Cool! Summer Means More Chicken Salad

 

Nothing fancy, this time – the weather allowed for The Bat to pop a chicken in the oven, so we threw together a variation on the usual chicken salad, tonight. Instead of the basic chicken/mayonnaise/celery/grape (which I seriously can't eat), we tried this on for size. The bird she bought was probably about half again the size of a standard rotisserie chicken, so if you're thinking about that shortcut, keep your scale in mind, and adjust the apples, onions, etc., downward a tad. Also, check to see that you get a largely-unseasoned bird, or you'll need to amend the dressing to work around the added flavor.

(I still have to take antihistamine in order to not get migraines after eating this, with its mayonnaise base, so I may need to give it a try using a sour cream or Greek yogurt dressing. Or, make my own mayo. So far, though, the Duke's makes the dill and apple actually work together, so I'm in no hurry to change it, just yet.)

Also, if you like a little more color in your presentation, you may wish to use a redder apple – I had a bag of Granny Smiths on hand, so that was what went into this. Jonathan, Macintosh, even Honeycrisp will work nicely in this, but (as with store-cooked chicken) you may want to adjust the dressing to work around your variations.

 

Apple Chicken Salad (with Dill)


Ingredients:

the meat from 1 medium roasted chicken, cooled, removed from bones and cut into bite-sized cubes (chunks will be fine)

1 large or 1 1/2 medium sweet/tart apples, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (or a reasonable facsimile thereof)

1/2 small/medium red onion, sliced very thinly

3 ribs celery, sliced thinly

1/2 cup unsalted cashews (optional)

1/4  cup dried cranberries (optional)

mixed greens

Dressing:

1 cup good mayonnaise (our family uses Duke's)

the juice of 1 large lemon (about 3 Tablespoons)

2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon dill weed (more or less, to your own liking)


Directions:


In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, lemon juice, honey, and dill.

In a large bowl, combine the chicken, apple, onion, and celery.

Pour the dressing over the chicken mixture, and stir until it completely covers all.

Cover dish, place in refrigerator for at least an hour before serving, to let the flavors meld.


If you are adding the cashews and/or dried cranberries, wait until just before serving before you add them to the salad, or offer them in separate dishes, as optional topping.

Serve on a bed of mixed greens.


Serves 8-10.

Buttermilk-Dill Chicken Pot Roast

I like twice-roasted taters. It's not something I get very often, because everybody in our house likes those spuds plenty when they're on the table the first time, so there aren't usually enough leftovers to send them to the oven for a second time.

But we bought some monster tubers last month so I'd be able to make tasty fries, and, with the next meal, in the long habit we have of cooking one potato per person (even though each spud was clearly enough to serve two very hungry people), I ended up with a full two servings of buttermilk-dill-roasted wedges (with sweet pepper slices) to spare.

Enter: the chicken.

And other stuff.

The chicken was in the form of pair of breasts languishing in the freezer until last night. I brought it out, thawed it, and gave it a honey-buttermilk brining.

From there, it was a matter of filling in the gaps and tossing it all into the oven to roast for an hour, keeping my fingers crossed.

So, here are the basic ingredients, in their order of play (not as if you were building on leftovers):

The chicken:
2 medium chicken breasts, in basic brine with 2 Tablespoons powdered buttermilk and a teaspoon of dill weed added. Allow to stand in refrigerator while assembling potatoes, etc.

Roasted potatoes:
1 very large potato, cleaned but not peeled, then cut in half crosswise and sliced into wedges about 1 cm at their thickest (should be about 3 cups)
1/2 sweet bell pepper, sliced into strips
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon canola or other mild-flavored cooking oil
1 Tablespoon dill weed
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 tsp kosher salt

Preheat oven to 400º F.
In a quart (or larger) zipper bag, combine all ingredients and shake vigorously.
Spread potatoes out, skin sides down, on a well-greased, foil-lined baking pan, pouring the liquids evenly over all the potato wedges.
Roast until tops turn golden brown (about 35-40 minutes).

Reduce oven temperature to 325º F.

