Slow cooker chicken with nut butters and garam masala

 

This is a weekend crockpot recipe, the kind where you want to have something ready to go after you get done running errands in the afternoon and in time for, say, "The Durrells in Corfu" to be back on PBS(!) on Sunday night.

Chicken Korma

Adapted from "Martha Stewart’s Slow Cooker"

Note: If you don’t want to have to spring for nut butters that you might not use again, you can just whir the nuts in a food processor until they eventually turn into a paste. Just keep in mind that it will take more nuts to yield the called for amount of butter. But this recipe might make you decide you need more nut butters.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

2 large onions, thinly sliced

6 cardamom pods

1 tablespoons garam masala

¾ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon cayenne powder

3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs

¼ cup cashew butter

¼ cup almond butter

½ plain yogurt

½ cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 tablepoons grated fresh ginger

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1½ tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons coarse salt

Chopped cilantro for garnish

Method

Melt butter in a large skillet. Cook onions over medium heat until golden. Add cardamom pods, garam masala, turmeric and cayenne powder and cook for 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat.

Chop chicken into 2-inch pieces. Add to pan.

In a food processor or blender, combine nut butters, yogurt, cream, tomato paste, ginger, garlic, sugar and salt until smooth. Pour mixture into skillet. 

Combine mixture well and turn into a slow cooker. The original recipe called for cooking this on high for 3½ hours or on low for 7 hours.  Since I was running a tad behind, I wound up cooking it on high for 30 minutes, then for nearly 6½ hours on low, and it turned out fine.

Serve over rice. Garnish with cilantro. Makes quite a bit, easily 6 servings.

Rating: Pretty nice.It's got more gentle warmth than heat, and a nice mix of flavors. Makes good use of a cheap cut of chicken; it's tender rather than being either mushy or rubbery, a fate that can sometimes befall chicken in a slow cooker. That blender nut sauce mixture could certainly have other uses as well.

Drink & nosh: Basil lemon cocktail with lentil avocado puree

I've got herbs running out my ears, especially basil. In addition to what we planted, it volunteered again this year, one of them even in the actual basil pot. So pretty much everything gets a touch of basil right now, from the saison Dave is brewing to cocktails. It's not a bad problem to have in late summer.

Basil and lemon cocktail
From mollann-m.blogspot.com

Ingredients

Juice of ½ lemon

3-4 basil leaves, plus more for garnish

1 ½ ounces vodka

1 ounce St. Germain

Method

Muddle basil leaves with lemon juice in a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice and add vodka and St. Germain. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with basil leaves. Makes one very ample cocktail.

Rating: Quite an acceptable cocktail. All the flavor notes come through, with none of them overwhelming. Just really nice, and very summery. And it's still in the upper 80s, so by golly it's still summer.

This recipe falls under the heading of the third time's the charm. The first time I made this recipe, exactly as written, it was a very tasty failed attempt at a dip. The recipe didn't call for draining the lentils after cooking, which I found suspect, but went ahead and followed the recipe since it was supposed to be a puree. It made a very runny concoction that I happily repurposed as a pasta sauce, one which looked nothing like the magazine photo, being yellowy.

I usually bounce off if a recipe doesn't work, but this one had flavor merit, so I pressed on.

Second try: I drained the lentils and used green lentils instead of the yellow or red called for. Slightly better consistency, but still a little grainy-ish. I took this version into work, and people ate it, but it still wasn't quite there.

Third try: Green lentils again, drained, but this time I added an avocado. Much better consistency and and nice and tasty. I'll quit while I'm ahead.

Lentil avocado puree

Adapted from Bon Appetit Aug. 2017

Ingredients

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 cup French green lentils

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup cilantro leaves

¼ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 ripe avocado

Method

Combine onion, lentils, cumin and water in a medium saucepan. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and cook 25 to 30 minutes until tender. Let cool.

With a slotted spoon, transfer cooked lentils to a food processor, reserving liquid in case it’s needed. Add cilantro leaves, olive oil and lime juice. Puree until smooth. Add avocado and puree until smooth. Add some reserved cooking liquid if needed to reach desired consistency.  Adjust season with salt and pepper.

The recipe claimed it serves 4. What? They’re thinking main course? It makes a lot, certainly enough to hold its own for a party if it’s not the only dip.

Rating: If you didn't have to go through three tries, you'd think it was a nice recipe, worth repeating. And if you want a nice pasta sauce, just don't drain the lentils and skip the avocado.

Play along: "Midnight on the Trail" by Hot Club of Cowtown.  In keeping with the summery theme, this album comes from a group we caught while catching our breath at the state fair. Nothing like some laid-back Western swing (sort of jazz meets blue grass) while resting in the dappled noon shade at the Leinie Band Shell. A nice break between honey ice cream and duck bacon wontons.

Zucchini tomato strata

Italian zucchini tomato strata

Adapted from “Betty Crocker: The Smart Dinner” as printed in today's Variety section under the "Sunday Supper" spot. It's a good choice for this time of year, since you're likely to have these ingredients on hand.

Ingredients

6 cups 1-inch cubes of stale bread

1½ cups shredded cheese, divided (the recipe called for Italian, but I used what I had, which was a mix of Gouda, Parmesan and a savory-onion variety from the Wisconsin cheese guy at the market)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium red onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 cups chopped zucchini

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

5 eggs

2 egg yolks

2 cups whole milk

2 teaspoons Sriracha sauce

½ teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon dried basil

½ teaspoon salt, divided

¼ teaspoon black pepper

Method

If baking immediately, preheat oven to 325.

