Day 67: apricot comfort
The more familiar you become with ingredients and cooking styles, the more conscious you are of just how marvellous the final piece will be. For those with a well-stocked larder, this of course goes without saying, but for those of us still building our collection of store-cupboard essentials, it's quite the excitement. For me, the curiosity of how something might taste becomes replaced, in part, with the impatience and anticipation of knowing just how good it will be. And I knew very well that good things were destined for this choice of ingredients.
During this cookalong, I’ve been posting pictures across social media of when I get the ingredients together for each dish. It’s become a sort of picture diary and I simply love to admire all of the ingredients together in one frame, in their original glory. A moment to appreciate the colour, texture, taste and flare that each individual one will bring to the final masterpiece: an artist’s paint palette. It’s rather like looking at one of those colour-sample books when you’re choosing the colour scheme for your latest home improvement project.
Today’s pick, to me, has the most warming of colours: an inviting, comfort-inducing palette that just makes you feel cosy and good. It has been a particularly odd and emotionally draining week (all in a good way) and on Thursday (when I made this) I was struggling with even the most basic of functions. But, it helped to take a break at 5pm to prepare this, and then return to work for a few hours knowing that a vat of Nigella’s Chicken Cosima would be ready and waiting.
Nigella’s Chicken Cosima
You’ll read for yourself in the recipe intro that this was created by Nigella for her daughter, Cosima, to capture all of her favourite flavours in a one-pot wonder that was easy to adapt when feeding larger crowds.
The most demanding (and I use that word loosely and sarcastically) part of preparing this is the peeling of the sweet potato and then dicing it into cubes. If you’re a confident peeler and dicer, however, then you could probably do this blindfolded - providing you had a sharp sense of smell to identify the different spices, and a trusted hand to ensure you didn’t cut one of your fingers instead of the chicken, or indeed the potato or onion.
For me, though, it wasn’t so straightforward. I got to the butcher just in time before it closed on Saturday (they were already clearing the counters) and I just managed to get in the chicken thighs I needed for this week (I also needed some for the Chicken Traybake). I asked if he could debone six of them, but he seemed less than enthusiastic. Perhaps he wanted to get home! I should also imagine that, as a passionate butcher, he knows only too well how much sweeter the meat is when cooked on the bone. I had every intention of asking for the bones for stock, so don’t think that I intended to see them go to waste, I just wanted a little bit of hassle-free cooking! I don’t think that’s too much to ask for occasionally. Even off the bone, boneless thigh fillets are more flavoursome and tender than a chicken breast. In my humble opinion.
Anyway, not to bore you further or moan on about my (rather trivial) first world problems, I attempted to debone them myself. I suppose I didn’t do too badly, though I could have done better getting closer to the bone. Still, nothing was wasted and I cooked the bones and stripped the remaining chicken for a soup. I also know it would have been just as easy to cook them with the bone in and then just pull it out once they were done. However, it was going to be 9 pm (with an 11-hour workday under my belt) before I would be able to sit down for dinner and I really just wanted a bowl of something hot and comforting that I could eat with a spoon. And a spoon alone. For that desire, therefore, I won’t apologise.
I didn’t serve this with anything: I don’t think it needed it. I can’t recall if Nigella suggests anything but one may consider rice or a flatbread, however it is perfectly substantial with its orange morsels of soft, sweet potato, tender bitesize chicken pieces and creamily soft chickpeas. I can’t help but think some flaked toasted almonds would add a nice crunch, too. I feel my attempt has a brighter orange hue than the one photographed in Simply Nigella, and that could either be because of my lighting, my camera or me being a tad more generous (unwittingly) with my spices. In reality, and in defence of my camera and lighting, I can verify that it is in fact beautifully apricot.
Flavour musings
I have to admit that I’ve never really been a big fan of chickpeas, though this is probably due to a bad experience: I used a can of mixed pulses once and they were horribly grainy and floury. And you know my views on floury pulses! However, I splashed out for this and used a jar of chickpeas. A whole different story. I loved them!
Nigella’s Chicken Cosima is a bowl of apricot comfort that is every bit as beautiful as it is delicious: qualities echoed from the mother-daughter relationship upon which it was forged. A bowl of this warmly-spiced chicken was just reassurance needed towards the end of a - what can only be described as - one heck of a week. Emphasis on the good!
PS. Some of you may have been wondering what I did with the skins from the chicken thighs that I deboned, and I can assure you that they were not wasted either. I used them for Nigella’s Chicken Crackling, as seen in Simply Nigella, and they made an excellent desk-side snack as I continued with my work before sitting down for dinner.
