First off, a quick caveat. I am currently working my way through a bottle of Dogfish Head Red and White, 10% ABV. I was really looking forward to cracking this one open but it’s not all I had hoped it would be. I mean, it’s not bad but not ….SPECTACULAR. But still…..10% ABV so if the typing skillz go downhill, y’all know why.
So. Dinner tonight was yum. I took inspiration from this post but decided to tweak it up a bit. First, because I don’t like water chestnuts so I left ‘em out. And second because my printer is out of ink and I didn’t feel like copying down the recipe by hand so I was working from memory.
I took two chicken breasts (I was only cooking for me and Jack – if you’re serving more than two you’d want to increase this of course) and pulsed ‘em in the food processor until they were nicely miniced. I pulled some ginger I had in the freezer (’bout a half an inch) and microplaned it and then added about another teaspoon of jarred fresh ginger. Big ol’ tablespoon of garlic. Drizzle of sesame oil. Salt and pepper.
Then I had to deal with the cilantro. I only grocery shop about once every three weeks so my cilantro was a little squiffy. But I was able to save about a quarter cup. Threw in a couple of chopped green onions and a large dash of dry mustard. And an egg.
Mixed it all together. Formed two patties plus a little extra I cooked up to test for seasoning. Tasted good, but I knew I’d want some type of sauce/spread. I tested it with mango chutney and then with soy sauce. Both were good. And then I thought HEY! Let’s add a little soy to the mango chutney! And how about some Chinese mustard? So this I did and it worked perfectly.
So I cooked up the chicken….about four minutes per side but another four minutes covered with lid over medium. Served on buns with the chutney/soy mixture, Fabulous although next time I will serve without buns because Jack said it was too much bread. (Oh yeah…..speaking of bread, I threw some fresh breadcrumb into the mixture to bind it all together)
My side dish bears mentioning. Again, I only grocery shop every few weeks and last time I went shopping, I decided to buy some frozen veggies. I am a total snob when it comes to veggies. I hate using canned or frozen. Only fresh for ths girl. But….I also hate throwing stuff out so I caved and bought some frozen asparagus. I cooked up some sliced shallots in butter with some salt and defrosted the asparagus in the mic. Then I tossed the asparagus in the butter until it was hot through and added a quick splash of lemon juice. Didn’t taste frozen at all. Wish I could say the same about last night’s green beans. Sigh
Anyway. That was dinner tonight. I figgered it was wotth blogging about because it was that good.
I’m going to be making some design changes around here soon. I need something more zippy. But for now….I need a bath. ‘Night y’all.
