Chicken and eggplant—but not together

 

Eggplant parmagiana
The stack fell over, but that didn't affect the taste. Scrumptious but rich!

For some time now, I’ve been exploring alternatives to rotisserie chicken for use in casseroles and salads. Rotisseries chickens are expensive, but more than that, they are usually loaded with sodium and other flavorings. Plus I find boning them a pain, though Jordan has taught me that they are much easier to bone when they are warm from the store rather than cold from the refrigerator.

Years ago I used to put a piece of frozen chicken—I bought bags of it at Sam’s—in the microwave with salt, pepper, and a slice of onion. Add a dash of bouillon, cover, and microwave. That was when I had teenagers to feed, not much time, and a microwave. Now I realize that was compressed chicken, not real breast pieces, the teenagers are grown, and I have no microwave. When I first gave up rotisserie products, I poached but the chicken was tough. Then I learned there were better ways to poach—barely simmering for ten or fifteen minutes. Better. Then I saw yet another method, which I tried recently for a Cobb salad. Bring a pot of water, covered, to a boil. Immediately turn off the heat, slide the chicken breast into the water and cover. Leave for at least 25 minutes. The chicken was tender, but so pale it had little eye appeal and the flavor was sort of bland.  

So yesterday I was following an old recipe (you can tell by the look of the paper) for a chicken and blue cheese composed salad. It called for coating the chicken breast pieces with cooking spray, salt, and pepper. No kidding? Spray it? My first idea was to put olive oil in the skillet as usual, but then I thought if I was following a recipe, I should do it all the way. I sprayed and used a heavy hand with salt and pepper. I did not pound or flatten the breasts. Once they were suitably browned, I put them on a sheet pan, covered it with foil, and baked (I don’t have an appropriate covered dish in my small kitchen or I wouldn’t have resorted to foil). Although the recipe didn’t call for drippings, I added a bit to the pan. Baked it 15 minutes at 350 and as soon as it cooled, whisked it into the fridge. At dinnertime, I sliced it on a slant, and came up with lovely pieces for a salad. At least for the time being, that’s my preferred method.

The salad I made last night? Tear up some lettuce, dice a green onion, slice a bit of cucumber. Put that in a bowl and dress with vinaigrette. I didn’t like the recipe dressing—olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and mustard was too sweet. Next time I’ll make an oil and lemon dressing. Divide the salad evenly among plates, top with sliced chicken and sliced tomatoes. Sprinkle with crumbled blue cheese.

Wow! I had no idea I had so much to say about chicken. The recipe I meant to share this week is for a quick Eggplant parmigiana, and I stole it from Martha Stewart. Eggplant parmigiana is a chore to make and no one else here will touch eggplant, so I was delighted to find this quick method. You have to start this the night before. Here’s what you need (serves two):

1 medium eggplant

Salt and pepper

Thick tomato sauce (I used crushed tomatoes, Pomi label)

Sliced mozzarella

Parmesan

Italian herb seasoning

Bread crumbs

The night before serving, slice the eggplant into six slices, lay slices out on paper towels on a sheet pan, and salt lightly. Cover and refrigerate. Next day, rinse slices and pat dry.

Heat oven to 400. Replace paper towel with parchment paper. Brush each slice with olive oil and bake 20 minutes.

Make two stacks: eggplant slice, mozzarella slice, tomato sauce, sprinkling of Italian herbs, salt and pepper, and Parmesan; repeat layer, ending with third piee of eggplant. Cover that top slice with fresh bread crumbs. You may want to use toothpicks to hold stacks upright.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Martha says you can serve hot or warm.

Eggplant stacks ready to go in the oven.

Marinated salads – my new summer favorite

 

Bean salad with a salmon patty--a favorite lunch

In summer, my mom always kept in the fridge a container of cucumbers and sliced onions floating in a mix of equal parts vinegar and water, with a liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper. I’ve taken up mom’s habit, except I add a pinch of sugar to soften the vinegar a bit. You kind of have to do it by personal taste.

But sugar has been either a problem or a continuing source of amusement for me this summer. I’m amazed at the amount of sugar called for in lots of recipes, but especially  marinated salads. A friend in California who shares recipes online sent her recipe for Catalina dressing, which Christian likes on taco salad. But it had something like a cup of sugar—I used a tsp. The ranch dressing recipe was similar.

