Sheet Pan Tandoori Chicken

Does anyone else read the blog Smitten Kitchen? If you don't, you should. Deb Perelman is entertaining and thoughtful, and her recipes, at least those I have tested, have all been uniformly delicious.

I'm normally not a quick cook kind of person. I don't mind making dishes that are somewhat fussy or use lots of weird ingredients or techniques. After all, I only cook on weekends when I have a decent amount of free time. But there are times when I don't want to be bothered, but yet don't want to go out to dinner. And that's when a dish like Deb's sheet pan tikka is perfect.

I made the dish pretty much as she wrote it, except I changed the name. Tikka refers to small pieces of meat, not whole bone-in thighs. My use of "tandoori" is probably just as misleading, since the cooking is done in a typical home oven and not a cylindrical one made of clay. However, I think "tandoori chicken" really gets across how the end result both looks and tastes. Unlike commercial tandoori chicken, there is no red food coloring in this recipe; the red color is the result of a bit of turmeric, some cayenne, and possibly a chemical reaction between the yogurt marinade and the heat of the oven. In any case, the dish is damn good.

And so fricken easy! First the chicken is popped into a simple spice and yogurt marinade for a few hours, then it's placed on a sheet pan with potatoes and cauliflower simply dressed with olive oil, salt, and cumin seeds. Baked for just under an hour, the chicken comes out super moist, with crisp skin and tender veg. Deb garnished her chicken with a flurry of parsley/mint/cilantro and some lightly pickled red onions, and so did I. I didn't want to mess with perfection.

Of course, now I have other ideas for similar dishes. Perhaps roasting lemon slices with the chicken and potatoes. Subbing brussels sprouts for the cauliflower, maybe celery root for the potato. Fennel might be nice as well. The mind boggles.

Sheet Pan Tandoori Chicken (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

1 3/4-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 fresh jalapeno, chopped roughly
1/2 cup whole-milk yogurt
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (4-5 thighs)
4-5 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 3/4-inch chunks
1 small head cauliflower, cut into 3/4-inch-wide florets
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
Thinly sliced red onion (optional)
Lemon wedges (optional)
Chopped herbs (parsley, cilantro, mint) (optional)

Combine ginger, garlic, jalapeno, and yogurt in a mini prep food processor and whiz to a puree. Add the spices and whiz to combine. Scrape into a gallon zip-top plastic bag and add the chicken. Seal the bag, squeezing out as much air as possible, then squoosh the marinade around the chicken to coat it. Refrigerate for at least an hour and up to a day.

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Put the potatoes and cauliflower on the baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, add salt and cumin seeds, and toss with your hands to coat the veg evenly. Make spaces in the potatoes for the chicken parts. Take the chicken out of the marinade and place on the pan. Roast for 25 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and stir the veg around to make sure they're cooking evenly. Return the pan to the oven for another 20 minutes, until everything is cooked through. Garnish and serve right from the pan.

You can pickle the onion, if you want, by putting it in a bowl or jar with lemon juice and a few pinches of salt, maybe a little sugar. Toss to coat, cover bowl, and set aside for at least half an hour (stronger onions might need more time).



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Creamy Roasted Vegetable Gazpacho

I've been buying Muuna Cottage Cheese ever since I tried it last year. It makes a good quick snack that's a bit different from yogurt, but, like yogurt, it can be used for more than a grab-and-go meal.

I've been playing with different ways to use Muuna; the cheesecake recipe linked above is a no-brainer, but I thought why not use it in place of yogurt or heavy cream? For instance, in a dish that calls for a creamy element, but not the tang of yogurt. Heavy cream might seem like the answer there, but that stuff has 411 calories per half cup, with 2g of protein. Classic Plain Muuna has 110 calories per half cup and 14g of protein. If you smooth out the curds in a food processor (I like to use a mini-prep for this) Muuna falls somewhere between yogurt and cream in thickness, making it ideal for use in soups or pasta sauces.

My favorite warm-weather food is gazpacho, and while there are days still cool enough to deal with putting the oven on, I like to make it with roasted vegetables. In this recipe, I've roasted peppers and tomatoes plus onion for extra flavor. Muuna adds a lovely creaminess, but also protein, making this soup nice for lunch or a light supper with some crusty bread.

I'm in Baltimore, and I've found my Muuna pretty much everywhere I regularly shop: Giant; Safeway; Shoppers; Weis Market. If you're elsewhere, check out the store locator on their site.

