Apres-Gym Meal: Seared Chicken Breast with Pineapple Barley

Lately I’ve been working pretty hard at the gym: I’m trying the fewer reps/ heavier weights routine, and find it actually very satisfying.  After a workout I try to eat something healthy, filling and high in protein: much like this barley and chicken combo.

I already had cooked barley that I made in a rice cooker the day before. I mixed it up with some onion, garlic, chili pepper and pineapple slices – stir-frying until warm. Then I added a teaspoon of fish sauce to add a bit of depth and 2 teaspoons of soy sauce to add a bit of salt.

I seared the chicken on a very hot pan for about 4- 5 minutes on each side.

Serve with cilantro.

You can easily make this with any other whole grain you like!

Delish dinner to top off a crazy night of paper-writing

Well, grilled chicken, really.
I marinate the chicken breasts in my awesome cilantro sauce (cilantro+garlic+ EVoo into the blender), then pound them thin and grill them on high.
French fries tonight are Red Fire Farm potatoes, skin and all, sliced into 1/4″ little logs and fried in canola oil until golden. The secret to crispy fries to drying them off both before AND after frying and never, ever, ever salting them before you cook and dry them.
In other news, a week from today I’ll have my MBA.

Sorry about the crap phone picture!

Chicken Satay

We love getting chicken satay in restaurants. When I had some boneless/ skinless chicken thighs, I thought it would be really fun to try making the satay ourselves!

They went fast, so pretty staged pictures for you 🙂

You will need:

Chicken, thighs or breasts, cut into strips

For the marinade (measurements are approximate):

2-3 inches ginger

3-4 garlic cloves

juice of 2 limes

scallions, chopped

1 small onion, diced

soy sauce (maybe about 1/4 cup)

1 Tbsp sesame oil

You will also need a grill pan and some wooden skewers

Method:

– Marinate the chicken overnight, or at least of couple of hours

– Soak the wooden skewers in water and lime juice for at least 40 minutes

– Skewer the chicken, drying it off and shaking off the chunky marinade

– Grill ’em for 3-4 minutes per side (I used a grill pan)

Serve with a Spicy Peanut Sauce (this is a variation on the one on the Food Network website)

Spicy Peanut Sauce:

3 Tbsp smooth peanut butter

1/4 cup water

2 tsp fish sauce

1-2 tsp chili garlic sauce

2 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp agave nectar

Whisk until smooth!

Enjoy!

Chicken with Rice and Roasted Pearl Onions

picture by Jamie D.

Deliciousness!

The tasty secret for this dinner was a cilantro sauce that I made from the CSA offering: basically I didn’t want the herbs to go bad, so I threw a bunch of washed cilantro (stems and all) and some (ok, a lot) garlic cloves into the food processor with lemon juice and olive oil.  This can be turned into a pesto by adding cheese and nuts, but I wanted more of a base, so I just left it simple.

Sauce ingredients: cilantro, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil.

Rice and Broccoli:

I put the rice (I had a basmati/ brown/ wild rice mix) in the rice cooker. When the rice cooker turns off, I threw in some broccoli crowns and closed the lid again so that the broccoli can get steamed.

Next I took about a teaspoon of the cilantro sauce, added a teaspoon of grated parmesan cheese and a touch of water to thin it out and whisked everything together. Pour it over the rice and broccoli.

Chicken:

First the chicken breasts marinated in olive oil with the cilantro sauce – let them be for at least a few hours.

When I cook meat or fish I always take it out of the fridge about 15-20 minutes before cooking. I believe that protein cooks better and more evenly when the starting temperature is not that cold: slapping a cold piece of meat on a super-hot pan makes the muscle fibers contract (don’t think about this 🙂 hence making for chewy dish.  There are definitely people in the cooking community that will disagree with me, so do your own research 🙂

After the chicken is just under room temperature I pound it thin – about 1/2 inch or a little more. Keep the chicken in the plastic bag that you marinated it in for easy clean-up.

Heat up the grill pan until very hot. Place the chicken. Wait 3 minutes. Turn it over. Wait 3 more.

THAT’S IT!

Another side dish I served yesterday was Roasted Pearl Onions with Balsamic Sauce – you can see them on the 2nd plate on the picture.  The little onions bring a tangy note and would probably do very well on top of a steak.

The method is easy:

1. Preheat the oven to 475F.

2. Bring water to boil, dunk the onions for 15 seconds. Take the onions out with a slotted spoon and dunk them in ice to chill. Peel the outer layer.

3. Whisk together 1 part of each balsamic vinegar and dry red wine with about 1/2 part of soy sauce and olive oil.

4. Toss the onions with the dressing (reserve about 2 tablespoons for serving) and chopped fresh rosemary (optional).

5. Put them in the oven for about 12-15 minutes, checking often. If they stick to the pan, deglaze with more wine.

6. Serve with the remaining dressing.

Ingredients for the onions:

Pearl onions, cut in half; red wine; soy sauce; balsamic vinegar; rosemary; olive oil.

Chicken Pate Makes an Offal gift

This delicious spread keeps for up to two weeks under the butter seal, so it makes a great gift – if you like giving organ meats as gifts 😉

You will need:

Chicken livers – about 20 oz
1 stick of unsalted butter, divided into 1/3rds
2 shallots, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
a pinch of dried thyme leaves
1 tsp coarse black pepper
A pinch of kosher salt
1 cup red wine (a nice cabernet or even port work great here – but remember, if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it!)

Method:

1. Clean the livers from a small slivers of fat connected to them;
2. Heat 1/3 butter in a heavy-bottomed pan on a medium heat;
3. Add shallots and garlic, let them simmer until shallots are almost translucent;
4. Add the livers and cook them, stirring often, on a medium heat, until they’re still pink inside;
5. Add ½ cup of wine, thyme and pepper and simmer for another 5-7 minutes;
6. Take the livers out of the pan, add 1/3 butter in the pan and deglaze the pan with the ½ of red wine;
7. Once the livers cool, blend them well in a food processer;
8. Add the butter and wine mixture to the livers, mix well
9. Clarify the last 1/3 of butter, letting the white milk solids settle on the bottom of the pan
10. Pack the pate into a ramekin or a glass, decorate with a some bay leaf or black peppercorns, pour the clarified butter on top of the pate and put it in the fridge.

You’re done! Your pate will keep for up to two weeks in the fridge under the butter seal, and one week once the seal is broken. Enjoy with thinly sliced baguette or dark rye slices!