provided a bit of gentle clucking for some light background music. Minnie, the little Rhode Island Red is the friendliest chicken ever. Pop outside to hang out some washing and she bustles over, clucking and cooing, ready to take any tasty titbit gently from your fingers (she’s particularly partial to a marrowfat pea, incidentally).
Beautiful, enormous Chilli on the other hand has been re-labelled Evil Stealth Chicken. I do tend to let them out if I’m in the garden, but otherwise they’re confined to their quite generous fenced enclosure, which we move around the garden to give them fresh grass. But oh no, that’s not good enough for ESC. As soon as they’re out of the coop in the morning, she flaps over the fence and skulks away shiftily to the far corners of the garden, where she lurks, only stopping briefly to peck viciously at poor Minnie should she dare wander too close. She also keeps buggering off over the hedge to D’s garden and I’ve had several ‘oy! your bloody chicken’s in my garden again’ shouts over the fence. He doesn’t really mind, but still, it’s not cricket.
I turned, then, to Irish Times journalist, author, self-sufficiency expert and all-round chicken guru, Michael Kelly, for advice:
“Wing clipping is the most common method of controlling the flight of home-farm chickens”, says Michael, ” it involves using a sharp pair of scissors to cut off the first ten flight feathers on one wing. This causes a bird to lack the balance needed for flight and in theory discourages them from trying – it is also temporary because it lasts only until new feathers grow during the next molt (may be a few months in young birds or up to a year for older ones).”
But does it hurt? And is it mean to curtail their freedom in this way?
“Clipping their wings doesn’t hurt the bird at all and it isn’t noticeable when they are walking around since the primary flying feathers are hidden underneath when the wings are folded… If you feel bad about clipping wings (and you will), give yourself a stern talking to – the reason you keep hens in the first place if you are a home farmer, is so that they will provide eggs. If you can’t find the eggs because they are laying in a ditch or in the neighbour’s garden then you are wasting your time. Also, it’s your responsibility to keep your flock safe – if they are able to leave the garden at will, you are putting them at harms way. ”
Okay, so I was sold. The next problem, of course, was getting it done:
“Here’s how to do it – you will need an attractive assistant to help you (to hold the hen and keep it calm). ”
Check: one small child grabbed from in front of the XBox360
“Once you have spent three hours running around after your hen to catch it, spread one of the wings out to display all the feathers.”
Check: It only took us an hour an a half of Benny Hill-type running, swearing, clucking and flapping, and we finally managed to nab her in the bushes (ooer). Next?
“The feathers you want to cut are the primary flight feathers which are the longest ones towards the front of the wing. You can leave the first one (the one closest to the scissors in the pic) if you want as it is visible when they tuck their wing in to the body). Cut the other nine at the level shown in the pic – for most chickens this means cutting about 6cm, to bring them in line with the rest of the wing. Keep apologising to the hen in the process for the inconvenience you are causing. Voila – your work is done. You will need to carry this out again in about a years time after they have moulted. ”
The result: one extremely cross chicken (check out the chicken death glare in the pic at the top) who seems to have had her stealth escape attempts thwarted. Watch this space.
Oh, and one more thing. Apparently some people think that clipping means a hen is less likely to be able to escape a fox.
” Believe me”, says Michael, “a hen wouldn’t escape a fox if it had ten sets of wings and a jetpack…..”
Oh right. Mind you, I wouldn’t fancy even a foxes chances against Chilli. She’s evil.
Hubby’s Evil Chilli Couscous
So last night we all sat down for a nice family meal to celebrate the end of term/prizes/the promise of good reports to come (#2 looked slightly green at the mention of those), etc. I made little meatballs with my lamb kebab mixture, which I baked in the oven, along with some of #1′s famous tomato sauce.
Hubby, generally a stranger to the kitchen (unless there’s scrambling of eggs or anything to do with chillis) contributed this exceptionally good couscous recipe (well, come on, couscous is hardly cooking, to be fair).
8oz couscous
1/2 pint chicken stock
4 tbs olive oil
1 tbs sultanas (or very finely chopped dried apricots would be good, I think)
Couple of sliced spring onions
1 tbs chopped flat leaf parsley
2 tbs chopped mint
4 tbs good olive oil
2 small finger chillis, deseeded and finely chopped (Hubby used 6 and we’re still breathing fire)
Salt and pepper to season
So once your meatballs (or whatever you’re eating this with) are nearly cooked, put the couscous in a bowl along with the sultanas and pour over the hot stock. Stir, then cover the bowl with cling film or a plate or somethng and leave for five minutes. Meanwhile, heat your oil in a pan and bung in your very finely chopped chillis. Swirl around so that the chillis release their oil, then you can turn it off. After five minutes, when the couscous has absorbed the stock and the sultanas are all plump and lubly, fork the couscous through to fluff it up and pour over your chilli oil. Add the chopped herbs and spring onions, season to taste and if you want to go mad, serve with a little sprinkling of chopped pistachios.
