Saturday, October 30, 2010

Chicken Bouillabaisse

Hello Rotisserie Chicks! Greetings from San Jose. Hope you all doing well. It's woman here, and let me take the liberty to do the first posting in this awesome blog. I made chicken Bouillabaisse about last month (sorry for taking so long posting this - but it's always better late than never. ) The recipe I adapted was from Karen's blog: Dinner With Julia.

If you google 'chicken Bouillabaisse' you will find 101 various ways to make this chicken. However, in my opinion the closest recipes I found that true to its originality are from cooks.com and Karen's blog. So, let's begin, shall we?

Chicken Bouillabaisse
(I basically copied the recipe from Karen's, but I added Leek to make it more fragrant


Ingredients:
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 small onion, sliced
  • 1 fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced
  • 1 leek, cut and sliced
  • 4 finely chopped garlic cloves
  • 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
  • ½ teaspoon ground fennel seed
  • ½ teaspoon saffron threads, crushed lightly with back of a spoon
  • ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 1 ½ cups canned diced or crushed tomatoes
  • 3 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
  • 3 bone-in, skin-on chicken drumsticks
  • Fine sea or kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • About 2 cups chicken stock
  • 1 small orange or tangerine, halved
note;
1. Fennel.
For those of you who have never dealt with fennel before, here is a clip to give you tutor how to cut it. Basically fennel is still in one family with onion, but what's make fennel more special is the liquorish smell once you cut it in half.

2. Leeks.
Leeks looks like a giant green onion. You need to wash it before you cook it. Here is a clip to show how to clean and cut leeks.

3. Saffron threads
What is saffron? Saffron is the little thread at the center of a small purple crocus, where the pollen catches and develops. You can find it at wholefoods, trader joe's, safeway, any American grocery store. The price is quite pricey for just a bulk of threads. However, these Spanish threads makes the Bouillabaisse sauce fragrant and spicy.
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How to do?
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees.

2. In a large, deep skillet or in a Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Cook the onion and
fennel, and leek slowly until tender – watch the heat so they don’t brown. I like to cover the pot slightly to help them sweat it out.

3. Stir in the garlic, thyme, fennel seed, saffron and cayenne and cook for a minute or two, until the mixture is fragrant.

4. Turn up the heat to medium-high and add the wine to the pan; cook for one minute and add
the tomatoes. Bring to a lively simmer and cook until the tomato juices are reduced by half, about 3 minutes.

5. Season the chicken generously on all sides with salt and pepper. Arrange the chicken in the pan, nestling the pieces among and under the vegetables. Pour in enough stock to just barley cover the chicken. Toss the orange halves in the pan and bring to a simmer. Cover the pan and transfer to the oven.


6. Check the chicken after 25 minutes – it should be very tender when poked with a fork. It not, return the pan to the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes. Check the seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed.

7. Serve the chicken over buttery couscous with lots of the sauce spooned over. If you can make this a day ahead or save some leftovers, the chicken will soak in the aromatic sauce and it will taste even better!


Monday, September 27, 2010

Hi and Welcome!

So what's the deal here?
It starts with two words. Rotisserie. Chicken.

You know what I'm talking about. You see them every time you enter a grocery store. Their juicy aroma wafting through the deli section, tantalizing your taste buds. You stop dead in your track, unable to remember what you come here for. Uh, spaghetti sauce? Artichokes? Toilet paper? You can't remember. Gone is the plan to cook dinner tonight. And why should you anyway? There it is, a perfectly roasted chicken available in different flavors, ready to be purchased. You turn around, grab one of those poultry, and within five minutes, you're out of the door. Honey, I'm coming home. We'll have chicken for tonight's dinner.

Now, how familiar does that scenario sound to you? For us, and we believe many others, it is becoming all too common. Believe it or not, rotisserie chicken is becoming a staple for many American households. It should be right there almost at the top of the list just below eggs and sliced bread. From college students to busy career people on the go, everybody loves it. Besides, what's not to like about it? It's perfectly cooked, healthier than its fried counterparts, and also very versatile. The members of this blog can all testify that we have substituted leftover rotisserie chicken into many recipes.

Which brings us to the whole point of why we started this blog. Simply put, to find creative ways to eat rotisserie chicken. So expect pictures and recipes from our journey, along with related articles on the subject very dear to our heart.

Oh, and you can just call us the Rotisserie Chicks.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Rotisserie Chicks Manifesto

  1. Rotisserie chicken, home-made or store-bought, preferably, the latter, is your nutritious best friend.
  2. Rotisserie chicken is the second most versatile ingredient of all time, the first being egg.
  3. OK, we just have to put it here to answer the duality of who came first. It's the chicken.
  4. There is no wrong way to enjoy a rotisserie chicken.
  5. Sharing recipes, pictures of rotisserie chicken meals is encouraged.
  6. Spreading of the rotisserie chicken goodness to the world is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment.
  7. Although, it is still have to be performed in a respectful, non-ebarbaric ways , i.e., link to us, write us email.