Famous Grouse Chicken

Normally, I would use wine to flavor chicken with onions, but yesterday morning we were out. "I've heard of bourbon chicken," I thought. "Why not with Scotch?" So, into the slowcooker went a shot of Scotch. Result? Delicious!

I cooked this for about 9.5 hours, which is really the most you would want to cook it: the chicken gets browned, but not dried out as it would with longer cooking, and the peppers and onions get browned -- peppers slightly blackened in spots -- but not burned. If you will be at work longer than that and thus need to cook it longer, you could try adding more liquid at the beginning. I might do that next time even for this amount of time.

Famous Grouse Chicken

4 chicken thighs, bone-in. Remove and discard the skin and any visible fat.
1 very large sweet onion, Vidalia or Walla Walla or the like.
2 red, orange, or yellow bell peppers, quartered, or about 10 mini bell peppers, caps removed
1 shot Famous Grouse Scotch
1 tsp coarse Dijon mustard
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
Few drops Sriracha
Black pepper
Paprika
1 cup water

Slice the onion very thinly -- should yield about 3-4 cups. Lay the onion slices over the bottom of the slowcooker. Arrange the peppers evenly over the onions, and lay the chicken over the peppers.

Mix together the Scotch, mustard, vinegar, oil, Sriracha, and water. Pour over contents of slowcooker. Sprinkle the chicken pieces thoroughly with pepper and Paprika. Cook on Low 7 to 9.5 hours.

Serve with rice.

Serves 2-4.

Chicken Soup with Rice and Vegetables (aka Alternate Chicken Soup)

Usually, when I say chicken soup, I mean this one. That's the one I usually make. But today I had different vegetables on hand and thought that some major ginger and garlic would go a long way towards fighting this cold that I've got. So here's an alternate chicken soup -- one that might become my go-to.

Chicken Soup with Rice and Vegetables (aka Alternate Chicken Soup)

4 cups chicken stock
5-7 cups water
1 cup brown rice
5 chicken drumsticks (or a similar amount of other bone-in cuts)
1.5-2 cups sliced carrots
2 large onions, diced
4 large cloves garlic, diced
3 tbsp olive oil, divided
2 small acorn squash, cut into pieces (or 1 brick frozen cooked squash)
1.5 tsp powdered ginger (I only intended 1/2 tsp, but the top fell off the can... and it's good this way)
1 tsp dill weed
salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 400. Grease a baking pan with 1 tbsp olive oil. Lay the squash pieces on the pan cut side-down and bake about 30 minutes or until soft. (Alternately, you can use frozen squash -- I prefer acorn for this soup because of the color. If using frozen, add it about 1 hour in.)

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions and carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they have begun to color, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook three or four more minutes. Add the stock, chicken, rice, ginger, and water (if you have frozen stock and chicken, like me, just add them without thawing). Bring to a boil. Stir, and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, about 2 hours. When the squash is done, scoop it out of the peel, mash, and add to the soup -- it thickens the soup and adds a great flavor. Make sure to keep stirring towards the end as it's a very thick, almost porridge-y soup and may stick to the bottom of the pot. Add more water if you prefer a thinner soup. Before serving, add dill and salt to taste (probably about 1 tsp).

Serves at least 6.

Basic Baked Chicken in Wine Sauce

Don't be put off by the purple sauce -- very easy, very tasty.
Kind of an embarrassingly easy 'recipe' to post.

