Recipe: French Onion Chicken Stew

Had our annual general meeting for our strata last night. It was a JOKE.

Knowing that we basically had to go straight home last night, wolf down a quick dinner, then to the meeting, we knew that we had to have something preplanned. Something fast. Something that required no fuss!



Behold, Michael Smith's recipe for French Onion Chicken Stew. It looked interesting and simple enough when I had seen it on his show, Chef at Home while eating breakfast one morning. The ingredients were simple, I had a Costco-sized bag of onions to use up, and I've been dying to maximize effort and time to use the slow cooker!

I adapted the recipe to my slow cooker - it wouldn't hold the entire recipe, and also added some extra seasonings.

Ingredients (adapted from Michael Smith's recipe)
9 chicken thighs, skin on, bone in, rinsed and patted dry
8 garlic cloves
8 yellow onions, peeled and sliced
1 cup white wine (I used a Californian Sauvignon Blanc)
2 T ground thyme
4 heaping tablespoons of dijon mustard
1 t oregano
4 bay leaves
salt, black and white peppers
pinch of cayenne

Method
I used a cast iron pot to brown off the chicken thighs which were first seasoned with a generous amount of kosher salt and pepper. I did not use oil in the pot as I figured that the chicken skins would render off enough oil to cook the meat in. I was right.

I layered the ingredients into the crock pot, starting with a layer of onions. I scatted a couple cloves of garlic on top of that, then lowered in some chicken. I dotted the chicken with dijon mustard, then seasoned with thyme, salt and pepper, oregano and bay leaves. I repeated the layers once more, and topped everything off with a layer of onions.

This was all done the night before. Before I went to work, I removed the crock pot insert from the fridge, poured in a cup of wine, then plugged the slow cooker in, turned it to low, and went to work!



When we got home yesterday, I boiled up some pasta and served the chicken and onions atop noodles. It was one heck of a comfort meal!

...Before and after the annual strata meeting. :o\

Recipe: Ketchup Prawns

I am sincerely glad that M and I have such varied tastes. Indian, fusion, Chinese, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Afghan - we've had it and we love it all.

As I've said before, I just don't get people who don't like food. Even as a child, I loved food - my favourite foods included my mothers' pillowy soft water-steamed eggs mixed into steamed rice, and steamed broccoli and cauliflower. Yes! I was a four-year-old who loved broccoli!

Since we've been living together for a while, various family and friends have been pushing us to get married, with the ultimate result of having children. I am all for getting married, and I am all for having children, but logically, I realize that our current financial states might not allow us to do this soon.

On an irrational level, part of me fears that I'll have children that don't like food! Or rather, what if they don't like my food? Or even worse, what if they have some crazy food allergy that doesn't allow them to enjoy all the foods that we enjoy???!

yes....my brain is like that.

I came across a Chopstick Recipe for Ketchup Prawns last night. Of course, I just *had* to make it. It conjured up memories of my mothers' ketchup prawns, with their sweet, vinegary and salty flavour - and after all, all kids like ketchup right?

Ahhh. Yes....one day my kids will like ketchup prawns. My ketchup prawns.

Ingredients
2 T oil
5 slices ginger
1 green onion, cut into 2" sections
1 shallot, sliced
3 garlic cloves, smashed



~1/2 pound black tiger shrimp (I used 21/25 sized shrimp, thus I ended up with about 12 good-sized shrimp), peeled and deveined

2 T cooking wine
1/4 c water
3 T ketchup
1 T vinegar
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
pepper to taste
1/4 t cornstarch

Method
In a medium sized pan, heat oil over medium high heat. Saute ginger, garlic, shallot and onion until fragrant.

Add shrimp and cook for 2-3 minutes. Flip over; deglaise with cooking wine. Allow to reduce slightly, then add water, ketchup, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Stir ingredients around in the pan until sauce thickens slightly and shrimp are cooked through (orange and no longer translucent). Dissolve 1/4 t of cornstarch in a teaspoon of water. Add to pan slowly, stirring until a thin glaze is formed.



Plate and serve.

I liked this, simply because it was kind of a nostalgic recipe. Although, if I were to do it over again, I'd make it more "adult" and add some piri-piri or Sambal Oolek hot sauce! (I'm kind of on a spicy sauce binge right now. Can you tell? :) I would also take out some of the sugar as I found it slightly sweet for my tastes (although I'm sure kids would LOVE the sugar), and I would also decrease the amount of water and cornstarch solution that I used. I'm just not a huge fan of cornstarch.

But. There you go. Nostalgic food.

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