Balsamic Chicken with Polenta

My food photography skills notwithstanding, this dish was awesome.

After the previous week's cooking class, I immediately wanted to try my hand at some of the recipes that I didn't get to work on. One of the dishes that I loved there was the first recipe in the pack: Balsamic Chicken with Polenta. Being that I'm a huge fan of balsamic vinegar, this one jumped to the head of the line.

Once you get all the ingredients ready, the dish itself is fairly easy to execute. It does take some time to cook - 30-40 minutes once everything is in the pan - so you may not want to get this started on a hectic weeknight when all you really have time for is a grilled cheese, but if you've got a good solid hour to cook, you can easily bang this out. After all, you're not doing anything for half of it.

You can use any part of the chicken you like for this recipe, but I've always been a bigger fan of white meat so I picked up a couple of breasts on the bone at Whole Foods and asked the butcher to hack them in half so I'd have four, more reasonably sized pieces. This is a dish where getting chicken on the bone is superior to getting your regular boneless, skinless chicken. There's just that extra amount of flavor that the bones add when braising (and the extra amount of fat from the skin) that makes the addition worth it. There's always the option to skin and bone the chicken after cooking, so you can easily dispense with these later when it comes time to serve.

Preparing the chicken is easy. Pat the skin dry, give it a good shake in a bag with some flour, and set it in a preheated pan with some olive oil for about eight minutes on each side for a good browning. Once that's done (and you can do it batches if your pan isn't big enough for all of the chicken to brown in a single layer), throw in some chopped onion and sliced red bell pepper until those get soft and slightly brown. Then, throw in several cloves of chopped garlic and wait until your kitchen gets that wonderful home-cookin' smell that only onions, bell peppers, and garlic can produce. Follow that by putting a mixture of fresh rosemary, red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar, and a nice-bodied red wine - I know nothing about wine, so I just used a Merlot on sale for under $10 - and nestle the chicken back into the pan. Lower the flame so the liquid is just simmering, cover it all up, and go watch an episode of Community. Once the chicken is done you'll want to reduce the sauce to thicken it a bit, but that's it. Yes, the chicken takes some time, but the preparation is incredibly simple and the result is ridiculously delicious and tender and so full of herb-y, wine-y flavor. I'm telling you, it's worth it.

The finished dish serves the chicken and sauce on top of prepared, tubed polenta sliced into rounds and sauteed until crispy. You could just as well do that, but because I had a half of a bag of Bob's Red Mill in my cabinet and didn't want to spend the money on more polenta, I just whisked up a fresh batch and dolloped it on the bottom of my plate. Making your own polenta takes a little bit more effort (I just follow the directions on the package), but if you've got the time you can easily do this while the chicken is cooking and still have everything ready at the same time.

With a glass of red wine on the side, this is a dish that easy to execute but is impressive in its taste. It would be perfect for the first time you have that new gentleman or lady friend over for a home-cooked meal...with a dusting of flour in your hair, the stain of wine and vinegar on your fingers, and the scent of sautéing aromatics filling your apartment, you could easily feign hours spent in the kitchen preparing something special for your paramour. Which, of course, you wouldn't have spent, but, hey, there's no harm in reaping the rewards for your apparent efforts.

World Kitchen: Make Mine Chicken

Most people make New Year's resolutions. I've decided to make 30th Year resolutions. 

I know I've been a bit lax in my 20s. I'm lucky to have a good job, but it's not in a field where I want to make my career. There are a number of things I've wanted to do, but my general introvertedness has kept me stuck in a rut. And, my friends are all awesome people, but a lot of them have moved from this fair city in the past few years. To that end, my resolutions, thus far, are as follows:

1) Do work that inspires me.

2) Try new things.

3) Meet new people.

On the first count, last week I met with a local adult education non-profit to get started doing literacy tutoring again. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while and although it’s not what I’ll be doing for my 9-to-5, I hope to at least feel that some work I’m doing is making a difference somewhere.

I entered into count #2 in two ways.  Last weekend I put aside my feelings of intimidation and went to a Spanish Language Meetup. I’ve studied Spanish for years, but still can’t speak it and I know that being around people who speak Spanish would be the best way to sharpen my skills. Classes cost money, but Meetup is free, making it an obvious choice. To my relief, I was not the only struggling speaker there and I felt completely at ease attempting to speak in a language I only moderately know.

