hungry poodle

Why don’t more people roast chicken at home? Is it because plastic-wrapped, rotisseried (and overdone) birds are readily available at the supermarket? Or is it because we’re all so very busy, running around like chickens with our heads cut off? It may be a combination of both, plus the fact that many of us never learned the basics of cooking, which, while too bad, is not irreparable.

Costco sells what many people consider to be the perfect roast chicken. But when I checked the sodium count for their tasty bird, I found it to have an astonishing 460 mg. of sodium for a mere three ounces of meat. That’s Costco value for you–you buy a chicken and they toss in the salt lick for free.

Look, even if you don’t claim to be a cook, it’s not difficult to roast a chicken at home. All it takes is a good chicken (I buy free-range), some herbs if you have them, a lemon and olive oil and some balsamic vinegar to splash on at the end.

1 3-to-3 1/2 lb. chicken
1 lemon
1 onion, chopped coarsely
2 carrots, chopped coarsely
fresh herbs (I cut a combination of thyme, rosemary and sage, but you can use any or all of these)
olive oil
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Dry chicken thoroughly and salt liberally inside and out. I use a tablespoon of kosher salt, which sounds like a lot but isn’t. Also sprinkle with black pepper. Cut a lemon in half and stuff it inside the along with the fresh herbs. Tie its legs together to keep everything inside. Lightly coat with olive oil (you can spray it on with an olive oil sprayer) and place atop chopped vegetables in a pan just large enough to hold the bird.

Place 1/4 cup of water in the bottom of the pan and place it into the oven. Roast for about 55 to 60 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer reads 160 degrees when placed into the breast or 165-170 degrees in the thigh. (If you’re roasting a bigger bird, from 4 to 4 1/2 lbs., it will take about 60 to 65 minutes.) If you don’t have an instant-read thermometer, the juices from the leg should run clear when pierced. Just try not to overcook it; if it’s dry, overcooked chicken you want, buy it at the supermarket.

Remove from the oven and baste all over with balsamic vinegar. This gives the bird a beautiful brown color and lots of wonderful flavor. Cover with foil and allow to rest for 15 to 20 minutes.

Slice and serve with more balsamic vinegar. You can also squeeze on the lemon from inside its tummy if you like lemony chicken.

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Make these for the 4th and stick little American flag toothpicks in them to keep them from toppling over!

Our quintessential national holiday, the 4th of July, requires all-American fare, but in recent years I’ve forgone grilling hamburgers in favor of less fat-filled entrees such as chicken. I wrote a blog a few months back about being chickened out. Never truer words were written.

Enter the slider, until recently a restaurant/bar treat that you can now make at home thanks to Sara Lee’s new (to me, anyway) Mini Buns. which have only 90 calories. There might be other brands of minis out there as well; they’re all basically meant to be used to make less gargantuan sandwiches.

I’m back in the burger business, although in a continued effort to keep it healthy, I’ve used ground turkey here instead of beef. You can certainly use ground beef if you choose.

This recipe is adapted from the Weight Watchers web site; their recipe makes regular-sized burgers using ground chicken (and you already know how I feel about that). Each of these little burgers has about 3 ounces of meat, a fat slice of home-grown tomato and romaine, some spiced-up barbeque sauce and a few blue cheese crumbles, which give them a buffalo sort of kick. Yum.

1 lb. 93% lean ground turkey
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs, plain
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 t. salt
1/4 cup barbeque sauce
1 t. hot pepper sauce (I like Frank’s)
5 slices ripe tomato
Romaine lettuce
5 slider buns
2 T. blue cheese, crumbled*

In a small bowl combine barbeque sauce with hot pepper sauce. In a large mixing bowl combine turkey with bread crumbs, onion, salt and a tablespoon of the barbeque sauce mixture. Using wet hands, form into 5 patties; brush the tops of the patties with some of the remaining barbeque sauce.

Place burgers on grill sauce side down; brush top with remaining sauce. When you turn the burgers over, place the slider buns on the grill to toast them a bit.

To serve, place a burger onto each bun and top with a slice of tomato, some lettuce and a few crumbles of the blue cheese. I spread my blue cheese on the top of the bun.

*Don’t like blue cheese? Goat cheese works just as well. Or you can always default to cheddar.

Makes 5 burgers

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I’ve been searching for recipes using hoisin sauce because, a.) I love it; and, b.) I recommended your buying it for some of the stir-fry recipes I’ve put in the stir-fry category on the right. (See it over there? It’s new!)

You can find hoisin sauce in the Asian section of almost any supermarket, but the best brand, which you can only get at Asian markets, is Koon Chun (pictured elsewhere on the blog). If you’ve ever had Moo Shu Pork in a Chinese restaurant and spread your moo shu pancake with a dark, thick, delicious sauce, that was hoisin!

Following is a recipe adapted from Bon Appetit that can serve either as an appetizer or an entree, depending on the size of bamboo skewers you use. (The shorter ones fit perfectly on small appetizer plates.)

I grilled these and pulled them off their skewers onto a bed of thinly shredded Napa cabbage and served them with a refreshing Asian-inspired cucumber salad and steamed broccoli. BTW, I took the picture before sprinkling the plate with sesame seeds.

Reserve some of the cucumber dressing and drizzle it on the broccoli!

1/4 cup hoisin sauce*
1 T. minced fresh ginger
1 T. Asian sesame oil*
1 T. unseasoned rice vinegar*
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1″ pieces
1 T. sesame seeds

*Can be found in the Asian section of the supermarket. The vinegar can also be found with the other vinegars.

