Craving Cured Meats for Oktoberfest

With Oktoberfest just around the corner, I find myself craving cured meats even more than usual.

Funny story: When I moved to Germany in 1997, I was actually a vegetarian (or flexitarian, as my in-laws would call it since Mom refused to believe that chicken broth or fish were truly vegetarian). But before I even moved, I decided that in order to fully experience Bavaria, I would have to give up my vegarianism. After dozens of Weisswurst, Bratwurst, Currywurst and Rostbratwurst, not to mention also discovering liverwurst and other creamed meats, I never looked back.

The above photo is not actually from Germany, because, well, it was 1997. But if ever you want two glorious pounds of housemade German sausages in Seattle, Rheinhaus on Capitol Hill will certainly whet your craving (although I would be remiss to not also mention Bavarian Meats at Pike Place Market, I just don't have a picture of their extremely authentic selection).

Despite my love of cured meats, I still haven't taught myself how to make sausages. But I did make a delicious dish with prosciutto last night that calmed my craving for the night.

Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken with Potatoes and Artichokes
1-1/2 pounds fingerling or new potatoes, cut in 1/2-inch chunks
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
8 chicken thighs
8 slices prosciutto
8-ounce package frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
2 tablespoons minced fresh sage
2 cloves garlic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Toss potatoes with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then roast for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, wrap each chicken thigh in a piece of prosciutto, sealing on the bottom.

Remove potatoes from oven and stir in artichoke hearts, sage, and garlic. Nestle chicken among the vegetables, then roast for about 25 minutes.

Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

Note: This recipe is also good with cauliflower, as shown in this Epicurious recipe, but it's even better if you add some fresh figs!

Chicken Marbella is a sweet-and-salty crowd-pleaser

When I first saw the recipe for Chicken Marbella, I did not think the combination of prunes and olives would go over well with Bryan. He seems to think that he doesn't like fruit with his savory foods, even though he raves about that combination just about every time he tries it.

Easy solution: I just don't tell him. Makes it easy when the recipe has a name like Chicken Marbella, and smells so delicious when it comes out of the oven that he's more concerned with getting that first bite in his mouth than needing to know what the ingredients are.

It's certainly a tactic that works when you've got an ingredient like prunes, even though they are used pretty sparsely in this recipe. Honestly, prunes are hardly an ingredient most people would think of putting in anything but a dessert, if at all.

But in a sweet-and-salty dish such as Chicken Marbella, the prunes add a boldness to the dish that makes it a sure crowd-pleaser among even those picky eaters. Just keep the ingredient list to yourself until after everyone has raved about your dish!

Practicing the art of cutting up a whole chicken

You're probably going to get really sick of me talking about my new cooking class, but with all of the cool stuff I'm learning, I hope I can pass on at least a few little gems of knowledge!

Or maybe even some big gems, like this week's lesson where we learned how to cut up a whole chicken. My parents can cut up chickens with their eyes closed, but despite their efforts to teach me, I've always been scared to do it myself. Even after watching my mostly vegetarian teacher make cutting up a chicken look like a cake walk, I still was scared and took forever making the tiny little cuts.

But this is culinary skill I definitely want to utilize — it's a much more inexpensive way to eat chicken, and it's such a great way to make broth (something we also did in class this week). So since practice makes perfect, I decided to give it a try on my own this weekend while it was still fresh in my mind (and without a teacher grading me on my skills or lack thereof!).

Not to shabby! Well, except for the gorgeous "oyster" in the middle. My still-untrained hand left the tenderest piece of the thigh on the carcass, so I cut it out anyway and just roasted it on its own. Hopefully I won't make that mistake again, but I think it's going to take a few more whole chickens before I get this one down.

We also were given free reign of the spice cabinet to make a roasted chicken breast in class, and I think mine turned out so delicious, I plan to make it again.

Cinnamon-and-Spice Roasted Chicken Breast

You can use any combination of your favorite spices mixed with olive oil to make roasted chicken breast, but on a chilly night this cinnamon-and-spice combination is sure to warm you to the bones.

1 boneless chicken breast, skin intact (or other similar-sized chicken pieces)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon red chile flakes
1/4 teaspoon anise seed
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine olive oil and spices on a plate. Place chicken on the plate and rub the mixture onto both sides. Allow to marinate for 5 to 15 minutes.

