Chicken á la Creole

Click the image to the left to see the recipe enlarged.

This Cajun chicken recipe is not fast. However, it's very inexpensive, simple, and worth the time and chopping. Although you can cheat and use canned maters if you like!

I love how some of the simplest recipes tend to be the best recipes! At least to some... it's my husband's favorite but not mine. Be warned, after you've finally gotten everything chopped and put together, the whole mess has to simmer for an hour before it's ready. I have included a few tips on the recipe.

This dish reminds me a lot of Bryzanne's Chilaquiles. Funny how nearly the same ingredients can taste so incredibly differently when you switch up the seasonings just a bit. This recipe comes from our very battered copy of Justin Wilson's Homegrown Louisiana Cookin'.

Tip #1--Don't fret if you can't get fresh parsley, just use three heaping tablespoons of dried parsley and add it when you add the mint and garlic.

Tip #2 -- If you have no mint on your spice rack, you can tear open a bag of mint tea and use that. Not spearmint tea or peppermint, but straight mint. If you don't have that, you could use basil instead or just use nothing at all in place of it. This dish will still have plenty of flavor.

Tip #3 -- regarding the stock, I use frozen Stock that I defrost by the cupful as needed. But you can just strain the broth you cooked the chicken in. If you know you are going to be using the broth from the chicken pot, be sure and boil your chicken with plenty of goodies so you have a flavorful stock to work with. I wouldn't use celery because it wouldn't compliment this dish, but any combination of leeks, onions, garlic, pepper, parsley, salt, and wine would be excellent. Also, if you substitute half the water for cooking your rice with stock, it will add wonderful flavor. Using nothing but stock to cook your rice in usually results in sticky rice that is flavorful but has unpleasant texture.

Asian Style Soup

Last night I wanted something DIFFERENT! But I didn't have anything DIFFERENT in the house. Yet I managed to come up with a surprisingly good soup that reminded me of Hot & Sour soup. So good. This Asian style soup recipe really lends itself to some experimentation, have fun with it!

Ingredients:
Three boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I buy these frozen and by the bagful at the grocery store and keep them for recipes just like this one--they're individually frozen and it's so convenient and time saving to be able to just pull out what you need.

8 cups Chicken Stock

A tablespoon or two of grated ginger-- if you are remote like me, buy a hand or two of ginger the first chance you get and stick it in a Ziplock freezer bag and keep it frozen, grating off what you need. It will last you a long while. The ginger will soften quickly out of the freezer, so you can always opt to just let a hunk of it sit out for a little while and slice it super thin if you prefer it that way. I prefer it grated. You'll really have to use your own judgment as to how much ginger to use for this recipe. I've never gotten too much.... yet. You don't have to cook with ginger more than a few times to figure it out though. By the way, ground or crystallized ginger is not the same as fresh or frozen ginger. You can't substitute ground ginger for fresh/frozen ginger.

4 cloves of garlic, 1 left whole but peeled and the other three peeled, and sliced thin.

1 and 3/4 cups of rice, preferably Jasmine or some other aromatic rice. Whole grain is fine. So is any old white rice. If using quick cooking rice then you'll need to adjust the cooking time accordingly. The rice needs to be cooked in the stock, however. Leftover rice in this recipe wouldn't be right.

1 and 1/2 TBS chili powder

2 TBS soy sauce

Dried or fresh peppers. We grow Kung Pao peppers and I dry them and store them for use such as this. I used three dried Kung Pao peppers in this recipe. Crushed red pepper would be fine instead and it's certainly very easy to find. Use according to your taste.

1 large lime -- we only had some of the really small ones in the fridge for some reason, I used three.

1/2 a large, coarsely chopped onion (I prefer to cut it in short, fat strips but it's really not a big deal how you cut it)

1 TBS chopped fresh cilantro

2 TBS cornstarch (optional)


Directions:
Place the thighs, frozen or not, in a small pot, cover with water, and add 1/4 of the lime (with skin), 1/2 TBS of the chili powder, about 1/4 of the onion you have chopped, a chunk of the ginger--no need to slice it for this, some of the spicy pepper--half a teaspoon if using crushed red pepper, a tablespoon of the soy sauce, the whole clove of garlic, and black pepper if you like. Bring to a boil then simmer until the meat is done and tender enough to cut it easily.

