Almond and Parmesan Chicken Tenders

This one is kid and adult approved.  It's a great, more healthy alternative to flour-laden, carb-dense recipes.  Yummy!

Recipe For Almond and Parmesan Chicken Tenders

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, rinsed and patted dry
3 eggs
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 cup of almonds, chopped in a food processor to a coarse meal texture
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon garlic or onion powder
big pinch of kosher salt
couple of grinds of black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Set up a breading station:

• Whisk eggs and then whisk in lemon juice and put in a shallow bowl. 
• Mix the almonds, parmesan, paprika, garlic or onion powder, salt, and pepper and put in a shallow bowl.

Working a couple at a time, coat chicken tenders with egg mixture, then with almond mixture, and shake off excess.  Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet; no crowding.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and crispy.

Chicken/Pork Breakfast Sausage

Using brined chicken breast in this recipe along with lean ground pork results in a very low-fat sausage that’s flavorful and has a nicer texture than chicken breakfast sausages I’ve had before. The fat content is so low that you’ll need to lightly coat your skillet with olive oil.

A great time-saving idea is to brine large amounts of chicken breasts, then freeze individually in ziplock bags for later use. I’ve found that prebrined and frozen chicken tastes the same in recipes as freshly brined. It’s also easiest to grind the chicken in the food processor when it’s still half-frozen.

We’ve eaten this sausage as standalone breakfast patties and cooked it in a breakfast hash with eggs, potatoes, and cheese. It was great both ways.

Recipe For Chicken/Pork Breakfast Sausage

1 pound brined chicken breast (partially frozen)
1 pound lean ground pork
¼ cup real maple syrup
2 teaspoons dry sage
1 teaspoon granulated toasted onion
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper

Cut the chicken into chunks. Working in batches, pulse the chicken in a food processor until coarsely ground.

Combine the ground chicken, ground pork, maple syrup, and spices in a large mixing bowl. Mix well with your hands.

You can form patties or bulk cook it. If it’s warmed up a bit from mixing and gotten a little too soft and sticky, refrigerate for a while before forming patties.

Chicken with Asiago, Prosciutto, and Sage

This recipe is slightly adapted from this recipe from the blog Dinners for a Year and Beyond.

Chicken with Asiago, Prosciutto, and Sage


serves 4-6


2 pounds of chicken breast tenders, pounded to 1/4-inch thickness
flour
salt and pepper
4 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 pound asiago cheese (shredded or sliced into thin strips)
1/2 pound thin prosciutto slices
2/3 cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons minced fresh sage
squeeze of fresh lemon juice
whole sage leaves (for garnish)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

First sprinkle chicken all over very lightly with salt and set aside for a few minutes while you measure and prepare the other ingredients.

Sprinkle salted chicken with pepper and dredge in flour, shaking off excess.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter with the olive oil in large saute pan over medium-high heat.  Add chicken breasts and saute until brown, 3 to 4 minutes per side.  Lay the chicken pieces in a rimmed baking sheet and set the saute pan aside; you'll be using the pan with any remaining drippings for the sauce.

Sprinkle or place most of the cheese over the chicken pieces, then drape prosciutto slices over each chicken piece, and finally top with the remainder of the cheese.  Bake until the cheese melts and the prosciutto gets slightly crisp, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile add wine, minced sage, and remaining 2 tablespoons butter to skillet.  Boil until sauce is reduced by half, scraping up brown bits.  Add a squeeze of lemon juice.

Transfer chicken pieces to serving platter.  Top each with a sage leaf, drizzle pan sauce over, and serve.

Chicken Stir-Fry

Most of us home cooks don't have the mega BTU output stovetops needed for truly authentic wok cooking.  But with a little thoughtful ingredient prep we can create a pretty darn good replica.  Currently I'm using a big cast-iron skillet on an electric stove, so this is totally a do-what-you-can-with-what-you-have kind of recipe.

When prepping ingredients, remember to cut them to a size that's convenient for eating with chopsticks (the only proper way to eat stir-fry) and prep them so that they cook in only a couple of minutes.

