To spatchcock a chicken

Sounds dirty, doesn't it? Spatchcock. I promise, nothing perverted was going on with my chicken. But I have found a new and improved way to cook a whole chicken. I'll be spatchcocking my chickens from now on.

Spatchcocking involves cutting out the backbone and cracking open the breastbone, so that the whole chicken will splay out flat. Cooked this way, you can roast a whole chicken in 45 minutes, and it comes out much juicier. (You can also grill it, though I chose to roast it in the oven.)

This is where professional-grade heavy-duty kitchen shears come in handy. Make sure the whole chicken is thawed, giblets removed, and breast-side down. Make two cuts, one on each side of the backbone. Remove the backbone, and the wing tips (they'll just burn). Flip the chicken over, lay it out flat, and press on the breastbone to crack it open. Arrange it flat, and you're done.

I basted mine with barbecue sauce, and cooked it breast side up for 45 minutes in a 450-degree oven. No other flipping or basting required. Let it sit for about 10-15 minutes once you remove it from the oven, and voila! Perfectly done chicken.

Chicken salad puff pastry sandwiches

Leftover chicken = chicken salad, right?

Chicken salad is basically just cooked chopped chicken, some celery, some raw onion (I use shallots), and enough mayo to hold it together. Salt and pepper to taste. I threw in some pecans and an apple, too.

Then I took two thawed sheets of puff pastry, cut each into 6 rectangles, and baked those at 400 for 10 minutes. Layer and eat.

Warning: this is flaky and delicious. It will make a mess. A tasty mess.

Cardamom chicken curry

Sometimes you have most of the ingredients of a recipe, but not all. Depending on how you feel about improvising, you have a few options. You can simply proceed without those ingredients, and see what happens; you can substitute something similar; or you can go out and buy those things. Almost always I'll choose 1 or 2. Occasionally I'll get a final result that's nothing like the original. But that's okay too, because it's usually still pretty good.

As happened with this chicken curry. I wanted something to use up two packages of chicken thighs, and I liked the idea of a curry made with yogurt. This is the original recipe. I had green cardamom and turmeric, but not the other more exotic spices. I decided to make it anyway. I skipped a few ingredients that I didn't have (cilantro, fresh ginger, black cardamom); it ended up more like a spiced yogurt version of chicken cacciatore.

But you know what? Still pretty tasty.

Spicy chicken thighs with rhubarb-cucumber salsa

I worked three doubles back-to-back last week, so by the time my day off rolled around, I was exhausted. All the stuff I'd pre-cooked for the week was gone, but that was okay, because I had a party to cook for. 

Okay, not really a party, more like friends sitting around eating and drinking wine, but it was still a lot of fun. I thawed some chicken thighs I got at Costco and made this. It was a big hit; I was a little unsure of the rhubarb-cucumber salsa at first (raw rhubarb is kind of weird), but after sitting out for a while, it was actually pretty good. Light, refreshing, crunchy.

From Bon Appetit, reprinted below:

1 habanero or two jalapenos, seeded and stemmed
2 garlic cloves
2 scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts divided
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
6 large skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
Kosher salt
1 1/2 cups 1/4-inch cubes rhubarb
1 cup 1/4-inch cubes unpeeled seeded English hothouse cucumber
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 500°. Line a baking sheet with foil. Pulse chile, garlic, and white parts of scallions in a food processor until finely chopped. With machine running, drizzle in soy sauce, then olive oil; process until emulsion forms. Transfer sauce to a bowl.

Place chicken thighs, skin side up, on a work surface and slash each crosswise at 3/4-inch intervals down to the bone. Season lightly with salt. Place on prepared baking sheet and brush with sauce. Bake until skin is crisp and an instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of thigh registers 165°, 20–25 minutes. Broil on high for an additonal 2–3 minutes for crisper skin, if desired. Let rest for 5–10 minutes.

Meanwhile, toss rhubarb, next 5 ingredients, and green parts of scallions in a medium bowl to coat. Season to taste with salt and pepper and let stand for at least 10 minutes to allow flavors to meld.

Serve chicken with rhubarb salsa alongside.

Chicken parm

Now THIS is kid-friendly. Everyone gobbled it up and asked for more.

From Pioneer Woman:

4 whole (up To 6) chicken breasts (I used 2 packages of chicken tenders)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 whole onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cups wine (white or red)
3 cans (14.5 oz.) crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 pound linguine or spaghetti

Mix flour, salt, and pepper together on a large plate. Dredge flattened chicken breasts in flour mixture. Set aside. At this time, you can start a pot of water for your pasta. Cook linguine until al dente.

