Saturday, July 31, 2010


Speedy Brunch Chicken
After a very long time the two of us got together to cook up a quick dinner. Chicken, mustard sauce, cream and honey. These were what we had at our disposal. This is just atrociously easy to cook. Great for brunch or dinner. We also had a side of cream cheese mashed potato and sauted veggies. Doesn't seem like a lot, but we felt like we ate a whale!
Ingredients:
500 gm chicken cut into medium/large peices, 1 tbsp honey for each piece of chicken, 2 tbsp oil. Salt and pepper for seasoning
1/2 cup mustard sauce
1/4 cup fresh cream
4 potatoes cooked and mashed
1/4 cup cream cheese
And salt and pepper for seasoning

Process:
Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and place the chicken pieces with the seasoning, and let it sear on the pan for about 4 minutes on each side, or till the chicken has cooked and has a nice brown color to it. Take it off the pan and glaze it with the honey.
For the sauce, bring the mustard sauce and the fresh cream to a boil and take it off the heat and serve it with the honey glazed chicken.
For the cream cheese mashed potato, mix the seasoning and the cream cheese to the mashed potatos and serve!
And as we say in the end...Aashte...thats all!...enjoy!

Inspired by some...Jerk Chicken :)
Jerk
is a style of cooking native to Jamaica in which meats are dry-rubbed or wet marinated with a very hot spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice. Jerk seasoning is traditionally applied to pork and chicken. Modern recipes also apply jerk spice mixes to fish, shrimp, shellfish, beef, sausage, and tofu. Jerk seasoning principally relies upon two items: allspice (called "pimento" in Jamaica) and Scotch bonnet peppers (among the hottest peppers on the Scoville scale). Other ingredients include cloves, cinnamon, scallions, nutmeg, thyme, garlic, salt, and pepper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_jerk_spice
Thanks to the Lonely Planet,I read about 'jerk chicken'; before I went through the recipe as usual, I wanted to make my own quick one with the very limited ingredients at my disposal. My palate signaled that this should have a perfect combination of sweet and red chilli spice taste.
Ingredients:
Clean chicken breast piece, 2 teaspoons of lemoneez, 2 tablespoons of honey, chilli flakes, 3 cloves of garlic, nutmeg, butter and salt and pepper per tatse.
potatoes, cheese, pepper and choice of vegetables.
Process:
I usually prefer marinating the defrosted chicken in some white fruit vineger and salt for about 30 mins. Keep aside.
My choice of veggies include carrots, cauliflower, some brocolli and green peas. Boil them sufficiently, strain and keep aside. If you wish, you could very lightly fry these little chuncks of veggies in a very small dollop of butter for that perfect crunchy yet boiled tatse.
Now in a non stick pan, add a generous dollop of butter and let it redden. Add the chopped garlic and let it fry till they turn golden (take in the aroma!). Add a spoonful scrapped bits of nutmeg to it. Place the ckicken breasts gently on the pan and lid it. Keep switchin sides and and cover it back. At this rate in about 15 mins the chicken should be pretty much cooked, now add the the lemoneez to the chicken and just in a while add the honey to it. Sprinkle the chilli flakes, pour a small cup of water and lid up the chicken for about 6-7 mins (keep switching sides of the chicken for a perfectly cooked piece; you could poke the chicken with a fork to test).
Mash the perfectly peeled and boiled potatoes with a spoon and a add cube of cheese to the portion. Sprinkle a little pepper and salt according to your taste. For a different flavour altogether, you could place a serving of mashed potato in the foil and grate cheese on it, and put it in the oven for about 8 mins. Unwrap and enjoy.
Garnishing:
Now when you are in a hurry to eat, there no much place for a lot of garnishing. Minimalism and easy arrangement serves the purpose. Place the crunchy veggies and mashed potatoes next to the chicken. If you wish, you could add a small amount of baked beans. I also placed two twigs of wheat grass on the chicken...just got inspired by some presentation I saw in the magazine.
Bon Apetite!