Chicken and rice (delicious version)

I got the opportunity to spend a night out in Sunderland last week, and this of course meant that what was left of the Gang of 5 needed to get together for dinner, because yum! Gail had her eye on this chicken and cardamom rice dish from the Jerusalem cookbook by Ottolenghi, and because I love his take on food, I was all for it.

I'll repeat the recipe here, because we changed the amount of water required - the original 1C of water was not going to cook any rice.  The end result was really delicious, especially all the crunchy bits of rice stuck to the pan.  Gail actually cooks by the recipe, we'll see how poorly this dish degrades when I take my usual approach to it next time.  (quantities? eh, close enough...).  Anyway, a very tasty version of chicken and rice, and I'll definitely make this again.


Ingredients:
2.5 tbs currants (or barberries, if you can get them, in which case you're supposed to soak them in sugar and water first)
3 onions
4 tbs olive oil
8 chicken thighs
salt and pepper
10 cardamom pods
1/4 tsp whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1-2/3C basmati rice
3C boiling water
1.5 tbs chopped parsley
1/2C chopped dill leaves
1/4C chopped cilantro
(I imagine you could get away without the parsley, dill, and cilantro)

  

First, caramelize the onions in ~2tbs oil.  I think this should be done in a separate pot, though it defeats the whole one-pot part of this meal, because then you could parallel process the chicken.

Put 1.5 tsp of each salt and pepper all over the chicken along with another tbs of olive oil and all the whole spices, rub that in with your hands so it's really in there.  Brown the chicken in some olive oil.  We cooked the chicken skin-side down for probably 10min first, rendering out a lot of the fat and cooking the meat most of the way through. Since the chicken may need to cook longer than the rice, and you don't want to overcook the rice, it's worth browning the chicken for longer than you might for a chicken stew.

Pour off the excess chicken fat, then put all the rice, onions, currants, and spices into the pan.  Add 1tsp salt and more pepper.  Pour the boiling water over the top, put the chicken back into the rice, cover, and simmer for 30-45 minutes.  The chicken should be tender and the rice should be done...

We then took the chicken out of the rice and broiled it for 5min or so, until it was good and crispy.  Stir all the herbs into the rice, put the chicken back on the rice, and serve!




Gail in her new kitchen! I have kitchen envy.

Kale salad, again

After making the kale and quinoa salad the other day, it occurred to me that kale and any old grain is a good combo, because the toothiness of the grain offsets the crunchy of the kale nicely.  Recently, in Whole Foods, I had seen some kamut in the bulk aisle, and I was intrigued, so I got some.  No idea what it would taste like, so I figured I'd give it a try tonight.  It was tasty! and exactly what I wanted in my kale salad.  To add some other flavors and colors, I went with a grated carrot, a few sliced kumquats, and some dried cherries (since I still had them on hand.  Another reason I love Russos - they had dried cherries for "only" $11.99/lb, as opposed to Whole Foods' $18.99/lb. I don't even pay that for STEAK!).

For some protein, we fried up some tofu.  This is remarkably easy - add a quarter inch of vegetable oil to a small nonstick pan, and put in the tofu pieces, let them sit there for a few minutes, then flip them over. I found chopsticks were an excellent tool for this.

The dressing was a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of oil, and a pinch of kosher salt.  Pretty tasty, and got a good Ed-rating, too!

Strawberry balsamic goat cheese salad

While we were in California, they had a lot of strawberries, and a lot of avocados, on sale for really cheap at the gas-station-esque fruit stands in the central valley.  Most of the produce sort of looked too ripe for shipping, so I'm hoping it was just stuff that wasn't going to make it to grocery stores.  We may have gone through about 20 pounds of strawberries with not many people in not many days... yum.  Did you know strawberries are my favorite food? Anyway, we made a very tasty salad upon returning to San Francisco, with strawberries, toasted walnuts, avocados, goat cheese, and Russian purple kale. The dressing was a spicy balsamic, made with a habanero-infused olive oil and some awesome balsamic vinegar.  I could have eaten that all night long, but we ran out too soon... 

I suppose we can make this at home, no trip to California required, now that I think about it... 

(that's a pile of guacamole on the side. Another necessary part of being in CA was eating a ton of avocados. I did my part).

Kale almond cherry salad

So, I saw this. I'm more a fan of cooked kale than raw kale, but when it comes to raw kale, the dinosaur kale is definitely the way to go.  And I love me some dried cherries and toasted walnuts.  May as well give it a try.

