Rare Treat: Africola autumn chicken recipe

Africola autumn chicken recipe

Ingredients

– 1 Chicken breast
– 500g white peas
– 2 large onions
– 2 leeks
– 4 cloves of garlic
– Fennel tops
– Oregano
– 70g butter
– Bunch of cavalo nero
– 100g chicken skin

Method

1. Soak white peas overnight.

2. Sweat off onions, garlic and leeks in a touch of olive oil and salt.

3. Add white peas and stir for a couple of minutes.

4. Pour over chicken stock. Enough to cover. Continue to cook on a low temperature.

5. Heat remaining chicken stock to a simmer and poach breast for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave in liquid for five minutes.

6. Place chicken skin between two baking trays with paper and roast at 180c for 20 minutes.

7. Once chicken breast is turned off, finish white peas with herbs, salt, pepper, butter and a squeeze of lemon juice.

8. Steam cavalo nero for two minutes before serving. Finish with butter.

BOOZE PAIRING: NOELIA RICCI’S 2016 BRO TREBBIANO

Firstly, the labels on the Ricci wines across the board are beautifully designed so, even if you aren’t drinking it, it’s nice to have around.

Like the whale on the label, it’s a shy, salty, oceanic oddity that everyone will love. Some subtle lees action gives the wine some gravitas, but the bouncy lemon peel at the front keeps it fresh and playful. It’s more minke than blue whale, scooting about your mouth and doing backflips with an ease you might not expect. It’s fun, pretty to look at, and delicious. I’ve also completely run out of ways to exploit the whale metaphor any further.

MUSIC PAIRING: YELLOW OSTRICH’S WHALE

While it’s tempting to make you all eat chicken, drink whale wine, and listen to Lou Bega’s Mambo Number 5 on repeat, we might go for something with less aggressive trumpets and a shorter list of women’s names. Instead, put on the album The Mistress by Yellow Ostrich. Skip the first track, and go straight to track number two, titled WHALE. It’s got some weight, but for the most part it’s spritely dance-in-your-kitchen kind of album.

It’s the kind of obnoxious American indie-rock that someone on the Sea Shepherd would have, like, totally attended their gig in, like, a warehouse in New York that one time when they’d released their pre-first album which is the only one worth listening to, obviously. There’s jangly bits, and yelling bits, and sad bits, and dancey bits. It’s fun. Just have some fun!

africola.com.au

Photography: Sia Duff