Grease an 9-by-13 pan. (I confess I forgot this step, but I somehow got by with it and it came out fine and didn't leave a mess in the pan.) Place bread cubes across the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle 1 cup cheese on top of bread.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Cook garlic until fragrant. Add onion and cook until just starting to soften. Add zucchini and tomatoes and cook about 3 minutes more. Season with ¼ teaspoon salt. Spread mixture over top of cheese layer in the pan.

Mix eggs, yolks, milk, Sriracha, oregano, basil, ¼ teaspoon salt and pepper. Pour over vegetable layer. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

At this point the strata can be covered and refrigerated for up to 24 hours. Or bake immediately, uncovered, for 50 to 60 minutes until set, golden and a knife inserted in the center comes out cleanish. Let rest at least 5 minutes before serving. (If you're preparing it advance, I'd let the pan come up closer to room temperature before baking, and/or allow a longer baking time.)

Rating: Really rather tasty. I had only tried this recipe because I had a ready supply of tomatoes (finally!), some zucchini that was otherwise going to wind up as compost before too long, and a whole gob of bread cubes in the freezer, since this is the time of year it doesn’t last long on the counter before going bad and freezing bread cubes is my way of buying time. My expectations for some reason weren’t high, and this far exceeded them, once again proving the marvelous versatility of a strata as a tasty way to use up odds and ends. A perfectly nice summer-flavored meal that’s as hearty as any meat dish. Worth repeating anytime you're faced with the same ingredients.

As for servings, it makes either 6 really generous pieces or 8 more reasonable servings, so it sort of depends on what you're serving on the side.

Garlic scape pesto pasta and garlic brie toasts

Garlic festival is this weekend in Hutchinson, home to everything from black garlic to garlic ice cream. Clearly, it's time to get your garlic on.

These recipes use garlic at two stages: garlic scapes and fresh bulbs. Growers cut the tops off garlic plants in early summer so the bulbs don't waste energy flowering and concentrate on bulb production; the result is garlic scapes. They look like a lighter green, solid green onion and you can find them at farmers markets or some coops in season. They have less bite than garlic bulbs, but lots of garlic flavor and are fun to experiment with.


Garlic scape pesto pasta
From  epicurious.com

Ingredients
10 large garlic scapes
1/3 cup unsalted shelled pistachios
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 pound cooked pasta

Method
In a food processor, puree garlic scapes, pistachios, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Slowly pour in olive oil while motor is running and mix until emulsified. Season to taste with more salt and pepper. Toss with al dente pasta. Sauce can be made ahead.

Rating: A very bright, flavorful pesto. The garlic flavor is noticeable, but much more muted and less harsh than mature garlic cloves. Would make a lovely pesto for a crostini appetizer with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella.

Speaking of appetizers, these are delightful:



Garlic brie toasts
A friend made us this appetizer to serve along with gin and tonics. She said we were the guinea pigs for it, and we were very willing. Not sure who to credit for the original idea because I believe a cookbook was involved, but if I find out, I'll pass it along.

Ingredients
22 slices of baguette
8 really large garlic cloves, the fresher the better
8-ounce round of brie

Method
Slice garlic as thinly as possible. This is where the bigger garlic cloves really help, since it's easier to slice big cloves with a mandoline (or a knife) than it is the teensy ones. Cover bread slices with the slivers of garlic.

Slice brie thinly and place over garlic. Broil until brie is bubbly and turning golden.You want to leave them in long enough so the garlic gets cooked a bit but before the brie tries to melt off the bread.

Rating: Sometimes simplicity is stupendous. These are sublime when made with the first fresh garlic of the season. Our friends used garlic they'd just harvested from their garden and we used some from the farmers market. They were good even without the gin and tonics, although perhaps not quite as relaxing. (Thanks again, Sonja and Bernie.)

Pickled shallot, candied pecan green salad with maple-porcini dressing

This salad could be a good wintertime salad, but the pickled shallot and maple dressing works well as a contrast to summer's grilled fare. Note that you'll want to start this recipe a bit in advance, so maybe pull it out on a weekend instead of a weeknight.

Greens with birch-mushroom dressing, fried pecans and pickled shallots
Adapted from "The New Midwestern Table" by Amy Thielen

Ingredients
2 small shallots, thinly sliced horizontally
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/3 cup fresh lime juice
¾ teaspoon salt, divided
½ teaspoon pepper, divided
2 cups boiling water
Small handful dried mushrooms such as porcini
1 tablespoon butter, plus a touch more
¼ cup pecans

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 teaspoons maple syrup (or the original held out the possibility of the more exotic birch)

8 ounces mixed salad greens

½ cup shaved pecorino cheese

Method

Combine ¼ cup sugar with lime juice, shallots, ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Let stand for at least 30 minutes.

Pour boiling water over mushrooms in a small bowl. Let cool, then squeeze dry and chop finely.

Lightly butter a small plate. In a small saute pan, heat 1 tablespoon sugar until it becomes liquid and browns. Stir in 1 tablespoon butter and the pecans and toss to coat. Remove from heat and pour caramelized pecans out onto the buttered plate to cool.

In a small sauce pan, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add garlic and mushrooms and cook briefly until it sizzles. Add in sherry. Remove from heat and stir in vinegar, lemon juice, maple syrup, ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Mix in remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil.

Strain shallots. In a large serving bowl, toss mixed greens with maple-mushroom dressing, shallots, pecans and pecorino.

Rating: Tangy-sweet with the pickled shallots tart against the candied pecans. (We only had chopped pecans on hand, which worked, but I suspect whole pecans would be better.) Certainly repeatable.