I wasn't planning on posting this dinner when I first started cooking it, but when it was almost done, it looked to good, and once eaten, tasted too good not to post. I had a bunch of vegetables from the farmers market that I needed to use and figured that a salad was the best use of those veggies. This is what I came up with.
Romain lettuce, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
Carrot, chopped into disks.
Fire roasted corn
Fire roasted green bell pepper, sliced
2 chicken tenders
1 chipotle pepper
Black pepper
Salt
Cesar salad dressing
Parrano cheese, grated
Lemon juice
I found some of the cheapest per pound chicken was the frozen chicken tenders. While I would prefer fresh chicken, I can't really afford it and these aren't too bad. After defrosting these, I chopped up a single chipotle pepper and rubbed it onto the chicken with some salt and black pepper. I cooked these on a cask iron skillet that I had, though grilling them would have been preferred.
I recently am a big fan of roasting fresh corn over my gas range. I first rub some butter onto the husked corn, then slowly rotate the corn over the flame making sure there is just a tiny bit of black all over. While doing these the butter melts, starts to dip and ignites making the corn flame broiled, all the while some kernels are popping and cracking. I roasted a green bell pepper as well. I used a fork as a spit and to turn it.
All of these was tossed together and covered with some cesar salad dressing and some amazing freshly grated Parrano cheese, and lemon juice. I ended up making and eating two plates.
I tried my hand at a new dish, and though I made some major changes to the original recipe, it turned out really good. And yes, I know I am a king at plate presentations.
6 chicken drumsticks
1 large onion
2 potatoes
3 carrots
(1 red and 1 green bell pepper, but only if you have room in your pot, which I did not)
1 and 1/2 cups basmati or long grain rice
3 cups water
14 oz can diced or chopped or whatever Tomatoes
3 Tbsp Canola oil (or really any type of cooking oil is fine)
chopped Cilantro
1 jar Patak's Biryani curry paste. (the most difficult but most essential ingredient)
You will want to use the largest pot you have a top for, or cut the portions down. I started by chopping up all the veggies into similar size pieces. I put the oil in the pot and tossed in all the veggies and the chicken drumsticks setting the burner on high. I let these cook for a bit while stirring it down. I also added some salt to help it cook down. After about 10 mins, I added the can of tomatoes, rice, water and the whole jar or Biryani paste. I mixed that up and turned the heat down to medium. I put the top on and and let it do it's thing. I still opened it and stirred it every once and a while, once every 5-10 minutes so the rice on the bottom didn't burn. Once it all got real hot and bubbly, I turned down the heat. Essentially it is like making a jambalaya. It seems pretty wet at first but the rice ends up absorbing it all and it thickens up. This all cooked for about 30-45 more minutes. Now at this point it was probably done, but I had to go do some other stuff. To keep it hot and just to make sure the chicken was cooked all the way through, I turned on the oven, let it heat up, then turned it off and put the pot, with the top on into the oven. I left it here for about an hour and a half. When I took it out it was really hot still. Actually after it sat out for another hour, the rice was still steaming when I dug through it with the spoon. Who'da thunk rice with all it's starch held onto heat all that well. The final step is to add some chopped cilantro to the top.
So I don't really know if the last 2 hours of being in the warm oven did much, but it turned out really good. The rice was nice and sticky, the veggies were all soft, and the chicken was tender and moist. I would probably do things different next time however. I would decrease the portion size, by a lot. I might increase the veggie ratio to get more of that flavor, specifically on the onion. And finally, the chicken, while having perfect texture didn't really have a lot of flavor. I might try grilling it up first, or maybe marinating it in plain yogurt and tandoori paste.
These were my contributions to the slider party.
1 pack chicken breasts
1 box Japanese style Panko bread crumbs
4 Tablespoons flour
milk
baking soda
salt
pepper
oil
1 pack Hawaiian Sweet King rolls
Hamburger style dill pickles
A handful of stolen Polynesian Sauce packets from Chick-fil-A
With the chicken breasts, I cut each into 4 chunks; however, this made for very large sliders. I would recommend slicing some of the thicker cuts in half horizontally to make them more manageable. I then salted the chicken and made the dredge and breading
For the dredge, I mixed about 4 Tablespoons of flour with about a Tablespoon of baking soda in a bowl. I then added milk while stirring briskly until it was the right consistency. Just enough to coat a dipped finger.
I poured the box of panko into a bowl and added some more salt and a good dose of black pepper.
I dipped the chicken in the dredge, then sat them in panko. In order to get as much breading on as possible, I let them set covered in panko for about a minute before pulling them out of the second bowl.
I only had vegetable oil on hand to cook with, but peanut oil is always best for frying. I used a smallish put with about 3 inches of oil heated until it was about 350 F. This is a hard number to hit when you don't have a thermometer or stand alone deep fryer. The first few pieces I tossed in got too brown on the outside while the inside was still raw. Once I got the temp right, it took about 3 minutes to cook the chicken all the way through and at 350 F, the panko was just able to get nice and golden.
To keep the chicken crispy, it is important to not but them in an air tight container. Just set them on some paper towel to let the oil drain off and as they cool they will stay crispy.
I split the Hawaiian King rolls in half, placed a single dill pickle slice on each, set down the chicken, and drizzled on some Polynesian sauce. I found that each packet would cover about 2 1/2 sliders.
And not only that, but this also marks the 100th post for Vittles And Mangia! Woot! Alright, so this dish here, totally came right off the top of my noodle noggin, and its probably in the top 3 best things I've ever cooked. It was soooooo good.
Senor Pollo:
-1 2 lb. Cornish Rock game hen, stuffed with onion, rosemary, garlic, and a lemon half.
-Glaze/Sauce, 1 cup orange juice, 1 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil.
I preheated the oven to 375, seasoned the hen with salt, black pepper, and paprika. Slapped the thing in a roasting pan with 2 orange slices tucked in underneath it. I poured in about half of the sauce. Then I cooked it for about 1 hour and 10 minutes or so, opening it up to brush more of the sauce on the meat every 15. I pulled it out when it got to be about 173 internally or so, and covered it, knowing that the residual heat would bring it to 180 without losing moisture.
Weird Spinach Celery Concoction:
I eyeballed all of this, and I admit that the flavors might read as a little off, but trust me when I tell you that it was awesome.
-about 2 cups finely chopped celery (but not that fine), sauteed for 5 minutes on medium high in 2 tablespoons of butter. Once I was satisfied with the color I added 2 big cloves of minced garlic, and a big spoonful of flour. I'd say it was probably a tablespoon or two. The idea was that the flour would add to the butter and basically make a rue right there in the pot with the celery and garlic. After the flour browned I added a healthy sprinkling of dill, though I'm not sure how much, and a good drizzle of maple syrup, probably about 2 or 3 teaspoons. Then I covered it, reduced it, and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. When the celery was tender, I added, I think, about 2 cups of fresh chopped spinach, and brought it back up to medium high. Then I let the spinach wilt and cook down into the rest of the dish. That was it, it was ready.
Served these two with some leftover garlic mashed potatoes. It was awesome, but 1 half of the bird was maybe too much food for one person.
