Cilantro Lime Chicken Fried Rice

Fried Rice is easier than stir-fry, y'all. And it's so tasty. The only exotic thing in this recipe is ginger--and if you read my blog then you know I've told you at least three times now to buy a hand of ginger and keep it in your freezer so you can grate it as you need it.

If you don't read my blog, then know that I live in a rural Texas town where I can't buy fresh ginger or leeks, or anything more exotic than a red onion. This blog is about tasty cooking with simple ingredients that are available just about anywhere.

Fried Rice is best made with leftover rice but who usually has six cups of leftover rice in the fridge? If I can, I just make the rice a day ahead or early the day of.

Cilantro Lime Chicken Fried Rice
This is not something you want to eat if you're going to be kissing anybody.
Ingredients:

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut up pretty much how you please. Strips or cubes is fine.

6 garlic cloves, peeled

2-3 serrano peppers with the stems removed

2 bunches of green onions, cleaned and cut into thirds and then julienned. You can substitute one red bell pepper, also julienned, in place of one bunch of the green onions if you like bell pepper. Leeks go well in this recipe and are more mild than the green onions, a very nice substitution if you can get them and definitely my preference.

1 cup of coarsely chopped cilantro, loosely packed (use up to 1.5 cups if you like, it won't hurt a thing). If you have fresh basil, you can use it instead of the cilantro if you like. Use the basil leaves whole. Do garnish the dish with cilantro, though, it adds excellent flavor.

3 TBS grated ginger

1 TBS honey or a teaspoon of white sugar

1 lime, juiced

1/8 cup soy sauce

Six cups of cooked rice (preferably Jasmine but whatever)

1/4 cup peanut or vegetable oil

Using a mortar and pestle mash peppers and garlic cloves until pulverized. If you don't have a mortar and pestle, dice the garlic and peppers and mash them with the flat of a large blade by laying the blade flat on the garlic and peppers and pressing hard with your hand repeatedly. Mashing them brings out their oils and flavors better. But, if you prefer, you could also use a Cuisinart or an electric coffee grinder.

In a wok or dutch oven heat oil over medium heat, not too hot, and saute garlic and peppers for thirty seconds to a minute.

Add the chicken and turn the heat up to high. Stir constantly until chicken is about halfway cooked, then add all of the rice and combine well. If rice starts to stick to the pan too much (and it will very likely stick, don't let that bother you a bit, just don't let it burn) you can turn the heat back down to medium.

Add soy sauce, ginger, lime juice, and honey, combine well. It takes a while to combine six cups of cooked rice, all that chicken, and all these seasonings. Don't fret, your chicken will have plenty of time to finish cooking while you are busy getting it all combined.

Add green onions and cilantro and combine well, allowing it to cook for a minute or two until the green onions start to go limp. Do not overcook.

Serve and enjoy as an entree or as a side dish.

You can substitute fish sauce and/or oyster sauce for the soy sauce. It will add a great depth of flavor as well as adding all the saltiness the dish will need.

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.

Bryzanne's Chilaquiles

The cost of the Mexican cheese and Mexican cream runs the price of this chicken recipe up a bit unless you are lucky and can get these items cheaper than we can. Using the substitutes for these ingredients brings the price back down.

Ingredients:
1.75 lbs. cooked, skinned, deboned, and shredded chicken meat (or just the meat from one, whole boiled chicken)
3 lbs. of tomatoes and 1 8oz. can tomato sauce or 2 lbs. tomatoes and 2 8oz. cans tomato sauce. You could also use canned diced tomatoes if you like but you will still need some tomato sauce.
1 cup of chicken broth or 1 cup water or 1 cup white wine
1/2 a large onion, chopped
1 TBS lime juice
2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. oregano
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. chili powder
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
black pepper to taste
cilantro to taste (not too much, three TBS coarsely chopped is a good place to start)
1/4 tsp. minced garlic

Topping (and bedding):
Home fried corn tortilla strips or chips or store bought tortilla chips or Fritos (my personal preference--it is infinitely better than it sounds). You'll need plenty of these, you'll be serving your chilaquiles on a bed of fried chips.
8 oz. Panela cheese or any crumbly Mexican cheese--if you can't find this you can use mozzarella instead.
8 ounces Mexican Cream or a cream mixture using a half pint of whipped heavy cream (just until it thickens) blended with 8 ounces of sour cream.

Directions:
If cooking a whole chicken or chicken breasts, remove the skin and boil with garlic, salt, and onion in the water and reserve a cup of the liquid when the chicken is done. Debone chicken and shred the meat. If using pre-cooked chicken, just move on and use canned broth if you have it, or water or white wine if you don't.

Bring enough water to boil to blanch your tomatoes so they can be peeled. Blanch for up to one minute then remove from boiling water and peel and core them. Chop tomatoes and set aside.

Sauté chopped onion in a bit of olive oil. When they begin to soften and smell good, toss in the garlic and cumin and sauté a minute or two longer then add the rest of the ingredients but not the broth, chips, cheese, and cream. Stir well and simmer for at least ten minutes. Add broth or wine as needed to keep the mixture simmering. You are looking for this mixture to be just thin enough to pour over the chips but not soupy. You don't want excess liquid making your chips overly mushy.

When ready to serve, and not before, prepare each serving on a plate or bowl starting with a bed of chips covered with some of the chilaquiles mixture, crumble Panela cheese on this, then drizzle with Mexican cream or cream mixture and serve immediately. Garnish with cilantro.

The last time I made these I was too hungry to photograph them, but they're actually quite visually appealing. I'll try and shoot them next time.

How to pronounce "chilaquiles"--CHEE-LA-KEE-LAYS.

Chilaquiles are such a popular dish that even Wikipedia has a page on them! It's a dish that varies from region to region, so don't be surprised when you find 100 different ways to prepare it online.