Tag Archives: chicken

October 19, 2018 · 5:02 PM

Chicken Pot Parmentier + Stuffed Vegetables

When I last posted here I was certain it was a new beginning of regular, on-time Cook the Book Fridays posts. Well, now it’s a month and a half later and I’m finally getting back to it. I need to get my act together because CtBF is about to get busy: we are adding a new cookbook to our rotation (more on that next week!).

I have two delicious recipes to tell you about, one of which I actually made about a month ago. But first, we’ll start with the “official” recipe of the week.

Chicken Pot Parmentier

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Chicken Pot Parmentier is a cross between American chicken pot pie and French hachis Parmentier (it’s like a French Shepherd’s Pie). It has a chicken pot pie filling and a mashed potato topping.

I felt like I used every pot and pan in the house to make this dinner! It didn’t help that I also poached the chicken in my Instant Pot for both the chicken and the broth used in the recipe. Next time I make this (and there will be a next time) I will poach the chicken a day ahead if I go that route, and perhaps start some of the steps earlier in the day.

My husband is not eating potatoes, so I only made half the mashed potato topping. I put half the chicken filling in a deep-dish pie plate with the potatoes and the other half in a plain baking dish. Everyone’s happy!

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We all LOVED this one! The chicken filling is like the best chicken pot pie you’ve ever had and the potatoes complemented the filling perfectly. My daughter devoured her serving! (seen below in fancy “TV Dinner” form)

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All in all, a winner that I will be making again.

Stuffed Vegetables

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Stuffed Vegetables are vegetables (duh!) stuffed with a ground beef filling and topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

I made a few changes to the recipe: I replaced the eggplant with bell peppers because we like them better. I had read that a few people thought the meat filling was dry, so I added extra diced garden tomatoes (that I cooked down a bit) for flavor and moisture, and left out the egg. I also skipped the sage and thyme and opted for plenty of basil from the garden instead. The zucchini and tomatoes came from the garden as well.

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Yum! We enjoyed these stuffed veggies a lot. The extra tomato really added a nice flavor to the meat filling.

If you would like to try either of these recipes, you can find them in David Lebovitz’s book, My Paris Kitchen.

I will be back next week with an exciting, celebratory post!

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February 3, 2017 · 4:33 PM

Coq au Vin

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Do you ever sit down to write a blog post and you just can’t think of anything interesting to say? I’m having one of those days today…the ideas just aren’t flowing. So please forgive me if my post is a little boring.

My lack of anything interesting to say is no reflection on the Cook the Book Fridays recipe of the week, Coq au Vin (or, Chicken in Red Wine Sauce). In fact, it was quite delicious and I enjoyed it very much.

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My daughter seems to have a love-hate relationship with chicken. Sometimes she eats it right up, and other times she hardly touches it. This one she didn’t seem to care for much. Maybe the wine added a flavor that was too exotic?

This recipe hits all the right notes for me: braised chicken, bacon, mushrooms, and a flavorful sauce. All in all, it was a cozy dish to tuck myself into on a chilly night.

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June 17, 2016 · 11:53 AM

Chicken Lady Chicken

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Happy Friday! The first week of summer break has officially come and gone. Around here things are much improved from the beginning of the week. My daughter is feeling MUCH better, and we are looking forward to celebrating Father’s Day on Sunday and going for a swim this weekend.

I love the name of this week’s Cook the Book Fridays recipe: Chicken Lady Chicken. The recipe is inspired by the rotisserie chicken David Lebovitz would buy from the “chicken lady” at a Paris farmer’s market.

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There are several important elements to this recipe. Butterflying (or spatchcocking) the chicken is important because it allows more of the skin to get nice and crispy, and it also helps the chicken cook faster.

Another important element is weighing down the chicken as it cooks. This also helps ensure crispy skin. I grilled my chicken and weighed it down with my cast iron pan. Unfortunately, those flames you see in the photo below caused my chicken’s skin to get charred a bit. I pulled it off the flame before the skin became inedible, but it would have been better less charred.

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The final important (maybe the most important?) element to this recipe is the marinade. It combines garlic, salt, olive oil, lemon juice, white wine, soy sauce, Sriracha, Dijon mustard, and honey. The chicken is best when it rests in the marinade for at least 24 hours, so plan ahead!

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This chicken was good! It was very moist and flavorful. The marinade was truly delicious and I will use it again for sure. This recipe really was reminiscent of a store-bought rotisserie chicken, but way better!

If you would like to try Chicken Lady Chicken, I found the recipe on Serious Eats. Or you could purchase a copy of David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there!

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May 22, 2015 · 4:31 PM

FFWD: Chicken in a Pot – The Final Recipe!

Here we are! The final recipe from Around My French Table! It’s hard to believe I have been doing this for four and a half years (the project began in October 2010; I joined in January 2011). When I started, I thought it would just be a fun thing to do for my new blog. Back then I had no idea that I would actually complete every recipe and what a tight knit group us Doristas would become. It’s been a fun adventure!

