The Weekend That Was....err Part 2 and Overdued!!

First of all sorry for this delay and this format, am still very amateur when it comes to formats on this blog thingy...like I always said, buat IT, computer contracts bolehlah...but am not techno savvy at all...anyway...

Here is the recipe on how to make Chocolate Cherry Trifle, that DH forced me to make to curb his mengidamness...I substituted cherries with strawberries, blackberries and rasberries as I couldn't find them @ Cold Storage that day of purchase...recipe is from Nigella's......

Chocolate Cherry Trifle

Ingredients
11/3 cup milk
11/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
1/3 cup cocoa powder
4 oz bittersweet choc - melted, use immediately after
chocolate cake- I bought, to safe time from baking
morello cherries- kalau tak ada, I used all the summer fruits above
black cherry conserve-I used St Dalfour's
cherry juice

Method
Very easy....
1. Best if you prepare the custard first as you need to chill it before puring it over the cakes, fruits layer.
2. For chocolate custard....mix eggs yolks, sugar and cocoa powder, making sure there are no lumps. Heat the milk until it starts to boil, add 1/3 of the milk into the yolk, sugar and cocoa powder mixture, and pour back the mixture into the pot, add the heavy cream. Continuously stir using a whisk over low fire, until small bubbles appear. Cook for another 2 minutes, pour into another container, let cool a bit and cover with cling film...chill for 6 hours, or best overnight. Once chilled, fold in melted bittersweet chocolate.
3. Cut the chocolate cake and sandwich with black cherry conserve, layer at the base of bowl, and pour cherry juice, just enough to cover the cake.
4. Arrange cherries or summer fruits on the cake.
5. Pour the chocolate custard over the fruit and cake layer, leave to chill for 2 hours.
6. When ready to serve, pour whipped cream and shaved chocolate and indulge and start counting calories, I won't....




















Ida, here's how to marinade chicken for roast chicken that I was telling you about....learnt this from Safura, but I improvised by not tying the chicken, instead I made a slit at the thigh, and shove the other foot into the left thigh, to keep the feet together and tak terkangkang!!

Roast Chicken
1 medium sized chicken- clean, buang all the fat and excess kulit, dry it using a muslin cloth.
For the marinade, I usually use rosemary, mustard, honey, olive oil (butter will make it more lemak!), salt.
I usually stuff it with a granny smith, it makes the chicken very juicy and succulent. Safura uses an onion. You can also stuff carrots and tomatoes into the chicken.
I usually roast sliced russet potatoes alongside, Safura usually makes mashed potatoes.
I just use the juice that came from the roasted chicken as gravy, Safura usually makes a separate gravy. But we never use OXO cubes!

As you can see, I slide two fingers underneath the skin (try not to break the skin), and stuff the marinade under the chicken skin, after that I put the chicken feet together and pour the rest of the marinade all over the chicken. Because my children couldn't wait for it to be ready, I rarely prepared the chicken and set aside, it's usually a case of marinade and bakar straight...bakar at 180-200 degrees Celcius, turning the chicken every 20 minutes...

For mashed potatoes, kupas russet potatoes, 5 or 6 medium ones, cube them and boil in just enough water to cover the potatoes in a pot. Once all the water dah dried up, stir the cooked potatoes on slow fire to remove any excess water. Mash it, sprinkle salt to taste, add herbs to your liking, add double cream, just nice to smooth it. Go ahead, give it a try and ngap, ngap, ngap....