Heat a dry, heavy skillet to medium-high. When skillet is hot but not smoking, place chicken in skillet, skin-side down. Cook for 3-4 minutes, until it starts to pop and looks cooked on the bottom quarter.

Turn breast over and place entire skillet in the oven for 7 to 10 minutes, or until a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part registers 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Allow chicken to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Note: For a more intense flavor, try using whole spices and grinding them along with the anise seed and chile flakes.

Chicken favorite morphs into a pasta dish

One of the things I miss most about working at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is how it forced me to constantly try new recipes. Sure, I still browse recipes in the newspaper and other publications, but the chances of me making a recipe that I've sat staring at for hours are much higher. I got to know the recipes so well while editing them, I could almost taste them, which usually meant that it would be appearing on my table within the week.

That's not to say all the recipes were winners, but working there definitely added more girth to my myriad recipe books. Among the winners, however, is Chicken Paillards with Cremini Mushroom Sauce, which I've been making a little too often lately because I don't have a lot of other recipes that use leeks, and I've been getting a lot of them from the farm.

So this time I decided to mix things up a bit. I was struggling to decide what kind of starch to make with the chicken. I usually make my Rice Pilaf, but that just sounded so boring. Instead, I turned the recipe into a pasta dish that I've actually been mulling in my head for a couple of weeks:

Pasta with Chicken, Mushroom and Leeks
2 chicken breasts, cut in strips
1/2 t. kosher salt, divided
1/4 t. garlic salt
4 slices bacon, chopped
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
1 leek, sliced thin
2 c. penne pasta
3/4 c. chicken broth, divided
1/4 c. sour cream
2 t. cornstarch
 
Mix chicken with 1/4 t. kosher salt and garlic salt and let marinate in the fridge for about 2 hours.
 
Heat a large nonstick skillet to medium high and cook bacon. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon to a plate lined with paper towels; drain all but 1 T. of the bacon. Saute chicken in the bacon grease until cooked through, about 10 minutes. Remove to a bowl and set aside. Add mushrooms and leek to the skillet with remaining 1/4 t. salt and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 c. chicken broth and sour cream and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, mix remaining 1/4 c. chicken broth with cornstarch and stir until thoroughly mixed, then add to simmering sauce; stir until thickened. Add bacon and chicken to sauce to heat through.
 
Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package instructions. Add cooked pasta to sauce and serve.

Un-Americanized version of Chicken Divine

Does this look familiar? Picture it on a bed of fluffy jasmine rice, covered with cheese and ... no, I guess it really doesn't look like my beloved Chicken Divine recipe. And according to Bryan, it doesn't taste very similar either, even though it has the same two main ingredients: broccoli and chicken.

Well, I suppose it's possible leaving out the condensed cream of chicken soup, mayonnaise and cheddar cheese did de-Americanize it a bit, but since I added a can of coconut milk in its place, was it much healthier? (Um, yes, actually I think it was.)

Anyway, what it all comes down to was that I really wanted to make Chicken Divine but was lacking a few of the more "American" ingredients, so I had to Asianize it a bit. Here goes:

Coconut Chicken Divine
2 chicken breasts, cut in chunks
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t. salt
1 T. canola oil
1 large stalk broccoli, cut in bite-size pieces
1 can coconut milk
1-2 T. curry
1/2 t. red pepper flakes (optional)
1 T. lemon juice

Cut chicken in chunks, then massage with garlic and salt, and let marinate for about 2 hours in the fridge.

Heat oil in skillet to medium high. Add chicken to skillet and cook until no longer pink on the outside, about 10 minutes. Remove from pan, then add broccoli to pan and stir-fry until color brightens, about 5 minutes. Return chicken to pan, then add coconut milk, curry and red pepper flakes, if using, as well as more salt to taste, then simmer until chicken is done, about 15 minutes.

Add lemon juice, then serve over rice.

Pizza Sauce and Mom stories

Mom just got back from an accidentally extended trip to China after she decided to visit Macau on a whim, despite the fact her visa only allowed her one entry to China. Needless to say, the strict Chinese border guards wouldn't let her back into the country, so she missed her flight home last Tuesday.

Eventually, China gave her a new visa and let her back in, but not after she and her friend Shirley ran out of money, which is kind of a sin in one of the gambling capitals of the world. Maybe they really needed that little respite, though. After all, Shirley had just married off her daughter and had been running around during her whole "vacation."

