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!”

The Leader:

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

The Leader:

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