Chinese Chicken

Vaguely Chinese

I'm working my way through the freezer, again. It's a bit of a never-ending battle - as soon as it becomes manageable, I fill it up, again. Right now, there are lots of bits and pieces that need using up - most of which can probably go into the next batch of soup. Soup is my miracle worker.

There was a bit of Shu Mai and some egg rolls from Chinese New Year, so those came out tonight - along with a chicken breast. I had a bottle of a grocery store Spicy Orange Sauce, so I cooked up the chicken with a bell pepper and some green onions and doused it with the sauce. A bit of white rice and dinner was done.

It does not get much easier.

 

 


Chicken Parmesan Florentine

Chicken Parmesan Florentine

When Susan came over yesterday, besides those two delicious cookies, she also brought fresh pasta sauce. The provenance escapes me right now, but I believe it comes from a restaurant in New Mexico. One of the many fun things about having friends who love different foods is being able to share those esoteric foods and ideas. They don't look at you like you're weird when you have otherwise unheard of ingredients in your cupboard. We're planning a Fante's / Italian Market trek for the early Spring to show her the local fauna and flora. It will be the perfect time to get out and about - and I already know we need things...

The pasta sauce was really good - tomatoey and peppery - with a really nice balance of flavor. Sadly, I don't have a recipe for it - but suffice to say it was good.

I used it to make a simple chicken parmesan - breaded chicken cutlets, sauce and cheese - set upon spinach sautéed with onions and garlic. On the side was a small portion of Victor's homemade gnocchi.

A quick and easy meal made possible by a friend.

Life is good.

 


Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken Pot Pie

Individual pot pies have become my go-to for portion control. Four inch springform pans have taken the place of the family-sized casseroles I once made because the two of us could/would consume 47 times our weight in excess pot pie without batting an eye. Starting off with finite amounts has helped, tremendously.

Since watching The Great British Bake Off, I've been having fun with different crusts, too. Last month, I made a hot water crust for the first time, and this time around, I made a crust with whole eggs and black pepper. Old dog, new tricks...

The filling was a simple chicken stew using half white wine and half chicken broth, leeks, carrots, celery, fennel, mushrooms, and a hot pepper I canned last summer.

The crust was a take on a recipe I found on BBC.com.

Pepper Pastry

  • 12 oz all-purpouse flour
  • 7 oz cold butter, cubed
  • 2 lg eggs, beaten
  • 1 tbsp water
  • salt and ground black pepper

To make the pastry, put the flour, butter and a little salt into a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg and a tablespoon water and mix until a ball of dough is formed.

Turn out onto counter and form into two disks, wrap, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

Chicken Pot Pie

To assemble, roll out dough, place in pie plate. Fill with cooled filling - it should definitely not be hot - and top with second crust. Crimp and seal well. Brush with egg and bake in a preheated 400°F oven for about 35 minutes.

A bit of a rule of thumb...

If you're using a pie crust or puff pastry, your filling should be cool to cold to keep the crust from melting before it's actually cooked.

If you're using a drop biscuit, you want the filling to be hot so the biscuit starts cooking from the bottom as well as from the top, otherwise, you can end up with a doughy biscuit bottom.

Enjoy!


Chicken and Andouille

The End of Week Twenty-Nine

I hit a milestone, yesterday - for about 5 minutes, anyway. I made it to 189 pounds. I have not weighed under 190 for 30 years. Alas, when I did my weigh-in at the gym, today, I was at a solid 190. I'm going to blame it on the oatmeal I had for breakfast.

The goal, now, is to be no higher than 189 next Friday - and never be above it, again. Seeing that little dip on the scale showed that all of this is worthwhile - and getting to a livable weight is totally doable.

It's not always happening as quickly as either of us would like - but it is happening. And that is something I need to keep in perspective.

Our trainer has turned things up another notch and he has me sweating bullets. One would think the amount of liquid pouring off of me would lower my weight. One would think...

Another milestone was squatting and actually touching the floor with my fingertips. It's the little victories. It is happening.

Dinner is happening, as well.

