It’s not every day that someone swings a plastic bag of severed extremities at you by way of “hello.”
My Precioussssssssss
But when that day comes and if the swinger happens to be Caroline Fanning, one of the growers at Restoration Farm, and she happens to follow her swing by saying, “Hey do you want some chicken feet?” then you should most definitely say “YEAH!” Continue reading
Finally!
Piled high in a platter and garnished with roasted red pepper and peas, this is a Puerto Rican classic!
Puerto Rican food is not as widely known as some other Caribbean cuisines (think Cuba and Jamaica), but when it comes to arroz con pollo — chicken and rice — you know what I am talking about. And I know I should have blogged this one for you a long time ago. Here, finally, is the one you’ve been waiting for.
Yeah, yeah, your grandmother’s chicken soup. I know. It was the best. Could raise the dead, in fact.
Just five minutes of chopping, and throw it all in the pot! No browning, no saute, no mirepoix, no sofrito, no roux.
Well this chicken soup may not be your grandmother’s, or even your mother-in-law’s. It may not be complex, may not feature a rich and dense stock, may not have anything at all fancy about it. But if you want to just throw a bunch of things in a pot and end up with a soothing, yummy, cure-all of a soup in less than a half hour, I think you will like my soup a whole lot. It’s a typical Puerto Rican and, apparently Aruban, style of soup prep.
The first tender tropical culantro leaves from a container on my Long Island stoop!
Important note: in this soup, my herbs were the first recao (culantro) I was able to harvest from the seeds I brought from Puerto Rico. You do not need them to make this soup – choose whatever you most like in the green herby kingdom – but I want to share with you my satisfaction at growing, on my stoop, one of the most distinctive elements of Puerto Rican cuisine. Eryngium foetidum – also known as recao, culantro and sawtooth coriander — is something that smells delicious in the rain, that tastes similar to cilantro, but is less citric and a bit deeper.
And another view of the recao…yes, I am inordinately proud…
I grew it at my grandmother’s house in Mayagüez from seeds from my great-aunt Amida, but have struggled to get it to grow here on Long Island. Thanks to a mad-humid summer, it has flourished in a container and I am very happy not to have to buy it already cut and fading in flavor from the local Latin grocery that gets it from Costa Rica. ¡¡¡¡TRIUNFO!!!
Comfort in a pot
No-Fuss Chicken Noodle Soup (amounts of vegetables are flexible)
2 quarts water (with a stock cube) or stock (or a mix of the two)
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 green pepper (preferably cubanelle or Italian cooking pepper), chopped
1 lb chicken breast (or boneless thighs), in 1’ cubes
1 Tbs herbs of your choice, chopped (especially culantro/recao/sawtooth cilantro)
Handful of soup noodles (fideos)
Salt to taste
Bin a large stockpot, bring water/stock to a boil. Add remaining ingredients, except noodles and salt. Return to boil. Lower heat to a lively simmer for at least 20 minutes. The longer you have the more tender the chicken. Add noodles five minutes before you finish simmering. Salt to taste and serve. I recommend adding hot sauce, like sriracha, to taste!
Bored with boring, boring chicken? So was I, until I remembered this quick marinade with the fresh flavors that Spring demands: lemon, basil and garlic. You basically toss it all together in a sealable plastic bag or tub in the morning, and by the time you get home from work it is ready for the grill. Add some grilled veggies, a salad, or some couscous and you could be eating really delicious food about 15 minutes after walking in the door.
Try it out this Memorial Day Weekend and you’ll be going back to it all summer long. Leftovers are great for next-day sandwiches or salad toppers. Thanks to Food To Live By by Myra Goodman (of Earthbound Farms) for the inspiration for this adaptation.
Grilled Lemon Basil Chicken
4 chicken breast halves (6-8 oz each), pounded thin
¼ fresh lemon juice
½ Cup extra virgin olive oil (if you have a seasoned oil, like basil oil or garlic oil, you can substitute up to half the plain olive oil with it)
1 heaping Tbs garlic, minced
2 heaping Tbs minced fresh basil (1 Tbs dried)
½ tsp salt
Several generous gratings fresh ground pepper
Place pounded chicken breasts in a quart-size resealable plastic bag
In a separate bowl, whisk lemon juice, olive oil(s), garlic, basil, salt, and pepper. Add to bag, seal and refrigerate for a minimum of 3 hours.
Preheat barbecue grill to medium-high or heat up your grill pan and spray a bit of cooking oil (only if your pan tends to stick).
