Chicken twofer redux

Is it time for coffee break yet?

I didn't manage to take a single picture of anything food-related this week. Probably because I didn't do much cooking. Unlike last week, I didn't have to host or prep any special meals or anything. D was even out a couple of nights, so Miss B and I concentrated on taking care of the leftovers amassed earlier.
My favorite of these was a concoction involving the leftovers from the dinner I had hosted for three rather distinguished visitors. (Definitely teapot people!) For the dinner, I had prepared a recipe from Mark and Bruce's Great American Slow Cooker Book, which involved shredding a bunch of carrots and onions, mixing them with seasonings, balsamic, and worcestershire sauce (I think), and then making them into a sort of chicken bed in the bottom of a slow cooker. On top go multiple chicken breasts, topped with sage leaves and then wrapped in prosciutto, to cook for about 4 hours.

This made for a tasty and, dare I say, elegant main course - very streamlined but still flavorful. I served it with roasted potatoes, a green salad, and homemade bread. We started with some kind of creamy dip and finished with a peach-blueberry galette, and everyone went home happy (as well as, in at least one case, reeling with jet lag).

Where the chicken dish really outdid itself, however, was as leftovers. A couple of days later, I had a packed schedule, and (unusually for me) knew I'd be out of the house from before 9 until after 5. First thing in the morning, while I was doing breakfast and lunch prep, I also chopped up the leftover chicken breasts and put them back in the slow cooker, along with the carrot/onion mix and a bottle of tomato passata. I stirred everything together and left it to cook on low for the day. When we were nearly ready for dinner that night, I went in there with a potato masher to make sure the chicken was falling apart and mixed in (it was); then threw in a package of gnocchi and a handful of grated parmigiano-reggiano. I left that to heat through for about 15 minutes, topped it with a generous dusting of grated pecorino romano, and dinner was served.

This was a smash hit - starchy and comforting but also very savory and hearty. Miss B, who has mixed feelings about gnocchi (mainly due to my habit of toasting them in the oven until crispy for certain dishes), ate this with gusto and took the leftovers to school for lunch more than once. This is another chicken slow cooker dish that I'll be cooking at least as much for the leftovers as for the main event (coming a close second to this one).

Unfortunately I didn't remember to take a picture of it, so instead you get a goofy picture of a t-rex trying to fold a pair of jeans. (Why? Enquiring minds want to know.) However, I am doing some cooking today, of which I promise to take pictures for an update in the near future.

Improvising appetizers

After I was stunned to realize that I had let the whole of January pass by without blogging, I promised myself I was going to get back into posting with some kind of regularity. And thus here I am, almost three weeks later. Oh well; at least it's better than a month later. Baby steps!

Life has returned to a semblance of normal routine since January disappeared; school's back in, which in turn means the re-appearance of regular after-school activities, and (more or less) set slots for getting work done, as well as things like running, errands, cooking, etc. It also means the start of this year's round of visits from guest lecturers and former students for DP, as well as various other colleagues, friends, and overseas visitors for one or all of us. Most of them end up eating dinner at our house at some point.

My standard dinner provision for guests includes something to nibble on with drinks - necessary since, no matter how hard I try, I've never yet managed to get a guest meal on the table in less than an hour from the stated arrival time, especially on weeknights. I have a repertoire of starters/appetizers that I rotate through - mostly dips served with pita chips - but I fall back on frico regularly when I need something that's really fast but really good.

I had these at someone else's house about two years ago, and appropriated them immediately. I usually serve them as one of a selection of small bowls of finger foods, most often accompanied by slices of grilled spicy salami, roasted nuts, and/or fancy olives. Their preparation barely qualifies as a recipe, and they are always well received. Their crispy texture and salty, savory flavor makes them an especially great option for vegetarian or gluten-free guests, but  they're pretty universally popular in my experience.

Frico (Cheese crisps - literally "Little trifles")
Some recipes specify cooking these on the stovetop in a skillet, but I use the oven; it's hands-off, and I can cook more, faster. You can also gussy these up with various accompaniments, but the most I've done is sprinkle them with freshly ground black pepper, or add a small basil leaf before cooking. Both are good variations, but these are also excellent when they're totally plain.

120-300 g/4-10 oz good-quality parmigiano-reggiano cheese, depending on number of eaters (I buy it pre-grated for maximum laziness/efficiency)*

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place mounds of grated cheese (about 30 g/1 oz each) on prepared tray, leaving space between mounds as cheese will spread as it melts. Bake in oven for 5-7 minutes, or until spread into round crisps which are lightly browned on the edges. Remove from the oven and let cool for another 5 minutes, then serve.**

* I usually make at least 2 mounds per person.
** I slice into half-circles (or quarters, depending on how much they spread) with a pizza cutter for serving.

Makes 4-10 crisps.

