Posts Tagged Poultry
Chicken and Pork Lettuce Wraps
Posted by Van Santos in Chinese on December 17th, 2009
In my quest to try new things I decided that Lettuce Wraps was going to be the next dish I was going to master. Well, not master but give a shot.
I’ve united a number of recipes to create this dish, here we go
1/2 lb Chicken Breast tenders (sliced thinly)
1/2 lb Ground pork
1″ of fresh ginger, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
4 large shiitake mushrooms
salt and pepper (for taste)
Canola Oil (or Vegetable oil)
1 orange for zest
4 Green Onions, very thinly sliced
3 1/2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
Green Leaf Lettuce
Here is the good stuff, ready to go!
1) In a large pan heat up 2 to 4 tablespoons of oil – I happened to have a wok so I went with that.
2) Add in Chicken and Pork and stir to prevent sticking and burning. Cook for 2 minutes.
Chickena and Pork cooking away!
3) Add mushrooms, stir and cook for an additional two minutes.
4) Add garlic and ginger, start and cook for a minute.
5) Add bell pepper and green onions, stir cook for two more minutes (less if you want your peppers to be firm)
6) Add Hoisin sauce, salt and pepper to taste and stir until the sauce covers everything
And you get…
OH SO GOOD!
Again, this is another restaurant quality dish. While one may thing the hoisin sauce would be the “key” to the dish – and don’t get me wrong, it would not be the same without it – the true secret is the ginger!
This recipe will make enough for roughly 6 to 8 wraps. If you like Chinese food this is quick and easy and it leaving you wanting more.
Tortilla-crusted chicken
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Food, Low Calorie, Main Course, Poultry on December 8th, 2009
With this being my first post I wanted to be sure the dish is well worth your try. Rest assured, it is. For something so simple there is a lot of flavor and texture.
You will need:
1 c finely crused multigrain tortilla chips
1/2 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 egg
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (about 1 1/4 lb total)
shredded romain/salad
purchased salsa*
avocado slices
1. Preheat oven to 375 and coat a baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a shallow dish combine chips, cumin, oregano, and pepper. Place egg in another shallow dish; beat lightly. Dip chicken in egg and then coat with tortilla chip mixture.
2. Arrange chicken in prepared baking pan and bake for 25 minutes or until no longer pink. Serve on romaine and top with salsa and avocado. Makes 4 servings. Enjoy!
*I used a medium salsa for extra ‘kick’ and flavor.
Nutritional Information (per serving):
Calories: 230
Total Fat: 6 g
Cholesterol: 135 mg
Protein: 35 g
Carbohydrate: 7 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 143 mg
Baked Beer Can Chicken
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course, Poultry on December 6th, 2009
On Friday I went to dinner at TMG simply for the bison sliders but ended up with “Beer Can” chicken for my entrée. I was impressed with the dish, it was juicy and full of flavor. Right away I begin thinking “I can do this at home….” With a quick bit of searching I located Big Bud’s Beer Can Chicken and went to town.
I made two small modifications. For this you’ll need:
- 1 (2 to 3-pound) whole chicken
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon mustard powder
- 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 (12-ounce) can beer
- 1 pound bacon
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Wash chicken with cold water and pat dry with paper towels.
Mix dry ingredients in small bowl. Rub 1/2 of the ingredients on inside cavity of chicken. Gently peel skin away from chicken and rub mixture into meat of chicken. Open beer can pour out about 1/2 cup. Drop the garlic cloves into the beer can. Place chicken, open end down, over the beer can to insert the beer into the cavity. Place chicken, standing up, in large saute pan.
Place 1/3 of the bacon in the top cavity of the chicken and drape the remaining 2/3 of the bacon down the outside of the chicken. Pierce the bacon to the chicken with toothpicks… again, I didn’t have toothpicks so I opted for skewers.