I’ve been keeping at least one summer salad as snack source all summer—the beloved three bean salad (my recipe calls for one tsp honey), various bean salads (there are so many recipes!), even pea salad, although it doesn’t keep as long as the others. Sometimes I substitute a sour cream dressing for the cucumber but, again, the shelf life isn’t as long as the vinegar-based salads. Sometimes the salad of the week is the classic Texas caviar (see Gourmet on a Hot Plate: Texas Caviar - CORRECTION)

Christian likes our marinated salads, but Jordan and I are the ones who eat the most. We can easily make a lunch of a small bowl of cottage cheese and bit of salad. Here’s one she particularly likes:

Corn and black bean salad

1 can black beans

1 can black-eyed peas

1-1/2 cups frozen corn, cook and cooled

½ cup finely chopped red onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

Dressing

½ tsp. sugar

2 Tbsp. white vinegar

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1-1/2 tsp. fresh lime juice     

¼ tsp. each salt and pepper

How I changed the recipe: originally it called for two Tbsp. sugar, but I cut that down to ½ tsp. The recipe also called for two large tomatoes, chopped—they would add color and flavor to the salad, but for something I was going to keep in the refrigerator for a week or so, they weren’t a good choice. The quality would deteriorate much more quickly than the beans and corn. Canola oil was specified in the recipe, but I have heard contradictory reports on it, including that it will upset your stomach, so I used good old vegetable oil. I think olive oil would add an out of place taste. Finally, the dressing added 1⁄4 tsp. cumin. My mom disliked cumin, so maybe I inherited that. I think it improves some recipes, but it added a discordant taste to this salad the first time I made it. Feel free to try it if you like cumin better than I do.

Refrigerate at least two hours before serving.

I am also loving onions this summer, especially the Texas sweet. Did you know you can easily pickle them in your fridge and use them for accents on everything from hamburgers and sandwiches to salads or to garnish a meatloaf or a steak.

Pickled onion

One large onion, sweet Texas, Vidalia, or red, thinly sliced

½ cup apple cider vinegar

1 tsp. sugar

1-1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup water, hot but not boiling

Pack the sliced onions into a bowl or wide-mouth canning jar. Mix remaining ingredients and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Pour warm mixture over onion and let it sit for an hour. Be sure all the onion is submerged in liquid. Cover and refrigerate.

You can play with this basic recipe—using white wine vinegar or white vinegar, rice vinegar, etc. Try substituting honey for the sugar. Try pickling tiny baby onions if you often serve cocktails.

Lazy Lady’s Peach Pie—and a comment on cooking shortcuts

 

My not-so-pretty but oh-so-delicious peach galette.

A couple of weeks ago a friend brought me a bounty from her family’s farmer’s market in Rio Vista—a cantaloupe, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and two huge but rock-hard peaches. I used most of it up immediately, but I kept eyeing those peaches. They were ripening, and I needed to do something with them, but what? We are not dessert eaters, but Christian said he’d eat a peach cobbler with me.

So Saturday morning, I looked up several recipes for peach cobbler. To my dismay, each called for at least two cups of sugar. Way too much! I decided against cobbler for that reason, plus if I were to make it, I’d have to ask Jordan and Christian to drop everything they were doing and bring me a list of ingredients plus a dish. I did not have enough flour or sugar, and I think milk may have been involved.

I thought about what I could do with what I had and my brain hit on the puff pastry in the freezer. I decided to make a galette, a sort of free form pastry where, instead of a trim pie crust, you pile ingredients in the middle of the dough and pull the edges up and over the fruit. It called for one tablespoon sugar. Much more my style. So here’s what I did:

Peach galette (serves six)

1 sheet puff pastry

2 Tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp. cinnamon (optional, but I recommend it)

¼ tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract (I used a scant tsp. almond, and it was delicious)

2-3 large peaches, ripe but still slightly firm, sliced

2 Tbsp. melted butter

Thaw the puff pastry sheet, and when thawed, roll out on a lightly floured board. Roll until thin and roughly in a circle. Line a baking sheet with a pastry sheet and transfer the pastry to it.

Whisk together brown sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice, salt, and flavoring in large bowl. Add sliced peaches, tossing gently but thoroughly to be sure each slice is coated.

If you are a compulsive neat baker, line peaches around pastry in concentric circles. If you’re like me, dump the peaches into the middle of the pastry and even out, leaving a good overlap of dough at the edges. Pull the edges of the pastry up and over the outside of the peaches. Brush all pastry edges with melted butter. Score the outer edges of the pastry.

Bake at 375 until the pastry puffs up and is golden—about forty-five minutes but watch it closely. If the pastry starts to turn too dark, remove from oven. Let sit twenty minutes before cutting into wedges. Serve with whipped cream or a dollop of ice cream, though it is good plain—and makes a great alternative breakfast.

I call this a lazy lady’s pie, because it means, at least to me, that I was too lazy to roll out a proper dough for a two-crust pie. Truth is, I have rarely made a scratch pie crust but have used a lot of frozen ones in my long years of cooking. And that leads to yet another confession: though I pride myself on being a scratch cook who would never, for instance, serve a frozen prepared meal, I am not above shortcuts. My most glaring sin in the eyes of purist cooks is that I used canned soups in casseroles. Granted, I am perfectly capable of making a white sauce and seasoning it until it adds perhaps more flavor than the canned soup, but I don’t do it. I used dried pasta (albeit a good brand from Central Market) rather than make my own pasta—yes, I’ve tried it, and it was a pain. I do draw the line at some things: instant mashed potatoes are a no and Minute Rice only goes into one recipe that I can’t figure out how to make without it and the dish is a family favorite.

