Category: poultry

Meat, Meat, Beautiful Meat

Meat Valentine

Whew–this has been a week of serious grilling. Between the Fourth of July and my birthday a few days later, I have ingested more red meat than a person should be allowed, and the food coma has prevented me from sitting down and writing about any of it. Pulled pork, steak, hamburgers, sausages…it’s exhausting just thinking about it. But it was all sooo delicious. Mmm. Meeeat.

This past Saturday we had a little gathering to celebrate the fact that I managed to age another year. Of course I had to make all the food myself. All of my food-loving friends wanted to bring something, but I refused to allow it. Control freak? Perhaps. For some reason, I got really excited about planning a menu, and I enjoy cooking so it’s not as though it was a pain in the ass to cater my own birthday party.

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Further Forays into Wokitude: Sweet and Sour Chicken

Pineapples anyone?

After the initial swoons over my newly acquired wok, I kind of left it alone and untouched in the pantry for the past few months. What happened to my burning passion to perfect Chinese food? Like many burning passions, it was sudden and powerful and died a young death. Until last night. I had spent some time perusing my own archives, in a fit of vanity, and also to remember what some of the favorites were, when that old spark came back–the wok spark. And back I went to the myriad poorly designed Chinese cooking websites to discover a new recipe.

I was torn between General Tsao’s chicken, a Crystal favorite, and Sweet and Sour chicken, which seemed easier, and laziness won out. I ended up cobbling together two different recipes, and I didn’t fry the chicken, they way it’s usually done in take out joints, because I’ve been eating enough excess fats these days. But I have to say I impressed myself with its take out joint verisimilitude. And no, it’s not bright red. Because you know how they get it bright red? Food coloring.

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Chicken Cacciatore: Rich People Food?

Chicken Cacciatore

When I was a kid, chicken cacciatore seemed to my mind the epitome of elegant dining. I have no idea why. My mom never made chicken cacciatore. I don’t ever remember eating chicken cacciatore at friends’ houses. I think the only time I had it might have been on an airplane, and I can’t imagine that airplane food circa 1986 would have led me to perceive that this was glamour food. All I know is that when I pretended I was rich and famous, chicken cacciatore was what I imagined eating.

I never translated this chicken cacciatore daydream into reality, probably because I forgot all about it, until I was flipping through Giada’s cookbook (yes, again), where she offers an excellent looking cacciatore recipe. Cacciatore means “hunter’s style,” but I’m not entirely sure why. Elise speculates that if a hunter was unsuccessful, his wife would have to kill a chicken for dinner from their henhouse. Chicken cacciatore is just chicken braised in a tomato-based sauce, which sounds kind of boring and not easily distinguishable from other chicken dishes. But somehow this simple dish of common ingredients ended up being something memorable and distinctive. Ahh, the magic of cooking. Or something.

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Green Curry with Snow Peas and Chicken

Green Curry

I am very new to the world of Asian cooking. So new, in fact, that this is the first time I’ve made curry that didn’t come straight from a jar, though I love curries of all kinds. For my first attempt, I have to say I’m pretty proud of myself. It could have used perhaps a bit more of the curry flavor, but it was buttery and spicy and the chicken stayed tender and overall, I count it a success.

Even better, it’s pretty darned healthy, which has become a big concern (er, obsession) with me lately. I blame reading Morgan Spurlock and Michael Pollan. Whatever the reason, this dinner fit right in: fresh veggies, organic chicken, and brown rice–I even used light coconut milk, which didn’t seem to diminish the buttery effect I love so much in curry at all. Bonus!

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Sesame Chicken; or, Drunken Garlic Chicken Mishaps

Sesame Chicken and Broccoli

There are many reasons I should not be allowed to cook after a few or five beers, and Saturday night’s dinner involved several of them. I tend not to read recipes very well, and then I tend to immediately forget what I just read. Thus, what was meant to be Garlic Chicken didn’t actually have any, um, garlic in it. Yeah, I don’t know how that happened.

