RIBENA CHICKEN with RADISH & WOTSIT MASH

So here we are then, week 2. Having recovered from last week's undiluted gravy granule-induced heartburn, this week we're doing a twist on a genuine recipe accompanied by not so much a twist as a full-on dislocation with dreadfully torn ligaments of a traditional side. With surprising results - not least of which being I'm not in A&E at the moment on some sort of drip.

As before, here's this week's identity parade of bit parts you'll need for this Frankenstein of a dish should you wish to cook along at home (preferably your home, as I've already done the washing up). And yes, I know Frankenstein was the scientist and not the monster so that's technically incorrect, but then I also know this: shut up. Anyway:

Ingredients:

If this isn't a balanced diet, I don't know what is.

2 chicken breasts or 4 or 5 mini fillets (basically, pick your favourite chicken extremity and use that)
A bottle of Ribena concentrate
A bag of radishes
Some butter
A packet of wotsits or other unpleasant packing-material-like snack of your choice (Skips, Monster Munch, wood shavings)

And that's all you'll need this week, other than possibly some extremely powerful kitchen scourers or a source of new frying pans depending on your level of sloth when it comes to scrubbing.

Cooking instructions:

The idea for this particular abomination came about from wondering whether a bastardised version of coca-cola chicken would work with concentrated squash, and for added authenticity one with the same disdain as coke has for the integrity of a child's tooth enamel. For those of you who've never had it, the idea is you cook some chicken in about half a litre of coke until pretty much all the liquid evaporates away, leaving you a sticky sweet sauce not a million miles from the sort of barbecue joint gunk that's popular with some folk in the US. Quite often the same sort of folk who think Guy Fieri is an actual chef rather than a weapons-grade dingus.

Anyway, you can't just have chicken without an accompaniment, but your bog-standard potato would be far too easy. No, instead we've shown some love to everyone's second least favourite salad bulker-outer after celery, the humble (and awful) radish.

Look. I arranged these peppery sods into a heart shape for you. This is top drawer Instagram shit right here.

Radishes, much like most people, are of course extremely bitter and mostly water. So to counteract this, I decided to add something nice and savoury and, above all else, dry. And what's more dry than something so starchy that - sans flavouring - it's literally used to fill airspace in boxes from Amazon? Yes, un-delicious Wotsits: artificial of taste, Trump of hue and, crucially, bloody cheap and easy to crunch up. 

Stage 1 this week is remarkably simple: boil some water in a saucepan and lob in your radishes after lopping off the tops and bottoms. You can then safely ignore these for 10-15 mins or so, other than to periodically peer into the pan and go 'Oooh!' because the water is going purple.

Taste the rainbow. Or one end of it, at least.

hile the 'hate grapes' are enjoying their bath, heat up some oil in a pan and whack in the chicken to start the cooking progress. After about 5 mins and at least 1 turn, so when you've got a bit of colour on each side (specifically, not raw pink), you're ready to add the Ribena. Or as ready as you'll ever be, at least.

This colour is not, repeat NOT correct.

For the proper coke recipe, you'd of course bung it all in at the start as you want to boil it down, but as we're already starting at the concentrate stage, we can skip ahead - hence cooking the chicken a bit first. I put in what I'd call a good slug - enough that, if you were drinking it, you'd want to dilute it with about a pint of water. At this point don't be alarmed by the colour. Or rather do be alarmed, but learn to live with it very rapidly as I'm afraid there's nothing you can do about it.

Exclusive shots of the new monsters from the set of Alien: Covenant.

Things unfortunately go from bad to worse, as the chicken tends to take on more of the purple from the Ribena whilst also starting to go a bit brown, making them look like lightly grilled organs of indeterminate nature.

Shit.

But! Persevere, or failing that turn off the smoke alarm and leave the room, and after another 5-10 minutes of turning and adding a quick slug more Ribena if things nearly evaporate away, and it should all start to go very thick and brown. And you're done! Or at least you would be if it weren't for the bloody radishes that you'd probably forgotten about.

For them, check if they're soft (they should be by now), then pour away the inexplicably blue water and, using a potato masher, get squishing. You'll probably have to pour away more water at least twice more because it turns out radishes are full of the stuff and are like nature's sponges, or at least nature's other sponges that aren't actually nature's sponge, the sponge. But anyway, when you get something that terrifyingly resembles mushed up raw chicken lob in a bit of butter and crush in a handful of Wotsits. And serve!

Well you can't deny it looks original.

The results

This is where it all gets a bit gobsmacking. You see, somehow it all actually worked. The chicken was not only edible, I'd go as far as to say it was actually nice. Admittedly, if you got any overcaramelised bits where the herculean sugar content of the Ribena had caught in the pan it was a bit bitter, but on the whole it was pretty pleasant. So pleasant, I'd actually consider cooking it outside the realms of a stupid blog I write about made-up recipes. And the radish mash just tasted of cabbage. Well, cabbage and damp powdered cheese, but it desperately needed something to distract from it's repugnant colour so the addition of the Wotsits did actually help even if it didn't do a lot flavour-wise. Admittedly I don't like cabbage so this wasn't quite as big a win as the chicken, but it's not like I find cabbage repellant either so it was also definitely perfectly edible.

I think the big thing though is what we've learned from today. And that is no less than the true secret of cooking - simply adding or removing a sufficient amount of purple to any food will make it pleasant. So next time you're mulling over cookery lessons, just pop down B&Q instead and have a chat with the guy who mixes the paint. He's probably a culinary genius and doesn't even know it.

Next week...HEALTHY EATING SPECIAL featuring THE ULTIMATE COLD REMEDY and CLEAN EATING SMOOTHIE!