Laurie's Stuffed Chicken Breasts

I have told you a bit about Laurie before in a couple different posts. She began her career path in a very different direction, and ended up finding her passion in the restaurant business. Even though she is the textbook single girl with a very demanding work schedule she still finds time to cook at home on occasion and she comes up with some pretty delicious combinations. You can see the influence fine dining has made on her. She likes to cook with beautiful ingredients, lots of fresh vegetables and fruits and loves creating not only delicious dishes but beautiful dishes as well. Colorful plates, attractive combinations. This is one apple that definitely did not fall far from the tree, she absolutely has my love of food and cooking. In her current role, she is the general manager of Magnolia Wine Kitchen, a beautiful restaurant in the heart of downtown Des Moines. Situated in the Western Gateway part of downtown, the restaurant sits right across from the sculpture garden and features huge floor to ceiling windows overlooking the park, and a hip little patio tucked in the alley next to the building. The dining room is decorated with women in mind. Soft colors, plush seating, gorgeous artwork dots the walls. The wine bar features an outstanding selection of wines that changes often. Craft cocktails also are a feature of the restaurant, with Chef Nico creating amazing specials each week in the kitchen.

One of her many creations

Laurie may be front of the house for the most part but she is not afraid to jump in the kitchen and cook when she needs to. She always challenges herself to learn not only the recipes on the menu but to actively help in planning specials and other events. During the recent Culinary Food Fight she served alongside Chef Nico as his sous chef, preparing many of the items with him. I love this about her, she takes those skills she learns on the job home, and re-imagines them as something a home cook can produce just as easily. Tonight, as she was snapchatting me pics and details of her dinner she was making at home, you could see the influence of a restaurant chef in her description and technique. Her dish was a wildly creative mix of sweet and savory, acid and creamy. I knew I'd be stealing this idea! I made a few adjustments in technique, where she butterflied and stuffed the chicken then baked it, I am pounding out the breasts, stuffing, then rolling up, dredging in flour and sauteing before finishing in the oven. It's going to be delicious. Let's get cooking.

Laura's Cherry, Feta, Apple Stuffed Chicken

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper
1 cup dried cherries
2 cups baby spinach
1 Granny Smith apple
1/4 cup dry red wine
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
3 scallions
all purpose flour
butter
olive oil

Pound the chicken breasts to 1/4 inch thickness. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Combine the dried cherries with the red wine and set aside. Chop the unpeeled apple into small dice. Slice the scallions, white and green parts.

Heat a swirl of olive oil in a small skillet. Add the apple and scallion and cook for a minute or two. Add the cherries with the wine and cook over high heat for a minute or two until the wine is almost evaporated and the apples are almost tender. Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Laurie likes to serve roasted root veggies.

On each chicken breast, place a layer of baby spinach leaves. Divide the apple mixture between the chicken and sprinkle with feta. Roll up tightly into rolls, securing with toothpicks or cooking twine. I prefer cooking twine- it makes it easier to turn and brown the chicken.

Laurie's finished dish.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees and heat a large oven safe skillet over medium high heat. Add a couple tablespoons of butter and a couple tablespoons of olive oil to the skillet. Dredge the chicken rolls in flour, then add to the skillet to brown on all sides, then place in the oven to finish cooking for about 15-20 minutes. Allow chicken to rest for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

Oh Canada !!!!

Can't you just hear the music?? Reminds me of the Olympics....well, anyway, in this case I am not talking about our Neighbor to the North nor the Olympics but rather the big beautiful bird, the Canada goose, who is a nuisance to so many of us (have you ever seen the bird poo mess they leave behind ??) and a delicacy to others.

photo courtesy of Rich Fletcher's Good Food and Photography

The Chef and I have been looking forward to getting back in the kitchen and back to cooking. Well, he is in the kitchen almost every night but that's to pay the bills, not to have fun. We haven't done any fun blog cooking in months, with the holidays and crazy schedules.... Since we have a freezer full of goose we figured it was time to give  it a whirl and see what we came up with. Chef took the day off so I attempted to create a succulent Roast Breast of Goose with Bacon and Red Wine Reduction. We'll see how this goes.......

Although I grew up eating game birds all the time I haven't had the opportunity to cook them other than whole roast duck or goose(except my attempt at duck confit). A lot of research was done, cookbooks consulted, hunters' advice regarded and disregarded and I decided to go with my imagination and see what happens.......

