Wanna Piccata?

Yes, this title is a rip off of the ever-popular Wendy’s commercial, but I figured it was good enough for my first, real non-dessert post. If you’ve been following my posts from the very beginning, then you’ll know that I used to work in the catering industry (as did my roommate, The Food Scientist). Back in those days, my main jobs were focused on appetizers and desserts, so I’m much more accustomed to making small plates. However, consistent with the rest of my SASE-related experiences, I figured I would step out of my comfort zone and try my hand at some real cooking with a simple entrée known as “Lemon Chicken Piccata.”

The word “piccata” refers to a food preparation method. The meat is sliced, coated, and sautéed before being topped with a sauce. I believe that veal is typically used in European countries; but here in the States (especially the Southern ones), we like our chicken.

Recipe (adapted from Giada de Laurentiis):

• 2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, butterflied and cut in half
• Sea salt
• Ground black pepper
• Garlic powder
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 5 Tb unsalted butter
• 5 Tb extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• Fresh parsley

Begin by mixing in the salt, pepper and garlic powder with 1/2 cup of all purpose flour. I didn’t actually measure the seasonings I added, so I just kept adding ingredients until it smelled good to me. Dredge the chicken breasts in the flour and shake off the excess.

Next, melt 2 Tb of butter with 3 Tb of olive oil. When it starts to sizzle, add 2 pieces of chicken and cook for about 3 minutes per side. Melt another Tb of butter and add 2 Tb of olive oil to the pan and cook the rest of the chicken in the same manner.

For the sauce, add the lemon juice, wine and chicken broth in the same pan you cooked the chicken in, making sure to scrape up some brown bits for extra flavor. Return the chicken to the pan and simmer in the sauce for 5 minutes.

Once the chicken is finished cooking, remove it from the pan. Add the 2 remaining Tb of butter and whisk it in vigorously. Taste the sauce and see if it suits your palate. If not, do a little experimenting by adding some more chicken broth or seasonings to the pan. I personally added a couple cloves of minced garlic and a splash of more chicken broth because it was a bit too lemony for my liking. When I finally deemed it edible, I poured the sauce over the chicken and garnished it with parsley.

Stay tuned for more cooking adventures!

– Chef μChip

Short, Sweet, and Stickyy

Perhaps you have noticed μchip has been desperately attempting to rid herself of 30+ mangoes. Even though this is a late post, as of today, we still have mangoes coming out of our ears. At this point when I made this recipe, she had made almost every and any-thing “sweet” out of mangoes – see her posts below. On the other hand, I wanted something savory that still used mangoes and wasn’t a salad (maybe one day I will go into my salad talk). And if you have been following the blog, you will see I have mentioned my healthy obsession with wings. I wanted to try creating a “fried” chicken wing mouth feel without having to deep fry them, so I found a couple different methods online that bakes “fried” chicken and developed my own idea.

Baked “Fried” Wings I

• 10 wings
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• ½ cup flour
• Baking spray

Skipping straight to the part where the drum and flat are separated (in my case 10 wings total), I tossed them in a bowl with the oil, salt, and pepper until coated. Then I tossed them in a separate bowl of just flour. Shaking off excess flour, I laid them down in one layer on a greased cookie sheet skin side up. Spraying the tops with baking spray, bake them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F or until crisp and golden brown, turning them half way through.

Sticky Mango Chipotle Sauce

• 1.5 mango – sliced and pitted
• 1/4 cup chipotle sauce
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• Salt and pepper to taste

Basically I just put all of the ingredients except the honey in a blender until smooth. I then heated the mixture with the honey in a saucepan until the sugars started to bubble. Using a large bowl, I tossed the wings in the sauce straight from the pan and placed them back in the oven at 350 degrees F for 2-3 minutes allowing the wings to become sticky on the outside.

Still licking my fingers clean (and now needing to wipe my keyboard)

❤ The Food Scientist

Oh Lolli-lolli-lolli…

LOLLLIPOP! Bah dum bum bummm. Dude! You’re getting a Del-iciously-sweet-cand…Chicken lollipop? Yes, chicken lollipops. What is it? Well, if we deconstruct its name, it is essentially a lollipop shaped piece of chicken – derived from the ever-so-popular chicken wing.

Earlier this summer I traveled back to the homeland (the Philippines), and rediscovered the appetizer/entrée that is the chicken lollipop. Over there they can be sold on the streets out of a food cart – attached to a bicycle – or in restaurants – which is more costly probably because you are paying for the atmosphere and the cleanliness of preparation. Although I was not personally deterred from them because of that [I LOVE (trying) STREET FOOD IN ALL COUNTRIES!], I became a little obsessed with them because of the presentation compared to wing-wings, plus the whole “Filipino-esque” food that it is, and from there…my mind went a million directions.

