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Overview
A love of eating and using quality ingredients led Tim Halket to build a hen house in the corner of his garden for a daily harvest of fresh eggs. Five Fat Hens is his insightful, often humorous, take on just what it’s like to raise chickens at home. More than a DIY guide to keeping a few free-range birds, this cookbook is part memoir and part lifestyle manual. Halket takes readers through an entire year, skillfully combining meditations on his passion for cooking with original recipes, all starting with the premise that even the smallest garden can include a supply of delicious, fresh eggs.
Neither a trained chef nor an experienced farmer, Tim’s tips and recipes draw on his learning experiences and love for culinary experimentation. With recipes ranging from the highly original Duelos y Quebrantos and Persian Chicken Supper to variations on everyday Italian or French classics, to simple comfort food, this timely book is an engaging account of one man’s appealing lifestyle that will inspire food lovers everywhere—whether they intend to keep chickens or not.
“Good recipes, engagingly told.” —The Spectator
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781909166653 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Grub Street |
| Publication date: | 02/20/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
JANUARY
Boiled Egg and Soldiers Chicken Soup with Dumplings Latkes Duelos y Quebrantosv Persian Chicken Supper Poached Chicken with Six Vegetables Legless Chicken with Greens Stuffed Chicken Legs Piri-Piri Chicken Queen of Puddings Spotted Dick and Custard
I decided to start the year by hatching some eggs. Previously I'd always bought growing hens (called pullets) from a breeder – it's the easiest way to get a few chickens. You can buy them sexed and almost ready to lay their first eggs. But it is a strangely unsatisfying arrangement. For some time now it had been something I wanted to try, and the children would certainly enjoy seeing them grow. If I was careful choosing the breed, then the law of averages would deliver a few good laying hens and a few surplus tasty cockerels for the pot. My biggest problem would then be how to eat them? Coq au vin is such a cliché ...
It's necessary to choose the right breed if you want to do this; some breeds will lay a lot of eggs, but are too scrawny to eat; some breeds gain weight quickly but the hens are poor layers. Some breeds, like Light Sussex, are both good layers and very tasty table birds.
Traditionally, someone like me, with a few birds in my back garden, would wait until one of the hens got broody, and then slip a few fertilised eggs under her. I've neither a cockerel nor likely to get a broody bird – the three breeds I already have are not known for their broodiness. I needed to get hold of an incubator.
I persuaded a nearby farmer to lend me his spare one (for thirty quid). It would hold forty eggs. After a hunt through various smallholder magazines and websites, I finally found someone who was happy to sell me a few fertilised eggs. It couldn't have been simpler. Get the incubator ready, put the eggs in for 21 days and, when they've hatched, move them into a brooder (it really needs to be no more than a light bulb hung over a draught-free secure run). Supply them with chick crumbs and plenty of fresh water, just sit back and watch them grow.
Back in the kitchen, January is a lean month. If you're eating seasonally – buying fresh local food – then this will surely be a trying time. The gluttonous excesses of December have passed and, from the depths of January's long nights, it seems impossible that there will ever be another summertime. The only solution is to lock the doors, put another log on the fire, and cook up something that you know will warm you. There is something so very right about eating hearty wholesome home-cooked food when the weather is depressing you like this.
Comfort food. I don't know anyone (at least anyone who lives in Britain) who would call a Tomato Salad comfort food. Lovely though it is, it's still a summer dish and absolutely not what I want to eat as the snow is falling all around. But comfort food is more than what your mother used to make – or school lunches – or even teatimes at granny's kitchen table. It sounds almost asinine to say it but comfort food must be comforting – you must be comforted whilst both preparing and eating it – and that point, about preparing it, often gets overlooked. To eat well, you don't need to be a domestic goddess – you can feast on a very reasonable Steak and Kidney Pud from M&S – but why miss out on the joys of going to the butchers, grating the suet, making the pastry, browning the meat, slicing the onions, assembling the dish, and then topping the steamer up with more boiling water as and when needed. When you steam the pudding slowly over a few hours, you'll gently get a good fug-up in your kitchen, and that's all part of the anticipation.