Tonight's dinner was a quick little mash-up of chicken, andouille sausage, and beans - the last of the beans I canned back in September. I vaguely remember September. It was warm. There's been a light snow falling all day with a high of about 12°F - downright balmy.

Our balmy weather definitely called for something to keep us warmed up, so andouille sausage came to mind - you just can't go wrong with it. From there, the rest of the dinner just fell into place.

A quick sauté of chicken and andouille sausage with shallots, garlic, beans, and a hefty sprinkling of cayenne pepper for the center of the plate, and an equally simple sauté of some arugula with roasted red pepper, garlic, and shallots.

Dinner was served.

Great textures, lots of flavors, and just enough heat...

Speaking of heat... we're supposed to be close to 60°F by Tuesday.

We may be barbecuing...

 

 

 

 

 


Chicken and Chorizo with Pasta

Wednesday Macaroni

I was reading through my twitter feed, today, and came across a really great article by Ellie Slee entitled The Joy of Cooking Without Pictures. The tagline that made me click the article was "Here I am writing about how Instagram ruined cooking for me and weird old cookbooks with no pictures helped me get my kitchen groove back."  I immediately got what she was talking about.

I see food pictures that are so flippin' perfect that no human could have possibly made them - or, at least not in my house. I get perfect picture-taking. I get the art of photography. What I don't get is the picture taking precedence over the product.

Back in my hotel opening days, we'd always have photographers coming in taking pictures for brochures and ads and the like. They were always perfect people in perfectly-fitting clothes and perfect smiles sitting at perfectly-set tables with perfect drinks and plates in front of them. Okay. The hotel is selling illusion, it's selling style, in some cases, it's even selling dreams. I get that. But what always set me off was when it came to photographing plates and tray set-ups for the cooks and Room Service staff. These were supposed to be tools for the staff - to make sure the trays went up properly with the right items, condiments, and the like. I would set the trays up and then the photographer would come over and completely rearrange things, add stuff, take away stuff - all to take a lovely staged picture. It could really be a battle constantly asking them to take the picture I had set up - and to stop trying to make it the cover photo of Gourmet Magazine.

As Ms Slee explains in her article, cook book photos and other food photos can really be intimidating for a home cook. They're setting up a level of perfection that often can't be achieved, causing unmet expectations and feelings of inadequacy. It can flat-out want to make a person stop cooking.

Or, as in the case of Ms Slee, it can change how you cook and change your expectations. Cooking without pictures. Opening up a copy of Joy of Cooking - and just following the recipe can be totally liberating. There is no preconceived notion of what a recipe has to look like. You get to make it and allow it to come out however it does.

I get wanting to take good pictures. I do it numerous times a week - and sometimes the pictures are stellar and other times, not so stellar. I think the difference with us, though, is the pictures aren't staged. It's a snapshot - usually on the kitchen island - of what we're  having for dinner. Sometimes I'm a bit sloppy in the dishing-up, sometimes there's a bit of smudge on the rim of the plate. It's Wednesday dinner at our house, not a Michelin 5 Star property.

The whole idea of this blog is to share food ideas. Yes, there are pictures, and often even recipes. More often than not, though, it's a picture with a description of what I did - not a step-by-step with measured ingredients and chiseled-in-stone time frames. I don't cook that way. I read recipes and then figure out what I'm going to do with it - which is rarely following it to the letter.

I think cooking is supposed to be fun, impromptu. I don't think it's supposed to be a chore, and I really don't think it's supposed to be an ordeal trying to make something look or taste like what someone else did. It should be about you.

And right now, it's about me and what I did for dinner, tonight.

I picked up a bag of pasta at Trader Joe's over the holidays and it's been sitting in the cupboard ever since. Tonight, it became dinner. I had a chicken breast and a single fresh chorizo sausage to start.

I diced the chicken and crumbled the sausage. into the skillet they went. When they were mostly cooked, i took them out and into the skillet went a diced fennel bulb, a small diced onion, and a minced clove of garlic.

Into the pan went some smoked paprika, a bit of cumin, and some S&P.

