#18 - Charred Broccoli with Ajo Blanco + Crispy Chicken Legs with Beans and Pancetta
Hello team!
Welcome back to Feeder. Lots of you have said that you’d like more recipes for dishes to serve up alongside other things rather than one-pot dinners, so this week you are getting a couple of those (though admittedly the chicken you do cook in one pot, but sides are still necessary).
If you cook any of the recipes up, do tag me or send me a pic on Instagram @sophiewyburd. It is always a treat to see your recreations.
Sophie x
The Recipes
Charred Broccoli with Ajo Blanco
I find spring vegetables to be quite uninspiring, so I’m instead focussing on the ones just coming out of season whilst I wait for the bountiful summer haul. Broccoli is still kicking around, and it is very much my favourite veg, so today she is getting the star treatment.
Ajo blanco is normally a soup, but I like serving it thicc as though it were hummus. It makes a perfect creamy/acidic base for charred veg, and is also accidentally vegan.
Serve it with:
some good flatbreads for swooshing through the sauce (preferably something from a Turkish supermarket, or similar)
some kind of oniony pilaf. A mejadra is a classic Levantine comfort food using lentils and crispy onions - the Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi one from Jerusalem is great.
some brown butter braised radishes, like this one.
herby chicken kebabs of some sort - I like Georgina Hayden’s ones from her book Taverna.
Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side
200g purple sprouting broccoli or tenderstem
100g blanched almonds
60g white bread
1 clove of garlic
3 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 lemon
½ tsp chilli flakes
small bunch of parsley
salt, pepper and olive oil
Heat your oven to 200°C fan.
Make your almond sauce. Pour your blanched almonds into a dry frying pan, and toast them for 3 minutes, or until they are lightly golden. Cut your bread into small cubes. Peel and smash your garlic clove.
Add 75g of your almonds to a blender along with your bread, garlic, vinegar, your 4 tbsp olive oil and 100ml of water. Whizz this up until you have a really smooth, thick sauce. You may need to scrape down the blender occasionally to get it to this stage. Season to taste with salt. This is your ajo blanco.
Finely chop your remaining almonds, and get these into a bowl. Finely chop your parsley, and add this too, then zest in your lemon, and your chilli flakes and 2 tbsp olive oil. Give it a good mix. This is your gremolata.
Cut any tough ends off your broccoli stalks, then add them to a baking tray. Drizzle over a little olive oil and a big pinch of salt, then roast them for 10-12 minutes, until they have a good char on them, flipping them over halfway through.
Swoosh your ajo blanco onto a plate. Top it with your broccoli, then spoon over your almond gremolata and a little more olive oil. Eat it with good bread.
Crispy Chicken Legs with Beans and Pancetta
A chicken dinner is always a crowd pleaser, not to mention it is really easy. It maybe beige, and it may not win any prizes in beauty pageants, but it is very comforting.
The key to this one is to render out the chicken fat by frying them skin side down over a medium heat, and using that gold dust to cook off the rest of your ingredients. It can easily be prepped up to step 4, and then finished off when you want to eat.
I’d serve this one up with: