Spicy Honey Barbecued Chicken

(with Honeyed Apple-Cabbage Slaw)

I knew I would have some time today to cook a nice dinner, and I wanted to do something with grilled/barbecued chicken, but didn't want to do the simple "thrown chicken on the grill and slather with store bought barbecue sauce at the end".

Trolling the Food Network website for ideas turned up two that looked great: a brined chicken with a homemade classic style ketchup/molasses/vinegar sauce (by Tyler Florence) and an asian themed spicy honey barbecued chicken (by Emeril Lagasse). Emeril's recipe also had a terrific looking slaw recipe, so I decided to do that one. The recipe is here.

Spicy Honey BBQ Chicken with Apple-Cabbage Slaw

The marinade (which also becomes a basting sauce and finishing sauce) is very asian in character, and consists of soy sauce, vinegar, honey, sriracha (hot sauce), sesame oil, garlic, ginger, etc... I marinated the chicken for 5 hours (bone-in, skin-on pieces of chunked up split breasts and thighs).

After marinating, the chicken goes on a medium grill for 10 minutes (skin up) then 5 minutes (skin down). While the chicken grills, the marinade is boiled in a sauce pan for that entire time. This both thickens it and also removes any danger from raw chicken having been marinating in it.

When the grill time is done, the chicken goes onto a sheet pan in a 350 degree oven to finish cooking (another 20 minutes or so). While in the oven, I basted the chicken twice with the boiled sauce.

Earlier in the day I made the slaw, which is cabbage, endive, carrot, onion and apple in a sauce made from mayonnaise, sour cream, honey and apple cider vinegar.

The final dish was chicken topped with the last of the sauce, the slaw, and simple green beans with olive oil and lemon pepper.

The result - A fantastic meal. The chicken was moist, tender and packed with flavor. The slaw was cool and crunchy and a perfect counterpoint to the chicken. The green beans were...a green veg.

I'd rate this about an 8.5 out of 10 for flavor. It wasn't expensive to make, as almost everything other than the chicken was a basic pantry ingredient. It was simple to make, with the only consideration being that the chicken definitely benefits from a long marinade. Highly recommended.

Giada's Chicken Piccata

Grace and I made a Chicken Piccata in June of last year without a recipe after watching an episode of Diners, Drive Ins and Dives on the Food Network. It was good.

Last weekend, we wanted to make it again, but figured we'd find a real recipe. For anything that is an Italian staple like this, we go to our Giada de Laurentiis cookbooks as a first choice. This time we used the Chicken Piccata recipe on page 153 of her first book, Everyday Italian (Clarkson Potter, 2005).

The recipe couldn't be easier, and the result couldn't be better. The ingredient list is ridiculously short, and almost everything is a pantry staple. Chicken cutlets, salted and peppered, dredged in flour and sauteed in olive oil and butter. Sauce made from pan drippings, butter, chicken stock, capers and lemon juice. Flat leaf parsley to garnish.

Chicken Piccata (Giada de Laurentiis)

Ten minutes of prep, 20 minutes of cooking. Served with white rice, asparagus, and a nice unoaked California Chardonnay.

A 9.5 out of 10. Very high marks for low cost, minimal prep, ease of cooking, simple clean up, and most of all, great taste. Given that this is so easy as to be a good weeknight dish, and that the kids loved it, I can see this getting high rotation on the family meals menu.

Emeril's Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo

I looooooooove cajun/creole food. Let's be perfectly clear about that. Unfortunately, to do this kind of cooking right, you need a lot of time, as these recipes are often long and slow-cooking endeavors. Fortunately for me, I had some time today around the house (while working on a remodel of daughter Julia's room) to do just that; a long slow-cooked cajun meal the correct way. The recipe used was Emeril Lagasse's Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo. Yum. Since it is readily available on the Internet, I will walk you through it here...

First and foremost, this isn't  quick recipe; it states 30 minutes prep time and 3:30 total time, and it is all of that. First you brown smoked sausages in a dutch oven. Then you brown highly seasoned chicken (boneless thighs of course).

Sausage, Chicken, Onions and Peppers

When the sausage and chicken have both been browned (and removed from the pot), you take the next 20-25 minutes making a chocolate brown roux from the drippings, oil and flour. This is the key flavor step for the whole dish and cannot be skimped on.

Starting a chocolate brown roux

When the chocolate roux is done, you add onions, celery and peppers, and soften them. Then you add seasonings and the sausage back in.

