Posts Tagged ‘Chicken’

Daring Cooks July Challenge

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Nut Butter

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe.

Who ever realized that making your own nut butter could be so easy.  For my first challenge in quite a few months I was happy to see that it was for something that I could see myself making on a normal day.  Although I do like the challenge of trying things that are completely new and foreign to me for these challenges, sometimes it is nice to make something that is similar to my non-Daring Cooks meals.

The dish I chose to make with my almond butter instantly sounded to me like the butter chicken recipe that continues to elude me.  You see, for close to a year I have been making butter chicken whenever I come across a new recipe and it always lacks something.  As the ingredients were simmering away I could tell this was going to definitely be a repeat recipe.

I never would have thought to use a nut butter to give the sauce that thick consistence the many other recipes had been lacking.  But once the almond butter went into the sauce I was delighted to see that the sauce was nice and thick.  So thick in fact that the recipe calls for the use of water or chicken broth to thin it out.  I was scared to thin it out too much for fear it would resemble my runny butter chickens of the past so I used the liquid sparingly.

When making this dish again I would change a few things like thinning out the sauce a bit more and add some spice with either some green chillies or chili powder.  This recipe was beyond yummy and with those few tweaks next time I am sure to have the perfect chicken dish.

Chicken with Curried Tomato Almond Sauce

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1.5 tablespoons garam masala

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

4 tablespoons butter

1 large onion, diced

2 cloves garlic

1 15 ounce can tomato sauce

1/3 cup almond butter

1/3 cup milk

1/2 to 3/4 cup chicken broth or water

Stir garam masala, ginger, cinnamon, and pepper together in a small bowl. Set aside.

Melt the butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook gently for several minutes to infuse the butter with onion flavor. Keep the heat low to avoid burning the butter; a little color is fine. Add the spice blend and garlic and cook for 1 minute or till fragrant, stirring constantly. Add the tomato sauce, stir well, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Whisk in almond butter and milk until thoroughly combined with tomato sauce. The almond butter is thick so it takes a while to make a smooth sauce.  Add chicken breast to sauce and return to simmer. Add broth (or water) to sauce to reach desired consistency; return to simmer.

Serve over rice.

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Posted in Chicken, Daring Cooks |

Daring Cooks March Challenge

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

Caramelized Onion and Lemon Risotto

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

For my first Daring Cook’s challenge I was pleasantly surprised to see risotto.  Risotto is something that I have tried on a few occasions in the past and found it to be quite easy.  I had resisted making it for a long time because of the countless cooking shows where they talked about risotto in a way that it took a world class chef to be able to prepare.

The best thing I find about risotto is that you can use a basic risotto and spice it up with any ingredients you want.  I have a recipe that I have made on many occasions that is seriously one of the best dishes I have ever made, Italian Sausage and Kale Risotto.  Since I know the flavours are amazing in this dish I decided to use that as the inspiration, secret is that the lemon zest is my favourite part.

So for this months challenge I decided on Caramelized Onion and Lemon Risotto, and boy was I excited for this dish.  You may be thinking right now that none of this sounds like much of a challenge so I guess I will take this opportunity to mention the part of the challenge that was just that a challenge for me.

Homemade stock

Reading the instructions it doesn’t seem like a particularly difficult task except for the fact that I do not like meat off a bone.  I can admit that I was a bit spoiled when I was little and I really only remember eating boneless skinless chicken breasts.  Until this challenge I had never purchased a whole chicken and just the thought of working with it didn’t make me very excited.

Okay enough complaining, it was time to get going on my first ever experience making homemade stock.  After rinsing the chicken and placing it in the pan I realized that I definitely didn’t have a pot large enough for the instructions that said both a chicken and chicken bones, so I improvised with just the chicken.  After adding all the vegetables and spices I turned it on and let it cook for the next few hours.

As the chicken was cooking the apartment started smelling so good with the cinnamon, bay leaf and all spice; maybe this whole homemade stock wasn’t going to be so bad after all.  When the chicken was all cooked I pulled it out and took the chicken off of the bone and set aside for other recipes this week.  Then I put the bones back in the stock to keep cooking for another hour.