Creamy Roasted Vegetable Gazpacho
If you're not into the whole idea of putting on the oven to make this lovely chilled soup, then by all means, do cheat with a can of fire-roasted tomatoes and jarred roasted red peppers. Omit the onion, and use the jalapeno and garlic raw. The soup will be just as delicious.

2 red, orange, or yellow bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and cut into large pieces
1 red onion, cut into thick slices, rings separated
1 or 2 jalapeno peppers, cut in half and seeded
2 cloves garlic, skins on
1 1/2 pounds cherry or grape tomatoes
Olive oil
Salt
3/4 cup Muuna Cottage Cheese classic plain 4%
1 cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 cup sherry vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper
Tabasco to taste
Pinch smoked paprika
Diced cucumber and tomato, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line two rimmed baking sheets with foil.

Place the peppers, onion, and jalapeno on one baking sheet and the garlic and tomatoes on the other. Drizzle all veg with olive oil and salt and toss with your hands until everything is coated.

Roast for 40 minutes until soft and blackened in areas, turning pieces once halfway through. Remove from the oven and allow to come to room temperature.

Slip off the garlic skins. Place the roasted veg in the jar of a blender and puree. Add the cottage cheese, cucumber, and vinegar and puree until smooth. Season with smoked paprika, pepper, Tabasco, and salt to taste. If soup seems too thick, add a little water or some extra virgin olive oil. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to allow the flavors to meld.

Serve in cups or bowls, garnished with a little of the cucumber and tomato dice.

Serves 4-6

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Another Carrot Recipe - Yes, I Like Carrots.

I normally don't follow recipes to the letter. I don't know if it's because I know my palate and understand what will work best for it, or if I just have some odd recipe-specific ADD. In any case, it's very very rare that I do what I'm supposed to do. Case in point: the recipe for roasted carrots with creamy nuoc cham dressing that I found in a recent e-mailing from Bon Appetit magazine. Nuoc cham is the ubiquitous Vietnamese all-purpose sauce. It's sweet, salty, pungent, and amazingly delicious. Blending it with mayo and oil to create a dressing to go over a lightly sweet roasted root vegetable seemed like the fabulous no-brainer idea I always want to have (but often don't).

Normally, if I get a recipe off the Internet, I write the ingredients on a piece of scrap paper and take that to the kitchen with me. In the case of this recipe, I neglected to write down "1 ½-inch piece ginger, peeled, thinly sliced." So I made it without the ginger. Nevertheless, the sauce was lovely (after I added more mayo and a pinch of cayenne to up the heat level a tad). It worked very very well with the roasted carrots, but would be even better, I think, as a dressing for a Caesar salad. Just add parm. Had I remembered the ginger, however, I don't think I would have made the connection.

Fortunately, this recipe makes more dressing than needed for the carrots. Toss it on some romaine lettuce, add croutons and lots of fresh Parmesan, and you'll have the Caesar salad of your dreams.

Roasted Carrots with Creamy Nuoc Cham Dressing (adapted from Bon Appetit)

2 pounds medium carrots, peeled
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Kosher salt
1 medium shallot, thinly sliced
Pinch red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Pinch cayenne (optional)

Preheat oven to 425°. Toss carrots and vegetable oil on a large rimmed baking sheet and season with salt. Roast, tossing occasionally, until crisp-tender, 20–25 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring shallot, red pepper flakes, ginger, garlic, fish sauce, sugar, and 2 tablespoons water to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat and cook until shallot is soft, 8–10 minutes. Let cool. Transfer to a blender or mini-prep food processor, add lime juice and mayonnaise, and blend until smooth. With motor running, gradually stream in ¼ cup oil; blend until emulsified. Season dressing with salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper, if you'd like the dressing to be spicier.

Drizzle dressing over carrots just before serving.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Roasted Parsnip and Sweet Potato Soup

I love roasted root vegetables. One of our Thanksgiving side dishes last year involved seven different kinds--sweet potato, celery root, golden beets, baby turnips, watermelon radish, carrots, and parsnips. They were cut into small dice, tossed with olive oil and salt, and roasted until tender. Unsurprisingly, this simple dish was a big hit at the holiday table and I hope to make it a staple.

We had several parsnips left, and while I love to eat them straight off the foil-lined roasting pan while they are still piping hot, I wanted to do something a little different. We also had a couple of big Japanese sweet potatoes (from a CSA) hanging around. Because they were white, not orange, I thought they'd work nicely with the parsnips. Japanese sweet potatoes aren't as sweet as the more familiar orange ones, and their white color wouldn't alter the color of the soup. They got roasted, too, and both veg were pureed in a blender with the addition of a quart of chicken stock. (You may use vegetable stock, to make this dish vegan. Omit the bacon garnish, too, of course.)