Spaghetti all'amitriciana

 

Speaking of no brainers, compiling the list for my last post reminded me of one I haven’t talked about before – spaghetti all’amitriciana. It has five ingredients, it’s ready in the time it takes to cook the pasta, and it includes bacon. Win-win-win.

Spaghetti all’amitriciana

1. Put on a large pot of water to boil for the pasta.
2. Chop 8 rashers of bacon and put in skillet over medium-low heat. Cook until browned and crispy, stirring frequently.
3. Chop 1 medium red onion and add to the skillet. Continue to stir the mixture frequently as the onion softens and browns.
4. Add 1 jar (700 ml/28 oz) or equivalent of tomato passata to skillet and stir to combine with bacon and onion
5. Once the water is boiling, salt generously and add 500 g/1 lb spaghetti or bucatini. Stir pasta and allow to return to a boil.
6. While pasta is cooking, grate a good-sized heap of pecorino romano cheese (~120 g/4 oz/1 cup) into a bowl; also keep an eye on the sauce, stirring from time to time.
7. Cook pasta 8-10 minutes until al dente. Drain, reserving about 120 ml/4 oz/.5 cup cooking water.
8. Return pasta to hot pasta pot, then add sauce. (Most recipes suggest adding the pasta to the skillet, but I can’t do it that way without making a huge mess. Using the big pasta pot works much better for me.)
9. Toss pasta and sauce to combine, adding generous amounts of grated cheese as you go. Add pasta water as necessary to help bring everything together.
10. Taste and add salt and freshly ground black pepper if desired.
11. Serve immediately, topped with more grated cheese.

Cured meats

Did you know that when you ask for “bacon”, what you get will depend on where you are? In the US you get a long, thin rectangular piece of meat which comes from the belly of the pig and is about equal parts flesh and fat, optimally fried until perfectly crispy. Outside the US, this is known as “streaky bacon” or “streaky rashers”. In the UK and Australia, the bacon you commonly get comes from the back of the pig, is much less fatty, and is called, not surprisingly, “back bacon”. (This is known as “Canadian bacon” in the US, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me.)

Despite this being my fourth stint of living outside the US, I have to re-adjust every time to the fact that the bacon elsewhere is significantly different from what I'm used to and that, honestly, I don’t like it as much as I do the traditional US style. So much so that at least once I’ve done something that is usually unthinkable, and run out. As it turns out, this domestic faux pas has yielded some unexpected benefits, principally discovering that salty, cured meats are more interchangeable than I’d realized. A recent, very successful breakfast experiment emphatically demonstrates this; wanting some bacon to jazz up my fried egg on toast and finding none, I swapped in some fried spicy salami. The variation has now officially entered the RL breakfast rotation.

Fried egg & salami on toast
Of course, following the cured-meats-are-interchangeable principle means that you should feel free to swap in whatever you’ve got lying in the fridge.

1 slice whole wheat toast

2 slices spicy salami
1 egg
salt & pepper

Toast bread. In a small frying pan, fry salami until crisp on the edges, turning once. Remove salami from pan and crack in egg, frying to your liking. (I like sunny side up with a runny yolk.)

Put toasted bread on a plate, top with salami, then with egg. Sprinkle with salt & pepper and consume.

Superlative snacking

I can hardly begin to quantify the number of things I learned about cultural diversity and human nature during my years of living overseas, but I must also confess that many of the most memorable lessons are less than profound. Prominent among these is my recollection of the first time I went to the movies (or should I say the cinema) in England. Having bought my ticket, I went to the concession stand and requested popcorn.

“Salt or sweet?” inquired the helpful person standing behind the counter.

Foolish consistency

*
Having just finished writing about how a dictatorial approach to cooking misses the point, I’m now going to contradict myself and talk about having a meal schedule.

(I like to tell myself that it’s the paradoxes in people that make them interesting. I find people who are absolutely consistent all the time are often not very interesting and sometimes a little bit scary.)

I’ve previously alluded to the fact that the meal regimen in my house growing up was, um, a little bit rigid, and that this has made its mark on me, although I’ve tried to broaden my horizons. I actually think it’s useful to have a rough framework for eating certain things on certain nights; it helps me with meal planning because I’m not starting from absolute zero on coming up with ideas. (Although I realize that other people, including some who grew up in the same house as I did, might find this whole concept too constraining.)

So what does that mean in practical terms? What happens if, say, you go away for the weekend unexpectedly? Well, if you’re me, it means you come home to a hefty piece of steak in your fridge that needs to be used up pronto. That’s because Saturday night, in my family, is Steak Night—one in-law tradition that DP has adopted enthusiastically.