I know I'm preaching to the converted here (after all you're reading a cookbook) but surely all that shopping, chopping, cooking and serving – in fact everything you do from the moment you first pick up the food to putting the prepared plateful in front of your loved ones – is all part of the joy of good food.
I'm saddened by the number of people I know that have no interest in the craft of cooking. They like to eat, many like to eat very well indeed, but they miss out on time spent just pottering (and there really is no better word for it) in the kitchen. Cooking can be every bit as pleasurable as eating.
So don't just settle for casseroles and apple pies; be a little more adventurous. January is my favourite time for cooking a big pot of osso bucco and Milanese risotto (that's the plain one with all the saffron). If you crave some heat, then feel the burn from my piri-piri chicken, or go traditional with a poached chicken, and indulge in a really big helping of six locally-grown winter vegetables, each of them at their best, just pulled from the ground. The Persian chicken supper will do the job when you're too full of British stodge and carbs and want a meal that is interesting, light, and yet satisfyingly filling. And don't forget to try the other big dishes from Italy, France and Spain – it gets cold there too.
JANUARY'S DIARY
WEDNESDAY 1 JANUARY
Omelettes for lunch. Angelica and Anastasia laying well, lots of eggs to hands. 4 BIG eggs, so 2 big omelettes.
THURSDAY 2 JANUARY
Found a shell-less egg on the droppings board.
SUNDAY 5 JANUARY
Another shell-less egg. Suspect Princess Amidala is the culprit. Must get some oyster shell for them.
SUNDAY 19 JANUARY
It's time to get started on the incubation. I phoned round a few places and eventually found an incubator.
THURSDAY 23 JANUARY
No eggs at all today – first time in months.
FRIDAY 24 JANUARY
Five eggs today!
SATURDAY 25 JANUARY
Brought a copy of Farmers Weekly, hoping to find useful stuff in the small ads. Wasn't disappointed.
SUNDAY 26 JANUARY
Cleaned out chicken coop – amazed by new bale of sawdust. Packed so tightly that scraping out a couple of handfuls with my fingernails was enough to fill a bucket. I suspect just one bale will last the best part of a year. Pet shops must have a good margin in re-packaging this stuff for the hamsters.
MONDAY 27 JANUARY
Good haul of old and interesting cookbooks from Oxfam.
TUESDAY 28 JANUARY
Children playing up today. Tried to research commercial breeds – didn't get anywhere with it. Decided to hatch Light Sussex, Minorca and maybe some other eggs too.
THURSDAY 30 JANUARY
First real snow around 2.00p.m. Hens very confused: started eating snowflakes off each other's backs.
FRIDAY 31 JANUARY
Chickens hate snow! Had to clear an area near the back door for them; they didn't budge from it all day. Spent their time hopping from one foot to the other. News pictures at breakfast-time of people having to sleep in their cars on the M11. Awful!
BOILED EGG AND SOLDIERS
In the beginning our hens kept us waiting for months until one of them laid the first egg. Annie and I fantasised, endlessly, about how to eat them. We decided to boil the first two for breakfast – it's the only way to enjoy the shell, and the contents, on your plate at the same time (if you've specifically chosen your hens for their eggs' shell colour, then that will be especially important to you).
Those two first eggs were amazing. Until you have eaten the eggs from hens which have been allowed to roam around, spending their days eating all the grass they want, you simply will not have tasted good eggs. The whites are properly firm and flavoursome, a joy to eat just on their own. The yolks possess a depth of colour that defies belief, way beyond yellow – almost to a garish day-glo orange. And the texture is thick – not a hint of insipid runniness anywhere.
Boiled eggs may not strike you as a seasonal food but, if you're keeping your hens as naturally as possible, to have a hen that is laying through winter is indeed a godsend (doubly so if you have to buy some extra eggs – yuk!). So putting a home-grown proper plain boiled egg on your breakfast table in January is indeed a great luxury.