I also took my first cooking class this weekend. I've always wanted to take a cooking class, but the ones I've seen at the Chopping Block or the Wooden Spoon are a bit too expensive for me. World Kitchen, however, is a mere $30. The only hitch is that you have to be quick on the uptake when registration opens. I missed the opening by a day, but was still able to squeeze into a class that I was really interested in.

I had a very busy Saturday, but it was all fun and all worth it. And, hopefully, all of the above strategies will help me move forward with count #3.

*

“Make Mine Chicken” was that name of Saturday’s class. Upon walking into the culinary studio I picked up a packet of eight recipes, from Roast Chicken with Mushroom Sauce to Quick Curry Chicken to Chicken with Feta Vinaigrette & Orzo. After discussing the basics of chicken – safe cleaning practices, organic vs. processed, the meaning of “free range,” etc. – and going over each recipe, we broke into five groups and headed to tables containing our group’s ingredients.

Along with two other girls, I was tasked with putting together the Yucatan Spiced Chicken and the Apricot & Goat Cheese Spirals. The instructor described the sauce for the Yucatan chicken as like a mole sauce and in some sense it was. The sauce was made of the zest and juice of a lime and an orange, garlic, oregano, olive oil, and ancho chile powder. When blended it was thick and dark, spicy and citrusy, with a kick in the back of the throat from the chiles. It didn’t taste like a mole, but I could see the similarity in the color and consistency. I cut some slits into several pounds of split chicken wings and poured the sauce over, tossing the mixture with my hands and massaging it into the cuts.

As an accompaniment to the chicken, we roasted some onions, poblano peppers, and chayote. According to some online articles, chayote is mostly common in Mexican cuisine, which makes sense since I was the only one in our group who knew what chayote was, let alone eaten it before. I explained that it was a squash and had somewhat of a bland flavor, that I had only eaten it boiled with a little butter, the way my mother cooked it, and didn’t much care for it. For this dish, we cut up the veggies, drizzled them with olive oil, and sprinkled them with salt. They went into the oven with the chicken pieces. Aside from needing a little more salt, our Yucatan Spiced Chicken was wonderfully tasty when it was done and the roasted veggies, even the chayote, were a sweet complement to the spice. These wings would make an interesting departure from the usual buffalo wings at a party.   

While those two items were cooking, we started in on the Apricot and Goat Cheese Spirals. These employed the use of some butterflied, pounded chicken breasts which we wrapped around a mixture of goat cheese, toasted pine nuts, chopped dried apricots, and lemon juice. Once rolled, the chicken was browned on the stove and finished in the oven with some broth. The spirals didn’t quite stay together when sliced, but if you were to serve this as a dish and leave the spiral intact on the plate, that wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

The nice thing about this recipe is that the instructor included several variations that we could try on our own, so if the current filling wasn’t to our liking the recipe wasn’t all for naught. This proved to be helpful for me, because while the goat cheese created a lovely aroma while the chicken was cooking, I have never, and still do not, enjoy the cheese’s taste. Perhaps I will try mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes if I make this on my own.

With the spirals done, the Yucatan chicken came out of the oven, and the two were added to the table with the other groups’ efforts. We had quite the spread before us and even though I only took a little bit of each dish, I ended up with far too much on my plate to finish. In the end, the class was a fantastic way to spend a part of my Saturday. I learned some new dishes, ate some fantastic food, and had a great time chatting with the two girls in my group.  I can’t wait to have the opportunity to take another one.

Rosemary Sorbet & Lamb Chops with Rosemary Pan Sauce

 

Three significant things happened to me in the past week.  1) I turned 30.  2) I finally bought myself the Cuisinart ice cream maker I’ve been eyeing.  3) I got my first cast iron pan.  The three events may seem related, but they’re really not.  The ice cream maker purchased was justified by my having enough points on my credit card to get some Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards and this month I also happened to get an online coupon for the store.  I joke that my mother gifted me her used cast iron pan – three years my senior! – because she was mad that I didn’t invite her to my all-weekend singing, dancing, drinking, eating fiesta, but in truth I’ve been meaning to assume ownership of the pan for some time (it’s just been hanging out at my brother’s place until his next visit to Chicago).  And yet the confluence of these three things seems fitting: a new decade, new tools to use, new foods to try, and new things to learn.