I don’t tend to mess with Steak Night too much, because a) it’s tradition (cue “Fiddler on the Roof” music) and b) I feel a good steak, properly cooked, doesn’t need much embellishment. But, just as it feels odd to have anything else on Steak Night, so does it feel odd to have Steak Night on any night other than Saturday. The upside to that constraint is that it provides scope to do something a bit different with the same old main ingredient when you get it outside its assigned spot on the rota.

Steak Fajitas
Last time I made this, I realized that it’s like a Mexican stir-fry—once you get everything sliced and assembled, it all comes together very quickly.

2 Tbsp cooking oil of your choice (I use light olive oil)
1 large or 2 small onions, sliced
1 large red pepper/capsicum, sliced
1 lb/450 g rump steak, cut crosswise in half-inch/1 cm slices**
Paprika
Ground cumin

Heat a large grill pan, skillet, wok, sauté pan or similar until very hot. Add oil, then vegetables. Cook, stirring constantly, until they begin to soften (3-5 minutes). Add steak and continue stirring until the steak is cooked to your liking (medium rare: another 3-5 minutes). Season to taste with paprika and ground cumin. Serve immediately, either bringing the loudly sizzling pan to the table (in the manner of Mexican restaurants everywhere), or transferring meat and veg to a warmed bowl, so that everyone can construct their own fajitas.

To serve***
Warmed tortillas (estimate two per person, plus a couple extra)
At least 1 cup grated cheese (I use sharp cheddar)
Salsa
Guacamole
Cut limes, for squeezing over

Place a reasonable amount of the fajita mixture, enhanced by some or all of the listed condiments, in the middle of a tortilla. Fold over in the manner of a burrito, and eat with your hands. No matter what I do, mine always leak, but I don’t care.

Serves 4.

* I forgot to take a picture of the finished product before we ate it all, so here’s a completely random picture of an echidna (the Australian porcupine/hedgehog) instead.
** This can easily be made veggie, either by just leaving out the steak or substituting tofu, tempeh, portobello mushrooms, etc.
*** This list traditionally includes sour cream, but I usually ignore that. Just FYI.

Playdate etiquette

This week’s etiquette dilemma: would it be okay to bring defrosted blueberry muffins to a playdate?

My situation was as follows: we got back from the coast at eight-thirty Sunday night, and had a playdate scheduled for ten-thirty Monday morning. So I was either going to have to figure out something that I could make in the approximately 30 minutes I’d have available during that fourteen-hour gap, or else go with the muffins. (Showing up empty handed is obviously not an option.)

They were homemade, and frozen on the day I baked them. I'd be perfectly happy to toast them up and eat them at home. But taking them to someone else's house felt a little bit like cheating.

Then, on Monday morning, still half-asleep, I opened the fridge and saw a container of dried sour cherries that I’d bought on a whim a few weeks earlier and not yet figured out a good use for.

And remembered about the one and only thing I could get in and out of the oven in the time still available to me.

Yogurt scones with dried fruit
Adapted from Chocolate & Zucchini
The yogurt makes these scones very tender; they puff up impressively and don’t get much of a crust.

1 cup chopped dried fruit (I used some peaches as well as the sour cherries)
425 g/3.5 cups flour
60 g/4 Tbsp sugar
30 g/2 Tbsp baking powder
large pinch salt
50 g/2 oz butter, at room temperature
250g/10 oz plain or Greek yogurt
60 ml/2 Tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C and line two baking trays with parchment. If desired, soak the fruit in warm water, juice, or syrup while you get on with the rest of the scones. (I did, but you could also add it dry; it just depends on what consistency you want it to be.)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then mix the butter in completely.

Mix the yogurt and milk together in a jug, and then dump into the dry ingredients. Fold together just until mixed consistently. (You may need to add a bit more liquid if too dry, or a bit more flour if too sticky. Too sticky is better than too dry.)

Fold fruit gently into scone mixture. Use a tablespoon to scoop out large (about 2 in/5 cm) lumps of dough onto baking trays. Space lumps out as scones will grow in the oven.

Bake for about 15 minutes, turning trays halfway through. Cool on racks and eat warm, slathered with butter.

These also freeze well for later eating, both before and after baking (the latter in case you don’t have my issues about that sort of thing).

Makes 12-18.

Salvage operations

Rather than bore you with the next segment of the apparently Never-Ending Fridge Drama, I refer you, again, to this post, as yesterday’s visit from Fridge Guy was basically a verbatim repeat performance (involving a different part, to be fair). I did have two things in my favor this time around, though: first, it’s a lot colder outside than it was a month ago, so mostly everything kept in decent condition in insulated bags on the balcony overnight; and, second, a friend gave me a useful tip on speeding up the defrosting process (shut a bowlful of boiling water into the freezer compartment) that allowed me to get everything back inside the fridge in 18 hours instead of 24. Then, it was just a matter of figuring out what was still edible, but maybe wouldn’t be for much longer, that could be made into an appealing dinner with a minimum of fuss. Because when just thinking about the fridge produces an anxiety reaction, it’s probably better for both of us if I just leave it alone as much as possible for a while, and let it get good and cold again. For a while.

