Posts Tagged ‘chicken’

Sorry, people lured in by my meatless recipes.

Although I cook without meat a majority of the time, I am completely powerless when it comes to chicken thighs. Tender, juicy little pieces of meat on not-too-much bone, they’re virtually impossible to screw up — and even better, they’re almost always cheaper than other chicken pieces.

My favorite way to prepare chicken (or turkey) thighs is to make Filipino chicken adobo. There are about as many recipes for adobo as there are cooks, but they all rely on a combination of soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic, at least, and usually a little sugar, bay leaves and black pepper, too. After a fair amount of trial and error, here’s the recipe I use.

Chicken (or turkey or pork) adobo

Combine 1/2 cup mushroom soy sauce, 3/4 cup vinegar, 3 tablespoons honey, 3-5 cloves of minced garlic, 3-ish bay leaves, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper with 1.5 cups water. Bring to a boil and add 3 pounds chicken thighs. Cover, and reduce to a simmer, adding more water if needed to keep the meat covered. Simmer for about 30-40 minutes. Remove from the sauce and set aside. At this point, you can fish out the bay leaves and bring the liquid to a boil until it reduces by at least half. Set a grill (or frying) pan on medium-high heat and grill each piece, skin-side down, until the skin is crisped. The sugar helps caramelize the skin but it will also help it burn faster, so watch out. Serve (with a little of the reduced sauce) over white rice or shredded cabbage or whatever suits you.

Some notes: this recipe is based on what I usually have on hand. The mushroom soy sauce isn’t exactly traditional, but because it’s so thick and dark, you can use much less and get the same result that you’d get with about a cup of regular soy sauce. I usually use cider or rice vinegar, but I’ve used red wine or even plain white vinegar in a pinch (just don’t use balsamic) and swap in any other sugar for the honey. (You could also use boneless and/or skinless thighs, but… meh.) Oh, and definitely make the whole three pounds of chicken because the leftovers are heavenly.

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Tags: chicken, do more with less, filipino, meat
Category Recipes |

Greensbury Market: Is It Good?

I swear, I no sooner sent the words I think I have just about beaten this whole February business out into the world and within 18 hours, I was completed blindsided a cold coupled with a downright tubercular cough. So, while I am lying on the couch, watching my sixth straight hour of Olympic cross-country skiing and eating yet another bowl of spicy chicken soup, I am clearing out some of my backlog of drafts for posts. First up: Greensbury Market.

The people at Greensbury Market sent along samples of their organic beef and chicken a couple of months ago, but my reluctance to write about them should not reflect badly on them at all.

Instead, I knew as soon as I wrote about organic meat, there would be someone, somewhere, who would have to be a biodegradable douchebag about it and comment something to the effect of ugh, eating meat? why don’t you just drive an SUV? or well, I only buy local homeschooled meat that I butcher myself, naturally and the idea of dealing with that just made me want to punch things.

So, let’s get this out of the way: I ain’t having it, eco-jerkwads. Okay? Good, now let’s move on.

Greensbury Market sent two strip steaks and four boneless, skinless chicken breasts (as well as some much-needed stock photos to use—seriously, if you have tips on making meat photogenic, please send them to me).

First, the steaks. I didn’t marinate them, didn’t really fuss with them at all, but just cooked them to a medium-rare in a grill pan with a little salt and pepper. I honestly cannot remember the last time I have eaten a better steak. I will be the first to admit that years of vegetarian cooking have left me a little gun-shy as far cooking meat, but I don’t think I could have screwed these up even if I tried. They were fantastic: tender, juicy, and above all, incredibly flavorful, like steak squared… so, steak².

I was less dazzled by the boneless, skinless chicken breasts, though. I poached two whole breasts in a Filipino-style adobo and cooked other two in pieces, in a buffalo wing sort of sauce. Now, I never buy boneless or skinless chicken, so this may have been largely due to inexperience and/or inherent dislike on my part (or maybe after the amazing steaks, nothing else could hold a candle to that), so while these were much, much moister and tastier than the chicken breasts I remember my dad cooking (sorry, Dad!), they were still… lacking something for me. But, even with that in mind, the chicken breasts were still impressive enough that I would consider buying a whole chicken or chicken wings from Greensbury Market.

So… is it good? Definitely. If organically-farmed meat is important to you, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Tags: beef, chicken, organic
Category Product Reviews |