Heat olive oil and butter together in a large skillet over medium heat. When butter is melted and oil/butter mixture is hot, fry chicken breasts until nice and golden brown on each side, about 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove chicken breasts from the skillet and keep warm.

Without cleaning skillet, add onions and garlic and gently stir for 2 minutes. Pour in wine and scrape the bottom of the pan, getting all the flavorful bits off the bottom. Allow wine to cook down until reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Pour in crushed tomatoes and stir to combine. Add sugar and more salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cook for 30 minutes. Toward the end of cooking time, add chopped parsley and give sauce a final stir.

Carefully lay chicken breasts on top of the sauce and completely cover them in grated Parmesan. Place lid on skillet and reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer until cheese is melted and chicken is thoroughly heated. Add more cheese to taste. Place cooked noodles on a plate and cover with sauce. Place chicken breast on top and sprinkle with more parsley. Serve immediately.

Chicken and lentils

This is a great one-pot dish, somewhere between a stew and a big messy pile of goodness. If you want something closer to a stew, add more liquid; if you want something closer to chicken with juicy lentils, add a little less.

Bonus: I've almost used up all the lentils!

1/2 cup olive oil
1 whole chicken, cut up (I used a package of eight boneless chicken thighs)
1 onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup tomato sauce
1 teaspoon coriander
1 bunch each cilantro and parsley, chopped
4 1/2 cups water or chicken broth
2 3-inch cinnamon sticks
1 1/2 cups brown or green lentils

In a Dutch oven, brown the chicken in the olive oil. Remove from the pan once browned on all sides, and add the onion, garlic, ginger, tomato sauce, coriander, cilantro and parsley. Salt and pepper. Add the broth (or water) along with the cinnamon sticks and lentils.

Cook on low, covered, for about 30 minutes or until lentils are almost tender. Remove the cinnamon sticks. Add the chicken back in and cook for another 10-20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.

Chicken pot pie

What better way to use up a bunch of summer vegetables and leftover chicken?

This is not so much a recipe as it is a guideline. Feel free to use different vegetables. Peas, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, and other kinds of squash are easy substitutions. If you like more sauce, use fewer vegetables. (I like my chicken pot pie not very saucy.) This made two big 8x13 casserole dishes of chicken pot pie, so scale back if you need to.

2 zucchini, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 green peppers, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 package mushrooms, sliced
Cooked leftover barley or rice (you could substitute potatoes too)
Cooked leftover chicken

For sauce:
6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons flour
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/4 cups milk
2 cups chicken broth
Tabasco

2 pie crusts
1 egg, beaten

Saute the veggies in olive oil until they begin to soften. Add leftover barley or rice to heat through. Stir in the chicken to heat through. Season with salt and pepper, and whatever fresh herbs you may have. (I used parsley, basil, and a little oregano.)

For the sauce, combine the flour and melted butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk together. Slowly add the chicken broth, and then the cream and milk. Continue whisking over medium heat until it boils. At this point it will be visibly thicker, like a cream sauce. Remove from the heat, stir in a few drops of Tabasco, and combine with the chicken and veggie mixture.

Pour into two casserole dishes. Place a rolled-out pie crust on top of each. Slice into the pie crust to create vents, and brush each with the beaten egg.

Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes, or until the crusts are nicely browned.

Beer battered chicken

Oh yeah.

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon each salt and paprika
2 eggs
4 tablespoons oil
2 cups flat beer
2 extra egg whites
4-6 lbs chicken parts

Sift the dry ingredients together. Beat the whole eggs, oil and beer together. Blend the two together until smooth, and chill 2 hours.

Stir again, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter. Flavor with curry powder (optional), roll the chicken in, and fry.

Go here for tips on frying chicken.

Chicken and sausage with olive and anchovy sauce

1 1/2 lbs sweet or hot Italian sausage
3 lbs chicken, diced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
8 flat anchovy fillets
1/2 cup black olives
1 tablespoon drained capers
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup tomato sauce

Chop sausage and brown; drain. Brown chicken with olive oil. Add to sausage. Boil and simmer celery in water and salt for 5 minutes; remove celery and reserve liquid. To the fat in skillet (from browning sausage and chicken), add onion and mushroom. Add the rest, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the chicken and sausage back in, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Use celery liquid if it starts to dry out.

Chicken cacciatore

There are an almost infinite variety of ways to do chicken cacciatore, but they're all basically a rustic braise of chicken, tomatoes and vegetables. So feel free to substitute.

I used this recipe from the New York Times. I adapted it a bit; I left out the dried mushrooms and garlic (didn't have any), added more wine, and instead of using chicken legs/thighs, I just used one whole cut-up chicken.