Remove chicken from bag and discard remaining marinade. Grill, turning twice, about 4- 6 minutes on each side, depending on thickness, until fully-cooked (there should be no pinkness in the center). Serve with a salad or couscous or pasta with pesto!
You know we are frequent visitors to my friend, Pam’s, where the kids play while we fuss in the kitchen and try to reassure one another that whatever inadequacies we think we have as parents are not going to cause permanent damage to said children’s psyches or emotionally cripple them or lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or cause some such long-term catastrophic effect that will require years of therapy and narcotics to overcome.
Foreground: chicken breast, background: browned butter
It’s not all about anxiety. We also talk about our new projects and ventures (I’ll be telling you about some of mine in the next couple of weeks!) and brainstorm ideas for one another. Now that the children are getting older, there is more space and time to dream about a different future and it is fantastic to have people cheering from the sidelines. It’s good fun and of course it all happens in the kitchen.
And then we all sit down to dinner.
The kids have recently developed a new way to show appreciation when they like the food. They get up and dance! This, of course, makes me feel like a rock star (Everybody get your hands up!). So far so good, but last week we had two additional children who were staying over at the table with us. Is there any tougher audience than a collection of other people’s kids?
I tried this adaptation of a chicken recipe from The Minimalist (The man behind The Minimalist is one of my food and writing heroes – Mark Bittman). The only thing minimal about this chicken was the effort and the leftovers; the flavors were big and the chicken juicy and sure enough…all five kids got up and danced! Admittedly, this can become annoying when they won’t sit back down or someone looks like they are dangerously close to mooning the table or they start squealing too. But it is flattering and festive and fun and thus, today’s title: The Chicken Dance…corny, but hey, what’s a little corniness amongst friends?
We had rice, asparagus spears (oiled up and roasted in the oven for 15 minutes at 350°), and salad on the side. Triumph on the dance floor!
Chicken Cutlets Meunière
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about three lbs), pounded down to cutlets if you want them to cook more quickly
Salt and black pepper
About ½ cup flour or cornmeal for dredging*
Vegetable oil for frying (Bittman also suggests clarified butter)
2 Tbs butter for browning (optional)
1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
2 Tbs minced parsley
Heat a 12-inch skillet (nonstick if you’ve got) over medium high for two minutes. Meanwhile, sprinkle the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and set up the flour or cornmeal on a plate for the dredging.
Pour the oil into the skillet so it is about 1/8” deep and turn the heat to high. When the oil is hot, coat the chicken thoroughly in the flour or cornmeal you have set up on the plate. Add each to the pan as you dredge. You will probably have to do two rounds.
Cook until the chicken is nicely browned (3-4 minutes on each side if the breasts are pounded thin; 6-7 minutes on each side if they are thick). Lower heat if you are getting scorching!
Meanwhile, melt the optional butter over medium heat until nut brown.
When the cutlets are done, drain on papers towels then transfer to a warm platter, drizzle with lemon, and sprinkle with most of the parsley. At the very last minute, drizzle with browned butter and the last of the parsley.
*For variety, season the flour or cornmeal with your favorite flavors – curry, Italian herbs, herbes de Provence, cayenne pepper – it’s up to you.
Life in the kitchen has become a lot easier, now that Leandro has graduated to grown-up food.
Until recently, right about 5 p.m. I was getting flustered into throwing something fast and easy (and heavy on the carbs/cheese) in front of my imperious, hungry and persistent child. While he was already eating, I’d throw together a basic and boring salad or just cut a slice of cheese for myself or eat his leftovers and never actually sit. I’d perch on my chair in short spurts, just long enough to tell him to put his butt on the chair, use his fork, don’t wipe your hands on your shirt…blah, blah, blah, nag, nag, nag. Who would want to have dinner with that? Not me. And not him either, really.
So the boy’s new-found love for beef, chicken, and fish means I can spend a bit more time playing around with something we will both eat (and can make enough for next day leftovers.) do a quick veggie side and get to sit together in peace to eat and chat about the day.
Those succcessful family dinners are the moments — fleeting, but fulfilling — that I actually feel like I have a handle on life, the universe and everything, or at least I am not such a mom failure after all!
And this easy and cheap chicken thigh recipe is pretty representative of our new direction in dinner. It’s not much more involved than pan frying a couple of chicken pieces, but the mango-orange juice and sriracha makes it a tiny bit special.
