Chicken Piccata

Again with the chicken!

I blatantly stole this recipe from our friend Greg Haught's blog, The Confounded Cook. I made a few minor changes (like the mushrooms in bacon grease with garlic) to suit us, but it's still Greg's recipe, shown here served with Parmesan roasted cauliflower & onions.

Ingredients
•    2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, rinsed, patted dry
•    Pepperman* & garlic
•    4 T unsalted butter
•    ¼ c lemon juice
•    ½ c chicken broth
•    ¼ c dry white wine
•    8 oz baby portobello mushrooms, sliced
•    2 T bacon grease

Preparation

Place chicken in a gallon Ziploc plastic freezer bag and pound until thin. Sprinkle with Pepperman.

Heat 2 T butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat until butter foams. Add one of the chicken breast halves and cook without moving until browned, about 3 minutes. Turn and cook until firm and browned on both sides, about 3 minutes more. Transfer to a plate and cover loosely with foil to keep warm.

Add 2 T butter to skillet; cook remaining chicken breast half. Transfer to plate and cover to keep warm.

Add lemon juice, broth and wine to skillet and bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits from bottom of pan with a wooden spoon. Boil, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half. 

Meanwhile, add bacon grease to a separate pan over high heat. When it melts, add mushrooms and season with Pepperman & garlic. Cook until mushrooms are browned. Add sauce to the pan with the mushrooms and bring back to a boil, again scraping the pan with a wooden spoon to get up all the browned goodies.

Pour sauce & mushrooms over chicken and serve immediately.

*Pepperman is a blend of sea salt and different organic peppers from Frontier Foods, available at most natural food stores. Great stuff!

KC Strip Oscar

As part of our mostly-Primal lifestyle (hey, nobody's perfect!), I’m subscribed to “It’s Paleo” which, among other things sends me a daily Paleo-inspired recipe. One of these was a recipe for Ribeye a la Oscar, which, instead of Hollandaise, called for Sriracha-enhanced sour cream. Primal/Paleo is supposed to be completely without dairy, and granted Hollandaise has butter which is also dairy, but there’s a lot less of it.

Anyway, I decided that one thing this recipe did have right is a bigger piece of meat than the little (albeit tasty) filet Mignon which is called for in the original Filet Oscar recipe. I opted for KC strips. So here’s my first attempt at KC Strip Oscar.

And yes, given the size of the steaks, we had leftovers.




KC Strip Oscar
Makes 2 servings

2 KC strip steaks, room temperature marinated in a little olive oil & garlic
1 bunch asparagus
1/2 pound lump crab meat
Hollandaise sauce (see separate recipe below)

Trim the asparagus by bending in half until it breaks and discard the lower half.

Boil asparagus in salted water, 2 minutes for al dente, longer if you like it softer, which we do.

Make the Hollandaise and set aside someplace warm. (I just turn off the heat, add a little cold water to the lower pan to reduce the heat further, and cover.)

Grill the steaks to desired doneness. For us, this takes almost no time at all, we like our meat that rare.

Turn your broiler on high. (I use a toaster oven.)

Place each steak on its serving plate, top with four asparagus spears followed by the lump crab meat.

Pour half of the Hollandaise on top of each steak.

Place in the top shelf of the broiler. Do not close the oven, and watch them closely. Remove as soon as the Hollandaise begins to just bubble. Needless to say, the plates will be hot.


Hollandaise
Makes 2 servings

2 egg yolks
1 T lemon juice
Dash of salt
Dash of hot sauce (I like Cholula)
4 T butter

Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat – do not let it boil.

Whisk the egg yolks, lemon juice and salt in the top pan of a double boiler while bringing water to a boil in the lower pan.

Lower the heat to low and let the boiling subside somewhat. Place the upper pan over the boiling water and whisk the mixture rapidly and continually, being careful not to actually cook the eggs. As you can see from the picture, I started off with just a bit too much heat so the sauce got a bit granular. Still tasted good though. Julia Child has a recipe for Hollandaise made in a blender. I may give that a try next time.

Once the yolks begin to thicken, SLOWLY add the melted butter. This should take a couple of minutes: too fast and the sauce won't thicken. Once all the butter is added, add the dash of hot sauce and remove from heat.

--Joseph

Primal Chicken Kiev--tweaked!

You all may have noticed a bit of a shift in this blog...I'll try not to get all wacko on you, but I've changed the way I eat about 7 months ago now, have lost 27 lbs., don't have heartburn or acid reflux, feel better and stronger, AND my hernia almost never hurts.  So yeah.  I'm pretty much primal/paleo now, and loving it!

The recipe on the Mark's Daily Apple blog was too good not the try--and of course tweak the way we like it...so here it is:

PRIMAL CHICKEN KIEV

3-4 or more chicken breasts, skinless or with skins, though that might make the prep more difficult
(We get Smart Chicken, free range chicken, or other hormone-free meat--believe it or not, Costco    and Walmart may have this fairly inexpensively!)


1/2 stick unsalted butter--organic if you can find it

2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced

1 tsp. parsley flakes,
1 T. Herbes de Provence
or the herb mix of your choice...fresh herbs are fine, too, just use more.  Make it Cajun, if you like...go wild, Kiev won't care.)

(Chicken Kiev normally calls for dill, but we're not crazy about it...)

Sea salt or Pepperman All-Purpose Seasoning Blend Organic - 6 oz,(Frontier) to taste (we both love Pepperman, an organic pepper and sea salt blend with a variety of peppers.)

2-3 T. Bacon grease (we get nitrite- and nitrate-free bacon), lard, coconut or olive oil

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Lay out your chicken breasts and pound them flat with a meat mallet or pounder, or the edge of a heavy plate.

Mine looks like this, but there are all types--click on the little image to see more:

Cut your half stick of butter into quarters lengthwise and center one on each breast (obviously if you're making more, use more butter.  (Mark's recipe calls for making actual herb butter, but this is lots faster!)

Sprinkle with herbs and some of the sliced or chopped garlic

Roll the flattened breasts up around the butter and herbs and secure with toothpicks.

("Normal" Chicken Kiev is breaded or at least floured at this step...not necessary, and I dunno about you, but I don't need the gluten, the empty calories, OR the carbs.)

Heat skillet with the grease or oil, and place the breasts in carefully; saute at medium heat.  Keep turning until all sides are browned, then put a lid on and lower the heat for a few minutes till the breasts are done.  (I test doneness by poking with a shark knife...if the juice is clear, they're done, if pink, they're not.)

The butter will have melted and infused the meat with garlic and herbs--some will leak out into the skillet giving you a marvelous sauce.  You can reduce it by cooking down further, or use a bit of wine or ale, but it was just wonderful exactly as it was, spooned over the chicken and over leftover fresh asparagus.

Give it a try!

Here it's shown with my cranberry mustard coleslaw...funny looking, since it's pink, but it's GOOD.

2 T. good quality mayonnaise (or home made, I'll do that next time!)
1 tsp. cranberry mustard
Splash of apple cider or rice wine vinegar

Mix with chopped or shredded cabbage (white or red)...optional, add a few shredded carrots!

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And if you wonder what all  this "primal" stuff is about, you might like the Mark's Daily Apple blog above, or check out Mark Sisson's books, particularly The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health, and boundless energy (Primal Blueprint Series).  I've read several books on the Paleo Diet, including Loren Cordain's groundbreaking book by that title, and Michael and Mary Dan Eades' Protein Power Life Plan--all of these are well documented, fascinating reading, but Sisson's book is just plain FUN--as is his blog, and the forum for "blueprint" fans.

The food is delicious, I'm losing weight, and I feel good...what's not to like??