Tapenade-Stuffed Chicken
I have been watching Jacques Pepin on TV since his very first show. I love his food, his style, and his approach to cooking. Unlike so many Celebrity Chefs, Jacques Pepin actually understands food and our relationships with it. He's not a show-off trying to let everyone know how great he is. He's a teacher who imparts his years of knowledge with ease and humor. He is truly a role model. I have most of his cook books - actual hard cover, not digital - and can easily get lost in any one of them.
His latest TV series is on PBS - right after Jeopardy - and it's where you will find us most nights of the week. It's wild times at our house, for sure.
A few days ago, he cooked up chicken breasts stuffed with a homemade olive tapenade that just seemed out of this world. I made it, tonight. It is.
Ever have one of those dishes that just works on every level? This is one of them. The homemade tapenade is extraordinary. In fact, I shall never buy tapenade, again. This one was so easy to make and so flavorful, there's just no comparison - and it only took seconds in the food processor to put together!
While you're here... take a look at the plate made by my friend, Kel...
I had a couple of bone-in chicken breasts, so I actually boned them, myself, instead of using the boneless store-boughts I usually have on hand. It's nice to actually do things like that once in a while so I don't completely forget how to cook.
From the boning to the stuffing was just a couple of minutes. And then it was into a skillet - covered - for a quick cook. It was pretty much a 30 minute start-to-finish meal.
The recipe is online in many different places, so I don't feel bad reposting it, here.
Chicken with Tapenade and Mushroom Sauce
Jacques Pepin
Tapenade:
- 3/4 cup chopped pitted mixed olives
- 8 oil-packed anchovy fillets
- 2 dried apricots, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
- 1 1/2 tablespoons small capers, rinsed
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Chicken:
- Four 6-ounce skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
- Kosher salt
- Pepper
Sauce:
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 cups cremini mushrooms, chopped
- 1/2 small onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- Chopped parsley and chives, for garnish
Putting it together:
- In a food processor, pulse the olives with the anchovies, apricots, garlic, capers and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until the tapenade is a coarse puree.
- Make a horizontal incision in each piece of chicken to form a pocket. Spoon the tapenade into each pocket and press gently to close. Season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper.
- In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the chicken breasts, cover and cook over moderate heat, flipping once, until golden brown, about 6 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate and cover with aluminum foil.
- In the same skillet, add the mushrooms and onion and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the wine and cook, scraping up the brown bits in the pan, until the liquid is slightly reduced, about 2 minutes more. Return the chicken to the pan and simmer until warmed through, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter to the sauce and season with salt and pepper. Transfer the chicken breasts to 4 plates and spoon the sauce over the top. Garnish with parsley and chives and serve.
Anchovies and apricots in tapenade. Who woulda thunk? But, dayum, it works! And the sauce is simplicity unto itself.
This one shall happen, again - and the tapenade shall happen often!
Pesto Chicken
It's Victor's first week of retirement - and we're eating better than ever!
Monday didn't count because it was a holiday (I made a pot roast) and I worked late Tuesday, but Wednesday was seafood, Thursday was peppers stuffed with apple sausage, and Friday was Grilled Pesto Chicken.
I'm liking this!
It's great that Victor can cook and that he likes to channel his inner Jacques Pepin. And my motto is If You're cooking, I'm eating. There is not much in the food world I don't like, so there's free reign to do what he likes. And I like it!
Since we've started this year's garden, it's time to use up the last of last year's bounty - and the pesto in the freezer is almost finished. He marinated the chicken in pesto and olive oil, and after they were grilled, they got a hefty topping of more pesto. Delish.
We also finished off the broccoli cheesecake from the other night, as well.
It really can be a pain in the arse coming up with dinner ideas every night. It's especially difficult because we're locked into an early mealtime with Nonna. But creativity abounds when there are two people willing to come up with the ideas.
Here's to many more fun meals!
Chicken Pasta Salad
After last night's birthday dessert, we rerally needed something a bit less caloric for dinner, tonight - especially since we're going to have another small piece, this evening!
I had taken some chicken out of the freezer this morning before heading to work, and decided a pasta salad would be a great idea for dinner.