Basic Baked Chicken in Wine Sauce

5-6 chicken drumsticks, skin on or skin off
1 medium red onion, sliced thinly
1 tbsp chopped fresh sage
big pinch dried thyme
small pinch dried tarragon (or instead of these herbs, use whatever herbs)
1/2 cup leftover red wine
salt + pepper
1 tbsp cornstarch if desired

Preheat oven to 350. If you want to be really fancy, you can brown the chicken in a pan on the stove, but because we never eat the skin anyway I do not. Scatter half the onions into the baking dish. Lay the chicken drumsticks on top. Scatter the rest of the onions, and the herbs, on top of the chicken. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the red wine over and around the chicken. Bake, covered, about 20 minutes, then uncovered 30 -50 minutes, until done. (50 minutes if, for example, the 'fresh' chicken you just bought turns out to be partially frozen.) Take out the chicken and onions and keep warm in the turned-off onion. Pour the juices/wine into a sauce pan and boil for a few minutes, until reduced and thickened to your liking. Add cornstarch, made into a slurry with cold water, if you'd like a thicker sauce. Arrange chicken and onions on a platter; pour sauce over. Serve immediately with a sharp green salad.

Serves 2.

Slow-Cooked Chicken and Goat with Onions

Now, this is not an entry about a cake. It was a good cake, although I have to ask you not to use raspberry buttercream you've had stashed in the freezer as filling (it soaks into the cake in a rather unappetizing way). It also it had excellent fudge frosting.

However.

This is an entry about meat. Specifically, goat and chicken slow-cooked together with plenty of onions... so that the meats flavor each other and the onions turn golden brown and delicoius. Not so much a recipe as a method:

Slow-Cooked Chicken and Goat with Onions


2 goat or lamb shoulder chops. Brown them if you want.
5ish chicken drumsticks. You can brown these if you want too, or skin them. Or not.
1.5 large onions, sliced
1/3 cup olive oil
Balsamic vinegar to taste to make a vinaigrette (I use a lot)
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp honey
zest of one lemon
Sesame seeds for garnish

Cover the bottom of your slow cooker with onions. Lay the shoulder chops on the onions. Add the chicken.

In a small pitcher, mix the remaining ingredients together. Pour over the meat/onions, making sure to coat well.

Cook on high for 4 hours. There will be a lot of liquid. Lift out the meat and onions and serve on a platter, garnished with sesame seeds.

You could, of course, then reduce the liquid into a sauce to serve with the meat.

Serves 4 (3 if you're serving two carnivorous young men)

Summer Spicy Chicken Salad with Rice

Yum. Nice cool chicken salad. Cilantro. It's a meal-in-a-bowl.

Summer Spicy Chicken Salad with Rice

1 1/2 cups of the green sauce listed here, or a little over 1 cup of this green sauce with 1/2 cup coconut milk stirred in (if you have the second handy one in the freezer)

2 cups cooked basmati rice or other long grain rice
3 chicken breast halves, poached and diced
3 cups diced green cabbage
2 diced scallions
salt to taste

Combine all ingredients, using enough sauce that it is quite moist but not mooshy or runny. Chill. Eat.

Serves 3-4.

Festival Chicken

A certain friend turned roommate of mine commented tonight that this chicken dish tasted like a "festival in [her] mouth." It uses things I usually have lying around--lemon, mustard, parsley, thyme--to great effect. The lemon slices keep the chicken moist and flavorful. You could serve it on its own, or with the gremolata-like parsley garnish, which adds a delicously fresh taste. Very easy, and very healthy!

Festival Chicken with Green Garnish

For the Chicken:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 tbsp coarse Dijon mustard
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
6 thin lemon slices
1 thinly sliced green onion
generous grind of black pepper
olive oil for greasing the pan

For the garnish:
3/4 cup chopped parsley
1 thinly sliced green onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp coarsely grated lemon zest

Chicken: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a baking dish with olive oil. Lay two lemon slices in the baking dish; lay one piece of chicken over each lemon slice; sprinkle with pepper. Mix together the mustard, thyme, and vinegar; spread half over each piece of chicken. Top each piece of chicken with two lemon slices; sprinkle with green onion. Bake about 40 minutes or until done. Top with a generous amount of parsley garnish. (Serve with lemon slices intact, but do not eat them.)

Garnish: Mix together chopped parsley, sliced green onion, minced garlic, and grated lemon zest.

