Gourmet Today: Grilled Chicken Palliards with Nectarine Chutney (p. 525)

I wanted to make a recipe from each of Gourmet Today's new chapters. But, since my gas grill is under the weather, the Grilled Dishes chapter presented a bit of a challenge. I chose this recipe because I knew that I could cook the chicken in the broiler. That, and it seemed like an excellent use for all of the nectarines from my CSA box.

First, I cut up some nectarines into one-inch pieces (no need to peel them), and I chopped a tomato (didn't peel that, either), and some garlic. I put the nectarines, tomatoes and garlic in a pot with some vinegar, brown sugar, curry powder, and salt. I simmered the chutney for about twenty minutes.

While the chutney bubbled away, I made the chicken palliards. I put each of the boneless, skinnless chicken breasts in between two sheets of plastic wrap. Normally, when I make palliards, I bang the heck out of them with a meat pounder. Very effective, but also very noisy. It just so happened that when I was cooking this, my nine-month-old son was asleep, and my wife would kill me if I woke him up with all the noise. What to do ... what to do? Ah-ha! I put a big, heavy frying pan on top of the wrapped chicken, and pressed with all my might. I didn't get it as thin as I could have with the pounder, but it worked reasonably well. I patted the chicken dry, brushed it with some olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Now, if my gas grill weren't sick (It just won't get hot. I think that the gas gets are clogged or something.), I'd have put the chicken on the grill. But instead, I cooked them under the broiler. It worked just fine, but of course, there's really no substitute for grilling.

I served the chicken with the chutney (topped with some chopped fresh cliantro), along with some fresh grean beans and a potato dish from The Book that I'll blog about soon. The chicken was good, but the star was the chutney. It was sweet and sour and tangy with an excellent punch of Indian flavor and aroma. The cilantro on top was a nice bright, clean note that contrasted with the richer, spicier chutney.

Gourmet Today says that the start-to-finish time is 25 minutes. It took me a bit longer than that, but certainly less than an hour. This really is a delicious, and really do-able weeknight meal.

Date Cooked: September 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Pretty easy
Rating: A-

Gourmet Today: Mango Lassi (p. 30)

In recognition of what the book's editors call "the return of the cocktail," Gourmet Today includes a "Drinks" chapter. Most of the chapter is dedicated to potent potables, including classic cocktails like the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, the Martini and the Gimlet. There's also some of the more obscure gems like the Rob Roy and Pimm's Cup. There's some innovative cocktails, too, like a Limoncello and Mint Sparkler, and a Cucumber, Gigner and Sake Sangria. I'm sure that I'll come back to this chapter again and again.

But, for my first taste from the Drinks chapter, I chose this recipe for Mango Lassi from the non-alcoholic drinks section. I've never had lassi before, but I've learned that it's a very popular Indian drink made with yogurt. There are savory varieties made with cumin, and sweet varieties, like this one, flavored with fruit.

I really liked the flavor of this drink, but I wanted it to be thicker and colder -- more like a smoothie. And as I sit here typing this blog post and re-reading the recipe, I see that I made it wrong, and if I had made it correctly, it would have had the texture I wanted it to. You see, the ingredient list includes the following items: sweetened mango puree, sugar, whole-milk yogurt, crushed ice, lime juice, a pinch of salt, and ice cubes. The recipe says to blend all ingredients except ice cubes. Somehow, I interpreted this to mean that I wasn't supposed to blend any ice at all, and just simply serve the blended drink over ice cubes. I should have blended the crushed ice in with the other ingredients before pouring the mixture over the ice cubes. Oh, well, it was good anyway.

The other thing I wasn't too sure about was the sweetened mango puree. The closest thing I could find at Stop & Shop was this Goya sweetened mango nectar. My wife said that it's not the same thing, and she's probably right, since it was a bit thinner than what I'd expect a puree to look like. Again, it was good anyway.

So the bottom line on this one is that even with my omission of crushed ice and my substitution of mango nectar for the puree, this was still a very delicious and very refreshing drink. Now that I know what lassi is and how good it is, I'm going to seek it out. I'm looking forward to trying one of the savory varieties.

Date Cooked: September 13, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

146. Indian Baked Rice (p. 258)

I don't think that I ever had Indian food until I was in college, but since then, I've loved it. Chicken tikka masala is definitely on my short-list of death-row meals. So, I'm glad that The Book has a number of Indian dishes for me to try as I work through The Project. This recipe was the first of The Book's Indian recipes that I've made, and I was pretty happy with it for the most part.

First I rinsed and drained some basmati rice in a few changes of cold water, then I set it aside to drain for a while. Next I heated some canola oil in my large Dutch oven and cooked some slivered almonds until they were golden. Or at least that was the goal. As usual, I let the almonds cook for just a few seconds too long, and many of them got overcooked. This is becoming a routine whenever The Book calls for toasting or frying anything. I always over-do it. I'll get the hang of it, eventually. I took the nuts out of the hot oil, and let them drain on some paper towels.

Next I cooked some onion in the hot oil, and added some garlic, jalapeno, grated fresh ginger, salt, and some of the garam masala I made. Then I added the rice and cooked it with the onion and spices for a little while. I added some chicken broth and cooked it on the stove for a bit and then covered it and moved it to the oven for a while longer. Once all of the liquid had been absorbed, I removed the rice from the oven and let it sit for a while. I sprinkled it with the fried almonds and served it with some garam-masala-rubbed grilled chicken breasts and some braised leeks.

This dish was good, but not great. The rice was a little dry, which might have been my fault. But the flavor wasn't as intense as I would have liked it to be. The scent and flavor of the garam masala was there, but it was a bit more subtle than it could have been. If you make this, I'd suggest using a heavy hand with the seasonings.


Date Cooked: April 26, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: B+

145. Garam Masala (p. 932)

I made this recipe as a component of the Indian Baked Rice that I'll write about next.

Garam masala is a traditional Indian spice mixture that has many variations. The Book's version combines cardamom, cinnamon, cumin seeds, whole cloves, peppercorns and nutmeg.

Normally, I wouldn't go to the trouble of grinding my own spices, mostly because of the hassle. But after I smelled and tasted the results, I can certainly appreciate the difference between freshly ground spices, and a pre-ground spice mix that's been sitting in your cupboard for who knows how long and languishing on a supermarket shelf for who knows how much longer.

The preparation is pretty easy, just put all of the ingredients into a coffee/spice grinder (I had forgotten that I have one of these. Nice!) and whiz it until finely ground. The first ingredient is the cardamom. I'm sure that I've had foods that contain cardamom, but this was my first experience with the whole seeds and the pods that the seeds are packaged in. The first obstacle in dealing with cardamom is the price ... $16 for a jar of seed pods. I'm going to have to find some other cardamom recipes to make good use of leftovers. The next obstacle is getting the seeds out of the pods. Most of the pods were pretty papery and I could just peel them. Others were tougher and I needed to crush them with the side of a chef's knife to get the seeds out. But once that part was done, it was smooth sailing. Next I broke up a cinnamon stick, and added in the cumin seeds, whole cloves, peppercorns and nutmeg, and whizzed it all up.

The garam masala smells sweet, fruity with citrus and cedar notes. You can sense the individual scents of the cinnamon and cloves in waves, but no one single spice dominates. The smell is really out of this world. I was thinking that it would make a great scented candle. Are you listening, Yankee Candle Company?

Like I said, I made this garam masala for the Indian Baked Rice, but I also took The Book's advice to rub some of the leftover spice mix onto some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and threw them on the grill. They were great! A quick and delicious dinner.

Date Cooked: April 26, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+