Smoked Paprika Roasted Chicken

While shopping at Trader Joe's Sunday afternoon, we spied some whole chickens and thought about how good a roast chicken would be for dinner. We already had some Brussels sprouts in the fridge and some potatoes to help round out the meal. However, Jim saw buttermilk and I knew what he had on his mind...cornbread. Scratch the potatoes, add in cornbread.

But how would we season the chicken? I scrolled through a few recipes and found one that called for smoked hot paprika and salt mixed together and rubbed all over the chicken with a few sprigs of rosemary tucked here and there. Only problem was you then had cover it and let it sit overnight in the fridge. We wanted chicken tonight, not tomorrow night so we modified the recipe a tad. In small bowl we mixed together about 2 teaspoons of smoked paprika, about 1 tablespoon each of crushed dried thyme and kosher salt then just enough olive oil to make a thick paste. We rubbed it underneath the skin, saving a little to rub on the outside. With the convection oven preheated to 450, we popped it into the oven for about an hour (for a regular oven, cook about 2 hours - depending on the size of the chicken).

Look at the beautiful paprika colored juice

Not even five minutes after we put it in the oven, we could already smell something good. Even outside on our patio, you could smell it cooking. I wonder if the neighbors were jealous?

Finally it was time to tuck in. It was very tasty and moist. I would have thought I'd taste more of the paprika than I did as the smell was intoxicating. But it was still very good and perhaps I will try letting it sit over night in the fridge over night to see if it makes any difference. Although I will say the crispy pieces of skin were wickedly delicious.

Chicken Enchiladas

I made these last week and just now got around to posting it. But the timing is great as today is Cinco De Mayo. So pop a few Pacifico's in the fridge and start cooking.

I modified this recipe that I found in the Dec. 07 Cooking Light. If was very easy to make and very, very tasty.

Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas
3 cups chicken broth
1½ cups finely chopped onion, divided
2 teaspoons dried oregano
½ teaspoon salt
4 (6 oz) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
½ cup sour cream
3 cups Green Chile Sauce (see recipe below)
Cooking spray
16 (6 inch) corn tortillas
¾ cup (3 oz) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
½ cup (2 oz) shredded cheddar cheese

Combine broth, 1 cup onion, and next 5 ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes or until chicken is done. Remove chicken from pan; chill 15 minutes. Shred chicken into bite sized pieces. Combine chicken, remaining ½ cup onion, and sour cream in a bowl, stirring well.

Preheat oven to 350°. Spread ¼ cup of the Green Chile Sauce in the bottom of 2 (11” x 7”) baking dishes coated with cooking spray. If the tortillas are stiff, warm them according to package directions. Spoon about 1/3 cup chicken mixture down center of each tortilla; roll up. Place 8 filled tortillas, seam-side down, in each dish; pour 1¼ cups of remaining Green Chile Sauce over filled tortillas in each dish. Combine cheeses in a bowl. Sprinkle half of cheese mixture evenly over filled tortillas in each dish. Bake at 350° for 18 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Serves 4

Green Chile Sauce

6 Anaheim chiles*
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 cups chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

Preheat broiler.** Place chiles on a foil lined baking sheet; broil 14 minutes or until blackened and charred, turning after 7 minutes. Place in a zip-top plastic bag; seal. Let stand 15 minutes. Peel and discard skins. Cut a lengthwise slit in each chile. Remove and discard seeds and tops. Chop chilies to measure 3/4 cup.

Heat canola oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion to pan; sauté 5 minutes or until tender. Add garlic; sauté for 1 minute. Stir in flour; cook 1 minute. Add chiles, coriander, salt, and broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Using a stick blender, blend the mixture until smooth; stir well. Cool completely.

* I used poblano chilies.

** I used the gas stove top to char the chilies. I placed each one on a serving fork and held it over the open flame, turning as the skin .

Roast Chicken

By Biscuit Boy

Biscuit Girl has been busy with work and home lately, so I'm helping out a little bit. One thing I made a week or so ago was a roast chicken. A friend at work recommended this. This was from Thomas Keller's recipe, roasting at high temperature for about an hour, giving you crispy skin and quick chicken. You can find this recipe on Epicurious. It's really tasty. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. You take a whole chicken, say 2-3 pounds, rinse it off, then dry it thoroughly inside and out. This allows the skin to become extra crispy. Salt the outside of the chicken with about a tablespoon of Kosher salt. Then pepper and put it in the oven for about an hour. Toward the end, it will be sizzling and popping, making a mess in the oven and making you wonder if it will catch on fire. According to my friend who recommended it, it won't.