I added the meat back in and then added about a cup of red wine. Then, because I thought it needed something else, some olive tapenade that was in the 'fridge and a bit of cayenne to jack up the heat - the chorizo wasn't quite as spicy as I had hoped.

I brought it all to a simmer and let it cook while I boiled the pasta.

The drained pasta went into the pan along with a bit of grated cheese, and dinner was served - with a picture to prove it!

Read the article - link above - and then get into the kitchen and cook something.

 

 


Chicken and Lentils

Happy Birthdays and Harrowing Hospitals

Thirty-nine years ago, today, my niece, Erin was born. My sister, Arlene, and her husband, Tim, had moved back to Tim's hometown of Jena, Louisiana about a year before, so my mom flew back to give her a hand with the new baby. Arlene and Tim already had their hands full with Jacob, who was a rambunctious couple of months past two, and after raising six of her own, mom knew how to get things organised.

I was living up at Lake Tahoe, a restaurant manager at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe, and living in a great house with Michael, Susan, and Clare. In those pre-email, cell phone, and texting days, we weren't involved in the day-to-day minutiae of everyone. I called home once every week or two and caught up on the latest round of gossip or family drama. I knew mom had flown back to Louisiana and that Arlene was due any day. I'd get a call when the baby was born.

The call I did get that day sent me - and the entire family - into a tailspin.

Pop was a San Francisco Fire Fighter and, in 1980, was Director of Training. He had his own red car - and could drive it like Mario Andretti when heading to a fire. Back when he was in the Rescue Squad, he was given the task of driving the new Lieutenants - always shooting down the wrong way on California Street, siren blaring, running the red lights all the way down - and scaring them shitless. The man had fire-fighting in his blood - his grandfather had been Fire Chief of Omaha, Nebraska - and he had no qualms being the first one into a burning building. He was also slightly crazy.

That morning, there was a 5-alarm fire downtown - and he was there. He wasn't actively fighting the fire, he was loading and exchanging Scott air packs - doing his part and being part of the action. In the middle of it all, he had a massive heart attack.

It was a quiet Tuesday at the lake. I was at work when I got a call from my roommates - call home, right away. I wasn't overly concerned, thinking at first that it was about Arlene and a new baby but I called and got the news - Pop had had a heart attack and wasn't expected to make it. I became overly concerned. I headed over to the bar across from the restaurant, had a stiff shot, and headed home.

Those pre-email, cell phone, and texting days were also pre-credit card days. I borrowed some cash from Michael and Clare - both casino card dealers who made great tips - and Michael drove me down to Reno for a flight home, buying a ticket with cash. I had been given a Fire Department number to call when I got my ticket, and a firefighter met me at the airport in a red car and drove me directly to the hospital. I do not remember the guys name, but the entire ride, he spoke about Pop and what a great guy he was, what fun he was to work with, some of the antics they had pulled on other firefighters... he did everything in his power to distract me from the fact that my father was lying in a hospital room, dying.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Arlene gives birth to a gorgeous little girl. My mom got the call that her husband of 32 years had a heart attack at a fire and was not expected to make it - and she wasn't there to be by his side. Leaving Arlene and the new baby - and Jacob - in the care of his parents, Tim drove my mom to Houston to get a flight back to San Francisco. He did the same thing as the firefighter did for me - talking non-stop to distract her.

By the time I got to the hospital, my other siblings, spouses, boyfriends, cousins, and firefighters galore were in the waiting room. I think I've mentioned before that I do not come from a quiet family - and this was no different. Even somber, we're loud. We tend to invade hospitals - for fun things like births or serious things like heart attacks or simple operations. We are not demanding as a group, stay out of the way as much as we can, and don't look for any special accommodation. But, we're also not leaving. The hospital arranged a room for us where we could gather, smoke, drink coffee - and probably do shots - and they kept us abreast of what was going on.

Finally, Pop was conscious, and they let us see him, one-by-one. Mike went in, and then me. Pop was sitting up, looked at me, and asked what are you doing here? He knew I was supposed to be at Tahoe and was a bit miffed that I had come down just for him. I made some sort of innocuous response, and I walked out, knowing that he was going to be okay. Five minutes later, they ushered us all into the room to say that he was back down and wasn't expected to make it. I couldn't grasp what they were saying. I had just spoken to him. He was going to be fine.