Part of my philosophy about cooking—and behind my Gourmet on a Hot Plate columns—is to make home cooking easy enough for the home cook that’s it’s pleasant and not a chore. And it should never be a source of guilt. If you want to make tuna casserole with Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, go for it. Don’t let some purist shame you because you use canned soup and who eats tuna casserole anyway? It’s so fifties. Well, I for one love tuna casserole—and make it with cream of mushroom soup.

And I’m going to keep on making galettes instead of pies. They may not be pretty, but they taste good, and they are easy.

All those summer vegetables in one dish

 

Vegetables ready to go into Briam

I’ve forgotten where I first heard of a dish called Briam, but I thought it an odd name. Turns out it’s an easy and quick traditional Greek dish—and you know how wonderfully the Greek people treat vegetables. This is literally vegetables roasted in olive oil. Years ago, the dish was made with potatoes and zucchini, but somewhere along the way someone added tomatoes and someone else red bell pepper.

The recipe I followed was from America’s Test Kitchen and included red bell pepper. Bell peppers, in fact most any peppers, are among the few vegetables on my never-ever list, so I omitted it. Since this is a layered dish, that meant I omitted an entire layer, and that messed up the seasoning amounts. So I recreated it on my own. Here’s what I did:

Briam

1 lb. potato, golden Yukon, cooked and sliced thin

½ cup good olive oil, divided use

3-4 garlic cloves, minced

Salt and pepper

½ medium red onion sliced

Dried oregano

           Note: recipe called for 1 tsp. I just sprinkled on layers and got too much, so you should measure before you sprinkle.

1 small zucchini, sliced

2 large tomatoes, sliced

½ red bell pepper, optional

Slice vegetables about the same thickness, so that they will cook evenly. Place potatoes, salt, pepper, ½ the olive oil, and garlic in a roasting pan and toss to be sure everything is well covered. Spread out flat as the bottom layer.

Top with onion and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and oregano. (If you are using bell pepper, make two separate layers of onion with the bell pepper layer in between.)

Add layer of zucchini and top with layer of tomatoes, overlapping. The entire surface of the dish should be covered with tomato slices, and vegetables should be snugly nested against each other.

Pour remaining olive oil over dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cover dish loosely with foil, leaving room for steam to escape. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 40 to 50 minutes. Let rest for at least 20 minutes before serving. Room temperature is fine. When cool, embellish with chopped parsley. Serve in soup plates if you have them.

Traditionally, this is served with a slice of feta on the side and crusty baguette slices for sopping up the juice. I didn’t have feta, so I sprinkled the casserole with grated pecorino for the last fifteen minutes of baking. I think the feta would have been much better.

 

 

An old-fashioned picnic

 

Bear claws for shredding barbecued beef or pork

Do you ever long for an old-fashioned picnic, with barbecued beef sandwiches and potato salad and cole slaw and deviled eggs? And of course you have to have homemade ice cream for dessert. I have that longing now, though I know it’s far too hot for an outside party like that. But there’s a recipe that I’ve had for years that lets you bypass the outdoors and the long, slow grilling of a brisket. It’s slow-cooker barbecue, and it makes terrific sandwiches. With thanks to Kimbell’s American Kitchen where I got the original recipe long ago.

Ingredients:

5 lb. boneless beef chuck roast, cut in four pieces

4 slices bacon, chopped

1 onion, chopped fine

2 Tbsp. chili powder

1 Tbsp. paprika

1-1/2 cups brewed coffee

1-1/2 cups ketchup

¼ cup packed brown sugar

2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp. hot sauce (modify to your taste)

1 Tbsp. cider vinegar

1 tsp. liquid smoke

Salt and pepper

Put the beef pieces in a slow cooker. In a skillet on the stove, cook the chopped bacon until crisp and add to the cooker. Cook onion in bacon grease remaining in the skillet. Add chili powder and paprika to skillet and cook briefly until fragrant. Stir in coffee, sugar, ketchup, brown sugar, and half the mustard. Simmer for ten to fifteen minutes to blend the flavors.

Reserve half the sauce in the skillet and refrigerate. Pour the remaining sauce over the beef in the slow cooker. Cook until meat is tender—9 or 10 hours on low, 5 or 6 on medium.

Remove meat to a platter or bowl and cover with a clean cloth. Pour juices from slow cooker into skillet and cook until reduced to one cup--takes longer than you expect. Once the juices are reduced, remove from heat, and stir in the refrigerated remaining bbq sauce. Add vinegar, liquid smoke, Tbsp mustard, and hot sauce if using.

Shred the meat, using two forks. Did you know there are special tools for this? They look sort of like bear claws. Anyway, shred the meat and stir in one and a half cups sauce. Cover and let sit until meat has absorbed the sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve on hamburger buns, toasted or not. Pass remaining sauce.

And don’t forget to have the potato salad and cole slaw ready.

An easy trick so you don’t have to get up at dawn to do this: start this in the evening and let it simmer on low all night. In the morning separate meat and juices and refrigerate until later in the day when you want to deal with it.

Happy picnic! Now all I need is ten hungry people.