When it had cooked for what seemed like an entire day I turn it off and strained the broth to later be used in my risotto.  All in all it was a very successful first attempt at homemade chicken stock.  Something that I might just try again in the future, although I have to say that the stuff I buy at costco is much easier.  None the less it was a great first challenge for Daring Cooks.

Chicken Stock

1 large chicken

2 onions, roughly diced

1 medium leek – white part only

2 stalks celery

2 cloves garlic, halved

1 cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon whole peppercorn

2 bay leaves

peel of half a lemon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

Wash the chicken and place in a pot, cover completely with water and bring to a boil.  Skim away any scum that comes to the top.

Add the vegetables and bring back to a boil.  Add the remaining ingredients and simmer very gently uncovered for an hour and a half.

Carefully lift out the chicken, set aside (or in my case take the chicken off the bones and add the bones back to the stock).  Simmer the stock for another hour.  Ladle the liquid into a fine sieve, the less it is disturbed the clearer it will be.  Freeze what you don’t need for future use.

Caramelized Onion and Lemon Risotto

4 cups homemade chicken stock

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 cups chopped onion (about 1 large)

2 teaspoons sugar

1 cup Arborio rice

1/3 cup red wine

1 lemon zested

fresh grated Romano cheese

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add chopped onions and sugar to the pan, saute until onions are golden.  Place onions in a bowl and set aside.

Add Arborio rice to a pan and saute for 30 seconds.  Stir in red wine, allow to cook until the liquid had nearly absorbed, making sure to stir constantly.  Once liquid is almost absorbed stir in 1 cup of broth cooking that until nearly absorbed.  Continue by adding 1/2 a cup of broth at a time allowing it to nearly absorb before adding the next portion of broth.  Making sure through out this process to stir constantly.

Once the rice has absorbed all of the liquid remove from the heat, stir in onions, cheese and lemon zest.

Serve with your favourite protein and vegetables.

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Posted in Chicken, Daring Cooks |

Honey Curry Chicken

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Honey Curry Chicken

While looking through various blogs and websites I came across a recipe for Curry Honey Chicken which looked really good.  It looked like a perfect meal for a week night dinner so I added it to the schedule for the week.

After mixing together the ingredients for the sauce I decided to make a couple of changes which actually in my mind changed the recipe from a Curry Honey Chicken to  Honey Curry Chicken, let me explain… 

Originally there was much less honey in the recipe and I found that it had a very strong soy sauce taste and was lacking in the sweetness of honey that I was expecting.  The original recipe was good but I wanted to take it a different way and make it more of a sweet chicken recipe.  So the recipe went from 1 tablespoon of honey to 1/4 cup or so, to be honest I was just adding honey until it was the right amount of sweet. 

The end result was really good, just the right amount of sweet with the honey being the star of the show. 

Honey Curry Chicken

Adapted from Palachinka

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into pieces

1/4 cup honey, to taste

2 tsp curry powder

1 tablespoon oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 teaspoon corn starch

Heat oil over medium high heat in frying pan.  Cook chicken for 5 minutes until done.

Mix remaining ingredients together and add to the finished chicken.  Simmer until thickened.

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Chicken Tostadas with Mango Avocado Salsa

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Chicken Tostada's with Mango Avocado Salsa

Mangoes are definitely something that I have learned to love over the years.  I was never a big fan of them until I was living in Egypt and having fresh mango juice from a street vendor.  Up until recently I hadn’t even really worked with fresh mangoes,   I now see what I have been missing all these years.

The mango avocado salsa is what initially caught my attention for this recipe.  The original recipe from where else but Cooking Light, is for a chicken taco with mango avocado salsa but I thought I would mix it up a little bit and pile it high on a tostada. 

The seasoning used on the chicken had a little bit of spice that complimented the sweetness of the mango.  All of these elements played together for a really great dish.  This was a perfect meal for a weekday night when you want something different but don’t have all day to put it together.  I will definitely make this dish again.

