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!

Cinnamon Gingernut Muffins with Cinnamon Glaze #MuffinMonday

These cinnamon gingernut muffins are baked with gingernut biscuits inside and as topping for the tender sweet and spicy muffin below. Add cinnamon glaze for an extra kick!

We are settling in nicely to life in our new house here in Dubai and I am delighted to tell you that I have met some of my neighbors. Lovely couple with two adorable children and, even as I type, a day-old newborn boy! I brought them over some of these a couple of days back because they love cinnamon and pregnant ladies can’t eat enough. Am I right?

It’s great to live in an actual neighborhood where you can get to know your neighbors and I look forward to meeting more of them.  Especially the guy with two Corvettes and my dream car, a Mercedes 450SL convertible out front.  I want to be friends with his cars. :) (Update: Got a closer look and its a 350SL.  Close enough for me!)

But let’s get to the topic at hand today, which is muffins!  Originally, I wanted to add gingernut biscuits to last week’s muffin because, as you might recall, the recipe was banana bread and I thought the ginger biscuits would go so nicely with the banana.  And then the little grocery store next to the hotel apartment didn’t have gingernuts.  Sure, it had every OTHER McVitie’s variety but not the one I wanted. And that’s when the Bananas Foster muffin brainwave struck. I had rum from Duty Free. And I had the bananas! I bought some brown sugar and was on my way. Which left the gingernut idea still kicking around, waiting for a chance to be made.

And when this week’s muffin recipe hit my inbox and it was a cinnamon centric muffin, I knew its time had come. Because what goes better than cinnamon and ginger? Exactly nothing, that’s what!   And to add to my excitement, I had traveled from Cairo with a bag of cinnamon chips in my suitcase because I had found it at the store right before I left and I couldn’t leave it behind. I just couldn’t. So I added on a crumble topping made with more crushed gingernut and extra cinnamon chips. And then, since we are in the Holiday Series, TOPPED the topping with a cinnamon glaze. I tell you truly, folks, these were good!  If you like cinnamon and ginger.

Ingredients
For the muffin:
6-7 Gingernut biscuits or 2 1/4 oz or 65g other very gingery gingersnap cookie
1 3/4 cups or 220g flour
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup or 115g melted butter
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
2 large eggs
2 oz or 50g cinnamon chips

For the topping:
6-7 Gingernut biscuits or 2 1/4 oz or 65g other very gingery gingersnap cookie
2 oz or 50g cinnamon chips
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 cup or 60g cold butter, cut in chunks

For the glaze:
1/2 cup or 65g icing sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon full fat yogurt

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners or grease it lightly.

Pop your gingernut biscuits into a baggie and crush them with a rolling pin or the handy dowel you used to make pecan pie baklava last week.  Not too small!  You want some chunks.

Put half the crushed biscuits in a bowl with the other topping ingredients.  Use a pastry blender or two knives to cut the butter into the dry ingredients to make a crumble.  Set aside.

Put the remaining crushed biscuits in a large bowl with the rest of the dry muffin ingredients:  the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Stir to combine.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and melted butter.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until just combined.  Fold in the cinnamon chips.

Divide the batter into your prepared muffin tins.

Sprinkle each with topping, break it apart with your fingers if need be.  Press in lightly.

Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes, or until they're golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and let them cool for five minutes before transferring them from the pan to a rack to cool.

These smelled so good baking that I ate one hot, before the glaze.  So sue me.

Meanwhile, mix your one tablespoon of yogurt with the teaspoon of cinnamon and icing sugar to make the glaze.  It looks too dry at first but just keep stirring!  Icing sugar is a magical substance that turns runny with very little liquid.

Once your muffins have cooled completely, drizzle them with the glaze.  You can do this with a spoon but the glaze goes farther if you use a piping bag with a small tip.

Enjoy! And bring some of these to your neighbors today!  Pregnant or not, they'll be grateful.

Pin these Cinnamon Gingernut Muffins! 

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Pecan Pie Baklava with Dried Cranberries for #CookedinTranslation

Sticky, crunchy pecan pie baklava is made in the traditional manner but with the unusual ingredients of pecans, cranberries and pecan pie syrup for a delicious cross cultural treat.

