Chicken cutlets with chipotle and morita sauce

Sorry for the delay. I've been doing 12-to-14-hour work days for two weeks, and even working some weekends. I've been too tired to post.

But I did cook (I have to eat, don't I?) So here's what I've been up to:

Ingredients:

10-12 Roma tomatoes (these are the oblong type; I prefer round tomatoes, but they are scarce right now)
1/2 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 dried Chipotles
3-4 dried Morita chiles
1/2 tsp. cumin
1 Chicken bouillon cube, lo-fat and low-sodium
9-10 cilantro branches
220 gr. (about two scoops) cottage cheese
3/4 cup non-fat or low-fat milk
3-4 chicken cutlets (these are skinless, boneless chicken breasts pounded flat) about 800 gr.
Black pepper to taste
Shredded cheese to taste
Low-fat sour cream to taste

First peel and seed the tomatoes. Make sure to place the removed seeds in a colander over a bowl to catch the substantial juice they hold. You'll need it later in the recipe. Next chop the tomatoes into large pieces.

Preheat oven to 200 C (about 390-400 F)

In a big, deep saucepan, heat the oil, then saute the garlic and onion for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes and reduce heat to medium. Add black pepper if you want to. As the tomatoes cook, they'll release some juices. Keep cooking, stirring on occasion, until the tomatoes are soft and they easily break apart. Add the juice you reserved from the seeds. Reduce heat to minimum and keep cooking, again with occasional stirring, until the whole thing bubbles and boils.

While all this goes on, you need to prepare the chiles. First set water to boil in a small pot, then add the dried chiles. Let them boil for five minutes or so. You want them to soften and hydrate them. Some won't soften much, others will soften too much. Either way is ok. Next cut off the tails and discard them. Sit the chiles length-wise and open them, then remove all the seeds (lots of seeds to remove in this recipe, I know). Cut or shred the chiles into smaller pieces.

Now let the  tomato mix cool down a bit, then place it in a blender along with the cottage cheese, milk, cilantro, cumin, bouillon cube and chiles. Liquefy well. If you need to do it in batches, make sure you put a bit of everything in each batch. The result should be thick and creamy.

Batches or not, you may want to add the chiles in parts, lest the sauce wind up too hot. If it does, add a little tomato sauce and a bit more cottage cheese (this is a guess).

Ok, next pour some sauce on a baking dish and add half the chicken. Sprinkle some cheese, if you want, pour in more sauce, then the rest of the chicken, then the rest of the sauce. Top with some shredded cheese and low-fat sour cream.

Now place the baking dish in the oven, preheated to 200 C or 390-400 F, for about an hour or until the chicken is cooked through. You may want to check after 40 minutes or so. Serve with plain white rice, if you like mixing it in with the chicken, or with Mexican Rice.

I found the sauce delicious, and there was some left when I was done eating the chicken alter in the week. I saved it to use in omelets. It could also be used to make huevos rancheros (hm, I should try that next week!)

A little side note. Chiles are a bit complicated, especially in Mexico. There are many varieties, and some processed varieties have different names. So for example a Chipotle is a smoke-dried big Jalapeño variety, while the Morita is a dried "sweet" Jalapeño variety. Really. So don't try to find "natural" Chipotles or Moritas. they don't exist!

Kathy's Italian Chicken

This is the one that wore me out today. It's a brand new, 100% original recipe. t began with some 1/2 kilo of ground chicken breast I had in the freezer...

Anyway, it's a bit involved and takes a long time, but it's worth it.

Fresh from the oven

It even rates two photos:

Served with Garlic oven-roasted potatoes

The dish consists in flat chicken croquettes covered in tomato sauce. But it's a bit involved as it takes multiple steps. I'll post the ingredients in parts to make this easier, or so I hope.

1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat bran (or regular breadcrumbs)
2 Tbsp. paprika
1/2 Tbsp. ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. thyme
1 Tbsp. Fine herbs, crushed
1 Tbsp. oregano, crushed
1 Tbsp. garlic powder.

