Balsamic Glazed Chicken

This is just another attempt to make a chicken dish seem a bit more than it is. The sweet and sour relish or jam is a nice addition that I usually reserve for pork. The wine sauce made this dish a bit more sophisticated than my normal grilled chicken and added another layer of depth to the overall flavor.

For the Marinade:

1/4C extra virgin olive oil

3T cherry balsamic vinegar

2 large garlic cloves

8 small sage leaves
1t smoked paprika

Directions:

Place the olive oil into the pan you will use for marinading the raw chicken. I prefer a glass pan for marinading. Add the balsamic and paprika.

Finely mince the garlic and sage leaves, then add them to the marinade. Stir all ingredients.

Add the chicken breasts and turn over in the marinade, making certain all the chicken is covered in marinade. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for one or more hours.

For the Fruit/Onion Jam:

1 medium onion

extra virgin olive oil
salt
1/4C dried cherries
3T red currants

1/4C cherry balsamic

Directions:

Pour enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan, add halved and thinly sliced onions and saute with salt until wilted, then add fruit.

Saute the fruit, then slowly add the balsamic and continue stirring until the mixture is fully cooked, when the vinegar has turned the onions to a deep rich color.



Start grilling the chicken while you make the sauce. Place it on a grill pan over a medium heat, and when the juices raise to the top, turn over the breast until it is fully cooked, usually when the juices return again to the top and run clear.

For the Sauce:

2/3 can chicken broth

3/4C dry red wine

1T cracked pepper

2T cherry and red currant onion jam

1T garlic rosemary butter

Directions:

Remove the jam from the pan and deglaze fully with the red wine. Add the balsamic and pepper. Reduce the wine by half.

Heat the chicken broth is a small sauce pan, add the reduced wine and 2T of the jam. Reduce this until it is half the original volume, take off heat and stir in the butter.



Plate the chicken breasts, and either set  the jam on top or to the side, then ladle on the sauce.

Basic Pan Gravy

This recipe will work with any pan drippings and can be made much more exciting by adding herbs, garlic, wine, port, or other seasonings, but for a turkey dinner I simply prefer this basic recipe. As you can see by the photo, I don't bother to strain out any bits that don't blend into the gravy. Those tasty little morsels add to the flavor even if they take away from the visual appeal.


Ingredients:
Pan drippings from a roasted turkey
2T flour
butter
chicken broth
salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Roast the turkey and remove the bird from the pan. Drain off all the juice and fat and place in one of those wonderful cups that separates them, or scoop off the fat the hard way with a spoon. Place the roasting pan on a burner over low heat and add the flour and fat from the drippings to produce a roux by stirring them together until they slightly brown. Try to scrape the pan to get all the toasted bits off the bottom and into your roux.

Difficult as it may seem, if you don't have enough turkey fat to make the roux, add a pat or two of butter. After your roux is completed, add back the turkey juices and stir until smooth or whisk if you prefer. If your gravy is too thick, add in half of the chicken broth and raise the heat to medium until the gravy starts to simmer. Keep stirring or whisking and only add more chicken broth if it is still too thick. The more broth added the less your gravy will taste of turkey.

Brandied Cherry Compote

I chat online with a group of friends that are serious cooks. A posted recipe for a braised pork dish helped me to come up with this compote that works so well with duck. It can be used for chicken, turkey and pork too. I took the main ingredients of dried sour cherries, brandy and bay leaf from the pork recipe and branched out from there...it was a short limb, as the only new idea was to add chicken stock and eliminate the other spices.

Ingredients:
3/4C dried Montmorency cherries (any kind that is tart)
3/4C brandy
1 1/2C chicken stock
3 bay leaves

Directions:
In a small saucier, or even a small frying pan (we're looking for lots of cooking surface so the liquids can reduce) simmer the cherries and brandy. When the cherries start to plump up, add the chicken stock and bay leaves. Stir occassionally until all the liquid has reduced by 2/3. This very simple to do while you cook other items. The taste is rather spicy and rich, so adding butter was not necessary.

Duck Stock

Ingredients:
8 duck necks
1 medium yellow onion
1 small carrot
1 stalk celery with leaves
1 large bay leaf
8 parsley stalks and leaves
12 black peppercorns
4 sprigs thyme

Directions:
Roast the necks or carcass in a 400 degree oven until nicely browned, turning to brown all sides, then place in a stockpot and cover with water. Add one roughly chopped onion, carrot and celery stock, then toss in peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme, and parsley. Cover the pot and simmer until the stock reduces by roughly one half. Place cheesecloth into a sieve over a large bowl and pour the stock into the sieve to separate the broth from the meat, bones and vegetables. Refrigerate and skim off the fat, then freeze for later use.

Notes:You can make use of a full carcass instead of just necks for this stock. Adding 3 cloves of garlic and 12 Crimini mushrooms along with 1t of tomato paste, while deleting the celery and carrot makes a nice alternative to the above recipe.

Port Sauce for Duck or Game

Ingredients:
1 1/2C duck stock (see recipe)
1C Ruby port (I used a Zinfandel port)
1 large garlic clove
3 sprigs thyme
2T blackberry jelly (I used blackberry/plum)
1T sweet butter

Directions:

Simmer the duck stock with a crushed garlic clove until the stock is reduced by half, then add the port and jelly and incorporate thoroughly. Remove the garlic and add the thyme to the saucier during the next reduction which should again be by half. Remove the thyme, take the pot off the heat and let it rest for 5 minutes, then stir in the butter and pour over your sliced duck or game.