Meanwhile, Mom arrived, looking like three shades of death warmed over. She had fallen running through the Houston airport and seriously sprained her ankle. The medics there wanted to keep her, x-ray it, and give her some proper medical attention. She would have none of it. She was getting on her plane and no one was going to stop her. I think I've also mentioned that my mother could be a formidable force. They wrapped it, wheeled her to the plane, and had a wheel chair waiting in San Francisco. She was also picked up in a red car and taken directly to the hospital.

Mom hadn't slept, hadn't changed clothes, wasn't wearing any make-up - my mother, one of the truly great vain people in the world - looked like hell and didn't care.

After a while, Pop was stabilized and we talked mom into going home for a bit of rest. Her idea of rest was to head home, bathe, put on her war paint, and head back to the hospital. She walked into his room - wearing her favorite pink outfit he had bought her - and Pop's first comment was why are you limping? And then it was Arlene, baby, what's going on... You really couldn't put anything past him.

We held vigil for a couple more days and Pop finally came home - a forced disability retirement from the SFFD. Retirement was far more difficult for him than having a heart attack. Volunteering with the Firefighter's Toy Program kept him busy - but it was never the same as hanging off the back of a fire truck - or driving one the wrong way down a one-way street in rush-hour traffic. I did mention that he was slightly crazy, didn't I?!?

If I had thought about this sooner, I would have made breaded veal cutlets and dirty potatoes for dinner, tonight. That was Pop's go-to dinner, although I have no idea where I would find the veal cutlets he used to get - they were a frozen breaded cutlet with a little square of butter attached to them. If anyone else made them they would have been gawd-awful, but there was just something about the way he would make them... Much like his coffee - he would buy 3-pound cans of Lady Lee brand coffee and brew a pot that could dissolve titanium - and it was the best damned coffee on the planet. Go figure.

Maybe I'll try and hunt them down for his birthday next month... but for tonight, I made something in honor of Erin being born in Louisiana! And nothing says Louisiana better than andouille sausage!

Chicken and Lentils with Andouille Sausage

  • 2 chicken thighs
  • 2 links andouille sausage, diced
  • 2 leeks, sliced
  • 1 bell pepper, diced
  • 1 hot pepper, minced
  •  1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 cup lentils
  • 3 cups chicken broth
  • 1/2 tsp thyme
  • salt & pepper, to taste

Brown chicken thighs in an oven-proof pot. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add diced andouille sausage, leeks, hot pepper, garlic, and bell pepper to pan and cook until leeks are wilted. Stir in thyme and a bit of S&P.

Add broth and stir in lentils. Return chicken to pan, cover, and place in a 300°F oven for about an hour. Check after 35 or so minutes to see if you need more broth.

The chicken was fall off the bone tender, and the lentils just spicy enough. The andouille added a lot of flavor so I didn't need a lot of extraneous spices to jack it up.

There are a lot of happy endings to the stories...

Not long after Erin was born, Arlene and Tim moved back to California and little baby Erin now has four gorgeous daughters of her own - the eldest being 18. Big brother has four kids, as well.

Pop made it through another 28 years and Erin has reached 39.

There's nothing quite like getting upstaged by your grandfather on your birthday...

 

 

 

 


Focaccia

Chicken and Focaccia

I've had a ball of pizza dough in the 'fridge all week. It was left from the pizzas we made when Victor's family was over. Every day I've been re-rolling it and putting it back in its little container - until today. I pulled it out to re-roll and decided I'd done it enough. Time to make something with it!

The dough was my favorite 2-day rise dough - a recipe I've now been using for quite a while. The recipe makes 2 pounds of dough - perfect for two pizzas. We made three the other day - one left over and into the 'fridge. Nothing goes to waste around here.

I had pretty much settled on a take on a dish my sister-in-law Debbie used to make - a chicken and zucchini dish that is easy and tasty as can be - and the idea of a focaccia sprang into mind. A perfect accompaniment.