You can leave out the corn starch if you don’t have any, but it does give the surface of the chicken a nice texture, sort of the avian equivalent of pasta al dente. You could also use chicken strips from breast, but thighs are the cheaper parts of the bird, and I find them to be more flavorful!
Mango-Orange Chicken Thighs
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs flour
1.2 tsp cornstarch
¼-1/2 tsp salt
Pepper to taste
1 egg
1.5 lbs boneless chicken thighs
1 medium onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic chopped fine
½ Cup mango-orange juice (or orange juice or mango juice)
1-2 Tbs cilantro, chopped
1 tsp sriracha or other hot pepper sauce
Heat olive oil in a pan big enough to hold all at medium until fragrant.
In a bowl, mix, flour, cornstarch, salt and pepper. In another bowl, lightly beat egg. Dip thighs in egg, then in flour mixture and coat.
Place chicken in pan and cook five to ten minutes on each side, until cooked through. Remove thighs and set aside.
To the same pan, add onion and stir to coat. Add garlic and stir to coat. Cook for a minute or two to soften, then add mango juice and cook until thickened slightly, about five minutes. Stir in cilantro and sriracha. Salt to taste.
Return chicken to pan, coat in sauce and cook for another five minutes (or until chicken is fully cooked). Cook longer and slower, adding water, for a shredded result.
Serve with rice, noodles, or on top of salad. Or shred for quesadillas.
In case you were wondering (TW, Donna, Lesly, Trish, and Steve in particular!) what I did with the last two pastured birds from the Restoration Farm Chicken Project…well let me catch you up!
Those new to the blog should know that we participated in a pilot pastured chicken share at our C.S.A. initiated by Trisha Hardgrove. The birds, five in all, were raised out on the farm, grazing and eating organic feed and processed right on-site. They were extraordinarily tasty and the texture was beautiful. So far I’ve done a traditional Asopao de Pollo (Soupy Chicken and Rice), a Rosemary-Lemon Roasted Chicken, and a Tandoori-Style Roast Chicken . My dad did the fourth in a lovely and warming chicken noodle soup, but I don’t have the recipe for that.
For the fifth and final bird of the season I went with another Cook’s Illustrated recipe, with, once again, only the very slightest modifications (a bit more rosemary, for example). The skin wasn’t crispy, but O.M.G. the tender savory chicken and the PAN JUICES. Wow. The secret is the Dutch Oven and not roasting your side vegetables in the same container, as they release a lot of liquid and dilute the chicken juices.
The instructions may look a bit long, but it is really easy – prep and forget. Effortless excellence!
I did oven-fried sweet potatoes separately for this one.
French Chicken in a Pot
You need a 6-quart Dutch oven with tight-fitting lid for this recipe
One 4.5-5 lb chicken, giblets removed
Salt and pepper
1 Tbs olive oil
1 small onion, chopped roughly
1 small rib celery, chopped roughly
6 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh rosemary (if desired)
½ – 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
This one is for my homies: my readers here on Long Island. All the rest, rest assured that once I fix the weird photo upload problem that is cramping my blogging style, I will have a bunch of new recipes to share!
Local, Fresh and (pretty much) Organic: We’ve been getting our eggs and Thanksgiving (and sometimes Christmas) birds from Makinajian Poultry Farm in Huntington for a number of years now. We didn’t discover them by ourselves; once we joined C.S.A. – first at Sophia Garden and now at Restoration Farm – eggs and Thanksgiving turkeys were optional shares. It’s a good thing, as a drive to their farm in Huntington is kind of a hike for us to do on a regular basis – 30-40 minutes from our house. It’s a nice place to go though – farm animals in the front yard, coops out the back and a sweet country-style store…Worth a visit!
The eggs and poultry, while not certified organic, are organically raised – no hormones, no antibiotics, cage free, and I believe they also get organic feed. Importantly, it’s all fresh – the organic eggs you buy in the supermarket can be weeks old (the USDA says eggs are fresh 45 days after being laid), while these are farm to table.
If you want a turkey for Thanksgiving, you should order it now! Click the link or here’s the number: 631-368-9320. And don’t forget to bring your order number when you pick up; it’s troublesome for them to find your order when the line to pick up is out the door…
I usually order extra turkey necks for the gravy and often pick up one of their homemade pies (still warm!) while I’m there. They also have organic produce…pretty much anything you might have forgotten to pick up for the Big Eat. Note: I do brine the bird overnight for extra tenderness and flavor and will probably do it again this year. I’ll let you know all about it!
