Black legs

Ten days ago or so, a chicken with black legs from Sainsbury's, according to a piece in Farmers' Weekly, very possibly originating from the people at reference 1. Although I am not sure how the flu-related ban on outdoor chickens plays into a product which is described as woodland reared.

The outdoor cooked stuffing being more or less as important as the chicken, with its preparation starting a day or so before the off. 

The small bloomer from Sainsbury's, purchased at the same time as the bread noticed at reference 2, rubbed down to surprisingly fine crumbs, much finer that those obtained from one of their Frenchified loaves.

We didn't have any hazel nuts to hand, but we did have some cashews, and we thought that they might do well enough. More seriously, as it turned out, the outdoor sage was in poor shape, so we were reduced to a mixture of dried and frozen - or at least BH was fairly sure that was what the bag of frozen leaves were. They looked a bit sorry for themselves when thawed out. But at least I remembered to omit the oil.

Ready to roll. Not the best looking bacon, but it does well enough for these purposes. And fancy bacon is apt to be a bit salty. Into the oven around half way through the chicken, giving it around an hour.

I took off into town at this point to attend to the trolley noticed at reference 3 and leaving BH as officer of the watch, on the bridge, as it were.

On the table, black legs uppermost. They should, I suppose, have been removed. They come off easily enough.

On the plate. At some point I had popped down to the market to see if there were any green green vegetables to be had - something like spring greens - but ended up buying some kale. Which was very green and had an agreeably strong taste.

The texture of the stuffing was good, but there was a rather bitter after taste, which I put down to excess sage, probably excess dried sage. Presumably the bitterness was due to some chemical in the sage, designed to deter grazing and very toxic if taken in large doses.

The chicken had been covered in foil as well as bacon for most of its cooking period and was, to my mind, slightly undercooked. But then, I like my chicken well-cooked, perhaps too well-cooked for most people.

Washed down with one of the last bottles of white from Waitrose. For the benefit of search to come, a 2018 Pessac-Léognan  from Château de Rochmorin, grown and processed into bottle under the tutelage of one André Lurton. The cork also says Graves, so perhaps Pessac-Léognan is some appellation which has grown up in its shadow. Good at marketing their wine these French.

Bitterness notwithstanding, we had a fair stab at the stuffing. The balance melted somewhere in the margins.

Two bowls at the ready, back right, so there must have been dessert, but I cannot presently recall what it was, or whether I took a spot of something that warms with it.

A day or so later, most of what was left of the chicken went into a pie, the sort of pie which has chicken in white sauce underneath and mashed potato on top. In this case, the sort of white sauce you get by chopping and then frying some garlic and onion first. Some half cooked, crosscut carrots and some frozen peas stirred in at some point. Then, in this case at least, stood over for a day and warmed up again, prior to adding some small button mushrooms, spreading the mashed potato on top and baking, all of which meant adding a little potato water to the sauce, which ended up a little wetter than I had intended. But just the way that BH likes it, so that was alright.

Instead of adding butter to the potato, I added a little of the sauce, taking care to avoid any lumps, meaty or otherwise. Cooked for about an hour at 160°C or so, by which time there was a scattering of brown on top. I forget now what there was by way of green vegetable, but there would have been something, green or otherwise.

A dish which we used to have quite often, but, for some reason or other, not recently. And in childhood, the way my mother used up the Christmas turkey when we had all had enough of it cold.

A day or so later again, the carcase and various left overs boiled up into soup. The main additional ingredients for which were 4oz of red lentils, three or four modest heads of leeks, the balance of the chicken and some more mushrooms. These last from the Costcutter in Manor Green Road, naturally. Very reasonably priced, so cost cutting indeed.

PS: following consultation, I am now fairly sure that we took stewed fruit for dessert, having decided that the amount of grub we were getting through at that time suggested moderation. But there was something that warms with it. From Scotland rather than from Normandy.

References

Reference 1: https://www.tnpltd.com/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-spot-of-old-spot.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/04/trolley-563.html.