Archive for the 'Chicken' Category

(Chronologically Listed)

Sweet “Faux” Gras Pâté on Pear Chips…wait, wtf? Chicken for dessert?

Jeff at Culinary Disaster posed a challenge among a few friends recently to make a dish using chicken. I think we’ve all made many a chicken dish before, and seeing how dessert is where I seem to have the most fun, I thought it would only be appropriate that I try to do something a little odd and make a chicken-based dessert since I thought (a) that has to stand out and (b) that sounds like a hell of a challenge. I know…dessert…and chicken? You didn’t misread, so let that one sink in and bear with me (have I ever steered you wrong, dear reader?). Trust me, this one has a happy ending!

Obviously, one has to tread carefully to get a dessert out of a chicken, and leaning too heavily on eggs seems like a crutch (given how obvious they are in dessert, anyways). So I thought I might be better off looking away from the usual breast/thighs and to the…
  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by mike on May 7th, 2008 under Chicken, Dessert, Fruit, Mediterranean, Side dish, Snacks | 27 Comments »

Chicken Burritos with Salsa Verde

I’ve had Mexican flavors on my mind lately, and with Cinco de Mayo approaching, it only seemed appropriate to make a distinctly Mexican-inspired burrito. These burritos include shredded chicken, freshly made salsa verde, a mild, Spanish goat cheese, and roasted poblano peppers, which all together, amounted to a new must-make-this-again-soon recipe.

I’d heard of tomatillos before, but had never actually tasted or seen one hands on. When I ran into them, I couldn’t help but just grab a ton of them without a clue as to what I would do with them. If you’ve also never worked with a tomatillo, they look kind of like small, green tomatoes with a papery wrapping (like a head of garlic). After a little thought, the most obvious thing struck me (another new thing for my tastebuds): salsa verde!

Now tomatillos are not tomatoes and salsa verde is a salsa that has no tomatoes (tomatillos are the star of the show), and in case…
  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by mike on April 28th, 2008 under Chicken, Main course, Mexican, Sauce | 25 Comments »

Moroccan Lemon & Olive Chicken

This is my second venture into the world of Moroccan flavored food (the other part: a delicious side of tagine veggies) and was the original dish that prompted me to start preserving lemons. A whole chicken is braised and simmered in an herby, lemon-olive sauce, and is then cooked in a tagine for a delicious, savory meal.

Lemon & Olive Chicken (breast meat)

The dish sounds pretty simple and the name, also, simple–simple enough that you might doubt the flavors. I mean, yeah, lemons are good and olives are good, its a curious pair, but will it really go anywhere?

Well, I really can’t do the chicken justice–the combination of lemons and olives simmering in a slow heat, somehow, some way, brings out the best of those two to create something new and exciting. They just sort of merge into one harmonious taste. The chicken itself is spiced in a curious, savory way and the meat itself is incredibly tender, prepared essentially like a braise, but…
  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by mike on February 5th, 2008 under Chicken, Fruit, Main course, Mediterranean, Sauce | 17 Comments »

Apple Chicken Curry

I know this one sounds like an odd combination, but somehow, innocent, autumnal kind of ingredients (apple, apple cider, cinnamon, white wine, dijon, golden raisins) come together to produce a curry that could stand up next to any other traditional chicken curry flavor-wise. And so today, we have apple chicken curry.

Apple Chicken Curry

I wanted to make chicken that somehow went with apples, but I had a tough time coming up with something that appealed to me. I wrote down a long list of things that I thought would go well with apple and then started whittling it down until there was a collection of things that seemed harmonious together. From there, I just took all of those ingredients out and just sort of went with it–since ginger and cardamom were involved, why not try to do something with some Indian flare to it? And so I started working in other Asian flavors, such as kasoori methi (a.k.a. fenugreek), and that is…
  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by mike on January 22nd, 2008 under Asian, Chicken, Fruit, Indian, Main course, Middle Eastern | 9 Comments »

Mojo Chicken Burritos

Who doesn’t love a good burrito?

Mojo Chicken Burrito

Like burgers, I think burritos get a bad rap (no pun intended). For this dish, I wanted to have something that was still hearty and scratched that Mexican-flavor itch, but I also wanted it to be fresh and flavorful, not greasy and drowning in muddled flavors hidden under some ground beef slurry.

The end result was very fresh and flavorful: I rubbed a chicken down with some pretty strong, savory spices (think cinnamony, limey adobo) and roasted it. This was then chopped and pulled into tender chunks of juicy meat. By itself, this was tasty, but a burrito just cries out for salsa, or at least some kind of sauce. Since beef wasn’t in the cards today, I thought a mojo sauce would be better for chicken than a tomato-ey salsa (mojo is typically a largely citrus-based sauce, if you’ve never had it. Sweet, acidic, and very vibrant), so I tossed the pulled chicken…
  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by mike on January 13th, 2008 under Chicken, Main course, Mexican | 7 Comments »

Apricot Date Stuffed Chicken Poached in Saffron Cream Sauce

This dish was really rich and tasty. The chicken was juicy and soft (on account of being poached) while the filling was a bit more honeyed and crunchy in texture, being filled with apricot, dates, and almonds. The sauce was also the poaching liquid: a creamy spiced broth teeming with saffron. All of these individually strong flavors paired together in a surprisingly harmonious way.

Chicken Poached in Saffron Cream Sauce topped w/date & fig, served w/cranberry rice

This dish was kind of a hodgepodge of ingredients–after making rugelach, I had some ingredients on hand that I normally don’t (apricot preserves, dates) and I just felt compelled to use them for something completely different. Once I got out of the dessert frame of mind, I came up with this. Describing the dish to my wife ahead of time was greeted with skepticism: there were a lot of flavors and many of them were sweet (she has a thing against sweet and meat). I was also feeling a little nervous, but it still seemed oddly…
  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by mike on December 20th, 2007 under Chicken, Fruit, Middle Eastern, Sauce | 6 Comments »
« Previous Entries

Subscribe:

Don't miss a thing!





 

May 2008
S M T W T F S
« Apr    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Blogroll



Meta: