Chicken and Maple Syrup

Those following me on instagram (ann.sutton.148) will have seen the regular postings of my lunchtime salads usually consisting of random fridge and greenhouse ingredients. Dressings are also becoming somewhat of a feature, blue cheese with celery, grapes and walnuts or horseradish and sour cream with left over steak being two of my favourites.

Todays salad was a selection of garden produce (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and green pepper) a handful of left over sugar snaps (from Peru I see sorry!) with chicken, bacon and a maple syrup dressing. I will say more about the dressing later it originated from an amazingly simple and delicious chicken recipe I cooked a couple of nights ago.

"Chinese Pot Roast Chook" was a recipe featured on John and Lisa's Weekend Kitchen last month I followed the recipe and here it is  https://www.itv.com/john-and-lisas-weekend-kitchen/articles/chinese-pot-roast-chook

My main reflections are that the combination of spices and spring onions inside the chicken together with the simple sauce of maple syrup and soy sauce give a depth of flavour which is reminiscent of Peking duck. The chicken cooked with the lid on and turned regularly makes it meltingly tender. I did take the lid off for the last 15 minutes to crisp it up a little. Pac choi and sugar snap peas lightly blanched then dressed with soy sauce and sesame oil worked well. The sauce creates itself so Thai rice was perfect to complete the dish.

The chicken was delicious cold too hence the salad. Maple syrup is not something I have used before but I reckoned with the aromatic chicken and some bacon it would work well and it did.

Balsamic and Maple Syrup Dressing

1 part balsamic vinegar ((I used raspberry)

1 part maple syrup

1 heaped teaspoon of Dijon mustard

1 splash of oil oil

Season to taste and mix well