Oh, chicken… My love-hate relationship with chicken has its extremities. From crispy fried chicken to easy popcorn chicken (okay, that’s like boneless fried chicken), there are many types of chicken that I love out there. I could walk into Wingstop and enjoy quantities of buffalo wings in the double digit numbers! I can even say that I almost mastered the art of deboning a cooked chicken wing in my mouth. Oh I love chicken! The only thing about chicken that isn’t always appeasing to stomach is cooking it. Cooking it fills me with fear of undercooking it. Every occasion that calls for a chicken in the meal always encounter my desire to apply the cooking of beef to it. Why can’t I eat it medium? Oh right, the bacteria… The paradox of chicken in my life is how I love to eat it, but have trouble cooking it.
Well, tonight’s dinner is chicken. Annie and I got a huge pack of chicken breast from Costco and, of course, anything that is bought at Costco is American-size. With about 8 chicken breasts in the freezer, why not cook chicken? Can I eat beef every day? Yes, but variety is much more desirable and it leads to versatility in the personal menu…that’s right, versatility.
The drawback of this dish was my mistimed thaw on two frozen chicken breast that I had stored in a Ziploc bag. Preferably, I would like to have them thaw and drowned in marinate overnight, but I had to make do with what time I had. Initially, I didn’t know what to make, so you readers can learn from this experience.
Something to consider about my cooking style, it’s…not exact. In fact, I like to cook on the go. Cookbooks hold me back. While I’m reading the instructions, my sauce or cheese is burning away. So don’t expect me to measure the amount of oil or weight of the chicken. Well, maybe an estimate, but let’s play by ear.
Anyway, one of the objectives was to marinate at quickly as possible. Flash marinate. That’s something that needs to be invented unless it is and I am made unaware of it. Moving on… The marinate for the chicken is actually quite simple. Chop some onions, a couple of cloves of garlic, a butt load of Mesquite seasoning, a dash of salt and about a third of bottled beer, which in this case, it was Samuel Adams (Winter Lager). This particular Sam Adams is made with cinnamon, orange zest and ginger, so I was excited to see what comes out of it. When it comes to the mesquite, I massaged the seasoning into the chicken before putting everything else together in hopes of marinating the whole thing quickly. After feeling comfortable with the seasoning on the chicken, I stuffed the chicken into a Ziploc bag with the garlic and onions and filled the bag with the beer until there’s barely enough room left. The idea in my mind is to make them pack them together so tightly that each ingredient has a chance to absorb itself to the chicken. I left it alone to frolic for half an hour.
So I have my meats, now to the carbs. I set my mind on mashed potatoes, or as the Brits might call, “Mashed Taters”. Or was it the Irish? Either way, potatoes are a great! A complex carbohydrate that takes a while to burn, but it’s one of my favorites in terms of how many uses they have. Mash them, fry them, bake them, you can practically have them any way you can. For these particular taters, I used red potatoes. A lot easier to work with than Russell potatoes since they are smaller and they are just as tasty. I had these cut into small pieces for faster cooking and probably had 15 potatoes sliced and ready for boil. Not too hard, just boil until soft. How to tell that it’s soft? Toothpicks. If toothpicks go through the thickest piece of potatoes with ease, then they are ready for your anger management session. I got my handy potato masher and had a stab fest on my potatoes! I know, it’s a mash fest and it’s not the exact motion, but it is pretty fun until chunks of hot potatoes fly out. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper liberally unless you like an all-natural taste. Some heavy whipping cream would go nicely for some creamy mashed potatoes, but I decided to go a tad healthier (mainly because I didn’t have any heavy whipping cream and I was lazy to go out to get some). Healthier, not healthiest, means more butter, some regular low fat milk and about three-quarters of a can of chicken broth to give it a whippy texture and not a crumbly one. Mash them until they are…satisfactorily mashed.
Now the chicken might just be under all that marinate for about half an hour now and should have absorbed some of the flavor. I don’t like to wait too long especially when there are hungry mouths to feed! I prepped the oven to a broil of 375 degrees, lined a tray with foil and drizzled some extra virgin olive oil to prevent potential sticking disaster. Unzip(loc) the bag with the goodies and poured it out on the tray. It would be best if the onions make a bed for the chicken to comfortably rest for their sun bathing session and pop it in the oven. I might have made a mistake here by having the chicken in the oven instead of pan-frying or something, but ideally, a grill would be nice (Christmas present?). The chicken looked a little dry after coming back at the 20 minute mark (Yes, 20 minutes…), so bask the juice around it to keep it moist. Wait a sec, is this chicken or turkey?
Impatience sets in as the mashed potatoes started to cool. A desperate man can go stir-crazy when his mind drops down to his stomach and the only survival instinct that is left is to move fast with fire! Unfortunately, I have an electric stovetop, so making do with what is available in a simple, casual kitchen; I heated a pan with olive oil and slap the chicken on. Prior to the slapping, slits on the chicken were cut and served two purposes; first is to check the level of rarity and second, to make the sucker cook faster! Surprisingly, it worked well! Waste not the juice in the tray! Drizzle it on the chicken and let them juices seep into the slits! Not long after, I had myself two chicken breasts cooked in beer and mesquite seasoning! A couple of ladles of mashed potatoes on the center of a plate presents itself as the resting mound for the chicken and those beautiful onions that were baking with the chicken were topped on the chicken. Sauce around the mashed potatoes and “Voila”! Dinner!
At that time, it was just my brother and I, so we had ourselves an enjoyable meal, sans vegetables, while watching Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel. Awesome!
My wife came home and I made her some sausages because she wanted a sausage dinner! Questioned about why she didn’t get to try the chicken and then suggested to take pictures of my food. Note to self, take pictures. For now, allow this rough illustration represent what I made.