Pasta salads are pretty much open, chop, and dump salads around here. It's whatever is open in the 'fridge, whatever veggies are lying about, and whatever looks good from the cupboard. Since there are always a half-dozen or mor pastas on the shelf, it's just a matter of which one I grab, first.
Tonight, it was radiatore. And the fixin's included grilled chicken, marinated artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, blue cheese stuffed olives, white beans, roasted red peppers, and freshly-grated parmesan cheese. The dressing was the oils and marinades from the jars...
Really simple and really good. Another plus is there's enough left for a few lunches.
Now... about that cake...
Not Quite Jambalaya
It's kinda wet and kinda rainy ... perfect weather for a not-quite-jambalaya.
I suppose any weather would be perfect for a jambalaya - hot and spicy really do transcend weather. I can eat stuff like this in the dead of winter or the dog days of summer. I really do love my spice.
I'm sitting here trying to think of where I've had the spiciest foods in my life, and I'm thinking it may have been in Singapore. Street food and bar food were the foods of choice as a poor sailor - although I did have the obligatory Singapore Sling at the Raffles Hotel.
The Raffles... The old girl was showing her age a bit in 1973 - but there have been a few renovations since I was there - and another going on right now. The Long Bar - where the Singapore Sling was invented - was in the lobby. During an '80s renovation, it was relocated to an arcade wing.
It wasn't all touristy like it is in the above picture... the glasses didn't have "Singapore Sling" printed on them, for one... In fact, I think there were served in a standard collins glass... But I do believe there were peanuts - not in a printed burlap bag, though...
But I was thinking spice - not hotels...
Like the original Long Bar, the street vendors of yore don't exist, either. In fact, old Singapore is gone. Some of the greatest food on the planet prepared on a cart with a wood fire, gone with it. Today, Singapore is a city of sleek, modern, skyscrapers. Tiger Balm Gardens has changed and been renamed. Even Bugis Street - where the transvestites hung out at night and where I got into a brawl with a few hundred Australian sailors - is gone. They've tried to semi-recreate it, but it's another Disney ride for the tourists... the old place had a bit of an edge at night... A great place for a 20 year old kid to hang out...
There was a public bathroom with a show on the roof-top every night... Alcohol was always involved. And no, I never partook...
But alcohol and antics aside... the food was stellar. And this shows the importance of a well-rounded education. One should always be able to have drinks at a 5-star establishment and sling beers with transvestite hookers at 3am in an outdoor street environment while catching the floor show atop the local latrine - within hours of one another, when possible.
Well-rounded, indeed...
And well-rounded is what our dinner was, tonight... Spicy, but flavorful. It was a mock-jambalaya with andouille sausage, chicken, and crab, black beans, peppers, onions, tomatoes, thyme, and hot, spicy boonie pepper from Guam. All cooked together and served over rice.
And now I need to see if I can find some more pictures of what the place was like way back then...
Salad Time
The calendar says Spring. The thermometer says Summer. And the Stomach says Salad.
It's 83°F outside, right now. That's 28°C for the rest of the world. It's still annoying as hell that we didn't convert to the metric system with everyone else. We sell wine and hard liquor by the liter and beer by the ounce. We sell gas by the gallon, milk by the gallon, and soda by the liter. Miles instead of kilometers, feet instead of meters... The thickness of aluminum foil is measured in millimeters.
Just one more instance why this country is so confused...
But out of that confusion came salads, tonight. Crisp, fruity, tangy salads - with grilled chicken on top.
I really do like salads for dinner - and once the backyard produce starts coming in we will be having them all the time - but for now, it's whatever looks good at the grocery store. Today was iceberg lettuce - because we like crispy crunchy lettuce - and shredded carrots, blackberries, tomatoes, radishes, and marinated grilled chicken - with a simple red wine vinaigrette. If I had thought of it earlier, I would have hard-cooked a few eggs. I'll put a batch on later and we'll have them when we need them - methinks more salads are in our future.
We have a ton of tomato seedlings going - 3 different heirloom varieties and San Marzano seeds brought back from Italy. Victor planted 6 pepper plants this morning that came in the mail from Chili Plants.com. It's a New Jersey company and we got them in less than 24 hours. Not bad, at all. They also have lots of practice shipping things - so... if you're in the market for live plants... give 'em a click.
There's also 2 types of beets out there, along with leeks, lettuce, and green beans - and eggplant and other stuff I can't remember right now, in the seed-starters. It's looking to be a plentiful season...
