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Posts tagged ‘chicken’

Oct 30

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Greek baked chicken with orzo

In several previous posts, I’ve written of our Dad. (If you haven’t yet seen it, you may want to read: Orange Flowers. ) His influence  on me (on us all) was enormous, though he didn’t even come to be my dad until I was already a gawky ten-year-old girl. His tender love forever changed me. We lost him a few years back, but his birthday’s coming very soon. I’m posting this recipe now – it’s one I think our Greek Pop would have loved.  I’m thinking primarily of my family when I say this, but if anyone out there would like to prepare this on November 2nd, I’d like to think there will be at least one more smile than the ones you see around your own table.

Efharisto!

This chicken dish is a common Sunday one-pot meal on the Greek islands, where chickens are raised primarily for their eggs. Therefore, it’s considered special – besides that, it’s absolutely wonderful!

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Baked Chicken with Orzo – Kotopoulo Youvetsi

  • 1/3 cup olive oil
  • 1 4-pound free-range chicken, cut into 6 pieces (or the equivalent weight in pieces you choose)
  • 1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
  • 1/3 cup chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 1½ teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
  • 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or a pinch crushed red pepper flakes
  • 2 cups grated ripe tomatoes or canned diced tomatoes with their juice
  • Salt
  • 2 cups chicken stock, plus more if needed
  • 1 pound orzo (you substitute elbow macaroni) – cooked in plenty of boiling salted water for only 2 minutes, then drained
  • 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
  • 1½ cup coarsely grated hard myzithra, pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

In a Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and sauté the chicken parts in batches until brown on all sides. Set aside.

Add the onion to the pot and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the sun-dried tomatoes, cinnamon sticks, oregano, pepper or pepper flakes and tomatoes. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and return to the Dutch oven. Add about 1/2 cup of stock, or enough to come about two-thirds of the way up the chicken.  (You want to be sure that the breast meat is sunk quite deeply into the sauce, so just the very top of it sticks above. That will help prevent it from drying out.)  Bring to a boil, cover and transfer to the now-hot oven.

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Oct 13

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chicken tortilla soup

Here’s a soup that pleases crowds. Everyone in our family makes and serves this soup and everyone, from little kids to (occasionally) grumpy grandpas, loves it. A fairly long list of ingredients, but it’s a soup easily concocted, and easy to double or triple when entertaining bigger groups. If a soup can be casual and fun, this one is.

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Chicken Tortilla Soup

(serves 6)

  • four 6-inch corn tortillas
  • about 2 teaspoons olive oil (to brush on tortillas) + 1 Tablespoon (to sauté vegetables with)
  • 2 – 14 ounce cans low sodium chicken broth (or 28 ounces of your very own!)
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 -14.5 ounce can Mexican-style stewed tomatoes with juice (or see photo for alternative)
  • 1 small can of green chiles, chopped (mild)
  • 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 can cream of corn (the only time I ever use this stuff!)
  • 1 bay leaf
  •  ½ teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1⁄8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
  • 2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • ½ large yellow onion, chopped (1½ cups)
  • ½ red pepper, chopped (about ½ cup)
  • 2 generous Tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 12 ounces chicken breast meat (from a grilled, roasted or rotisseried chicken) (see NOTE)
  • 2 green onions, sliced
  • ¼ cup chopped cilantro

(NOTE on the chicken: If you use an home-done oven-roasted chicken, save the juices from the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate and remove the fat from the top, and incorporate the tasty juices into your soup.)

Garnishes:

  • sour cream
  • tortilla chips (Tostito lime chips are great here!)
  • grated cheddar cheese
  • sliced or chunked avocado
  • a drizzle of hot sauce of your choice – or a sprinkle of the seasoning blend of your choice (like the fabulous “Uncle Jim’s Secret Spice” – if you’re lucky enough to be Jim’s sister)

(Please imagine shredded cheddar on the bowl below.  Sadly, I forgot to add it before I grabbed my camera, so anxious to lift the spoon, I was!)

If you wanted to add rice, or zucchini, green beans,  mushrooms, or a little sweet potato, you could customize this soup entirely to suit your tastes. Didn’t I tell you it was fun?

