Impressing the parents

Well look what happens when you neglect you’re blog for a few days. They go and suspend you. I was so busy celebrating the one year anniversary of my blog that I completely forgot to celebrate the one year anniversary of my web hosting account. This little celebration should have involved contributing some of my hard earned cash for the privilege of a web presence but because they are changing billing systems I never got a reminder e-mail and so never paid up. Phew all sorted now.

J’s parents arrived safe and sound from the UK and are lapping up the warm weather here in Sydney. They are staying with us for a few weeks and have been busy scooting back and forth across the city visiting J's brother and his wife and their new baby - the first grand child. On Sunday there was some last minute change of plans and so I had to whip something up for them for dinner. We had done some pretty extensive food shopping before they arrived, to make it look like we always have a well stocked fridge and pantry, so we had a free range chicken just waiting for a good roasting. M, J’s Mum, had sent me over a recipe for a Chinese Roast Chicken so this was a good time to let her see that I do actually cook some of the recipes she regularly sends me over.

The chicken gets smothered in oil and Chinese five spices and roasted with some plums and chicken stock. The aroma while it was cooking was gorgeous. Of course the plums reminded me of one of my favourite duck dishes that I’ve had at Billy Kwongs so when I was reducing the sauce I threw in a few cinnamon quills and star anise. I served this with some lovely smoked rice that my new friends at the fish shop persuaded me to buy. The smoking definitely adds a new dimension to the rice but I did feel the need to explain to everyone that it was smoked and that I hadn’t burnt the bottom of the pot while cooking the rice.

The Chicken dish went down a treat and we enjoyed a lovely relaxing candlelit meal out in the garden while polishing off a few choice bottles of Penfolds. It amazing – next week I will be nine years in Sydney and still I am so appreciative of the great lifestyle we enjoy here with such fantastic weather.

I am avoiding an accidental green dessert with J’s parents but making a green cake. What could possibly go wrong. I will report on it’s success and also elaborate on my green pavlova incident soon.

The recipe for the chicken can be found here