Chicken Périgord-Style for #RandomRecipeChallenge

The past couple of weeks I have had so many lovely comments and Facebook messages from folks who keep telling me how organized I am.  And mostly I am.  Really.  But I dropped the ball on this one.  When it came time to make the dish for this month’s Random Recipe, where Dom from Belleau Kitchen challenged us to use our birthday day to choose a cookbook off of our shelves and then let that book open to a random recipe, I ran into a small problem.  Hands up all of you who know where my cookbooks are!  Yep, in the sea freight.  Now what?  As you might have read way back here only two books with recipes come in the suitcase.  So, I grabbed my Good Housekeeping and opened it randomly.  Then I counted forward to the 23rd recipe. And it can’t get any more random than that with only one real cookbook to choose from.  Sorry, Dom!  Hopefully by next month, my cookbooks will be here.

I ended up in Poultry and the 23rd recipe called for boneless chicken breasts with heart-stopping amounts of butter.  And then cream!  This dish was so rich and delicious that I suggest you cook it for anyone you want swooning in your arms.  Let’s just call it love and not a heart attack, okay?

The original recipe called for eight chicken breasts but I cooked only four (well, my pack ended up being three and two little ones) and left all the other ingredients exactly the same, because we like sauce.  Feel free to add the extra breasts if you have more people to feed.

Ingredients
8 oz or 225g mushrooms, cleaned – I used Swiss browns.
1/2 cup or 110g butter
Drizzle olive oil – perhaps a teaspoon
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1.1 pounds or 500g)
1/3 cup or 40g flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
14 oz or 415ml chicken broth or stock
2 tablespoons cream
1 teaspoon minced chives for garnish – optional

Method
Cut the hard ends off of the mushroom stems and then slice them.  Set aside.

Rinse the chicken breasts and then dry them between some paper towels.

Melt three-quarters of the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, along with a small drizzle of olive oil.  Slide the breasts in and cook until browned on both sides.   They will not be cooked through so don’t be alarmed if they are still pink on the insides.  Remove to a plate.

Add the mushrooms and the rest of the butter to the pan.  Cook until the mushrooms are golden.  Remove mushrooms with a slotted spoon and set them aside in a small bowl.

Turn off the fire and stir the flour and salt into the pan drippings.  Use a whisk, if necessary to make sure there are no lumps.

Gradually stir in chicken broth and cream and then cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened.

Return the chicken and mushrooms to the pan.  Pour in any chicken juices that collected on the plate.

Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 25 minutes, with the lid on.

Serve over rice or noodles. Add the green onions for garnish, if desired.

Enjoy!

Banana Cream Pie is the New Birthday Cake

The best banana cream pie is made with loads of bananas! Just a few slices at the bottom will not do. Then top with homemade vanilla custard and heaps of whipped cream.

Centuries back, when my sweetie and I started dating, we came to the inevitable first birthday celebration. Of course, I was going to make him a birthday cake.

“What kind of cake would you like,” I asked.
“I don’t really have a favorite,” he replied.
“Well, when you were a child, what kind of cake did you always ask for?”
“I didn’t get to choose,” he says. “My mother just organized the cake.”

To say I was appalled was putting it mildly. In my family of origin, birthdays were a big deal. The birthday person got to choose the cake, what we did that day, and even the dinner meal plan.  A restaurant or dinner at home. AND what was served, if the choice was meal at home.  Or what restaurant if it was a meal out.

Now I am not saying that my mother-in-law didn’t take his likes and dislikes into account, because she surely loves her son and would have chosen something he liked but, for me, it wasn’t the same.  So, that first year, I made him my childhood birthday cake of choice: Chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

As I got to know him better, I did find out what his favorite sweet treat is:  Banana Cream Pie.  Apparently, I just wasn’t asking the right question. And forever after, that is what he gets on his birthday instead of cake.

Ingredients

1 9-inch baked piecrust (Follow this link for instructions.)
1⁄2 cup or 110g sugar
1⁄3 cup or 42g all-purpose flour
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
2 1⁄4 cups or 530ml milk
4 egg yolks
1 tablespoon or 15g butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3-4 medium bananas (or 7-9 small ones)
1 cup or 240ml heavy whipping cream - for serving

Method

Prepare piecrust and allow to cool. (Or you can prepare your piecrust during the four hours the filling needs to set and cool.  Your choice.  But know that making this pie for after dinner dessert means starting early in your day!  But it is worth it.  Totally.)

In 2-quart saucepan (no heat!) mix sugar, flour and salt.  Stir in milk until smooth.

