Back to Basics -Chicken in red sauce a La' Nonna

As I write this I am currently sitting on the train singing to myself (in my head of course) the lyrics of "sending out an SOS…. message in a bo-tt-le". I just saw a street performance by a band, with a full drum set and guitars at Charing Cross, and they were great! This is one of the reasons why I love London, people can just do their thing anywhere and anyway they want too and it's part of the norm. 

As I repetitively sing S.O.S it's got me thinking, I know something that's in need of some help, and that's my blog. Working in digital, you would  hope I would practice what at I preach on my now personal sites. I can almost hear myself say "fresh is best" when it comes to content. So I'm feeling rather guilty about my blog at the moment.  Plus I'm not sure why, but every-time I say or hear "fresh is best" I automatically think of fish. 

So as I have come to realise living in London, naturally leads to a busy lifestyle. Finding time to exercise, socialise, and cook homemade dishes with a full time job and a decent commute everyday can be a tad challenging. Even for an over organised and sporadic person like myself.  So today I'm going to dedicate my blog to back to basics and the simple stuff. 

Now lets talk food, that's what you are here for isn't it? If you following me on my various social platforms, you would have seen my banana muffins, with butterscotch pieces. I had so many bananas going brown I cooked up loads of them and froze half so we could eat them at a later date with clotted cream. - Just in case you wanted to know.. 

So I won't back track with stories and tales of adventures past in the last month or so, I'll keep it #fresh. 

Last week we went down for a delicious meal in #Greenwich at the Cutty Sark pub which belongs to the Young’s pubs estate. 

We started the meal with the special; ½ dozen of fresh oysters with Spanish onion and red wine vinegar dressing  ( totally looking forward to recreating this as it was delicious) and a very tasty gin cured salmon on buttermilk pancakes with toasted juniper berries and fennel salad.
Followed by the dressed Devon crab and salmon fish cake served on spinach with hollandaise sauce and a poached egg. I know what your thinking already.. #alittlebitfancy To keep it short, the food was great, the view was wonderful and I love seafood- possibly as much as I do cheese.

We have been super lucky for a foodie adventures this week and secured free tickets to
Feast food festival. We sampled the best cheese toastie from the Cheese Truck, pork lion in bbq sauce with spring onion from contemporary British restaurant the Aqua Shard, then a spicy satay chicken dish from Rosa’s Thai Café.

Amongst other things not only was the food delicious we sampled some of the Meantime beers, tasted the delicious and spicy Firestarter Whisky, sampled the  Pontoon cocktails sachets on lanyards. Then finished the night at the Peroni bar drinking.., yep you got me Peronis. Overall the best way to spend a Saturday. This wasn't our first Feast and definitely not our last, I am already looking forward to the next one closer to Christmas.

So I mentioned back to basics earlier, and this is where we take all the trimmings and glamours food and go back to simpler time, a simpler time perhaps with an Italian nostalgia. My Nonna always called the dish I have in mind peasant food, perhaps because it's simple in flavor and simple to make. I guess peasants in Italy would eat it in the olden days. However  that being said or typed I should say, I love this dish and would rather eat it all the time just because it tastes good, not just because it's cheap and easy to make.

I also think it's more of a wholesome meal best enjoyed on a lazy Sunday.  So what's this dish called you wonder? It's chicken in red sauce. Not a hard one to remember, amongst the two core ingredients in the name of the dish you can also find fresh basil, garlic and spring onions (or brown onion, depending on what's in the cupboard) served on mash. I love this dish as it reminds me of sitting around my Nonna’s kitchen with all the family when I was a little girl. Little meaning like under 8.

One of the best things, well two actually is when cooked for long enough the chicken falls off the bone while you are eating,  it’s simple to make and always delivers a smile to my face.  ( Well that’s three good reasons!)

With the chicken I prefer to cook this slowly, as this is the key to making the meat juicy and tender so it falls off the bone. To start up, dice all the ingredients and cook off the onion and garlic in olive oil and pepper corns in a medium to large size pot. Once these have started to turn golden place the chicken in and add the rest of the ingredients and give it a good stir, put on an a medium heat for 1 hour then on low for an addition 1-2 hours. I find that when cooking this dish you will need to check on it and give it a stir occasionally. If you feel the sauce is evaporating add some water at your own discretion. 

What you will need if you want to try this as well.

4-5 chicken drumsticks, thighs  

8 cherry tomatoes or 1-2 tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic  

3 spring onions

3 springs of fresh basil

2 table spoons of tomato paste

2 cups of crushed tomatoes 

1 chicken stock cube

Pepper and Sea Salt for seasoning

If I need to tell you how to make mash, you are reading the wrong blog, but just in case you need potatoes, butter milk and seasoning. I think YouTube will have a few options if you really get stuck!

Well that’s it for me for tonight, I am off to the supermarket to buy something to make for dinner. 

Something with rice I think. 

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Good night from #cassieskitchen

Cass x