Cooking Lessons Now it has gone very quiet at work, well to be honest it is absolutely dead, we were closed for four days last week for flooding and on the days we have been open it has rained so much that hardly anyone has ventured out onto the golf course anyway. So, with it being quiet we are working on expanding Chefling Carol's repertoire. Yesterday we made chicken breasts with white wine, cream and wild mushrooms, a tomato and chilli jam, and choux buns which I forgot to photograph. The chicken was very simple, and delicious. 2 skinned chicken breasts 1/2 onion, finely diced 1 cup dried mushrooms 1/4 bottle white wine 1/4 pint double cream 1/2 pint chicken stock olive oil, butter, salt & pepper Put a splash of olive oil and a knob of butter in a saute pan, add the onions and sweat without colour, add the chicken breast and cook for a couple of minutes on either side. Soak the dried mushrooms (porcini or mixed, we used a mix) in the hot chicken stock. Add the wine, mushrooms and stock to the chicken, bring to the boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes, turning the breasts after five minutes. When the chicken is cooked, bring back to the boil and reduce the cooking liquor until there are a couple of tablespoons of liquid left. Add the cream, stirring it in, then raise the heat again and reduce by half to leave a rich sauce of coating consistency. The jam was just as easy. 1 kg Ripe tomatoes 6 fresh red chillies finely sliced 3 tablespoons Nam Pla Fish Sauce 8 cloves garlic, crushed 600g sugar 200ml red wine / cider vinegar Dice half of the tomatoes, blend the other half. Put all the ingredients in a pan, bring to the boil then simmer, skim off any froth that rises to the surface. Simmer, stirring every few minutes to release any bits that have settled on the bottom of the pan. It took roughly two hours to reduce the jam to a nicely sticky and jam like consistency. Put the jam into a sterlised jar and allow to cool, serve when set. You must leave the chilli and tomato seeds in the mix as they contain the pectin that will make the jam set, if you sieve them out it won't set.