THIS time Flintshire cook Charlotte Seddon shares a recipe for American comfort food to mark Thanksgiving, which was celebrated in the USA last week.
Charlotte, a semi-finalist in MasterChef 2020, said: “I was browsing the Instagram page of my Masterchef colleague Christian Day (the king of American style comfort food) and his Mac and Cheese inspired me for lunch that day. I whipped it up and, as expected, it was hit with my husband and also gained a lot of interest on my Instagram page. So, I thought it would be good to share the recipe with you all so we can all indulge in a bite of American goodness!”
She added: “This dish combines my two favourite comfort foods, fried chicken and mac & cheese.” If you are planning this dish in advance I would recommend marinating the chicken thighs in milk with some chopped onion and hot sauce as it tenderises the chicken and makes it even more delicious but if you don’t have time (or you forget) just drench the chicken in the milk and coat in the cornflour.”
Ingredients
Fried Chicken
150ml milk
½ onion thinly sliced
100ml Franks Hot Sauce
4 boneless and skinless chicken thighs
5tbsp cornflour
Mac and Cheese
30g butter
30g plain flour
400ml milk
2 slices of processed cheese
1 ½ tsp cayenne pepper
100g cheddar cheese
300g macaroni
Method
1. Slice each chicken thigh into 3 pieces and put into a bowl
2. Add the sliced onion and 25ml of the franks hot sauce and top up with milk until all the chicken is covered
3. Leave to marinade in the fridge for at least 3 hours but preferably overnight
4. To make the mac and cheese bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add the macaroni pasta and cook according to the packet instructions
5. Whilst the pasta is cooking make the cheese sauce. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan until it stars to bubble
6. Add the flour and mix thoroughly until it forms a paste (also known as a roux), cook the roux for just over a minute until it starts to turn light brown
7. Add the milk around 50ml at a time and mix thoroughly into the roux, the first few times it will come together more into dough than a sauce
8. Once you have added enough of the milk to make a thick sauce add the cayenne pepper
9. Tear the slices of processed cheese into bite size pieces and add to the pan mixing until it has melted into the sauce
10. Grate 50g cheddar cheese into the sauce and mix thoroughly until it’s melted
11. Season the sauce with salt and pepper, if it feels a bit too thick add a drop more milk. The sauce should be a consistency of a very thick custard
12. Once the macaroni is cooked drain well
13. Add the macaroni to the cheese sauce and mix well so that the sauce is evenly coating the pasta
14. Pour the macaroni into an oven proof dish and grate the remaining cheddar cheese on top
15. Put under a grill to melt the cheese, remove when bubbly and brown
16. Whilst the macaroni is under the grill, heat a deep fat fry to 170 degrees (or heat vegetable oil in a frying pan in order to shallow fry)
17. To make the fried chicken put half of the cornflour into a freezer bag and season with salt and pepper
18. Remove the chicken from the milk marinade and let the excess milk drain off. Add half of the chicken pieces to the freezer bag
19. Twist the top of the freezer bag so its sealed and it has created an inflated bag with the chicken and flour inside. Then holding tight to the twisted neck of the bag shake the bag so the cornflour evenly coats the chicken
20. Whilst the oil is coming up to heat remove the chicken pieces from the freezer bag shake off any excess and cook the chicken for 5 minutes until cooked through and drain on kitchen paper
21. Repeat with the remaining chicken
22. When it’s cooked add to a bowl and pour over the remaining franks hot sauce and toss until evenly coated
23. Place the chicken on top of the macaroni and serve
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