Chicken Tostadas

Courtesy of Cooking Light

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

3/4 teaspoon salt

4 (6 ounce) boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Combine the first 4 ingredients and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  Rub over the chicken.  Add oil to the pan, swirl to coat the surface.  Add chicken and cook 4 minutes on each side or until done.  Remove chicken from the pan and let stand for 5 minutes.  Cut into 1/4 inch thick strips.

Mango Avocado Salsa

Courtesy of Cooking Light

1/2 cup diced peeled mango

1/2 cup diced peeled avocado

1/2 cup chopped tomato

1/3 cup chopped onions

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (I used 1/4 of a cup)

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon minced jalapeno pepper

tostada shells

While the chicken cooks, combine mango and the next 6 ingreidents, stir in remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt.

Pile everything on top of the tostada and enjoy!

 

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Posted in Chicken |

Jerk Chicken Pizza Pocket

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Jerk Chicken Pizza

Recently while on holiday in Jamaica we had the opportunity to try Jerk Chicken for the first time.  I was instantly a fan, you really can’t go wrong with spicy chicken dipped in even spicier jerk sauce.

One night we decided to go to a local restaurant where the owner, Cheryl, sold her own jerk sauce, I couldn’t resist buying some to bring home and incorporate into a recipe in some way.  At that point I didn’t know just how spicy the sauce was.

It wasn’t very hard to decide what the meal was going to be…

Jerk Chicken Pizza Pockets with home made pizza dough and a pizza sauce using some of Cheryl’s jerk sauce.  Since I was just making it up as I went the amount of jerk sauce was just a guess and might have been a little bit too spicy but still very good.

Jerk Chicken Pizza

Having never made pizza dough before I was excited to try it out and just hoped all the pieces came together and I ended up with pizza dough.  Since activiating the yeast is the first step you are going to know right from the start whether you are going to have the beginnings of a successful pizza dough.

My first attempt at activating the yeast was unsuccessful because my husband pointed out that the recipe I was using didn’t call for sugar with the yeast and warm water.  After my husband explained the nature of yeast and how to work sucessfully with it I now know you need sugar to get it moving.

I threw out the first batch and started over with my last package of instant yeast and some sugar.  Within  less than  minute I saw the yeast start to bubble and I was getting excited, so far so good.  After all the rising and punching down I was left with a ball of pizza dough just waiting to be made into pizza pockets.

Now it was time to cook the chicken and if you are going to have jerk chicken pizza pockets you need jerk chicken.  I put together a jerk seasoning, covered the chicken in it and then baked.

Then came assembly.

I now see that stretching out pizza dough it not an easy task although it was fun trying all kinds of different methods and seeing the funny shaped pizza’s in the end.  The more I made the better I got and by the end I had made a nice looking pizza pocket.

Jerk Chicken Pizza

It was great fun making pizza dough for the first time but also taking something that I had enjoyed while on holiday and making it my own.  The pizza pocket was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside filled with spicy jerk chicken and accompanied with jerk pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese.  What a great meal and so much fun to make.

Pizza Dough

Adapted from Annie’s Eats Perfect Pizza Crust

1/2 cup warm water

1 envelope instant yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1 1/4 cup water, room temperature

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

4 cups bread flour

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Measure the warm water into a 2 cup liquid measuring cup and add the sugar.  Stir in the yeast and let stand until the yeast dissolves and bubbles, about 5 minutes.  Add the room temperature water and oil, stir to combine.

Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, briefly combine the dry ingredients at a slow speed.  Slowly add the liquid ingredients and continue to mix at a low speed until a cohesive mass forms.  Stop the mixer and replace the paddle with the dough hook.  Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.  Form the dough into a ball, put it in a deep oiled bowl, and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  Press the dough to deflate it.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, divide the dough into two equal pieces and start forming pizzas.

Jerk Pizza Sauce

Adapted from Life’s Ambrosia

1 (14.5) can tomato sauce

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon jerk sauce

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon fennel seed

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon granulated sugar

1/8 teaspoon allspice

Combine all the ingredients in a small sauce pan and cook over medium heat until it starts to bubble slightly.  Reduce heat and simmer for 15- 20 minutes.