Note – you may notice later my obsession with normal chicken wings…and the billions of ideas of sauces I have for them.

Anywho, I HAD TO FIGURE OUT how to make them. Obviously googling technique – I think the best one is at this website (http://panlasangpinoy.com/2010/02/22/quick-easy-chicken-lollipop-recipe/). The video is user friendly! I will try to explain here though, too.

Basically whole wings were cheap the other day, and I bought a lot, portioned 5 into smaller bags (til you run out), and freeze them. You can then thaw them out as you need them, and you will end up with 10 wings each time. (You can tell the majority if not all of my recipes are meant for single or two servings – #datcollegelifestyledoe)

A chicken wing has three parts: the drum, the wing, and the tip. The tip is typically chopped off and discarded or used to make stock later. And you are left with the drum and the wing (or flat) which is what you see at most restaurants. They will be joined by an outside skin and what looks like a ball-and-socket joint. Take a knife and slice the outer skin (as if splitting in half) where the joint is (Please see photo). From there you can apply some pressure to allow the joint to split and slice the rest of the skin around the joint, leaving two pieces – the drum and the flat. I know, I know, there is a lot of wording/technique here, but the video should help a lot! From there the meat on the bone is pushed to one end of the bone forming a “lollipop.”

At this point, I took the reins, and liberally salted, peppered, and garlic-ked the lollies, and then did the important three-step breading – flour, egg wash, panko. This is where my little secret comes in; I actually like to bake these first, and then fry them up later for the crunchy, juicy mouth feel we all know and love! The lollipops were baked erect in a 375 degree F oven for 20-25 minutes -the baking ensures the cooking of the chicken.
As for the frying, I actually do not deep fry my wings – I shallow pan fry them, but on two sides. I’m sure deep frying would work as well, but I try not to use so much oil. Anyway fry until golden brown!

Now you can eat them as is, with rice, or…you can buff them – aka toss them in a sauce (not necessarily buffalo, but it seems to be the common term). For this set of lollies, I was inspired by my recent trip to New Orleans, and the finger-lickin’, bread-soppin’, shell suckin’ charbroiled oysters at the Acme Oyster House on Iberville in the Quarter. Charbroiled oysters are fresh oysters from the Gulf, shucked, and charbroiled with a secret butter garlic sauce and romano/parmesan cheeses. They are served sizzlin’ hot, open faced with extra butter sauce, with slices of crusty French bread for dipping…okay, okay, I’ll stop drooling now and explain that I basically threw together my own herbed butter sauce to toss the hot lollipops.

Herbed Butter Garlic Sauce

• ¼ stick of butter (unsalted and melted)
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• ½ tsp basil
• ½ tsp parsley
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• Splash of lemon juice
• 1/8 cup pf grated parmesan cheese (fresher the better)

Easily enough – combine all of the above ingredients, and toss the cooked lollies in the sauce (while hot). Before serving, I sprinkled a little extra parmesan cheese on top which melts upon the hot melted butter.

As they say in NOLA, Laissez les bons temps rouler! (Let the good times roll!)

❤ The Food Scientist

Cola Chicken Wings

I’m not sure why, but I always crave cola wings.  They’re easy to make, sweet, and who doesn’t like wings?!  So I figured I had some time this Sunday to make food for the entire week, so I stop spending on going out.  And I settled on this recipe: http://appetiteforchina.com/recipes/coca-cola-chicken-wings/

So I started off by marinating about 2 lbs of chicken wings in 1/8 cup of soy sauce.  I got distracted watching NCIS for the next hour or two and just let it sit and soak in the flavor.  Then I put about 3 cups of rice in the rice cooker and started searing the wings.  After 5-8 mins, I added the rest of the ingredients, 1/8 cup of soy sauce, 3/4 cup of coke, 2 teaspoons of apple cider, 2 teaspoons of olive oil, and a few slices of ginger.  After another 10 minutes of simmering, I tasted the sauce and it was way too cidery, so I decided to pour in a bunch more coke and added about 1 tablespoon + teaspoon of sugar.  It was okay, still a little salty, so I just let it simmer for about 30 minutes.  Ta-da, dinner for tonight, and 3 days of lunch! 🙂

Cola Chicken with Rice and Scallion

And that’s it for today!

-Chef JKwong