Bean - Chicken: the new classics

Always one of my favorite ingredients, chicken is succulent, flavorsome, versatile, inexpensive and healthy. Its very popular in our house as my wife, Jenny, hasnt eaten red meat since she was a child, so Ive cooked more chicken than most, but we never get fed up with itwhy should we? Few foods blend as well with such a range of different ingredients and flavorings, so theres always something different to try. In fact, I cant think of anything that couldnt be successfully paired with chicken to make a delicious mealfrom delicate to robust foods, from subtle, creamy sauces to hot fiery curries, fruit or vegetables, fish or cheese, herbs, spices or nuts, rices, legumes or pasta. Plus, as there are mouth-watering chicken dishes in every cuisine around the worldfrom curries to Oriental stir-fries or chicken and french friesthe skys the limit.

For a modern and health-conscious diet, too, chicken checks all the boxes as it is both low in fat and a great source of protein. A 3-ounce serving of baked chicken breast contains 4g of fat and 31g of protein, compared with 10g of fat and 27g of protein for the same portion of broiled lean steak. This makes it a sensible and nutritious part of a healthy balanced diet, and great for those who are trying to slim down a little, toocooked in the right way, of course.

Chicken is also fantastically versatile. It can be cooked by almost any cooking methodslowly for a succulent stew, or quickly with a crisp, pan-fried skin. The various cuts lend themselves to every different style of cooking, giving us so many choices that we can keep the interest going in our mealseven if we were to eat chicken every day.

As well as its versatility, in these budget-conscious times, chicken scores highly as an inexpensive meat. And the fact that nothing is wastedeven the carcass makes wonderful soup or stockis an added bonus. Its hard to think of a better set of credentials for any ingredient to be chosen as the star of a book and I hope youll enjoy seeing it in the spotlight.

So I am delighted to be able to share some of my favorite chicken recipes with you. In writing this book, I set out to discover as much as I could about chicken and why we love it so much, and I have created recipes that I hope will inspire you to experiment and enjoy this fabulous meat as much as I do. I have set out to give you the best of the classic chicken recipes, experimenting with modern and unexpected twists along the way. But I have also created new recipes, exploring great flavor combinations that I hope will help you to revolutionize the way you cook with chicken.

Because of chickens versatility, cooks around the world have all taken chicken into their kitchens and created some of the most delicious recipes, each one with that perfect balance of ingredients. Some are recognized pairings, others evolved from happy accident resulting in flavors, textures, colors and cooking methods that make a really classic dish. These dishes have stood the test of time, and some of them are a starting point for my own recipes in this book.

Coq au vin was one of the first dishes I mastered as a chef, and I had to include a classic version (see ) because it is a recipe that still fits perfectly into our modern lifestyle. Cockerel with wine is known by every chef around the world. Based on the classic principles of French cuisine, this slow braise of chicken in red wine with mushrooms, bacon lardons and garlic makes a rich and warming dish. Created in the early twentieth century, its popularity was assured by the TV chef Julia Child, who featured the dish on her TV show and in the breakthrough 1961 cookbook, co-written with S. Beck and L. Bertholle, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Another recipe that I just had to include was a version of Caesar salad. In the 1920s, the Italian immigrant restaurateur, Caesar Cardini, was running a successful business in the US and Mexico. The story goes that after a rush in one of his restaurants, he would take all the ingredients he had left in the kitchen tableside and create a salad for the customer. Caesar salad emerged from that imaginative blending of ingredients: romaine lettuce, croutons, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, garlic and black pepper. Cooks have continued to experiment, adapt and tweak it in an infinite number of ways, including adding chicken to the recipe, and I have carried on that tradition. My modern version takes each element individually so they can shine in their own right. I hope you will enjoy my Deconstructed Crisp Pancetta & Charred-lettuce Caesar Salad with Anchovy Straws (see ).

Ive always loved chicken Kieva dish of battered chicken wrapped around cold garlic butter, bread crumbed and fried to a golden and crisp finish. Traditionally considered Ukrainian in originhardly surprising since Kiev is the capital of Ukrainethe Russian food historian William Pokhlebkin insists that it was invented in the Moscow Merchants Club in the early twentieth century, and was later renamed chicken Kiev when it was marketed for restaurants in Europe. I have taken it to another continent in my Asian-Style Chicken Kiev (see ) to give it a whole new dimension.

Another recent classic, fajitasor little meatbecame popular in the 1990s, spreading around the world from its home in Mexican and American restaurants with its characteristic sizzle. So often, we reach for the ready-made options when we enjoy this dish with family and friends, but I hope my Chicken Fajitas & Homemade Smoked Paprika Wraps (see ) will encourage you to make it all from scratch. Its easier than youd think.

Back home in the UK, I had to include that British classic, roast chicken. I fondly remember growing up in an English pub, run by my parents, and how we used to gather on Sunday for a family meal of roast chicken, often with as many as eight extra guestsusually friends of mine invited at the last minute. Even though the popularity of the traditional Sunday roast is waning as our lifestyles change, roast chicken still appears regularly on lunch and dinner tablesand not only on Sundaysaccompanied by roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy (although serving Yorkshire pudding remains contentious, many people insisting that it only goes with beef). When I roast chicken, I always know it is going to be tender and succulent because I soak it in brine before cooking. Try Lemon Verbena & Thyme-roasted Chicken (see ) and youll see what I mean.

So lets take a step back to find out a little about these valuable birds. Around 5,000 years ago in Asia, the red jungle fowl gradually gave rise to the modern chicken, which is now one of the most common and widespread domestic animals in the world. Estimates suggest that the worldwide chicken population is well over 24 billion (although I have no idea who counts them all!). That means there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird. More than 50 billion chickens are reared annually as a source of food, and we eat both their meat and their eggs. In the UK alone, with a population roughly one-fifth that of the US, we consume more than 29 million eggs every day, so its a good thing that some breeds of hen can produce over 300 eggs per year, the record being a somewhat surprising 371 eggs.