In this recipe I use velveted chicken, which is perfect for cooking quickly over medium-high heat.  I salt the squash, then rinse and pat dry.  This gives the squash some flavor, and more importantly removes a lot of moisture so that the squash can cook quickly into lovely individual golden bites and not turn into a mushy, gloppy, tasteless mess.  I blanch the broccoli in salted water, and drain.  That preserves the beautiful green color and perfectly prepares the broccoli for quick stir-frying.

Have fun experimenting with stir-fry ingredients.  Prep veggies according to their textures.  When you're prepping soft, high-moisture veggies (squash, zucchini squash, tomatoes), salt for at least 30 minutes, rinse, and pat them dry.  When you're prepping firmer, tougher veggies (broccoli, green beans, asparagus), blanch in boiling salted water and drain.  Quick-cooking ingredients like mushrooms, sprouts, green onions, and herbs don't need any special prep treatment; just add them to the skillet or wok toward the end of the cooking process.  The objective is for every ingredient to be flavorful, cook quickly, and not leave a puddle of water in the skillet or wok.

Chicken Stir-Fry Recipe

1 1/2 pounds of velveted chicken pieces
1/4 cup peanut oil
1 yellow summer squash, cut in bite-size chunks
1 broccoli crown, cut in small florets
kosher salt
4 green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup bean sprouts
1/4 cup soy sauce
chopped basil and cilantro to taste

Prepare The Squash:
Place in a colander over a bowl and sprinkle all over with kosher salt. Let sit at least 30 minutes to allow the salt to draw the moisture out of the squash. Then rinse well, drain, and pat dry on paper towels.

Prepare The Broccoli:
Boil salted water in a medium-size saucepan. Drop the broccoli in, bring water back to a boil, and cook for 1 minute. Drain the broccoli from the water and cool in an ice bath or under cool running water to stop the cooking process.

Heat the peanut oil in a cast-iron skillet or wok over medium-high heat.  Don't be afraid of heat here.  You want everything to brown a little to develop the flavor and you're using enough oil and stirring constantly so nothing sticks.  Add chicken and stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes, until it starts to brown.  Add squash and stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes, until it starts to brown.  Add broccoli and stir-fry 1 minute.  Add green onion, bean sprouts, and soy sauce and stir-fry 1 minute.  Turn off heat, add basil and cilantro, stir well, and serve. 

Don't forget the chopsticks!

Velveting Chicken

I recently discovered the technique of velveting chicken.  It's sort of a parcooking method for chicken so that you can then stir-fry it in your favorite recipe without it overcooking and becoming dry.  The results are surprisingly good and the technique is pretty simple, always a combination I like. 

Whenever you prepare chicken, I recommend brining the chicken first to make it juicy, tender, and tasty.  That holds true for chicken for stir-fry.  It's not essential to brine, but the results are worth the small investment of effort and time.  If you brine and velvet chicken for your next stir-fry, it'll be the difference between, "This chicken is good," and "Wow, how did you make this?!"

Velveting Chicken

1 1/2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast, fat and any other "icky" stuff trimmed away, cut into small bites or small strips for stir-frying (brined if desired), rinsed and patted dry
2 egg whites
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups peanut oil

In a bowl large enough to easily hold the chicken, mix the egg white and cornstarch together.  Add the chicken to the egg white/cornstarch mixture and coat well.   The easiest way to coat well is to use the tools God gave you (your hands).  Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.  Remove from the fridge, empty the chicken into a colander, and allow the excess egg/cornstarch mixture to drain off very well. 

Heat the oil in a wok or Dutch oven to 275 degrees.  Use a candy/frying thermometer to monitor the temperature, and heat the oil slowly as the oil gets to 275 pretty quickly and it's much more time consuming to wait for the oil to cool back down than it is to slowly bring it to temp in the first place.

When oil reaches 275 degrees, drop the chicken pieces in and stir gently to keep them separate and prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  They just need to cook around 30 seconds until they turn very white.  The color change will be really obvious and they'll also float up a bit.  Remove with a spider and drain in a colander or on paper towels to remove the excess oil.

