Chicken-recipes-potluck

From midweek meals to an RECIPES
elegant dinner party, chef
JP McMahon has a one-pot LUCK
wonder for every occasion

Photography Harry Weir |
Assisted by Brian Clarke

Wild duck, beetroot,
butternut squash and
purple sprouting broccoli

Recipe on page 20

RECIPES

¯ Wild duck, beetroot, butternut squash
and purple sprouting broccoli

Mallard, the specious of wild duck that we use in 3 Season the duck with sea salt. Warm some
our restaurants in Galway, is plentiful in the west
of Ireland. But it can also be sourced on the east more oil in the same pan. Sear the duck on all
coast from game suppliers based in Wicklow. sides until all the skin is caramelised. When
Smaller independent stores often stock wild you’re happy with the colour, add a large knob of
game such as venison, duck, and pheasant. If you butter to the pan and baste the duck
know a chef or restaurateur, they should be able continuously until the skin is a brown nut colour.
to help you source it from some of their suppliers
4 Blanch the broccoli in boiling water for 3-5
Serves 2-3
minutes until tender and refresh in ice-water.
3 medium organic beetroot
1 butternut squash 5 Place the beetroot on the bottom of an oven
1 wild duck, whole
Sea salt dish. Next, layer the squash. Season both
Olive oil vegetables with a little sea salt.
Butter
1 handful purple broccoli 6 Place the duck on top of the squash and
200ml Stonewell cider
pour the cider over the duck. Place the dish in a
1 Bring the beetroot to the boil in a small pot preheated oven at 160˚C/gas mark 2V until the
duck reaches a core temperature of 60˚C. You
of water and then reduce to a simmer. Cook until can use an oven thermometer to check
you can pass a small knife through the beetroot. temperature. Check also that the squash is soft.
Remove the beetroot from the pot and allow to This process should take about 20 minutes.
cool. When cool enough to handle, peel and slice When you’re happy with the duck, remove from
into 2mm cubes. the oven and allow to rest for five minutes.

2 For the squash, cut into four (no need to peel) 7 Warm the broccoli briefly in some boiling

and scoop out the seeds. Warm some oil in a large water and arrange around the duck to serve.
pan and brown the squash on all sides. When
you’re happy with the colour, remove the squash Tip If you can’t get a
from the pan and set aside.
whole wild duck, you can
also use joints instead but
the cooking time will vary.

Meatballs, chorizo and chickpea stew ˘

This one-pot stew derives from the tapas For the stew 3 Shape the mince mixture into 16 bite-sized
bars in Madrid. It is traditionally served in 50ml olive oil
winter at lunchtime 1 onion, finely diced meatballs. Oil an oven tray and bake the
2 cloves garlic, crushed meatballs for 20 minutes at 180˚C/gas mark 2V.
Serves 4 200g chorizo, diced
1 pinch saffron 4 For the stew, in a large pot, sweat off the
For the meatballs 2 bay leaves
300g pork mince 1 teaspoon smoked paprika onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Season with
200g beef mince 300g tomato sauce sea salt. Add the chorizo, saffron, bay leaves and
1 egg 150ml dry white wine paprika and cook for a further five minutes on a
50g day-old bread, crumbed 300g chickpeas, cooked and drained medium heat.
5g sea salt Sea salt
2 garlic cloves, minced 5 Add the tomato sauce and the white wine.
1 small onion, finely chopped 1 To make the meatballs, place the mince, egg,
1 teaspoon cumin Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. If the stew
1 teaspoon smoked paprika breadcrumbs and salt in a large bowl and mix gets too thick, you can add more water or some
A small handful of flat leaf parsley, thoroughly. chicken stock.

finely chopped 2 Combine the rest of the meatball ingredients 6 Remove the meatballs from the oven and
Freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil in a food processor and blend. Spoon the contents transfer into the stew. Add the cooked chickpeas
of the food processor on top of the mince and and stir everything together.
mix together.
7 Serve the stew with some crusty bread or a

nice green salad.

