This is a recipe review, which means this is a recipe that I did not personally come up with, but that I tried out and am giving my opinion on how the recipe turned out. For legal reasons I cannot post these recipes, but I can tell you where you can get them yourself.

I watched Alton Brown’s episode of Good Eats entitled “Don’t Be Chicken Of Dumplings” when it first aired a couple months ago. But since it was entering summer time I wasn’t quite ready to drink down some chicken broth. But with the sore throat I have been dealing with lately, I thought the time is now. So I ran off to the supermarket to get what I needed. Here are my notes from this recipe:

Click here to open up the recipe.

1. I only have a 4 qt pressure cooker. Thus a 5 to 5 1/2 pound stewing hen isn’t going to fit. I could barely squeeze in a 4 pound roasting chicken. But it worked just fine. It still produced a flavorful meal.

2. Alton strained his broth with a colander and cheesecloth because he likes his broth clean. He said his mother would say this step isn’t necessary. I agree with his mother. I left my broth as is. I just transferred to another a wide pot for the cooking of my dumplings.

3. The dumplings were easy to make. I had no problems whatsoever. Using a gallon size bag with a corner cut out is the perfect way to dispense the dumplings into the hot broth. Also the dumplings tasted great!

4. My wife originally wanted to add carrots and celery thinking the broth would not be flavorful enough with just salt added. But with one taste of the broth, the vegetables remained in the fridge! The broth is very flavorful.

This was an excellent dish, that I look forward to using on cold winter evenings and for guests. It’s easy to make and delicious.

Recipe Grade: A

Thought it was time to add another electric skillet recipe to the site. This one is for one flavored by the power of garlic. This basic recipe is for two, but you can easily double or triple it for whatever you need.

Ingredients
1 large or 2 medium sized boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 stick butter
1 tablespoon canola oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
freshly ground black pepper
kosher salt
dried oregano

Start by melting some butter in your electric skillet set to the lowest setting. Add in the oil, this increases the smoke point of the butter. Take your chicken and cut it into bite size pieces. This will allow the chicken to cook faster as well as increase the surface to mass ratio, which means more chicken is browned and browning equals flavor. Add salt and black pepper to your chicken pieces to taste.

When the chicken is ready, add your chicken and garlic and increase your skillet to 300 degrees or medium high. Turn your chicken often to preventing sticking and to cook evenly. It should take about 10-15 minutes. If you are wondering if you are done, simply take out a piece, cut it in half. Any juices should be clear and there should be no sign of pink. Before you pull your chicken add some dried oregano to give it a flavor boast and serve!

Recently I discovered ramps at a local grocery store (Produce Station). They are also called wild leeks and can add an onion/garlic flavor to a dish. Click here to read my post on what ramps are. Ramps go excellent with chicken.

Ingredients
1 whole fryer chicken (make sure to remove whatever is in the cavity, giblets, heart, etc.)
1 bunch of ramps (6-8 ramps)
olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
dried rosemary
dried tarragon
1 1/2 cups chicken broth (to make a sauce)

* NOTE * Get all your ingredients ready ahead of time so that there isn’t an cross-contamination. The last thing I want is for you to touch the chicken and then touch your containers of herbs to get them out for this recipe. Put everything you need in small bowls before you even touch your chicken and make sure to wash your hands before you touch anything else in your kitchen.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Take your ramps and cut off the leaves, leaving the pink stem attached to the bulbs. Save the leaves for later use. Take the bulbs and drizzle some olive oil over them, then sprinkle kosher salt and black pepper over them.

Now place your chicken on a roasting pan. Using a pairing knife or kitchen shears, pull back the skin without removing it, over the breasts, thighs, and drumstick areas of the chicken. Place the ramps under the skin in these areas. Sprinkle some dried rosemary and tarragon over these same areas and the entire chicken.

Insert a probe thermometer into the breast on an angle, being careful not to hit any bone. Cook the chicken until the temperature reaches 165 degrees. The dark meat should be at 180, so make sure to check that too, and if the dark meat is not ready, put foil over the breast and cook until the dark meat hits 180.

Now to prepare the sauce. Take your roasting pan and place it over 2 burners. Add 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth. Scrap all the bits you can off the bottom of the pan and bring to a boil. Add the leaves from your ramps and cook for 2 minutes, then remove them. Simmer the sauce until it has been reduced to your desired thickness. Keep in mind that the more water that you lose, the more salty the sauce will be, so since my wife does not like things too salt and keep the sauce pretty thin.