The rest of it:
8 ounces cremini (baby bella) mushrooms, sliced thickly
1 Tablespoon butter
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 Tablespoons corn starch
4 ounces neufchatel (light cream cheese)
1 cup green beans, fresh, or frozen, thawed
1 small onion, cut into wedges
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large oven-safe frying pan, melt the butter over high temperature, and stir-fry the mushrooms until they brown and begin to turn crisp at the edges. Remove from heat, add onion, green beans, and potatoes.

In a small saucepan, mix the starch and chicken stock. With heat at medium, allow the stock to come to a simmer and thicken. Add in neufchatel cheese and allow to melt and mix in completely. Pour over vegetables, stir well.

Place chicken on top of the vegetables, cover with foil, and place in oven at 325º for about 25-30 minutes, until chicken is fully cooked.

Allow dish to cool 5 minutes before eating.

Serve with salad.

Oven-fried Chicken and Potatoes O'Becky

Friday nights we have a sort of a family get-together. That is to say, Bat's BFF and her husband come over to decompress, and thereby give the old fogeys in our house a chance to catch up on the latest gossip from my alma mater. This gives me a chance to play a little bit in the kitchen, since, as long as it's only for three of us, sometimes the recipes mean FAR too many leftovers. Having a couple of extra people pitching in on the eating process means less goes into the freezer. That's not always a good thing, but then, the deep-freeze is often over-filled with goodies harvested from Pop's garden, so there is  a built-in problem when it comes to extra servings.

I really didn't have to worry about extra, though, this week. Pop, who watches his food intake, and who doesn't care for chicken since the days of the Great Depression (when chicken and Spam were the meats on the table almost all the time), ate two servings of the bird, plus went back for seconds on the 'taters. 

In other words, the whole dinner was a success, and I didn't have to worry about freezer space.

And the truth is, it was fairly simple. Much of the preparation can be done hours ahead of time (even the night before), and the cooking is low-fuss. The real trick is to brine the chicken at least three hours before you start to cook. And to use buttermilk (no cheats or substitutions). That's what (a) makes it tender and (b) gives it a little "tang". I also made mine gluten-free, by using garbanzo flour to coat the pieces, which gave it an added distinction in its flavor and texture, but you can go ahead and use an all-purpose flour, if you like.

There is something else to consider: keep the portions in a manageable size. I bought a six-pound package of chicken breasts on sale at the local supermarket, and it contained five pieces of bird. I don't know about you, but a single piece of meat that large is more than I can handle at one sitting, these days. Also, when they're that big, it takes forever to cook them. So, for this recipe, I stripped the meat from skin and bone, and then cut the pieces into sections approximately 1/3 pound in weight (slightly larger than the palm of my hand, not counting the fingers), leaving the tenders whole. If you buy leg portions, you'll want to separate the thigh from the drumstick. Of course, you can buy the pieces already boneless and skinless, if you feel like saving time, but I like the part where I got all six pounds for six dollars, when the prepared stuff was $3.49 per lb.

Also, if you want to fix these two dishes in one meal, it's easy enough to peel & chop your potatoes and chop your onion & pepper while the chicken is marinating, and let them stand in their own separate dishes, submerged in cold water, until it's time to cook them (about the time you put the chicken in the oven). If you do this, drain well before cooking.

At any rate, dinner is served. 

We like a little color…

Oven-fried Chicken

Ingredients:

3 lbs skinless, boneless chicken pieces

1 cup buttermilk

2 Tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

2 eggs 

3 cups garbanzo flour (divided)*

1 Tablespoon coarse-ground pepper

1 Tablespoon Old Bay seasoning

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cooking oil (I prefer canola, because it has no flavor of its own)

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, cut into 1/2 tablespoon slices

Directions:

In a gallon zipper bag, mix buttermilk, honey, Kosher salt and chicken. Shake well, allow to sit in refrigerator at least 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 400º F. 

Fill a gallon zipper bag with 2 cups garbanzo flour, pepper, Old Bay seasoning, and salt. 

In a shallow bowl or smaller bag, put remaining 1 cup of garbanzo flour

In another wide, shallow bowl, lightly beat eggs. 

Remove marinating chicken from refrigerator and pour away the buttermilk mixture. Pat dry the pieces of chicken. 

Dredge each piece through the plain flour, then through the egg, finally dropping it into the bag of seasoned flour. Shake thoroughly as each piece is put into the bag, so as to cover the chicken completely.