*

I love a good sorbet.  You can find decent ice cream anywhere, but good sorbet is a treat.  In truth, sorbet, not ice cream, was the impetus behind my purchasing the ice cream maker.  While flipping through JoC in times past, I came across a recipe for rosemary sorbet.  I’ve never had rosemary sorbet, but I love rosemary and the idea just seemed delightful.  Everyone has had mint sweets, but rosemary never comes to mind in this application.  It had to be the first recipe I would try in my new ice cream maker.

My plans for finding fresh rosemary at the farmers’ market were dashed when there was none to be found, so I put aside my local farming efforts and picked some up at the Treasure Island two blocks from my apartment.  JoC’s authors state that most sorbets are started by combining equal parts sugar and water, but that they find this ratio too sweet and have cut the sugar in their recipes.  Indeed, I added only a half-cup of sugar to a cup-and-a-quarter of water and set that to boil while chopping a quarter-cup of the fresh rosemary.  I added the rosemary and let that steep for 40 minutes before straining the mixture and putting it in the refrigerator to cool for several hours.  Once cool, I sent my ice cream bowl for its inaugural spin and poured in the aromatic syrup.  Immediately the liquid began to increase in volume as it froze and collected on the sides of the bowl while the mixing paddle scraped around the edges. 

I had decided to make only half of the recipe, just in case I didn’t like it, but this proved to be somewhat of a mistake.  The smaller amount of liquid kept accumulating on the paddle instead of swirling around the bowl, so what I wound up with was hard, icy bits mixed in with the slushy bits instead of a uniform creaminess.  It didn’t help that I put it in the freezer to harden further.  As you can see from the picture above, it was not very scoopable (though I seem to have sacrificed my ice cream scoop in a move anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter).

The taste was…interesting?  It wasn’t like anything I had ever tasted before.  It was heady with the flavor of rosemary and yet quite sweet and at the same time refreshing.  “Unexpected” is the best word that I can think to describe it.  But I think I like it.

With a half a bag of fresh rosemary left over, I knew the perfect accompaniment would be some lamb chops cooked up in my new (to me) cast iron pan.  I followed JoC’s instructions for cooking the chops in a bit of olive oil and butter, then composed the herb sauce.  I sautéed some shallots in the pan, deglazed with some white wine and lemon juice, stirred in a couple drops of Dijon mustard and the chopped rosemary, then added salt and pepper.  Some bits of butter swirled in at the end completed the sauce.  Admittedly, I over-reduced it a bit and had to add a little extra wine, but otherwise the sauce was bright and herby and went perfectly with the lamb.   

I managed to cook the lamb to the perfect state of medium with a nice crust around the edges.  Perhaps that was due to my attention to the cook time…or perhaps it was the aid of a really good pan.  Either way it was easy, quick, and good.  It was a great meal to start a new decade of cooking.

Pp. 665 & 680: Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I’ve never had rhubarb before.  All of my cooking magazines tout the wonders of this celery-like fruit, but I’ve never had the opportunity to sample it.  As we entered spring (and stepped right back out of it again), I knew that as soon as I spied the distinctive red-green stalks at the farmers’ market I would scoop some up and try my hand at the quintessential spring dessert: Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.  (I figured that if I didn’t like the rhubarb, I would at least like the strawberry so the pie wouldn’t be a total loss.)

Despite my mother having made tons of pies during my childhood, pastry dough is something that I never attempted until a few years ago.  I’ve only made it two or three times and each time has proved to be enough of a challenge to make a lesser baker quit, but knowing that my mother has made likely over a hundred pies and can now whip out pastry dough like it’s no more difficult than buttered toast buoys my motivation.  If I keep making it, at some point in time it’ll turn out right.  This is what I tell myself.

