Lemon Garlic Milk Sauce Chicken #BakingBloggers

As Jamie Oliver says, this lemon garlic milk sauce chicken recipe sounds like an odd combination but it’s actually incredibly delicious. The chicken is golden and delectable but the star is the garlicky milk sauce. You are going to want to sip that with a spoon straight from the pan.

This month my Baking Blogger friends are warding off vampires with strong garlic recipes. This is one of our favorites. You might also want to try my Slow Roast Lamb with 40 Cloves of Garlic, Garlicky Lobster Crab Scampi or my Garlic Chili Tiger Prawns.

Lemon Garlic Milk Sauce Chicken

This recipe is adapted from a Jamie Oliver creation I saw years and years ago on his series called Oliver’s Twist. The episode was Big Grub for Big Boys. But the first time I ever made Jamie's lemon garlic milk chicken, it was from his book, Happy Days with the Naked Chef and the chicken was cooked whole! It was called, quite simply, Chicken in Milk. Either way, still delicious.

Ingredients
2 lbs 14 oz or 1300g chicken pieces, skin on (Mine is a whole chicken, cut up.)
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to season
1/2 cup or 115 grams butter
10 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large lemon, quartered and seeded
3 in or 8cm cinnamon stick
Several sprigs thyme
2 1/3 cups or 556 milliliters milk

Method
Preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C. Season your chicken pieces liberally with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Melt the butter in your pan (choose one with a tight-fitting lid that can go from stovetop to oven) and fry the seasoned chicken in the butter. Skin side down first.

If you need to do it in batches not to crowd the pan, remove the chicken pieces after they brown on both sides.

Add in the garlic, lemon quarters, cinnamon stick and thyme. Pour in the milk.

Bake in the preheated oven, covered, for about 45 minutes. Baste with the cooking juices halfway through.

Remove the lid and cook for a final 15 minutes to brown the chicken a little bit more and to concentrate the sauce.

Jamie suggests pulling the chicken off the bones to serve but that seems like a lot more trouble than its worth. Just serve the chicken in pieces with spoonfuls of sauce, some thyme and lemon! Divine.

Many thanks to this month’s host, Sue of Palatable Pastime for the fabulous theme! Check out all the other garlicky recipes we have for you! Vampires, beware!

• Baked Garlic Sweet Potatoes by Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Baked Roasted Garlic Burgers by Our Good Life
• Crispy Garlic Baked Potato Wedges by Cook with Renu
• Garlic Breadstick Snakes by Palatable Pastime
• Garlic Cheesy Knots by Simply Inspired Meals
• Garlic Puffs by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Garlic Twists by Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Kale and Garlic Ciabatta by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Lemon Garlic Milk Sauce Chicken by Food Lust People Love
• Pampushky (Ukrainian Garlic Bread) by Tara's Multicultural Table
• Twisted Garlic Cheese Bread by Sneha's Recipe

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interesting in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

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Coconut Curry Roast Mini Pumpkins #FoodieExtravaganza

Just a few ingredients but I promise you that these coconut curry roast mini pumpkins are going to wow your family and friends. The hardest part is cleaning the pumpkins but these are so worth the time and trouble.

I’ve been mulling over this idea for quite a while just biding my time until the little pumpkins started showing up in my local supermarket. I love cutting larger pumpkins or butternut squash in wedges, seasoning them with spices, syrups and/or balsamic and roasting them, but it seems like a lot of the toppings just drip off without soaking in. Especially from the pumpkin wedges.

So I got to thinking. What if I filled small pumpkins and baked them whole? As you’ll see from the photos, a little bit of the coconut curry sauce did boil out and over, but plenty enough was left inside to make these guys absolutely delicious!

Coconut Curry Roast Mini Pumpkins

If your mini pumpkins have tender enough skin, you can eat the whole thing! Just cut them apart with a knife and fork. If not, serve with a spoon, for scooping out the tender coconut curry flavored pumpkin and sauce inside.

Ingredients to serve 2 – easily doubled or trebled, if you’ve got a pan and oven big enough!
2 mini pumpkins, about 1 lb or 450g each
1 (13.66 oz or 400ml) can coconut cream
2-3 tablespoons red Thai curry paste
Freshly ground black pepper

Optional for serving:
fried curry leaves
slices of fresh red chili peppers

Method
Scrub your mini pumpkins clean. Dry them off and then, using a sharp knife at an angle, cut the tops off. Remove any seeds or fibers from the tops and set aside.

Use a spoon to scrape all of the seeds and fibers from the inside of the mini pumpkins, making sure to get it all out, even from up around the top. I start with a normal spoon and then use a grapefruit spoon for a final thorough scrape.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. Put your clean pumpkins in a baking pan. If you need to shave a tiny bit off the bottoms so they stand upright, please do, just be careful not to make a hole.

Pour your coconut cream into a large measuring cup so you have room to whisk. Add the Thai red curry paste. We like things spicy, so I add three tablespoons. Whisk briskly until the paste is completely dissolved in the coconut cream.

