Black foot chicken Indian style

Indian black foot chicken…..

We do love our Indian.  We do love our black foot chicken.  Like a cross between really great chicken and turkey I guess.   Not that wet mess you get other places.  Dry skin.  Yum.

Andy made a spice mix. I roasted off baby onion in butter, added cooked potato, salt  and fromage blanc with lime zest, adding some of the preground roasted spice mix Andy had done for the chicken.

He finished the roasted spice marinade with tomato ketchup, fromage blanc and shoved it on the chicken.

We served the chicken once cooked and grilled until really caramalised with a crispy flat bread brushed with garlic chilli oil, a simple salad and those potatoes.   

His spice mix is

(these are whole spices toasted off then ground)

Cumin seed

Coriander seed

Cardamom pod (podded)

Fennel seed

Anise seed 

Cloves

Star anise

Black peppercorns

Once toasted and ground, adding smoked paprika, ground ginger, a touch of garam masala, salt and turmeric.

It’s a balancing act with these spices.

Sometimes adding black cardamom for extra smoke flavour.

Roasted Thai Black Foot Chicken......

We went to Dijon.  We stocked up on fresh lemon grass and galangal (alas no kaffir lime leaf), we bought Thai roasted chilli paste and fresh Thai chillies.  We even found good premade Thai curry paste.  The stuff that comes in the big jars.

We bought a huge bag of miso paste, loads of dried chilli, cumin, coriander (fresh and seeds) fried shallots.  We bought a big bag of sticky rice (yum).  Jasmine rice too which we can get in the local but it was far cheaper.  We bought loads of garam masala too, a nice mix of it as it turns out (whew!), whole cumin seeds which are available at our local but in teeny weeny jars at double the price.  We bought coriander seeds same as above, available in the local but ...

A huge bottle of Thai fish sauce (again available but 200mls in our local costs the same as 1 litre).  Really decent coconut milk with full fat cream.

It was worth the trip to Dijon just for top ups because it’s a beautiful drive.

We decided to cook black foot chicken legs which we get locally and are amazing, Thai style. We usually do them Indian style. Andy did a paste of :

Garlic

Onion

Galangal

Lemongrass

Fresh coriander (not necessary as we don’t have much!)

Fish sauce

Red thai curry paste

Roasted Thai chilli paste

Tamarind extract

Tomato ketchup for sweet balance

Mixed with some (yep we are in France) fomage blanc. Our go to because it’s thick and creamy, slightly acidic and plain lovely.  Full fat thick yoghurt would do the trick.

The whole concoction shoved on black foot chicken legs and cooked then grilled. Served with a simple salad, jasmine rice, crispy shallots and a thai dipping sauce (fish sauce, lime juice, galangal, fresh coriander, lemon grass, sugar and chilli).

Yum.  YUM. Leaving at YUMMMMMMMM

The photos below do this no justice whatsoever.  But there you go.  Sometimes the yummiest dinners are just plain f...ing yum.  

Wee Nudge

It is really hard to get a comfy spot.  I have been playing under the rug.  Then I smelt where I was born in the wood.  So I HAVE to sleep there.  It's bloody uncomfortable.  It really is just fucking awful with the wood sticking itself in my jaw.  I can't for the life of me get myself a spot but I will soldier on cause I can smell my wee family.  I have an expensive bed to sleep in etc etc but this spikey wood will be my favourite for a while.  😕

Vegetarian Indian dinner.... YUM SCRUM!!!!!

Andy cooked this and it was bloody unreal.  We had spiced cauliflower and potato, chickpea spinach and tomato, spiced rice, garlic flat bread and lettuce to wrap the whole thing in.  A side of onion raita and far out.......

This was DELICIOUS. 

A lesson in pure veg cooking at its best.  Katya...........you'd love this (and I reckon Soph might even help you cook it because she seems to be taking over the kitchen).  Cook this together.  It's not hot in chilli, just a background warmth.  

Seriously YUM. 

Skiing in the Vosges...

An extremely random selection of photos to say the least. Fiddling with gloves and cameras and having the light so you can't see what the f..k you're taking anyway means things are very random so to get any shot at all is bordering on a miracle.

We had a great day out at La Bresse in the Vosges which is 2hrs30 mins drive from us.  Ski pass prices are cheap in that part of the world averaging around 22euro for a day each.  Less than half the bigger ski resorts.  

Stunning weather.  We decided on the fly the night before to go and were packed and sorted in no time.  Beautiful slopes.  

I did mess up right at the end of our day because we ended going down a red (advanced but I’ve done lots of reds, even blacks FFS, that’s an aside), we thought it was a blue (intermediate) so I got completely and utterly freaked OUT.  

I couldn’t go down it. I had a huge panic attack when we were about 200m down.  So, we had to literally climb back up to the point where we took the wrong turn and go back down the blue which actually in itself was quite challenging for a blue.  We were having such a great day untill then.  Carrying skis up a steep incline in ski boots is quite a work out for the old lungs.  And Andy had to do it too because he wasn’t going to leave me there even though he could have skied down it easily.  

I could have too if I didn’t psych my head out like I am prone to do. I get a big sweaty panic attack and literally can’t move at times. I over breath.  I can’t think.   It’s amazing we ski at all!!  Anyway, yep I’ve done more steep and narrow slopes but with the sudden drop off not being able to see it just came as a big surprise and I clammed up.  Par for the course with me and skiing.  I’m OK, then I’m not.  

Anyhooo we had some lovely runs in the most gorgeous scenery.  A beautiful drive.  Andy is very very VERY patient with me.  I hate going downhill.  But how we love a day out on those pristine slopes.  It’s absolutely surreal.  The sights on the mountain, no roads, no noise.  Just the gorgeous snow, alpine trees and you.  It is quite something which is why I stick with my skiing despite my inadequacies at it!!!