Despite popular belief, there simply is no foolproof way of boiling an egg. It's just not as easy as people think it is. I now put the eggs into warm water (either from the hot tap or kettle) and time them for two minutes once they're boiling. Other people are happy to add eggs to boiling water and cook them for three. It depends on your cooker and how quickly it will boil the water. Egg size is another important factor. Either way, those times are about right for an average size egg (supermarket large). Some hens will lay bigger eggs, others smaller – but each hen will always lay the same size, shape and colour of egg, all through its life. I can tell at a glance which of my birds has laid which egg. So, I need to add to, or reduce, the cooking times by half a minute, maybe more, depending on which hens' eggs I'm cooking.
I've tried out the method where a pan of water is brought to the boil, removed from the heat and then the eggs are added (see Delia). This is no better or worse than the more normal way – it just takes a lot longer to make breakfast. Also putting vinegar in the water, adding salt, a matchstick or even pricking the eggs to stop them cracking are all utterly useless. Don't waste your time. I've realised, quite by accident, that one of my hens (Princess Amidala) lays eggs that will crack, each and every time, without fail, in boiling water – whilst none of the others ever do. Another excellent reason for knowing where your food comes from!
Soldiers need no special introduction or instruction; just use white or wholemeal bread, as takes your fancy. Granary just doesn't work for me – all those whole grains ruining the unctuous gooiness of the egg. Toast the bread, butter it, and slice it into thin strips.
INGREDIENTS
- One or two eggs per person
- A slice of freshly made hot-buttered toast cut into soldiers
Boil the eggs for two or three minutes (see above) then put them into an eggcup. There really is no sensible way to eat boiled eggs without using an eggcup – every home should have some; so please go and buy some nice ones if you are without.
Now take the tops off in your favourite way: Bang the top with an egg spoon and then carefully peel them. Chop the tops straight off with one deft blow from a sharp knife (Samurai-style). Or get yourself one of those fancy French tranche-coque contraptions. These are sort-of round scissors which fit over the top of the egg and, when you squeeze the handle, lots of little teeth shoot inwards, breaking the shell cleanly and allowing you to remove the top with a quick twist. I got mine in France as a child. I don't recall seeing them for sale in Britain – but then I've never been looking for them. I never use mine; it's far too much effort to clean up afterwards.
If you're having two eggs – and I do recommend that you do – remember to take the tops off both. If you don't the second one will continue to cook and the yolk will become slightly too well set.
Make the soldiers while the eggs cook. Sometimes I sharpen everything up a bit by adding the merest scraping of Marmite to the toast. It's an amazingly good combination.
Some people would not consider eating an egg without salt and pepper, others need a knob of butter. I don't bother with any of those but, if you do want to add a pinch of salt, I suggest that you use some plain ordinary fine table salt rather than those lovely big flakes from Maldon. Too much crunch.
You are now ready to dip the soldiers into the egg. Expect a little yolk to surge up and spill over the side. Watching the dribble run before catching it with your finger is all part of the fun.
VARIATIONS
When asparagus is in season, providing its plentiful glut in May and June, try dipping some tiny, lightly steamed, tips into the egg instead. It makes a wonderful lunch or starter at dinnertime. If you pour a little melted butter on the tips before serving, the effect in the mouth is deliciously similar to hollandaise sauce.
CHICKEN SOUP WITH DUMPLINGS
I really couldn't decide whether or not to include a recipe for chicken soup. It seems that it's been done to death recently. I'd guesstimate every other cookbook must have a version. Maybe, though, I've just been noticing it more than usual.
I won't condescend to any Jewish readers out there by telling them how to make kosher dumplings. They surely don't need me to do that. Similarly I'm not going to come over all 'this soup is Jewish penicillin' or 'just as my mother used to make when I was a poorly boy'. I know next to nothing about kosher food, and – when I was ill – I was given Heinz tomato soup and a slice of Mother's Pride.
I offer you a recipe for simple chicken soup. It is very loose and entirely open to change in any way that you fancy. It is a fairly intuitive and simple thing to cook – what took time was trying to find the right little nuances. Vegetables, herbs, and spices; I tried many, most were dismissed. Basil is not good, nor is oregano. Leek tops will turn the broth an unpleasant shade of green, and taste quite wrong. Avoid tomatoes. I can see that some people may appreciate the aniseed kick from a whole star anise or two, but I'm not particularly fond of it – too pungent for this. A small pinch of saffron is pleasant, occasionally – mainly for the colour.
