Marry Me Chicken - Steven Saunders creates the perfect Valentine’s dish

This week celebrity chef Steven Saunders explains what to cook for your loved one.

Steven is well known for his Cambridgeshire restaurants but is now working at Olivias’s - Elliot Wright’s restaurant in La Cala De Mijas in Spain.

Valentine's Day originated as a Christian feast day that honoured early martyrs.

Saint Valentine had a reputation for loving the ladies and when he was executed on February 14, an annual celebration of romance and love was created in many regions of the world.

So on a day when we should express our love to our partners, I have to ask…is this really love? Why can’t we express it the other 364 days of the year?

For years, I imagined that I was in love. Was the celebration ever real? Surely others have felt the same. Why celebrate something if it doesn’t really exist? When love does exist, I want to celebrate it in every way possible.

I buy flowers for my partner Ania twice a week and leave her love notes in the office every day. I love to cook for her and I buy her little gifts and big gifts all the time. It is good to have an excuse to send flowers, to buy chocolates, to take our partners out for dinner, but surely we can do this any day of the week if we love someone.

I don’t mean to be cynical. It is great to see the restaurant filled with loved-up couples, but I have to ask…what happens the other 364 days? Ania explains that the other 364 days are maintenance. So in that case let's do something amazing for our partners this year when it’s not just maintenance.

At Olivia’s (Elliot Wright’s restaurant in La Cala De Mijas in Spain), we throw everything at Valentine’s with live music acts, fabulous food cooked by me of course and a flower for the ladies with complimentary Cava. It really is a fab night.

Ania asks: ‘What time can you finish so that we can go out?’

Ania is a director of a very well known beach resort group here in Spain. They own six resorts. I doubt I will be going anywhere, I tell her, but I will take the 13th evening off (she should know better!).

I have bought her a special Valentine’s gift - two delectable little puppies! Surprisingly, their names are baby Bono and baby Ania, which are our pet names. She only ever calls me Steven when she’s cross with me.

If she is really cross with me she calls me Steven Philip, adding my middle name. If she is really mad at me she calls me Philip Welsh, my mother’s maiden name. I have no idea why. The rest of the time I am Baby Bono. With these two gorgeous baby dogs, we celebrate Valentine’s day with a lot of love and with our new pets for our new life here in Spain.

I love keeping you informed with what is going on and it is going really well here at Olivia’s on the beach front. Many of you have already visited me - I love that. I also love that many of you mention my articles. I feel very proud - thank you.

This week, I have created a special Valentine's dish for this special day that you can easily create at home. Make it for someone really special because of the title. I am making it for Ania on the 13th and she will be surprised about the name of the dish! I’ll keep you informed.

Get in touch

• Visit oliviaslacala.com/ for more on Olivia’s.
• Follow Steven @saunderschef on Instagram
• Email chefsaunders2020@gmail.com

Marry Me Chicken

This dish was originally created for a TV show. The presenter said it tasted so good she would marry me. I was already married, I have been married so many times that I am starting to compete with Elizabeth Taylor!

Chicken is the easy option but I love to use partridge (perdiz in Spanish) as a better alternative. The chicken is cooked on the bone and then carved off the carcass. This gives it all the flavour.

The sauce is creamy and decadent. You might even have some of these ingredients already in your larder. If you don’t have chicken stock, vegetable stock would be OK.

Ingredients

• 1 small whole chicken (or 2 partridges)
• A little olive oil
• 1 carrot peeled and chopped
• 1 onion peeled and sliced
• 4 cloves garlic whole in their skins
• Fresh rosemary
• 150g butter

For the pasta and pasta sauce

• 1 clove garlic peeled and minced
• 1 onion chopped finely
• 250ml of heavy cream
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 200g of pasta (fettucine) cooked al dente
• 200g of chestnut-style mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
• A little truffle oil to finish
• Fresh thyme
• Seasoning, salt and pepper
• 6 fresh raspberries

Method

• Firstly push the butter down the breasts between the skin of the chicken. Season well with salt and pepper.
• Stuff the chicken with the herbs and garlic.
• Drizzle the chicken with olive and place on the carrots and onions.
• Roast in the oven for 50 minutes at 190C. Remove and rest.
• While the chicken is resting, prepare the sauce by putting the chopped garlic and onion into a saucepan and then add the chicken stock and cream. Pour in the juices from the roasted chicken.
• Reduce this down on a high heat.
• As the sauce thickens up add the grated parmesan and a little truffle oil.
• Now carve the chicken breasts off the bone and save the legs for another day’s meal.
• Fry the sliced mushrooms and add to the sauce.
• Put the breasts of chicken back in the oven with a little butter and cook for a further five minutes or probe them to ensure they are 70C or over.
• Serve the pasta in a little nest and some sauce around and on top the chicken sliced.
• Finish with the fresh thyme leaves a drizzle of truffle oil and sprinkle over the raspberries which seem random but they add colour and some great flavour.