COOKING WITH KNIVES

 A few years back I bought a cookery book titled One Knife, One Pot, One Dish. It was by Stephane Reynaud who I’d never heard of at the time – though he looks a cheerful enough fellow

And I certainly didn’t know he ran a restaurant in Shoreditch named Tratra, though I gather it’s now closed.

 

Nevertheless, the concept of one knife, one pot, pot dish sounded and continues to sound like a great idea.  The problem with the recipes in the book was that many of them involved ingredients that I’m unlikely to obtain in my current place of residence, despite there being a reasonable local butcher and a decent fish man who comes on Saturdays. I’m talking about things such as beef cheeks, pork cheeks, oxtail, veal shoulder, veal knuckle, speck, shadefish (no idea what that is), bintje potatoes (likewise). 

 

But the idea of the one pot dish never quite went away and so at the weekend having a bought a chicken and wanting to do something easy and mildly interesting with it, I chopped it up, marinated it, and in due course put it in an oven tray along with with potatoes (not bintjes) and some sprouts and then roasted the heck out of it.  Does an oven tray count as a one dish? I’m not sure but it worked pretty well.  And it looked like this:

 

To be fair, the end result isn’t a million miles away from Reynaud’s ‘Footy Chicken,' though that involves ketchup and a jar of chilies, but I only found that out afterwards.

 

Anyway, once my chicken was eaten, the carcass made a chicken stock.  Some left over potatoes and sprouts were added and liquidized, and there you have a very acceptable soup.

 I suppose this is in fact two dishes, and making the stock and the soup required a saucepan too, so in the end it may be two dishes, two pots, but still just the one knife.  Not such a catchy title, I know.