Chicken is a popular main stay for persons on special diets such as diabetics and heart patients, and we all find ourselves searching for a new way of preparing it that will awaken our sleeping taste buds. When purchasing either a whole chicken or parts, get the freshest you can. If free range chickens are available, try them once and you'll not go back to the mass produced variety again. The taste and texture are more like you remember from when you were a child and before agri-business, so believe us, they are better.
Having said that, time makes some things appear better and old time chickens could be tough and stringy. If you are going to purchase a supermarket chicken you can rest easy in that they are good buys and have been engineered to have moist white meat. They are usually flash frozen to preserve the quality. Do follow the rules about handling chicken. Keep your work space clean and don't use the same knife for a different food until you wash it. Cut your chicken on non-porous surfaces. Cook the chicken until the juices run clear with no oozing blood. One way to test a whole bird is to move the thigh. If the joint is stiff the bird needs more cooking. More scientifically, you can also use a thermometer in the thickest part of the dark meat. Do cook chicken with its skin, but remove the skin before eating, as it is a main deposit of fat and cholesterol.
Here we bring you four meals based on chicken, that will make you cluck with their good tastes and beauty. We start with a perfect roasted chicken served with a curried corn pudding to spice up the chicken slices. With it we serve a warm asparagus and Italian mushroom salad. For this elegant meal we serve a peach melba that any diabetic can enjoy.
Roast chicken is a great standby for Sunday dinner, but whatever day you've had it, you're used to recipes that call for added fats to baste the bird. Here we flavor the chicken under the skin and in the cavity, and roast it in a very hot oven so that basting is not necessary. The result is moist and flavorful. If there are only two of you, the leftovers can be part of a no-fat chicken salad or a taco roll-up for lunch the next day.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our second menu features braised chicken breasts cooked in a cumin and fruit juice sauce, and finished with capers. We serve it with a ginger sweet potato puree which pairs together two tastes that are obvious soul mates. Our vegetable is sautéed broccoli and garlic to continue our goal of keeping our meals tasty. For dessert we share poppy seed cookies and coffee.
This melt-in-your-mouth main course will be one that you'll make over and over, but the prize goes to the combination of fresh ginger and sweet potatoes. You'll wonder why you never combined the two before. Try it with added sautéed tart apples with your turkey for holidays, or with pineapple for another side dish.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Sometimes we crave the taste of dark meat, so find a recipe using chicken thighs to be a welcome change from boneless chicken breasts. Although our recipe calls for boneless chicken thighs (which our supermarket frequently features "on special") bone-in chicken thighs could also be used. Just remove the skin so that you keep your fat grams to a minimum.
With these spicy grilled chicken thighs, we're serving a refreshing Cucumber-Radish Relish and Cheese Grits. For dessert, it's Baked Apples with Gingersnap Crumbs.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our last menu features chicken brochettes, cooked San Francisco-style. Whenever we're in the city by the bay, we're sure to have at least one or two meals which show the influence of the Pacific Rim on San Francisco cuisine. Here, we've marinated cubes of boneless chicken breasts in an Asian-influenced marinade, for threading onto skewers with snow peas and cherry tomatoes, then to be served over a bed of fluffy white rice. Alongside, serve a crunchy mix of cabbage, bean sprouts, and daikon (Japanese radish). For dessert, broil carambola (star fruit), a showy fruit that has a striking star shape when sliced, and serve over bowls of sugar-free, fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt. Carambola is just now coming into season. Choose fruit that has a bright, even color. Generally, the broader the ribs, the sweeter the fruit.
The hoisin sauce called for in the marinade for the San Francisco-style chicken, sometimes called Peking Sauce, is a sweet, spicy sauce sold in most larger supermarkets and Asian markets. If you wish, you could substitute chile sauce with good results.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
