Leftover chicken and pasta

With Puy lentils & kabano sausage

What is it with leftovers and pasta. Sometimes they just go so well together. As I’d poached quite a lot of chicken on Saturday night (same day as the chicken was purchased), and as I invariably eat mostly veg and legumes I ended up with an entire leg quarter to be used up by Tuesday. As I won’t eat meat more than three days old, and normally only ever within two, and as this was the third day I wanted to reheat using lemon, then a little stock so I could bring this up to boiling point for five or so minutes – to be on the safe side. I’ve got to stress here of the importance of buying chicken meat as fresh as possible. The sell-by date on my pack was at least seven days hence, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it. And I certainly wouldn’t take the risk of eating cooked chicken meat three days later, as I’ve done this week, if the chicken meat wasn’t as fresh as I like it to be. Well, I did train as a chef which of course included health and hygiene. That doesn’t make me an expert as I only studied catering for two years. Yet, I used to balk at the hygiene of others whilst sharing various flats and houses in London over the years. As for boiling the carcass of a whole chicken, that should be done same day as cooked or roasted. Meat should be removed and stored safely and stock made same day to be used within two days max or frozen. Okay, lecture over! I’m loving lemon, a little bit of cream and garlic with pasta at the moment. To the extent I’m toying with the idea of roasting chicken with lemon, onions and garlic and then making a gravy using a little cream to see how that might turn out. That’ll be my weekend sorted, then. As I didn’t have time to take photos yesterday I kept only about a heaped dessertspoon of the chicken mixture. Seriously, that’s all that’s in the photos. With a little freshly cooked spaghetti I was able to grab shots and chuck what’s on the plate in the bin. And I managed to grab a photo with steam. Yes!

Ingredients:

Serves 1

• 100g (3.52 oz) x cooked chicken, shredded
• 80g (2.82 oz) x broccoli florets, soaked, cut into small pieces and pan-fried
• ½ x lemon, rolled under palms, then freshly squeezed through a fine sieve (a pinch of zest could be used as well)
• 1 x garlic clove, peeled, trimmed and thinly sliced
• pinch x cayenne pepper
• 100ml (0.21 US pt lqd) x water
• ¼ - ½ x organic very low salt vegetable stock cube
• ½ or 40g (1.41 oz) x Polish kabano thin sausage, sliced thinly and pan-fried
• 40g (1.41 oz) x cooked Puy lentils (small marbled green lentils)
• cooking liquor from the nearly cooked spaghetti/pasta
• single/light cream
• pasta of personal choice, cooked to the pack’s instructions

Measurements within brackets above are approximate only.

Instructions:

• Add the shredded chicken to a heavy-based saucepan on electric heat No 3 (out of 6) with a glug of oil. Pour over the freshly squeezed lemon juice through a sieve to collect any seeds and discard those. Let the chicken pan-fry, stirring occasionally, until there are signs of the chicken taking on a little bit of colour. Stay with the pan at all times as the citrus sugars can scorch all too easily. Take off heat and add the garlic. Allow a couple of minutes for its rawness to diminish, then sprinkle over a pinch of cayenne pepper. Pour in the water, add the stock cube and put on heat No 4. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil for several minutes to reheat the chicken thoroughly. Reduce heat to No 2 and remove the lid to reduce the sauce.
• Put a pan/skillet with lid on heat No 2 for the broccoli florets. Add a tiny glug of oil and, using the lid on top, allow them to settle for 10 – 15 minutes, keeping an eye on their progress and stirring through  if necessary. After that time, remove the lid and turn each floret over to get all sides slightly scorched. It doesn’t matter if they don’t fully cook at this stage as they can be added to the chicken mixture to finish them off as soggy broccoli isn’t really wanted here.
• In the meantime put a large saucepan on with plenty of lightly salted water to cook the pasta.
• Put a small pan/skillet on heat No 2 and add the kabano sausage slices without oil. Get them golden on both sides as they will retain a slight crunch when added to the chicken mixture.
• Nearing the time the pasta is almost cooked grab several dessertspoonfuls of its cooking liquor and add to the chicken mixture. Add the broccoli at this stage if not fully cooked. Add a good glug of cream to the chicken and up the heat if necessary to reduce the sauce which should cling to the pasta rather than be wet. Add the kabano sausage slices and Puy lentils and allow enough time to reheat those before serving.

All photographs within Feed the piglet:
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