Chicken Two Ways

This weekend was Battle Chicken at the Raihala household. Susan bought a smallish roaster, and also not quite 2 pounds of chicken breasts. How to create two totally different meals out of the same meat? Hmmm…

Almost immediately, I decided I was going to do a riff on a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, “French Farmhouse Cookbook” by Susan Loomis. If you are new to French cooking, and want to give it a go, get yourself this cookbook. I have used it more than any other cookbook I own in the last 5 years or so. It is absolutely wonderful.

My plan was to make a simple pizza crust dough, and wrap the whole chicken in it, along with sautéed leeks on the bottom, and bacon on top to provide some more flavor for the bread wrapping. I made the pizza dough and got it rising, and then I started the chicken by browning it in a large sauce pan in a bit of olive oil to render some of the fat and to brown the skin. I chopped 4 leeks and got those sautéing in olive oil as well.

When the pizza dough was ready after a rise of about 2 hours, I took it out of the bowl and rolled it out big enough to wrap around the whole chicken. I put the leeks on the dough, and then placed the chicken on the leeks. I put the bacon on the breast of the chicken, and then pulled the dough around the chicken and sealed it. I was really proud of how it was looking, and took some pictures. Then everything went south on me in a big way.

I started to pick up the chicken to place it in a baking dish, and noticed to my horror that the dough was sticking steadfastly to the counter. I gently tried to pull the dough-wrapped chicken up, and instantly ripped the bottom off, with hot leeks spilling all over my counter. After some R-rated commentary on my part, I did my best to get my temper back in check, and threw the chicken in the pan, sans the bottom part of the dough. I pushed the dough and leeks on the counter top, and threw that on top of the chicken, and threw the whole thing into the oven.

I decided to throw myself into the accompanying salad. I had gotten some nice baby spinach at the grocery store, so I wanted to do something with that. I dry-toasted almonds, pecans, and walnuts until the almonds were turning a nice brown on the outside, and then threw them into my Cuisinart mini-prep and chopped them until they were not totally minced into sawdust, but a bit bigger. I put the nuts on the spinach, then whisked together some walnut oil and balsamic vinegar. I poured that on the salad, and then put on some parmesan cheese. The salad turned out quite nice, although I did get a bit carried away with the amount of nuts I put on the salads.

The chicken itself turned out pretty darn good, if not very pretty. The meat was super moist after having cooked inside the dough, and the bread surrounding the chicken was delectable, with flavors of leek, chicken, and bacon.

On Sunday, I needed to do something with the chicken breasts. I had decided I was going to do something Indianish with them…something spicy and creamy with rice. I put a chopped jalapeno, a bunch of cilantro (about a cup and a half), a bunch of mint (about ½ a cup), 3 garlic cloves, an inch of peeled ginger, ½ cup of almonds, and two roma tomatoes into my Cuisinart and pureed the whole mess. It looked a lot like pesto, so I added a cup of plain yogurt, and blended that until it was smooth.

I grabbed my biggest skillet, and begin sautéing the chicken breast (that I had cubed) in some butter. I let that cook for a while, and then added one large chopped onion, a pound of quartered little red potatoes, and one red pepper. I let that cook for a bit, and then added a can of coconut milk and the pureed sauce from the Cuisinart. I threw in 2 teaspoons of Vindaloo seasoning (from Penzeys) and let that simmer for a while. After about 20 minutes I tasted the sauce, which was a little bland, so tossed in some salt and another 2 teaspoons of the Vindaloo seasoning (I had intended on also using some Garam Masala, but a alas, I was out). I kept simmering that until the sauce thickened nicely, and then served it over rice with homemade naan.

It all turned out pretty good. Not too hot; just enough spice to keep it interesting, and nice creamy sauce to go with the rice. It wasn’t exactly what I was going for, but then, I’m not exactly sure what I was aiming at, anyway. Maybe some chopped tomatoes should have in with the onions and peppers. I was also thinking that perhaps just a hint of ancho or chipotle chile powder could have given it a hint of smoke and spice; a little Indian-Southwestern fusion. Maybe next time….