My lighthearted post relating how thoughts about a certain mysterious and pseudonymous local writer were triggered by writing down a recipe for a dinner dish was honoured with a link on Beatties Book Blog, which in its turn led to a lighthearted and entertaining stream of comments.
Gender guesses, stray theories, gay sleuths in the literature, it's all there. Have a read.
Meantime, tra-la, here is my verdict on the recipe for Caramelised Chicken Tuna, which I plucked off Beattie's rave review of the Home at 7, Dinner by 8 cookbook.
It was cheap, easy, and absolutely delicious. I mixed the marinade (used molasses sugar instead of regular brown), trimmed the chicken legs well, removing all surface fat, and any fatty skin, and then soaked them in the mix. Three hours, from memory. Meantime, I prepared the tomatoes and onions. I like to leave the little stem and a couple of little leaves on the vine tomatoes, scoring the top -- somehow, it seems to improve the flavour. Oh, and I only used eight, to save a fight over the extra two in a party of four (the recipe says ten). Cut the red onions in big chunks, then when the guests arrived dropped it all in the oven dish, poured over the marinade, and slid it into the oven.
I turned down the heat, as pre-dinner chat was getting lively and longwinded, which might account for the large amount of marinade in the finished dish. But I simply froze the excess for another time, and the chicken was wonderfully moist. Tasty, but not too sweet. Served with baked potatoes and a small green salad, treacle pudding to follow.
A huge plus was that there was surprisingly little to be cleaned up afterward -- just an oven dish, salad bowl, plates, and cutlery. Ron was very pleased.
I liked the hint of molasses from the Worcestershire sauce and the sugar I used. One guest said she would try adding garlic, which would be interesting. All in all, a recipe I will certainly be using again, and will enjoy varying slightly as I go.
But there is still a mystery. Why is it called Caramelised Chicken TUNA, when there is no fish in the dish?
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