December 5, 2009
I think I’ve probably mentioned it here before, but I’m not really the biggest fan of chicken. I think it goes back to a trip to Europe the summer after my freshman year in high school. This was in the midst of the mad cow disease scare (much bigger deal over there than stateside), so we ate a LOT of chicken. I didn’t want to see it again for months after I got back, and I still just sort of tolerate it.
That said, chicken is much cheaper and definitely healthier than too much red meat. We eat chicken at least once a week, but I at least like to change up the cooking method. Which brings me to this recipe, which was amazing. I love lemon, and I love red onion. I don’t always have the greatest of success pan frying chicken, but this was perfectly light and crispy.
Rustic Lemon-Onion Chicken
serves 4
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces, butterflied and flattened with a tenderizing hammer
1.5 teaspoon dried thyme, or a small bunch of fresh thyme, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup white wine, optional
1 cup chicken broth
3 lemons, juiced
1 to 2 tablespoons butter
Mix flour with some salt and pepper in a bowl or flat dish. I used a pie pan. Heat the olive oil to medium in a large frying pan. Meanwhile, dredge the chicken in the flour mixture until lightly but evenly coated. Cook the chicken pieces in the oil for 2-3 minutes per side, until golden-brown-ish. Put the cooked chicken to the side, covered with foil. Reduce the heat to low and cook the onions and thyme until fragrant and the onions are somewhat translucent. Turn the heat up to high and add wine. Let cook briefly, then add lemon juice and broth. Continue to cook until the mixture begins to reduce and thicken. Remove from heat, whisk in butter, and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce and onions over the chicken to serve.
The original recipe suggests serving it over a bed of cooked spinach; I don’t care for cooked spinach, but I think it would be great over risotto or brown rice with some sort of green veggie.
Source: Melissa D’Arabian/Food Network
December 2, 2009
Risotto is one of those dishes that seems to have a reputation for being sort of complicated. Really, though, it’s so easy and so versatile and I should make it much more often than I do. Tonight I made it with mushrooms, red bell peppers, and asparagus. You can pretty much add anything you want; I personally like sun dried or chopped Roma tomatoes, pine nuts, and shrimp as other options.
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December 2, 2009
…again. It’s been a rough few months. I went to 5 interviews at various locations over the course of about 7 weeks, but I’ve been back in NC for a while. At any rate, things are starting to look up. I should be hearing from schools in the next 2-3 months. In the meantime, I am determined to try to get back into blogging regularly.
October 28, 2009
I’ve been trying to diversify my cooking lately. I got stuck in sort of a rut, in which I was still making good food but it was a lot of the same recipes over and over. I started by going into Google Reader and looking through all the posts that I have starred. There are a lot there from before I actually had my own kitchen, most of which I never got around to making. One of those recipes was this one, from The Way the Cookie Crumbles (I seem to get a lot of my recipes from there), for mandarin pancakes.
Mandarin pancakes are an absolutely essential part of mu shu pork, long one of my favorite Chinese dishes. When I was younger, I just wanted to eat the pancakes themselves and my dad would get mad at me because an order of the pork only came with 4. Well, now I can eat all the pancakes I want, and make the stir fry to go along with them. At the end of the pancake post is a link to this recipe for mu shu pork, from Use Real Butter (a new blog discovery for me).
Luke and I actually sort of tag teamed this one. The pancakes were a little labor intensive (and I was so hungry) so I had him get started on the filling while I made the pancakes. You can make them first though, wrap them in foil, and then do the stir fry. They warm up great in the microwave.
I pretty much always love the food that I cook. But a lot of times, the homemade version tastes a little different from the restaurant version, which requires sort of recalibrating my tastes. Not this one. This tasted pretty much exactly the way I remember, just a little better and fresher. The pancakes came out perfectly, paper thin. The stir fry had just the right crunchy texture and the light flavor that makes it a great match for hoisin sauce. Truly, fantastic.
October 11, 2009
My husband’s favorite dessert ever is crème brulée. I made it several times for him in college while we were dating but I can’t say that the recipe I used was terribly authentic (it did taste good though!). After a disagreement the other night, I thought it was time to make some again.
I ended up using this recipe, which I found on Dinner and Dessert but then look up in it’s original context in Desserts By the Yard, by Sherry Yard. The custard was very smooth and very nicely flavored. I did sub about a teaspoon and a half of vanilla extract for the vanilla bean. The problem that I currently have with crème brulée is that I don’t own a kitchen torch yet. I tried to acquire one as a wedding present, but with no success. That means that I have to do the caramelizing step with the broiler, which is very imprecise.
The problem is that caramelization (is that a word? not really sure) with the broiler takes a while, and the whole oven heats up, so you end up with warm, melty-ish custard especially near the outside edges. The best I could do with solving this problem is to let the broiler heat up for a good 20 minutes first, put the custard as close as possible to the heat source, and then put it in the fridge for a half hour afterward. The picture is from the last serving that I caramelized, the one that came out the best. As you can probably see, there were still stray grains but at least on this one I got a solid sheet of caramelized sugar and preserved the texture of the custard. All in all, delicious. Now I just need a torch.
October 9, 2009
There is a special place in my heart for red Thai curries. I spent my last semester of college in Oxford, UK, along with two other girls from A&M. One of them, my wonderful friend Mindy, and I went about once every two weeks to a restaurant called Thai Orchid where we shared pad thai and red curry. Then, one day, we decided to make some curry ourselves in one of the kitchens of St Hugh’s college. It was a huge success, repeated throughout the semester, and I have made it many many times since.
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September 13, 2009
I went to Target today, to buy vanilla. On the way there I realized the Anna Sui for Target Gossip Girl-inspired collection came out today, so of course I had to scope it out.
I was unimpressed, though I admit that may have been due to the limited selection here. I tried on this tunic. I was sort of undecided until I got Luke to come give me a second opinion. He said I would fit right in in the Middle Ages, and immediately all I could see was Robin Hood. With a pattern. Not quite the look I’m going for.