Onions and peppers go into the roux

You add chicken stock, bring this to a boil, and then simmer it for an hour.

Ready for a long simmer

At the end of the first hour of simmering, you add the browned chicken to the pot and then simmer it for another hour and a half.

Chicken and smoked sausage gumbo

At the very end, you add in green onions, chopped parsley and a bunch of file powder (not easy to find, but one of the things that gives the dish its authentic gumbo flavor).

This should be served with, or over, white rice (what else?), but I always want to have a nice crusty bread on hand for sopping up the sauce.

This takes an afternoon of commitment to make, but it is not difficult by any means. I can't recommend it highly enough. I have been to New Orleans several times over the years, and this recipe tastes like New Orleans. Very highly recommended.

Chicken Cacciatore

We needed something relatively easy to put together for dinner last night, and we had chicken, peppers, onions and mushrooms that needed to be used, so that looked like Chicken Cacciatore to me. I'm not the biggest fan in the world of tomato sauce dishes in general, but this is a dish that the whole family likes.

When I have made this in the past, I have tended to wing it, with decent but not spectacular results. This time I thought maybe I should actually use a real recipe. I Googled Chicken Cacciatore, and the first link at the top of the list was a Giada De Laurentiis recipe from Food Network. We have made a few dozen Giada recipes and have never had a bad one yet, so this was an obvious choice.

The recipe was simple and straightforward, and the end result was better that I generally think Cacciatore is. I am sure this is because of the sauce. The sauce here was a combination of tomato, white wine and chicken broth, and was lighter than the intensely tomato sauce that I am more accustomed to.

Total prep time was 10-15 minutes, and cooking time was closer to an hour. This is longer than listed, but we made a larger batch, and most of that extra time was the initial browning of chicken in batches.

Which brings us to step 1 - dredging bone-in chicken pieces in flour and browning them in batches. Salt and pepper. Olive oil. Easy. Remove the browned chicken from the pan.

Dredged and browned chicken

Step 2 - Add chopped peppers, onions and garlic to the drippings in the pan. Add some white wine and reduce it a bit.

Onions, peppers and garlic

Step 3 - Add chopped tomatoes and juice, broth, capers and oregano. Bring to a boil. Return the chicken to the pot. Lower to a simmer.

Tomatoes, white wine and chicken broth

Half-cover and Simmer 20-30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has thickened somewhat.

Chicken Cacciatore

This was another good Giada recipe, and better by far than I have made when going without a recipe. The lighter and yet still richer sauce was the difference. The stock added some lightness and took away the overly tomato taste, and the white wine added some depth of flavor.

Yes, I did forget the mushrooms. I was making the recipe by the book, which doesn't call for them. After dinner, I sauteed the mushrooms that needed using, and added them to the leftovers in the pot. Even better...

Chicken Tikka Masala

The kids requested Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner tonight, so who am I to argue. Tikka Masala is our "go to" Indian dish, as it is richly flavored, but not overly spicy, so the kids love it. The recipe we use for this is on page 447 of More Best Recipes (The Editors of Cooks Illustrated, 2009). The New Best Recipe and More Best Recipes are two of our most used cookbooks, containing a wealth of bullet proof recipes on all sorts of classic dishes. Chicken Tikka Masala is a fragrantly spiced dish of chicken in a tomato cream sauce.

But before we get to the CTM, we need to make raita, because you can't have an Indian meal without raita (at least in our house you can't).

Raita prep (Chardonnay optional...)

Raita is the simplest side dish ever, and is especially good when paired with some of the very spicy Indian dishes, as the coolness of the yogurt and cucumber serves as the perfect counterbalance to the heat and spice of the entree. We use the raita recipe from Alford and Duguid's Mangoes and Curry Leaves; Culinary Travels through the Great Subcontinent (Artisan, 2005). This is one of my all-time favorite "travelogue cookbooks", but that is a story for another post.

Suffice it to say, you can make a great raita by simply peeling and dicing a seedless (English) cucumber, adding a sufficient amount of plain yogurt to give a consistency like pictured below, and then adding some salt and chopped cilantro. Make sure it is well chilled. Simple.

Raita

The Tikka Masala begins with dry rubbing the chicken in cumin, coriander, kosher salt and cayenne pepper, and setting it aside for an hour or so to marinate.

When you are ready to cook, a bunch of diced onions go into a pot to soften. After 8-10 minutes, garam masala (a store bought Indian spice blend), tomato paste, fresh grated ginger, garlic and a finely minced jalapeno or two are added.