So when they got back to Guangzhou, it was their first chance to really relax during their time there. Which meant they did Mom's favorite thing: They went out to dinner. But although Mom at first acted like she was complaining about going out to eat those last couple of nights, then she said:

"Well, it's not like here," she said. "We had fish head, and you know, the tubes inside the chicken." Um, no, I don't actually. Because they're chicken intestines, which to my Americanized palate makes Chicken Gizzards seem as tame as chicken breasts.

But I'm excited she got to go back to her homeland after so many years. Even if it was a bit horrifying in the end and it's unlikely she will ever return, at least she was able to enjoy the extra time she had there.

All of her talk made me feel extra guilty for making such a boring pizza this weekend, but I'll still share the delicious sauce I made.

Pizza Sauce

1/4 c. olive oil

1/2 c. chopped onions

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 t. red pepper flakes

2 14.5-oz. cans Italian Recipe Stewed Tomatoes

1/4 c. basil, chopped chiffonade

1/2 t. kosher salt

Heat olive oil in a wide saucepan. Add onion and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and red pepper flakes for last minute. Add tomatoes and simmer for about 30 minutes, uncovered.

Let cool for about 5 minutes, then pulse in a food processor to desired consistency. I like mine still a bit chunky. Add basil and salt, then spoon onto pizza before serving. This is the perfect amount for a 16-inch pizza.

Cheesy orzo gets a boost in health

One thing I love about attending conferences geared toward Asian Americans is that the organizers know they can't skimp on the food. Forgive me for stereotyping, but Asians like to eat, and since being a foodie is so trendy these days, Asian Americans want the best of both worlds: good food, and lots of it.

So I wasn't disappointed by the food at the conference I was at last week, and I even got some ideas from it, including the above orzo dish that was inspired by our last meal (sniff snifff).

Cheesy Orzo with Veggies
2 T. unsalted butter
1 carrot, peeled and cut in chunks
1 small summer squash, cut in chunks
1 c. orzo
1-1/4 c. chicken broth
1-1/4 c. water
1 bunch kale, cut in 1/2-inch ribbons and well rinsed
1/4 c. Asiago (or Parmesan) cheese
Salt and pepper, to taste

Saute carrot and squash in butter over medium heat for about 5 minutes, then add orzo and continue stirring for about 3 minutes. Add broth and water, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes.

Stir in the kale in batches until the leaves are wilted, then add cheese, salt and pepper.

I served mine with this fabulous dish from Cooking Light that is a mainstay in our kitchen: Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Balsamic Vinegar Pan Sauce.

Enjoy!

Leftover Harissa Chicken still made with love

OK, I lied. I didn't really make anything for dinner last night, but we were having leftovers from our fabulous Father's Day Feast.

After I found this recipe for Goat Cheese Pudding, I just had to host even though I knew Mom probably would hate everything that crossed her plate. Which is why she cooks on Mother's Day. Trust me, it's really the best gift we could give her.

Actually, I think she might have liked the Harissa Chicken with Green-Chile-and-Tomato Salad that is shown above, even though the weather was too crappy for me to grill the chicken, and we all know how much Mom prefers a little charcoal on her meat.

I made this the right way a couple of weeks ago when we had some friends over, and although it was more flavorful on the grill, cooking it in the oven at 375 degrees for 20 minutes definitely kept it more moist. I suppose it's always good to have options!

Chicken's the side to this orzo dish

Poor Bryan. I've been so busy trying to squeeze my new blog in with all my other freelance work that he's been forced to eat the same foods over and over again. He definitely got spoiled in the last year when work had slowed down a bit for me (and the rest of the nation!).

He even got sick of my amazing pizza, which I have finally become a master at making quickly. This easy meal has also slipped into the repertoire, but I can't get away with it too much because somebody doesn't like chicken very much.

I admit, it's hardly a masterpiece. But it's so darn easy, and the Orzo with Spinach and Feta is really the highlight of the meal anyway. The chicken is simply sprinkled with salt, pepper, Garlic Mrs. Dash and a squirt of lemon juice. Then I cook two breasts in about 1 T. of olive oil over medium-high heat for about 4 minutes before they go in the oven at 350 for 8-12 more minutes. Like I said, easy.