Seafood Antipasto

This dish was always used for Christmas Eve dinner, along with Crab Cioppino and fried Whitebait (smelt). Nana would arrange the ingredients on a large round, shallow, glass bowl, in a beautiful pinwheel pattern, then pour the dressing over it. Susan was kind enough to offer me Nana's bowl so I will use it with great affection.

Ingredients:
1 lb crab meat
1 1/2 lb shrimp (cooked, shelled and deveined)
1 large can white Albacore (tuna)
1 can black olives
dill pickle spears
quartered Roma tomatoes (or grape tomatoes)
marinated artichoke hearts
marinated crimini mushrooms (optional)

Sauce Ingredients:
1C Del Monte ketchup
1/4C Star brand red wine vinegar
1/4C fruity extra virgin olive oil
1 can Star brand anchovies
2 cloves peeled, smashed garlic (or you can leave it whole and pierce it with a fork)
salt & pepper
Tabasco sauce

Directions for Antipasto Sauce:

Make the sauce the night before serving and refrigerate. Add together the ketchup, olive oil, vinegar, pierced garlic, and the oil from the can of anchovies. Nana never used the anchovies in this sauce but claimed their oil was her secret ingredient for this seafood antipasto sauce. Cover the anchovies with olive oil, to prevent oxidation, and reserve for another use (Pasta Putanesca comes to mind). Add salt & pepper to taste and then a few drops of Tabasco, again to your taste, but a small bite is all you're looking for in this recipe. These measurements are not exact, so try adjusting the vinegar so it is not a really sharp taste. Refrigerate the sauce overnight so the garlic will have time to infuse, then remove the garlic before serving.

Directions for the Seafood Platter:

Drain the can of tuna and place it in the center of the platter. Place your olives around the tuna. Arrange dill pickle spears like the spokes of a wheel, then alternate filling in between the spokes with crab meat and shrimp. Place the tomatoes that have been quartered lengthwise around the perimeter of the dish or towards the center, whatever works visually for you. Pour the sauce over the seafood and serve.

Directions for Appetizers:
I have successfully converted this recipe into an appetizer by placing a cherry tomato on a small skewer followed by a pickle chunk, a shrimp and an olive. The skewers can be placed around a dish and the sauce drizzled over them.

Notes: Very often I will add marinated whole crimini (button) mushrooms to this dish if I don't have enough seafood. They work very well with the sauce. This photo shows and individual serving. I prepare it that way when I am serving a smaller group of people.

Chicken with Marmalade Port Sauce

This sauce came about after making a batch of Bergamont and blood orange marmalade. I never even liked marmalade (or Bergamont for that matter) but was encouraged to try making it when I saw the Bergamont oranges for the first (and only) time, shortly after a discussion with friends who had recently tried an easy recipe. This recipe would be fine if made with a classic orange marmalade.


Ingredients:

1/2 cup orange marmalade
1 cup ruby port (Ficklin is my favorite)
1/2 cup chicken stock
2T dijon mustard with seeds
cracked black pepper to taste
1 1/2T of compound butter with garlic, thyme and sweet red pepper
(this can be replaced by the same amount of butter, 1/4t thyme, and 1/2t minced garlic)

Directions:

Place the port, marmalade, and mustard into a nonreactive saucier over medium high heat and reduce in half, then add the chicken stock and reduce again. Mix to a smooth consistancy with an emersion blender.

Add cracked black pepper and bring to a rolling boil to reduce until it thickens.

Take off heat and add the compound butter. Layer over a piece of chicken that has been grilled or roasted.


Serve with a baked potato and compound butter and any green vegetable or mixed vegetables of your own choice.

Minted Chicken with Apricot/Mango Sauce

This was an experiment to improve on my "Indoor Outdoor Chicken", using a new pantry item; Trader Joe's Mango Chili Vinegar as the acid.


Ingredients:

For the Chicken and Marinade:
4 skinless boned chicken breasts
1 minced shallot
3T extra virgin olive oil
3T mango chili vinegar
15 cilantro sprigs
4 sprigs mint

For the Sauce:
1/2 cup apricot jam
1/2 cup mango chili vinegar
1cup chicken stock
2T minced shallot
salt & black pepper to taste
2T compound butter with garlic, thyme and dried sweet pepper if available

Directions:

To make the marinade, mix the olive oil, vinegar, add chopped cilantro and mint, then mince the shallot and add it and the chicken breasts to the mix in a shallow bowl.
Refrigerate covered for a minimum of 30 minutes . Salt and pepper after cooking.

Cook the chicken breasts on a stove top grill pan over medium heat until the juices come to the surface, then turn once, and wait for the juices to rise again. This produces a very tender and juicy chicken breast. Rest for 10 minutes off the heat.

For the sauce, heat the apricot jam, minced shallot and vinegar, and reduce by half, then add half the chicken stock along with some freshly ground black pepper and reduce by half again. Taste to see if you need more of the stock (if the sauce is too acidic). When the sauce is looking like the consistency of syrup, take off the heat and add the compound butter (or plain butter with 1/2t minced garlic).

Serve with a simple salad and a dressing made of a fruity olive oil and the mango vinegar. The salad in the photo is made of cucumbers, mandarin oranges and red onion with chopped cilantro.