Australian chef Katherine Bont is the latest to collaborate with Crane Cookware on its recipe series. Below, you'll find her recipe for aromatic chicken and tom kha broth, for which she uses the Crane C2 cast iron sauté pan, first roasting the chicken and aromatics before using the same pan to make the tom kha soup, resulting in a rich roasted favour.
"Cooking like this at home when we are just the 2 of us is perfect," says Katharine. "Making the most out of roasting a chicken, but in essence getting two different meals from one bird, using 1 pan. Genius!"
Part 1: Aromatic Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken, approx. 1.4kg (buy a nice cornfed chicken)
- 1 onion (could be white, brown or red or otherwise a few shallots)
Aromatics
- 100g galangal, sliced
- 1 lime, cut in quarters
- 3 lemongrass stalk, bruised with the back of a knife
- 8 large kaffir lime leaves
- 6 garlic cloves, with peel on and smashed with the side of a knife
- 6 dried long red chilies
- 1 tsp white peppercorns, whole
- Sea salt
- 2 tbsp oil (a neutral oil, like rapeseed, canola or sunflower oil)
Preheat oven to 200C
Slice onions into large wedges and place on the base of the C2 pan.
Take all of the aromatics and stuff into the chicken cavity. Stick the long lemongrass sticks in first and then fill everything else around. Pack it in tight. This will steam inside the chicken and release so much flavour.
Place stuffed chicken on top of the onions in the pan. Rub over the bird with oil and ensure it is covered. Then season generously with salt flakes.
Place into the preheated oven and once it’s in turn the temperature down to 180C. (Starting with this slightly higher temperature seals in the bird and helps get the skin very crispy!).
The chicken should be perfectly cooked after 1 hour and 20 minutes. Check it by placing a small paring knife into the leg joint, and if the juices run out clear its ready to be taken out and rested. If the juices come out red, leave it in a little longer.
Allow the chicken to rest on the bench, in the pan, for 20 minutes before serving.
Keep the C2 pan close by and remove the chicken to slice. Slice off the meat, serving half now and keeping half the meat for the broth later. If you want to have dark meat, or white meat for the roast dinner or perhaps half and half, the remaining half of the bird meat you can shred and remove all the bones placing it aside for tomorrows dinner, or lunch.
Serve the aromatic roast chicken meat with some simple steamed greens or stir-fried vegetables.
Part 2: Tom Kha Broth
Ingredients
- Chicken carcass and aromatics, from the base of the pan
Aromatics
- 3 lemongrass stalks
- 100g galangal, sliced
- 8 dried long red chilies
- 1 tin coconut milk
- 1 onion (white, brown, red or a few shallots)
- 1 tomato (or a few cherry tomatoes)
- 100g mixed mushrooms (oyster, shitake, shimeji or button mushroom mix)
- Salt
- Palm sugar
- 1 lime
- 2 tsp fish sauce
- Dried crushed chilli flakes
- Coriander, fresh
Place chicken carcass back into the C2 pot, along with all the aromatics, onions and juices on the bottom of the pan and from the stuffed chicken. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.
Skim the excess fat from the top of the broth, reduce the pan to a simmer and allow to cook for 20 minutes to infuse all of the flavors.
Remove the stock from the heat, and using a spider scoop out all of the solids from the broth. You can also pour it through a strainer and at this stage save the broth in a container in the fridge and resume making the soup for tomorrows lunch or dinner.
When it’s time to make the soup, with the stock in the pan add all of the aromatics and the tin of coconut to the pan. Bring to a gentle simmer and allow to cook over medium-low heat from around 10 minutes.
Add in sliced onion and tomato and allow to cook for 4-5 minutes. Then add the mushrooms for another few minutes. Add in the shredded cooked chicken.
Season the soup with salt and palm sugar.
Get 2 deep serving bowls, squeeze half of the fresh lime directly into each bowl. (we season in the bowl to keep the vibrancy of the lime and not cook it out in the soup). Add a pinch of dried crushed chilli and a good glug of fish sauce into the bottom of the bowl as well.
Ladle over the hot soup with all the aromatics and fillings directly into the bowl. Top with a few sprigs of fresh coriander leaves.
Serve with a bowl of hot steamed jasmine rice, and here you have yourself a fantastic meal day 2 of the roast chicken.
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