Early christmas with roast chicken, pizza, risotto and profiteroles

Last Sunday, it was a cooling and cosy day as it has been raining since Saturday. Another perfect day to cook and bake for my friends. I made roast chicken, half and half pizza, prawn risotto with rocket leaves and lemon zest and my personal favourite -profiteroles! It's my first time preparing these dishes. I started with some preparations such as making the pizza dough and the tomato sauce on Saturday as I want to make sure that I am done with cooking before all my guests arrived. This time, I was so glad that I managed my time better and all the dishes were completed in time except for the profiteroles. I only started baking when they were about to finish the mains to ensure freshness of the dessert.

Roast Chicken
Ingredients

1 large chicken

pumpkins - chopped to bite size

potatoes -chopped to bite size

sausages

fresh rosemary-roughly chopped

sea salt and pepper

oregano

olive oil

butter

ready made chicken stuffing -bread crumbs infused with herbs and apricot

Procedure

1. Pre heat oven to 200 degrees.


2. Heat the bread crumbs with 20ml of water with the knob of butter and set aside for 5 mins.


3. Rub the chicken with salt, pepper and oregano. Place the stuffing into the chicken cavity and seal it.


4. Place the potatoes, pumpkins and sausages on the baking tray. Season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Place the chicken on top and sprinkle the rosemary.


5. Place the chicken in the oven. 40mins for every 1kg of the chicken. Chicken will be ready when the juice runs clear when skewered.
   

Prawn risotto with rocket leaves and lemon zest
Ingredients

200g riso rice

1l chicken stock

500g prawns de-shelled and de-veined

50g rocket leaves

60g Parmesan cheese grated

80g sour cream

salt and pepper

1 large onion chopped finely

1tbsp garlic chopped finely

30g white wine

20g olive oil


Procedure

1. Boil the chicken stock and bring it to a simmer.


2. Sweat the garlic and onions with olive oil for 5mins in medium heat. Deglaze with white wine. Pour in the rice and stir till all wine are absorbed. Add the zest.


3. Pour the chicken stock, 1 ladle at a time, till all chicken stock is absorbed then pour in another ladle till all stock is used up.


4. Just before the last ladle of stock, add the prawns.


5. After all stock are used up, pour in the cheese and sour cream. Stir till well mixed.


6. Turn off the heat and add the rocket leaves.
   

31cam by 25cm thin crust Pizza
Ingredients
Pizza dough

200g plain flour

10g yeast

135ml warm water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of sugar


Procedure

1. Place yeast with warm water and sugar and let it stand till bubbles appear on top.


2. Place flour in large bowl and mix in olive oil and salt. Add the yeast mixture and mix together.


3. Knead on a floured board till smooth. It takes about 15mins.


4. Oiled a large bowl and place the dough in. Cover with cling film and let it rise to double in size. Takes about 50mins.


5. Punch down with fist once doubled in size and rolled it out on a floured board.


6. Place baking paper on tray, followed by the rolled out dough.
   

Tomato sauce

1 can peeled plum tomato

30g onion chopped finely

1tbsp garlic chopped finely

15ml white wine

1tsp oregano

a pinch salt and pepper

olive oil

Procedure

1. Sweat onions and garlic with olive oil for 5 mins. Deglaze it with white wine.


2. Pour in the tomato and mashed it slowly.


3. Add salt, pepper and oregano and simmer till paste consistency.

Pre heat the oven to 300 degrees. Spread tomato sauce over the pizza dough and top up with the ingredients you prefer! Heat about 20mins or till crusty.

Sweet endings!!! With my favorite profiteroles with macadamia ice-cream topped with 55% valrona dark chocolate and fresh strawberries.