In a 9x14x2" roasting pan, pour oil, place in oven to heat up. When oil starts to shimmer, remove from oven, add butter. 

Carefully place the pieces of floured chicken in the pan, fitting so they do not overlap. 

Place in oven, bake about 10-15 minutes, remove from oven, turn pieces over, return them to the oven for another 5-10 minutes, until they are lightly-browned. 

Allow to stand and cool about 5 minutes before serving (they are also tasty served chilled).

*you can substitute your favorite flour, or whatever you have on hand.

Potatoes O'Becky

Ingredients:

3-4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes (about 4 cups)

2 cups sweet corn, fresh or thawed from frozen

1 medium sweet red pepper, diced

1 medium sweet onion, diced (Vidalia or Texas Sweets are best)

1 Tablespoon coarse-ground black pepper

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (approximately)

Directions:

In a large frying pan or wok, heat olive oil with onions at medium-high temp until the onions turn transparent. Using a slotted spoon or a strainer, remove the onions from the oil, replace them with the potato chunks, salt and pepper. Cook until they begin to turn brown and slightly crisp, flipping with spatula occasionally.

Meanwhile, in another frying pan at medium heat, melt butter, sauté the corn until some kernels begin to turn golden-brown. Add peppers and stir until just mixed. Stir this and the onions into the potatoes. Let cook on medium heat for a few minutes, for the flavors to blend. Serve hot.†

†Leftovers of this can be reheated in a frying pan & mixed into eggs, for a tasty breakfast. It's even more awesome when you add freshly-cooked, crumbled bacon to the eggs… 

Sweet Bird of Pizza!

I've been playing around with my pizzas, lately, since I developed a little problem processing tomatoes & now rather dislike red pizza sauces.  The past few 'zas have been pesto-based, topped with crumbled ricotta & mozzarella, with mixtures of chicken and a few vegetables (onions, mushrooms, sweet peppers, whatever is in the crisper drawer).  Tonight, I went wild and left the pesto in the fridge.  Instead, I made a sweet-and-zesty version, using mascarpone cheese blended with honey and fresh ground ginger spread on a plain whole wheat thin crust, topped with sautéed chicken in honey-whisky-and smoky tabasco, with onions, peppers, and pineapple.  This time, I used quite a few preserved or previously-prepared ingredients, but I think next time I try this, I will use all fresh.  Except, I really like using Mama Mary's thin & crispy crusts (available at, of all places, the local Mart of Wals, for half the price of the other brands' crusts).

Anyway, if you want to try my pizza topping, here's the stuff:


Sweet Bird of Pizza!  
(or, if it weren't for the chicken, this could pass for dessert....)




Ingredients:


1 pre-cooked 12-inch pizza crust of your preferred variety
olive oil
4 oz.  mascarpone cheese
1 1/2 Tbs. fresh ground ginger
2 tsp. honey
8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
1 Tbs. butter
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
1 lb. white chicken meat, cut into 1/2-inch or smaller cubes*
1/4 cup (or slightly more) honey-infused whisky
a few shakes (to your taste) smoked tabasco sauce (I used about a dozen)
salt & pepper to taste
sliced or chopped: onions, fresh sweet peppers,  hot peppers (remove & discard the seeds)
finely-cut or shredded pineapple (fresh is better, but, if you use canned, be sure to drain it well)

Directions:

Preheat oven according to instructions for crust (usually, for a crispy crust, you'll need a fairly hot oven, around 425º F.).    Place crust on a cookie sheet or pizza pan, brush lightly with olive oil.

In a small bowl, mix mascarpone, ginger, and honey until completely blended.  Set aside.

Using a medium frying pan or wok at high temperature, stir-fry mushrooms in butter until some of the mushrooms develop a golden-brown, crisp edge.  Remove from heat, put in separate bowl.  Return the pan to heat,  add in chicken, salt & pepper, stir until most of the pink is gone from the meat.  Add in honey-whisky and tabasco, simmer, stirring, until liquid is cooked away and meat is lightly golden-brown.

Spread mascarpone mix on pizza crust, sprinkle lightly with mozzarella, then top with all other ingredients, distributed evenly and arranged to please your eye.