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Jul 24

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Ali’s Summer Salad

My daughter Ali is an enthusiastic, aproned artist in the kitchen, and is all about putting love on the table. She called the other day to say that while at play she’d created a salad she thought I’d like. I’ve been impatiently waiting for my appetite to return because (even while sick) the sounds of this salad set off sweet harmonies and the songs of birds in my head! : )  Last night I was finally able to make it, and once again, the birds did sing!

Ali’s Champange Summer Salad with Chicken, Peaches and Avocado

(serves 4 generously)

Salad Ingredients

  • 2 quarts (8 cups) salad greens – (a salad mix, with some of the spicier, more peppery greens is great – or arugula)
  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cooked and sliced (see preparation options below)
  • 2 firm-ripe peaches, medium-thinly sliced
  • 1 avocado, cut in chunks or thinly sliced
  • 5 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled
  • 1/4 cup pepitas (optional)
  • 1 – 2 Tablespoons Lemon Verbena minced (very optional, but wonderful if you have it)

Champagne Vinaigrette Ingredients

  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 Tablespoon dijon mustard
  • 2 Tablespoon sugar
  • 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup champagne vinegar
  • 1-1/2 cups canola oil

Options for the Chicken

  1. Quick & Easy – Preheat oven to 350°F. Place breasts on rimmed cookie sheet lined with foil or parchment paper for easy cleanup. Brush both sides of chicken with olive oil and generously sprinkle with coarse salt and a little pepper. Roast for 35-40 minutes (depending on size and thickness, or until chicken registers 160°F on and instant-read thermometer.) Allow chicken to cool to room temperature. Just before combining with other ingredients, slice diagonally across the grain in 1/2-inch slices.
  2. Slow & Scrumptious – Marinating the chicken before cooking using the following marinade (good also for shrimp or any white fish) and then preparing in the oven or on the grill will add more juicy flavor to your chicken.

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 t. dijon mustard
1 shallot, minced
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
1 t. kosher salt
freshly ground pepper

Combine all marinade ingredients in a gallon-size zipped plastic bag. Pound chicken breasts between 2 sheets of plastic until uniform thickness, around 1/2-inch. Marinate refrigerated for 4 to 24 hours. (Even after several hours, there is plenty of good flavor.) Grill or cook using any method you prefer until internal temperature reaches 160°F. (See #1.)

Champagne Vinaigrette

This makes a LOT of dressing, and you certainly won’t need it all for this salad. But it IS very delicious and if you look, you’ll have no trouble finding other places to use it during the next week or so. (Virtually any combination of greens and fresh summer fruits would likely do very well dressed in this. That being said, you could easily halve this recipe and still have leftovers.) This could well be a dressing you’ll go to again and again. ( It can keep quite well for a week or so refrigerated.)

In a medium bowl combine all ingredients except the oil. Using a whisk, gradually add the oil in a thin, steady stream until creamy.

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Jun 23

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Roasted Whole Chicken on the Grill

This dinner all started with kumquats – even though, in the end, it had absolutely nothing to do with kumquats. Now that I think longer about it, this dinner actually started with going out to lunch and trying to avoid a parking ticket.

Maybe it’s just me…but sometimes I like to figure out exactly how I came to be where I am from where I’d just been. It’s often an odd, circuitous path to trace –  kind of like that “six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon” thing, if you know what I mean. Have you ever taken a long road trip with someone and after some lively conversation, there’s a period of prolonged but comfortable silence?  You think what you’re doing is watching the road or taking in all this amazing scenery, when actually, for some mysterious span of time, you’ve not been where you are at all, and suddenly out of your mouth comes something completely random and seemingly related to nothing. Do you ever then try to figure out (or even explain) how you came to be thinking that particular disjointed nonsensical thought? Well, this night’s dinner happened something like that.

Kumquats - having nothing to do with dinner

My husband and I have kind of a “custom” of going out to lunch on Saturdays. We’ll run a few errands and then pass the ball back and forth until one of us finally makes up our mind about where we’d like to eat, and then we sit across from one another talking about the week, news, politics…or sometimes something even more scintillating (if you can imagine!) We love our Saturdays together. Last week, we were following our usual practice and decided on a great little spot for lunch. We started to park in the lot across from the restaurant but realized it was designated for patrons of a grocery store. We parked there anyway –  but felt quite legal about it because we’d just drop into the market first, and then walk across the street for lunch. We had no real reason to be grocery shopping, other than ticket avoidance, but there we were.