Mix all these ingredients in a bowl and set aside for the moment.

1/2 kilo (1+ lbs.) ground chicken breast
1 whole egg, beaten
1/3 cup green bell pepper, diced very small
1/3 cup jicama, diced very small
2-4 twigs of cilantro, chopped (without stems)
Oil for frying as needed

In a bowl mix the chicken, bell pepper, jicama, cilantro and egg. You'll have to use your hands, sorry! I used disposable plastic gloves (stolen from a supply at the office), but you can get disposable latex gloves if you don't like handling raw ground chicken. Mix well so there's an even mix of vegetables in the chicken.

Now, form small, flat croquettes and roll/dredge them in the mixture you set aside before. Then fry them in s skillet with a little oil of your choice until both sides are golden brown and/or the chicken has cooked through (that's why I want them nice and flat). Set aside.

It's likely you'll be doing them in batches of two or three, as I wound up doing, adding a bit of oil to the skillet. If so, you'd best turn the heat down to minimum, or nearly so, in order to keep the croquettes and the oil from burning. Skillets can get very hot after a while on high flame.

By the way, the mixture of flour and wheat bran above may be too much for 500 gr. of chicken. So if you can't think of another use for it, better adjust the quantities downwards.

Now we make the sauce. This is the easiest part.

1 bottle 680 gr. (about 1lb 8 oz) your choice Spaghetti sauce
1/4 small onion finely chopped
1 small clove of garlic finely minced (if you don't like too much garlic, omit this ingredient)
4-6 mushrooms thinly sliced
1/2 Tbsp. oregano
2 1/2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce (optional)
1 teaspoon olive oil
Grated Parmesan cheese to taste

In a saucepan heat the olive oil and add the garlic and onion. When the onions begin to turn translucent, add the mushrooms. Cook on medium heat until the mushrooms are golden all over. Reduce the heat to low and add the sauce. Stir well, add the oregano and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a slow boil. When it begins to bubble, remove from the flame.

Now get a baking dish and place the croquettes previously set aside on he bottom. Ladle sauce to cover them and sprinkle Parmesan cheese to taste on top of each one. According to the size of your dish, you may need a second layer of croquettes, again ladling sauce and sprinkling more cheese. In the top photo there are two such layers.

Place in an oven pre-heated to 300-350 F (I had to experiment on mine) until the sauce bubbles and the cheese melts. Let it cool and serve.

Whew! This is by far the most complicated dish I ever thought up. And I omitted "stretching" the chicken by adding textured soy to the mix. I didn't simply because I judged I had enough chicken. It was a great dish to cook, too.

One more thing, as the fur mix for coating the croquettes already contains garlic, using more garlic in the sauce may be too much. I love garlic, so for me it was fine. but you can omit either one without affecting the outcome too much.

Enjoy!

Chicken with White Wine Sauce

Given my recent success making onion soup, I looked up other recipes using wine of some sort. Between reading and my own ideas, I came up with this:

Now, I made some mistakes with the preparation. Take note: make sure you have all the equipment you'll need! I could have sworn I had a mallet to flatten meats with, but I couldn't find it. So I wound up with rather thick chicken breasts. I wasn't going to pound them flat, I'm not making milanesas after all, but I did want to thin them so they'd cook better. Oh well.

First you prepare and cook the chicken:


Four thin boneless, skinless chicken breasts, not pounded flat.
1/4 Cup flour (I used whole wheat flour)
2 Tbsp. paprika
2 Tbsp. garlic powder
1 Tbsp. ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. oregano, crushed
1 Tbsp. thyme, crushed

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 thick onion slices, separated into rings

In a large bowl, mix the flour and spices well. Dredge the chicken in the mix so it's evenly covered on both sides, shake off any excess. In a deep sauce pan heat the olive oil on a medium flame and cook the chicken along with the onions. Times vary, but cook each side of the chicken until it's golden brown. You don't want to overcook it, as it will dry out. You also don't want to leave the center raw or half-cooked. Therefore use reasonably thin pieces (as noted I didn't do).