It did, however, turn out pretty darned well, and if I hadn’t already told Mr. X I was making Garlic Chicken, I could have gotten away with pretending I had been planning to make Sesame Chicken all along. The chicken was nice and tender and the broccoli wasn’t too mushy, and I amazingly managed to cook the rice perfectly, even though I didn’t pay any attention to how long I was actually cooking it. Maybe drunken cooking isn’t really so terrible, after all.

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Roasted Mashed Potatoes, and another Roasted Chicken

Roasted Mashed Potatoes

I had been thinking all weekend about why mashed potatoes are always made with boiled potatoes. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone cooking the potatoes in another way, so of course, I had to give it a go. How would they turn out if the potatoes were roasted, instead of boiled? What about roasted with a chicken, so the mashed potatoes would have all the chicken juices mixed in? Well, now I can definitively tell you, they are awesome.

I, once again, tried to find a new way to roast the chicken: I decided this time to rub it with a gremolata, a mix of parsley, lemon zest, and garlic. I suppose the only thing that makes this different from past chickens is the addition of parsley, but it turned out well. I have been having some problems lately getting the chicken cooked all the way through. I suspect I need to buy an actual roasting pan. The pan I’ve been using is much too small, and with potatoes thrown in the bottom, the chicken is mostly raised above the sides of the pan. I’ve heard that the higher sides of a roating pan help poultry cook all the way through by refracting heat or something like that, so my too-small pan might be the problem.

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Salami Roasted Chicken

Chicken and veggies

I have roasted a fair number of chickens in the past year, and I’m always looking for something a little different from the traditional herbs-butter-lemon method. I think I have found it. I would never have thought of roasting chicken with another kind of meat in it (well, other than in a turducken kind of way) but as I perused my cookbooks, trying to find something new, I happened across Jamie Oliver’s “fantastic roast chicken” recipe.

Jamie Oliver does not use salami. He uses prosciutto, but I didn’t have prosciutto. I had salami, so I thought I’d just run with it. Add in a bag of pre-cut root vegetables from Trader Joe’s, a couple potatoes and carrots, and voila–a roast chicken dinner. With salami.

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Christmas Dinner with Eunice: Cornish Game Hens, Cream-braised Brussel Sprouts, and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Cream-braised brussels are goooood

Ah, the orphan Christmas dinner: what happens when you live 3000+ miles away from your family. This year, Eunice are decided to have Christmas dinner together since we were both going to be stranded in Boston while everyone else went away, and I spent weeks and weeks pondering how to cook a fancy Christmas dinner for two. When Will suggested cornish game hens, it made perfect sense. Then I saw this recipe from Orangette for brussel sprouts, and found out Eunice loves mashed potatoes as much as I do, and the meal was rounded out.

Cream-braised brussel sprouts seems a little over the top, I know. I mean, wasn’t bacon bad enough? But they just sounded so incredible I had to try them. Besides, after Christmas I’m going to have to halve my intake of butter and cream, or risk doubling my arse size, so why not go out with a bang?

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Potato Cauliflower Gratin with Roasted Red Pepper Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Some Chicken and Some Cheese

I have been plotting a gratin for weeks now, and finally found the time to put it together. Not that it was particularly time consuming, but it’s been a busy month. Actually, it was much easier than I would have thought and deliciously heart-attack inducing. I basically cobbled together a Cauliflower Gratin recipe from Ina Garten, and a few different Potato Gratin recipes from Epicurious, to put together this Gruyere-filled melty treat. It’s almost entirely Ina Garten’s recipe, but with added fat. Because I’m crazy like that.

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Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Brussel Sprouts and Fingerling Potatoes

Stuffed Chicken and stuff

Mr. X is awfully good at making me delicious foodstuffs. Of course, because I am forgetful, I didn’t have my laptop all weekend and am only getting around to writing about it now. Saturday night, before the Christmas Explosion party, and after I had finished my ghetto Christmas present embroidery, he made a tasty and remarkably uncomplicated dinner with three different kinds of meat. Yay meat! I took notes and pictures.

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