After about an hour (more or less, depending on the size of the chicken, use a probe thermometer to make sure it's done), pull it out of the oven, sprinkle with about a tablespoon of fresh thyme, and baste with the juices in the pan. Let it rest for 15 minutes, then carve.

Keller recommends serving it with butter and dijon mustard. I can't see needing the butter, it is juicy as it is. But the mustard would be a nice touch. We served it with roast potatoes and stir-fried snow peas. And it was so good that I'm making it again tomorrow night.

Chicken and Ricecakes

While my dad was here, we were a bit indulgent, dinner at Ray's the steaks, fish and chips at Eamonn's and lots of beer consumption on the part of Jim and dad. This is usually the case when we have friends and family come up to visit. We take them out to our favorite places most every night they are here then repent and eat at home once they go home. So true to form, we are trying to get back to eating at home this week including getting in more veggies.

Last night we had a veggie stir fry consisting of Brussels sprouts, Chinese long beans, orange cauliflower (yes, orange........more on that later this week) and lots of garlic. And a bowl of homemade potato leek soup.

Tonight, chicken with the rest of the long beans, some garlic and ricecakes. I threw everything into the skillet at the same time then added soy sauce, sesame oil and sriracha hot sauce. While this all cooked, I boiled the ricecakes. (These aren't the puffed rice type of cake you find in the snack aisle. These are disc shaped noodles made of rice flour that when cooked are a bit chewier than pasta but add a nice texture to what ever you add them to. ) Once the ricecakes were done, I drained them and added them to the stir fry. Each plate was topped with a little sprinkling of fried shallots and some sesame seeds. And it was tasty.

Chicken Tikka and Cheesecake

I decided to clean out the freezer today. Among the frozen stash were several packs of ground beef (good for a quick burger or mapo tofu), some frozen strawberries (margatira time!), 2 half used bags of edamame and lots of chicken.

After reorganizing most of the stuff, I pulled some of the chicken out to use for dinner. And as luck would have it, we had two small containers of plain yogurt in the fridge. I looked through a few recipes I had on hand and found one for Chicken Tikka.

I had all the ingredients so dinner was planned. It was so easy to put together and I'm sure we'll make it again. The flavors were bright and well balanced and the chicken stayed juicy and tender. Next time I will make up some kind of yogurt sauce or spicy sauce to dip it in.

For dessert, cheese cake with fresh blueberry sauce.

Chicken Tikka

¾ teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted
2 cups whole-milk yogurt
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (1½”) piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 ½ teaspoons salt
¾ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon black pepper ¼ teaspoon cayenne
5 lb skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes

Purée all ingredients except chicken in a blender until spices are well ground.

Put chicken in a large bowl, or divide between 2 large sealable plastic bags, and add yogurt mixture, stirring or turning to coat. Marinate chicken, covered and chilled (turning occasionally if using bags), at least 4 hours. (You can marinate the chicken for up to 24 hours if you like)

You can skewer the chicken and grill it or use an iron skillet grill pan to cook the pieces individually. Heat turning over once, until browned in spots and just cooked through, 9 to 12 minutes total.

Chicken Shawarma

Looking through the fridge this weekend I found a jar of tahini paste that was about half full. Hmm....what can I do with this? I already made some hummus with it and wanted to try something new.

A quick search on the Internet came up with a few temptations but the one that caught my eye was a Chicken Shawarama recipe with a garlic-tahini sauce. It was on Food TV so I figured it was a pretty reliable recipe, right? Uh, well almost.

The recipe actually had two parts, one for the marinade for the chicken and the other for the garlic-tahini sauce. I noticed the following disclaimer at the bottom of the page: "This recipe was provided by professional chefs and has been scaled down from a bulk recipe provided by a restaurant. The Food Network Kitchens chefs have not tested this recipe, in the proportions indicated, and therefore, we cannot make any representation as to the results." That should have told me to look at some more recipes before I went any further, but I didn't because I also read the recipe's one review that mentioned the marinade needed more garlic. Well that seems like an an easy fix. Guess I'll give it a try. The marinade smelled wonderful and went together very quickly. I placed the chicken in a bag poured in the marinade and set in in the fridge to marinate overnight. So far so good.

But when I went to make the sauce, something wasn't right. In fact, it was downright awful! The recipe called for three cups of water to be added to a mixture of tahini, garlic and lemon juice. And having never made this before, I decided to follow the recipe.

How can I describe the result? Imagine if you will a frothy thin watered down greul with a faint hint of sesame. Yeah, it was bad.