The chicken dish is really good the way Debbie makes it. I streamlined it, but here's her recipe so you can make it the right way!

Chicken Zucchini Parmesan

Debbie's Chicken Zucchini Parmesan

  • 1/4 C dried breadcrumbs
  • 1/2 C grated Parmesan cheese
  • 4 chicken breasts, boned and skinned
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 3 tbsp oil
  • 1-15 oz, can or jar marinara sauce
  • 2 tbsp parsley
  • 1/2 tsp garlic
  • 1 lb. zucchini, sliced
  • 8 oz. Monterey jack cheese, grated

Mix 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese with dried breadcrumbs. Dip chicken in egg, then into breadcrumbs and cheese. Heat oil; add chicken and brown on both sides. Set aside.

Place 1/2 of the marinara sauce in a pan. Top with zucchini, then chicken. Sprinkle with 1/2 of the jack cheese and 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese. Top with remaining sauce. Cover and bring to boil. Simmer 25 minutes until chicken and zucchini are tender.

Sprinkle with remaining jack cheese and Parmesan. Cover and let stand 5-10 minutes before serving.

For the focaccia, I sautéed sliced leeks until limp. I added a bit of white wine to the skillet and cooked it all down until the leeks were nice and soft.

Meanwhile, I let the pizza dough rise, punched it down, and then placed it into an oiled 9" square pyrex baking dish. I topped it with the cooled leeks and a generous topping of grated parmesan. I let it rise for thirty minutes and then baked it off in a preheated 500°F oven for 15 minutes.

I took it out of the pan and let it cool on a rack.

Yum.

 

 

 


Potatoes in Phyllo

The End of Week Twenty-Three

No weight loss, this week. What's surprising is there wasn't a weight gain. We've been hitting the biscotti - and I think portion sizes have started creeping up, again.

But... it's the holiday season. We're not pigging out as we have in the past, and I am definitely not going to fret and stress over a few calories. We'll find our balance and double down after the first, if need be.

It's the Winter Solstice, a few days before Christmas, the rains have almost stopped, and the basement only flooded a bit. Those are the good things. The bad thing was I had to go inside of a Bank of America, today. Nonna needed her Christmas Money.

I walked in to the otherwise empty bank and was immediately accosted by a kid in a suit who had appeared from a glass-fronted office off to the side.

"What can I do for you, today?" he asked, as I walked up towards the lone cashier behind the new counter-to-ceiling two-inch thick bullet-proof glass.

I need to make a withdrawal," said I.

"Oh. You can do that at the ATM in the front," said the probably minimum-waged employee.

""Ah... but I need different denominations," I replied.

He stated "You can get the money there and just come up here and change it for what you need."

I looked at him incredulously and said "That would be rather inconvenient for me, wouldn't it?!?"

He looked taken aback, stammered, and said "Well, since you're here, you can just go up to the cashier."

My reply was "Thank you. I think." and walked up to the cashier as he slunk back to his little office.

The cashier was equally inept. She seriously had a difficult time trying to figure out the three denominations I needed - fives, tens, and twenty's. It wasn't a lot of money - and it wasn't weird amounts. I smiled so much my face almost broke. I left, hoping I would never have to venture in there, again.

My grandfather worked for Bank of America in San Francisco when A.P. Giannini was still at the helm. It was a grand institution back in the day and I am certain they're both spinning in their graves.

With banking done and an envelope-filling session with Nonna completed, I started thinking about dinner. I knew a chicken breast was involved, and I kinda sorta thought brussels sprouts would be, as well... That left another side - and a La Cucina Italiana email sent me on the right track.

The emails from them are all in Italian and the website is all in Italian. While I can pick out a word here or there, I have to rely on Google Translate to figure out what's what. And Google translate really sucks when it comes to food and cooking terms. One of these days I'm sure it will be better as it learns more and more. But right now, it's fortunate I know how to cook and/or figure it out.

This is what I saw...