I don’t like the overuse nowadays of the words “comfort food”. It seems like everyone wants to label their top 20 favorite foods as comfort foods. Well I think there is one true comfort food, and that is chicken noodle soup. American mothers have been using it for decades to give to their children when they are feeling under the weather. Unfortunately, alot of those mothers are giving their kids the soup out of a can. But I have a simple recipe for a single serving chicken noodle soup that can be made fast with leftover chicken.

Ingredients
Leftover chicken
4 oz pasta (I like rotini, penne, bow ties)
1-2 carrots
1 celery stalk
3 cups chicken stock or broth
dried basil
sea salt & black pepper to taste

Start by slicking your carrots and celery into bite size pieces. Bring your stock or broth to a boil and add your carrots and celery. Reduce the heat to simmer and cook until the carrots and celery have soften about 8-10 minutes. Now add in your pasta and return to a boil. Once reached a boil again simmer until the pasta is al dente. Then add your chicken, and cook for about 3-5 minutes to just re-heat the chicken. Stir in a heavy pinch of dried basil. Add salt or black pepper to taste. Serve with oyster crackers or saltines.

One of the things that is perfect to make with leftover chicken is chicken fajitas. My electric skillet is the perfect cooking vessel for this job. This recipe is quick and easy, especially if you are using leftover chicken, that only needs to be heated back up.

Leftover chicken (about 2-3 servings worth, broken into bite size pieces)
1 orange, red, or green bell pepper, sliced into strips
1 small onion, chopped
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
cilantro, chopped
canola oil
tortillas
grated cheddar cheese
sour cream

Set your electric skillet to 300 degrees. Add enough oil to just barely cover the bottom of the skillet. Then add your onion and bell pepper. Cook until both are soften, making sure to stir often. Now add in your chicken along with the cumin. Cumin is the key spice to any fajitas. If you have a spice grinder, grind whole cumin for the best flavor. Cook the chicken until it has taken on a little bit of color and is fully reheated. Stir in some cilantro. Add some freshly ground black pepper to taste if you desired.

Serve in a your favorite tortilla. When picking out tortillas (unless you want to make your own), look for local companies instead of the national brand. They are usually fresher and don’t have add chemical or preservatives. The Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory is a great option for those living in my area. Add your favorite cheddar cheese, please shred it yourself, and sour cream if you like for dipping.

Looking to save money on your grocery bill? Buy whole chickens. They can be had for much cheaper a pound than any chicken that has been sliced up for your convience. I like to roast the entire chicken, eat it that night, and save the leftovers to use in other dishes the next day or two. I buy what is called a fryer chicken, which is a young chicken (between 7-13 weeks old) that weight about 1 1/2 to 4 pounds. Before you roast your chicken, you should add some additional flavor. I do this with ”a paste”. For the paste you will need:

4-5 gloves of garlic
The herbs of your choosing (rosemary, basil, tarragon, thyme are all good choices)
Olive oil or canola oil
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

Take your garlic and just give it a good smashing, no need to cut it into small pieces. Throw the garlic into a bowl, along with your herbs, a heavy pinch of kosher salt, several grinds of freshly ground black pepper, and a couple tablespoons of oil. Mix well to combine (if you are doing a larger chicken, you might want to make your paste in a food processor). You don’t need to perfectly measure everything here.

The first thing you need to do with the chicken itself is to remove anything in the cavity, giblets, heart, and neck. Once that is done, take your chicken and pull back the skin (do not remove it) in any places you can get it to go (you can use a knife to help you). Then rub your paste in between the meat and skin. Do this in as many spots as possible. Make more paste if you need to. Remember to wash your hands immediately after touching the raw chicken. Do not touch anything else before you wash your hands. Cross contamination is a major concern with chicken.

Set your oven to 350 degrees. Once your chicken is prepared set it in a roasting pan and insert a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the chicken, being careful not to hit any bone, and roast until the thermometer says 165 degrees and the juices run clear. There is a fine line between perfectly done chicken and dried out chicken. But if you under cook it that’s bad news too. So it may take some practice, but I always recommend that if you don’t feel comfortable pulling the chicken yet, then wait a little bit longer.

If you plan on eating the skin of the chicken, I would recommend starting the chicken at 450 degrees for 10-15 minutes, then reduce it to 350 until the chicken has reached it’s final temperature. You may also wish to flavor the skin, by sprinkling kosher salt, black pepper, and maybe some paprika on the outside before cooking.

Now it’s time to slice up the bird and enjoy! I recommend eating first the parts of the chicken that was closet to the areas in which you inserted your paste. If you have any leftovers and are planning to use them in other ways, it’s better to use the chicken that didn’t get as much seasoning the first time around.

