Dot Com Dinner Chef – The Battles Continue!

We’ve done Chicken Breasts, Sea Bass two different ways, and even stuffed a few peppers and baked them to perfection. Now we’re going to do a few more things. Over the last few days, I’ve played with some food and here’s what I’ve come up with…

Battle Pork Chops

The pork chops and apples were looking good at the local grocery store so I decided to do a version of pork chops and apples…

I seasoned the chops up with salt and pepper and fried them up. Once they were done, I removed them from the heat and covered them in foil. Leaving the juices in the pan, I dropped in some butter, bacon, diced ginger and then the apples. Once the apples were tender, I dropped in some sugar, a litle bit of lemon, and deglazed the pan with some brandy.

Once the sauce was thickened, I removed it from the heat. I plated the pork chop on top of some pan fried string beans and then scooped a good sized portion of the apple mixture on top of the pork chop, with a little bit of fresh chopped parsley on top. I loved that apple mixture, but I’m going to have to do this again with some thicker cut pork chops.

Battle Chicken Breasts -Redux

Chicken boobs were still on sale at the local grocery store, so I picked some up and made a chicken parmesan served on top of some of that broco-asparagus hybrid veggie. The breading on the chicken was made with the same panko and parmesan mixture that I used for the chicken fingers. A very easy to make and tasty dish.

Battle Full Metal Chicken

After messing around with boobs, I graduated to the whole chicken and made this awesome roasted chicken…

This dish was inspired by one that I saw on FoodTV by Jamie Oliver. I modified the recipe to include bacon and upped the garlic count. The original recipe called for prociutto. Basically, a mixture was created from bacon, thyme, lemon zest, butter, and seasoned with salt and pepper. After washing and drying the chicken, I gently seperated the skin from the meat and then inserted the mixture wherever I could fit it. With the remaining mixture, I rubbed the whole chicken down and then inserted the lemon, sliced in half, into the cavity of the bird. I roasted the chicken in the oven with some California yams that were parboiled and some rough chopped fennel.

I’ve eaten a lot of roasted chicken in my time, but I gotta say, I WIN with chicken. It was so tender, flavourful, and did I mention downright delicious? It’s definitely on the list of to do again. The only thing I wish I had was a rotisserie so that I could get all the skin nice and crispy.

Future Battles…

So as you can imagine, I’m going to be sick of chicken pretty soon. Here’s what I’ve got coming up…

I ordered up a quarter of a bison butchered up all sorts of ways. I’ve got steaks, ground bison, roasts, even ribs. This is a whole lot of bison and if you’ve ever seen a bison, you’ll know it’s a big animal. I’m sure I’ll be looking for a lot of ways to make all this great meat tasty. I’m going to have to pick up some new kitchen gadgets including a slow cooker.