Rose di patate e pasta fillo

INGREDIENTI

  • 600 g patate piccole
  • 14 fogli di pasta fillo
  • burro
  • sale
  • fiocchi di sale
  • timo

Lavate le patate e tagliatele, senza sbucciarle, a fettine molto sottili; se è possibile usate l’affettatrice oppure la mandolina. Sciacquate le fettine sotto l’acqua e raccoglietele in una ciotola.

Disponete sul piano di lavoro i fogli di pasta fillo, uno per volta, ripiegandoli in un doppio strato, e tagliandoli a strisce. Spennellate le strisce di burro, disponetevi le fettine di patata, come mostrato nella sequenza qui a fianco, salatele e formate delle piccole rose.

Imburrate 2 teglie rotonde (ø 16 cm) e accomodatevi le rose, serrandole bene tra loro, in modo che non si aprano. Infornate le teglie a 190 °C per 30’ circa. Servite le rose con fiocchi di sale e timo.

Google Translate gave me:

INGREDIENTS

  • 600 g small potatoes
  • 14 sheets of phyllo dough
  • butter
  • salt
  • salt flakes
  • thyme

Duration: 1 h 15 min

Level: Medium
Doses: 4 people

Wash the potatoes and cut them, without peeling them, into very thin slices; if you can use the slicer or the mandoline. Rinse the slices under the water and collect them in a bowl.

Place the sheets of filo pastry on the worktop, one at a time, folding them in a double layer, and cutting them into strips. Brush the strips of butter, arrange the slices of potato, as shown in the sequence on the side, salt them and form small roses.

Grease 2 round baking sheets (ø 16 cm) and arrange the roses, tightening them well, so that they do not open. Bake the trays at 190 ° C for about 30 '. Serve the roses with salt and thyme flakes.

It's rather fun reading recipes in Googlese - it's like computer pidgin.

Anyway... I made them larger than the pictured ones, but they really came out good. Perfectly tender, a nice little crunch with the phyllo... they totally worked. I used ramekins, but I think a muffin tin would work better if making more than two.

The chicken was baked with Penzy's Mural of Flavor spice blend. The brussels sprouts went into the same oven with olive oil, garlic, and balsamic vinegar.

Not bad, at all...

I have to hit the fish monger on Sunday for clams and Sunday night we're heading next door to visit the neighbors - and then it's sit back and enjoy the holiday.

Retirement is good.

 

 

 


Chicken with Fennel and Lentils

Chicken with Fennel and Lentils

Instead of getting feet of snow, we're supposed to get about 26 hours of solid rain, starting tomorrow afternoon. Days before Christmas and they're issuing flood watches. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about this. On the one hand, I love a huge snowstorm that closes down the eastern seaboard. A cozy fire, bread baking in the oven, a pot of soup on the stove... On the other hand, if the electricity goes out, we have a freezing Nonna in the house with no Law and Order to watch. I think I'm going to be rooting for the rain, this winter.

It's 39°F outside, right now. That's barely 4°C for the civilized world.

I still don't get why the US refused to go metric when the rest of the world did. We sell liquor and soda by liters, medicine is in milligrams, auto parts are all metric, food nutrition labels are metric, we do 5k runs... but millimeters and centimeters instead of inches?!? quelle horreur!

Watching TV shows like the British Bake-Off or Rory O'Connell in Ireland is fun because they're not produced for the American audience. They speak in grams and Celsius - and I'm getting pretty good at knowing what they're about. Most of my artisan and sourdough bread recipes are measured in grams and we do have a digital scale to measure things out. I buy Italian flour in kilogram bags. While I am a product of cups and ounces and gallons, liters and milliliters are not difficult to grasp - and I'm sure today's techno-savvy youth would have no problems at all switching over.

It could happen...

All that because it's unseasonably warm outside.

There's still a chill in the air - 39°F/4°C is not exactly beach weather - so something in the oven warming up the house is not a bad thing. And when it includes lentils, it's definitely a good thing. I used the French lentils du puy for this, but brown lentils would work just fine.