Make sure you get ALL the lumps out before turning on the heat. 

Over medium heat, cook mixture, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened and begins to boil (about 10 minutes). Boil one minute. Remove immediately from heat and set aside.

See the tiny bubbles?  It's gently boiling.

Separate your egg yolks from your whites, by gently transferring the yolk from one half of the shell to the other, putting the whites directly into a sealable plastic container for the refrigerator.  (We will make almond macaroons with these soon!)  Put the yolks in a bowl with enough room to whisk.

Beat egg yolks quickly with a whisk, while drizzling in about a 1/4 cup of the hot milk mixture.   Quick beating and slow drizzling are essential so that you don’t end up with cooked eggs. 

Slowly pour egg mixture into the saucepan, stirring rapidly to prevent lumping.

I know it doesn't look like I was quickly stirring but that is just because I fake poured for
the camera and then really poured and stirred like crazy after. 

Occasionally, scrape the saucepan with a rubber spatula.

Over low heat, cook, stirring constantly, until very thick (do not boil) and mixture mounds when dropped from spoon.

Remove from heat; stir in butter and vanilla.  

Congratulations, you have made homemade vanilla custard.  Once the butter has melted, pour the custard into a metal bowl.  Cover its surface with plastic wrap to prevent skin forming.  Refrigerate until set, about four hours.

Once your custard is cool, you can peel your bananas.  Cut medium ones in half lengthwise and leave small ones whole.  Spread a little of the custard in the bottom of your baked piecrust and then add a layer of bananas.  

Spread the rest of the custard all over the bananas, making sure to fill in the gaps so that there is no air around the bananas.  This will prevent them from going brown.

Securely cover the custard with plastic wrap once more and put the pie back in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.

Just before serving: In small bowl with mixer at medium speed, beat cream until stiff peaks form. This cream does not need to be sweetened since the bananas and the custard are sweet. Discard plastic wrap.

Spread cream on pie. Candle optional.

Enjoy!

Happy birthday to my dear husband!  If you need a smaller pie, try my personal banana cream pie, a 7-inch version. It makes two generous servings.

Holding the hound up so he can help blow out the candle. 

And instead of dropping to the ground, when let go, Beso goes in for a bite.  Faster than the blink of an eye.

Creamy Broccoli Soup

Finally, soup weather!  For the last 10 years we have been living in equatorial Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.  And while KL is near and dear to my heart, and Singapore holds a special place as our very first overseas posting as a married couple, frankly, the weather doesn’t change much.  We had rainy and warm, and less rainy and warm.   So for a soup person like me, really rainy days become soup days.   But Cairo is cold right now! (I had to go out and buy slippers and I can tell you, although you might not believe me, I chose the most demure ones on offer.) This is one of my favorite soups and it’s the starter for dinner tonight, since IT’S SOUP WEATHER HERE.  Simple, easy and delicious.

Biggest broccoli ever - almost 1 kg or 2lbs

Ingredients

One head of broccoli

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 chicken or vegetarian stock cube

Sea salt

Black pepper

Method

Cut the stem off of the broccoli as close to the florets as you can.  Then trim closer so you have only little bitty “heads” of broccoli left.

Peel the stem pieces by cutting into the stem just inside the hard outside and pulling down to pull the outside off.  It should come right off easily, like stringing a piece of celery.

Good inside stem to the left.  Hard outer peel to the right. 

Whenever I am chopping broccoli, Beso waits patiently. Usually he gets the stems. Sorry, buddy, not tonight. 

Chop the stem into small pieces.  Put the stem and half of the florets into a pot and cover them with water.  Add your stock cube and bring to a boil on the stove.  

They were covered!  They are just floating now. 

Turn the fire down to medium and cook until the broccoli is turning to mush.   Take it off the stove and allow to cool slightly.  We are going to blend this and we don’t want to burn ourselves.

Meanwhile, cut your larger florets in halves or quarters, depending on how big they are.  You are looking for bite-sized pieces that won’t take long to cook through. 

Using a hand blender or a regular blender, puree the cooked broccoli until smooth.

Put it back on the fire and heat till just boiling.  Add in the remaining florets and cook until they are done to your satisfaction.  Some people want them still a little crunchy; some want them tender. 

Add in your 1/4 cup cream – or more or less, as you like.  Stir and taste, adding salt, if needed and a good grind or two of fresh black pepper.

Serve with an additional drizzle of cream.  Enjoy!

And here are my slippers.  Go ahead, judge me. You didn't see the other choices.