I think parsnips have a citrusy flavor, so I added similarly citrusy coriander seed and a bit of lemon zest to bring that quality forward.

Roasted Parsnip and Sweet Potato Soup

1 lb parsnips
2 white (Japanese) sweet potatoes
Olive oil
Salt
1 quart chicken stock
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon ground coriander seed
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
Freshly ground pepper
Chopped scallions and bacon, for garnish

Preheat oven to 400°F. Peel parsnips, trim ends, and cut in half. Cut wide end in half again. Peel potatoes and cut them into chunks about the size of the parsnips. Toss with olive oil and salt and arrange in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. Roast for 40 minutes to 1 hour, until very tender. Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature.

Using a blender, puree potatoes and parsnips with chicken stock. You'll need to do this in 2 or 3 batches so the potatoes don't gum up the blades. Pour the puree into a 2 quart pot and turn the heat on to low. Gently stir in the milk. If the soup seems too thick, add more stock or milk. Season with ground coriander and lemon zest and a couple generous grinds of black pepper. Taste for seasoning and add salt, if necessary.

Serve hot, garnished with chopped scallions and chopped bacon.

Serves 4-6.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Pasta Frittata with Roasted Vegetables

Sometimes simple is best.

There are times that I beat myself up over what to make for dinner on the weekends. Should I make something interesting or fancy? Something I've never made before? Something blog-worthy? Needless to say, everything we concoct in our kitchen is not blog-worthy, but we do try. And while I'm usually tinkering with a new recipe at some point during the week, there are plenty of times when I just do not want to think about it. I want to open the fridge and have something jump out at me, screaming, "I AM DINNER!" That never happens, of course, and damn good thing--screaming food would be pretty scary.

See? Scary.

But there was that bag of leftover spaghetti. Definitely not enough for two servings, and not quite enough for one serving (well, one serving for me, ok, but not one serving for Mr Minx). We also had a nearly-full carton of eggs. Didn't I just read something on Facebook about pasta frittatas? Why yes, yes I did. A giant omelette- or quiche-type thing with pasta in it...why the hell not?

I found a recipe by Gabrielle Corcos, hubby of actress Debi Mazar, and her co-star on the show Extra Virgin. It was easy peasy, and included only 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese. Other recipes I found called for half a cup...holy moly, that's a lot of money cheese! I decided to use Corcos' recipe as a base, and would add some veggies to it, onions and garlic, maybe green beans, corn, and tomatoes, since those were left from the CSA box. I roasted the green beans and tomatoes with a bit of oil and salt (balsamic vinegar and brown sugar on the tomatoes, too), then changed my mind. The corn went in though, as did onions, garlic, and freshly snipped chives and basil from the garden.

Did I mention that this was my first-ever frittata? Look how pretty it was! Even if the spaghetti does kinda resemble worms....

We also ate those roasted beans and tomatoes, after tossing them together and letting them come to room temperature. Definitely a filling vegetarian meal that didn't miss the meat.

Pasta Frittata, adapted from a recipe by Gabriele Corcos and Debi Mazar

3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
Kernels from 1 ear of corn
Small handful of basil, julienned
1 tablespoon minced chives
2 cups leftover cooked spaghetti, roughly chopped
5 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat your broiler.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a 10-inch nonstick saute pan over medium heat. Cook the onion until lightly browned, add the garlic, corn, and pasta and stir until warmed through, 2 to 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs with the milk in a large bowl. Add the Parmesan and season with salt and pepper.

Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil to the pan of veg and pasta. Pour the egg mixture over. Cover pan and cook until the edges of the frittata start to brown and the center is only slightly runny, about 12 minutes. Transfer pan to the broiler and cook until the center is set and top is nicely browned.

To serve, slide the frittata onto a cutting board and slice into wedges.

Serves 4.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Blackened Carrots with Harissa Yogurt and Carrot top-Mint Pesto

I have developed a passion for carrots. Cooked carrots. I especially enjoy young carrots, so fresh they still have the greens attached. So when I saw a charred carrot dish on the menu at Bobby Flay's new restaurant, Gato, I had to have them. And they were wonderful.