Place chicken in the oven for 10 minutes and then lower temperature to 325 degrees F and cook for another 1 hour, or until the internal temperature in the thickest part of the thigh reaches 165 degrees. And you get…
The aroma of this dish cooking filled the entire condo, and as time marched closer to the finish I simply wanted to eat the chicken right from the oven.
Bacon and chicken, who could ask for anything more? The dish was actually more tended than I would have expected and the flavor provided by the rub was subtle, not overwhelming, but perfect for the chicken. This is a keeper.
I also made a small side, potatoes with butter and chives… nothing special but I thought it would go with the flavors in the rub.
Chicken with white wine, shitake mushrooms and goat cheese sauce
Posted by monicajane in Food, Main Course, Pasta, Recipes on September 7th, 2009
The first part of this dish I diced lots of garlic (about a whole head of it) and sauteed it in olive oil. I then browned the chicken in the oil and garlic and topped it off with fresh rosemary and thyme from the garden. Salt and fresh ground black pepper, as well.
Once it was browned I poured in one cup of white wine and let it boil and then lowered the flame and covered the dish as it looks above.
I had dried shitake mushrooms which I brought to a boil in water. Above is what they look like before and after. I allowed the mushrooms to stay in the hot juices until they cooled and then I poured the left over juice into the cooking chicken and cut up the mushrooms in bits which also went into the pan with the cooking chicken.
When the chicken was completely cooked I took out the meat and added 1/3 of a pound of goat cheese into the juices. It looks like the above picture.
I then boiled some pasta and made the final dish. The picture unfortunately came out awful, but the food was delicious.
Pistachio chicken
Posted by monicajane in Main Course, Recipes on August 6th, 2009
This is a dish I make from time to time. The original recipe called only for chicken covered in ground salted pistachios and baked.
I’ve added herbs and spices that make it tastier in my opinion.
All one need do is first grind up about a cup of pistachios in a blender.
Once it’s as finely ground as you can get it, place it in a bowl and put pieces of boneless chicken breast in the bowl and thoroughly cover the chicken with the pistachios. If you want to stop where the original recipe stopped, stick them in the oven now and bake like any other chicken breast.
You can save the leftover pistachios in a small freezer bag in the freezer. Because they’re tainted with chicken make sure you use them in something you cook thoroughly.
I’ve added in today’s bake:
Fresh rosemary — whole leaves
Fresh sage — diced finely
Garlic — diced finely
Fresh ground pepper
Sprinkle all the above ingredient all about the top of the chicken pieces.
Then to make sure it all browns nicely and sticks together I spray the top of the end product with olive oil spray before popping it into the oven.
I bake them at 350 degrees and time all depends on the size of breast. These particular pieces were very small and took only 25 minutes.
In one of Van’s post we talked about not being big fans of white meat. I like this recipe for white meat because the thorough covering with nuts tends to hold the juices in the meat and so it turns out more tender than it might otherwise. I’m very careful not to overcook as well.
Campanelle with Chicken and Vegetables
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course on April 14th, 2009
Last night I was thinking to myself “I want a nice, healthy, fresh dinner tomorrow.” Immediately my mind started running different options – do I want a fresh salad or a simple pasta dish. After roughly 12 hours with the topic running through my mind, I decided pasta was the way to go. I take my dinner choices seriously!
This dish is based, in part, on the recipe over at My Tasty Treasures. I made a few changes based on what seemed right for me and then I had a go.
What you’ll need:
- 3 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
- 1 Head of Broccoli
- 1 Red Bell Pepper
- 1 Yellow Squash
- 3 cloves of Garlic
- 2 cups of Chicken Stock
- 2 tsp of Basil
- 2 tsp of Olive Oil
- 2 tbsp of Butter
- ½ tsp of Black Pepper
- ½ tsp of Salt
- Shredded Asiago Cheese
- Pasta (cooked and ready – remember to boil in saltwater!)
