What to do with half a chicken

Wednesday for me is a funny day for dinner.   It's the day I look in the fridge!!

What I mean is that once a week, usually about Wednesday, I check the fridge to see what has been put in there over the weekend and maybe needs to be dealt with.   Mostly it doesn't need to be eaten right away but it allows me to plan a meal in the next couple of days that will reduce my wastage by using up the left overs.

Some days I'm truly surprised at what I find.  Oh, sure, I can usually remember cooking it and know when it is from, but often I have completely forgotten about it's existence.

Today was just such a day.  This morning I dutifully checked the fridges.  For reasons I won't go into I have two fridges, one in the kitchen and another one in the utility room.  Today I found half a roast chicken.

I remember cooking roast chicken when a friend popped in at the weekend but I had completely forgotten that a whole half a chicken was residing in the cool spaces of my fridge.

and so the title emerged.  and to be honest I didn't really have a clue.  Oh, I know plenty of ways of using up chicken but nothing tempted my taste buds.

I didn't want to make a huge production but just do something different and, of course, tasty.

I considered the plethora of sauces that you can use to brighten up cooked chicken, but, to be honest, no, I just didn't want anything like that.

I turned to my even colder spaces and looked for inspiration in the freezer.  The freezer has a regime much like Fridge Wednesday... I really should start to do this on a Friday.  I like the idea of Fridge Friday! Anyway, the freezer regime is much less disciplined and I also realised that it too was due for a bit of a sort out.

There were, however, a few king prawns that needed using up in the next week or two.  I was supposd to be looking for inspiration and now I had just added king prawns to my.....

King Prawns and Chicken....    Paella

and so, just about an hour later I was on my way to the market to buy some more seafood.   I was feeling a bit lazy so I decided to buy a frozen mix of seafood and a few mussels.  I already had prawn and the king prawns and on checking in the fridge I had enough chorizo and some ham.   Most paella recipes call for some sort of bacon but I often substitute ham.

So with a few things from the freezer, and some stuff from the vegetable box I was on my way.

Here's the recipe for my paella.  It looks complicated but it's just a case of adding everything into the pan.

Paella

Ingredients

500 ml (1 pint) chicken stock 1/2 a cooked chicken, 110g/4oz chorizo, cut into thin slices 55g/2oz ham cut into small pieces 1 teaspoon of minced garlic 1 large onion, chopped fairly small 1 red pepper, chopped 1 tsp herbs de Provence ¼ tsp dried red chilli flakes 1 cup (250ml) short-grain rice 1 tsp paprika 1 small glass rose wine 150 g mussels 6 king prawns 450g/1lb bag of seafood cocktail 100g frozen prawns handful of frozen peas 2 large tomatoes, cut into small pieces Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation method

Put the chicken stock in a pan and heat gently

Strip the chicken from the carcase, roughly cutting it into chunks.  remove the joints and cut them into drumstick, thigh, wing etc.

Heat some olive oil in a large heavy-based frying pan. Add the chorizo, ham and dried garlic and fry until meat is crispy.

Next add the onion and pepper and further cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the herbs de provence, chilli flakes and short grain rice, and stir well, coating everything in the juices.

Add the paprika and wine and leave a minute or so and then pour in the hot chicken stock, add the cooked chicken and cook for 5-10 minutes.

Add the mussels into the dish and then add the frozen seafood.   Sprinkle in the peas and chopped tomatoes and continue to cook gently for another 10 minutes stirring from time to time.

Add salt and pepper to taste

I served the dish with a hot baguette.