Food, glorious food... done my way. Pretence of perfection

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Chicken in pesto soup

For this recipe you need lots of spring onions and basil that is getting older than the use by date. My usual scatter-gun approach to shopping went awry again, but from mistakes usually come strokes of genius... but er, I think time will have to tell on this one I think.

To use up my basil I made a quick pesto with the basil, spring onions and garlic. I drizzled in the olive oil while it was being blended. I put that in the fridge over night as I cooked the stir fry that night... hence the monge tout and baby corn you can see above :-)

I browned two big chicken legs in a sauce pan, and added chicken stock once the pieces had had a chance to work off the fat from the skin. After about 30-45 minutes (I was watching football and reading a book so lost track of the time), I removed the chicken and turned up the heat. In went a bottle of Riesling (minus a glass ;-)) and I left it to reduce to about 2/3.

I separated the chicken pieces whilst the "pesto" was added along with the left over monge tout and baby corn. I also had some left-over rice* and decided to add that with the chicken seconds before serving.

It turned out quite nice, though it was missing that je nais se quois to properly cap it off I think. There again, maybe it was just too much fusion cooking, it is after all two left-over meals and chicken pieces. A dish too far maybe.

There was certainly nothing at the bottom of my bowl though :-)

*from the day before stir fry (salmon steak with vegetable rice [fired onions, peppers, garlic etc and then rice and water, you get the idea])

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done! I like your version of pesto ... I must try this.

Cat said...

pesto soup...hmm...i suppose you always have been odd. how did you find the riesling then? good enough i assume since you actually drank a glass lol

Nazca said...

I would do it again, with maybe leaving a bit of fresh basil for the garnish. And I'd get riesling next time too, good shout Cat :-)

Orchidea said...

Interesting soup... I never used pesto in this way. I would like to try it...
Ciao.

Nazca said...

I've never used it like this either, necessity breeds... etc