Chicken with Fennel and Lentils

  • 2 bone-in chicken thighs
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 fennel bulb, sliced
  • 2 celery stalks. diced
  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 1 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 1/2 cups lentils du puy
  • 3 cups chicken broth
  • 2 tbsp Sambuca
  • 1/2 tsp French herbs
  • 1/2 tsp fennel pollen
  • salt & pepper, to taste

Lightly brown chicken thighs. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add onion, garlic, celery carrot, fennel, and fennel seeds to pan. Cook until onions are wilted and vegetables begin to brown.

Add chicken back to pan. Add lentils.

Stir in broth, salt, pepper, and French herbs.

Bring to a boil, cover, and place in a 300°F oven for about 45-50 minutes  - until lentils are cooked and most of the liquid has evaporated.

Stir in Sambuca and sprinkle with fennel pollen.

The Sambuca helped to highlight the licorice flavor of the fennel without making an overpowering presence. You only need a bit - don't go crazy with it. The dish is full of flavor, the chicken is literally fall-off-the-bone, and there's tons of texture from the carrots, celery, and fennel.

All-in-all, a successful meal!

 


Chicken Grand-Mère Francine

Chicken Grand-Mère Francin

Tonight's dinner comes to us from our friend, Ann, up north in the frozen tundra. Winter is a great time to fire up the oven and warm up the house, and this is a good reason to enjoy the fact that it's cold outside. Soups and stews and one-pot casseroles are my mainstay during the fall and winter, and this one is particularly nice because it's broth-based. No heavy gravy to weigh us down.

Ann made it with chicken thighs and added green beans she had from her garden. I had boiled a whole chicken for soup and stock on Thursday, so I had two cooked breasts in the 'fridge and decided not to cook more, but to adapt the recipe to what was in the house. What a concept, eh?!? And it worked.

Victor is not crazy about cipollini onions, so I used half of a red onion. I also added a splash of white wine, because... well... everything is better with a splash of white wine. I went with a wild mushroom blend, along with cremini mushrooms - and didn't peel the potatoes.

As you read the introduction to the recipe, you note that the author talks about using different potatoes, different mushrooms... The recipe is not chiseled in stone - it is adaptable to each and every one of us and our own likes and dislikes - as well as what's in the larder at the moment.

Read the recipe and then see how you an make it your own!

Chicken Grand-mère Francin

From Café Boulud Cookbook by Daniel Boulud (Simon & Schuster, Scribner, 1998)
Adapted by StarChefs

Yield: 4 Servings

Chicken Grand-mère, a savory fricassée, is a classic in French cuisine in general, but it was a classic in my family too. It was a specialty and a favorite of my Grandmother Francine, the grandmother who cooked at the original Café Boulud outside Lyon, and at no time was it better than at mushroom harvest time. Mushrooms are a typical Chicken Grand-mère ingredient, but there was nothing typical about the dish when my grandmother would add rose des prés, pink field mushrooms, newly dug potatoes and new garlic. Fortunately, this dish always seems to be both satisfying and soothing whether you're making it plain, with cultivated cremini or oyster mushrooms and creamer potatoes, or fancy, dressing it up with exotic mushrooms and any of the small fingerling or banana potatoes that many greenmarkets now offer.

Ingredients:

  • One 3-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
  • 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 12 cipollini onions, peeled and trimmed
  • 4 shallots, peeled and trimmed
  • 2 heads garlic, cloves separated but not peeled
  • 3 sprigs thyme
  • 4 small Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
  • 2 small celery roots, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
  • 2 ounces slab bacon, cut into short, thin strips
  • 12 small cremini or oyster mushrooms, trimmed and cleaned
  • 2 cups unsalted chicken stock or store-bought low-sodium chicken broth
  • Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Method:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F.

Working over medium-high heat, warm the olive oil in a large ovenproof sauté pan or skillet – choose one with high sides and a cover. Season the chicken pieces all over with salt and pepper, slip them into the pan, and cook until they are well browned on all sides, about 10 to 15 minutes. Take your time – you want a nice, deep color and you also want to partially cook the chicken at this point. When the chicken is deeply golden, transfer it to a platter and keep it in a warm place while you work on the vegetables.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the cooking fat from the pan. Lower the heat to medium, add the butter, onions, shallots, garlic and thyme, and cook and stir just until the vegetables start to take on a little color, about 3 minutes. Add the potatoes, celery root and bacon and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, just to start rendering the bacon fat. Cover the pan and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes.

