Chicken with Meyer Lemon Shallot Sauce

This simple chicken dish is easy to make quickly.  The general approach of cooking chicken covered in a skillet with a simple rub is something I need to incorporate into my cooking.  This goes reasonably well over a simple pilaf (or egg noodles, if fast is the name of the game), with some roasted vegetables on the side (especially beets, given the lemoniness) or a simple salad.

The recipe will be revamped as the flavor isn’t really there yet (it was inspired by this recipe, from an untrusted source, not that I should blame the source, seeing as I didn’t follow to anywhere near the letter).

Calorie estimate: 1050

Ingredients

• 2 skinless chicken parts (breasts, thighs), 3/4 – 1 lb.
• salt, pepper, and allspice
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 Meyer lemon, zested and ready to be juiced
• 1/2 small shallot, diced
• 1/4 C chicken broth
• 1 T butter
• splash of white wine
• pinch of thyme

Preparation

1. Pat the chicken breasts dry.  Season with salt, pepper, and a few dashes of allspice.
2. Place a little oil in a pan over medium-high heat.  Place the chicken in the pan and cover.  Cook for 4-5 minutes until browned.  Flip and cook covered for 5 more.
3. Zest half a Meyer lemon and dice half a small shallot.
4. After the chicken is cooked, take it out of the pan.  Deglaze with a 1/4 cup of chicken stock and a splash of white wine. Add the butter, shallot, lemon zest, a pinch of time, and a squeeze of lemon juice (be sure not to squeeze all of it now).  Reduce over medium heat for a few minutes until you have a proper sauce.  Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
5. Serve the chicken over a simple pilaf or egg noodles, and pour the sauce over the mix.  Maybe some roasted vegetables on the side. Finish with the remaining lemon juice.

Cannoli

Edit: March 6, 2010

There comes a time in a man’s life where he just can’t take it anymore.  Seattle can’t provide me with decent cannoli so I have to do it myself.  This recipe will be a work in progress for the next 50 years, but the nice thing about cannoli is that the most basic one is a good start.

Much of my working information came from here.  A lot of the stuff on the internet about cannoli is way too fancy.  It’s a peasant food and it shouldn’t be tarted up.

About the sugar:  according to the internet, the classic Sicilian cannoli filling is two parts ricotta to one part confectioners’ sugar (the type without the starch).  That strikes me as too sweet for classic NY or Boston cannoli.  Also, I found that regular white sugar should work fine if you let the filling rest in the fridge for a few hours so it hydrates the sugar.

Things that aren’t correct about this recipe:

• the dough for the shells isn’t quite right, although it’s close.  The most important thing is to make sure it’s rolled as thin as possible without ripping.  This recipe also takes 3-4 minutes to cook, which is at the very long end of what I read.
• There is something important missing from the filling.  Something almost fruity/gingery and maybe a hint of anise.  Apparently, 0range blossom water is popular in cannoli filling, and that may just be the flavor I’m missing.
  Update: added some juice from a fresh mandarin orange (about 1/2 orange worth).  Added juice until it was just noticeable in the cream.  This adds complexity and that fruitiness, but it’s not clear it’s orange (to me at least).  Jeney noted it was a nice improvement.
• The ricotta is too grainy.  The guy at Topolinos talked about a special ricotta with a very fine grain.  I’ll have to look into it.

Calorie Estimate: 4000 (3000 + whatever oil makes it into the shells)

Tools

• a deep pot
• a thermometer that can stay in the pot the whole time
• cannoli tubes, or a few wooden dowels, or the handle of a burly stainless steel whisk.
• tongs
• drying rack

Ingredients

Shells

• 1.5 C flour
• 1.5 T sugar
• 1/4 t salt
• 1.5 T butter, melted
• 7-10 T Marsala wine
• 1 egg for egg wash

Filling

• 32 oz ricotta cheese (pick a fairly dry, smooth brand, or better, get fresh)
• 1 c sugar + to taste
• 1 t vanilla extract
• a touch of fresh squeezed sweet orange juice (just noticeable amount)
• for decoration, crushed pistachios and mini chocolate chips, maybe mix a few chips into the cream itself.

