My new favorite place is the African butcher in the market at Leeds. It’s amazing, but not if you’re squemaish. But they do do chicken sausages – they sound very middle of the road carnivore friendly don’t they? More importantly they have delicious offals! (More on that in another post.) I also like the fact whenever I got there, both butchers are eating sandwiches. Today they were also smoking some meat (I didn’t catch what it was) in the smoker in their shop. I’m working on my Afrikaans accent, so that perhaps one day they’ll ask me if I’m a Saffer*. The man behind me got asked “Saffer?” and he nodded. Then said “Jo-burg”. I concluded that if you’re from South Africa, you’re perhaps not very garrulous.
The best thing I’ve bought so far is some chicken hearts. (At this point I should say, I’ve not blogged yet about every single offal I’ve eaten … suffice to say that we had one go heart, but on a much larger scale.) They look a bit like large smooth blobs. They taste just like lean chicken thigh would taste. This is good for me because I’ve been well having the chicken craves.
Prompted by a letter from Cambodia, which agreed that Cambodians did indeed really like sour flavours, I wanted to sour up my chicken hearts. I also had some random veg in my fridge. Hence: Lime and Ginger Chicken Hearts with Cocina Squash, Fennel and Apple.
Ingredients:
- splash olive oil
- half a squash
- 1 onion
- zest 1 lime
- 1 thumb of ginger
- juice 2 and a half limes
- 8oz chicken hearts
- half a fennel
- 1 cooking apple
- Heat the olive oil in a pan on a medium heat. Chop onion finely, add to pan. Chop squash into 1cm cubes (roughly), add to pan. Add zest of one lime to pan. Grate half thumb of ginger into pan. SWOOSH AROUND.
- In a bowl, grate the other half of the ginger piece. Add lime juice. Add chicken hearts. This will marinade while you cook the other bits.
- Now chop apple into slices, add to pan. Use peeler or similar to shave half a bulb of fennel into the pan. MIX IT UP TOGETHER.
- Simmer for 10 minutes.
- Remove mixture from pan and turn the heat to high.
- Add chicken hearts and juice to pan. Cook five minutes on high.
- Return the veg mix to the pan and combine them both together.
Bob’s you uncle! I had my portion with brown rice, but as it’s not that liquid I think next time it would be a really good filling for tortillas! Then you could add sour cream. And all Cambodians love sour cream?
This dish was so delicious that I did something I never ever ever normally do. That was to eat the chicken hearts (the best bits) first! I know, send me to Broadmoor for that sort of maverick behaviour. I learnt that it’s best to save the nicest bits for last when I’m eating. It was a survival tactic born through the certain knowledge that I would have to eat what was on my plate and I could motivate myself through it if I knew there was Yorkshire Pudding at the end (for example). But that I guess is another story …
*Slang for South African according to Wikipedia
offallygood 