Braised Chicken with Vegetables

It's raining outside. The wind is banging against the front windows. I just made matzo ball soup, but that's not enough to get rid of the chill and feed my hunger-caused-by-the-cold. I need a rich soup, with meat falling off the bone and enough carbos to boost my internal temperature a couple of degrees.

Braised chicken legs and thighs with parsley, potatoes, and carrots hits the spot.

2 chicken legs, washed
2 chicken thighs, washed
4 shallots
2 large cloves garlic, peeled, julienned
2 cups Italian parsley, washed, chopped
2 medium sized, Yukon potatoes, washed, peeled, roughly chopped
2 large carrots, washed, peeled, cut into thick rounds
10 shiitake mushrooms, dried or fresh, sliced
6 cups water
Olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

If you are using dried shiitake's, submerge them in hot water for 30 minutes or until soft, then cut off and discard the stems. Squeeze the excess water out of the mushrooms, then slice. Reserve the soaking water. If you're using fresh shiitakes, wash and trim any dirt off the stems, but use them as well as the caps.

Sauté the chicken in the olive oil, seasoned with sea salt and black pepper, until lightly browned on all sides. Remove the chicken and sauté the shallots, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, and parsley. Put back the chicken and add 6 cups of water. If you used dried shiitakes, use 5 cups of water and 1 cup of soaking water.

Lightly cover the pot with a piece of tin foil and simmer on a medium flame for 30 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook for another 20 minutes. Add the carrot rounds and simmer for a final 10 minutes.

Serve in a soup bowl so each person gets a generous portion of the thick soup. If the potatoes aren't enough carbos, top each serving with homemade croutons.

Serves 2. Preparation Time: 15 minutes. Cooking Time: 75 minutes.

Chicken Breasts with a Cilantro-Butter Sauce

Chicken breasts are boring. No question they pick up some flavor when grilled, but all too often they are served dried out, with little to recommend them, except that they're lean. More of a "jumping-off point" than a flavor-destination, chicken breasts need a sauce to make them worth while. Trying many different combinations, I remembered a Thai style chicken stir fry that featured a cilantro and black pepper sauce. Looking for a way to better meld the flavors, I added caramelized onions and a pat of butter.

Chicken Breasts with a Cilantro-Butter Sauce


Serves 4.

Preparation Time 20 minutes. Cooking Time 45 minutes.


Ingredients

1 bunch cilantro, leaves only, washed, dried, finely chopped
2 cloves, garlic, peeled, finely chopped
1 medium yellow onion, peeled, cut into thin rings
4 chicken breasts, skinless, washed, dried
½ cup homemade chicken stock
3 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In a bowl marinate the chicken breasts in 1 tablespoon olive oil for 30 minutes.

Sauté the cilantro, onion, garlic and black pepper 1 tablespoon olive oil on a medium flame, turning frequently, until lightly brown.

 Add the butter and chicken stock.  Reduce by half over a low flame and spatula the sauce into a bowl.

On a medium flame, sauté the chicken breasts in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until each side is browned with a crust. 5 minutes on each side.

The sauce and chicken breasts can be prepared ahead.

Just before serving put the cilantro-onion sauce and chicken breasts into the frying pan and simmer covered 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning, if needed, with sea salt and black pepper.

To serve, use tongs to transfer the breasts to a cutting board. Either serve the breasts whole or slice them and place on a serving plate. Using a spatula, spoon the sauce over the chicken breasts. Serve hot with cooked rice, mashed potatoes or sautéed vegetables.

Extremely Filling Chicken-Vegetable Soup

When my mother moved back to California after 20 years in Costa Rica, I started filling her freezer with easy-to-reheat meals. My own, personal version of meals-on-wheels. At first freezer burn was a problem, until I discovered that as long as the meat and vegetables were submerged in a liquid or coated with sauce, the food survived remarkably unaffected by their time in her freezer. Now that our older son, Frank, is back from college, living in his own place, I've added his freezer to my list of must-fills.

