Thai Chicken Salad

In my continuing effort to avoid turning my kitchen into the sweltering fires of hell,  I decided that this time I would cheat a little.  Just a little,  and it's for the greater good.   The heat index is hovering in the triple digits while beads of sweat are pooling at the nape of my neck.  The least entertaining thought at this moment is "let's fire up the oven".

Store-bought roast chicken: In the winter months, this would be considered sacrilege... but in the blistering heat of summer, it is sweet salvation! 

As if buying the chicken wasn't enough, the food processor is going to do the majority of the work!  Yep, this might be the perfect summer recipe.  The amount of work involved barely even registers.  If you don't own a food processor it isn't the end of the world, just a bit of chopping & grating.

For this recipe I only used the breast meat,  reserve the rest for sandwiches or soups,  the carcass for stock, etc.

For the dressing:

• 3 tbsp rice vinegar
• zest and juice of 2 limes
• 4 tbsp vegetable, canola or grapeseed oil
• 1/2 shallot, finely sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 red Thai chili (green if you can't find red), minced 
• salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

I went to 5, yes FIVE stores trying to find a red chili but with no luck, so I ended up with green.  The main difference is the heat level.  I couldn't find a pepper with a decent amount of heat to it, so I had to use what I could find.  If this happens to you as well and you like a little heat in your food, you can add a dash of sriracha or any other hot sauce that you like.

Combine all ingredients and set aside.  Let dressing sit for at least 30 minutes.  The acid will help break down and mellow garlic & shallot and the flavors along with the chili pepper will infuse dressing.   I like the acidic bite of vinegar & lime juice however, if you find it's too much cut the limes to one.

Thai Chicken Salad

• 1 small head green cabbage
• 2 - 3 medium carrots
• 2 cooked chicken breasts, shredded or finely sliced
• small handful of salted peanuts, roughly chopped
• 1 bunch scallions (green onion), sliced on bias
• 1 cup snow peas, thinly sliced on bias
• 1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
• 2 tbsp Thai basil, chopped
• 2 tbsp mint, chopped
• salt & pepper to taste

Shred cabbage and carrots in food processor. 

Combine all ingredients in large bowl, pour dressing over top and mix thoroughly.
How's that for easy?!

If You're Afraid of Butter, Use Cream...

The above is one of my favorite quotes from Julia Child, one of the gutsiest broads to ever hoist a meat cleaver. (and I use that term lovingly)

On August 15th of this year, Julia would have turned 100 years old and I'd like to think would still be cooking.
In the 100 days leading up to Julia's birthday, the JC100 is celebrating this culinary powerhouse and her recipes.  Each week, a new recipe is featured and this weeks offering was Coq au Vin...  one of my all time favorites.

I remember watching Julia & Jacques and loved her candor and fearless approach to cooking.  She made it seem fun and most importantly, possible.  She had a way of walking her audience through a recipe that made complex dishes seem effortless and isn't that all we really want? To feel like anything is possible?

Her sing-song voice demonstrated her unmistakable excitement for what she was doing, especially when butter was involved.  She made no apologies for anything, especially her occasional mishaps in the kitchen.   For example, you dropped the chicken?  No big deal, pick it up & rinse it off!   I loved that.  It was like being told, it's ok if it all doesn't go perfectly as planned...  just keep cooking.

Her contributions to cooking and bringing knowledge of French cooking to the American public are unparalleled.  She was truly one of a kind. 

This is my all time favorite quote and precisely why I can relate to her... 

