Marinated Chicken with Scallion Pancakes

We made this a couple nights ago and I wasn’t going to post about it… but it is one of my favorite things to make, and I have a full cup of coffee in front of me and am in the mood for a good ramble, so here goes…

Back in Santa Barbara as a grad student living in near-poverty, I had this epiphany that there are places called “libraries” where they will actually give you books for free as long as you promise to bring them back later. I was running out of both shelf space for cookbooks and money with which to purchase them when I wandered into the cookbook section (good ol’ 641 in the Dewey decimal system) at the Santa Barbara library. I sat on the floor in the 641 aisle for over an hour that day poring over the books and trying to decide which ones would come home with me. I don’t remember 11 of the 12 books that I brought home that day, but the one I remember clearly is Flavors by Donna Hay.
For me, there are two types of cookbooks that I absolutely love: those that make you want to sit down with a glass of wine and read them cover to cover like a novel (most books by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid fall into this category, as well as the fabulous A Return to Cooking by Eric Ripert and Michael Ruhlman), and those that don’t ask you to do any reading whatsoever as they present you with gorgeous pictures of each and every dish and minimal verbiage (which tends to be any book photographed by Petrina Tinslay). When I first opened Flavors (my first-ever Donna Hay book*), it was the most brilliant cookbook I had ever seen… Recipes consist of a short ingredient list followed by only the briefest of instructions (not great for people who aren’t comfortable in the kitchen, but perfect for people looking primarily for a bit of inspiration) accompanied by a beautiful picture. Instead of reading through recipes trying to decide what might taste good, you can simply flip through the pictures until one makes you say “Ooh! I want to eat THAT!”

This is all my long-winded way of getting around to the fact that the very first recipe I ever tried from the very first Donna Hay cookbook I ever saw was Hoisin Chicken with Green Onion Pancakes. I’ve been making some version of this for probably about 6 years now, and a lot has changed in terms of the chicken and condiments that I use, but those pancakes are absolutely fantastic. Below is a rough approximation of the meal I tend to make with them. (The marinade I usually use is “throw a bunch of Asian-ish stuff in a bag until it tastes right, then add chicken,” but I tried to quantify it a bit better here…)

Marinated Chicken with Scallion Pancakes

   1/4 C Hoisin sauce
   1/4 C soy sauce
   2 T honey (or brown sugar, depending on your mood)
   1-3 T finely grated ginger
   2-4 garlic cloves, minced
   1-2 T Asian chili-garlic sauce
   1 T toasted sesame oil
   2kg boneless, skinless chicken thighs

   1 English cucumber, cut 1-inch segments then julienned
   6-10 scallions, finely sliced
   Hoisin, for serving
   Sriracha (or other delicious hot sauce), for serving
   1 batch of Donna Hay’s Scallion Pancakes (recipe below)

Combine the first 7 ingredients (Hoisin through sesame oil). Season with salt, pepper, and/or any of those 7 ingredients to taste, then add the chicken. Marinate for several hours or (ideally) overnight.

Preheat a gas grill.** Remove chicken from marinade and grill until just cooked through. Allow to rest, then slice into roughly bite-sized pieces. Prepare the pancakes while the chicken cooks and rests. You should now have a counter of ingredients looking something like this (only with Sriracha instead of random delicious hot sauce purchased in Dubai):
Assemble the pancake wraps to your taste (I tend to go with Hoisin, hot sauce, a handful of chicken, some cucumber, lots of scallions, then more Hoisin and hot sauce as needed…) and enjoy.

Serves 4.


Donna Hay’s Scallion Pancakes

   1 C all-purpose flour
   1/2 C rice flour
   3 eggs
   1 1/2 C milk
   Pinch of sea salt
   1 T sesame oil
   6 scallions, thinly sliced

Combine flour, rice flour, eggs, milk, salt, and sesame oil in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Add additional milk or flour if needed to get a thin crepe-batter-like consistency. Stir in the scallions.