So here's to Spring in all it's overheated glory. At least it's not muggy.
Stuffed Chicken Breast
We were watching Jacques Pepin on PBS the other night and I marvelled at how he just keeps going - creating fantastic meals with a minimum of effort. I also liked that he has embraced technology while still being true to classic flavors.
I especially like him using the food processor for things like puff pastry dough or pâte à choux. I remember a million years ago when I worked at The Riviera Dinner House making several hundred little cream puffs every Sunday morning for Brunch. I worked 2pm until 10 pm as a cook on Saturday night, and then 10pm to 2am as bartender - and then back in at 7am to start Sunday brunch. At 2pm, Gracie - the owner - and I would go out drinking at the local bars and restaurants at West Portal - The Philosopher's Club and Batmal's, sometimes The Portal's. By 7pm I was pouring myself to bed. It was 1974. Sweet youth, indeed.
All of that pâte à choux was made by hand - and then filled with sweets and savories. I made cream puff swans, crab-stuffed mini's... Usually, I just used up leftovers and reworked them and made them look all nice and fancy. It's serious waste-not-want-not when you're working for a mom and pop establishment. It taught me a lot.
It was along those lines that I came up with the stuffing for the chicken breasts. I had a small piece of ham left from dinner the night before, a small piece of toscano cheese with black pepper, a half an onion, and some mushrooms. The onion, ham, and mushrooms went into the food processor and were chopped pretty fine. I put it all into a skillet and sauteed it in a bit of butter and olive oil until everything was fragrant. I let it cool a bit and then stirred in the cheese that had been shredded.
I cut pockets in the chicken, stuffed them, and then into the oven they went for about 20 minutes.
Really simple. Really good.
Using up those odds and ends is important - and it really is amazing how good the one-off meals can be. It's my favorite way to make macaroni and cheese or a pot of soup in winter - or salads in summer. I didn't tell Nonna she was eating mushrooms and she cleaned her plate.
Jacques made a great pastry ring with chocolate and cream... I'm thinking I'm going to have to get crazy and make something like it...
There are just not enough meals in a day...
.
Chicken and Dumplings
Victor decided to try his hand at a dish fairly foreign to his Italian heritage - Chicken and Dumplings.
This is something I remember well from my own childhood. My mom made drop dumplings all the time - and my grandmother made rolled dumplings that were like big, thick, pasta noodles. I can taste both of them right now...
But fast-forward 55 or so years, and here is Victor making his first attempt - and hopefully not his last. These were delicious!
I had cooked a whole chicken a couple of days ago, so the basics - broth and chicken - were in the 'fridge. It was the art of pulling it all together and making light as air dumplings that made it so extraordinary.
He did a lookup of ideas and found a Martha recipe that was promising. He adapted it to what he had already, but here's the Martha concept. Play with it.
Chicken and Dumplings
adapted from Martha Stewart
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 medium onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 5 medium carrots, cut crosswise into 1 1/2-inch pieces
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 cups chicken broth
- S&P
- 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 2-inch pieces
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, or 3/4 teaspoon dried dill weed
- 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 cup cream
- 2 cups frozen peas
In a Dutch oven or heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid, heat butter over medium. Add onion, carrots, and thyme. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft, about 5 minutes.
Add 1/4 cup flour and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. Add broth and bring to a boil, stirring constantly; season with salt and pepper. Nestle chicken in pot; reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, make dumplings: In a medium bowl, whisk together remaining 3/4 cup flour, dill, baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. With a fork, gradually stir in 1/2 cup milk to form a moist and soft batter. It should be just a little thicker than pancake batter and should easily drop from the tip of a spoon. (Add additional 2 tablespoons milk if too thick.) Set aside.
Stir peas into pot. Drop batter in simmering liquid in 10 heaping tablespoonfuls, keeping them spaced apart (dumplings will swell as they cook). Cover, and simmer until chicken is tender and dumplings are firm, 20 minutes. Serve.
It was really, really good - even Nonna cleaned her plate - except for the peas. The dumplings really were light as feathers. Little clouds floating in a silken sauce. Outstanding!
It's a really great, comforting meal. Give it a try!
