FLOWER POT KITCHEN: October 2024

20 Oct 2024

CHICKEN SHISH KEBAB

Juicy succulent chicken breasts marinated in a oregano, garlic, onion, Aleppo chillies, turmeric, salt, pepper and olive oil is all it takes for a lip smacking gorgeous face stuffing kebab, served stuffed into a homemade flat breads with mixed onion salad and pickled chillies, topped off with a garlic mayonnaise and hot sauce.

Prep Time 10 minutes / Marinating 1hr +

Flat Breads Proving 1 hr / Cooking Time 5 minutes each bread

Ingredients

(serves 4)

Shish Kebab

100ml olive oil

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp Aleppo chilli

1tsp sea salt

1tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp turmeric

4 chicken breasts large diced

Kebab Salad

1 red onion finely sliced

1 iceberg finely sliced

1 lemon cut into wedges

4 tomatoes sliced

1 cucumber sliced

6 Birds Eye chillies chopped

4 cloves garlic grated

1 jar mayonnaise

1 bottle hot sauce

1 jar pickled kebab peppers

Chopped fresh coriander

Flat Bread

500g organic 00 flour

50ml cold pressed olive oil

15g dried yeast

320g filtered water

10g sea salt

1 tbsp fresh oregano

First make the flat bread dough by placing all the ingredients in a large bowl if making by hand or in your stand mixer bowl and using a dough hook or your hands mix for 7 minutes until you have a elastic sticky dough, then cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for 1 hour.

Mix all the shish kebab dry ingredients in to the olive oil and then rub all over the chicken, leave to marinate a minimum of 20 minutes but the longer the better, even overnight.

Place the chicken onto your skewers and onto a roasting pan, if the roasting pan has sides add some water to the pan, this will steam the chicken while cooking resulting in juicy succulent chicken.

Bake 180 C / 360 F for 18 minutes until your chicken is cooked and reached 70 C / 158 F.

Flat Breads

Take a tennis size ball of dough, dust your work top with a little 00 flour, roll out a large disk no bigger than your skillet if your not cooking in a wood fired oven, heat to a hot heat, place the flat bread in the pan and cook for three minutes on first side and 2 minutes once turned over, wrap the cooked flatbreads in a tea towel to keep warm while you cook the rest.

Mix the grated garlic with the mayonnaise spread onto your flat breads reserving some for dolloping on the finished kebab, layer all the salad on your flat bread place on the chicken shish kebab and finish with more garlic mayonnaise and fresh coriander, roll up and eat!

LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.