The advantages to using a whole cut-up chicken are that's far cheaper than buying chicken parts by the pound (2 whole chickens at Sam's Club: $8.80, for $4.40 each, for a 5-6 lb chicken. That's around 75 cents a pound, and the scraps can be used to make chicken broth). The disadvantages of using a whole cut-up chicken are that you have to cut up a whole chicken. It's not difficult, especially if you have a really good set of kitchen shears; but if you don't have good kitchen scissors, and/or are squeamish about cutting up a whole chicken, well, I can't help you there. Try to find chicken thighs on sale.

Also, chicken cacciatore is usually served with pasta or rice. I am happy to report that it goes very well with cheese grits.

1/2 oz dried mushrooms (optional)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
6 to 8 skinless chicken legs and/or thighs (thighs can be boneless); or one whole cut-up chicken
1 small onion, minced
1 small carrot, minced
1 rib celery, minced
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons fresh minced Italian parsley
1 heaped teaspoon minced fresh rosemary, or 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried rosemary
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 pound mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
1/2 cup red wine (I used 1 to 1 1/2 cups)
1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes in juice

If using, place the dried mushrooms in a bowl or heat-proof glass measuring cup and pour on 2 cups boiling water. Let sit 15 to 30 minutes, until mushrooms are softened. Drain through a strainer lined with cheesecloth or a paper towel and set over a bowl. Squeeze out excess water and chop coarsely. Set aside. Measure out 1 cup of the soaking liquid and set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large, heavy nonstick skillet. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown, in batches, for 5 minutes on each side. Transfer the chicken pieces to a bowl as they are done.

Turn the heat down to medium, add the remaining oil and the onion, carrot and celery, as well as a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring, until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, parsley, rosemary, red pepper flakes and salt to taste. Cover, turn the heat to low and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes, until the mixture is soft and aromatic. Stir in the fresh and dried mushrooms, turn the heat back up to medium, and cook, stirring, until the mushrooms are just tender, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the wine and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring, for a few minutes, until the wine has reduced by about half. Add the tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste. Cook over medium heat for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring often, until the tomatoes have cooked down a little and smell fragrant. Stir in the mushroom soaking liquid that you set aside.

Return the chicken pieces to the pan and stir so that they are well submerged in the tomato mixture. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 30 minutes, until the chicken is tender. Taste, adjust seasoning and serve with pasta or rice.

Chicken salad with fennel

Lots of leftover chicken from corporate catering trays will only grace so many salads before you get really tired of salad-topped-with-chicken. So yesterday I started thinking about other things to do with chicken.

"Hmm," I thought, "I haven't had any chicken salad in a while. Chicken salad would be really good."

"But I don't have any celery," I told myself, "and my mayo supply is perilously low. Plus I don't have any sour cream." (I like my chicken salad with half-mayo, half-sour cream.)

"Oh!" I thought then. "I have another bulb of fennel, courtesy of my CSA. Fennel is kind of like celery, right? Oh, and I just made a fresh batch of homemade Greek yogurt--maybe I could combine that with what's left of the mayo, instead of sour cream."

So I did just that. I cut up the leftover chicken, thinly sliced the bulb of fennel, and added a little chopped Vidalia onion. To that I added a 1/3 cup mayo or so, with a small container of yogurt. Then I threw in a dollop of the fennel pesto I made last week, some sliced almonds, and added salt and pepper to taste.

You probably already know I'm not a huge fan of fennel. But you know what? This chicken salad kicked ass. The fennel and fennel pesto together gave the whole thing a brightness that chicken salad doesn't normally have, and the tang of the yogurt balanced that perfectly. Plus it wasn't too fennel-y.

Chicken curry

You know there aren't many shortcuts in my kitchen, but Thai Kitchen curry paste is one of them. Mix a big spoonful with a can of coconut milk and some fish sauce, and you've got instant thai curry.

I had some chicken that needed to be used up, so I combined a little chopped, cooked chicken with a bag of frozen peas, three sliced carrots, and half an onion with the thai curry, above, and served over basmati rice. The beauty of the Thai curry is that you can use whatever you have--all veggies, or tofu, or shrimp, or beef, or pork, or whatever. All of the above. Peas, carrots and half an onion just happened to be the veggies I had on hand. I've also used mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini, green beans, you name it.

Homemade Thai curry is the only thing that can satisfy a craving for Thai food (that doesn't involve going out and buying Thai food, which isn't really an option out in the 'burbs anyway).

Chicken tagine with preserved lemons

My new favorite way to prepare chicken!

