Cook Along: Volume Four - Balsamic Chicken

It’s been awhile since our last Cook Along, so if you’re still here, thanks for sticking around!  Tonight’s Cook Along was Balsamic Chicken from Allrecipes.com.

Take One:

Before I start my review of the Balsamic Chicken, I have to make a note that my brother, Patrick, joined Josh and I for dinner tonight, and he ended up helping me make dinner (which marks the first time that we’ve ever cooked together before – weird!).  I also got him to stop at the store to pick up chicken breasts and a vegetable for dinner (I SO didn’t want to do it myself on the way home from work).  He showed up not only with chicken breasts, but several vegetables (don’t worry, I’ll tell you in a minute what they were), AND a Cyrus O’Leary’s turtle cheesecake pie.  Let me just say now that he can come over for dinner ANY time.

I’m actually typing this before dinner is completely made.  The chicken is simmering away in the sauce, and if the smell is any indication, it’s going to taste fantastic.  For our sides tonight, we’ve having steamed white rice, Caesar salad, tomato-cucumber-onion-in-Italian-salad-dressing-salad (we really need to come up with a better name than that), and garlic bread.  Let’s be honest here – if it had just been me stopping at the store, the vegetable would’ve been like, roasted asparagus or something else super easy, but that’s okay.

I already really like this recipe for several reasons.  First, it smells good.  Second, other than having to get chicken breasts, everything that this recipe called for was in my pantry and in my spice cabinet.  Third, I love, love, love balsamic vinegar, and I don’t think there are enough recipes that call for it.

For right now, dinner is just about ready, so I’m going to go finish getting the last of dinner ready and then eat.  It smells amazing in here, and I can’t wait to go eat.

Okay…an hour later, I’m back to finish this up.  The results are: yum!  Patrick said that the chicken was “kickin’,” although we all agreed that it was a little bit dry (but I think it was just cooked a little too long while we were waiting for the garlic bread to finish up).  I definitely think this recipe will be made again.  It was easy and didn’t take too long to make, which is perfect for weeknight cooking.

I couldn’t get a good enough picture of the chicken by itself, so here’s a picture of the whole dinner (minus the Caesar salad because it wouldn’t fit into the frame).   And yes, it was as delicious as it looks.

A.V.

Take Two:

           I liked the sound of this recipe from the start, since the ingredient list was short, and I like anything that offers something new for chicken breasts.  This came together really quickly, although I did cook my chicken based on something I heard in a really interesting segment on The Splendid table recently about not cooking meat in liquid (stock, water, wine, etc) that is more than a bare simmer.  Apparently, the boiling action of the liquid literally squeezes the cells like a sponge, wringing out all the moisture.  So you think that you are fine because your chicken breast is cooking in stock, but it still comes out dry, because the stock was boiling.  So I cooked the chicken breasts by searing them to get some color on them, then in the sauce on a low temp, so it was barely simmering until cooked through.  It took slightly longer, but the chicken was really juicy. I took the meat out of the skillet once they were done, and put them on the cutting board under a metal bowl to stay warm while the sauce reduced.   Once it was the consistency of running barbecue sauce, I sliced the chicken and spooned the sauce over the chicken.  We had our Balsamic chicken with a side of corn on the cob and my new favorite thing to make, potato galette.   Potato galette cooks primarily in the oven, and corn on the cob is all prep work, so the chicken recipe was a great fit.  Also, we have one chicken breast left, which I am dreaming about using on a salad for lunch tomorrow.  Some nice lettuce, a juicy tomato, maybe some red onion and the remaining chicken with the leftover sauce slightly warm over top.    Or maybe as dinner during Leftover Lotto. 
 
This is a definite keeper, and I would go so far as to say, my favorite of the recipes so far, great for summer, especially now during the height of grilling season.  This would be amazing on the grill, just put the sauce in a small pan on the back of the grill, use it to baste the chicken, or let it reduce to serve alongside.  You could do kebabs, with zucchini, tomatoes, onion.  Or how about with some tomato and mozarella on a grilled sandwich.   

On a side note, let me also recommend the potato galette.   There is a recipe if you want one, but it is just thinly sliced potatoes laid in an oven proof skillet, you melt a little butter in a hot skillet, and then layer the potatoes with salt and pepper and tiny bit of rosemary (I only put this on the first layer, salt and pepper on all layers).  After the initial layer, you can brush a bit of olive oil over each layer, but use it sparingly to avoid the finished galette getting greasy.  Now, traditionally, this is an all butter dish, so feel free to go that way, too.  At any rate, you just keep layering.  The more people you need to feed, the more layers you add, and adjust your cook time accordingly.  This does great at about 350 degrees, half an hour for only a couple layers, maybe 45 minutes if you do half a dozen layers.  But if you've got something else in the oven, just put it in and keep an eye on it, it's potatoes, you can't mess this up.  Try it, you'll like it.


Let us know if you try this one, I'd love to hear what you did with the leftovers. 


A.H.