Chicken Scarpariello, An Italian American Classic

Chicken Scarpariello is an Italian American classic, a perfect blend of old world and new world flavors that really hits the spot. Tangy, spicy and savory, there’s nothing not to love when it’s made right. By made right, I not only mean that the flavors have to be balanced, but also in my opinion, it has to be made with chicken on the bone. This is a dish that needs to withstand some slow cooking, so the last thing you want is dried out chicken. There are many different iterations of Chicken Scarpariello, and sometimes when I order it, I’m ultimately disappointed. I decided to make my own last Sunday so it would taste exactly how I wanted it to! Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken legs, thighs and drumsticks separated

• 1 pound Sweet Italian Sausage

• 3-5 Hot Cherry Peppers (depending on heat level you want)

• 1 1/2 Cups micro or fingerling potatoes

• 3 cloves fresh cracked garlic

• 1 tsp dried rosemary

• 1 tsp dried, high quality oregano, plus extra for garnish

• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock

• 1 cup white wine

• 2 Tbs vinegar pepper liquid

• 1 Tbs butter

• 1 tsp corn starch (optional)

Rosemary, Oregano, Cracked Garlic Cloves, Hot Cherry Peppers and their juice (they come in a big old jar) and finally micro potatoes-not always easy to find, but they are my go-to in many recipes.

To Do:

First, I like to make sure my chicken is nice and dry so it will brown well. A few hours before cooking I like to unpack my chicken, wipe off any moisture with a paper towel and then keep it on a drying rack in the refrigerator, this keeps the chicken nice and dry. Heat a dutch oven on medium heat with a little bit of oil, and once hot, liberally salt the chicken and making sure not to overcrowd, brown the skin on the chicken for about 4 minutes. Salt the meat side, turn over and cook for a couple minutes and then transfer to a plate. Work in two batches if there’s not enough room to do this at once. While the chicken is cooking, cut the sausage into 1-1 1/2” pieces and when the chicken is removed, brown the sausage on all sides. Remove sausage and add to the chicken plate.

Add the garlic, herbs and potatoes to the pot, mix it around and let cook for about 5 minutes. Add the white wine and remove any brown flavor bits from the bottom and sides of the pot with your wooden spoon. Start loading the chicken and sausage back into the pot, add the peppers and their juice, a teaspoon of salt and the stock. Put the lid on the dutch oven and let cook in a 350 degree preheated oven for 45 minutes.

Once the meat, potatoes and cherry peppers are all together in the pot, add the liquid and braise in the oven for 45 minutes.

When ready, take it out of the oven, remove the meat, potatoes and peppers and cook the liquid over a high flame. I mashed the remaining garlic with my wooden spoon so it disintegrated into the liquid, but if you prefer to, remove it. If the sauce seems very thin, add a teaspoon of warm water to a teaspoon of corn starch and make a slurry, add it to the liquid. Let this cook on high for 5 more minutes, and add the butter. Mix it around and taste it once the butter has completely melted into the sauce. If it seems too acidic, add just a dash of sweet like honey or sugar.

Once the sauce is thickened and tastes well balanced, arrange the meat, potatoes and peppers around on a serving dish, add in the sauce and top with more oregano. Serve-you and your guest will love this! Serves 3-4.

Chicken Scarpariello! The perfect Sunday dinner!

This dish is naturally gluten free, but if you would like to also make it dairy free (I did), just use a dairy free buttery spread like Earth Balance and you have a completely Gluten and Dairy free meal.

Lisa's Larb

Darin and I love to order Larb when we go out for Thai food.  Larb is a Southeast Asian dish that is basically a minced meat salad-the dressing is spicy, salty and tangy: a great light dish with very bold flavors.  It's also a dish that is easy to prepare at home as a fast and healthy weeknight meal.  I like to serve it over some greens with cucumbers, and sometimes I will add rice or quinoa to the mix.  It's very versatile and fun to make.  This recipe below is a good starting point.  I am in no means making this in a traditional Thai or Laotian way, which is why I call it, Lisa's Larb.

Ingredients:

For the Meat:

• 1 lb ground meat of your choice (this is chicken)
• 1 TB Chili Paste

For the Sauce:

• 1TB Sesame Oil
• 1/2 cup Rice Wine Vinegar
• 1 1/2 TB Fish Sauce
• Juice of 3 Limes
• 1/2 tsp Chili Paste
• 1 TB Tamari Sauce
• 1 TB Dijon Mustard
• 2 TB Honey
• 1 tsp Salt

For the Salad:

• Handful of fresh cilantro
• Handful of fresh mint
• 1 jalapeno
• 1 package of lettuces of your choice
• 3 scallions
• 1 TB olive oil

For the Garnish:

• 2 Kirby Cucumbers
• 1 handful Toasted Peanuts (I used cashews)
• 5-10 Cilantro leaves
• 5-10 Mint leaves
• jalapeno slices

The first thing you want to do is sauté your ground meat in the chili paste.  

While that is cooking, you can get the sauce prepped.  I like to put all of the ingredients into a liquid measuring cup, because it is deep enough where you can whisk the ingredients together with a small whisk or fork and not make a mess.  So, go ahead and put all of the ingredients into the measuring cup or bowl and whisk away.  Make sure to periodically check on your meat and stir and break up the bigger parts of meat.  When it is cooked through, turn off the heat and keep the meat in that pan.  Drizzle 1/4 of the sauce onto the meat so it can start to soak up the flavors of the sauce.  

