Day 26: Pollo al Vino Rosso E Insalata Caprese (Chicken Thighs in Red Wine and Caprese Salad)
Well it’s been a while since i posted new pictures. School started up and I got incredibly busy with that. Didn’t stop cooking however.
Here we have a dish that fully sums up the essential attitude of Italian cooking, which paraphrased read something like “Allow the good ingredients to speak for themselves in simple ways.” The chicken is deliciously tender yet the skin is crisp. The salad is a case of beauty in simplicity.
Here we simply rehydrated some dried porcini mushrooms in hot water for fifteen minutes and then dried them by squeezing them. A generous dab of butter, 2 tablespoons, went into a pan followed by a sprig of rosemary and a bay leaf. The chicken thighs soon followed. Oh and don’t let the butter burn. Trust me on this.
Here the type of chicken parts that you use actually matter somewhat. You want something that has some fat that can render out into your pan. I would not recommend boneless, skinless chicken breasts, a favorite weapon of the culinary inquisition aimed at destroying all the flavor in our lives. Something like a thigh, a whole leg, or just buying a whole damn chicken and chopping it into pieces.
Brown the chicken until all sides of it are golden brown. Season with salt and pepper, add mushrooms and add wine. I added about one and half cups of red wine.
Don’t use cooking wine. Don’t use cooking wine. Don’t fucking use cooking wine. You will destroy the dish and you might as well start ordering take out because it’s going to taste like shit. Use something that would drink by itself. If you are worried about opening a bottle just for cooking you can and should drink the wine with the dish. Here I used a nice little number from France called Pierre Amadiu, Côtes du Rhône, Roulepierre, 2006.
Wait it’s from France!? Doesn’t that mean it’s expensive! No, my misguided friend, this particular bottle cost about thirteen dollars, and tasted great.
After you add the wine all the alcohol is going to start to cook off. When it does, reduce the heat to medium, take the chicken out, and wrap it in pancetta. I did not have any pancetta sadly so I substituted with bacon. Secure with toothpicks and reintroduce the chicken into the pan with the wine.
Cook over medium heat, turning occasionally, until tender and cooked through, give it thirty minutes or so. Take out of pan and place of serving platter. Garnish with some color if you want to make it look pretty, I recommend rosemary or parsley.
Caprese Salad is one of the easy dishes to make in the entire world. The only way you can mess this up is to use substandard ingredients. It’s three basic ingredients; tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese.
Slice your tomatoes (these are good ripe organic tomatoes of noble birth right, because stop if they are not) into thick slices, slice the mozzarella cheese into think slices, and throw one or two basil leafs on there. Sprinkle salt and pepper on there and then drizzle extra virgin olive oil (and if you use the acronym kill yourself) and balsamic vinegar on top.
Day 24: Salade Niçoise (Salad of Nice)
Being sick means that cooking is hard. Sorry for the break, illness (still ill in fact) and other aspects of my life have now made the title of this blog inaccurate.
Today we have some classic French bistro food. First I crushed a garlic clove, impaled it on a fork and rubbed it around a salad bowl. Add a 2-1 ratio of extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar, mixed with your garlic studded fork. Season with salt and pepper.
The inner leafs of Boston lettuce, blanched haricots verts, tomatoes, boiled red bliss potatoes, green bell pepper strips, and olives are the primary vegetables in the salad. Add in the bowl along with a quartered anchovy fillet per diner and toss in a combination of extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar.
Divide the dish among the plates/bowls, place a sprinkle of olive oil, and finish with a bit of high-quality canned tuna, a quartered hardboiled egg, and whole anchovy fillets.
Day 12: Haricots Secs avec Thon (Cannellini Beans with Tuna)
It took me about ten minutes to make this dish. Simply mix together a can of cannellini (white kidney beans), some onions, garlic oregano, parsley, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, and olive oil together. Season with salt and pepper. Then add tuna, toss, and garnish with tomatoes.
