Masterchef - Claire's Masterstock Chicken

Mr Mel & I are avid Masterchef fans, never miss an episode, and have tried several of the recipes from the show, incl Mushroom Risotto, Julie's Cheesy Lasagne, Pumpkin Risotto, Gary's Pork Ribs with BBQ Sauce.  On the weekend we decided to attempt Claire's Fried Masterstock Chicken with Chilli Caramel & Orange Salt.

Let's just say there is a reason why there are no other photos on this story.............................!!

I put together the shopping list, most things we either had or were easily sourced at stupormarket, except for the Sake.  Who would've known that none of the pubs in this small town (there's 7) would stock Sake!!  I tried all the pubs, BW&S, Coles Liquor, Woollies Liquor, and then finally found a very dusty bottle at IGA liquor.

Once I get everything home, we started getting organised, pulled out our biggest saucepan, and realised that it probably wasn't going to be big enough for all the liquid (600ml soy, 1/2 bottle sake, 4.5L water, oops!

So Mr Mel and I are standing there with the soy, sake, spices and 2L of water in our saucepan, thinking what are we going to do. Then I think how big is the slow cooker? Mr Mel gets it, and it's a 6L one, woohoo we think.

Reading the recipe it says bring the liquid to the boil, so we put the slow cooker on high, after an hour it's not even bubbling, so I ladle the liquid into 2 saucepans and bring it to the boil there, then pour it back into the slow cooker.

The recipe says keep it on a simmer, the slow cooker struggled to simmer all that liquid, but we put in the chook and gave it a little longer than the recipe.

We got the oil ready to fry the chicken, cut the chook in half, reading the recipe it doesn't say how long to fry it for, or what side to start on, just till golden brown, not overly helpful if never done it before.

So we put one half in skin down, one skin up, after 5 minutes of frying & basting (and my tshirt ruined from splattering oil), they're both going golden, we give them an extra minute, then take them out.

Mr Mel starts chopping up the first half, goes to chop the leg off and there's blood & pinkness!!  So back in the oil they go, another 5 minutes, they're very very golden, but no blood, thankfully!

We whipped up the caramel, salt (smelt lovely), bok choy & broccolini and after starting at 6pm, aiming for a 7pm dinner, we sat down to dinner at 9.30pm.  But luckily the wait was worth it, the chicken was delish, the caramel so sticky and yummy, and the salt very different, but moreish.

So I guess the moral to the story is, don't just check ingredients when cooking something new, check utensils also!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)

Till next time,

PS am thinking of contacting Masterchef re their recipes, not the first time the instructions have been quite vague and confusing, they asked for 1/2 bottle of sake, how big a bottle are they talking? Ours was 720ml but you can get bigger and smaller. And the instructions on frying the chicken were a bit vague, and made the process a bit scary having not done it before.