Now you can assemble your salad.  Roughly chop your lettuces and fresh herbs, clean and chop the scallions, slice the jalapeños (put some aside to use for garnish) and place in a bowl.  Gently toss with the olive oil.  I only put olive oil because plenty of acidic liquid is going to end up on the greens once I assemble the dish.

Now you could prep your garnish, chop the toasted nuts, peel and slice your cucumbers (I like to cut them diagonally so they could be used to scoop up the meat and they're pretty).

To plate all of this, place your salad on your plates.  Top with the meat mixture and drizzle the sauce al over the meat.  Next, arrange the cucumbers around the plate and sprinkle the remaining garnish over the top of the larb.  

Serve and Enjoy!

This recipe makes enough for two big salads, or you can steam some rice and serve 4 people.

Lisa's Larb Finished Product!

This is the kind of dish that you could really make your own.  It's spicy, tangy, salty and a little sweet-so feel free to add heat or sweet depending on your preferences.  It's a great versatile and healthy dish that you should try if you haven't!

Coconut Cauliflower With Five Spice Chicken Thighs

This is one of those meals that are healthy and fast enough as a weeknight dinner but also decadent enough to be a weekend meal.  If you find yourself with leftovers on a weekend morning, poach some eggs and put them on top of the reheated 'rice'.  

The first thing I did was rinse some boneless skinless chicken thighs, pat them dry and liberally dust them with salt and a 5 spice blend.  I put them right into my oil free anonized all-clad fry pan and let them sear and render their own fat.  While they cooked, I riced a head of cauliflower using our Ninja blender (use any blender or food processor, or buy some pre-riced!) and started chopping my vegetables and prepping my mis en place.

Five Spice Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs (yummy, fast and versatile)

For my mis en place I diced an orange bell pepper (you can use any color, I just prefer orange), I peeled and coarsely sliced some fresh ginger (I remove it halfway when cooking), chopped scallions and a pack of cremini mushrooms.  I also picked some basil leaves and cut up a fresh pineapple.  Additional ingredients were a half can of lite coconut milk, gluten free soy sauce and chili paste, and curry powder.

My next step was to add about a tablespoon of chili paste to the fry pan that I cooked the chicken thighs in, some soy sauce to deglaze the brown bits and added the ginger.  I let that fry up a bit and then added the peppers and half of the scallions.  After a few minutes I added the mushrooms and let those cook for a few minutes more.  Then I removed the ginger and in went the coconut milk, half of the basil and once that heated through, I tasted it and adjusted the salt.  In went the cauliflower rice and I let that cook for about 5 minutes and added a little more soy sauce and about a tablespoon of brown sugar to it.  I let this cook for about ten minutes, stirring it every now and then.  After ten minutes, I stirred in my pineapple and shut the heat.  

Coconut Cauliflower Rice with pineapple

At this point, you are ready to plate!  Ladle in some of the rice, spread some slices of the chicken thighs around it and add some of the fresh chopped scallions and basil.  Enjoy with a crisp white wine or beer if you prefer.  

Remember, when making cauliflower fried rice, there are endless combinations of proteins, produce and flavors you can use to create a fun, healthy, gluten free and low carb meal that hopefully your whole family could enjoy!

Lazy Sunday Vegan Pizza

It's that time of year here in NYC when we find ourselves between seasons.  Summer is over, but we still keep getting some hot days.  Football is on but we still keep getting some late season summer produce.  We had a busy weekend, so today I made a fast, simple and 'lazy' dinner. We had store-bought gluten free pizza crusts, locally made vegan pesto from Gotham Greens and a couple different vegan cheeses in the refrigerator, so I decided we should have a kitchen sink pizza.  We stopped by our neighborhood Sunday farmer's market and picked up some organic heirloom tomatoes, an eggplant and spinach.  

We had store-bought gluten free pizza crusts, locally made vegan pesto from Gotham Greens and a couple different vegan cheeses in the refrigerator, so I decided we should have a kitchen sink pizza.  We stopped by our neighborhood Sunday farmer's market and picked up some organic heirloom tomatoes, an eggplant and spinach.  

When it was time to make the pizzas, I sautéed the spinach in garlic and olive oil and placed it in a bowl, and then added diced eggplant that I tossed in olive oil, Sicilian chili oil and red wine vinegar to the pan to saute`.  Chao vegan cheese slices are really really good, and I need to stop buying them!  They are officially my favorite vegan cheese product out there because they melt well and they don't have an odd after taste that some of them seem to have.  I halved and placed two slices on each pizza crust along with four slices of heirloom tomatoes per crust and put that into a 375 degree oven.  While that baked in the oven, I shredded a quarter of a block of Daiya jalapeño havarti cheese into my Gotham Greens vegan pesto and mixed it together.  I took the crusts out and added teaspoon sized dollops of the pesto/cheese mixture throughout the crust and then added the diced eggplant and through it in the oven for around 5 more minutes to continue cooking.  At the end I added the spinach to the pizzas and let that back for about 5 more minutes.  

It was nice to take advantage of the end of summer produce and also empty out our fridge and get help from some store-bought ingredients.  My kind of lazy Sunday!