Jerk Seasoning

Adapted from Serious Eats

1/4 cup allspice

1 tablespoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon chile powder

2 teaspoons onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

With a mortar and pestle crush all ingredients together and place in a sealable container until ready to use.

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Cooking Light Week – Recipe 4

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Cold Sesame Noodles with Chicken and Cucumber

Sesame Noodle Salad

Why did I choose Cold Sesame Noodles with Chicken and Cucumber for night 4 of Cooking Light week?

Was it the chicken and cucumbers, always a great combination.  Or could it have been the sambal oelek, an ingredient I love but never seem to use in enough recipes.

I am happy to say that regardless of the reason this now one of my favorite recipes from Cooking Light.

The dressing on these noodles makes this recipe.  With a combination of rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, honey and sambal oelek you get a clean and refreshing dressing with a little heat.

My husband and I were pleasantly surprised at just how good this recipe is, and just as good the next day for lunch.

Cold Sesame Noodles with Chicken and Cucumber

Recipe from Cooking Light

8 ounces uncooked dried udon noodles

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2 tablespoons dark sesame oil

2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons sambal oelek

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

2 cups shredded skinless, boneless chicken breast

2 medium cucumbers, halved lengthwise and sliced

6 tablespoons chopped green onions

3 tablespoons chopped dry-roasted peanuts

Cook noodles according to package directions.  Drain and rinse under cold water; drain.

Combine rice vinegar and the next 5 ingredients (through ginger) in a large bowl, and stir with a whisk.  Add noodles, chicken and cucumbers to bowl; toss gently to coat.  Top with green onions and peanuts.

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Posted in Chicken, Theme Weeks |

Cooking Light Week – Recipe 3

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

Oven-Fried Chicken Parmesan with Polenta

Chicken Parmesan

At times I wonder if my husband is tired of chicken for dinner, he might joke about how we have chicken a lot but is way too nice to tell me to make something else.  If you looked back over a month of cooking you would probably find 60-70% of the recipes involve chicken in some way.  What can I say, I really like chicken breast.

I think my obsession with chicken began when I was living on my own and had absolutely no desire to cook.  Anyone can get out a frozen chicken breast and either put it in the oven to bake or on your George Foreman to grill.  Depending on what my side dish was, or if I was even going to be having a side dish, would determine my method of cooking.

This was my dinner most nights of the week if I wasn’t ordering take out or going to my moms for a nice home cooked meal.  There are some definite benefits to living near a mom who is a great cook and always happy to have you over.

You will still notice that I am heavy on chicken recipes but now that I am becoming more confident with my cooking skills I can branch out from plain baked chicken and try things that are a little more challenging.

Chicken parmesan always seemed like a really complex recipe, breading chicken shouldn’t be a difficult feat but for some reason for years I was scared to try it.  Little did I know that this would become one of my favorite chicken dishes and surprisingly easy.

The thing about this recipe that caught my eye, besides the obvious presence of chicken, was that the chicken is breaded in panko.  For any of you who are unfamiliar with panko it is a japanese breadcrumb that is not quite as fine as traditional breadcrumbs.  Panko gives the chicken a nice texture and a bit of crunch, I have found that I pretty much use it whenever breadcrumbs are in a recipe.

Night 3 of Cooking Light Week was found in their Dinner Tonight section which has a great new look.  Not only do you get a picture, recipe, possible side dishes and tips but also a ‘game plan’.  The game plan is great for beginning chefs like me who still struggle with when to make what part of the dish so that everything is ready at the same time.  It helps to maximize the time you have so dinner is ready much quicker, which is nice during the week.

The end result with this recipe was a wonderfully juicy chicken breast with crunch complimented with basic polenta and light lemon mustard dressing for a salad.  This recipe was definitely a hit especially with my husband who loved the polenta.  I will be adding this to my rotation of great recipes for the future.

