Chicken

Cider Roasted Chicken

I’ve got two issues with beer can chicken. First of all, I’ve decided to only drink beer on special occasions, and it’s wasteful to pour out a beer/soda can and fill it with wine or cider (let alone buying a six pack of canned beer just for the purpose of roasting chickens).

Secondly, taking the beer can out of a cooked chicken is a pain in the butt. Luckily, one simple kitchen tool solves all of my problems: this two-in-one vertical chicken roaster from Williams-Sonoma. This heavy duty dish allows you to roast one or two chickens using any liquid you’d like, with a lower tray that allows you to roast vegetables at the same time (and be basted in the chickens’ falling liquid). The roaster sells for $50 and I think it’s totally worth it.

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Grilled Chicken Korma

This year we upgraded our gas grill, so I’ve been thinking of new ways to grill food. I decided to incorporate grilling into chicken korma, resulting in a creamy, delicate sauce with textured chicken chunks.

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Chicken Cordon Bleu

Man, I had the hardest time finding a chicken cordon bleu recipe in my French cookbooks. Turns out that this dish isn’t French at all; it was created in the US and we added the “cordon bleu” to make it sound awesome. And in that respect, it totally worked.

The challenge with making a grain-free chicken cordon bleu lies in its crispy outer crust, which is usually achieved through flour and bread crumbs. I experimented a bit and found that a combination of coconut flour and potato starch worked best: the coconut flour surprisingly doesn’t leave any sweet/coconuty flavor behind, and the potato starch creates a crisp, delicate shell around the chicken.

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Crispy Baked Chicken

Baking chicken breasts in the oven seems like a foolproof method, but often results in dry, bland meat. Here’s a simple baked chicken recipe with minimal involvement.

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Chicken Livers


image courtesy of Nourishing our Children

While planning a yakitori night for sometime in the future I ran across this picture. Yikes!

Chicken Tikka Masala

One of the most common curries you’ll find in Indian restaurants here in the US is chicken tikka masala, a creamy, tomato-based sauce with slow-roasted chicken chunks. Being that it’s so popular, it’s easy to find pre-made sauces in most grocery stores; after putting several through their paces, I’ve settled on a quick, foolproof chicken tikka masala for an easy weeknight dinner.

One of the more interesting facts about this dish is that its place of origin is under dispute; there’s a good chance that it was invented in either India or England.

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Chicken Alfredo with Rice Pasta

Making a white-sauce pasta dish from scratch is one of my favorite cooking activities. There are several variations to this meal – with or without pesto, egg yolks, wine, etc – but this is its most basic form, and a great starting point.

This recipe calls for rice pasta, but if you’re not Paleo(ish) like me, you can use regular pasta. I’ve found that although most people associate alfredo sauce with fettuccine, mixing up the pasta shapes can really add some variety to the dish as well.

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Italian Chicken, Eggplant and Zucchini

I’ve dreamt about opening my own restaurant for over ten years now. I’ve wanted it to be a tiny little place that I would open later in life, when I already have a steady retirement paycheck and no desire to make it a “career”. I’ve always imagined that the fare would be a mix of American, Latin American, Italian and Asian cuisine – basically the 10 best dishes that I have made over my lifetime. After making the jump to gluten-free/Paleo, I’ve been feeling like my restaurant dreams are far-fetched: how could I make American food without potato, Latin American food without tortillas, Italian without pasta, or Asian without rice? Last night I sat down and put together a dish that made me think that I just might be able to start a Paleo-friendly restaurant someday – while fooling the non-Paleos (let’s just call them “muggles”) into liking it.

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The Wonderful, Delicious Roasted Chicken Cycle


I love roasting chicken, both the act itself and carving them. We tend to roast a chicken every week or two, and over time this tradition has evolved into what I like to call the Roasted Chicken Cycle.

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Easiest Roast Chicken Ever

NOTE: Here is an updated version of this recipe.

Many people are intimidated by the idea of roasting a whole bird – this kind of practice is often only reserved for a Thanksgiving turkey, and tragically so. I like to consider the whole roasting and carving of a chicken as practice for a perfect holiday meal. There are dozens of ways to roast a chicken, and many more ingredients you can use to add complexity, but I feel that they are ultimately unnecessary. Mine is a two-part process, which includes initially cooking the chicken breast-side down to prevent them from drying out.

I roast my chicken in a Le Creuset french oven, and although it is one of my favorite all-around cooking dishes, it would probably roast better in a braiser. A braiser’s lower edges would allow more of the bird to openly roast and crisp more evenly. Either way, the french oven still does the trick just fine, so let’s get down to business:

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