Spray a sauté pan with oil and place over medium-high heat. (Or, if you don’t have sprayable oil, drizzle a small amount of oil in the pan and wipe with a paper towel to leave only a light coating.) Add about 1/3 C of the batter to the pan and swirl the pan a bit to spread the batter thinly. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side or until lightly browned. The top will look mostly dry, possibly with a few small popped air bubbles, when it’s time for to flip the pancake the first time. (It usually takes an imperfect pancake or two before you get a feel for the best temperature for the stovetop and the right amount of oil.) Depending on your pan, you will need to reapply oil after every 1 or 2 pancakes.

Makes about 8 or 9 pancakes. Keep the pancakes warm (e.g. covered with a tea towel on a plate in a low oven) until ready to serve.

*I now own 7 of Donna Hay’s books (including Flavors) and subscribed to her magazine for two years when I lived in Melbourne, so it turns out that money-saving trip to the library was actually quite expensive in the end…

**Again, this can be done under the broiler in your oven if you don’t have a gas grill at your disposal.

Yogurt-Marinated Chicken with Lentils

While getting my heart broken (again) by the Bucs last night, I was enjoying one of my very favorite dishes: Yogurt-Marinated Chicken with Lentils. This is a recipe that I developed after having something sort of similar in a restaurant. After playing with the ingredients a bit, it turned into something that I like much better than that restuarant dish. I find myself craving this pretty frequently, but that's OK since it's actually pretty darned healthy. This dish is also nice for people who don't dedicate quite so much time to grocery-shopping as I do, since almost all of the ingredients come from the freezer or pantry, and the fresh produce items (onion, garlic, lemon) are relatively shelf-stable as far as produce goes... This also is a really simple recipe to make, and not just in the crazy Emily-style way...

Yogurt-Marinated Chicken with Lentils

  2kg boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Marinade:
      200g low fat Greek-style yogurt
      1 T paprika
      1 tsp ground cumin
      ½ tsp ground turmeric
      ½ – 1 tsp ground cayenne
      2 T lemon juice
      1 T olive oil

  1 tsp olive oil
  2 large shallots (or 1 small red onion), minced
  2 – 3 cloves garlic, minced
  2 C dry brown/green lentils
  3 C chicken stock
  1 C water
  500g chopped frozen spinach (thawed, squeezed dry)
  1 (14.5 oz) can whole tomatoes (crushed by hand, not drained)
  1 -2 T Dijon mustard
  juice of 1 – 1.5 lemons
  low fat Greek-style yogurt to serve

Combine all marinade ingredients. Cut the chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces and add to the marinade for several hours or (ideally) overnight. Preheat a gas grill.* Remove the chicken from the marinade and thread onto skewers. Grill until just cooked through. (Start grilling the chicken during the final cooking stage of lentils, below…)

Meanwhile, prepare the lentils: Heat oil in a saucepan. Sauté shallot/onion and garlic for ~2 minutes (until softened). Add lentils and toss to coat, then add chicken stock and water. Bring to a boil and simmer (covered) over low heat for 15 minutes. Add the spinach, tomatoes, and mustard. Bring back to a boil and simmer (covered) for 20 minutes. Add lemon juice and simmer uncovered until much of the excess liquid has evaporated (about 30 minutes) stirring occasionally.

The lentils are tasty as is, but yogurt adds a nice creaminess, so I usually stir some into my lentils. Serve the chicken over a bed of lentils with yogurt (if using) on the side.

Serves 6.

*As with any grilled dish, this could be done under a broiler if you don't have a grill, but I love the slightly charred flavor you get from cooking with fire, so I can't promise it will be as tasty without a grill...

Chicken Meatball and Bok Choy Soup with Noodles

This soup takes a bit of time to prep, but comes together quickly once the components are ready. This is one of my favorite lunches and it freezes really well, too... which is good, since it’s hard to make less than 8 servings without ingredients going to waste…

Chicken Meatball and Bok Choy Soup with Noodles
Modified from a recipe at FoodandWine.com

   400g firm tofu
   600g ground chicken (or turkey)
   6 tablespoons finely chopped water chestnuts
   5 scallions, finely chopped
   4 tablespoon finely minced fresh ginger
   1 2/3 cups chopped cilantro, divided
   4 tablespoons soy sauce, divided
      Salt and freshly ground white pepper
   16 cups chicken stock
   2 – 10 small red chiles, thinly sliced
   2 – 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
   0 – 2 teaspoons sugar (to taste… will depend on tartness of the limes)
   500g dried Asian egg noodles
   1 teaspoon peanut oil (or substitute any mild-flavored oil)
   3 shallots, thinly sliced
   750g baby bok choy, sliced crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
   4-5 tomatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice
      Sesame oil