It ended up being quite delicious!  The kale and the quinoa sort of just are there as a base for the toasted almonds and the cherries, and without the almonds and cherries, it would have been a pretty sad dish. That said, I never quite got around to making the dressing, so that would probably improve things drastically on the kale front.  

1/2C dry quinoa

1 head of dinosaur kale

~1/4C dried cherries

~1/2C slivered almonds

~1C grated salty hard cheese, like pecorino or parmesan or ricotta salata or whatever hard goat cheese it was that I happened to have on hand

The lemony dressing sounded good, but I didn't get around to making it, and kept bringing the undressed salad for lunch and kept eating it and enjoying it, so I suppose it's optional, though probably delicious.

Also, I didn't realize that washing quinoa before cooking it was a Thing.  It is. Wash your quinoa before you cook it.  

This got a good Ed-rating, but that may have been because he was really hungry and working at an orienteering event and hadn't eaten real food in a few days.

Spinach Ricotta Pie

I first had a spinach-ricotta pie at Anna Mcloon's house, and it was from this awesome cookbook she had from the Moosewood cafe. It was good enough that I wanted to make it again, but I was worried about Ed's reaction, because he's not a huge fan of quiches. But, we were in luck, because the spinach and the ricotta create a firm enough texture that it's not quiche-like at all - no jiggling here!

The recipe is basically this one. I don't think I actually changed much, but I did just use my usual pie crust recipe. This was tasty! It got a good Ed-rating, and even his colleagues liked it when he brought in the leftovers. So, don't hesitate, make yourself a spinach-ricotta pie!

Roast lamb with pomegranate molasses and ras el hanout

Not too long ago, Ed and I (well, mostly Ed) cooked a leg of lamb for his family.  It was delicious. I love me some lamb, but this was better than anything I had ever thought of before.  It was a boneless leg of lamb, from the folks in Vermont that make that yummy sheep cheese. Since the boy sheep don't make cheese, they turn into food.  

We did some looking around on the internet, and settled on a 130F internal temperature to pull out the meat.  It rose another 10ish degrees once we'd taken it out.  Ended up medium, mostly, with the ends more cooked than the middle, and that worked well so that everyone can choose how cooked they wanted their meat.  Yum!  

Ed marinated the lamb overnight with pomegranate molasses on the outside, and some ras el hanout spice on top of that, which is a spice mixture that just made me drool as I dreamed about roasting meats.   We got it from one of the Armenian shops on Mt. Auburn street.  I recommend.  Anyway, after marinating all night, we brought the lamb to room temperature, filled the rolled-up part with caramelized shallots, and then we roasted at 400 for 20min, and 325 for the remainder of the time (an hour, maybe? kept checking the thermometer and removed at 130F).

The lamb was scrumptious.  I recommend it!

Fennel salad

For Thanksgiving, Ed and I headed over to his aunt's house in Lexington, with 34 other guests. This meant an easy time for cooking for us, as we didn't have to deal with a turkey, but we were assigned to bring some sort of salad or vegetable. Browsing through the Ottolenghi cookbook, I saw this salad, and I instantly knew I wanted to make it.I'm not a huge raw fennel fan, but it turns out that when you slice it thinly and add a delicious dressing, it's pretty scrumptious.  And so pretty! The salad was a big hit, and we made it again a few weeks later for Ed's family back in Rochester, where it was also a big hit. So, I highly recommend you make this salad! Pomegranates are in season in the fall and winter, so now's the time.

Fennel Salad:
2 fennel bulbs
1/2 pomegranate, seeds only
~1/2C crumbled feta
~1/2C fresh tarragon leaves
~1/4C fresh flat-leaved parsley

Dressing:
Juice of a lemon
Olive oil (maybe 2-3tbs?)
2 tsp sumac
Salt
Pepper

Fennel fronds and more sumac for decorating

Mix together all the dressing stuff in a bowl.  Taste, adjust, taste.  Roughly chop the parsley and tarragon, and add that to the dressing. 

Use a mandolin or verrrry thinly chop the fennel bulbs. I sliced them lengthwise, removed the core, and mandolinned them from there.  Reserve some fronds for garnish.  Crumbled the feta, and put everything except the pomegranate seeds in the bowl - they'll turn it pink if you mix them around too much.  Toss it all around, let it marinate for a bit, and mix in the pomegranate seeds just before you serve it. Sprinkle with more sumac and some fennel fronds on top, for garnish. Enjoy!