The produce aisles always seduce me first, but for my husband, it’s the wine section. So we went our separate ways to meet up later. Weren’t kumquats all done for the season? I thought so, and had said my sad goodbyes – but no! There they were, and they were huge! – well, the biggest I’d ever seen.  I was downright delighted to see them and filled a small bag. My heart soon returned to its normal rhythm, but a little further down the aisle, the cutest little potatoes fanned out, in reds and yellows and purples! And they were smaller than the kumquats! Who ever heard of such a thing? I hadn’t, so I got handfuls of potatoes, simply because they were smaller than kumquats. And then, there was asparagus – now that’s gorgeous! That’ll be so good with those potatoes! I’ll do them together, with lemon and salt on the grill! Ah yes, the grill. Hmmm, I’ve never tried roasting a whole chicken on the grill before. I wonder if I can do that successfully? I think I’m just going to need to find that out!  And that is how I came to be here:

(You are so incredibly patient with me! Are you like this with everyone?)

Roasted Whole Chicken on the Grill

What I love about roasting a whole chicken: It’s far less expensive than buying the individual parts. It’s so straightforward and simple and after the first little bit, largely hands-off. It can be done in so many different and delicious ways…influences of French, Moroccan, Mediterranean, Spanish. Stuffed or not. Surrounded by vegetables of all different types. Sauce or not.  You can cook two at once with almost no additional labor. There’s (almost) always leftovers to turn into another meal. Then there’s the remnants that become a great stock for soups. And my husband loves it. So what’s not to like?

Cooking something on the grill for more than an hour at 400°F+ can only be done successfully using an indirect method. (In other words no coals or gas flames directly beneath the chicken.) So if you know how to cook on your grill using an indirect method, this will be easy! (If you don’t know how, just check the instructions from your grill’s manufacturer, or on line.)

Ingredients

  • 1 whole  chicken (preferably free-range, organic, humanely raised)
  • 2 lemons, 1 cut in half, the other juiced for basting
  • fresh herbs of your choice (rosemary, oregano, marjoram, parsley, sage, etc.)
  • whole garlic cloves, 2 or 3 or more, crushed but not minced
  • olive oil
  • salt & pepper

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May 29

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Mediterranean pizza from the grill

There will be two of us for our pizza party tonight. Happily, we each love the clean and fragrant flavors of the Mediterranean. So, for us, what we’ll put on our grill-fired pizzas is easy. Tonight, Greeks and Italians join hands and toss a mess of really good things on our pies!

the goodies:

  • grilled chicken, marinated Mediterranean-style (now this will not be the star of the show, because really, a wonderful pizza doesn’t need meat! – my prejudice coming out! That being said, it IS really tasty.)
  • roasted red peppers
  • roasted garlic
  • drizzles of basil-thick pesto
  • mozzarella 
  • toasted pine nuts
  • crumbled feta cheese
  • fresh herbs (mostly Greek oregano)

Simple, no? Absolutely!! So here’s how:

prepare:

(These preparations can all be done day-of, or day before. It’ll take you maybe forty-five minutes total prep time, depending on whether you’re working alone or with a buddy, and how many children or dogs you have chasing tails underfoot.)

Chicken – At least two hours before dinner, prepare the marinade for the chicken:

  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
  • 6 Tbl. olive oil
  • 4 Tbl. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
  • 3 whole garlic cloves, crushed with the back of a knife
  • 1 tsp. dried Oregano, crushed
  • 1/2 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
  • 1/2 tsp. lavender flowers (COMPLETELY optional! but fun)
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. pepper

Combine marinade ingredients in small bowl and put the chicken in to marinate for a couple of hours (if you have the time.) Turn occasionally.

The dough –  You’ve already got your pizza dough from yesterday, right? About two hours before dinner, remove the dough from the refrigerator, deflate it, and cut it into four pieces. Form each piece into a ball, cover with plastic.  Allow them to come up to room temperature.  Deflate again (because they will have been slowly rising on the counter) and form into four discs, 3 to 4 inches across. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes. Just before piling with sauce and goodies (see below), roll it out (1/4 to 1/3  inch approximately.)