First, a story. As you know, I usually only buy whole chickens. Cheaper, taste better, you can use the scraps for broth. Every once in a while I'll buy chicken parts on sale (still, usually bone and skin on--cheaper, taste better). But currently I only had two whole chickens in the freezer.

And this recipe called for chicken parts.

There are two ways to get around this problem, without buying something new. 1) Re-jigger the recipe so you can use a whole chicken, or 2) Cut up the chicken. Normally I'd go with 1). But this recipe (as you'll see below) resisted tinkering with in that way, so I was going to have to cut up the chicken myself.

I'd never cut up a whole chicken into its component parts before, and it was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. So I can now recommend this method.

But before you go butchering your own chicken carcass, make sure you have a really good, really heavy-duty pair of kitchen shears. I do, and I'd much rather use those than try to do it with a knife. I have super-sharp, top of the line knives, and I still feel like they're inadequate to serious butchery (as my adventures in fish gutting with the kitchen shears have proven).

So I used the scissors to cut up the chicken--literally--and broke it down into its component parts: two wings, two legs + thighs, two breasts. A good pair of scissors will cut right through a ball-and-socket joint. The giblets and backbone I threw into a stockpot, along with a freezer bag full of vegetable scraps, to make chicken broth.

Then I made this chicken tagine.

1 whole chicken (or equivalent), in parts (or just chicken thighs)

1 teaspoon saffron threads (saffron is expensive--if you don't have any, skip this part and just add more turmeric, below)

olive oil

2 medium onions, sliced

5-6 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons each ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, lime juice

1 small bunch of cilantro, chopped

2 preserved lemons, pulp removed and chopped, and skins cut up into small dice

1 cup green olives, halved

Toast the saffron in a small skillet and set aside. (Like I said, it's expensive, so if you don't already have some, just skip this part.)

In a Dutch oven or large skillet with lid, saute the onions and garlic in oil until soft. Add spices, half of the cilantro, the saffron, and salt and pepper. Stir, and add the chicken parts, on top of the onions. Sprinkle the cut-up lemon pulp over the chicken.  Add a cup or so of water and cover. Let simmer 30-45  minutes or until chicken is cooked through. (Check periodically and add more water if necessary.)

Add olives and simmer 10 more minutes. Add reserved lemon peel and rest of the cilantro. Salt to taste. Serve with rice.

This is a great Middle Eastern dish, with a really nice combination of flavors. Easy to whip up, flavorful enough for a dinner party.

Cost: one whole chicken (purchased in bulk), $4. Preserved lemons, made myself (cost of lemons, maybe $4, also in bulk, and I used only two of those, so 50 cents). Olives, $3.50 from deli. Cilantro, $1.59. Everything else, excluding the cost of the saffron, maybe 75 cents. Total: A little over $10 total, for six adult servings, not including the rice. If we include another $1 for the rice (I used brown rice, which is a little more expensive), that's still only $1.80 per serving.

Chicken noodle soup

Easy peasy!

Chicken soup is naturally bland; because my husband was sick, I left it that way. But if you're not sick, feel free to jazz up this recipe with more spices or whatever.

• One chopped onion and a few chopped cloves of garlic, sauteed in olive oil until soft.
• Add to that a few chopped carrots and stalks of celery.
• After it's all soft, deglaze with a splash of white wine and add some already cooked chicken (I used four chicken thighs, cut up and then cooked).
• Add a package of penne or other pasta.
• Add enough chicken broth to float the entire thing, plus more as the pasta will soak up a lot.
• Add seasonings: salt, pepper, dried red pepper flakes, a little cumin.
• Let that all cook down for a while, until the pasta is cooked through.
• Add a frozen package of peas.
• Wait two more minutes.
• Serve.

All told, a few minutes of pre-chopping and 20-30 minutes of cooking. I promise it'll taste a hell of a lot better than the canned stuff.

White bean and chicken chili variation

I used reconstituted dried peppers in this, but any kind of fresh pepper (jalapenos, serranos, etc.) will work just as well. In fact, better.

Here's what I used, in order of addition to the big stock pot:
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
Two chicken breasts, diced
1 large onion, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
Several chiles/jalapenos/whatever, diced
3 cups white beans
Enough vegetable or chicken stock to cover the top of everything
Seasonings: cumin, cayenne, chili powder, chili flakes, paprika, salt

Let this cook down until the chicken and beans are cooked through. You can serve with bread, croutons, or maybe a little pepper jack cheese on top.

Cost: the chicken was bought in bulk; I got about 12 breasts for $12, so $1 each. I bought the beans dried, in bulk, and made the stock myself. $2 for the chicken, maybe 40 cents worth of beans, $1 for the rest of the produce and seasonings. Around $3.50 for the entire vat, which was about 6-7 adult servings, for around 50 to 55 cents per serving.