Bake on cookie sheet or pizza pan for 7-10 minutes (I do not recommend the extra-crispy method of baking right on the oven rack, because the mascarpone cheese will melt quickly and may run off the pizza onto the bottom of the oven).  When the mozzarella and onions have begun to lightly brown, remove from oven, allow to cool about 3-5 minutes before serving.




*I find the easiest way to prepare chicken for the purpose is to take a completely frozen chicken breast and allow it to thaw an hour or so at room temp -- or in the nuke for about a minute at full power -- just enough to make it less of a brick, but still frozen fairly solid.  Take out a good, heavy-duty knife and cut while still frozen.  Allow those wee chunks to thaw the rest of the way in the refrigerator, or stir-fry while still a little frozen.  If you're using a brined chicken breast, you'll want to drain the ensuing liquid from the pan before you add the whisky/tabasco.

Chicken/Spinach Lasagna

On Fridays, the folks and I have friends come over to sup with us, and about every third week, the Bat lets me take over the menu. This week, we're having a nice, big batch of Lasagna. I particularly like making this, now that there are several pasta manufacturers who produce noodles you don't have to boil first, before cooking things up. Of course, were I hard-core, I'd be making my own, but then, that would mean being on my feet more than my mutilated knee allows. Ergo, the Barilla (or, whoever's on sale. I'm not really an obsessive chef in that regard).

So, tonight's dinner is now resting in the refrigerator while I rest in the comfy chair and let my cat groom my face (thank the powers that be for Diphenhydramine HCl). It will get popped into the oven at the beginning of "Jeopardy!"

Meanwhile, here am I, blogging it up.

For Denephew.

BTW-- I sometimes use cheats. Aldi stores now carry some very nice sauces, and Grandessa spinach and cheese spaghetti sauce is a quick fix if you don't feel like going the extra steps. It provides just the right amount of spinach so that it doesn't overpower the rest of the ingredients in the lasagna itself.

Chicken/Spinach Lasagna

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs. roasted or grilled chicken, skin and bones removed, chopped coarsely

1/4 lb. fresh spinach (or thawed from frozen), chopped and stems removed, steamed until completely tender

1/2 lbs. fresh mushrooms, cut in half and then sliced fairly thinly

1/2 cup finely chopped sweet onion

1 sweet yellow bell pepper, cut into 1-centimeter squares

3 cups your preferred meatless spaghetti sauce (whether you choose to make from scratch or buy a jar of something is up to you)

16 oz. tomato sauce

24 oz. ricotta cheese

2 medium eggs

1 tsp. basil

1/2 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. roasted garlic, minced or crushed

1 package no-boil lasagna noodles

2 cups shredded/grated mozzarella cheese (more for the top, if you go that way)

1/2 cup freshly-grated Parmesan or "Italian Blend" cheese

olive oil for cooking

Directions:

In a saucepan, stir-fry mushrooms in olive oil, on high temperature, until the moisture mostly evaporates and the mushrooms begin to brown and crisp a bit. Add in both spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce, then chicken, onions. Squeeze liquids out of spinach, stir into sauce. Allow to simmer about an hour, stirring occasionally, until most of the chicken turns to shreds. Remove from heat, add sweet pepper.

Preheat oven to 350º F.

In a small bowl, thoroughly mix together ricotta cheese, oregano, basil, garlic and eggs.

In a 10"x 14" x 2" lasagna/roasting pan, ladle enough meat sauce to cover the bottom of the pan (about 1 cup).

Without overlapping them, lay three lasagna noodles on top, spoon and spread ricotta mixture over the noodles to just cover them (about 1/2 to 2/3 cups). Ladle some more meat sauce over that, to just cover. Sprinkle a layer of mozzarella.

Top with three more noodles, repeat layers of ricotta, meat sauce, mozzarella, and once again with everything. The last row of noodles need only be topped with the remaining meat sauce and a generous layer of mozzarella, then sprinkled with freshly-grated Parmesan cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil (shiny side down), put in oven to roast 30 minutes. Remove foil. Continue to cook another 15 or 20 minutes, until the top is bubbly and brown.

Allow to cool 5-10 minutes before serving.