**You're now ready to cook the chicken in your favorite stir-fry recipe.  Please note that after velveting the chicken will not be fully cooked and will not yet be at a safe temperature for consumption.**

One last note:  Using 2 cups of peanut oil for a 30-second cooking process might seem wasteful; however, the oil will still be absolutely pristine after velveting the chicken, so after it cools it can be poured into a jar to save for another use. 

Brining Chicken

Poultry when brined before cooking is transcendent.  Regardless of the cooking method you plan to use for your chicken or other poultry, soak it in a brine before cooking for amazing results.  You'll get a tender, flavorful, and juicy bird. 

The simplest brine is nothing more than water, salt, and sugar.  There are plenty of recipes that call for brining your chicken in a stockpot or other large container placed in your refrigerator.  I have very limited space, so here's my space-saving brine:

Simmer the following just until the solids dissolve:

1 quart water
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar

Also needed:

Ice cubes

When the salt and sugar dissolve, remove from the heat and let the brine cool to room temp.  Rinse your chicken and put it in a heavy-duty gallon ziplock bag.  Add the room temp brine and enough ice cubes to fill the bag (and chill everything), press out the air, and seal the bag.  I always put the whole thing in a second bag and seal it also (trust issues).

Put the ziplocked brined chicken on a platter or storage container and place it in your fridge or in an ice-filled ice chest for 2 to 24 hours before cooking, less time for boneless skinless chicken parts and more time for a whole chicken with skin.

This brine works beautifully with whole chicken or chicken parts.  Trust me, if you've never tried brining your chicken before preparing it, you'll thank me.  Brining turns budget food into gourmet!!!

This Gringa's Take on Arroz con Pollo

So I know kind of instinctively what arroz con pollo is all about, although I've never actually tasted the dish.  I have seen it prepared on numerous cooking shows on TV and read so many recipes for it.  My spirit, which imagines that it's Latina, although in truth I'm Scotch-Irish, German, and Native American, among other things, believes that it understands the essence of this quintessential Latin American dish.  All this is by way of explanation that the following recipe, although absolutely scrumptious, if I do say so myself, makes no claims to be precisely traditional nor authentic to any Latin American region.

Arroz con Pollo

2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil to coat pan
3 1/2 ounce package Goya chorizo  (Spanish style chorizo, not Mexican style), thinly sliced
1 tomato, diced
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 head of garlic, minced
1 to 1 1/4 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs, rinsed, trimmed of excess fat, and dried
1 cup homemade vegetable broth or water
18 ounces beer (1 1/2 cans)
2 Knorr chicken bouillon cubes
1 Goya sazon packet
2 ounces capers, rinsed and drained
14-ounce package Goya valencia style rice, rinsed and drained
2-3 ounces pimientos, diced
1 cup frozen green peas
3 ounces manzanilla olives, cut in half

Heat a large cast iron frying pan or traditional Puerto Rican-style aluminum caldero over medium heat.  Add olive oil.  Add chorizo, tomato, and onion.  Cook over medium heat until onion is softened.  Add garlic and then add chicken pieces, nestling each piece into the bottom of the caldero.  Cook over medium heat until chicken thighs release easily from pan, then turn thighs over.  Again cook until chicken thighs release easily from pan.

At this point add 1 cup vegetable broth or water, the 2 Knorr chicken bouillon cubes, 18 ounces beer, and 1 packet of Goya sazon, and stir to mix.

Bring to a simmer, then add the rice and capers and stir to mix.  Simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed .  Then using a spatula or large spoon gently fold over all the rice.

Add half of the olives, pimientos, and peas.  Cover the caldero with a lid and cook at very low temperature for 20 minutes.  Again fold over the rice with a spatula or large spoon.

Add the remaining olives, pimientos, and peas.  Continue cooking at very low temperature with lid off about 10 minutes until any remaining liquid is absorbed and rice is tender.