Sweet Potato Pancakes
Home. Back to reality. The upside of living here is the proximity to New York City. The downside is the proximity to New York City.
Back in my wild and crazy youth, we'd catch a flight from Boston on the Eastern Shuttle, bus to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and then risk our lives walking to the Grand Hyatt for our free rooms. That was back when Times Square really had an edge to it - not the Disney Ride it is, today. Third-run movie theaters and porn theaters competed with the legit theatres - and the legit theatres were showing their age. We'd be up and out all night and crawl back on the plane a day or two later - ready to do it all, again.
Lest it be said that I was always galavanting in bad company, in 1983 my parents came back to Boston and we did a trek to The Big Apple. They were doing a driving tour of the USofA and arrived right around their anniversary. After a few days in Boston, we drove down to NYC and I took the train back while they continued their trip. We got a suite at some hotel courtesy of my roommate, Jeff, who was Regional Sales Director for Seagrams, and scored tickets to 42nd Street at The Majestic Theatre. After several cocktails during and after the show, Pop and I put my mother to bed and we went out on the town. Rumor has it we had a great time. Couldn't prove it by either of us. It really was one of the most fun times I ever had with my father - not that I can really remember any of it. Just that we both had a blast.
That trip ended with a week-long hangover - that train ride back to Boston was painful. This trip ended with coffee and danish at 7:30am, an early train back home, and grocery shopping.
My, how times have changed.
I wouldn't trade those [lack of] memories for anything - but I am glad I've settled down, a bit. The warranty has expired on a lot of these parts...
What hasn't expired, though, is magazine reading, grocery shopping, and cooking.
I prefer paper copies of my cooking magazines, but also get the digital editions for those times when I'm sitting in a train or otherwise ensconced with my Kindle. One recipe from Fine Cooking or Cooking Light was a dish of shredded chicken over sweet potato pancakes. I don't remember the recipe, really, but the idea sounded pretty good. I like stuff piled on other stuff - this was right up my alley.
I made sweet potato pancakes by boiling a large sweet potato, mashing it, adding shredded cheese, bread crumbs, parsley, basil, garlic, and an egg to bind. I scooped it into a hot skillet nd fried them.
Meanwhile, I had boiled a chicken, pulled off all the meat, strained the broth...
I sauteed a chopped leek with shitake mushrooms and garlic, added some cauliflower and some white wine and cooked it down. Added some of the chicken, some broth, and thickened it with a bit of cornstarch.
Spooned it over the pancakes and dinner was served!
Really simple and really, really good!
And to bring it all back... In May, my sister Arlene and her two daughters are flying into New York. We're going up to meet them and take them to see Phantom of the Opera - at The Majestic, where I saw 42nd Street with my parents 34 years ago!
Fun!
Chicken and Chorizo
We don't often eat spicy foods, anymore. Nonna doesn't care for the heat and I'm usually not in the mood to cook two dinners. But every now and again the spice-urge gets to me and it's damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.
Like tonight.
We had some fresh Mexican chorizo in the freezer I had picked up down at Reading Terminal Market that had been calling to me for a couple of weeks. I had thought of a dozen and one ideas to use it, but they all meant cooking something else for Nonna. Tonight, I hit upon an idea that let me cook everything in one pan and parse out the spice when dishing things up.
And it worked!
The basic recipe came from Bon Appetit about 5 years ago - fairly current in my stack of recipes I haven't yet made. I think if I started cooking right now, I wouldn't get through the recipes I've clipped or collected before my 90th birthday. So many ideas, so little time.
I took the basic idea and played with it - and Nonna cleaned her plate, completely. Afterwards, she said, "the sweet potatoes were a bit hot, weren't they?" But she ate every bite. Go figure.
You could make this with cured Spanish chorizo, if you wanted - it would just be a bit different, texturally.
Chicken and Chorizo with Sweet Potatoes
- 3 chicken breasts
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 3 links fresh Mexican chorizo, casings removed, crumbled
- 2 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/2" thick
- 1 red onion, large chop
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp rosemary
- S&P, as desired
- Quesso Fresco
- Green Onions
Marinate the chicken in the apple cider vinegar and set aside.
Preheat oven to 425°F.
In an oven-proof skillet, slightly brown the crumbled chorizo. Push chorizo to the side of the pan and add the chicken breasts. Lightly cook on one side maybe 3 minutes - just enough to brown a bit.