RECIPES

Tip The combination of

pork, apples, and fennel is
a classic one but you can
substitute different fruit
and vegetables depending
on your own preference.

Pork belly with apple, clams, fennel

Pork belly is a wonderful economical cut of meat For the sauce 3 To make the sauce, place the apple juice and
that is very popular in restaurants. We use 200ml apple juice
free-range pork from Castlemine farm in 100ml cream the cream in a pot and bring to the boil. Reduce
Roscommon. It is important to check the ratio Sea salt the heat and simmer for three minutes. Season
between fat and meat. There needs to be a nice to taste.
balance between the two, as the fat is just as 1 For the pork belly, rub the belly with oil and
important in the pork belly as it keeps the meat 4 In a large casserole dish, place the apple and
moist and makes it taste beautiful season with sea salt. Scatter the herbs over the
belly. Place the belly in a preheated oven at the fennel. Season with a little salt. Cut the pork
Serves 2 160˚C/gas mark 2V for three hours. Check the belly into three or four slices. Place the pork belly
belly in the last hour of cooking. When the belly is on top of the apple and the fennel. Pour the
600g pork belly cooked, a knife will pass easily through it. Remove sauce over the fennel and apple and place in a
Rapeseed oil the belly from the oven and allow to cool. warm oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the
Sea salt oven and place the clams around the pork belly.
A few sprigs rosemary and thyme 2 In a large frying pan, warm some oil and Return to the oven and bake until all the clams
4 baby fennel or 1 large fennel, cored and have opened. Discard any that have not opened.
colour the fennel. Remove and set aside. In the
cut into 4 same pan, warm a little more oil and fry the 5 Serve immediately with a crisp green salad.
1 apple, cored and cut into six apple to colour.
500g clams

Tip Good quality chorizo is

essential. We get the uncooked
variety from Sheridan’s
Cheesemongers but Gubbeen
also do an excellent version.

RECIPES

Partridge with onion and celeriac with truffle mash

This recipe uses partridge but you can use any Serves 2
wild bird, such as pheasant, teal, woodcock.
Wild birds have a wonderful gamey taste and 1 small onion
are excellent at this time of year as an Oil
alternative to chicken. The combination of Sea salt
truffle in the mash really brings the whole dish 1 partridge, deboned, two breasts
together. We use oil flavoured with truffles as
fresh truffles are extremely expensive and two legs
25g butter
300ml beef stock
1 celeriac, peeled and cut into batons

(you can do this with an apple corer)

For the truffle mash
500g rooster potatoes

250g butter, room temperature, cubed

Sea salt

1 -2 teaspoons truffle oil

1 To make the mash: place the potatoes in a

small pot and cover them with water. Season
the water. Bring the potatoes to the boil and
reduce to a simmer until they are soft. Strain the
potatoes with the aid of a colander and allow to
rest for five minutes. Mash the potatoes with
butter and season with the sea salt. Add oil and
set aside.

2 Half the onion and remove the root.

Separate the lobes from each other and
set aside.

3 In an ovenproof frying pan or

casserole dish, warm a little oil.
Season the partridge pieces with some
sea salt and fry on each side until
brown and crispy. Add the butter to the
pheasant and baste. After this, remove
the pheasant from the pan and wipe the
pan clean.

4 Pour the stock into the pan and allow

to come to the boil. Add the onions and
the celeriac and cook for five minutes.
Return the partridge to the pan and
transfer to a preheated oven set at
180˚C/gas mark 4. Cook until the
partridge is cooked through, about 15
minutes. You can use a temperature
probe for accuracy. The internal
temperature of the bird should be 65˚C
or over.

5 Serve with the warmed truffle mash.

Tip In the restaurant, I

use a potato ricer or Moulin
for mashing the potato
because it gives the potato
a wonderful smooth quality.

