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If you've yet to foray into the world of Indian cuisine, chicken tikka masala is a good guide for first-timers. There are many aspects of it that are familiar and comfortable to a Western palate (like chicken and rice) but with a decidedly Eastern bent. And by Eastern bent, I mean wonderfully aromatic and fragrant rice, and a richly spiced, yet not spicy, warm sauce for the chicken. It's a small wonder that this is the most popular Indian dish in the world, even if it's not, well, strictly authentic Indian.
Another fantastic thing about chicken tikka masala is that it requires no special equipment. It would be nice to have a tandoor, but a broiler make an acceptable stand-in. Now if only I could find a good tandoor substitute when making naan... But that's another story of a less successful foray. For now, stick with the chicken tikka masala and really start using some spices in your cooking!
Click here for the recipe for "Chicken tikka masala with basmati rice pilaf" »
I've been waiting to post this recipe for quite some time.
You see, you might call this dish Highly Significant.
It's so significant that I often find myself asking if Cory and I would have gotten married if it were not for this recipe.
It's one of the first things we ever cooked together, and from the point that we starting smooshing up those tomatoes with our hands, it was painfully apparent that we were meant to be.
We still cook up a batch of chicken cacciatore every time we're together. I thought it was criminal that he didn't have a copy of the recipe or The Joy of Cooking, so when he moved into his current apartment I bought him a copy the newly released 75th anniversary edition as a housewarming gift. Before I bought it for him I made sure that the recipe hadn't gotten the axe and was included in that version, but when we brought it home and we inspected it more closely we found that it calls for diced canned tomatoes, not whole tomatoes that you crush with your hands. On that alone, I've basically panned the whole edition. It's not worth buying! Find the 1997 edition! That older recipe helped Cory and I find love, and I who am I to deny anyone else that opportunity by recommending an inferior tome?
I'm going to admit upfront: my version of the classic Italian chicken is so not traditional. Every recipe I've ever seen and everyone else who's ever served it to me - including places in Italy - call for chicken parts, not chicken breasts, but when I was first learning to cook I had no clue what the heck a chicken part was. Even if I had been savvy enough, I simply didn't have the equipment to cut up a chicken and then cook it. So maybe it's for the best that I've bastardized it. I still think it's delicious, and it has the health benefits of being all-white meat.
Not everything about this recipe is 100% positive though. There is something about chicken cacciatore that makes living alone an especially bitter pill to swallow. This dish is so obviously meant to be cooked with people and then shared with people. That alone explains two of my behaviors: I always call Cory when I'm starting to crush up those tomatoes with my hands and tell him that I wish he was there with me, and whenever I'm cooking for a group people for the first time, this is the recipe I pull out. It's just too good to not share with others. It's not just the end result that's important, it's the whole process - from the first time you throw the onions and herbs in the pan and the fragrance makes everyone exclaim with delight to the times when the pan is in a long simmer and you can just sit around and enjoy the company of your companions to the first bite of that warm, earthy, wine-herbs-and-tomato chickeny goodness. Nothing says "I care" like chicken cacciatore.
Growing up, I never quite understood why chicken noodle soup was supposed to be such great comfort food. Then again, all I had had back then were Campbell's or otherwise canned versions, and frankly, I think it would be more comforting to be beaten up with a can of soup than it would be to eat that not-very-chickeny-really-freakin'-salty-and-gross stuff.
But then I remembered my Mom's famous turkey soup. It wasn't so different from a chicken noodle soup, yet it was infinitely tastier. Maybe there was hope for this much-maligned recipe after all...
I first tried my hand at a, well, decidedly modern take on the stuff that I found in the Mayo Clinic cookbook. It had a chicken stock and soy milk base with edamame in the soup, and well.... it was weird. I didn't like it. But then.... last winter I was just getting into making my own stock and had had wild success with using it as the base for soups - even with recipes I had panned when I had made them with commercial chicken broth (forgive me, for I knew not what I had done). So I got to thinking that maybe it was time to give chicken noodle soup another shot, and this time I was determined to give it a fair shot.
Disillusioned by my first disaster with the stuff, I swore off recipes and struck off on my own. Amazingly, I hit paydirt on my first try. I had stumbled upon the First Law of Soups (anything made with a homemade stock is guaranteed to not be bland, boring, or disgusting) and the Second Law of Soups (always cook your noodles or grains in the stock).