NOTE: When it comes time, you’ll be taking it out to the grill to bake on one side, then bringing it back to the preparation table to top with the good stuff – and returning to the grill to finish cooking.

Cheese -grate or thinly slice the mozzarella. Crumble the feta – reserve the feta for when the pizza comes off the grill. Refrigerate both.

Roasted garlic – you can see how to roast garlic in my recipe on white bean purée dated May 9, 2011. (You can do this the same time you roast the red peppers. Temperatures vary, but you can compromise.)

Roasted red pepper – Either buy them in a jar, or — Cut a red pepper in half from top to bottom, removing the seeds. Place cut-side down on a baking sheet (or in the toaster oven, along with your garlic). Roast until the skin blisters and bubbles and begins to blacken. (This would take about 35 minutes in a 450° oven.) Remove from the oven with tongs and drop into a brown paper bag. Close the bag up and allow the peppers to steam in there for maybe ten minutes or so. The skin will peel right off. Slice the roasted peppers into long thin strips.

Pine nuts – In the same oven or toaster oven, set temperature to 300° or so. Roast your pine nuts, tossing a time or two, and watching carefully because they will go from just right to burnt in a flash.

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May 9

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Chicken Soup with Egg-Lemon Sauce

It’s pitiful to beg, I know, but I’m coming dangerously close to it.  Just look over the recipe below, imagining the pairing of these ingredients, and you’ll want to try this soup. (OK, I want you to, but let’s not quibble.) This is one of those comfort foods, and – I’m fully convinced – a cure for what ails. It’s somehow “creamy” with no cream (thanks to the arborio rice.) It’s full of flavor, while still being gentle and so easy to eat. It’s aromatic (thanks to the generous amount of dill and the perfume of the lemon.) It’s a soup equally good in summer as in winter, so Spring would be the perfect time to prove it to yourself! Take the challenge – try this soup – you will not be disappointed! It’s positively kissable.

At the start of “Citrus Month,”  I promised you a soup from Yaya and Papou’s homeland. This is the one. In Greece, until fairly recently, chickens were considered a great delicacy. Except on important feast days, chicken dishes would have been reserved for children and the sick.  This chicken and rice soup, with an egg and lemon “sauce” stirred in at the last moment, was served as a much-loved, one-pot meal at Christmas.  Nowadays, I’d venture to say you can find this on any Greek restaurant menu – but please let me know if you’ve ever tried one better.

The secret to any good soup is in the stock, and this one is no different. If you’re pressed for time, you could use a pre-roasted chicken and a high-quality, store-bought (or previously prepared homemade) chicken stock – but the gentle, two-hour-long cooking of a whole chicken imparts the most delicate, silken of flavors to this broth. If you need to take the short-cut, about 2-1/2 quarts or so of good stock should prove about right, and the meat from about one-half of the chicken. (In either case, please use a free-range, organically fed bird.)

Chicken Soup with Egg-Lemon Sauce (Kotopoulo Soupa, Avgolemono)

(makes 4 to 6 main-course servings – or  6 to 8 for first-course)

  • one 3-to-4-pound free-range chicken, quartered, plus 2 pounds chicken backs, necks and/or wings
  • 1 large onion, halved
  • 2 medium carrots, peeled and quartered
  • 2 bay leaves (if your bay leaves are more than a year old, toss them and start new)
  • 10 – 12 peppercorns
  • 2 Tbl. olive oil
  • 5 scallions (white and most of the green parts), thinly sliced
  • 1 cup chopped fresh dill
  • 2/3 cup of medium-grain rice, such as Arborio
  • 2 large eggs
  • 4-6 Tbl. freshly-sueezed lemon juice
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To greatly reduce the fat content of the resulting broth, and how much skimming is required, I like to start by first removing the skin and all visible fat from the quartered chicken. Remove the fat from the backs of the chicken as well. Place the chicken parts in a large pot and add enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam. Reduce the heat to low and add the onion, carrots, bay leaves, salt and peppercorns. Cover and simmer for two hours, adding a little more water if needed, until the chicken begins to fall from the bones.

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