Simple Chicken Taco Salad

Chef Walter: Simple Chicken Taco Salad

Baked Lemon Garlic Chicken

Lemon Garlic Chicken - Recipe for Baked Lemon Garlic Chicken

The Thrillbilly Gourmet

Like many people, I have too many duties for the hours at my disposal. Because of this I've a several favored food staples that I keep in my refrigerator and pantry. Chicken, ground beef, pasta, potatoes and marina head up the lists of methods to build great dinners easily. I’ve learned that regardless how smashed for time I am, I can create quick, simple, inexpensive chicken recipes for dinner at least twice weekly, and this one is among the best.
Lemon and garlic are constants in my kitchen. Each offer wonderful flavor to a number of recipes, including this one. Baked Lemon Garlic Chicken leads my list for fast, simple and scrumptious. It combines vibrant, beautifully distinct flavors in a savory delight that appeals to everybody. Create this with either chicken breasts or chicken thighs, anything you have on hand or find on sale.
This recipe involves leaving the skin on. Because the chicken is cooked with the sauce, often it can lack color once the baking is finished. Consequently it works very well to run your almost-cooked chicken under the broiler just for a little bit, until it is golden and beautiful. This recipe works beautifully along with herbed rice, or rice pilaf, and don’t forget to serve the sauce.
One additional note - if you wish, you can double the recipe, then let the extra chicken freeze with the sauce as a marinade. Simply wrap it well, and defrost in the refrigerator before cooking. Or create the recipe as written, separate it into individual portions, freeze all of them separately, and you have a fantastic meal for just one or two. Perfect Baked Lemon Garlic Chicken in no time!

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 35 min
Will serve: 4 servings

Ingredients
• 1/4 cup olive oil -- I prefer full flavored or extra virgin, but what you may like
• 3 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 2 lemons, one zested and squeezed and 1 sliced into wedges
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tsp . dried rosemary
• 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp . chopped fresh thyme leaves
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 boneless chicken breasts, skin on
• Fresh parsley, finely chopped, to complete
• Optional - 4 ounces. quartered cherry tomatoes
• Optional -- 1 tbsp capers

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
With a small saucepan over medium low heat, heat the olive oil until very warm. Add garlic and cook for just about a minute. Do not allow it to burn - you actually just want to permit the flavors start to bloom.
Remove the oil from the heat, then include the white wine, lemon zest, lemon juice, herbs and ½ tsp of kosher salt and ½ tsp of fresh black pepper to the oil. Mix to mix, and place in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.
Dry chicken well and put all of them in the dish, turning to coat with the sauce. Place them skin side up. Dust lightly with salt and pepper (yes, that’s again). Put lemon wedges around your chicken, and add the cherry tomatoes and capers if perhaps you are making use of them.
Bake chicken for 30-35 minutes, depending on size of the chicken pieces. You'd like an internal temp of 165F. In the event the skin is under done or too light, let them broil for just a little bit or until golden. Cover your casserole with foil, and permit chicken to rest for ten minutes prior to serving. Taste, and adjust seasonings as needed. Serve with its own pan juices, and sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley.

*Note -- you may use boneless, skinless chicken and there are generally advantages and disadvantages to either kinds. Skin free cooks a tad bit more speedily, but could dry out and does not truly appear golden. Skin on pieces can be golden and toasty, yet really are a bit more fatty, and may seem a lttle bit ‘flabby’ without caution. Honestly - both of them taste terrific.

Pasta Primavera Friday, April 20, 2012

Pasta Primavera Friday, April 20, 2012

Pasta Primavera - Cooking with Chef Walter

Chef Walter: Pasta Prima

Simple Pasta Primavera – What is Pasta Primavera? Springtime Celebration!

Simple Pasta Primavera – What is Pasta Primavera? Springtime Celebration!

There are many recipes for pasta primavera, and they come in a thousand variations. From gourmet pasta recipes which call for cream, expensive cheeses, or unusually shaped pastas, to the simplest of recipes for pasta primavera, asking for nothing but a couple of vegetables and a drizzle of oil. They are usually all delicious too – and the thing is, they are every single one an authentic pasta primavera.

Why? Because the word primavera in Italian means nothing more than spring, and so when asking ‘what is pasta primavera?’, the answer can be found in any pasta recipe that connotes spring, it’s weather, it’s warmth, and it’s fresh produce. For this reason, not only is pasta primavera a very healthy pasta dish, it is also incredibly adaptable, quick, easy and delicious. It can serve as a main dish or a side, and many recipes for pasta primavera are even fabulous cold.

This particular recipe for pasta primavera is quick, easy, delicious and adaptable. Use whatever fresh vegetables you wish – and if you luck into a bit of the best of spring veggies, such as asparagus or ramps, throw them in! Cut the roasting time for the more delicate veggies, so as not to overcook them. If you’d like, start the carrots about ten minutes before the other vegetables, or just cut them into a finer julienne and toss them all in together. Or if you are simply craving fresh, bright flavors, make this any time of year with whichever veggies you find most appealing.