Well, that time was not this time, but it did turn out passably.  The Joy’s recipe for a double crust pie is like every other pastry dough recipe I’ve encountered, except instead of using all vegetable shortening or all butter, it incorporates a combination of the two, which I liked.  I like the flavor of the butter, but it’s easier to combine the dough when you’re using shortening.  Where I usually trip up is when it comes to judging how much water to use.  Most recipes will warn against using too much, recommending only enough until the dough holds together.  I sprinkled the requisite 6 tablespoons on the dough and, when I was able to push it into a ball, I stopped and wrapped two flat discs in plastic, hoping it had been enough.

I got to chopping 2½ cups of rhubarb and strawberries each, then mixed them with sugar and cornstarch.  After letting them mingle together for 15 minutes, the sugar had leeched out the fruits’ juices and the cornstarch had turned the liquid into a thick pink sludge.  Not very appetizing in this state, but I knew that this was necessary to create a solid consistency in the finished product.

 

Next came time to roll out the dough.  Here is where I ran into my usual problems: dry, crackly dough that, no matter how much flour I used, stuck to my table.   

 

I amended the dough and my rolling technique as best as I could at that point.  First I sprinkled an extra teaspoon of water on each dough half, then sort of kneaded them with my hands to incorporate it.  Second, instead of rolling the dough on the table, I took a note from meat-pounding practices and sandwiched it between two pieces of plastic.  The plastic not only kept the dough from sticking to my table, but also from my rolling pin which meant that there was much less tearing during the rolling process.  The rolled out dough wasn’t anything to crow about, but it fit in the pan and wasn’t horribly mangled, which was good enough for me.

In went the fruit and some butter and on went the top, which I had vented with some knife slits and brushed with a little cream.  The Joy didn’t call for it, but on recommendation from my mother during my last pie making effort I covered the edges with foil to prevent over-browning for the first half of the bake.  

At first the peek of the pie at the 30-minute mark, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did not look horrible.  I double-checked the recipe to see the lower temperature at which it was now supposed to bake and it was at this point that I noticed that the final step had been to sprinkle the top of the pie with sugar.  Oops.  I was pretty sure that omitting the step wouldn’t have affected the pie much, so I just sprinkled a few pinches on top at that point, removed the foil guards, and put it back in for another 25 minutes.  Upon final removal from the oven, I was greeted with this beauty:

Now that looks like a pie.

The recipe says to “cool completely on rack,” which I dutifully did for three-and-a-half hours, but after eating dinner I was ready to sample my handiwork.  Big mistake.  That curious sound I heard while cutting into the pie?  That was the sound of all the juices whooshing out as the crust dam was lifted.  I’m not sure what I did wrong, except not letting the pie cool long enough.  True, it was still slightly warm at that point, but the juices were so thin that I wonder if my strawberries were exceptionally juicy or if the mix needs more cornstarch than called for.

So how did the pie taste?  The rhubarb was a little bit tart, a little bit citrusy, and a little bit grassy—not like any other pie filling I’d had.  I can see why it has the devoted following it does.  Overall I’d say the pie was too sweet, but I tend not to like exceptionally sweet things and that’s an easy adjustment to make anyway.  The crust, however, despite all my problems, turned out lovely.  I’m a little bit proud of that.

Pp. 607 & 287: Focaccia with Caramelized Onions & Thyme & Focaccia with Rosemary

Oh, I am telling you—if you ever want to stink up your house something pretty, bake bread with herbs.

On Saturday I went to the outdoor Green City Market for the first time.  I guess it’s still not quite berry season yet (and it didn’t even feel like spring yet, what with the 50º weather, rain, and blustery cold winds), but there was quite the array of lettuces, fresh herbs, asparagus, and spring onions available.  For myself I picked up two potted herb plants (English lavender, which seemed like a lovely idea, and mint) to give my window herb garden a second try (I hear you need to water those things; I think that was my problem the first time around), a couple of tomatoes (because why wouldn’t you buy fresh tomatoes when you had the chance), a bunch of rhubarb (that’ll be another post), and a bit of fresh rosemary which I planned to use as a topping for one of my many attempts at focaccia. 