Add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper, and return the chicken to the pan. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, and slide the pan into the oven. Bake, uncovered, for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Spoon everything onto a warm serving platter or into an attractive casserole.

To serve:
Bring the chicken to the table, with plenty of pieces of crusty baguette to sop up the sauce and spread with the soft, sweet, caramel-like garlic that is easily squeezed out of its skin.

Wine Pairing
A rustic Bandol Rouge

One of the more fun things with the recipe are the garlic cloves. They come out like roasted garlic - sweet and spreadable on crust bread or rolls. I used the whole wheat rolls I baked yesterday. It was perfect.

Chicken Grand-Mère Francine

As you can see, the recipe makes a goodly amount, so plan accordingly. We will have another complete meal from this.

Celery root - also called celeriac - is not a normal staple in our house, but I do see it being bought a bit more often. It does have a lot of different uses that I just haven't taken the time to explore.

Time to explore!

 

 


Spaghetti

The End of Week Twenty

Twenty Weeks. Who woulda thunk we'd be going to the gym and losing weight for twenty flippin' weeks?!?

Certainly not me!

I do have to admit that this has been something clear out of the realm of possibility for me. Actually going to a gym on a regular basis was possibly one of the most foreign things I could have imagined. Yet, here we are, twenty weeks later - losing weight and feeling better every day.

Who woulda thunk?!?

Even more out of the realm of possibility, though, was changing our eating habits. Yes, we pretty much always ate good food, but, damn, we ate a lot of it! And we won't even go into desserts! Okay - we will, a little bit... Cutting out our dessert every single night was pretty much key to all of this. You have no idea how much ice cream I could fit into a small bowl. Or wedges of cake and pie. And the odd thing is as much as I once loved them, I don't really miss them.

I think when I finally started seeing a difference in how I looked and felt that everything really fell into place.

Who woulda thunk, indeed?!?

In celebration of making it through twenty weeks - that's  more than twice as long as Boot Camp, by the way - it's spaghetti night! I weigh out pasta, nowadays - 2 ounces per person - and we always seem to have some left over.

I made a simple sauce of thick-sliced leeks, diced chicken, partially sun-dried cherry tomatoes, red wine, garlic, about a quarter cup of olive tapenade, and a 16oz jar of our tomato sauce. It could not have been simpler - and it came out great!

Two more days of home-cooking and then 4 days of restaurants. It will be interesting to see how we rank at the end of week twenty-one!

Fortunately, the hotel has a fitness center. I'm packing gym shorts just in case!

 

 


Cornish Game Hen

Cornish Game Hen

I couldn't tell you the last time I had a Cornish Game Hen. Probably back in my hotel days, somewhere, and probably left over from a banquet. One of the Hyatts I worked in served a lot of them for banquets. It was super-easy to do 500 or a thousand of them for a meal - and more trouble than they're worth to cook one. At least, that was my theory back then. Cooking one, tonight, was really easy. Times and attitudes change.

I'm really not sure why I had such a reluctance to buying them - other than they cost a lot more than their chicken cousins - but an impulse-buy at the grocery store the other day had me figuring out a simple recipe in no time.

One thing that surprised me a bit was the size. Granted, I haven't had one of these things in years, but they seemed bigger to me. I always remembered them being a one-per-person bird. Half of one of these was more than I could handle. I know we're eating less nowadays, but, still - this guy was pretty big even by our pig-out standards.

I decided simplicity was the way to go, so I gathered together some leeks, tiny potatoes, and carrots and layered them in a pan with olive oil, garlic powder, and some Tuscan seasoning. The birds got the same treatment and went on top.

Cornish Game Hen

I poured some white wine into the pan and it all went into a 350°F oven for just under an hour.

Total no muss/no fuss. The hens were tender and juicy, and the vegetables definitely benefited from being under the cooking birds. Lots of flavor.

I don't think they'll be a part of the regular rotation, but I can see myself picking up another one one of these days.