Now, about the recipe, Chicken in a Pot: the Garlic and Lemon Version. We saved the cover recipe for last. This recipe represents classic French home cooking at it’s finest. Dorie’s version has us toss preserved lemon peel, sweet potatoes, pearl onions, carrots, celery, a whole lot of garlic, and various herbs into a big pot (after sauteing them for a bit). Next we add browned chicken pieces and a bit of wine and broth. I used a combination of thighs and breasts. The pot is sealed with a simple dough made from flour and water. This locks in the flavors and infuses the chicken and vegetables with wonderful herbiness.

My parents had great timing. They drove down from Seattle this week to babysit so my husband and I could enjoy a few days to ourselves. The day they arrived I made them this. It was a huge hit!

There are many reasons why this recipe was the perfect choice for our last recipe. Not the least of which is it contained some of my husband’s (and the rest of the family’s) favorite foods (chicken, sweet potatoes, and garlic), so it was sure to be a crowd-pleaser. The chicken was so flavorful and juicy. The vegetables were delicious, though a few of them could have cooked a bit longer. We all loved spreading the garlic on the crusty bread. Nice to end on a high note!

Even though this is the final French Fridays with Dorie recipe, this won’t be my last French Fridays post. We will be doing a series of retrospective posts to look back on our favorite recipes. It will certainly be bittersweet.

Have a great weekend!

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February 20, 2015 · 5:26 PM

FFWD: Vanilla-Butter-Braised Lobster + Couscous Chicken

Happy French Friday!

It has come to my attention that perhaps I was a little too harsh on Valentine’s Day in my last post. It can be a fun holiday, we just don’t make a big deal about it. I was trying to explain why we don’t make a big deal, and I guess my point didn’t come across quite like I wanted it too. I don’t hate Valentine’s Day! All that said, we had a lovely Valentine’s Day dinner this year, inspired in part by this week’s delicious French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Vanilla-Butter-Braised Lobster.

Vanilla-Butter-Braised Lobster

As the Dorista’s nominated recipes for the February line-up, it was decided that Vanilla-Butter-Braised Lobster would make the perfect dinner for Valentine’s Day. Great idea, and great excuse for a special dinner!

The recipe calls for live lobsters, but Dorie helpfully suggests that previously frozen lobster tails would work as well. I opted for the lobster tails. It was interesting to me to see the varying amounts people had to spend to purchase their lobster. I was lucky to run across a “one-day sale” at Whole Foods, and picked up 4 small lobster tails for only $20.

I have never cooked lobster before. Heck, I have only eaten it a handful of times. One thing I would love to experience some time is super-fresh East Coast lobster cooked at the source. Some day!

Anyway, I was surprised how quick and easy lobster tails are to cook, when they are braised in clarified butter. Dorie’s twist is to add a vanilla bean. I found the vanilla flavor to be very subtle, but delicious.

I rounded out our special meal with Lemon-Steamed Spinach and potatoes roasted in duck fat. Decadent and delicious!

Couscous Chicken

I’m a week late on another FFWD recipe: Couscous Chicken. This one is a North-African-inspired dish that makes a very satisfying dinner.

What makes Chicken Couscous special and exotic is the spice mix: fresh ginger, cumin, turmeric, saffron, cinnamon, and garlic. The chicken and spices are stewed together with a variety of vegetables, including, leeks, carrots, celery, and zucchini. The final touch is garbanzo beans. The whole thing is served with the traditional couscous. Dorie has us cook the couscous with some of the stew’s broth, lending the pasta the same exotic flavors as the rest of the dish.

I loved this! I found it so satisfying and delicious. Best of all, it made enough for two night’s worth of dinners!

This post participates in French Fridays with Dorie, an online group dedicated to cooking our way through Dorie Greenspan’s wonderful book, Around My French Table.

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January 9, 2015 · 5:07 PM

FFWD: Citrus Two Ways

Happy Friday! It has been a strange week here at the From Scratch household. Between a third week of Christmas break (yes, my daughter’s school district has a 3 week winter break…), head colds, and cable/internet/phone problems, things just didn’t feel normal around here. This is a long way of saying I didn’t make this week’s (dreaded) French Fridays with Dorie recipe. I will make it next week when things are hopefully back to normal. Instead, I will catch you up on a couple of recipes that I made in December but haven’t had a chance to write about. Let’s get started!

Orange and Olive Salad

Orange and Olive Salad. This is one of those recipes from Around My French Table that I was dreading the most. It just didn’t sound good to me. But, since I’m committed to trying every recipe, I carried on.

Much to my surprise, I liked it! I especially liked how refreshing the orange seemed with it’s drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt. I also liked the onion with the orange. But I found my mild Niçoise olives did nothing to add to the flavor of the salad. Perhaps a saltier kalamata would have been better? Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised!

