Ali's Kitchen: Poule Au Pot

Bienvenue, mes choux! It's time for a foray into the French countryside with the classic poule au pot. Literally "chicken in a pot," this dish is parfait for Fall, and easy to make ahead for all-week eats. Allons-y! Here are the basics that will make at least 4-6 servings:

INGREDIENTS
4 pints of chicken stock (possibly more: enough to submerge the ingredients in a large, heavy pot)
2 leeks, just the whites and light-greens, halved crosswise and lengthwise (remember: leeks are dirtier than a teenage boy's imagination, so wash, wash, wash in all those little layers)
1 medium white onion, quartered
1 large turnip, peeled and quartered
2 parsnips, peeled and halved crosswise
2 carrots, peeled and halved crosswise
2 celery stalks, cut into 2-inch pieces
Salt & pepper to taste (start with no salt if you're using canned stock/broth)
Bouquet Garni: 3 parsley springs, 1 large bay leaf, 3 springs of thyme (1-2 tsp dried), 1 celery stalk cut in half. Tie all this together with kitchen twine (or the parsley, if it's a little old and not so crisp), or just throw it in there, and strain the broth when you're serving later, so you don't end up munching on the parsley or bay leaf.
Approx. 8 chicken pieces, or 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into 2-inch chunks

PREPARATION
1. In your large pot, bring the chicken stock to a boil. If using boneless, skinless chicken breasts, boil your vegetables and Bouquet Garni for about 20 minutes, or until just slightly tender.





2. Add the chicken breasts, bring back to a boil, then reduce to a SIMMER (not boil, or the chicken will get tough), partially covered until the chicken is cooked through, about 5-10 minutes (this is obviously contingent on whether your chicken has bones, and/or how small the breast chunks are which you've cut; check doneness often so as not to overcook).

Serve in a shallow bowl with your favorite moisture-absorbing carbohydrate (for instance, a parbaked ciabatta loaf that needs to get out of your freezer before it's completely useless). Make sure everyone gets a little of everything in his or her bowl.

Le yum yum!

THIS RECIPE'S VERSATILITY MAKES IT GREAT!
* If you can't find "stock," just use broth.
* You can use whichever chicken parts you prefer. If using thighs, or parts from a whole chicken, boil these for about 10-20 minutes first, depending on their size, before you start cooking the veggies.
* The beauty of these particulary root vegetables is that they don't turn mushy like potatoes if you need to cook the chicken a little longer than you thought.
* If you don't have one big pot, you can cook your veggies in one pot and chicken in another, with a Bouquet Garni for each.



Steal a little of the vegetables' cooking liquid to add to the chicken's broth, for the parsnip, turnip and carrot flavor.
* You can prep the veggies ahead of time and cover, immersed in water:

This is particularly helpful if, say, your husband and his Playstation buddy are monopolizing the living room all afternoon and you are bored. Any excess water the veggies soak up during this time won't matter so much, since they're going to cook in liquid anyway.

* All ingredients and amounts are totally subjective. Need protein? Use more chicken. Veggie freak? Go hog wild. Don't like some of the root veggies listed below? Substitute others (just make sure to add them earlier or later in the cooking process, so they're not under or overcooked).

* You can use 1/2 to 1 chicken breast, and one of each vegetable type, and make this an easy dish for one. If you have to buy some of the veggies, like the leeks, carrots and celery, in bunches, you can refrigerate them and roast later in the week with sausage and mashed potatoes! Unfortunately, since you'll probably get way too much parsley to use before it goes bad, well...

Gives a whole new meaning to "Bouquet," doesn't it?

Post script: It is with much thanks that we bid adieu to our beloved Sony point-and-click and welcome to blogland our brand new Canon, hereafter christened Carlita Canon.

Hola.

Welcome, Carlita, and thanks to Tarot for being such a willing test subject for figuring out what the hell "aperture value" is.

Le meow meow.

Ali's Kitchen: Shellfish with Chipotle and Tequila

I'm REALLY excited about this one because the picture is REALLY PRETTY, and as we all know, presentation is half the battle. See?



I didn't take this picture. Whoever did, please don't sue me. I love you; you're an awesome food photographer.

Here's the gist from Cooking Light:Ingredients1 teaspoon olive oil Cooking spray 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion (about 1 large) 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 3/4 cups water 1/4 cup tequila 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 1 lime) 1 teaspoon ground cumin 2 teaspoons tomato paste 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped seeded chipotle chile, canned in adobo sauce 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric 1 (14.5-ounce) can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained 1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth 24 littleneck clams 1/2 pound sea scallops 1/2 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro 1/4 cup chopped green onions Preparation1. Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Add yellow onion, bell pepper, black pepper, and salt to pan; sauté 5 minutes or until tender. Add garlic; sauté 2 minutes. Add 1 3/4 cups water and next 10 ingredients (through chicken broth) to pan. Reduce heat to low, and simmer 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. 2. Arrange clams in a steamer. Cover and steam over boiling water 8 minutes or until shells open. Discard any unopened shells; set aside. 3. Add scallops and shrimp to tomato mixture; cook 7 minutes or just until done. Ladle 2 cups soup into each of 4 large shallow bowls; top each serving with 6 clams, 1 tablespoon cilantro, and 1 tablespoon green onions.