A couple of years back, I had the good fortune to attend a class at the Asian Food Channel kitchen in Singapore.  I wrote all about it here.  One of the recipes we made was traditional Middle Eastern baklava with honey syrup and pistachios.  The chef demonstrated how to roll the first tube of filo pastry with nuts and then squish it off into the baking tray and then asked for a volunteer for the next one.  I held back a minute or two, in case someone else would step forward, but since no one did, I raised my hand. The chef looked much relieved and complimented me nicely on my baklava roll.

I was amazed at how easy baklava really is because it always looked so complicated on the plate, with all those layers! After that, my fellow students got into it and several took a turn. Sometimes you just have to start the ball rolling, you know. They turned out to be nice folks and we had a great time learning, cooking and eating together.

When my fellow Cooked in Translation members were discussing the theme for this month, we decided that we would each “translate” a different Thanksgiving favorite, rather than working on the same dish.  I remembered my baklava class and thought that pecan pie would translate quite well.  And while I was playing free and easy with pecan pie, I also decided to throw in some dried cranberries.  Just because I could.  If this were real pecan pie, no variations are allowed.  Whatsoever.  Because we use my aunt’s recipe and it is engraved in stone.

As you might remember from past months, Cooked in Translation is where we take a recipe from one culture or ethnicity and interpret it from another culture or ethnicity.  It makes me put my thinking cap on and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.

Ingredients
For the baklava:
1 cup or 225g butter, melted
About 14 oz or 400g pecans, separated (1/4 cup chopped will be reserved for topping)
16oz or 500g package filo pastry (You will probably have a few sheets leftover if you buy the 500g package.)
1/2 cup or 60g dried cranberries, separated (two tablespoons reserved for topping after chopping)

For the pie filling:
1 egg
3/4 cup or 180ml light Karo
1/2 cup or 115g sugar

For the topping:
Reserved chopped pecans and cranberries

N.B.  You will also need a wooden dowel, which can be purchased at a craft or hardware store, or one long chopstick that is used for cooking, like this or this.  This also bakes best in a non-stick pan.  It will get lovely and sticky and you want to be able to remove it easily.


Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Chop your nuts finely in a food processor.  Take out 1/4 cup and set aside for topping later.  Chop your dried cranberries in the food processor.  Reserve about two tablespoons for topping.

Mix the remaining pecans and cranberries together in one bowl.

Using a pastry brush, brush the top layer of filo pastry with melted butter.  Sprinkle with a thin layer of the chopped pecans and cranberries.

Roll up from the long side with your dowel or chopstick and roll it all the way off the stack of filo pastry.

Brush the next layer of filo with butter.  Place your roll back on the near edge of the filo and roll up once more.

Using a hand on either side, compress the stuffed filo roll.

This was a hard step to photograph with only one hand.  You will use both hands to push the filled roll to the middle. 

 Now push it down to one end of the dowel and slide it into the pan.

Make as many rolls as will fill your pan.  My pan is 21cm x 21cm or about 8 1/4 in x 8 1/4 in and, as you will see, it took six rolls.  Which also just finished my pecans, so that worked out. :)

No problem if you didn't compress the roll enough. 

Just push it in and make it fit. 

Brush the tops liberally with butter.

Using a sharp knife, cut the rolls into short lengths - about an inch and a half or four centimeters. Be careful not to mar your non-stick pan though!

Bake for about 25-30 minutes in the preheated oven.

Meanwhile, put your egg, Karo and sugar into a medium bowl.  Whisk until the sugar is dissolved.  This should turn a pale yellow color but, as you can see, my lovely egg yolk was vivid orange so mine just turned yellow.

When the timer rings or your baklava is slightly golden and crunchy, remove it from the oven but leave the oven on. (Sorry about this but the baklava needs to go back in.)  Let it cool for about 10 minutes.

When cooling time is up, give your sugar/Karo mixture another good whisk.  You just thought the sugar was dissolved.  But a little always seems to settle out again.

Pour the mixture over your baklava.  Give it a few minutes to soak in, pushing the pieces apart gently with a spatula, if necessary.

Pop the pan back into the oven for about 20-25 minutes or until it is a nice medium gold and completely sticky around the edges.

You can see that it was still bubbling a little but that subsided when it cooled. 

Mix your reserved pecans and cranberries together and sprinkle them all over the top of the rolls.

Allow to cool just a few minutes before removing from the pan to serve.  The sticky, chewy edges are the best part but it is all delicious.

Enjoy!

And just a quick picture of something I am thankful for today.  The pooch has arrived in good form!