After tossing that mess down the drain, I did what I should have done earlier, check some more recipes. And sure enough, I found several that were vastly different from the Food TV version. Using a combination of a few recipes I made a sauce that was pretty tasty.

Here's my garlic-tahini sauce recipe. I have no idea if it's even remotely authentic so if anyone has a better version, I'd love to have a copy.

Garlic-Tahini sauce
1 cup tahini sauce
2 tbsp. garlic powder
8 oz plain lowfat yogurt
1 tsp. parsley flakes
salt to taste
water, as needed

Combine the tahini, garlic powder, yogurt and parsley in a bowl and whisk to blend. Add salt to taste. Add water as needed to get a spoonable consistency.

Szechuan Sunday Dinner

Last night we were torn between going out to eat or staying in, we opted to stay in. It was cold and dreary out all day and neither one of us wanted to venture out. Neither one of us had any idea what to fix for dinner either. Maybe something simple? But what did we have on hand? Looking through the fridge and freezer, we found some frozen chicken breasts and some nice zucchini. Ok, good start but now what to do with it.

Out came the Land of Plenty Cookbook by Fucshia Dunlop. I flipped it open to the index and found one recipe for Zucchini Slivers with Garlic (chao nan gua si). A fairly simple recipe. Slice and sliver the zucchini, salt it to draw out some of the water, then stir fry some garlic in a little oil, toss in the zucchini. Voila! You're done. Biscuit Boy added a shake or two of hot pepper flakes to add a little kick to it.

The chicken proved to be a little more challenging. Not to cook...rather which recipe to try. After reading several aloud to Biscuit Boy, we settled on this one: Chicken Slices in Sichuan Pepper and Sesame Oil Sauce (jiao ma ji pian). This one takes cooked, cooled chicken sliced that is covered with a sauce. The sauce is sichuan pepper corns soaked in hot water and drained. They are mixed with sliced green onion and a little salt then processed into a paste. Mix that with a little soy sauce and some sesame oil and pour over the chicken. Yum!

Add a little rice and we had ourselves dinner in less than 30 minutes. Biscuit pup (a.k.a. carbo-hound) got a little rice but really wanted some of the chicken. Sorry little dog, too spicy for ya. (next time I'll put some aside before I add the peppers just for you).

Roast Chicken Dinner

After I got home from work, I got busy in the kitchen. First on the list was to start dessert. I hadn't planned on dessert until we went to Trader Joe's this morning. They had the prettiest strawberries on sale. When you sniffed the package, you could tell they would be good. The smell was sweet and full of fresh strawberry goodness. I put a package in our cart and told Biscuit Boy we'd be having pie for dessert. He was a happy boy.

I started the filling for the pie while the crust baked. Ok, I cheated and bought one of those pre-made pie crust you have to unfold then put back together because it cracks at the fold lines. But hey, I had to work today. Time was of the essence. After the filling was done and cooling on the counter, I capped the strawberries I had set aside. All that was left was to assemble it after the filling cooled.

Next up was the main attraction....Mr. Chicken. I started out by mixing some room temperature butter with some freshly dried rosemary and thyme, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Then I put bits of the mixture under the skin of the chicken and rubbed it all over so that it was well coated. Then I thinly sliced some garlic and placed the slices under the skin as well. A good squeeze of fresh lemon juice across the top of the chicken, tossing the rest of the lemon inside the bird and off to the oven it went.

Once that was done, Biscuit Boy took over and fixed some oven roasted potatoes and stir fried snow peas. He cleaned and halved some new red potatoes, sprinkled them with some kosher sale and olive oil. Then he took the leftover garlic slices from my chicken,minced them and tossed them in with the potatoes. He fixed the snow peas by first sweating a sliced shallot then adding the snow peas and some soy sauce and tossing it all in the skillet until it was done.

Dinner was ready! We opened a bottle of sparkling wine and ate, and ate, and ate. Between the two of us and the dog, there was not much left. Biscuit Pup got a bunch of the little bits of chicken from the carving board and is at this very moment asleep at my feet. That's one content little doggie.

After dinner had settled, we had a little slice of the pie. It was great. The filling was sweet but not too sweet and gave that little umph to the strawberries. We wanted more but were so full. Hmmm wonder how strawberry pie tastes for breakfast?

Oh my....Biscuit Boy just walked out of the kitchen with the last remaining piece of chicken left, a piece of thigh. Guess one of us wasn't so full after all. Sorry Biscuit Pup, daddy just ate the chicken I was going to give you tomorrow.