Accompanying this main dish will be some more couscous, and a simple green salad (tatsoi) with the excess green onions.

So, that's what we're aiming for. Ambitions are high. Hopes are... a little tepid, since I don't actually have the "chipotle peppers in adobo" which this recipe calls for. I have ground chipotle powder. At my dad's suggestion (he is a masterful cook), I'm halving the measurement of "chipotle" whatever, which makes this about 1/2 tsp. chipotle pepper I'm using. Other alterations include SHALLOTS instead of yellow onions (why buy more when you already have something vaguely similar in this crappy, crappy economy?); bottled lime juice instead of fresh limes (ditto); chicken broth that I need to get rid of; not having a steamer for the clams; and some shrimp that really, REALLY needs to come out of the freezer, which was the main reason for cooking this recipe, rather than the other pretty ones in the newest issue of Cooking Light. I would also like to take this moment to advocate buying local food and produce. The other main reason I went with this recipe was that our "local dayboat" littleneck clams were on sale. They look AWESOME. At this point of typing I obviously haven't eaten any, but they LOOK great. And they're SO much easier to clean than mussels. I had to debeard ONE clam, as opposed to every mussel I've ever cleaned. I'm also going with our "local dayboat" (which here means Long Island, probably) scallops, which were similarly reduced by the wonder that is Fresh Direct. Cry for not having it. CRY, I TELL YOU, FOR IT IS AWESOME. Except that it doesn't seem to have chipotle peppers canned in adobo sauce at the moment. Oh well. Here we go!

This is one of those recipes that takes A. Lot. Of. Prep. If you are not, for instance, Courtney and never learned how to chop produce professionally, this may take you a long time with all the chopping of the peppers and the onions and the garlic and cilantro and the other onions. And also the measuring of the spices and the tomato paste, etc. Then there's the cleaning the clams (again, not as long as mussels) and the peeling and deveining/cleaning the shrimp.

Shrimp Tip: If you suck at cleaning shrimp, or just don't have a little shrimp de-veiner thingy, just butterfly it (slice it down the back, that is), and, again, if you're like me and can't ever managed to get the poop-or-intestine-or-whatever-that-dark-stuff-is out of the shrimp with the knife itself, a BAMBOO GRILLING SKEWER is great.

Interesting Shrimp Fact: The shrimp I'm using have their poop-or-intestine-or-whatever-that-dark-stuff-is on the BOTTOM. ... WHAT? Who ever heard of that? Also, they're a little freezer burned, but that's not exactly their fault, is it?

So, here are all your ingredients, nice and chopped and prepped, and hopefully you haven't sliced off any of your fingers with your sharp J.A. Henckels knives, which rock hardcore:

Bonus points for me smelling out which square of Saran wrap matched up with which prepared ingredient after this photoshoot

For the clams, since I don't have a steamer, I'm using some of the excess chicken broth mixed with water to steam. Why not, right? This could all go horribly, horribly wrong.

HERE WE GO:

We've already encountered our first unintended alteration: In my frenzy of preparation, I accidentally mixed the salt and pepper in with the other spices, while the recipe calls for them to go in with the olive oil FIRST. No idea how this will affect the food from a chemical/flavor standpoint. Maybe not at all, maybe we'll end up order pizza. [Discovery Channel narrator's voice]

Second problem: WHY DID I PRINT OUT THE RECIPE THIS SMALL?!

Um... wut?

Let's see what's ahead.

So, if you're like me, your stove has a terrible inequity (I almost wrote "iniquity") of heat distribution. This makes it tough to simmer, fry or sautee. But I'm doing my best to simmer the veggie broth for about 12 minutes, over low heat, stirring occasionally.

Since I don't want to overcook the clams, I'm not steaming them yet, but I am pre-heating the steaming liquid so I can cook the clams at basically the same time as the shrimp and scallops. Also, my couscous has already been cooked in the microwave.

While the clam and scallop-shrimp liquids are heating, you can pass your time watching Robin Hood: Men In Tights.

Always diverting

Okay, now we're putting on the shrimp and scallops... and the the clams...

Smells... SPICY. I hope my dad's estimate of the canned-chipotle-to-powdered-chipotle was accurate, otherwise K will be very happy and I will be drinking even more wine. (... It was a stressful day, for the LAST time.)

Okay, TASTES spicy too. Wow. Heat. Yikes. I guess I have no reference for using the chopped canned chipotles peppers vs. chipotle powder, but JEEZ. SPICY.

Anywho, this is what mine turned out looking like:

Looks redder than the recipe photographed for the magazine. On the plus side, look how FAT and JUICY this "local dayboat" clam is:

I'll be making this again, but probably with less freezerburned shrimp and LESS COOKING TIME OVERALL, because this dude lied, and all the seafood should have withstood much less heat. Although the fat clams emerged unscathed. See?

I'm sorry. That's not a clam; it's a feline sous chef sitting in the recycling pile. How terribly misleading of me.