Unfortunately, stock tends to burn a hole in my freezer. I just can't keep the stuff on hand, I use it as soon as I make it. If I do happen to have some in there, I'm usually saving it for something specific. But tonight I found myself with quarts and quarts of it in my freezer, even above and beyond what I will need for my upcoming minestrone soup. I also just so happened to have the salvaged chicken from my last pot of stock handy, and I realized that once again, this soup's time had come. I mean, it's been a tough week. I could use some comfort food. Thankfully, I've finally found a way for this time-honored classic to actually be comforting.
Click here for the recipe for "Actually comforting chicken noodle soup" »
Be careful: homemade chicken stock is another one of those "you can never go back" recipes.
I remember a little over a year ago, I made minestrone soup for the first time. It's one of my favorite soups, but I couldn't understand why it was so..... blase. Despite the fact I had used fresh ingredients and used the proper technique, it wasn't worth making again, and I stuck with my usual soup staple, Provencal Vegetable Soup.
About a year later I was having some friends over for an Italian night - caprese salad, various pastas with homemade sauces, and affogatos. Something was missing and (being ignorant of the traditional Italian primi and secondi) I decided to add in minestrone soup.
So I tried again. Talk about night and day! It was like the first batch I had made was anti-minestrone and if the two batches had ever met they would have annihilated each other. The only difference? The fantasmagorically delicious minestrone was made with homemade stock instead of commercial chicken broth.
Every recipe I've used with this stock has sung with flavor. Why? That flavor comes from tons of fresh ingredients and no salt. It's a recipe that I've adapted from more traditional chicken stock recipes to fit the way I cook. I roast a bird one week, save the carcass, skin, and fond and after I roast another bird the next week I combine the two carcasses with any leftover meat and tons of aromatics. This way I'm getting maximum use out of those chickens with minimal waste.
And it is so worth it!
I used to think that I did a fair amount of cooking for myself. Sure, I ate pre-boxed cereals like Grape-Nuts and used mass-produced bread and turkey breast for my sandwiches, but surely that doesn't count, right? You can't make those things for yourself!!!
Then one day I woke up and realized, "Wait a minute, it is not natural for turkey breast to come in this shape. Plus this stuff doesn't have nutrition labels I can read, so god only knows what they put in it!" Luckily, I had this epiphany around Thanksgiving and I had just gotten myself a brand new roasting pan. After eating leftover homemade turkey sandwiches for a couple of days, I decided something in my daily lunch routine had to change. "What the hell," I thought. I had just started baking my own bread, so I figured I might as well go whole hog.
So I looked in some cookbooks and magazines for some inspiration. Some suggested brining before roasting, but one of the big reasons I decided to start doing this myself was to get away from all that sodium. Some suggested marinades, but I wanted a (relatively) quick fix. Others suggested lemon, but that tires pretty quickly for me.
Then I remembered our Thankgiving Turkey Trifecta: Sage. Rosemary. Thyme. And no, I am not going to Scarborough Fair!
Eureeka! It's genius. So I minced up these fresh herbs and some garlic (because garlic makes everything better). I drizzled just a tad of olive oil over the mix to make it more paste-like and easy to handle. Instead of stuffing the cavity (as is the fate of the turkey), I borrowed an idea from Cook's Illustrated and used my fingers to loosen the skin from the breast and thighs (they actually suggest using a chopstick to do this because "fingers are more likely to tear the skin" but I disagree -- your fingers can bend. I've never torn the skin with my hand) and rubbed the meat with the herbs generously. Then I prepped the limbs for the oven, turned it breast-down (this helps the white and dark meat reach safe eating temperatures at the same time), and popped it in the oven. Twenty minutes later I flipped it on its back and let it continue to cook until the instant-read thermometer said it was done.
I will swear up and down that this is the best sandwich meat ever. After cooking your own lunchmeat, I promise you will never be able to go back to the salty, processed, unnaturally shaped abomination in your grocer's deli counter again. I also promise that after you use the leftovers to make your own stock, you'll never buy that salty, watered-down abomination in a can off the shelf again either.
