hungry poodle

I recently read about an extremely easy cooking technique in the cookbook, Glorious One-Pot Meals, by  Elizabeth Yarnell. It features complete meals cooked by infusion in a small cast-iron Dutch oven. The no-brainer method goes as follows: you layer raw ingredients, starting with the starch (uncooked pasta, rice, potatoes) at the bottom, then you add liquid, protein (chicken, fish, beef or pork) and finally, vegetables all the way to the top. Set the pot into a 450 degree oven (230 degrees Celsius or Gas mark 8 for my British friends) for 30 to 45 minutes and you have dinner. Sounds almost too good to be true doesn’t it?

The author says to cook the meal for approximately 45 minutes at 450 degrees. But in the introduction of the book she says to cook until you can smell the aroma of the food escaping from the oven. At this point you wait exactly three minutes and then pull it out and serve. When I did that last night, at 30 minutes, it was nearly perfect.

There are some critical elements to this form of cooking: you must have a good cast-iron Dutch oven, adjust your oven temperature to 450 degrees and layer the ingredients in a specific order.  All of the recipes in her book serve two people and are designed for a 2-quart oven. If you cook dinner for 4 people, she says to use a 3 1/2 quart oven.

Here’s what I made last night:

1/4 onion, thinly sliced
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 t. Italian seasoning
1 cup dried penne pasta (Her recipe called for orzo)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/2″ slices
1/2 green pepper, julienned
1/2 red pepper, julienned

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray inside of Dutch oven with nonstick spray.

Scatter the onion on the bottom of the pot.

Drain the tomatoes into a measuring cup and add water to make 1 cup liquid. Mix the liquid with the dried herbs.

Add the pasta to the pot in an even layer and pour 3/4 cup of the liquid over the top. Place the chicken breasts on the pasta and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with the garlic.

Spread the tomatoes over the chicken, and layer in the zucchini and bell peppers and season again with salt and pepper. Pour the remaining liquid over all. At this point your pot should be full to the brim. If not, add more veggies and season them.

Cover and bake until you can smell the aroma of the food, which in my case was 28 minutes. Wait 3 more minutes, pull it out of the oven and serve immediately.

The results last night were delightful and so easy that I’m going to keep trying more recipes and posting the ones that work. Now that I know not to bake these for the full 45 minutes, I think I’ll continue to get excellent results. And we’re eating so many vegetables that I feel downright virtuous ( ! ) For those of you who are cooking for two, this is ideal. Again, you can easily adjust these recipes to feed more, with a bigger pot and double the ingredients.

You can add or change nearly any element of this recipe. Got Brussels sprouts instead of zucchini? Cut them in half and layer them on top. Broccoli and/or cauliflower work well too. No green bell pepper? Use a whole red bell pepper. Use whatever vegetables you have on hand, fresh or frozen, and be sure to fill the pot. Notice that there’s almost no fat in this method, which ups the nutritional value. Regardless, the bottom line should be delicious. If it’s not, why bother even if it’s easy?

Serves: 2

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under Articles, Poultry, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.