Chicken in Milk + Roast Vege + Cream Caramel

My hubby's primary school friend came over to Sydney for a visit from Singapore, and she brought along her hubby and her adorable one year old son - looks so much like his dad! And this family stayed over at our place over night - first time for us to have a baby stayed over night! It wasn't so bad, the baby only cried a couple of times during sleep, and was only short cries!

With the recent rainy weather, and the one year old son, we've decided that it was too much hassle to go out for dinner, so as usual, I was the chef of the night! 

Dinner Menu

Chicken in Milk 

Roast Vege with Rosemary

Pan Fried Asparagus Wrapped with Pastrami

Sourdough Bread from Patterson Patisserie

Cream Caramel

Sounded like a lot of cooking there, but in fact I was in the kitchen for less than 30 minutes that night! Cream Caramel was made the night before, and all the other dishes required so little preparation. So you want to make an easy dinner party for 4, you might want to consider this menu!! 

Chicken in Milk

Ingredients:

1.5kg whole chicken

600ml milk

1 cinnamon stick

1 bunch sage, use only the leaves

peels of 2 lemons

10 cloves of garlic with peels

115g butter

salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 190C. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Melt the butter in a casserole, brown the chicken on all sides. 

2. Take the chicken out, and discard the oil. Return the chicken to the casserole, add in all the other ingredients. Put the lid on. 

3. Put the casserole in the oven and bake for 1.5 hours, and baste it with the sauce every 30 minutes. 

The chicken was tender, and the house just filled with the cinnamon and sage smell during the hour or roasting! The lemon caused the milk to cuddle a bit, and when you take a bite into the chicken, besides the nice herby taste, it also had the freshness of lemon! We did have some left over chicken, which we deboned and made it into a chicken and basil fried rice the next day! 

Roast Vege

You can roast basically any winter vege. This time I used kipfler potato, parsnip, and spanish onion. Cut them into big chunks, season with sea salt, and freshly grounded pepper, add in handful of rosemary, and drizzle with olive oil. Bake in the oven with the chicken for 1 hour. 

I love rosemary with veges! And roast vege is just so simple to make, if you can't be bottle going into woolies to get some rosemary, just olive oil and salt will do the trick! They will make the skin of the potato goes crispy!!!! Yum!!!! 

Pan Fried Asparagus with Pastrami

Roll up the asparagus with pastrami, and pan fried it until golden and crsip. Easy hey! 

The taste of the dishes for the night was actually quite mellow but full of flavour. This asparagus and pastrami dish just became the kick of the night because of the saltiness of the meat!!

Cream Caramel

1/3 cup of caster sugar

1.5 cup skim milk

2 eggs

1.5 tbsp caster sugar, extra

1.2 tsp vanilla essence

1 tsp maple syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease 4 ramekins. Dissolve the sugar with 1.5 tbsp of water over low heat. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer until it caramelise. Then divide it between the 4 ramekins

2. Heat the milk with a pinch of salt over low heat until almost boiling. 

3. Whisk together the eggs and extra sugar for 2 minutes. Stir in the warm milk, vanilla and maple syrup. Strain through a fine sieve and divide between the 4 ramekins. 

4. Place the ramekins in a baking dish filled with boiling water reaching halfway up the ramekins. Bake for 35 minutes, and leave to cool completely. Refrigerate for 2 hours, or until chilled. 

The recipe asked me to use skim milk, but next time I think I'll use full cream milk to give it a creamier taste! I know I know... it means a couple more pounds when you step onto the scale! I just need to work harder in the circuit class!