Freezing chicken soup works great and with enough meat and vegetables, the soup satisfies as an entree. I'll only use homemade stock. Not because I'm an overly fastidious foodie, but the high sodium content of prepared stocks puts me off. Making my own, I can also control the quality of the stock. Using raw bones makes a mild almost "neutral" tasting stock. If the bones come from a roasted chicken, the flavors have a deeper flavor. They're both good, either working well for a soup, although the milder stock is closer to the Jewish chicken soup of my childhood.

2 carrots, peeled, finely chopped
2 broccoli crowns, washed, roughly chopped (1 cup)
2 Yukon gold potatoes, washed, peeled, roughly chopped
1 small yellow onion, peeled, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped Italian parsley, washed
1 cup cooked chicken, shredded
6 cups homemade chicken stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium flame and saute the onions and garlic until lightly browned so the onions caramelize, then add the rest of the vegetables and chicken, stirring and cooking until softened, being careful not to over-brown the vegetables. Deglaze the pan with the butter and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pour in the chicken stock and simmer 30 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasons with additional sea salt and pepper, as needed.

To serve, ladle out a generous portion of the vegetables and chicken and top with homemade croutons.

Serves 6.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes. Cooking Time: 30 minutes.

Comfort Food: Sausages and Chicken Wings with Shitake Mushrooms

Every winter we go to the Sundance Resort in Utah where my wife runs a feature film program at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute. She stays for most of the month but I go back to LA after a long weekend, then fly back four days later to go to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

When we're at the resort, my sons go skiing. I tried it a couple of times and realized it just isn't my thing. I wish I had my sons' athleticism. I don't. But I'm completely happy because Sundance is the perfect setting to cook. The condo has a simple kitchen set-up. No oven and only a 2-burner stove top, but outside the snow covered mountain is postcard perfect and inside it's nice and warm.

I do a lot of cooking at the resort, but I'm not cooking for the time we're here. I'm cooking and then freezing the food so we can have home-cooked meals when we're at the Festival, where watching 3-4 films a day means there's no time to cook. If you're lucky there's the occasional party where you can grab a mini-crab cake or some cheese and crackers.

I wanted to make comfort food. Nourishing, warm dishes that would revive us after a very long day.

Before we came up to the resort, we stopped at Macey's, one of the local supermarkets, and picked up basics: 2 Gold'n Plump organic chickens, a couple of pounds of extra lean ground beef, a package of Italian sweet sausages, and a selection of fresh vegetables.

Since all the dishes had to be able to survive freezing and reheating, everything would have a sauce or be in a soup, that would protect against freezer burn and drying out. That meant the first thing I needed to do was to make chicken stock.

CHICKEN STOCK
Cutting up the 2 chickens, I had the carcasses and wing tips for the stock. Simmered on a low boil with 16 cups of water for 1 hour, then strained to remove the bones, I had 8 cups of stock. I pulled 1 cup of meat off the bones, perfect for chicken soup. Because I needed a lot of stock, I used the now-picked-clean bones for a 2nd boil by covering the bones with water and simmering for 30 minutes. Straining out the bones gave me an additional 2 cups of stock. If possible, refrigerate the stock overnight so the fat can be removed.

Sautéed saUSAGES AND CHICKEN WINGS WITH SHIiTAKE MUSHROOMS
4 wings, washed, cut into pieces, the tips used for stock
2 Italian sweet sausages, cut into ¼” rounds
½ bunch spinach, washed, roughly chopped
1 cup shiitake mushrooms, fresh, or dried, soaked for 2 hours in hot water, stems removed
1 cup chicken stock
½ cup shiitake mushroom soaking water
2 cloves garlic, peeled, finely chopped
2 tablespoon olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

On a medium flame, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Saute the chicken wings until brown on all sides. Remove and sauté the sausage rounds until brown, drain and remove. Pour off the excess oil.

Add the 2^nd tablespoon of olive oil and sauté the shiiake mushrooms and garlic until lightly browned. Deglaze the pan with the 2 stocks, add the spinach, then put back the wings and sausages. Simmer for 30 minutes lightly covered with a sheet of tin foil.

Serve in a bowl with soup spoons and lots of napkins because this is finger-eating food. Or, to make a more substantial entree, add pasta or rice to the bowl.

Serves 2-4. Preparation Time: 20 minutes. Cooking Time: 60 minutes.