There are recipes for "charred" carrots on the interwebs, but they are more caramelized than charred. Flay's carrots were literally black with char, as if they had been dropped directly into a fire and forgotten for a few minutes. I figured I could do the same thing at home, blackening the carrots over an open gas flame much as I do when I roast peppers. It took a few minutes to get the carrots black all over, and they had to be moved around regularly, but it worked beautifully. Although charred, the carrots were still mostly raw at this point, so I popped them in the oven after oiling and seasoning them.

Flay's carrots were served with a spicy yogurt flavored with harissa, a Tunisian spice mix heavy on chiles that can be found in both paste and dry form. The one I use is Frontier brand and not too spicy, so use your own tastebuds when seasoning your yogurt. I hated to waste those glorious carrot tops, which are a bit too metallic in flavor to eat like other greens. At first I was thinking a carrot top vinaigrette, because I had eaten one on a salad locally, but then I remembered that I really didn't care for that particular dish at all and opted to make a pesto, instead. And rather than remake Flay's crispy parsnip chips, some recently purchased fried shallots became the topping. The combination was stellar, if I do say so myself. (And I do!)

I think blackened carrots will become a part of the summertime vegetable rotation. Next time, with feta cheese and dill....or preserved lemon yogurt.

Blackened Carrots with Harissa Yogurt and Carrot top-Mint Pesto

For the carrots:
1 pound small to medium carrots with tops, scrubbed but not peeled
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

For the pesto:
About 1 cup loosely packed carrot tops, washed thoroughly and dried
Handful fresh mint leaves
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
Handful of fresh grated Parmesan
Few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste

For the yogurt:
1/2 cup 2% Greek yogurt
Harissa
Squeeze of lemon juice
Salt to taste

To make carrots: Turn on a couple of the gas burners on your stove and place the carrots directly on the flame. Use tongs to turn and move them around occasionally to make sure the entire carrot gets mostly blackened. Once carrots are nicely charred (about 10 minutes), remove them to a plate and set aside.

To make pesto: Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend until combined but still slightly chunky. Set aside.

To make yogurt: Stir either harissa paste or harissa powder into yogurt to taste. Season with a squeeze of lemon juice and salt. Refrigerate until ready to use.

To finish dish: Preheat oven to 400°F. Place charred carrots on a foil-lined baking sheet and drizzle with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast for 15-20 minutes, turning once or twice during baking, until the carrots are tender.

Serve with harissa yogurt and carrot top-mint pesto.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Oven-roasted Asparagus

My new favorite way to cook asparagus - oven roasting.

I do the same thing with broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts.

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Trim and rinse asparagus. Pat dry. Place asparagus on a foil-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and a healthy pinch of salt. Slice a couple of garlic cloves thinly and scatter the slices on the asparagus. Toss with your hands so everything gets a nice coating of the olive oil.

Roast for 5-6 minutes, turn spears with tongs, and roast another 5-6 minutes. Serve as is, or with a drizzle of lemon mayonnaise or hollandaise.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Roasted Broccoli

We had some broccoli in the fridge that needed to be cooked before it went bad, and I wanted to do something other than the usual blanch and quick sauté. I remembered reading a recipe for broccoli "cooked forever" somewhere on the Internets--I know, it sounds disgusting, but it's supposed to taste terrific. Possibly as good as my grandmother's green beans, cooked for hours, which turned out sweet and mellow and buttery. I used to eat them by the bowlful for dinner.

I see you--yes you--over there, sneering. You just go on ahead and continue eating your under-cooked beans that make squeaking sounds when you chew. Not particularly tasty, are they? Just...squeaky.

Harrumph.

Back to broccoli. I'm just going to have to take the recipe creator's word that long-cooking the stuff makes for deliciousness. When I found the recipe, I saw that it required 1 cup of olive oil. Sorry, but I'd rather spend that $5 on something less-wasteful (I am, after all, one of the 99%).

Instead, I decided to oven-roast my broccoli. The Amateur Gourmet raved over Ina Garten's recipe, so I did a similar riff, tossing the broccoli florets with salt, a few tablespoons of olive oil, a fat clove of sliced garlic, and a pinch of red pepper flakes before popping it into a 425F oven for about 25 minutes. (On a foil-lined baking sheet. I did not just throw the broccoli into the oven like that.) When the broccoli was done, I topped it with a squeeze of lemon juice and a handful of grated Parm.

The result: perfectly tender-crisp vegetables with nice caramelized bits, and a house that reeked of roasted garlic (not necessarily a bad thing). It was pretty terrific, and I'm betting that cauliflower would be just as good, if not better.

Once the weather gets cooler, I see myself roasting vegetables in this manner more often.

Posted on Minxeats.com.