Chicken Breast, Red Peppers, Yellow Squash, Campanelle Pasta
Food Prep
Cut your Chicken Into thumb sized cuts, set aside
Chop your Broccoli into Florets
Slice your squash into half dollar chips
Peel and dice your Garlic
Cooking
1) Place your vegtabiles into a pan with ½ inch of water, steam on medium-high heat for 5 mins, set aside (or cook while doing next part)
2) Place olive oil and garlic into large pan, cook until garlic is brown
3) Add chicken stock and chicken cuts – cook over medium-high heat until the chicken is almost cooked
4) Add Butter, Basil, Salt and Pepper – stir
5) Add Pasta and Vegetables and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the chicken reaches the desired degree of cooking
Finished and ready to go!
I was hoping for a quick and easy dish, and I found it. Total prep and cook time is roughly 25 minutes and is not difficult at all. More importantly, and I very well may be biased, this is one of the freshed dishes I’ve had in a long time. With a few tweaks this dish could very easily be of restaurant quality. It is truly that good. The Red Peppers hold the taste of the chicken stock ever so slightly, the asiago adds a bit a sharpness and the chicken is juicy.
Really, as long as you do not overcook the chicken I truly believe you will enjoy this dish!
Chicken Pesto Stuffed with Fresh Mozzarella and Steamed Vegetables
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course, Recipes on April 6th, 2009
For years I’ve enjoyed making pesto sauce. I remember on day simply thinking to myself “what would make a good pesto” and I started to experiment. I never used a recipe. this was one of the rare cases where my mind seemed to piece everything together. I had planned on making this dish Saturday evening but I was too sick, I just didn’t have the energy. Yesterday evening I found myself in a slightly better physical state so I decided to have a go at it.
For this dish you will need:
- 6 garlic cloves
- 1 bunch of fresh Basil
- 1 bunch of fresh Tarragon
- 1 bunch of fresh Radish greens
- 8 oz Grape Seed oil
- 4 oz Olive Oil
- 1 cup of fresh baby spinach
- 2 tbsp of hazelnuts, chopped
- pine nuts
- ½ cup grated asiago cheese
- 8 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into small cubes
- 3 boneless, skinless, thin sliced chicken breast
- 1 Head of broccoli
- 1 yellow squash
- 1 box Fettuccine
Pesto Sauce
- Put one 1 tsp of Olive Oil in a pan, heat, and roast the garlic cloves. You want these cloves to be BROWN. Not tan. Not lightly golden. BROWN on all sides.
- Take your Fresh Basil, Tarragon and Radish Greens and chop in a blender. I tend not to use the thick stems of the leafs, but some people opt to. To me the taste ends up being too bitter when the stems are included. After chopped, remove from blender.
- Put Grape Seed Oil, Olive Oil hazelnuts and asiago cheese in blender, mix.
- When nuts/cheese and oil have mixed where there are no large “chunks” add the previously mixed Greens as well as the garlic cloves and mix until you obtain the consistence you desire
Your pesto sauce is now done. You may be asking a number of questions about this, so let me try to head a few of them off to being. I use double the amount of Grape Seed oil as compared to Olive Oil because I have found that Olive Oil can be too strong at times. Yes, hazelnuts are used… Be careful not to overdo the usage as the flavor of hazelnut can overwhelm the sauce.
Stuffed Chicken with Mozzarella and Spinach
- Pre-heat oven to 350
- Transfer your pesto sauce out of your blender, if you have not done so already, and rinse out blender.
- Add Spinach, Mozzarella and blend together
- Lay out the chicken breast, add Mozzarella and Spinach filling to the breast, then spoon on desired amount of pesto sauce
- Roll the chicken breast lengthwise, tie with kitchen twine
- Place on foil covered baking sheet, spoon pesto over chicken
- Bake for 35 to 40 mins
While it is usually easy to dry out chicken breast rather quickly, especially thinly sliced breast, remember, as this bakes the cheese in the chicken will melt out. This will help keep the moisture in the chicken.