I love focaccia, but I’ve never been able to get it to rise successfully.  I’ve been using Mark Bittman’s recipe and I’ve nailed the problem down to two things.  1) All this time I’ve been buying active dry yeast in the yellow envelope when he’s been asking for instant or rapid-rise year.  I didn’t realize there was a difference so I hadn’t been proofing my yeast.  2) I hadn’t found a good place for my dough that was warm enough to allow it to rise.  I live in an apartment equipped with radiators, so I can’t always count on the temperature being consistently warm in any one particular area.  Still, I decided to give focaccia one final try from Joy.

Like Bittman’s recipe, Joy’s focaccia is no more than a variation on basic pizza dough.  The dough consists of water, yeast, flour, olive oil, and salt.  Problem #1 was fixed when I took a look at the recipe and saw that I needed to proof the yeast.  This is when I realized I been doing Bittman’s recipe incorrectly all along.  Problem #2 was fixed owing to an episode of Chuck's Day Off that I saw when I was at my parents’ house (Oh Comcast!  Why don’t you give me the Cooking Channel?!) where he suggested that if you don’t have warm place to let dough rise, turn your oven to 200ºF for five minutes, then turn it off and put the dough in.  After a ten-minute hand kneading, I oiled up my baking pans, flattened the divided dough inside, covered them both with plastic, and left them inside the slightly heated oven.

Meanwhile I went forth with caramelizing the onions.  Since the recipe makes two pans of focaccia, I decided to try two different versions, one with the fresh rosemary and the other with caramelized onions and some leftover fresh thyme stashed in my fridge.  Low and slow is the game with caramelizing onions.  What started out as a huge onion became small, buttery, intensely flavored pile of supple goodness with a little time and some low heat. 

Having finished the onions, I turned back to my dough.  After an hour and a half, this is what I pulled out:

Beautiful isn’t it?  Problems fixed.

I remembered watching an episode of Secrets of a Restaurant Chef wherein Anne Burrell instructed you to not just dimple focaccia dough, but to really put a dent in it, tear it even, to create deep crags where oil and salt can lie.  So I did that, then drizzled them with olive oil, sprinkled them with kosher salt, and topped them with their respective herbs.  Twenty-some very fragrant minutes later, out came two perfect squares of focaccia.

Well, almost perfect.  The onions started to burn in the oven, which leads me to believe that I should put them on the dough halfway through the baking time, and I put a bit too much salt on top, even for me.  Not to worry, though—these are just things to remember for next time.  And, oh, there will be a next time.

Pp. 722 & 794: Chocolate (Texas) Sheet Cake with Quick Chocolate Butter Icing

Cake is one of my favorite things to make because, honestly, who doesn’t like cake?  Cakes are the center of all major celebrations and a nice slice of cake in the evening makes any ordinary day feel just a little bit decadent.  I’ve found that a good, homemade cake never fails to impress so, if nothing else comes of this project, I want to hone my cake making skills so that I never have to reach for a box of cake mix again. 

The other week I was craving chocolate cake, but didn’t feel like putting much effort into the actual baking.  The Joy’s recipe for chocolate sheet cake, also known as Texas sheet cake, looked ridiculously simple, requiring little more than tossing the ingredients in a bowl and stirring them together.  (Does anyone know why it’s also called “Texas” Sheet Cake?  Did the recipe originate in Texas?)  This cake is served from the pan, so I could just use my 9x13-inch Pyrex baking dish and not worry about unmolding the thing when it was done.  I had all of the ingredients on hand, save for the buttermilk, so it really was the perfect recipe for a good cake with a modicum of effort.

On the dry ingredient team, you mix together 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and a half a teaspoon of salt.  On the wet ingredient team, you first bring to a boil a cup of water, a half a cup of vegetable oil, a stick of butter, and a half a cup of cocoa powder.  You pour the boiled wet team over the mixed dry team and stir them until just combined.  Once that’s cooled, and you do want to let it cool lest you end up with scrambled chocolate egg cake, you whisk in 2 eggs, a half a cup of buttermilk, and a requisite teaspoon of vanilla.  Pour that into your greased pan and bake for 20-25 minutes.  That’s it.  You’re done.  You just make a fantastic chocolate cake from scratch.  You made a cake that’s moist and slightly crumbly and darkly, richly chocolaty and that beats the pants off of any cake mix you could have bought.