Someone suggested that I add a slug of gin just before serving. Initially I added rather too much, I made a G&S: Gin and Soup. I tried adding dry vermouth, one of my favourite two bottles that I keep at an arm's length from the stove – just to cook with (the other being Madeira). The gin was better. Juniper is widely reckoned to be a principal flavouring in gin. I had a look at the bottles, which I normally have in the house, to see what is in gin. The Plymouth gin bottle was of no use to me. It went on about monasteries and Dartmoor spring water, but had no list of ingredients. The people who wrote the label for Bombay Sapphire were much more helpful. They informed me of the way in which the flavours of the botanicals are imparted into the spirit and that they are (in the order as listed): Almonds, Lemon Peel, Liquorice, Juniper Berries, Orris, Angelica, Coriander, Cassa Bark, Cubeb Berries, and Grains of Paradise. Not that I would know a Cubeb tree if I was sitting underneath one, or – it might only be a bush. I have settled for adding two or three juniper berries (crushed with the side of a large kitchen knife) to the stock. It works very nicely. I've reverted to using the gin for the odd, post-children's-bath-time pre-dinner, dry martini. Cocktail hour is definitely due a comeback.
There are cookbooks out there, huge bestsellers too, that start their chicken soup recipe along the lines of 'first take two small or one large boiling fowl'. I looked for some at the supermarket. They didn't have any boiling fowl, of any size, at all. I don't generally buy chickens from my butchers. It's a rash generalisation, but butchers, it seems, stock pretty average birds. I think it's because there is no room for their craft. They just buy them in, put them in the counter and they stay there 'till you buy them'. They don't slaughter them, hang them, pluck, draw, or butcher them. They just whack them with the chopper. I think butchers find chickens a bit boring. My local supermarket used to stock French, free range organic chickens, from the area near Le Mans. They now sell hugely expensive, but brilliant, chickens from Sheepdrove Farm. These are the tastiest chickens I have found that you can, simply, buy.
Old boilers have pretty much disappeared from the butcher's shop. My butcher can get them, if you order them, but they're an expensive chicken. They'll take a week, maybe two, on order. If you are able to wring the necks of your own chickens – then, once they're too old to lay any more, this is a good thing to do with them. A proper boiling fowl is an old egg layer that has retired – full of flavour, but tough as old boots. That they are so expensive is particularly galling considering they are almost worthless at the farm (factory?) gate and would otherwise become pet food or nuggets.
It's more likely that you will want to make chicken soup with the carcass after you've roasted a whole bird. This works out fine, but I suggest that you do add some fresh chicken to the pot. It will help tremendously with the flavour. I normally throw in a drumstick or two, or some wings. The 'hand' and 'forearm' (an understandable anatomy analogy) are often available quite inexpensively. I chop them in two, and use the forearm (the bit with two long bones in) to make buffalo wings. The tips then get bagged up and frozen until I'm making soup or want extra-potent gravy.
I like to add either some dumplings, or some very small pasta to the soup. Often I add both. If you're doing the dumpling thing – and there are lots of sorts to choose from – I suggest you try egg and flour dumplings. They are much easier to make than many other sorts, and you will probably have the ingredients in your store-cupboard already. I tried making dumplings with butter and ordinary self-raising flour once. I can't lie; they were awful. Matzo dumplings, called knaidlach, are fairly traditional. They are made with matzo meal and schmaltz, which is just chicken fat. You can use butter instead, but it's not kosher. Unless you live in a city and have a kosher butcher nearby you'll have to make the schmaltz yourself. Ask your butcher to save you a whole heap of chicken skins (I'd be amazed if he charged you for them) then just heat them very gently in a deep-sided roasting tray in the oven until all the fat has run out. Strain it, chill it, and you have schmaltz.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Five Fat Hens"
by .
Copyright © 2006 Tim Halket.
Excerpted by permission of Grub Street.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
Before We Begin,
January,
February,
March,
April,
May,
June,
July,
August,
September,
October,
November,
December,
Index,