Pan-Seared ~~Duck~~ Chicken Breasts with Kumquats

Next up is Pan-Seared Duck Breasts with Kumquats. Except I used boneless chicken breasts. This recipe is all about the kumquat sauce and I knew my family would prefer chicken over duck.

Despite my change to chicken, I followed the recipe pretty closely. I made the sauce and candied kumquats as written. The chicken was pan-seared skin-side down just like the duck would have been, but then I kept it in the pan and roasted it in the oven until cooked through.

This was good! I had never cooked with kumquats before and it was fun trying something new. The sauce was good with the chicken and my husband loved the candied kumquats. I would make this again.

If you are interested in what the dreaded recipe for this week was (and don’t want to wait until I write about it next week), you can find out here. Here’s to a good weekend and a more normal week ahead!

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September 6, 2014 · 2:03 PM

Curried Chicken, Peppers, and Peas en Papillote

It may be Saturday, but today we’re talking about French Fridays with Dorie! I have several recipes to catch you up on, but right now I am going to focus on the recipe the group made this week: Curried Chicken, Peppers, and Peas en Papillote.

There are several “en papillote” recipes in Around My French Table. This one is a main dish with chicken, red onion, bell peppers, and peas, seasoned with curry powder.

I had made this dish a few years ago, and remember liking it, but wished it had a creamier sauce. I felt it was a little dry. So I made a change this time around: in place of the olive oil, I used 3/4 cup coconut milk. Strangely, the creaminess of the coconut milk disappeared in the cooking process, but the flavor remained. And the resulting chicken was very moist.

This was a delicious dinner the whole family enjoyed. The packets of chicken and vegetables are the perfect portion. I was happy with my addition of coconut milk. The flavors blended very nicely with the Balinese Turmeric Coconut Rice I made.

I have a couple more French Fridays recipes to catch you up on…hopefully you will be seeing those in the next few days.

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March 8, 2013 · 1:41 PM

Cheesy Crème Brûlée + Chicken Breasts Diable

Cheesy Crème Brûlée

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe was a tasty appetizer called Cheesy Crème Brûlée. It really is just like the dessert Crème Brûlée, except instead of being flavored with sugar and vanilla, it is flavored with cheese!

These are very simple to make. First, grated cheddar cheese is placed in the bottom of buttered ramekins. Then a simple custard made from cream, whole milk, and egg yolks is poured over the top. A slow bake makes them nice and custardy. When ready to eat, I sprinkled finely grated Parmesan cheese over the top of each custard and ran them under the broiler.

I really liked these! They kind of tasted like home made macaroni and cheese without the noodles. Rich and creamy, it went well with a salad. I’m sure it would be good with crusty bread, too.

Chicken Breasts Diable

Last’s week’s FFWD recipe was an elegant weeknight dish called Chicken Breasts Diable. “Diable” is French for “devil”, and most dishes containing mustard are given this title.

This dish is essentially a sauteed chicken breast enhanced with a lovely pan sauce made from shallots, Dijon mustard, a bit of white wine, and cream.

This one was a big hit with us! I loved the flavor of the sauce with the chicken, and it went very well with the broccoli I served as a side dish.

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October 26, 2012 · 10:02 PM

Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes

Is it really Friday again already? Actually, today felt more like a Saturday because it is Nevada Day, a state holiday, and my daughter and husband had the day off. Yay, three day weekend!

This week’s French Friday’s with Dorie recipe was a delicious, comforting one called Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes. Since chicken and sweet potatoes are two of my husband’s favorite foods, I knew this one would be a winner.

The chicken and sweet potatoes are joined by a generous amount of onions that are sauteed gently until very soft. They are seasoned with saffron, cinnamon, star anise, a bay leaf, and honey. The whole thing is braised until tender. The scents coming from the stove were heavenly!

We all really enjoyed the Moroccan-inspired flavors of this dish. As expected, the chicken and sweet potatoes were a hit (I cooked extra potatoes because I knew we’d want them). Both my husband and I felt the prunes added a special something to the dish. They were not only delicious to eat, but they imparted a wonderful flavor throughout the whole dish.

This was a very satisfying dish to make and eat. I highly recommend it! You can find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.

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September 22, 2012 · 3:28 PM

Chicken Basquaise

Making this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Chicken Basquaise, felt like a gateway to fall and winter cooking. In the summer I cook differently. A little lighter. Meats are grilled. Veggies are quickly sauteed or served raw. No stews simmering on the stove and no long braises.

But cooking Chicken Basquaise changed the game. The vegetables were cooked slowly until meltingly tender, and the chicken stewed gently on the stove. Summer wasn’t abandoned completely: the stars of the show were gorgeous bell peppers, rounded out by tomatoes from the garden.

I have to admit, I love the comfort of fall and winter cooking. Knowing I have something nourishing simmering on the stove, with the smell wafting through the house. I look forward to fall when I can begin cooking more slowly.