Now, I’m happy with a plain, unadorned cake, but most people are going to want some frosting so it behooves a person to also learn how to make frosting when they’re in the process of making a cake.  The Quick Chocolate Butter Icing suggested in the recipe seemed like an easy enough addition, but here’s what you don’t want to do: get distracted by the episode of The Killing on your Tivo, dump everything into a bowl at once, and then attempt to stir it.  What’ll happen when you do that is that you’ll end up with something stiff, kind of chalky, and completely unspreadable.  If you do that, you’ll only end up making it again, determined not to let frosting best you.  

  

On the second attempt, I made a smaller amount of frosting because I had already eaten part of the cake plain, I only had an ounce of unsweetened chocolate left, and the Jewel I stopped in on the way home from work was out.  So, I melted the one ounce of chocolate in a double boiler with a tablespoon of butter, stirred in a bit of cream and a splash of vanilla, then gradually beat in 2/3 of a cup of powdered sugar.  The result was a thick, creamy, eminently spreadable topping that, while a bit sweet for my tastes, I think most people would highly enjoy on their cake.

In the end, it was an impressive effort, if I do say so myself.  Cake, when it turns out as delicious as this one did, usually is.

P. 216: Sautéed Apples & Bacon

This past weekend was something of a cooking bonanza.  I spent a few days at my parents’ house and, as we usually do, my mother and I spent much of our time cooking, deciding what to cook, talking about things we’d like to cook, and eating.  Every spring and summer I find myself with massive grill envy, so my one request was the spend some time throwing some meat on the ‘cue, which was easily accomplished with the likes of lamb chops (accompanied by a mint chimichurri sauce courtesy of Cooking Light), salmon, chicken drumsticks, and a ham that had been saved from Easter.  Lest it seem like a meat-fest, I also threw some on skewered cremini mushrooms, eggplant, and zucchini that had been marinated in a balsamic vinaigrette.  For breakfast one morning I made a spinach and bacon frittata that came from the pages of Everyday Food and that I think will make a regular appearance at family breakfasts, cheddar biscuits made with half whole wheat flour that I had my doubts on that turned out to be moist and fluffy and rich with cheddar goodness, mint chocolate chip cookies, and two versions of lime cookies that we’re trying to tweak for optimal lime flavor. 

I left on Sunday, so we decided to do a breakfast in the morning.  I didn’t have the Joy with me, but I did happen to have this recipe for Sautéed Apples & Bacon in my computer, so I proposed trying it out along with Mark Bittman’s recipe for buttermilk waffles, which I altered by using half whole wheat flour and tossing in some minced fresh ginger, and some homemade hash browns.  Because I was at my parents’ house, I don’t have any pictures of the finished dish (I didn’t have my camera with me and while I am savvy enough to have a phone with a camera on it, I’m not savvy enough to have the device that gets the photos off the phone since that costs extra money and I only got this phone because they didn’t make replacement batteries for my original phone), but you don’t really need a photo to be convinced that apples and bacon look as fantastic as they sound, do you? 

This is another recipe that hardly needs a recipe.  Fry up 8 strips of bacon, reserving 2-3 tablespoons of the rendered fat.  Toss in peeled and sliced or coarsely chopped apples and sauté until tender and beginning to brown.  Top with 2-4 tablespoons of white or brown sugar and stir all that up so the sugar melts and coats everything all nice and good.  My decision to use Gala apples proved to be a good one since they were both sweet when raw (I’m not a fan of raw apples, so the fact that I liked these is huge) and maintained their firmness when cooked.  If you don’t eat bacon, you can use butter instead, which I did for my father since he can no longer eat such delicacies as wonderful, wonderful bacon.  The butter-only apples were fantastic in their own right, but the bacon added just enough of a meaty, salty, savory element that brought the dish from something good to something special.  They were the perfect compliment to the waffles, which had their own nuttiness from the whole wheat and spiciness from the fresh ginger.  My mother and I both agreed that this should be added to our holiday recipe repertoire.

Next visit I will have to bring the Joy with me.  I can only imagine what possibilities will come to fruition when I’m in a real kitchen, working with someone who knows their way around and loves food as much as I do.