Serves 2.

Smoky Almond Chicken

This is what happens when it is Passover, I have leftover almonds, and a new tin of pimenton de la Vera. Picture not forthcoming, because I kept forgetting to take one until all the chicken had been eaten.

Smoky Almond Chicken

1.5 lb boned, skinned chicken breasts or breast tenderloins
6 oz. sliced almonds
3 tbsp olive oil plus more to grease the pan
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup matzo meal
1.5 tbsp pimenton de la Vera
1/2 tsp black pepper
salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat; add pimenton de la Vera and stir to combine well. Add the almonds and stir until well-coated and fragrant, about one minute. Turn off the heat but leave in the pan.

Oil the bottom of a roasting pan. Dredge each piece of chicken in matzo meal, dip in beaten egg, and coat with almonds. Place chicken pieces in pan, if possible spacing them slightly apart (mine were crowded, though, and turned out fine). Bake about 35-40 minutes or until juices run clear.

Serves 4.

Chicken in Green Sauce

No picture, because the oven's pilot light went out (again) just as I was about to put the chicken into the oven. Despite having watched someone light the oven's pilot light before, my roommate and I couldn't find it to light it on our own--it's not in the same place as the one for the stove. So we had to call the management company, and wait for them to come light it for us, as gas seeped into the apartment. But the management people are good folks and came in only 20 minutes--enough time to get the chicken into the oven about five minutes before the guests showed up. However, it wasn't done until an hour later, so that is the long explanation of why no picture.
The sauce is adapted from Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and Other Stories, my newest free-with-Lexis-points cookbook. It is extremely delicious--I cannot stop eating it (alone, on bread, on couscous, on anything). It will, however, give you terrible breath.

Chicken in Green Sauce

14 chicken parts (thighs and drumsticks), skin on or off
5 garlic cloves, chopped
olive oil, salt, pepper

Sauce:
2 large bunches cilantro, minus the stems
8 cloves garlic, chopped
juice of 4 limes
2/3 cup coconut milk
2 serrano chile peppers or more to taste
1 tsp salt
some fresh mint leaves, fresh basil leaves or 1 tsp dried basil

Put all the sauce ingredients in a food processor or heavy-duty blender and blend until a thick paste. If using a blender, you will need to stir a few times.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Arrange the chicken pieces in roasting pans. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and chopped garlic. Spread about 1 tbsp green sauce over each piece of chicken. Bake for 1 hour.

Serve, passing remaining green sauce for guests to spoon onto their own chicken (and rice, bread, potatoes, straight into their mouths, etc).

Serves at least 8, with lots of extra sauce.

Chicken Soup

Very simple, filling, and warming--just right for a day like yesterday, the first real snowfall of the winter.

You know, soup just doesn't photograph that well. But you don't really need one, because it looks like... chicken soup.

Chicken Soup

10 chicken drumsticks, bone-in (or the equivalent in other chicken parts, whatever you have, so long as they are fairly meaty)
2 medium onions, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2/3 cup brown rice
2/3 cup red lentils
3/4 tsp powdered allspice
1/2 tsp powdered cardamom
1/2 tsp powdered turmeric
salt to taste
10-12 cups water

If you have time, soak the rice in water for about 2 hours before cooking (it makes the soup creamier, but you can skip this step and it'll still turn out fine).

In the bottom of a large pot, saute the onions until translucent in the olive oil. Add the spices and cook a few minutes longer, until fragrant. Add the rice, lentils, chicken, and 10 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 2 hours--until the soup has become creamy, the rice and lentils are softened almost beyond recognition, and the meat is falling off the bones, adding more water if the soup gets thicker than you would like it to be. Skim off any foam that rises. After around 2 hours, remove the chicken from the pot; shred the meat off the bones and return the meat to the pot. Taste and add salt as necessary. Serve hot.

Serves about 5 as a main course.

Variation: for even creamier soup, you can use white rice.