Chicken Pot Pie

Tonight, it's leftovers. Slop together a casserole from old table scraps and... what? Doesn't that sound mouth-watering enough? Well, fine. Let's see what we can do about that. But what we're messing with is, literally, a batch of leftovers, with a little bit of a boost. It starts with the remaining crust from those tasty Apple Slices, of which Mom made enough to feed several armies, and only one army came, so she popped two balls of dough (approximately a single batch) in the freezer. Now is the time to take them out to thaw so she can roll them out all purty-like.

Next, because I don't like to let a sale go to waste, I roasted up a few big ol' chicken breasts last week, and used the skins, the bones, the drippings (don't forget those!) and whatever wasn't necessarily good sandwich stuffings to start a batch of broth. If you don't have a quart or two of broth in your fridge or freezer, you can cheat, and use store-boughten ;-) but it's not really the same. When I roast chicken, I slather it in butter, then cook it at a high-ish temp (375º-400º F), until the skin turns quite dark -- not that golden-brown everybody touts, but something on the border of mahogany in shade.

The broth usually starts with a couple pints of water, all those remnants from the bird, a half a medium sweet onion, chopped (it doesn't matter how finely. It's going to cook down & get removed from the broth, anyway), a generous dose of celery flakes or a stalk of fresh celery (leaves and all), a scant handful of dried mushroom, pulverized, a little salt, pepper, and patience (Mom also adds parsley flakes, but I'm ambivalent, there. I haven't noticed that it added much to the finished flavor). It simmers at least overnight, then gets strained and tossed into containers in a very cold, dark place, to await future use.

So, now, to the next stage. Turning it into something greater than the sum of the parts. Or, so we hope. We usually toss our favorite biscuits on the top of the chicken stew, but today, we have a rolled crust, instead. What could go wrong? Okay, don't answer that. But we're ambitious, today.*

Just remember, because it's leftovers, measurements are inexact -- to say the least. Play with them, until you find the proportions which make you happiest.

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:

1 batch crust from Apple Slices , divided, made at least a day in advance.

1 quart rich chicken broth

1 Tbs butter (or, if you have it, the schmaltz from the top of chilled chicken broth)

1 medium sweet onion, coarsely chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped into 1 cm. bits

8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced

1 cup carrots, sliced into bite-sized chunks

3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into about 1/2 to 1 inch cubes

2-3 Tbs corn starch

1 cup shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup sour cream

2 cups chunked chicken meat

1 cup fresh peas (or, if you use frozen, thaw them in advance of using them here)

Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

In medium saucepan, heat broth to simmer.

In separate pan, sauté chopped onions in butter until they are transparent. Remove from butter, add into broth. In same pan, with same butter, stir-fry (at high temp) sliced mushrooms, until golden and edges begin to faintly crisp. Add half to broth, set aside remainder.

Add carrots, celery, and potatoes to broth. Allow to simmer until the potatoes are tender.

Spoon out a half-cup or so of the broth, mix with corn starch, slowly adding back into the stew, stirring constantly, until broth thickens.

Preheat oven to 375º F.

On a heavily-floured surface, roll out half the dough to make bottom crust. Place in bottom of large casserole or spaghetti bowl, pierce with fork a few times (or weigh it down under foil, using rice, beans, or those spiffy ceramic baking weights, if you have them) & bake 10 - 15 minutes, until golden brown. Don't worry if it slouches in the dish as it cooks -- this is a rustic dish, and this is a very soft, short dough.

Crank up the oven temp to 400º F.

Roll out second portion of dough, then cut or tear into decorative shapes (you're never going to get your top crust to stick to a cooked bottom crust, so go crazy with ornamentation, if you wish to hide this reality from the un-initiated in the ways of kitchen. Or, just have a little fun). Set aside.

Add sour cream to stew, allow to reheat. Melt in cheddar cheese. Add in peas, chicken chunks, and remaining mushrooms.

Ladle stew into bottom crust until dish is nearly full (don't overfill -- it will tend to boil over). Top with pretty bits of dough. If you like a more finished appearance, brush dough with well-beaten egg and poppy seed, or with butter, before putting in oven. Bake until top is golden-brown (about 25 minutes).

Allow to stand & cool 5 - 10 minutes before serving.

*The verdict is in: conservative eater Pop ate two helpings.