Enjoy. Oh, and an added bonus is that you get lovely minty burps afterwards. See, not only do I provide you with lubly recipes, but you get fragrant indigestion into the bargain.
Yummy baguette fillings (or party food)
So me Ma’s visit all passed in a happy blur. Oh, apart from the bit when Bertie disgraced himself by eating her knitting needles- sorry Ma. Oh, and that other bit where Bertie disgraced himself by hopping into her bed and frightening her silly when she returned from a nocturnal trip to the loo – sorry again Ma. And yesterday I found myself dropping her at the airport again.
Still, no point dwelling on the negatives so I took myself off to the Pavilions in Swords. It’s not huge, but I like it because of TK Maxx. What an excellent shop. It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel in the mood for trying stuff on (I was eating a Creme Egg at the time – ’tis amazing the amount of men that stare at you when you’re trying to get the last bit of gooey stuff out of the bottom of the egg) because there are all sorts of other rubbish to rummage about in: kitchen stuff, books, cushions, you name it. I came away with a lovely lime green Le Creuset jug, a Typhoon vintage pink pie dish, a pink enamel storage tin and a very handy stainless steel strainer (small enough holes to keep at least some of my rice from ending up in the sink), plus change from thirty Euro. Not bad eh? I dropped into Dunnes on the way back and got some of their nice frozen prawns and their free range chicken (well done Dunnes – excellent selection!!) along with some baguettes. Hubby’s mate, J, is still staying (Bertie’s biscuit pusher) and I thought I’d do a couple of nice things that we can bung into the baguettes with some rocket. First up will be the yummy little chicken cakes that I always do (heaven with some nice sweet chilli sauce and SO easy, and also I’ll do some tamarind prawns:
Chicken Cakes
Couple of raw chicken breasts or prawns (must be raw or you’ll get a big wet mess)
1 medium red chilli, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large spring onion, chopped
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp Coriander leaves, chopped
Pinch of salt
So basically, whiz all the ingredients in a blender. I reserve the cornflour until last so you can see how thick it is – it’s amazing how it differs between batches – you need it thick enough to stay together in hot oil. So you can either make patties or just dollop tablespoons of the mixture into a half inch of hot oil until golden. This works just as well with prawns when you can also spread it onto toast, press on some sesame seeds and fry until the prawns are pink and the sesame seeds lightly tanned.
Tamarind Prawns
1 pack prawns, defrosted, or fresh ones if you’re that lucky – the bigger the better
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
Juice of ½ lime
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar or honey
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp tamarind paste
So pop the prawns into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients so that they marinate for a while, then bung them straight into a hot wok until they’re pink and gorgeous and the sauce is reduced and sticky. Heaven sprinkled with sliced spring onion on noodles, rice, or just wodged into a baguette with some mayo a la English Towers. Excuse me while I wipe my drool from the keyboard
Tamarind Chicken Noodles
So you’ll like this one. Hubby, being a bit weird, can’t eat pasta at all – makes him gag, apparently (oh the drama). But he loves noodles, which as far as I’m concerned are exactly the same as pasta so I just substitute one for the other. When he comes home late from work I often put some noodles on as they’re quick and knock this chicken up, or sometimes I just do the chicken and mix it with a supermarket bag of leaves. I’ve messed about with it an awful lot but I reckon it’s just right now and last time I made it I managed to remember to write it down. Oh, and regarding the tamarind, give it a go. I had baked sea bass with tamarind in a Thai restaurant and really loved it so I bought a little jar and I’m quite addicted now. It’s an odd, sweet/sour sort of flavour, but really tastes nice in this:
1 pack fine egg noodles
2 chicken breasts or some leftover chicken, shredded
1 pack Pak Choi, sliced and washed (can be gritty)
Couple of spring onions, sliced
Marinade:
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped, or 1 tsp chilli flakes
Juice of ½ lime
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce (Nam Pla)
1 tbsp brown sugar or honey
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp tamarind paste
So slice up a couple of chicken breasts into strips, mix all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl and add the chicken, turning it over so it’s all combined. Leave to one side while you boil a saucepan of water, salt it and bung in your noodles.
Heat a wok or large saucepan and throw in the chicken together with all the marinade (it’s got oil in so you shouldn’t need any more) and the spring onions. Stir fry until the chicken’s cooked, it doesn’t take long. Add your chopped Pak Choi near the end – this really needs to just be warmed through, it’s horrible if it’s soggy – and toss together.
Drain your noodles and tip them into the wok, mixing them all in with the chicken and the sauce. Serve sprinkled with chopped salted peanuts and some coriander.
By the way, if you want to make this more like chicken noodle soup, boil the noodles in 1 litre of made-up chicken stock, cook the chicken separately, then add it all in to the noodles at the end. Spoon into bowls and eat it making shameless slurping noises in front of the telly.