Oven-Fried Chicken Parmesan

Courtesy of Cooking Light Recipe

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large egg whites, lightly beaten

3/4 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)

4 (6 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup jarred spaghetti sauce

1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

3/4 shredded part skim mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Combine first 3 ingredients in a shallow dish; place egg whites in a bowl.  Place panko in a shallow dish.  Dredge 1 breast half in flour mixture.  Dip in egg whites; dredge in panko.  Repeat procedure with remaining chicken, flour mixture, egg whites and panko.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium high heat.  Add chicken to pan; cook 2 minutes.  Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil.  Turn chicken over, cook 2 minutes.  Coat chicken with cooking spray; place pan in oven.  Bake at 450 degrees for 5 minutes.  Turn chicken over; top each breast half with 2 tablespoons sauce, 2 tablespoons parmigiano-reggiano, and 3 tablespoons mozzarella.  Bake 6 minutes or until chicken is done.

Basic Polenta

Bring 2 cups fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth and 1 cup milk to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Gradually whisk in 3/4 cup instant dry polenta.  Cook 5 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly.

Lemon Mustard Salad

Whisk together 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 teaspoons honey, 1 teaspoon dijon mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper.  Drizzle over your greens of choice and toss well.

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Posted in Chicken, Theme Weeks |

Summer Salad

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Summer Salad

Sometimes a basic salad is all you need.

With this heat wave that seems to have hit the Northwest I always find it a challenge to make meal that aren’t too hot but that are also filling.

The reason I love salads so much is you almost always have a good variety of things in your fridge to throw into a salad.  I hit the jackpot for last nights salad since I had gone grocery shopping earlier.

While at the store yesterday I came  across a salad mix that was spinach and arugula, arugula being something I have never tried before.  I know, as a salad lover how have I never tried it before.

Since I had originally planned to make Thai Chicken Curry for dinner last night I had already taken some chicken out of the freezer.  So after a quick bake in the oven I had some great protein for our salad.

By adding mushrooms, red and yellow bell peppers and cilantro I had a great refreshing salad for dinner.  Now the real dilemma was deciding what sort of salad dressing to put on the salad.  I didn’t want anything too heavy so I went with my standard dressing, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

As Sean and i sit down to eat dinner in front of the fan we really enjoy that basic salad that you can rarely go wrong with.

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Birthday Chicken Kiev

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Chicken Kiev

A tradition for as long as I can remember in my family is the picking of dinner for your birthday celebration.  You can have whatever you like, within reason, and then we all come together and enjoy a meal. 

Sean, my husband, being new to my family hasn’t experienced his own full blown birthday celebration with the whole Warnes/Steen clan.  So until we go to Seattle next I decided to continue the tradition in the Payne family.

Sean’s birthday was last Saturday and because we were out of town on that day we had to postpone his birthday dinner for another night.  Due to more things keeping us busy it was delayed until last night.

Sean’s birthday pick for 2009 was Chicken Kiev with all of its buttery goodness.

The only other time I have made this I hadn’t been made aware of creating a pocket in the chicken for the butter and so my butter all ran out while it was baking.  I was convinced that on this attempt I was going to make sure the butter stayed in the chicken, especially since Sean’s favorite part is when you first cut in and the butter runs out.

The meal turned out better than I could have guessed with a nice moist chicken breast with butter just waiting to be let loose.  The parsley in the butter gave it a nice flavour, but really when it comes to butter you usually can’t go wrong.  Traditionally this dish is made with bread crumbs, but I used panko which gives it a different texture. 

Rounding out the meal with a side of mashed potatoes and a mixed green salad it was a great first Payne birthday celebration.

Stayed tuned for the dessert that included quite possibly my new favorite ice cream.

Chicken Kiev

2 Large Chicken Breast

Softened Butter, Garlic cloves, Parsley

Panko (bread crumbs work too)

Eggs

Flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Using a paring knife, cut into each chicken breast along the side to create a small pocket, making sure not to cut through the chicken

Take butter, garlic, and chopped parsley and mix together and stuff into chicken pockets.  Secure with toothpicks if needed.

Create an assembly line with flour, whisked eggs and panko crumbs.  Cover the chicken in light flour then dip in eggs before coating with panko crumbs.

Place both chicken breast in a baking pan and put in the oven for about 30 minutes.

 

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