Preheat the oven to 350̊ Fahrenheit. Place tofu in a medium bowl and mash with a fork until relatively smooth. Combine the tofu with the chicken, water chestnuts, scallions, ginger, 2/3 cup of cilantro, 2 tablespoons of the soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of white pepper. Form the mixture into 1-inch balls and arrange on a baking sheet. Bake for ~30 minutes or until cooked through. Set aside.

Meanwhile, prepare the broth, noodles, and shallots: For the broth, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Add the chiles, lime juice, sugar (if needed), and remaining 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the noodles to the broth and cook until just done (usually about 3-4 minutes). Remove the noodles from the broth and set aside. For the shallots, heat the peanut oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat and sauté the sliced shallots, stirring occasionally, until softened and beginning to caramelize. Set aside.

Now that the individual ingredients are ready, return the broth to a simmer and assemble the dish: Divide the noodles evenly among 8 bowls. Next divide the bok choy among the bowls, followed by the tomato, the remaining 1C of cilantro, and then the shallots. Divide the meatballs evenly among the bowls. Top each serving with a light drizzle (~1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon) of sesame oil. Finally, divide the hot broth evenly among the bowls and serve.

Makes 8 generous servings.

Cauliflower, Chicken, Potato, and Pea Curry

This is one of my favorite “comfort food” meals, and it has the added bonus of not requiring any particularly exotic ingredients, thus making it easy to make in almost any city… I’ll probably be posting more recipes as I do less traveling, since my non-traveling life doesn’t involve all that much eating out. (Keep in mind that there’s an implicit “or to taste” after any suggested ingredient amount.) This recipe serves 8-9, and I don’t know how to make it serve less without throwing ingredients away. I’ve found (being unable to eat 8 servings in a timely fashion when I make this for myself) that it actually freezes extremely well, so it’s worth it to just make a full batch and throw the extra servings in the freezer for a super-low-maintenance dinner down the road…

Cauliflower, Chicken, Potato, and Pea Curry
Modified from a recipe at Epicurious.com

   1 tablespoon oil or chicken fat (chicken fat is best…)
   2 medium onions, chopped
   3 tablespoons ground coriander
   2-3 tablespoons ground cumin
   1.5 teaspoons turmeric
   0-3 teaspoons dried red-pepper flakes
   6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
   1 large head of cauliflower, cored and broken into bite-sized pieces
   6-8 small potatoes (preferably Yukon Gold), cut into 3/4–inch dice
   1 (14.5 oz) can whole tomatoes (not drained, crushed by hand)
   3/4 cup chopped cilantro, plus more to serve
   1 cup water
   1 teaspoon salt
   2 cups frozen petite peas
   Plain yogurt (to serve)

Preheat the oven to 350̊ Fahrenheit.

Heat oil or chicken fat in a large oven-safe dish* over medium-high heat. Add the onion and sauté until softened and starting to color. Add the coriander, cumin, turmeric, and red-pepper flakes and stir for about 1 minute. Add the chicken and stir to coat, then add the cauliflower and potatoes and cook, stirring frequently, until the everything is coated in the spice mixture and well-combined.

Add the tomatoes, 1/4 cup of the cilantro, the water, and the salt. Bring to a simmer, cover, and place in the oven to cook for 30 minutes. Partially uncover and continue to cook until the potatoes are tender, about 30-60 minutes. (Sometimes the potatoes are a bit obstinate and this takes a while longer.) On the stovetop over medium-low heat, stir in the peas and the remaining 1/2 cup cilantro and cook, stirring, until the peas are tender, about 2 minutes longer.

Serve with yogurt, fresh cilantro, and additional red pepper flakes.

Serves 8.


*If you don’t have a dish that can go from stovetop to oven this can all be done on the stovetop. Just simmer over low heat until the potatoes are cooked through, stirring occasionally. I prefer to do this in the oven because I can walk away and ignore it for almost the entire cooking time, rather than being stuck monitoring it and having to stir.