Woodfired travels #4 for the Morso

Here’s the latest recipe we cooked on our visit to Lyme Bay Winery with our Morso Forno woodfired oven and the lovely Nick Hook snapping away on one of those fabulously misty autumn days – full of the proverbial mists and mellow fruitfulness.

Chicken has to be one of our most favourite things to cook in our woodfired ovens – often disappointingly dry when cooked conventionally but succulent and slightly smokey when cooked with wood; seriously good especially when served with Lyme Bay’s Sandbar wine!

4 free range chicken breasts, skin on

3tbsp olive oil

A few fresh bay leaves

4 large field mushrooms

1 onion, peeled and very finely chopped

60g bacon lardons

½ tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves

Salt and pepper

30g butter

180ml Lyme Bay Sandbar

1 garlic bulb, cut through the middle

Good pinch of salt and pepper

 

1. Build a good fire in the Morso Forno in the centre of the oven and let it burn for 30 minutes to really heat through the floor. Move the fire to the side of the Forno, feeding it with small pieces of kindling to keep the temperature up.
   

   Make sure the floor of the Forno is well heated before moving the fire to the sides

2. Rub the chicken breasts and halved garlic bulb with half the oil and season well. Place them in a pan on top of the bay leaves and put it on a Tuscan Grill in the oven. The chicken will take about 20 minutes of gentle cooking to reach an internal temperature of 75C when taken with a probe thermometer which is when it’s done.
   

   Using the Tuscan Grill to create space

3. While the chicken is cooking, mix the chopped onion with the bacon lardons and the rest of the oil and cook all of this in a pan in the oven until the bacon fat runs and the onions are tender. Let the bacon/onion mixture cool a little, stir in the thyme leaves and then put it on top of the field mushrooms; put the mushrooms into a griddle pan and bake them underneath the chicken on the oven floor for around 10-12 minutes until sizzling.
4. When the chicken breasts are cooked, take them out of the pan and let them rest for a few minutes covered with foil. Put the pan back in the oven to reheat and add the butter. Once it has melted and is sizzling, add the Sandbar. Bring the wine to the boil and stir well with a wooden spoon to get all the chicken juices off the pan and to make a sauce. Reduce the liquid by half and season with salt and pepper as needed.
   

   Deglaze the pan with the Sandbar to make a sauce

5. Serve the chicken and the mushrooms with the Sandbar sauce on top of a few wilted leeks. Delicious!
   

   Woodfired Chicken – unbeatable!

If you’re thinking you need to learn more about wood fired cooking on a Morso, join us on one of our courses – you’ll learn lots, eat well (!) and have a lot of fun.

Xanthe Clay, food writer of the Daily Telegraph, says,

“…without wishing to gush, if you are getting a wood burning oven you really should do the Manna from Devon course. In fact, I’d say it’s essential”

 

• Tweet