Sumptuous Sunday 4

My daughter has been nagging me for some time to make chicken meat balls, so I did so on Friday. Here's the (approximate) recipe -

• 500g minced chicken
• 1 egg
• half a small cauliflower
• 100g bread crumbs
• one tablespoon mayonnaise
• one medium onion, diced
• one medium carrot, diced

First, I diced the cauliflower into very small pieces then added a little water and cooked it in the microwave for 15 minutes. When the cauliflower had cooled somewhat, I added the mayonnaise and tried to mash it as much as possible. Then I added the rest of the ingredients and mixed them by hand. Out of the resulting mix, I formed balls and put them on a greased baking tray. I cooked the balls for 40 minutes at 170 degrees C.

I got the thumbs up from my daughter, a rare occurrence. Normally she finds something to criticise. 

If I were not cooking for my daughter, then I would have left out the carrot and added spices and celery leaves.

Along with the chicken balls, I served chicken breast. I cut up about 500g breast into small pieces and marinaded it with diced celery stalk, soy sauce and olive oil. About twenty minutes before we ate, I cut an onion into strips and fried them in the wok; when the onion strips started to brown, I added the chicken mixture and cooked that for another ten minutes. I don't like the soy sauce too much but the others don't complain.

Yesterday I cooked 'beer can chicken'. The result was not dissimilar to regular roast chicken, which requires virtually no preparation at all. It's difficult to see from the picture, but the chicken is 'standing up' by virtue of having a beer can stuffed into its cavity. The idea is that the inside of the chicken is bathed with steamy beer, keeping the chicken meat moist. I was not convinced, and so this is one recipe which I won't be trying again.