Jointed chicken with swede, dried fruit and pine nuts

This chicken stew derives from the Iberian 3 When the vegetables are nicely caramelised, Tip Be sure to keep your
peninsula and brings together the Moorish
and European food cultures of that land. pour in the sherry and bring to the boil. vegetables all roughly the
Instead of using all Mediterranean same size as this will help
vegetables, I like to use some local and 4 Then add the tomato sauce, the pine nuts to ensure an even cooking.
organic ones, such as swede, carrots, and
leeks. These are plentiful in Ireland in the the dried fruit, the rosemary and bay leaf all into
winter months. In this way you can have the the pot. Add the chicken pieces back in.
best of both worlds: the local and the global
5 Turn down the heat and simmer the sauce
Serves 2 – 3
until the chicken is cooked. This will take about
100ml rapeseed oil 20-30 minutes. When the meat is ready, it
Sea salt will come away easily from the bone.
1 whole free-range chicken, deboned into If the sauce starts to dry out, you
can add some chicken stock or
six pieces – 2 thighs, 2 legs, 2 wings: water. Remove from the
you can reserve the breasts for heat, check the seasoning,
another dish and allow to rest for 20
1 onion, diced minutes.
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small leek, washed and diced 6 To serve, place
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 medium swede, peeled and diced some chicken in two
150ml Oloroso sherry warm bowls and
330ml homemade tomato sauce or passata ladle the stew
50g pine nuts, toasted over the chicken.
1 handful dried fruits, such as figs,
apricots and prunes
1 sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf

1 Warm some oil in a large oven pot.

Season the chicken pieces with some sea salt
and fry them until they are brown on all sides.
When nicely browned, remove the chicken
from the pot and set aside.

2 In the same pot, add a little more oil and

fry in the vegetables in layers on a medium
heat. First the onions, then garlic and so on
down to the swede. Allow 2-3 minutes
between each vegetable. Be sure to season
each one individually with some sea salt, as
this will maximise the taste of the vegetables.

RECIPES Salt-baked plaice, cavelo nero,
seaweed and cauliflower ˘
Pictured on page 25
Salt baking fish is particular to Greece and
¯ Rabbit, carrots, barley Spain. By covering the whole fish in sea salt, you
and wild mushrooms form a protective layer that stops the fish from
drying out. This is a wonderful party dish. In this
Wild rabbit is a wonderfully lean meat with a recipe, I use wild plaice from the west of Ireland,
beautiful gamey flavour. Before WWII, it was one but in truth you can use any fish that can fit in
of the most popular meats for people to eat in your oven. In Greece, sea bass or sea bream is
Ireland and England. The advent of industrial very popular
chicken farming turned people away from the
consumption of rabbit. Rabbit is definitely Serves 2 – 3
making a comeback. I used a selection of girolles,
oyster, and blewit mushrooms but use whatever ½ cauliflower, cut in nice florets
you can get your hands on 50g butter
A handful of cavelo nero or kale, washed
Serves 2 – 3
Olive oil and de-stemmed
Sea salt 25g fresh seaweed, chopped, you can buy
1 rabbit, jointed into 2 shoulders, 2 legs,
it dried in health shops and rehydrate it
loin cut in 2 Olive oil
75g butter
A few sprigs rosemary and thyme For the fish
2 bay leaves 500g salt
100g barley 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, toasted
150ml PX sherry 2 egg whites
150ml chicken stock 2 bay leaves
200g wild mushrooms, sliced 1 medium whole plaice

1 Season the rabbit pieces with sea salt. In a 1 For the crust, mix the salt with the fennel

large pot, warm some oil. When hot, sear the seeds, egg whites, and bay leaves in a stainless
rabbit pieces on each side until they have a nice, steel bowl.
caramelised colour. Add a few knobs of butter to
the pan and baste the rabbit until golden. 2 Trim the fish and place on a well-oiled tray.