Meanwhile, peel and slice the sweet potatoes, mixing them with the garlic, white wine, rosemary, onions, and a bit of S&P.
Remove the chicken breasts from the pan and add the potato and onion mixture - wine and all - to the skillet. Mix things up and nestle the potatoes down into the pan. Place the chicken breasts on top and place, uncovered, into the oven.
Bake about 25 minutes or until potatoes and chicken are cooked through.
Place chorizo and potato mixture on plate and top with the sliced chicken breast. Finish it off with crumbled quesso fresco and chopped green onions.
The quesso fresco balances the heat of the chorizo really well and the green onions add a bit of freshness.
It really hit the spot with a lot of oohs and ahhs throughout the meal. I see more spiciness being snuck into dinner...
Chicken and Grits - with a loaf of bread, to boot
Yes, we're still eating. Granted, I haven't had much of an appetite since Wednesday morning, but we're still eating.
Being creative in the kitchen helps to focus me. And lawsy knows I need a bit of focus, right now.
Baking bread is the ultimate in calming. There's something about flour and water coming together to create something totally different than either item, alone, that is pretty much a recipe for what we should be doing as a people.
Flour, water, salt, yeast... Four things totally different - they look different, they act different. They come from different places. Each on their own has something to give - and all four of them together create something truly magical. Each offers up itself to become something greater than their individual selves.
I've always maintained that food is the great equalizer. That if we would just sit down together at table and share our different foods, we would be in a better place.
As a kid growing up, our neighborhood was a mini-UN. We had kids from all over the world as our friends and playmates. Directly across the street were Filipinos. At 6 years of age I was eating Lumpia and Pancit and Adobo. How can you possibly hate a group of people who make Lumpia?!?
When Uncle Sam's Yacht Club brought me to The Philippines, I was right at home. I had heard Tagalog being spoken for 13 or so years. It wasn't foreign. I knew the culture and now I got to see where my best friends were from. I got away from Subic Bay and Olongapo City and traveled up to Manila, to Baguio, to really see the country.
In Hong Kong we went way out in the New Territories to the Red China border. We didn't take a tour - we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon, a train to Sheng Shui, and a rickety local bus to the border point. Americans were not allowed in China, but I stuck my foot through the fence at the border. The land on one side of the fence looked just like the land on the other. The people were all the same - it was just a line drawn by someone. Again, the food. Growing up in San Francisco gave me free reign in Chinatown. The one thing I found out was how different the Chinese food in San Francisco was compared to the Chinese food in China. I ate it with gusto because it was just so good. Noodles are noodles - you really don't need to know what's being mixed up with them when it tastes so awesome.
The best omelette I have ever eaten in my life was made by a Malaysian man in Singapore - in a wok on a street corner. He spoke no English but he knew how to take some of the freshest ingredients around and turn them into a fiery-hot plate of feathery-light eggs and vegetables and peppers and herbs. I can still see his gold-toothed smiling face as I swooned while eating. It was seriously one of the greatest things I have ever eaten.
Hearing different languages being spoken as a child piqued my curiosity. It made me wonder what was being said - how they could understand one another using all of those different sounds. And sitting around the table, playing games - mahjong with the Aunties or poker with Uncle Joe - was like sitting around my own house with my own relatives. Everyone talked at once, everyone ate, drank, laughed - it was all the same.
Because we are all the same.
The song from South Pacific plays in my mind a lot.
You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
I was lucky. I was eating Lumpia.
And tonight it was Grits. From Adluh in Columbia, South Carolina. Best grits around. Of course, being married to an Italian, we call it polenta. Same thing. Different name. Shrimp and Grits, Polenta and Scampi.
We're all the same.
I added some sweet potatoes left from the other night and floured the chicken in Adluh's Palmetto Dust - "A roasted garlic pepper breader that can be used as a coating for fish, chicken, pork, green tomatoes, pickles or onion rings." It was really good. Even Nonna ate it all!
I made the bread with King Arthur Artisan Bread Flour.