Give this simple pasta primavera a shot – you’ll quickly come to love it!

Ingredients

• 2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into thin strips
• 1 medium zucchini, cut into thin strips
• 1 yellow squash, cut into thin strips
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 2 bell peppers, one yellow and one red, cut into thin strips
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, both to taste
• 1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning
• 1 pound bowtie pasta
• 15 cherry tomatoes, halved and seeded
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Directions

Preheat oven to 450F.

In a large bowl, toss the vegetables with the oil, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. Transfer vegetables to a large baking sheet and spread into a single layer. Place into preheated oven and roast for about 15-20 minutes. Halfway through baking time, stir the vegetables. You want the carrots to be tender, and the rest to begin to brown, but not overcooked.

Meanwhile, in a large pot of well salted (tastes like sea water) boiling water, cook the pasta until either tender or al dente – to your preference. It should take about 8-10 minutes. Drain pasta, but hang onto about a cup or so of the pasta cooking liquid.

Toss the vegetables and pasta together in a large bowl to combine. Made sure to add the oil and juices from the veggies that collect on the baking sheet. Add cherry tomatoes and Parmesan, and enough of the reserved cooking liquid to moisten. Season with salt and black pepper to taste and serve immediately.

How to Deglaze a Pan and Build a Pan Sauce

I’m going to show you how to make a pan sauce, and we’re going to do this by deglazing. Now you can think of this as using a magic potion in the kitchen, and you’re going to do it with this magic wand.

Now over here all I’ve done is browned off a pork chop. And you want this nice rich, deep color, because that means you’ve got this stuff left in the pan. Now this is going to be the fond that we’re going to use to build a sauce. It’s called fond because that means foundation in French, and it’s the foundation for sauces, and it’s the foundation for flavor.

Now to deglaze, what you want to do is get that stuff up off the bottom of your pan and into your food where it’s going to do you some good. We’re going to do that this way – with a little wine. And you can do it with any number of things, just about any kind of liquid. I like using a little bit of acid, and wine is an acidic ingredient. You can also use vinegar – I love cooking with vinegar; it just adds amazing flavor. You can use alcohol of whatever kind, brandy if you want to.

Now next step, and I’m going to throw in…now this is how hard a pan sauce is. It seriously is this easy. A little bit of garlic, a little bit of shallot, and a little bit of chicken broth. You don’t much, and at this stage, we’re going to give this, I’d say, no more than three or four minutes. I’m going to let it come to a very nice, heavy rolling boil. We’re going to reduce it by about half in volume, while those shallots get soft.

This is just about perfect. We’ve allowed that wine to reduce and that intensifies all those flavors. It burnt off about all of the alcohol, but you’ve got amazing taste left in there. So this one we’re going to keep very, very simple. We’re going to finish it with just a pat of butter, and we’re going to whisk him in like that. And as soon as that gets melted down, we add the last little tiny thing. Are we good? There! This is just a little bit of fresh parsley.

That’s it! And I’m taking this straight this straight over this way. Perfect. And that is how to deglaze!

Fond! What it is and how to use it!

Fond and How to Use it

One of the most important things that you can learn how to do if you’re teaching yourself how to cook, is to learn how to cook with this stuff. Now, you’re going to hear this talked about in two different ways. There are going to be people who have studied classical French food and they’re going to be calling it suc – think of the French word sucre for sugar – that’s what that is. Here in America we call it fond, even though fond in classically French cooking is the next step. But we’re going to call this entire process of development fond. And I remember it, and help my kids remember it when I’m teaching them by remembering we’re fond of fond.

Now fond in French means foundation and what you’re doing with this stuff is building from it. And it’s the most valuable thing which you can develop in your kitchen. This is the first step in deglazing and this is the first step in developing a pan sauces.

Now what I’ve done in here, is I’ve browned off a whole bunch of bacon, and then I’ve browned chicken on top of it. All this luscious, lovely stuff down here in the bottom? That’s where the outsides of my foods have caramelized or developed their sugars. It’s incredibly rich, it’s incredibly deep in flavor.

Now my next step is going to be to use the fond, all of this wonderful stuff as a base for a sauce that I’m going to build to go with my chicken. I’m going to do that by simply deglazing my pan. Deglazing is not hard. You put some kind of liquid in there, keep it over the heat, scrape it up with a wooden spoon, and that’s what gives you the basis for just about any kind of pan sauce you want to develop. In this case I’m using some white wine, some chicken broth and some veggies, but you can use just about anything you can think of. And that’s all there is to it.

So – fond. We’re fond of it. It’s the foundation for all of our recipes. This is how you get really fabulous flavor!