Now speaking of other recipes for leftover chicken, here are a couple I did the last time I roasted a chicken:
Chicken Faijtas (in an electric skillet)
One-Serving Chicken Noodle Soup

This past Monday aired a new epsiode of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” entitled “Don’t Be Chicken Of Dumplings”. It was the 7th episode in series on American Classics. Alton told the store of two dumpling recipes, one from his mother, and one from his mother in-law. The making of the dumplings is very different.

Alton’s mom
She makes what is known as swimmers, which are big, fluffy dumplings. The steps include:

Boil butter with water
Adding flour
Beating til it’s cool
Working in the eggs

This recipe is much like the process of making pate shoux. This is the quicker of the two and I think I have seen dumplings like these one more often.

Alton’s mother in-law
She makes slickers which are hard, flat dumplings. The process involves these steps:

Mix in flour
Cut in fat
Add liquid
Briefly knead

That is the same method you would use for making biscuits or crackers. For the liquid Alton uses skim milk. I was disappointed that he never explains why skim milk, as typically whole milk is used in most recipes. Making these dumplings also involves an 8 hour wait period for them to dry out, so you have to plan ahead.

As for the chicken, he uses the same chicken in both recipes. He cooks the chicken in a pressure cooker and then removes it and uses the broth in the final dish. He uses a stewing hen for the chicken. This is a hen that has passed her days of being useful laying eggs. It’s an older bird, so it has more flavor, but also has more connective tissue and more gelatin to be had. So it can make a flavorful broth, but it takes time, hence using the pressure cooker.

Overall I thought it was a good show. I enjoyed how he prepared two different types of dumplings and gave the geographical history behind them. My wife felt the recipes lacked depth of flavor, and there really isn’t seasoning used besides salt and freshly ground pepper. I have never cooked a stewing hen, normally we roast young fryer chickens. So it would be interesting to taste the difference in flavor between the fryer and the hen. You could just as easily use any chicken, prepared whatever way you want and use homemade or store bought chicken stock or broth. I will definately be giving both these dumplings recipes a try.

Tomorrow night (Monday, March 21st), Alton Brown will host a brand new episode of Good Eats entitled “Don’t Be Chicken of Dumplings”. As the title would suggest he will be preparing chicken and dumplings. I am excited about this episode and will have a review of it on Tuesday morning. Tune in to Food Network at 8pm.

My posts on recipes using an electric skillet have been among the most popular on my site. So I decided to come up with another recipe to add to the list – a creamy mushroom chicken.

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
8 oz washed & sliced mini bella mushrooms (or white button mushrooms)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 stick or 4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup canola oil

Now to prepare the chicken, you want to increase it’s surface to mass ratio, so that it will cook quicker. To do this, take your chicken, one piece at a time, and place it on a layer of plastic wrap. Then put another piece of plastic wrap over this and use a meat pounder to flatten the chicken breast.

Turn on your electric skillet, I set mine to around 300 degrees. If you don’t have an electric skillet, a large and wide stainless pan set over medium-high heat could work as well. Melt your butter in the skillet. Then add the canola oil. Adding a bit of oil will increase the smoke point of the butter, so you are less likely to smoke out your kitchen.

Take your chicken, season it with some kosher salt and place it the skillet. Place your mushrooms around the chicken. Your purpose right now is to brown the chicken and mushrooms. Stir the mushrooms occasionally and flip the chicken when one side has browned (about 4-5 minutes). When the mushrooms are soft and the chicken is browned. Add your chicken broth and turn your skillet down, so that the chicken broth is simmering. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes uncovered, until you have lost at least half the liquid. The best way to make sure your chicken is done is with an instant read thermometer. You want at least 165 degrees.

Now it’s time to add the finishing touches. Crank on some freshly ground black pepper and add your heavy cream, stir to combine. If your liquid is too thin, bring your skillet back to a boil for a minute. Or you could add a little more cream, or mix some flour or cornstarch with some water and add that to thicken. The choice is yours. Now serve & enjoy!

I just got the latest news on what topics are in the works for Good Eats episodes for 2010. No episode names or airdates have been anounced for these topics as of yet, but I will keep you informed of any additional information. Here is the list of the topics that are in production:

Asparagus
Banana Pudding
Tacos
Porterhouse
BBQ Chicken
Grilled Pizza
Pumpkin
Eggs Benedict

A lot of great topics to come! Looking forward to seeing those episodes.