Preparation

Shells

1. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and salt.  Mix in the butter and 7 T of wine.  Work everything together until it starts to come together.  If it’s too dry, add more wine, slowly.  Then, move it to a work surface and knead for 5-10 minutes until it’s smooth.  Let it rest on the table for 30 minutes.
2. In a deep pot, heat frying oil to 350 degrees.  Use a thermometer to regulate the temperature and be sure to keep it close to 350 at all times.  I could tell the difference in the way things cooked by 347 and 355 degrees either way.
3. Cut the dough into quarters, working each quarter.  Roll it out as thin as you can manage without ripping.
4. With a knife or a pastry cutter, cut out sections, being sure to make them just big enough to wrap around whatever you’re using to mold the shells.  Traditionally, the cuts should be oval, but that will leave a fair number of dough scraps to work with.  Squares/rectangles aren’t so bad, they’re easier to make, and leave fewer scraps.  The only major downside is squares leave a smaller opening which means fewer chocolate chips or pistachios can hitch a ride.
5. For the first batch, lightly oil your molds.  After that, the oil from previous batches will be enough.  Wrap a piece of dough around the mold, sealing the edge with a bit of egg wash.
6. Fry until brown and bubbly.  If you’ve eaten enough cannoli, you know the color.
7. Remove shells from the molds while still warm (or hot, if you can handle them safely).  Place finished shells on a drying rack to drain.

Filling

1. Place the ricotta in a bowl, draining any excess water.
2. Add in the sugar and vanilla, and whip everything together with a fork or whisk.  A vigorous whipping will smooth out the ricotta and give it a nicer texture.  Adjust sweetness to your taste as you go.
3. Place the filling in a large plastic bag, the end of which you’ll cut off to use as a piping bag.  Keep the filling in the fridge for a bit so the sugar dissolves thoroughly.

When you’re ready to serve, pipe the filling into the shells, and dip the ends into chocolate chips, pistachio crumbs, or, heaven help us, candied fruit.

Chicken Teriyaki

I’m not proud of this one, and I hesitate to post it, but it kinda didn’t suck and I could see myself making it again under similar circumstances.

So I’ve got two chicken breasts in the fridge and they either gotta get cooked or tossed.  It’s 9 pm and I’m hungry and my brain’s got no room for thinking.  So I slice the chicken thin, throw it in a non-stick soup pot, not yet on the stove (maybe I’ll end up poaching the chicken?) and then what?

Forget poached chicken (thankfully). I figure I’ve got some salty asian condiments that never go bad.  The chicken goes on the heat, some dark soy sauce gets poured in, a little miso paste, some chili-garlic sauce, and a splash of sesame oil.  Things cook and I figure, what the hell, let’s add a little honey…

Calorie Estimate: 900

Ingredients

• 1 lb. chicken breasts, sliced thin
• a few tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 or so tablespoons of chili-garlic sauce (Sriracha brand)
• a dab of miso paste
• a splash of sesame oil (1/2 T maybe)
• 1-1.5 T honey

Preparation

1. Slice the chicken.  Throw all the ingredients (except the honey) into a nonstick pan of some sort, adding amounts until things look about right.
2. Cook over high heat until the chicken is cooked but still tender, a few minutes.
3. Take the chicken out, leave the liquid in the pot. The chicken will already have a bit of flavor from the cooking liquids.
4. Add some honey t0 the liquid in the pot and reduce into a sauce, maybe adding a pinch of corn starch if you need it.
5. Pour over the chicken, feel shame, then enjoy, maybe over some rice.

Done like above, things come out as salty and strongly flavored as at a Seattle-teriyaki joint, but not so sickly sweet.  I put in enough honey so that it’s there, but not the dominant flavor.