“The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken. Bon appétit. ”
― Julia Child


Coq au Vin

• 2 1/2 to 3 pounds frying-chicken parts (roughly 1 whole chicken, cut up)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cups sliced onion
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 - 2 large cloves of garlic, pureed
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1/3 cup canned Italian plum tomatoes
• 3 cups young red wine
• 1 cup chicken stock
• beurre manie for the sauce: (1 1/2 tbsp each flour and softened butter blended to a paste)
• chopped parsley
• 3 cups fresh mushrooms, trimmed, quartered and sauteed
• 1/2 cup bacon, cut into 1/4 inch strips (original recipe calls for bacon to be blanched, however I like the saltiness of the bacon so I omitted this step)

1. In a large, heavy-bottomed frying pan, saute the bacon and remove to a side dish, leaving the fat in the pan.
2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
3. Brown the chicken in the pork fat, adding a little olive oil if necessary.  Remove and set aside.
4. Add the onions into the pan and saute over moderate heat until fairly tender, then raise the heat slightly to brown lightly.  Drain to remove excess fat.
5. Return chicken to the pan with the onions, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, tomato and mushrooms.
6. Pour in the wine and enough stock to barely cover and simmer slowly for 20 minutes.
7. Remove chicken from pan and spoon surface fat off the cooking juices.   
8. Taste the mushroom/onion cooking juices, boil down if it needs strength, adding seasoning if necessary.  Off heat, whisk in beurre manie to make a lightly thickened sauce.  Bring briefly to a simmer- the sauce should be just thick enough to lightly coat a spoon.
9. Return chicken to pan, basting with sauce, onions and mushrooms.

* I always serve this over lightly buttered egg noodles, it goes perfectly with the sauce.  You could also serve it with rice or to avoid starch completely, serve with a green salad.

Excerpted from The Way to Cook by Julia Child. Copyright © 1989 by Julia Child. Reprinted with permission from the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

2 birds, 1 stone

To (selfishly) honor a request for a 5 ingredient or less recipe, I decided to make bruschetta.  For those of you who listen to my whining about what I crave (and sometimes tolerate it), it was time to put up or shut up.  Bruschetta is one of those things that you can barely classify as a "recipe" but it has clean, simple flavors and when made with great ingredients it is amazingly delicious.

There is nothing worse than using those insipid, pale, cellophane-wrapped tomatoes from the supermarket when summer's bounty is about to give you the most luscious, ripe tomatoes you could ask for.  If you are lucky enough to have any kind of green space or even a pot on a fire-escape you know the joy of seeing those little seedlings bear fruit.  Growing your own food is something I long to be able to do,  but in the meantime I go to the farmer's market.

There are farmer's markets everywhere now and there is a world of difference between a tomato that came from a farm and the aforementioned kind... a tomato that hasn't been "genetically engineered".  A tomato that actually tastes like a tomato.

For obvious reasons,  this is best made when tomatoes are in season.  A perfectly ripe tomato is what summer tastes like to me and when making something with such few ingredients, it is essential to have them at their peak. 

baby heirloom tomatoes

For this humble offering of a "recipe"  you will need the following:

a loaf of Italian bread
tomatoes  (3 large -or-  2 pints grape/cherry tomatoes)
garlic  (2 cloves)
basil  (half a bunch)
olive oil (1/4 cup, give or take a little)
salt & pepper to taste (these are ALWAYS freebies, so it's not cheating)

1. Slice the bread.  I like to do it on the bias,  so I have a little more surface area.

2. Drizzle it with a little olive oil, or use a pastry brush and coat it evenly with the olive oil.  Sprinkle on a little salt & pepper.

3. Toast the bread.  If you have a grill pan,  use it.  If not, put it in the oven & toast it at 350 for a few minutes until it is golden brown & crunchy.

4. Dice the tomato, paste the garlic (we'll get to that in a minute) and finely slice (or chiffonade) the basil.

The best way to do this is to stack all of the basil leaves on top of one another and them roll them up length-wise as tightly as you can can.

 Then you slice as thinly as your knife skills will allow and you will have ribbons of basil leaf.

5. To make garlic paste: mince the garlic and then sprinkle a bit of kosher salt over it.  The salt acts as an abrasive, helping to break down the garlic.  With the side of the blade, work the garlic back & forth on the cutting board until you start to see it break down. Pasting fresh garlic is nice because you get all the garlic flavor without biting into a chunk of raw garlic which isn't very pleasant.

6. Add the tomato, garlic and basil to a bowl,  add in a few glugs of good olive oil, salt & pepper to taste and pile on top of your perfectly toasted bread.

7. Devour with unabashed pleasure.