Chicken

Pad Thai

April 26, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Pad Thai is a dish made with stir-fried rice noodles with egg, a sauce, a protein like shrimp or chicken, and other extras like bean sprouts, and peanuts. I have had my eye on this little Thai market in the neighborhood and I went in today to see what I could find. I discovered that unlike Vons, the check out lady knew exactly where the Tamarind paste was. I could have substituted the harder to find ingredients (galangal, palm sugar, etc) for brown sugar and ginger but I decided not to. I’m happy with that decision because I can work with a new set of flavors now.

The Pad Thai turned out really nicely too. It wasn’t as rich or sweet as restaurant Pad Thai. It had a nice balance of sour, sweet, and spicy. I took note from other bloggers and prepped everything before cooking the noodles. I now understand how easy it would be to burn the noodles while you run around looking for an egg. This dish does take some work but is well worth the effort.

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Chicken Souvlaki and Gyros

March 14, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

I made Tzatziki the other day to go with some chicken Souvlaki. Souvlaki is skewered and roasted chicken, marinated in yogurt, oregano, and lemon. The gyro is a sandwich made of onions, feta cheese, tzatziki, roasted peppers, and meat (usually chicken or lamb) all wrapped in pita bread. Since I had no skewers or rotisserie oven, I just cut the meat into strips and broiled it, turning a couple times to get everything browned. The chicken was very tender from marinating in the lemon juice, and went really well with the flavors of the roasted peppers, feta and tzatziki.

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Jamaican Jerk Chicken

March 1, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

I’m all for spicy/savory meat marinades and when I found recipes for Jamaican jerk chicken I knew I had to give it a try. I found a few good recipes but since I couldn’t find some of the ingredients I had to switch things around a bit. Lots of jerk recipes require scotch bonnet peppers and rum but I had neither. I substituted bonnets for serrano peppers and rum with molasses and I thought those worked out pretty well. The chicken was great; the vinegar in the marinade broke down the protein and made the meat tender. I was surprised that the sauce didn’t caramelize on the chicken since I saw plenty of pictures that showed this. I would guess there wasn’t enough brown sugar and molasses to get that glazed look. It turned out fine though and I ended up not minding that at all.

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Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon and Olives

January 8, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

I have been wanting to try a Moroccan dish for a while now. A tagine is a type of ceramic dish used to cook a lot of Moroccan food. The idea of cooking with olives, harissa and preserved lemons was very intriguing because I had never tried anything like it. It took a while to make this dish because I had to preserve my own lemons. This recipe takes some effort to prepare but it is worth your time. Although it does look like the kitchen sink in terms of spices they all worked so well together and created a really unique dish. I do not own a tagine so I used a saute pan instead and it turned out fine. I would salt sparingly because the olives and lemons are already pretty salty. I paired this recipe with some Moroccan Couscous and it was very good together!

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Chicken Quesadilla with Caramelized Onions

December 24, 2010 by The Partial Ingredients

I had two leftover chicken thighs from the roasted Cajun chicken so I thought I would use them for chicken quesadillas. I once ordered a quesadilla at this great restaurant that used Manchego cheese and caramelized onions. It was really good so I thought I would try to recreate it. Although I only had cheddar cheese the quesadilla turned out pretty well. I would like to try this recipe out with some of the more tasty Mexican cheeses instead of just plain cheddar.

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Roasted Cajun Chicken

December 22, 2010 by The Partial Ingredients

There are a lot of Cajun chicken recipes on the internet but I thought I would try making up my own wet rub. I thought the chicken turned out tasty–it was very juicy and tender. The rub was spicy and savory and I was quite happy with the results. I made some potato fries with the chicken and they were both pretty good together. I have a lot of leftover chicken so I think I will try making some chicken quesadillas out of it too.

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BBQ Chicken Pizza with Caramelized Onions

December 16, 2010 by The Partial Ingredients

It took some convincing for my Italian, east-coast born, boyfriend to go along with a pizza recipe that requires barbeque sauce, not tomato sauce. After he tasted it though I didn’t have to do anymore convincing. The flavors of this recipe were very good. The tangy barbeque sauce was a nice compliment to the sweet onions. I used Fontina cheese, but you can make it with blue, gouda, feta or mozzarella cheese as well.

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Chicken Fajitas

November 13, 2010 by The Partial Ingredients

What can be said about chicken fajitas besides the fact they are so good? Well, apparently the name ‘chicken fajita’ makes no sense. I learned today that the word ‘fajita’ actually refers to a cut of beef called a skirt steak. So, what else can be said about chicken steaks? Well, they are versatile and a bit different than burritos, which usually do not have the grilled peppers and onions. To me that is what makes a fajita, not what kind of meat is in it (said the gringo). I usually grill the chicken but this time I decided to broil it and I was pretty happy with the results. The chicken was extra tender since I only broiled it for maybe 7 minutes. Next time I will try this out with the more linguistically correct grilled skirt steak.

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Cilantro and Lime Broiled Chicken

November 13, 2010 by The Partial Ingredients

I was originally going to make this post as a part of the chicken fajita recipe, but decided it really should be a post of it’s own. I love this marinade because it makes the chicken so tender and flavorful. It goes great on the grill too.

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