I had about two pounds of boneless chicken breast defrosted and one of Leandro’s besties and his mom coming over for a congenial play date and dinner. I have the habit of fussing in the kitchen when they come over, as Amanda is an appreciative eater who likes to try new stuff. For the kids I usually make macaroni and cheese (from a box that — try not to roll your eyes — purports to be organic. Is this the foodie equivalent of ordering a bacon cheeseburger, fries and a diet Coke?)
This time, I wanted to be able to do more sitting and talking than mucking about with pots and pans. I don’t want my guests to be speaking to my back as I stir something on the stove and I just didn’t feel like making a second meal for the kids. I hate doing that, actually, but end up there more than I like to admit.
So this recipe — which I adapted from others I have done or read — was perfect. Just bung everything into a pot and a half hour later you have tasty, crowd-pleasing goodness that you can pile onto other Mexican-infused ingredients. On this occasion I made quick quesadillas with red beans (another one pot dish, see below) and Cheddar and Dominican white cheese which Leandro, Amanda and I ate, accompanied with avocado, cilantro and red onion. The revelation was Lucas, a bit more of a picky eater, who tasted the quesadilla (both the all-cheese just-in-case one and a chicken one) which by itself would’ve been cool, but who ended up loving the chicken on its own and eating several servings!
And yes, I sat – we all sat down to dinner together, in fact — and I didn’t fuss! Hurray!
Mexican-Style Shredded Chicken
2 lbs boneless chicken breasts
½ Cup onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 stock cube and four cups of water OR four cups of your favorite chicken stock
1 chipotle pepper in adobo, minced, seeds removed (1 pepper was not very spicy; play with this proportion according to your taste)
Place all ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer for at least 20 minutes until chicken is thoroughly cooked. If you have time, you can cook it longer for more tenderness. Remove from heat and remove chicken from any remaining liquid. Allow to cool, shred, and serve – hot or cold — in your favorite Mexican-style recipes (quesadillas, tacos, with rice, on salads). Flavor affinities include avocado, lime, cilantro, kidney beans.
Easy Red Kidney Beans
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs minced onion
1 half stock cube
1 tsp oregano
1/4-1/2 cup low-sodium vegetable juice (less water for drier beans)
1 15 oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 tsp chopped cilantro
Saute onion in olive oil until tender. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for 15 minutes until flavors are incorporated.
Took out some frozen organic chicken breasts the other day for a play date that got cancelled and between one thing and another, I hadn’t done a thing with them. And it was time.
So, it’s 9 p.m. and I’ve finally got the kid asleep and some order in the kitchen — indeed, an uncharacteristic bit of sparkle, as I went in with more extreme products than usual — and a small glass of wine waiting for me (which will probably be sitting there tomorrow morning, untouched…) and it’s time to cook.
What To Do? It’s not like I have hunger to inspire me or energy to leaf through books or any exciting new vegetable I want to experiment with. I just want the damn chicken cooked so I can get to bed because 5:30 a.m. will be here before I know it.
So, basic chicken tenders will do. They are simple, but the cheese, garlic and Italian seasonings keep them from being boring. I don’t pound them too much, as I want them juicy and thick.
Tomorrow I can slather them in sauce and cheese, stick them in the oven and call them chicken parmesan if I like, or pack them up for Leandro’s lunch with some ketchup on the side, or roll them up in a wrap or slice them into a salad for myself. There’s not enough to freeze, but they’ll be fine a couple of days in the fridge once they are cooked and they will certainly be handy. They will make two meals each at least for me and the kid.
So, bang-bang, chop-chop, and they are done in no time! Nitey-nite!
Simple and tasty
Simple Juicy Chicken Tenders
Two boneless chicken breasts (about 1lb), pounded to evenness – 1 inch or less
½ cup Italian style bread crumbs or plain breadcrumbs seasoned with a Tbs of Italian herbs
1 Tbs grated grana padano or parmigiano reggiano
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbs vegetable oil
Preheat oven to 350°F. Slice chicken breasts into long strips (cutting with the grain).
Place breadcrumbs, cheese, garlic and seasonings in a bag. Pour oil into a bowl. Dip chicken strips into the oil, then place in bag. Seal bag and shake to coat chicken thoroughly. Lay strips on greased baking sheet (or – even better, ridged rack).
Bake for 20 minutes, turning once. For greater crispness, place under the broiler for five minutes.
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