When it's done, set the chicken aside and leave the onions in the pan.

Next:

2 Cups mushroom, sliced
2 Cups half-cooked (boiled) potatoes, thinly sliced but not potato chip thin.
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Teaspoon butter or margarine
1 Cup chicken broth
3/4 Cup white wine (I used a Riesling from Baja California)

In the same pan, still with the onions, add olive oil and margarine (or butter), and cook the mushrooms and potatoes. Again, times vary. You want the mushrooms to release their juices and turn brown around the edges only. When they're done, add the wine.

Keep cooking until the wine is reduced by about half. Add the chicken broth, and keep cooking for a few minutes, letting the sauce thicken. The sauce may not thicken enough by itself, though this can differ according to taste. If you want a thicker sauce, take a tablespoon of the left over flour and spices mix, and dissolve it in 1/4 cup of hot water. Make sure to use hot water, as wheat flour tends not to dissolve in cold water. Add the mix to the sauce and stir.

Add the chicken you'd set aside. If you like, add also another teaspoon of margarine or butter. Let the whole thing cook for another three to five minutes and you're done.

This dish would go very well with mashed potatoes or white rice.

Chicken Milanesas with Chipotle Sauce

A little explanation is in order. A milanesa, before cooking, is any kind of meat steak that has been pounded flat. But cooked, it refers mostly to a thin veal steak covered in bread crumbs and fried in oil. In Spanish this kind of preparation is called "empanizado," which roughly translates as "breaded," if that's even a word. Anyway, a milanesa can also be made with flattened chicken breast, which is what I did.

I should mention by "bread crumbs" I mean a variety of options. The most common is simple "pan molido," which is ground up white bread toast. But there are others, like ground corn flakes, ground bran flakes and even, my favorite, ground wheat bran.

While I came up with this recipe by myself, I don't claim it as my own. Why not? because I'm trying to replicate and adapt someone else's recipe, someone I know and whom I miss very much.

This recipe is a bit more complex than my usual preparations. You have to cook the milanesas, make the salsa, then combine them and bake the result. But it's worth it.

Chipote chilies come either dried or canned. The canned version is "en adobo," meaning it's pickled in a thick, red juice. BTW there's no such thing as a fresh or natural chipotle. Chipotles are actually smoked jalapeños

Fresh out of the oven!

Ingredients:

4 Boneless flattened chicken breasts
2 Egg whites
About 2 Cups of bread crumbs (see above for details)
2.5 Teaspoons vegetable oil of your choice, preferably one without much flavor like canola or soy.
3 Red tomatoes
3-5 chipotle chilies and some juice from the can (if you're using smoked chipotles, take note they'll be much bigger)
1/2 onion, quartered
2 cloves garlic, quartered
Cilantro to taste (about 3-5 branches, stems and all)
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 Teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon oregano (optional)
1/4 cup water.
40 gr. grated white cheese suitable for melting
2 Tablespoons reduced-fat sour cream (optional)

To make the milanesas:

Take a large, preferably rectangular, serving plate and cover with bread crumbs. Put the egg whites in a bowl. Soak the chicken breasts individually in the egg whites and put it on the bread crumbs, turning it over to cover both sides. If needed, pour additional bread crumbs on top.

In a skillet or frying pan pour one (1) teaspoon of oil, and put it on high heat. When it's hot, cook the chicken breasts. Due to the size, you may have to cook them one by one. You should cook each until you see the top under the crumbs turning white, then flip it over to brown the other side. After cooking two, add another teaspoon of oil if needed, and cook the other two.

Put them on a paper kitchen towel over a large serving plate so the excess oil will be absorbed. In regular cooking, milanesas are nearly deep fried. But this is a low-fat cooking blog, after all. You can press them with paper towels, too, to drain more oil. The cut them into bite-sized pieces or strips.