Pour half of the coconut curry sauce in each pumpkin. Sprinkle in a little freshly ground black pepper.

Put the tops back on the pumpkins so they fit snugly.

Roast in your preheated oven for 45 minutes then test for doneness. If a fork doesn’t go easily into the flesh of the pumpkin, roast for another 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 5-10 minutes before serving. The coconut curry mini pumpkins retain the heat quite well and you don’t want to burn your mouth.

If desired, top with sliced red chili pepper and fried curry leaves.

Enjoy!

It's October so that means pumpkin recipes in honor of National Pumpkin Day on October 26th! Many thanks to our Foodie Extravaganza host this month, Lynda from Reviews, Chews & How-Tos.

• 15 Minute Ravioli with Pumpkin Cream Sauce from Faith, Hope, Love & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Apple Pumpkin Bundt Cake (Vegan) from Veggie Fun Kitchen
• Butter Roasted Pumpkin Seeds from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Chicken, Pumpkin & Bean Enchiladas from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Coconut Curry Roast Mini Pumpkins from Food Lust People Love
• DIY Pumpkin Spice Latte with Almond Milk from Hardly a Goddess
• Low-Carb Pumpkin Scones from Reviews, Chews & How-Tos
• No-Bake Pumpkin Cookies from Caroline’s Cooking
• Pumpkin Saffron Rice from Palatable Pastime
• Roasted Kabocha (Japanese Pumpkin) Fries from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Vegan Malaysian Red Pumpkin from Sneha’s Recipe

Foodie Extravaganza celebrates obscure food holidays, and we all post recipes using the same ingredient. Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page Foodie Extravaganza. We would love to have you!

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Spicy Beef Lettuce Cups

Spicy beef lettuce cups make a great main course but they’d also be fun as appetizers. Put the lettuce leaves and spicy beef in the middle of the party table and let family and friends help themselves.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went out to lunch at a beautiful restaurant in the middle of a manmade oasis just off one of the main highways that crisscross Dubai. Al Barari is a verdant refuge from the dusty sandpit that surrounds it, with streams, lily ponds and waterfalls.

Its restaurant, called The Farm, has a wide variety of choices in the menu, a mix of western and Asian dishes, with a little Middle Eastern thrown in as well. I ordered the spicy Thai beef salad, which frankly, wasn’t very salad-like at all. It was pretty much all spicy meat with a few random slices of zucchini, but it gave me the idea for this dish. I would have liked some crunchy lettuce leaves to eat with it.

Spicy Beef Lettuce Cups

This was a quick, last minute dinner. Because I was hungry and didn’t have time for marinating strips of beef, I used ground beef. Worked beautifully! If your pan isn’t big enough for my method, feel free to tip the crispy cooked beef into a bowl before cooking the ginger, garlic, chili peppers, and then the onions. Add it back when those are done.

Ingredients
1 lb 2 1/2 oz or 525g ground beef – not low fat
Olive oil, as needed
1 fat thumb-sized piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1-2 small red chili peppers, finely chopped
2 small onions, peeled and cut in wedges
1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese vinegar (substitute lime juice if you can’t find the black vinegar)

To serve:
2 heads baby cos lettuce, leaves separated, washed and dried*
1 small bunch cilantro, hard stems removed, chopped roughly
1 medium cucumber, seeds removed, cubed
extra minced chili, optional

*Save the smaller leaves and the heart of the lettuce for a salad.

Method
In a non-stick skillet, brown the beef over a medium high heat until crispy. Add a little olive oil, if necessary, to get it to fry. Beef in Dubai, even the beef that doesn’t say low fat, doesn’t seem to render fat out as it does in other places, so I do add some oil. (Also, my non-stick skillet isn’t as non-stick as it used to be!)

Once the beef is crispy, push it to the sides of the pan and turn the heat down to medium low. Add the ginger, garlic and chili peppers to the middle of the pan.

Again, if your beef hasn’t rendered much or any fat, drizzle in a little more olive oil. Sauté the ginger, garlic and peppers until they soften. Mix them in with the beef and then push it back out to the sides.

Add in the onion into the middle and turn the heat up slightly.

Cook the onions for just a minute or two, stirring well. You want them slightly cooked but still a bit crunchy. Mix them in with the beef. Remove the pan from the heat and add in the soy sauce, fish sauce and vinegar. Stir well to combine.

Leave the beef to cool for about 15-20 minutes. You want it slightly warm but not hot enough to immediately wilt the lettuce.

To serve, spoon the spicy beef into the lettuce leaves. Top with cucumber bits and some chopped cilantro. Add more minced chili, if desired.

I filled mine too full at first and they were a challenge to eat without spilling. A couple of generous tablespoons per lettuce leaf will do nicely. The very next day, as I was eating the leftovers, I also added avocado on top. Awesome!

Enjoy!

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