Whisk together hoisin sauce, ginger, sesame oil and rice vinegar in a medium bowl. Transfer two tablespoons of this mixture to another bowl to use as a basting sauce. Place the chicken in the remaining sauce and allow to marinate for a few minutes.

Place chicken onto bamboo skewers that have been soaked in water (to prevent them from burning), leaving 1/2″ space between pieces. Grill until browned on both sides, about 8 to 10 minutes, basting chicken as needed. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

Serves: 2

Cucumber Salad

1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
1 large English (seedless) cucumber, thinly sliced

Combine first four ingredients and stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour dressing over cucumber slices just before serving. I also used some of this dressing for the steamed broccoli and served it at room temperature as a salad. Very refreshing and summery.

Serves: 2

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Most of us who are watching our weight have sworn off comfort foods such as chicken pot pie because of their high fat content. The crust is usually the biggest culprit, although the creamy white sauce that envelopes the chicken and vegetables can also pack a fatty punch.

So when my (excellent) Jazzercise instructor, Jenny, told me about a lighter recipe that she found in Martha Stewart’s magazine, “Everyday Food”, I was eager to try it. It’s been at least 15 years since my last taste of chicken pot pie and I was hoping to end the drought.

This version, which uses frozen phyllo sheets in place of pie crust, really fits the bill of real, honest-to-goodness chicken pot pie. It’s creamy and loaded with chunks of chicken and vegetables, it has a crispy topping and it’s the kind of comfort food that warms the soul as well as the body. As Martha says, “It’s a good thing.”

By the way, as we were enjoying this last night, we chatted about other vegetables we could add in future renditions. Chopped broccoli would work, even asparagus. Use your imagination and whatever you have on hand in the fridge or freezer.

One more tip, Cooking Light Magazine often uses Pillsbury pie crusts in their recipes, which is an option here in place of phyllo dough. It would add more fat and calories to the recipe, but the total increase would be minimal.

Here are leftovers from last night's dinner. Slightly drier but still delicious!

2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, 12 to 14 ounces each, cooked and cut into chunks
2 T. Olive oil
4 carrots, sliced
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 t. dried thyme leaves ( I used poultry seasoning)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups low-fat (1%) milk
1 10-oz. package frozen peas, thawed
2 T. fresh lemon juice
6 frozen phyllo sheets, thawed*

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat the olive oil in large saucepan and add carrots, onion and thyme. Cook until carrots are crisp-tender, about 8 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, until smooth. Cook until mixture comes to a simmer and thickens.

Remove from heat and stir in peas, lemon juice and chicken. Season with salt and pepper to taste and pour filling into a 9″ deep-dish pie pan or a square pan.

Stack the phyllo sheets and using a paring knife cut them into a shape that fits the pan you are using. Place two of the cut sheets on a work surface and either brush them with a bit of olive oil or spray them with an oil mister. Repeat with remaining sheets and then stack them over the filling. Press down about 1/2 inch from the edge so the dough fits inside the rim of the pan. Bake until golden and bubbling, about 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

Serves: 4

*The maker of Athens Phyllo sheets recommends removing the thawed phyllo you need for your recipe, then re-rolling and re-wrapping the remainder in plastic and refreezing for up to 9 months.

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I used to make oven-fried chicken with dried bread crumbs mixed with seasonings and parsley. It was passable, but it didn’t have the crispy texture of real fried chicken. Thus I relegated it to my “healthy-but-not-as-good-as-the-original” list of recipes, of which I have many. I don’t make them often for obvious reasons. Why bother?

My favorite place to turn for the best way to cook anything is Cooks Illustrated. They experimented with all the usual oven-fried chicken toppings,  including crushed corn flakes, Ritz crackers, even Japanese panko bread crumbs, and came up with an unlikely winner–plain Melba Toast.

It makes sense when you think about it. Melba Toast is very crunchy, has no fat and doesn’t have a distinct flavor that would mask the taste of the chicken. I was very pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

The original recipe calls for 4 bone-in, split and skinned chicken breasts, about 10 ounces each. I used chicken tenders because they can be eaten with the fingers, which makes them way more fun for both adults and kids. Use your favorite dipping sauce for them. I like barbeque sauce.

One more tip: this is a middle-of-the-road  spice blend. If you really like spicy, add more cayenne. Be sure to liberally salt and pepper the chicken before coating it.

1 (5 oz.) box plain Melba Toast, broken into small pieces
2 T. vegetable oil
3 large egg whites
1 T. Dijon mustard
2 t. fresh thyme leaves, minced (or 1 t. dried)
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/8 t. cayenne pepper
2 lbs. skinless chicken tenders*
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil spray (Pam also works)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and adjust rack to upper-middle position. Cover a baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top.

Process Melba Toast in a food processor into coarse crumbs. Spread the crumbs in a shallow dish and toss with the oil.

In a separate dish, whisk together the egg whites, mustard, thyme, garlic powder and cayenne.

Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Using tongs (you can use your hands but it’s messy), dip one piece of chicken at a time into the egg white mixture, then coat with the Melba crumbs. Press the crumbs onto the chicken to make sure they adhere. Lay the chicken on the wire rack and spray the tops with olive oil spray.

Bake until the coating is golden and the chicken is no longer pink in the center, about 12 to 15 minutes.

(If you’re using bone-in split chicken breasts, bake as long as 40 minutes, or until an instant read thermometer reads 160 degrees.)

Serves: 8

*I haven’t tried this yet, but you can also use this coating for fish, including catfish, tilapia and cod. If the pieces of fish have thin tapered ends, tuck them under before breading them to prevent them from overcooking. Bake at the same temperature, 450 degrees, until the coating is golden and the fish just flakes apart, about 12 to 15 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges.

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