Salvage operation chicken
I think this would also work well with pork chops or a thick piece of fish. Pounding the chicken ensures that it cooks faster and more evenly. Quantities are approximate, and should be easy to increase for feeding more people.

1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast that has thawed and can’t be refrozen
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil
½ cup dry white wine (or replace with stock or other liquid of your choice)
2 Tbsp pesto*
Splash lemon or lime juice
1 clove garlic, minced

1. Put the chicken breast between sheets of clingfilm (plastic wrap) and pound to a uniform thickness of about one half-inch (1.5cm). Season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large frying pan.
2. When pan is hot, place chicken in pan and cover. Cook on one side for about five minutes, then turn, cover and cook on other side for 3-4 minutes.
3. Check to see that chicken is done. Remove to a plate and cover to keep warm. Turn heat under pan up to medium high.
4. Pour wine into pan. When it starts to bubble, use a spatula or similar to scrape up any good stuff that has stuck to the bottom of the pan. Allow the liquid to reduce, and add a splash or two of water if you feel it’s reducing too much.
5. Add pesto, lemon/lime juice, and garlic and stir to create a consistent sauce.
6. Check the chicken and pour any juices that have run off into the sauce; stir to combine.
7. Taste and adjust seasonings. Pour over plated chicken and serve immediately.

I served this with rice and broccoli. Dinner was on the table in 30 minutes, and mother and daughter both gave it thumbs up.

* See the picture for my method for freezing pesto so that you can use a little bit at a time; when they're frozen, I empty the cubes into a bag and just take out as many as I need. I was preparing this for the freezer when I got the idea to use some for dinner—hence the empty one.

Quick fix

I mentioned recently how solo parenting, among other things, was messing with my kitchen motivation. It’s kind of embarrassing to acknowledge that sometimes, much of the thrill of cooking is about audience reaction. When the audience, worn out from preschool and the prospect of no dad at dinner yet again, saves her most enthusiastic response for a box of Annie’s Mac and Cheese (imported by the management at colossal hassle to the invaluable crew across the Pacific), is it any wonder I’m going for the quick and easy options at the moment?

Pasta with sauteed zucchini and bacon
If you have a few minutes earlier in the day, chop the zucchini, sprinkle it with coarse salt, and leave it to drain in a colander (see photo). Rinse and shake well before using. It’s not essential but it speeds up the cooking time and intensifies the flavor of the zucchini. The angel hair pasta isn’t essential either, but it cooks in two minutes. What more could you want when you’re trying to get dinner on the table?

2-4 pieces bacon, chopped into small pieces
4 small zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut in chunks
1 clove garlic, minced
250g/8oz angel hair pasta
Olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
Lots of grated pecorino romano or parmigiano reggiano cheese

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta.
2. In a large frying pan, cook the bacon on medium heat, stirring regularly. When it starts to crisp and render fat, add the zucchini. Continue stirring regularly, but let the zucchini rest for a few minutes at a time to get brown. If it starts to look done and the water hasn’t boiled yet, turn the heat down to low and keep stirring.
3. When the water boils, add a good handful of salt, and then the pasta.
4. While the pasta is cooking, add the minced garlic to the bacon and zucchini and stir again.
5. Before draining the pasta, take out about half a cup of the cooking water and reserve. Drain the pasta and return to the hot pan.
6. Drizzle olive oil over the hot pasta and toss—this is so it won’t clump. Throw some black pepper and cheese on too.
7. Add the bacon/zucchini/garlic mixture, and more pepper and cheese to taste. Also pour in a few splashes of the pasta cooking water to bring everything together. Keep tossing.
8 Serve immediately, with more black pepper and cheese at the table.

Served 1 adult and 1 child with ample leftovers.

Good advice

Following good advice makes life so much easier sometimes. Especially when it comes to dinner.

It all started with 5 second rule’s useful post about managing your greens. Reading it was like hearing a voice say, “Hey, you! Yeah, you, trying to stuff that giant bunch of silverbeet in your fridge? Why don’t you try this instead?”

(Silverbeet is Australian for chard. It’s two feet long. That’s it in the picture. I put a regular-sized Popsicle stick next to it to give you some scope for comparison.)

The post provided detailed instructions for how to prep your greens when you buy them, so that they a) fit in your fridge and b) are ready and waiting when you want to eat them.

Having followed these recommendations on Friday afternoon, I sat back in a glow of quiet contentment, thinking about how easy preparing Saturday night’s dinner would be. Then I started to get cocky: how could I make it even easier? How could I make an absolutely fabulous dinner that would also be quick and simple?