Having heard from so many people that overcooking makes goose taste like liver, and other say that's not so, and neither of us real familiar with goose BREAST we just decided to cook it more on the fully cooked side and less rare and bloody, which the Chef is not a fan of anyway.

My other challenge was DRYNESS. Every cook familiar with fowl knows the fat layer is under the skin and since the skin and fat layer had been removed, I had some extremely lean meat to work with. With adding the broth/wine and layering bacon on top, I'm hoping to replace some of the moisture in the meat and keep it from becoming goose jerky.

ROAST BREAST OF GOOSE WITH BACON AND RED WINE REDUCTION

3 goose breasts (we had Canada goose, boneless with the skin removed)
1 small onion
6 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper
Asian Five Spice seasoning
vegetable oil
1-2 cups chicken stock, wine (red or white) or combo
bacon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Thoroughly rinse and pat dry duck. (I thawed the goose breasts in a brine-like salt water solution) Season with five spice powder, salt and pepper and set aside.

Peel and halve onion, slice crosswise, separate into half rings. Slice garlic cloves.

Pour a couple tablespoons of oil (any kind will do, veg, olive or even, if you have it and want to splurge, melted duck fat !!) into a 9 inch square baking dish, sprinkle in the onions and garlic.

Set the goose breasts atop the vegetables. Cut bacon slices in half crosswise and cover breasts with bacon to completely cover but don't overlap if you can help it. Pour the broth/wine around the breasts.  Place dish, covered, into oven. Roast at 375 degrees about 20 minutes, then reduce to 325 and roast for about and hour to ninety minutes. Remove and check for temp (some people like goose rare, some fully cooked like you would poultry. 165 degrees is the safe MINIMUM temperature,so roast according to your preference.) Remove cover and briefly run under the broiler to crisp up the bacon.

Remove from oven and allow to rest about ten minutes. Slice across the grain and serve. I made a rice pilaf and simply cooked green beans to go with ours. I placed slices of the goose on the plate and drizzled with Red Wine Reduction.

RED WINE REDUCTION

1 cup red wine or port (I wanted to use port but didn't have any, didn't want a whole bottle so I bought a single Cabernet)
6 juniper berries
6 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf

Combine ingredients in small saucepan, bring to boil and reduce to syrupy. You will not have much in the pan but you don't NEED much for big flavor impact.

Now the verdict:  The goose came out with a texture, and incredibly, a flavor a lot like roast beef ! My brain is already working and thinking about how to cook the next batch we thaw !!

Le Creuset and me, a love story

The Chef can attest, opening the box from Williams Sonoma was like Christmas morning for me. The Happy Dance took place in the dining room as I struggled with the tape. Finally, after wanting and lusting for sooooo long, a Le Creuset dutch oven was MINE !!! And it didn't take long for me to use it either.

Today is a gorgeous fall day- a light wind rustling the leaves, the walnuts dropping off my trees and littering the yard and street, a last handful of peppers from the garden. PERFECT day for something to cook all afternoon. The change of season is a little like a turning point for me- time to get it together and give up the summer laziness. I set the alarm clock and ran errands in the morning for a change. Sharing the aisles of our little town grocery store with a much older group of customers than I have seen in ages, I was inspired by the display of indian corn, gourds and pumpkins to come up with a really wonderful autumn meal.

Hmmmm what to have......chicken ?? I just came across a new recipe for chicken paprika the other day..... Pork ??  It's apple season here, pork and something apple ?? I settled on a really lovely beef roast....and now what ? Stew ? Roast ? And suddenly the lightbulb went off.....Boeuf Bourgignon in the new dutch oven !!! A half pound of fresh mushrooms and a bottle of cabernet sauvignon completed my shopping for the day and I headed home with my spoils.

So here it is. The Baker's version of Boeuf Bourgignon.

