James' Place Chicken Feast

So my erstwhile cooking companion, Lee and I decided to check out a wet market and honestly the week was long and painful and I was seriously looking forward to a good cook out at James' over the weekend.
We really couldn't quite decide on which recipe to cook and so, finally, in a flash of inspiration, we figured there's enough people to hamtum both recipes.

Lee decided to take charge of the Orange Roasted Chicken, and I attempted the Pesto Chicken. Problem was, that the recipe called for pre made pesto and in the spirit of adventure, I figured I'll make pesto from scratch.

Can't find the original recipe, and so, here is something similar. Since pine nuts were expensive, I substituted with peanuts and without any cheese (KM forgot to bring... ) I just sod the cheese. Turns out, that the peanuts are really a pretty good and cheap substitute! As for herbs, the usual master foods mixed herbs should do the trick. Don't add too much though. It's strong stuff.

The rest of the pesto chicken was pretty simple. Here was the original recipe. Marinate with the pesto and then after about an hour, bring it out, and roast it. Since there was an AWESOME place at Chinatown wet market for herbs and we picked up some lemon grass and lemon leaves (think they're called lemon leaves. they're like hard, waxy and smell like lemons when you crush them) so I chucked them in when we were gonna roast. Figured that a little lemon taste would bring out the flavour.

It worked!

And here is a picture of the finished product...



Lee's Orange chicken needed a little more salt, and the prawn bisque didn't come out so well.

Lessons learnt:
1. bread under the chicken will get soggy from the juices. I don't know how Jamie Oliver did it, it didn't work.

2. Pesto Chicken is good. I think if I ever have my own kitchen I'll get a blender and always keep pesto with me.

3. Lemon zest and juice and the lemon leaves ROCK

4. Go get more herbs from that kickass place in Chinatown Market.