To make the salsa:

Peel and seed the tomatoes and toss them in the blender with the onion, garlic, cilantro, cumin, oregano, vinegar water and chipotles. Liquefy the mixture. as always, this is the time to taste and adjust for spiciness.

Get one onion slice, tending toward thick, and saute it with 1/2 a teaspoon of oil in a saucepan until it's as flexible as cooked spaghetti, or you can do it on the skillet where you made the milanesas. Quarter the bigger rings and leave the smaller ones whole. Either way, pour the salsa from the blender in saucepan. Turn the heat on to low and let the salsa come to a slow boil. Once it boils, let it simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.

Now, in an oven-safe baking dish lay out a layer of mialnesas in bits and cover them with a layer of salsa. then sprinkle a little cheese and sour cream. Add a second layer of milanesas and, you guessed it, top it off with more salsa. Again sprinkle cheese and sour cream on top.

Put the dish in an oven preheated to 330 F for 30 minutes. All the cheese should melt. Let it cool and serve.

I suggest serving it along with Mexican rice, or any other sort of subtly-flavored rice you like.

Enjoy

Chicken and Lentil stew

I did take a break from the sweet and sour, and the tomato-based dishes. Instead I retook my budding love affair with lentils, which are both tasty and versatile, if not particularly colorful... In other words, this weeks' dish isn't much to look at, but it's tasty.

You may notice some similarities to my Dry Lentil Soup. I've been thinking about using lentils in a stew since then.

Ingredients:

1 Chicken breast without skin and bone, cut in bite-size pieces
1 Cup green lentils
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Large green bell pepper
2/3 Red onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Carrots, diced
2 Medium-sized potatoes, diced
1 Cup soybean sprouts
2 Cubes chicken bullion, low-fat, low-sodium
1/3 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1/3 teaspoon fine herbs
1/3 teaspoon dried pesto
1.75 liters of water
3 1/2 Tablespoons corn starch dissolved in 1/4 cup of water

First let the lentils soak for a few hours. Next cook the chicken on a skillet with a little oil or cooking spray and set it aside.

In a pot heat the olive oil, saute the onion, garlic and bell pepper until the onions turn translucent, then add the potatoes and carrots, and sprinkle the black pepper. Saute for about 3 minutes. Add the water and reduce heat to medium. When the water warms up, add the lentils, spices and chicken bullion cubes. Stir well and reduce heat to minimum. When you see any bubbles, add the chicken. Stir again.

Let it cook for about an hour and fifteen minutes (your times may vary), or until both the potatoes and lentils are tender. Add the corn starch dissolve din water for a thicker consistency, stir well. You will then see larger bubbles forming. Remove from the flame, let it cool and serve.

I'm not entirely satisfied with the end result, but right now i can't think of any improvements.

See you next week!

Ginger Chicken

This is one of my first recipes, the very first to use chicken. It's very simple, but there's a lot of chopping involved.

Ingredients:

3 Chicken breasts
Sesame seed oil
Half an onion, chopped,
2 Cloves of garlic, chopped,
1.5 Carrots, chopped
2 Stalks of celery, chopped.
1/3 of a head of cabbage, shredded
1/3 cup jicama, chopped.
10-15 snow peas
2.5 teaspoons fresh ginger (2 minced, 1/2 grated)
3 teaspoons soy sauce
1/3 teaspoon turmeric
3 teaspoons corn starch dissolved in 1/4 cup of water
1 1/2 cups chicken broth






First saute 1 teaspoon of minced ginger with some sesame seed oil for 2 minutes, then cook the chicken. Cut it into bite-sized pieces and set it aside. In the same wok, stir-fry the vegetables with the rest of the ginger and 1 teaspoon of oil. Cook until the vegetables are as soft or crunchy as you want them.


Add the soy sauce and turmeric to the chicken broth and stir well. Add the chicken to the vegetables, pour the chicken broth on top and mix well. Add the corn starch mix and again mix everything well. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 5 minutes, mix occasionally so that everything is covered in the sauce.


This dish goes well with plain white rice or with  curry rice