Roasted Chicken with Fennel

I'm participating in the VegOut! campaign from Recipe for Success. It's a positive way to say "Eat Your Veggies!" Try a bunch of different vegetables - the goal is 30 veggies in 30 days - and see how you like them. Find some new ones you may not have known you liked and just eat more of them. Americans don't eat a lot of vegetables. Research shows that eating them is good for your health. You may be surprised to learn that you don't need to eat a lot of them - a meta-analysis showed that 4 servings a day is the sweet spot. Less than 4 is sub-optimal but more than 4 didn't seem to confer any greater health. So, get to 4. It's not that hard to eat that many. Stick to ones you like, nothing wrong with that. But, eat more of them!

This recipe uses a somewhat unusual vegetable: fennel. Fennel has a subtle licorice taste. You can eat it cooked or raw. It's used a lot in Italian cuisine where it goes by the charming name of Finocchio.

Note: This dish needs to marinate overnight for the full development of flavor.

Chicken Roasted with Ginger, Fennel, and Tomatoes
(serves 4-6)

Rub
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons grated ginger
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, lightly crushed (see Note)
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

4 - 6 chicken thighs, bone-in and skin-on (about 2 pounds)
1 head of garlic cloves, unpeeled
1 head of fennel, cored and sliced thinly
1 large onion, thickly sliced
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 cup dry white wine or vermouth
2 Tablespoons olive oil
salt and black pepper

Combine all the rub ingredients in a small bowl. Rub the chicken thighs with this, making sure you get most of it between the skin and the flesh of each thigh. Place the thighs in a large (big enough to hold the chicken and all the vegetables which you'll add later) glass or ceramic baking and marinate, covered, in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Scatter the garlic, fennel, onion, and tomatoes around the chicken. Pour in the wine, drizzle the oil on the veggies, and season the whole thing with more salt and black pepper. Cover with foil. Bake for 1 ½ hours until chicken is completely cooked. Remove the foil and increase the oven temperature to 450°F. Put the chicken back in the oven and roast at this higher temperature until the skin gets browned and crispy. Serve over rice or roasted potatoes.

Note: To crush fennel seeds, smash them with the flat bottom of a skillet.

Ginger Chicken Kabobs

There are some things the microwave oven does really well. Steaming chicken is one of them. When it comes to cooking very lean chicken, like breast meat, the microwave is unbeatable. (Check here for basic chicken cooking instructions in the microwave.) We add flavor with a quick and simple marinade and the chicken cooks in minutes. There's no browning, but that is OK. Small pieces of chicken would dry out too much anyway.

The marinade is a tasty combination of garlic, ginger, cumin, and olive oil with just a hint of mustard. You only need to marinate it for 15-30 minutes. The original recipe says it can marinate for up to 2 days but even after 24 hours, the texture suffers. I wouldn't go beyond an hour. If you don't want to bother with skewers, arrange the chicken piece in one layer on a microwaveable plate and cook just like the skewers.

Here's a tip on mincing or grating fresh ginger: peel the ginger knob with a spoon (works better than a vegetable peeler or a knife) and then freeze the whole thing. Once the ginger is frozen, it's less stringy and the ginger will keep forever in the freezer.

Ginger Chicken Kabobs in the Microwave
( serves 4-5, costs $5.65)

1 ½ pounds skinless boneless chicken breasts
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon minced or grated fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 fresh green hot chile (Serrano or jalapeño), seeded and minced (optional)
½ teaspoon dry mustard or 1 teaspoon brown or Dijon mustard
About 1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Cut the chicken into strips about ¼" thick.

Combine the olive oil, ginger, garlic, cumin, chile (if using), mustard, ½ teaspoon salt, and black pepper in a medium bowl. Add chicken strips and coat with marinade. Cover bowl and marinate in the fridge for at least 15 minutes, but no longer than 1 hour.