2 Remove the rabbit from the pot and set Cover the fish with the crust.

aside. Wipe the pot clean of the brown butter 3 Place in a preheated oven at 180°C/gas mark
with some kitchen roll.
4 for 15-20 minutes until the crust is hard.
3 Place the rabbit with the herbs and bay
4 For the cauliflower, fry the cauliflower
leaves into an oven dish. Scatter the barley over
the rabbit and cover with the sherry and the floret-side down in a little oil. When you are
chicken stock. Cover and place in a preheated happy with the colour (a nice golden brown),
oven at 160˚C/gas mark 2V. add the butter and baste the cauliflower. Lower
the heat and cook the cauliflower until tender. If
4 Bake until the barley is tender – this will take you want you can cover the cauliflower with a lid
or some greaseproof paper. Be careful to keep an
approximately 20-30 minutes. Be careful not to eye on the butter: you want it to brown but not
let the liquid dry out. Check the barley to burn.
occasionally. If it requires more liquid, add a little
extra stock. You can also turn the rabbit pieces 5 When the cauliflower is tender, add the
half-way through the cooking.
seaweed and cavelo nero and toss quickly
5 In a separate pan, fry the mushrooms for one together. Season to taste and spoon into a large
bowl.
minute in some oil and a little butter. Season to
taste. 6 Crack open the salt crust and serve the fish

6 Remove the rabbit from the oven. Scatter the with the warm cauliflower.

mushrooms over the entire dish and serve Tip If you do burn the
immediately.
butter while cooking
Tip Replace the the cauliflower, simply
remove the cauliflower
rabbit with a jointed from the pan, wipe the
chicken instead. pan clean, and continue
with a little fresh butter.

Rabbit, carrots, barley
and wild mushrooms
Recipe on page 26

RECIPES

Ling with sausage, white bean and sherry JP McMahon is an

Ling is a wild fish and a wonderful alternative to 1 In an oven-proof frying pan or casserole pot, experienced chef and
cod. It has the same flesh consistency so it works restaurateur based in
really well in any dish that requires a frim white warm some oil. Fry the sausage rounds until Galway City. JP, along
fish. The combination of pork and fish work very they have a nice colour.
well. Merguez is a Moroccan sausage similar to with his wife Drigín
chorizo. You can supplement any sausage made 2 Add the beans into the pot and fry for a Gaffey, was one of the
with smoked paprika
further minute. first people in Ireland
Serves 4 to open an authentic
3 Pour the sherry over the sausage and the Spanish restaurant,
Olive oil
4 merguez or chorizo sausages, sliced beans and bring to the boil. Cava Bodega, on

into rounds 4 Place the 8 pieces of fish on top of the beans our shores a number of years ago. Since then, JP
250g white beans, cooked and drained has gone on to open the now Michelin-starred
300ml medium-dry sherry and sausage and place in a preheated oven at
600g ling, pin-boned and cut into 8 pieces 180˚C/gas mark 4 for 10 minutes or until the fish Aniar (pronounced A-near) and the more casual
Sea salt is just cooked – it should still be slightly Eat Gastropub, all in Galway, as well as teaching
translucent in the middle.
cookery classes in the Aniar Boutique Cookery
5 Remove from the oven and serve. School. Despite three very different restaurant
offerings, what is consistent across all of JP’s
eateries is a commitment to supporting local,
seasonal ingredients where possible. JP has recently
launched his first, self-published cookbook, Cava
Bodega Tapas – A Taste of Spain in Ireland, out now.

Tip Jerusalem artichoke

is a nice addition to this
dish. Use two per person.
Scrub and wash before
boiling until tender in
salted water, then quarter.
Add into the stew before
serving, as pictured.
Potatoes can also be used.

With thanks

to House of Fraser, Dundrum, for the use of props: Le Creuset
24cm frying pan, page 19; Linea cast iron cream pot 21cm,
page 21; Le Creuset purple 1.3 l dish, page 23.