Onions, spices and tomato paste

After the onion-tomato-spice paste has cooked for a few minutes, crushed tomatoes are added along with some sugar and salt to make a nice fragrant tomato sauce. This simmers for about 15 minutes.

Crushed tomatoes added to spice paste

While the tomato sauce is simmering, the dry rubbed chicken is dredged in a yogurt, garlic, ginger, and oil mixture and then grilled until mostly cooked. It is then set aside to rest while the sauce finishes.

Grilled dry-rubbed and yogurt-coated chicken

After the tomato sauce has simmered for a while, a bunch of heavy cream is added, and the sauce is simmered to bring it to heat.

Tomato sauce with heavy cream added

The cooked chicken (grilled or broiled) is chunked up and added into the sauce. Once everybody is in the pool, simmer for 5 minutes or so just to blend the flavors and make sure everything is nice and hot.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Easy. A little bit fiddly, but not difficult. Flavorful. Pretty inexpensive. A winner all around.

White Chicken Chili

Another favorite kids' recipe is White Chicken Chili (p. 365, More Best Recipes, America's Test Kitchen, 2009). I generally make this on a weekend so that we can have leftovers for the work/school week ahead.

The recipe calls for browning chicken pieces, then making a thin salsa-like mixture of onions and different varieties of green chili peppers in a blender or food processor. The blender mixture goes back in the pot with more minced chilis, cumin, coriander and garlic.

Chili and onion base cooking down

This cooks for a while, then some of it goes back in the blender with some white beans, and gets pulsed again to break down the beans. This will help thicken the sauce so you don't end up with soup. The vegetable-bean mixture goes back in to the pot with stock, more whole white beans and the chicken to simmer until done. In the version in the picture I added a diced red bell pepper to add a splash of color.

Final simmering

Total cooking time is close to an hour and a half, but much of that time is different phases of simmering. As far as work goes, there is a decent bit of chopping, and there are a couple of different uses of the blender. It's not a difficult recipe by any means, but does require your attention for good portions of the cooking time. The spiciness can be adjusted depending on the types of green chilis you use. The dish can be garnished the same way you would for a beef chili: green onions, shredded cheese, sour cream, sliced jalapenos, etc.

Vietnamese Chicken Curry

Last night we had arranged for brother Dave and his Darling Wife to come over for dinner, followed by some long-overdue guitar playing. I wanted something fun to make and a little off the beaten path, but not too difficult or requiring too much prep or cooking. The Labor Day holiday cookout at the neighbors will be a red meat fest, so I thought a chicken dish would be good (which is also in deference to Darling Wife's sensibilities). After some thought, I remembered a Madhur Jaffrey dish I had made once before that was very good, and not too involved.

The dish is Vietnamese Chicken Curry from page 94 of Jaffrey's From Curries to Kebabs; Recipes From the Indian Spice Trail (Clarkson Potter, 2003). I took the easy route and used boneless skinless thighs and breasts instead of bone-in pieces. First the chicken is rubbed with curry powder. Then a "blender paste" of shallot, ginger, garlic, crushed red pepper and lemongrass is made (with some water). Oil, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, lots of chopped onion and the paste make a base for this dish, to which is added diced tomato and then the chicken. After cooking for 7 or 8 minutes, potato, carrot, fish sauce, sugar and water are added, and then the dish is simmered for close to a half hour to cook everything through. In the last few minutes, coconut milk is added to make the richness of the sauce (salting to taste). We had it with simple green beans and of course lots of rice.

Work - Pretty easy. Chunk up some chicken, chop some veggies, throw some stuff in a blender, and then add stuff to a pot in batches. Nothing difficult here, and not overly fiddly.
Time - About an hour, start to finish, but only the first half of that requires active work, the last half hour is periodic stirring only.
Cleanup - Not bad at all. I used a blender, two cutting boards, a dutch oven and a few utensils and measuring stuff.
Cost - Fairly inexpensive. Needed to shop for chicken (about 3 lbs when doubling the recipe), some veggies and the coconut milk. All of the spices, fish sauce and other minor ingredients were pantry items for me.
Rating - 6.5 or 7 out of 10. A good solid coconut chicken curry. The flavor is good, with some heat (we moderated this for the kids). It's not a knock-your-socks-off recipe, but the good taste coupled with the relatively low cost and effort involved make this a keeper.

Chicken Piccata

Mostly done...