Thread chicken strips onto wood or bamboo skewers. Don't pack the chicken too tight on the skewers because it won't cook through in 4 minutes. The chicken pieces should look like a wavy line. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Arrange on a microwaveable dish and cover with plastic wrap. Cook on high for 2 minutes. Flip over the skewers, re-cover, and cook for another 2 minutes on high. Let stand for a few minutes. Serve by pouring any accumulated juices over chicken.

Adapted from Morghul Microwave by Julie Sahni, William Morrow, 1990.

Chicken & Broccoli Stir-fry

A successful stir-fry requires a number of things:

• You need to have everything ready before you start cooking. Things happen fast with a stir-fry because it is a high-heat cooking method. If you don't have every ingredient measured and ready to go, things will go south quickly. Garlic burns, meat overcooks. Not pretty. Having everything ready to go is called "mise en place." It's French for putting in place. Mise en place is how restaurants can turn out hundreds of from-scratch meals in very little time. And, it's not just for restaurants. It will make you a better home cook.
• You need to cut your raw ingredients in similar bite-sized pieces. Food needs to cook quickly and if there are big hunks of meat or broccoli in your stir-fry, or if everything is cut in very different sizes, it will not cook quickly nor will it cook evenly. You want the meat and veggies in equivalent bite-sized pieces.
• You need to use really high heat. A stir-fry cooks in 10 minutes or less. For that to happen, you need to get your skillet or wok as hot as you can. Of course, because you are working with very high heat, you have to be on top of what's going on. No answering the phone. No digging through the fridge for ingredients (see first bullet again). It also means that you need to keep stirring the ingredients to keep things from burning. There's a reason it's called stir-fry. The high heat is also what makes it taste so good, so don't be afraid. 

This is about as simple as you can get in a stir-fry. It's not sophisticated but it's quick and filling. Future posts will feature other stir-fries with more complex flavors.

Chicken & Broccoli Stir-fry
(serves 2-3)

1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon dry sherry or Chinese rice wine (see Note)
¾ pound skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into slices about ¼" thick, 2 x 1" long and wide (see Variations)
½ pound broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets, stems peeled and sliced 1/4" thick (see Variations)
1 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil
½ - 1 teaspoon minced ginger, depending on your love of ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chicken or vegetable broth
additional soy sauce, if desired

Combine soy sauce, cornstarch and dry sherry in a medium bowl. Mix enough to dissolve cornstarch. Add chicken breast and toss to coat meat with marinade. Marinate in the fridge for 10-30 minutes. Drain chicken pieces, reserving 1 tablespoon of marinade.

Heat oil in skillet or wok until very hot. The oil will shimmer and ripple (but not smoke) when it's hot enough. Don't walk away while the oil is heating up because it can go from hot enough to bursting into flames quickly. [If this ever happens to you, don't panic! Cover the pan with a lid and remove from the heat. Do not remove lid until pan has cooled.]

Add chicken to skillet and immediately start stirring it around. Stir fry for a few minutes until chicken begins to brown. Add ginger, garlic and broccoli. Stir fry for another 5-6 minutes until broccoli is done to your liking.

Add broth and 1 tablespoon of reserved marinade. Cook for 30 seconds. The sauce should boil and thicken somewhat.

Serve with rice, passing soy sauce if additional salt is needed.

Note: Though we don't generally recommend cooking sherry, if you aren't old enough to buy actual sherry, it will do if it's all you can get. Just remember that it has a lot of added salt so you probably won't need additional soy sauce. You can also find Chinese cooking rice wine in most Asian markets, but it also has salt added.

Variations: Beef, pork, shrimp, scallops, or tofu can be substituted for the chicken. They will all cook in about the same time if they are cut into a similar size. Jumbo shrimp should be cut in half lengthwise. Tofu should be cut into 1x1" cubes. Other vegetables can be used, such as bok choy, Napa cabbage, mushrooms, or green beans. Bok choy, Napa cabbage, and mushrooms will cook in less time, about 3 minutes. Green beans will take as long as broccoli to cook.