After you've got the chicken simmering, put the stock into a pot big enough to make your soup in. Add the remaining soy sauce, chili powder, peppers (spicy and/or black) according to your taste, the juice from the remaining lime, the remaining onion, the ginger, and the rice. Don't worry about the cornstarch yet. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover and cook on low for 20 minutes. The chicken will likely be done before the rice is. This is a good thing. As soon as the chicken is done remove it from the liquid it's cooking in and set it on a cutting board to cool. Dispose of the liquid you cooked the chicken in, you won't need it. When the chicken has cooled enough, chop it into bite sized pieces or shred it if you prefer.

Five minutes before the rice is done, add the chicken to the soup pot--don't stir it, replace the lid and continue cooking for the last five minutes. When the time is up, check the consistency. Would you like it thicker? To a small amount of tepid water, less than 1/8th of a cup, add your cornstarch and whisk. Once combined, add the mixture to the soup and raise the heat under the soup pot, stirring constantly, until it begins to thicken. Turn off heat, stir in the tablespoon of the fresh, chopped cilantro, and serve. Drizzle with more soy sauce if you like.

If you don't have cilantro you could use some fresh chopped green onions (just the green tops), or some fresh chopped lemongrass (yeah, like I can run out and buy THAT at our local grocery store), or a very small amount of fresh, chopped spinach, or a small amount of the softer, greener bits of bok choy could also be used.

Thin sliced tofu would probably be lovely in this recipe as well, either in place of or in addition to the chicken. The recipe doesn't NEED the chicken, by the way, the stock provides plenty of flavor but without the chicken, there's not much protein in the dish.

My favorite thing about this recipe is that the next day, it will be much thicker and won't be at all unlike congee. I'll get to that recipe in the near future. Congee is one of my favorite foods.

What makes this recipe really work is the chicken stock. That's the secret.

A key to flavor in low budget cooking

Stock. Chicken stock, turkey stock, venison stock, beef stock, fish stock, or vegetable stock. STOCK STOCK STOCK! My kitchen wouldn't be complete without it. Stock and broth are two different things, by the way. This blog entry is about STOCK!

I have yet to master vegetable stock or even touch on fish stock, so I'm not going to talk about those. Chicken and turkey stocks are my favorite and I use them almost exclusively.

I used to put celery in all my stocks 'cuz everybody said to but I don't always want my stock to taste like soup so I stopped doing it. If you are making your stock specifically for soup, then be free with the celery and don't forget to add some celery leaves as well--they contain lots of flavor. For me, the ideal all-around stock contains few ingredients. This stock can become the can't-cook-without-it base for your soup, your secret ingredient for sauce (I use it in Asian sauces and in plain ol' gravy), or diluted with water to cook noodles in or to use in the best rice ever made. And if you're making congee (oh so easy and oh so good), you must have stock.

If you make a whole chicken or turkey, be sure and save those bones in the freezer for future use!

Chicken/Turkey Stock:

Chicken or turkey bones--I prefer to use two chicken carcasses but maybe that's because I always make such a big batch of stock. One turkey carcass is always enough.
Two or three cups of white wine if you have it
One large onion, halved. I prefer to use the peel although some people say it can make your stock bitter (I can't tell that it does this)--I do cut off the big gnarly end--mostly out of habit.
Several cloves of garlic, mashed, but still in skin.
5 to 10 black peppercorns, or to taste. Just throwing in a teaspoon of pepper or more to taste is fine too. I don't like a lot of black pepper myself
2 to 3 teaspoons of salt depending on your preferences
Dried or fresh parsley if you have it. A lot.
Save your leek tops in the freezer to throw into stocks, you won't be sorry. Or toss in some green onions if you have some extra in the fridge.
Poke around the fridge and feel free to toss in some stray veggie here or there just to see what happens--turnips, squash, some herbs, or even an apple or pear.