Grace and I were watching Guy Fieri doing Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network the other day, and they showed a guy making a simple chicken piccata. Even without a recipe, Grace and I looked each other and said "that looks good; we can make that!"

I intentionally avoided looking up a recipe ahead of time, wanting to see how good a job I could do from memory of watching the minute or so they showed on that one recipe during that one episode.

So the other night, we attempted the dish from memory, using this as our recipe:

1. Heat a large skillet, then add 1 tablespoon butter and two cloves minced garlic (about 1 heaping teaspoon). Let the garlic get a little color (quickly) but don't let it burn. I added about a tablespoon of olive oil as well because I was concerned about burning the garlic and turning it bitter right out of the gate...
2. Take 5 thin-sliced boneless chicken cutlets, dredged in seasoned flour (salt and pepper) and add them to the hot pan. Cook about 2 minutes per side, enough to brown them but not cook them through.
3. Drain the pan of excess oil and greasy drippings.
4. With the chicken still in the pan over high heat, deglaze the pan with 1 cup chicken stock, 1/2 cup dry white wine (I used a California chardonnay), and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour. Bring this back to a boil, stirring a little so the flour doesn't clump.
5. Lower the heat to medium, adding 2 tablespoons of drained capers and the juice of 1 lemon. Simmer 5 minutes on one side, flip the chicken, and simmer another 3 or 4 minutes on the other side, stirring occasionally so the sauce doesn't thicken unevenly. The sauce should thicken, but if it thickens too much, add a little more stock (I added a splash of stock a couple different times, making sure I ended up with a nice sauce consistency and not an overly thick glop). This should be enough to cook the thin chicken cutlets through, but nick and peek if necessary.
6. Remove to plate and serve over linguine. The recipe should make just enough sauce to take care of the pasta (as long as you don't need your pasta drowning in sauce). A half pound of pasta did fine for us for this meal (half of a one pound package). [Keep in mind we are serving three, plus a smaller child who eats like a bird]
7. Serving suggestion would be to arrange the lightly olive-oiled pasta on a platter, arrange the chicken on top, pouring the sauce over the chicken and letting it soak through to the pasta. Sprinkle with the juice of an additional lemon (see below) and garnish with chopped Italian parsley if you have it handy.

The recipe went over well. Everyone liked it. Making it again (and I will), I would tweak the above recipe as follows:

• In step 1, I would double the garlic to 4 cloves and make the olive oil a definite. I love garlic...
• In step 2, I will probably salt and pepper the chicken lightly before dredging in the seasoned flour  just to be sure I had enough seasoning on it.
• In step 5, I would add the juice of two lemons, not just one. At the end, I would sprinkle the plated platter with the juice of a third lemon to give it a final touch of brightness (we all love lemon).

It feels good to be a knowledgeable enough home cook to be able to watch a recipe being made with no commentary on measurements for the ingredients but have a good enough feel for it to be able to recreate a recipe to an acceptable level. This is an easy dish well worth making.

Prudhomme's Tomato Cream Chicken

Paul Prudhomme's Tomato Cream Chicken (from page 182 of his Fiery Foods That I Love) is my family's signature "special occasion" chicken dish. It is a somewhat involved recipe, not difficult necessarily, but one that takes some time and a lot of ingredients.

The base of the sauce is a seasoning paste made out of a whole bunch of stuff run through a blender with some chicken stock. It includes onions, peppers, raisins, pine nuts, garlic and a bunch of spices. This is then cooked down in a skillet for a half hour or so while the rest of the dish is worked on.

Seasoning paste at start

Seasoning paste after simmering 30 minutes

The chicken is boneless skinless breasts chunked into pieces, rubbed with a spice mix, browned (and cooked mostly through) and then removed from the pot. Lots of chopped onion is added to the pot drippings and softened. To this is then added more spice, diced tomatoes and the reduced seasoning paste. After this has cooked for a few minutes, lots of stock and heavy cream are added (yes, it's not the healthiest chicken dish in the world...).

Paste with onions, tomatoes and stock

Once this is back to a low boil, the chicken and accumulated juices are added back into the pot and simmered for another 10 to 15 minutes to make sure the chicken is cooked but not overcooked.

Sauce with stock, cream and chicken

The end result is is a richly flavored and complex sauce that has a little heat, but not too much, despite being in a "fiery foods" cookbook.

Tomato Cream Chicken

We always make a double batch for leftovers, and the recipe makes a lot of great sauce, so it is the perfect dish to serve with rice.