While the chicken is baking, boil up the Fettuccine. I would suggest you boil the pasta in saltwater (a technique I just learned from JT, one of the other writers on this blog). This will add a subtile taste to the dish. Also steam up the broccoli and squash for about 10 minutes in about an inch of water.
Once everything is ready to be served, drizzle on extra pesto sauce and sprinkle grated asiago cheese and pine nuts to the dish.
Expect to have plenty of pasta and pesto sauce left over as this recipe makes roughly 3 servings. The overall taste to this dish is very well balanced. No one thing out does the other, and there are plenty of flavors to go around. There you go… Enjoy!
Roast Chicken and Potatoes
Posted by JT in Main Course, Recipes on March 29th, 2009
Roasting a chicken is one of those quintessential things you are supposed to be able to do if you consider yourself a cook. I have a confession to make. I have been cooking for around 8 years now and I have never made a good roast chicken. That is until now.
One of my problems is that I refuse to use recipes. It feels like cheating to me. It doesn’t feel like you have learned anything, just memorized something. Because of that, the first few chickens I roasted came out sad and flabby and I stopped roasting chickens. Since then I have read a lot more about roasting chicken, and while this attempt still wasn’t perfect, it was a vast improvement and created the best potatoes I have ever had in my life.
Roast Chicken and Potatoes
1 chicken -unsure of weight
Potatoes -enough to create a bed for the chicken
Salt – 1 cup + 2 tablespoons
Baking Soda – 1 Tablespoon
Water – Enough to cover chicken
Pepper, Parsley, Lemon and Garlic – For stuffing the cavity and seasoning
1. Starting with the chicken, I buy my free range, organic chicken from a farmer. While the chicken does taste more “chicken-y” than the grocery store variety, the main difference I have found is the amount of fat. Farmer chicken has much more.
2. 48 hrs in advance, brine the chicken. I place the chicken in a pot, add water until chicken is covered, remove the chicken and mix in a cup (give or take) of salt, and then stir. No need to heat it, the salt dissolved just fine, and I don’t add any other flavors because I’m not really using this as a flavoring as much as to trap moisture in the cells and give me less of a chance of over cooking.
3. 24 hours in advance, remove chicken from brine and dry thoroughly. Once chicken is very dry create a rub of 2 Tblspns salt and 1 Tblspn baking soda. This is to desiccate the chicken skin and really give you thin, crispy skin. Rub this all over the chicken skin. Return to the fridge uncovered.
4. Preheat the oven to 375, remove the chicken from the fridge. Using a knife cut a bunch of slits in the chickens back to allow the fat to escape as the chicken cooks. Stuff the chicken cavity with a halved lemon, a few cloves of crushed garlic and a bunch of parsley.
5. Cut up your potatoes (I used fingerling because it is what I had) and create a bed for the chicken in your roasting pan. Place the chicken on its back on top of the potatoes
6. Roast chicken for 25 minutes at 375, turn up heat to 475 and roast for another 25 minutes, turn off heat and let cook for 10 more minutes or until the thigh registers 180.
7. Move the chicken to a carving board and let rest, move the potatoes (golden and crisp on the pan side) to a serving bowl add salt if desired, pepper and chopped parsley.
The brining plus salt rub results in a pretty salty chicken. That’s how I like my chicken, if you don’t I would reduce or eliminate the salt rub. Yes, this recipe involves a lot of advance prep, and not all of it is worth it. Going forward I will remove the baking soda, it left a little bit of a baking soda flavor, the skin on the back turns out soft from sitting on the potatoes, and I think that the salt plus 24 hours in the fridge uncovered will do enough to dry the skin. Finally, I’m not sure what I added by putting lemon, garlic and parsley inside, next time I’ll leave it out and see what type of difference it makes.
Here is a close up of the chicken skin where the thigh meets the body that shows the tissue paper like consistency the skin had.