Thomas Keller's roast chicken recipe

I've shared my own recipe for roast chicken, but this one by Thomas Keller is better. And quicker. I'm officially switching.

The beauty of this recipe is that it requires one ingredient, other than chicken: salt. And only one hour to cook. I was skeptical, but I tried it this weekend. I'm a convert. Trussing a chicken isn't difficult (I don't know why I didn't do it before) and bringing the chicken up to room temperature first made a big difference.

Plus, roast chicken in an hour!

Chicken and sweet potato chowder

This turned out to be one of my favorite new recipes. This is definitely going into high rotation.

2 tablespoons butter
1 pound chicken (I used four whole bone-in thighs, but any sort of chicken, cut up or not, will do)
1 medium onion, chopped
3 medium or 5 small leeks, sliced
2-3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 bay leaves
seasonings: I used salt and pepper, Italian (combo of rosemary, parsley, sage, thyme) and smoked paprika
1 cup whole milk

Melt the butter and cook the chicken for about two minutes on each side, until lightly golden (it will definitely not be cooked all the way through, don't worry about that). Remove the chicken and saute the onion and leeks until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and cook for another three minutes. Return the chicken to the pan, and add the broth and seasonings. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat until the potatoes and chicken are cooked all the way through (10-25 minutes, depending on what kind of chicken and how many sweet potatoes).

Using a nifty stick blender, puree part of the soup (or remove about half to a food processor, puree, and stir back in). Add the milk and reseason to taste. Serve.

Cost: Sweet potatoes run about 79 cents a pound; I had three large ones, which I'll estimate at two pounds for $1.58. Estimate another $1.25 for the chicken (bought in bulk) and another $1.50 for everything else (the broth was homemade, but I also threw in about a cup of white wine to deglaze). $4.33 total, and I'll get at least 8 adult servings out of the batch, for 54 cents per serving.

Slow cooker chicken

For those days when you just want something waiting for you when you get home.

2 cups sliced onions
2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 lbs chicken pieces, with bone
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons rosemary
1 cup chicken broth
½ cup cream of celery soup
Cooked rice

Arrange onion and apple in bottom of slow cooker. Place chicken on top and sprinkle with rosemary, salt and pepper. Combine broth and soup, pour mix over chicken. LOW 6-8 hours or HIGH 3-4 hours. Serve over rice.

White bean and chicken chili

My crockpot is one of the kitchen appliances in heavy rotation. It gets almost as much use as my Kitchenaid. Granted, it got a lot more use when I lived in a colder climate--there's something so satisfying about a hot bowl of soup waiting for you as you come in from some nasty weather. Coming inside from 75 and sunny to a hot bowl of soup isn't quite the same. But the weather here has been especially gross this week--lots of wind, lots of rain, and so I deem it to be crockpot/soup weather.

The advantage to the crockpot, obviously, is that you can throw a bunch of crap in there before you go to work, turn it on, and have something yummy and hot waiting for you when you get home. Since I had a bunch of leftover chicken, I decided to go with a white bean and chicken chili. Admittedly, I cheated a bit and threw in a package of southwestern chili spices that I picked up in Santa Fe this summer. But you can do it without the package of spices. Just add a small chopped onion and a few chopped cloves of garlic, a couple handfuls of leftover chopped chicken, and three or so cans of white beans (or the equivalent). Add appropriate spices--cumin, cayenne pepper, chili powder, red chili flakes, etc. You can add chopped jalapenos if you like it spicy. Add chicken broth to the top of the pile of stuff, stir, and turn on low for 8 hours or high for four hours. Serve with shredded monterey jack and sour cream.

Cost: if you use dried beans (like I did; just be sure to soak them beforehand), this will cost you less than a couple of bucks for the whole crockpot full of soup, which will get you at least 6-8 full size servings. I used the chicken from a whole roasted chicken ($1.99/lb, not $6.99/lb for boneless skinless chicken breast or some such nonsense), and the broth from the carcass of the whole roasted chicken, so even with the cheese and the sour cream, it's still less than $2 for the batch. That's...what, maybe 25 cents per serving?

Barbecue chicken pizza

After making a batch of barbecue sauce this weekend, I decided I wanted to use some. I also had some leftover chicken, so this dovetailed nicely.

It's just a simple white pizza (use the pizza crust recipe; add a little olive oil to the pizza, plus a layer of ricotta cheese) with two handfuls of the leftover chopped cooked chicken, a handful of grated parmesan, and a lot of barbecue sauce. Cook at 450 for 20 minutes or so. Let cool enough to eat. Add more barbecue sauce if necessary.