I limit what I put in my stock so I can use it in various recipes without being stuck with a flavor in there that I don't want--I can always add tomatoes, carrots, celery or whatever I want to the recipe I am using the stock in if I want to.

Cover your bones, veggies, and spices well with water and bring to boil then simmer for at least three hours. Once done, strain it well through a colander or sieve, then place in fridge overnight. The next day, the fat will have separated from the stock and hardened and you can just pick it off and throw it away. The more gelatinous your remaining stock is when it is cold, the better you have done. So pat yourself on the back if you have a big bowl of chicken jello. You now have a virtually fat free stock that is plum packed with flavor.

I like to freeze several 1/2 cup and 1 cup packages of stock for sauces. That whole thing with pouring it into an ice tray so you can freeze cubes of it is messy. I just buy the cheapest sealable bags that I can, pour 1 cup into each bag (a canning funnel is very handy here) and then freeze them. Once they are frozen, I stuff as many of them as I can into a gallon size freezer bag. Frozen stock, if not sealed well, will begin to dehydrate in your freezer and, if not stored well, it will just disappear. It needs, ultimately, to be stored in a quality freezer bag or container. You can vacuum seal your stock by pouring it into vacuum bags and setting the bags carefully in the freezer, unsealed. Once they are frozen they can be sealed. It's not really worth the fuss, however.

I also store stock in four cup amounts. It's about the perfect amount for a nice pot of soup--not enough to feed a large family but more than enough for you and one or two others.

Venison Stock Recipe:

Venison makes for such a strong stock that if you are going to do this, you must really like the flavor of wild game. Also, even for the most avid wild game fan, it's better to use a spike or young doe for your stock, older or bigger deer are going to have a stronger "gamey" flavor. This applies to Axis as well as White Tail. Axis stock comes out golden like turkey stock and always tastes lighter and more delicious to me than White Tail stock. Venison stock is delicious and when I can venison meat, I prefer to can it in venison stock.

On to the recipe....

You needs you some deer bones. You can crack rib bones easily with some pliers or a hammer--cracking the bones will make your stock much better. Don't go crazy, a crack here or there is fine. You don't want shards of bones ending up in your stock. If using leg bones, I find that a hammer is the easiest way to break the bones.

Add the bones you are going to use to your stock pot--a rear leg (needs a very large pot) or two front legs or five or six cracked ribs is sufficient for one batch of stock. Depends on you and how strong you like your stock. Making venison stock is really dependent on a very large pot unless you snag some vertebrae and take the time to separate them which is, actually, quite a pain.

1 large onion, halved with skin--big gnarly end removed just in case that's what those chefs are really talking about in regard to bitter stock

Pepper to taste--I prefer peppercorns but ground black pepper will do

Several cloves of garlic, mashed but not skinned

Two cups of red or white wine, I prefer white in venison stock

A whole bunch of fresh parsley or several tablespoons of dried parsley

Add water until it's all covered and refer to Chicken/Turkey Stock recipe above to finish up.

Beef Stock Recipe:

Follow the recipe for Venison Stock but instead of front legs/back legs/etc, use whatever bones you have available. If you happen to see some really cheap ribs at the store, buy them for stock. Or ask the butcher if he has some beef bones back behind the counter. I can't get beef bones from the butcher in my small town so I just buy ribs.

About carrots:

I don't like cooked carrots. And even though they add a nice flavor and wonderful color to just about any stock, I don't use them. Feel free to include a few carrots or parsnips (if you're lucky enough to get any where you live) to any of the stock recipes above. Personally, when using them, I advise not using too many. Carrots are sweet. You may like the sweetness they add to your stock, or you might be like me and just prefer not to go there.

Chef Christopher Allen Tanner On Making Stock--I can't wait to try it his way... by roasting the bones first!