For everything going into the freezer, I use an airtight container, like the ones made by Ziploc, and make sure that the liquid covers the meat and vegetables to avoid freezer burn.

Chicken and Dumplings with Sweet Potato Stuffing

Chicken and dumplings is the classic comfort-food entree, no question about it. Stuffing the dumplings with a savory sweet potato puree takes them to another flavor level. Adding that little touch, makes the dish perfect for a dinner party.

Chicken and Dumplings with Sweet Potato Stuffing

Yield: 4-6

Time: 2 1/2 hours

Ingredients

1 medium sized sweet potato or yam, washed, wrapped in tin foil
1 shallot, peeled, finely chopped
8 cloves, garlic, peeled, finely chopped
2 4-pound chickens, washed
1 yellow onion, peeled, roughly chopped
1 ear of corn, the kernels removed
3 large carrots, peeled, cut into thick rounds
1/2 pounds mushrooms, washed, sliced thin
4 cups chicken stock, homemade
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
2 cups white flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup cream or half-and-half
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Bake the sweet potato in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour (turning it over after the 1st 30 minutes) until soft. Remove from the tin foil and peel off the skin and mash with a fork. (For a chef's snack, try the skin with a little sea salt. Yummy.) Saute the finely chopped shallots and 2 of the garlic cloves in olive oil until lightly browned, then add to the sweet potato puree and put aside.

Cut apart the chicken, separating the legs, thighs, and wing parts (cut apart the three wing bones, keeping the 2 and using the wing tip for stock). Debone the breasts and remove the skin. Put the meat into a bowl and season with 1/4 cup olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper.

To make the stock, put the carcass, wing tips, and breast skin into a large pot with 1/2 gallon of water and simmer on a medium flame for 1 hour. The water should have reduced by half. Strain out the bones and put the stock aside.

Cutting apart the chicken and making the stock the night before has a couple of advantages. You don't have to deal with it on the day you're cooking the meal, the meat will tenderize in the seasoned olive oil, and you'll be able to strip off the fat that will solidify on top of the stock. These are all good things.

In a large skillet or dutch oven, brown the wings, legs, and thighs in olive oil on a medium flame, turning them frequently so they don't burn. Remove and drain on a paper towel. Pour off the fat and discard. Measure 1 tablespoon of olive oil and saute the onions, garlic, corn, and mushrooms until lightly browned. Add the wings, legs, thighs and chicken stock. Cover with a lid or piece of tin foil and simmer for 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender.

Add enough stock or water to cover the chicken and vegetables.

Make the dumplings by first mixing together the flour and baking powder. Using a fork, crumble the butter into the flour, then season with a little sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Stir the flour mixture and slowly add the cream until the texture is like thick porridge.

The dumplings will take 30 minutes to cook, so save this last step until your guests have arrived and they're enjoying drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Ask someone to keep you company or help with making the dumplings. They're fun to make but a bit tedious.

One last thing before you start making the dumplings. This is the moment when you can decide if you want to include the breast meat or save it for another dish (like grilled chicken paillard or breaded chicken breasts). If you want to have both white and dark meat in the dish, then cut the breasts into 1" cubes and lightly saute them in a olive oil for 2 minutes on each side, then add them to skillet.

Put the flame onto medium and start fashioning the dumplings. Using 2 large metal spoons, scoop up a quarter-sized amount of the dumpling mixture in one of the spoons. With the other, take a dime-sized amount of the sweet potato puree and spread that over the dumpling mixture, then scoop up another quarter-sized portion of the dumpling mixture and spread it on top of the other spoon so the sweet potato puree is completely hidden.

Describing how to make the stuffed dumplings makes it sound difficult, but it's very simple. You'll quickly get the hang of it.

There should be enough liquid in the pot to reach 1/2" above the meat and vegetables, because the dumplings need liquid to stay moist. Once the dumpling has been formed in the one spoon, use the other spoon to gently slide it off into the pot so it rests on top of the chicken and vegetables.

As you make the dumplings, set them into the pot, one next to the other--no overlapping--until the top of the pan is completely covered with dumplings. It's best if there's a little space between dumpling so they have room to expand.

Cover the pot and come back in 30 minutes. Use a large soup plate to serve the chicken with a sampling of vegetables and a dumpling.