Multi-Grain Bread
Ingredients
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 cup warm water (100° to 115°, approximately)
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 cups bread flour
- 1/2 cup rye flour
Directions
Combine the yeast with sugar and warm water in a large bowl and allow to proof. Mix the salt with the flour and add to the yeast mixture, a cup at a time, until you have a stiff dough. Remove to a lightly floured board and knead until no longer sticky, about 10 minutes, adding flour as necessary. Place in a buttered bowl and turn to coat the surface with butter. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1½ to 2 hours.
Punch down the dough. Turn out on a floured board and shape into a round. Place on a baking sheet that has been sprinkled with cornmeal. Preheat oven to 400°F and let rise until doubled. Bake 35 minutes, or until well browned and hollow sounding when the top is rapped.
Carefully taught.
Fresh from the Garden
The farmers in the dell are at it, again! Today's haul is some squash - an accidental purchase at the seed store. I had looked at some green beans and grabbed what I thought was a little starter plant. My starter plant was actually crookneck squash. Meh. A vegetable is a vegetable, right?!? Well... it is when you're farmers in the dell. It really doesn't matter what's coming up out of the ground - we're going to find a fun way to consume it, no matter what it is.
Let's face it - this stuff is growing in spite of our lack of gardening experience, but what we lack in the growing end we make up for in the consuming end. The fun is seeing it and coming up with the recipe - very Iron Chef without the time clock. I really want to harvest a couple of squash blossoms at some point. I may not be the best gardener in the world but I know how to stuff a squash blossom with goat cheese and fresh herbs... lightly sauteed in a bit of olive oil...
But I digress...
Tonight was about showcasing the newest arrivals to the garden in a way that Nonna would eat it. She's not a squash fan, so I thought maybe mixing them in with some tortellini might sway her. She ate around them. Oh well. We both thought it was pretty darn good and cleaned our plates.
I just cut the squash and sauteed it in olive oil with red onion and garlic. I mixed in some fresh herbs from the garden - basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley - and then mixed in the cooked cheese tortellini.
Topped with slices of grilled chicken breast.
We have more than a couple eggplants growing right now, as well. I'm thinking I may have to can some caponata. That would be something fun to break out on Thanksgiving! Nonna no longer cares for eggplant, either. I'm envisioning a lot of dinners in the next few months with multiple components. Oh well. It is what it is. She will definitely go for the tomatoes. She's a tomato salad fan.
And there are lots of tomato plants out there. And peppers - lots and lots of different hot and sweet peppers.
This is fun stuff!
Chicken with Shaved Cantaloupe
This is a bit of a spin on a Bon Appetit recipe from the latest issue. Their recipe was for pork cutlets with a cantaloupe salad. The pork became chicken, the julienned salad became shaved ribbons of cantaloupe, the sliced pepper became sambal oelek... red onion instead of green... You know... just how I always follow a recipe.
I love recipes. I read cook books like other people read novels. I've just never been convinced they are sacrosanct in a non-commercial setting. I get that in a restaurant setting things need to be consistent. I remember a hundred years ago when I worked at The Red Chimney in San Francisco, the owner, Ed Taylor, was in the kitchen every night at 5 to 5 tasting the Bearnaise Sauce - and if it wasn't exact, it was thrown out and redone until it was. When I worked in health care, it was paramount that recipes were followed exactly so everyone knew exactly what the patients were - or weren't consuming.
But at home? Pffffft! It's whatever goes.
This was fun because the chicken marinated in shredded cantaloupe before it was grilled - something I shall be doing, again.
Chicken and Cantaloupe
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1/2 cup grated cantaloupe
- juice of 1 lemon
- drizzle of olive oil
- salt and pepper, to taste
Mix together and place in baggie with chicken. Let marinate about an hour, give or take. Grill over fairly hot heat until cooked.
Meanwhile, make the cantaloupe topping.
- 1/2 cantaloupe thinly sliced - use a mandoline, if you have one
- 1/2 red onion, very thinly sliced
- 1 heaping teaspoon sambal oelek
- chopped parsley
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1 scant teaspoon fish sauce
- pepper
- chopped salted peanuts
Mix the cantaloupe slices with the onion, sambal oelek, parsley, lemon juice, pepper, and fish sauce. Place atop the cooked chicken and finish with chopped peanuts.
This one is a definite keeper. I can see a few different variations on this theme. Cantaloupe really is refreshing and it's the perfect fit with a summer meal.
Maybe next year we'll grow some cantaloupe out in the south 40!