Sunday Lunch
A typical Slovenian lunch often starts with a soup (usually beef soup with noodles or `knedlci’, semolina dumplings) and continues with fried chicken served with roasted potatoes (restan krompir), and a salad. A dessert is also a must and can be anything from potica to a layered cake. The recipes for Slovenian desserts are here.
In this recipe we use a whole chicken, so we start with a chicken soup rather than beef soup.
Recipe
Fried chicken:
120 g flour
3 eggs
120 g bread crumbs
salt to taste
oil for frying
Sautéed potatoes (restan krompir):
1 kg potatoes
1 large onion (about 200 g)
70 g butter or lard
125 ml vegetable or beef stock
salt and pepper to taste
1 bunch parsley
Salad:
100 g rapunzel lettuce
2 eggs
apple cider vinegar, pumpkin seed oil(can be replaced with other kinds of vinegar and oil)
salt, pepper to taste
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken that weighs approximately 1.5 kg
Soup:
one small onion
1 clove garlic
3 carrots
1 stalk celery
1 parsley root
1 bay leaf
a few black peppercorns
6 sprigs of parsley
salt to taste
Semolina dumplings:
1 egg
30 g butter (melted and then cooled)
60 g semolina (coarse ground wheat farina)
salt to taste
Instructions:
Chicken preparation:
First cut up the whole chicken with a sharp knife. Start by placing it on the cutting board, breast side up. Cut the skin between the breast and thigh on one side and then bend each leg back until thighbone pops out of its socket. Cut through the joint and remove the thigh completely. Repeat this on the other side.
Next, remove the wings. Turn the chicken around, pull the wing to the side, cut through the skin, break the shoulder joint, and detach the wing. Repeat on the other side.
Finally, remove the breast. Carefully run the knife alongside the breastbone and cut very close to the bones.
The two chicken legs, two wings, and two boneless chicken breasts will be used for preparing fried chicken. The chicken carcass will be used for the soup.
Soup:
Wash the chicken carcass with water. Dice the onion into big chunks, and peel and dice the carrots and the parsley root. Dice the celery stalk.
Put the vegetables and the chicken carcass into a pot. Add 1 clove of garlic, salt, peppercorns, bay leaf, and three sprigs of parsley.
Add 2 liters of water and bring to a boil. Once the soup boils clean off the foam from the surface.
Cook for at least one hour on low heat.
Remove the carcass, garlic, onion and parsley sprigs.
Chop the remaining parsley.
Serve the soup with semolina dumplings garnished with parsley.
Semolina dumplings:
Beat an egg in a bowl. While beating slowly mix in melted and cooled down butter. Season with salt.
Gradually add semolina while whisking the egg mixture.
Let stand for about 15 minutes.
Put 500 ml water into a pot and bring to a boil.
Dip a spoon into water and use it to shape a dumpling. This video shows how to do it with two spoons, but you can also just do it with hands (that you must wet beforehand).
Cook for about 15 minutes at low heat.
When the dumplings are done, transfer them into soup bowls. Add chicken stock and sprinkle with parsley.
Fried chicken:
Take the two chicken legs, two wings, and two boneless chicken breasts and salt them. Leave them at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before frying - if the meat is cold, the temperature of the oil will drop too much once we add the meat to it.
Put flour into one deep plate, bread crumbs into another and beat the eggs together in a third.
Bread the chicken meat by first dredging in flour, then dipping in eggs, and finally, rolling in bread crumbs.
Deep-fry in oil, heated to 175C (350F) until done and golden in color, approximately 7 minutes on each side. It should reach the minimum internal temperature of 74C (165F).
Season with salt and squeezed fresh lemon juice.
Roasted potatoes (restan krompir)
Put potatoes into a pot and add enough cold water to cover it by 1 cm. Bring to a boil and cook for about 20 minutes.
Pour the water out of the pot and let the potatoes cool down. Once cool, slice the potatoes crosswise into discs.
Peel the onion and slice it finely.
Heat butter or lard in a deep pan and quickly sauté the onion until it becomes translucent. Add the potatoes and fry at low heat. Season with salt and pepper.
Finely chop the parsley.
Increase the heat and fry until the potatoes brown. After that turn around and let brown again.
Add the stock, mix, and add the chopped parsley. Serve.
Salad:
Trim the rapunzel leaves, rinse and drain well.
Put water and two eggs into a sauce pan so that the eggs are covered and bring to a boil. Cook for 10 minutes on medium heat.
Put the rapunzel leaves into a salad bowl, season with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.
Peel and slice the hard-boiled eggs over the salad and serve.