1 3 lb boneless beef roast, trimmed of fat and cut into 2" cubes
flour, salt and pepper for dredging
1/4 lb lacon, cut into lardons
1 large onion, cut into 1" chunks
8 oz fresh mushrooms, left whole, stems trimmed (smaller mushrooms are best)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tb tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary
salt and pepper
1 bottle dry red wine (I used cabernet sauvignon, any dry red is fine)
2 cups beef stock

In dutch oven brown bacon in about 1 tb oil. Remove bacon, reserve fat. Add onion to dutch oven and cook and stir over med high heat until golden brown, add mushrooms, continue to cook and stir til mushrooms brown (don't go too long or they release their liquid and steam instead of browning). Remove from skillet. Add additional oil or bacon fat if needed. Dredge beef in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Brown on all sides in batches (don't crowd or you will just steam the meat instead of browning), remove to plate until all beef is browned. After last batch of meat is browned add the garlic to pan and stir for 1 or 2 minutes until just softened. Deglaze pan with wine, return vegetables, beef and bacon to pot, stir in tomato paste, herbs, stock, season with salt and pepper. Place dutch oven in 300 degree oven for 3-4 hours or until meat is very tender. To serve, remove meat and veggies from broth with slotted spoon. Cook the pan juices until reduced and thickened. Serve meat and vegetables with sauce and mashed potatoes or pasta and a good crusty bread.

I NEVER buy "stew meat". Why pay the store to cut up my beef when it's so easy to do myself AND I get to QA as I go and get rid of the gristle and fat to my liking? So that's what I did today, I used a 3 lb beef arm roast and it was a gorgeous cut of meat- not much fat and it was super easy to trim.

I worked with a freshly sharpened chef's knife and trimmed off the little bit of fat on the edge, and then separated the roast into sections and cut into nice 2 inch chunks.

I cut my bacon into lardons (yes, I am a food snob and love using these foodie terms and the more French I get to use, the better) and yes, I did separate each and every one and put it into a small bowl. I hate trying to brown my bacon and getting clumps of bacon, so I pick em apart. I also love to prep ahead as much as I can and get things into small prep bowls, so when it's time to use that ingredient, I just need to grab it and dump it in the pot.

Browning the bacon in the brand new Le Creuset. Ahhhhhh such a beautiful sight and such a happy moment, just knowing this is MINE !! I feel like a proud mommy.

The mushrooms were super easy to clean, just a wipe with a damp sponge and trim the end of the stem- I prefer to leave the stems ON but cut them flush with the caps, so I get a cute little round mushroom ball instead of mushroom "bowls".

The onions and mushrooms browned up nicely in the bacon fat. I love the way the round shape of the mushrooms take on this evenly golden look when they've been cooked.

As I said, I always get all my ingredients ready BEFORE I start cooking, so I use alot of little pinch/prep bowls. My herbs in one bowl, garlic and tomato paste in another. I'm a pretty organized person, even when cooking so this is just something I always do to make it easier on myself later. It's also a last chance to find out if I'm missing an ingredient- I haven't started yet, so it's not too late to get what I need or decide on a substitution.

Next, I browned all the meat in small batches- as I said above you really need to give the meat alot of space so it will BROWN instead of steam into a mass of beef/flour goo. The browning of the flour also makes the sauce much more flavorful, so it's a very important step.

After giving the garlic a quick run in the hot pan, I deglazed with the entire bottle of wine (well, I had removed about 1/2 cup and put that in the freezer- per the Chef's orders, so next time he makes red sauce he can have a little red wine to add) and used my wooden spoon to scrape up the browned tasty bits on the bottom and sides of the pot. Again, such an important step, getting all that deliciousness incorporated into what will become the sauce. Dredging and browning the beef and cooking the bacon make this step possible and absolutely necessary to a delicious finished dish. And this is also why I wanted this dutch oven so badly- my cookware is non-stick and you CANNOT get that frond/deglaze thing going in non-stick cookware, it's almost impossible.

Everybody back in the pool !!!!! Stir in the tomato paste and herbs and it's into the oven for a long, slow cooking (and a little autumn food air freshening for the house). I cannot WAIT til it's time to dig in !!!

I let Lenny and Ed occupy my afternoon with a few back to back Law & Order episodes while the house filled with yummy aromas........and eventually...... the result of all my labors has reached its delicious finish....

I scooped out all the meat, mushrooms and onions into another bowl and covered it to keep warm while I heated the pan juices to boiling and let them thicken into the sauce.

I finished dinner with some mashed potatoes and homemade focaccia (which you will have to read about next time !!)

I think Julia would have approved. And to borrow her very famous catchphrase..... Bon appetit !!