Sautéed chicken with a Gorgonzola cream sauce

Last week I stopped at Whole Foods on the way home from the office. I wanted to pick something up for dinner, and I knew I needed some vegetables. 

Whole Foods is a little too pricy for my taste, but it is right on the way home and they have good stuff, so I stopped. I picked out the vegetables I needed, but nothing at the meat counter appealed to me, at least not at the prices they wanted for it. 

I tried to force myself to decide on something, and then remembered I had some chicken breasts in the freezer, so I skipped the meat counter, and wandered to the cheese section. I picked out a Spanish blue veined cheese and a unique Gorgonzola, that was almost like a Brie. 

On the way home, I got the idea for a Gorgonzola gravy. It turned out fantastic. Here’s how I prepared it.

2 bone-in chicken breasts

Olive oil

1/2 tsp. of cumin

Cajun seasoning

Fresh ground white pepper

1 large green onion, minced

1 clove of garlic, minced fine

1 cup of dry white wine

1/2 cup of heavy cream

2 tbs. of Gorgonzola cheese

Preparation

This would probably go better with shallots rather than the onion, but I didn’t come up with this idea until after I left the store, and I was out of shallots. 

Heat a small oven proof skillet and add enough olive oil to generously coat the bottom. Sear the chicken on both sides and then season it with the cumin, a heavy sprinkle of cajun seasoning and some fresh ground white pepper. Cover the skillet and lower the heat. Let the chicken cook about five minutes per side, to start cooking the center of the chicken.

Add the onion and the garlic, cover, and let that cook an additional five minutes. Add the wine, bring it to a boil, cover and simmer the chicken for about ten minutes. By now, the chicken should be thoroughly cooked and very moist inside. Set the chicken on a plate, and set that in a warm oven.

Add the cream to the skillet and bring that to a boil. Add the chunks of Gorgonzola and stir until the cheese melts. Taste and adjust for seasoning. I added a spec more cumin and some more white pepper. When it tastes perfect, you are ready to serve.

Serving

Serve the chicken smothered with the creamy gravy. Since I did the Whole Foods thing, I kept the rest of the meal very simple. I made a large tossed salad and set out a platter of fresh vegetables. I also set both cheeses I bought on the  table to nibble on.

Crusty bread to serve with pasta

I’ve been told that I don’t do enough bread recipes, which is a valid point, since I make bread several times a week. Most times, when I make bread, it is soft, moist and steamy inside. But Saturday I wanted a good crusty Italian style bread to go with the pasta dinner I fixed for my neighbors. 

The secret to that is placing a large wide fry pan full of hot water on the bottom shelf of the oven, to make lots of steam. This bread turned out perfect. It was moist and tender inside, and had a nice chewy crust, perfect for an Italian style dinner. Here’s what I did.

3 cups of bread flour

1 cup of white whole wheat flour

2 cups of lukewarm water

2 tbs. olive oil

1 tsp. salt

1 tbs. honey

2 tbs. yeast

Extra virgin olive oil

Corn meal

1 wide flat fry pan full of hot water

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 410º. Since you want to get the yeast all fired up for this bread, place one cup of flour, along with the honey, salt and two tablespoons of olive oil in a mixing bowl. Add the water, and blend with the dough hooks. Let this rest until it becomes very frothy, as the yeast has a party.

Add the remaining two cups of bread flour and the white whole wheat flour to the slurry. Bring the dough together with the dough hooks. Adjust with additional flour or water, so you have a somewhat wet dough. Knead the dough for a minute, and then place it in a bowl. Pour a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil over the top of the dough, and roll the dough in the oil to completely coat it. Set that  in a warm place to rise. 

Once the dough has risen to about double its size, knead it again, and shape it into a log. Set that on a cast iron fajita pan, that has been sprinkled with corn meal. Let it rise again, until it has doubled into a nice large loaf.

Place the pan of hot water on the bottom rack of the oven. Set the bread on the shelf above the water. Let this bake until the loaf is a nice caramel color, about a half hour. Take the loaf off the cast iron pan, and set it back in the oven to finish for another five minutes. 

Set the bread on a rack to cool, and you are ready to serve.

Serving

That night I served a Sicilian style dinner with pork meatballs made with imported Italian Provolone cheese, fried eggplant, and spaghetti with a simple tomato basil sauce. Along with that, we had lots of this bread, a big salad, and assorted olives. My neighbor brought over a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. We had lots of wine with this great diner.

Spaghetti with a simple clam sauce

I’ve been in the mood for spaghetti with clam sauce for a few days, and last Friday, gave me a good excuse, Lent. 

This is a very simple version of a white clam sauce. Now the traditional Italian way is to make the sauce with fresh clams, still in the shell. I don’t do that. The fresh clams available in my area would be from the Des Plaines River, and their contamination would be measured in half-life designations. We do have fresh zebra mussels  in Lake Michigan, but they have to be scraped off of water intakes. They, like our other local lake favorite, alewives, have yet to make much of a dent in the Chicago culinary scene.

I find that canned clams work ok. Now, Italians, when making this, add the clams with their shells into the sauce. Don’t be tempted to add the cans along with the clams. It is not the same, and just doesn’t work. 

Here’s how I put this together. This cooks fast, so put the salted pasta water on before you start.

1 cup of olive oil

3 large garlic cloves, smashed and minced

Pinch of red pepper flakes

8 oz. bottle of clam juice

6.5 oz. can of chopped clams

6.5 oz. can of whole cherrystone clams

1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 lb. thick spaghetti

Salted water for spaghetti

Preparation

Fill a large pot with water and a palm full of salt, and put it on to boil, so you can cook the spaghetti. Add a dribble of olive oil to it.

Heat a medium sized dutch oven and add the cup of olive oil to it. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and stir it, on and off the heat, so the garlic just starts to sizzle, but doesn’t begin to brown. When the garlic is sizzling, add the clam juice. Now add the two cans of clams, with their liquid. Bring that to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for about two minutes. Stir in the chopped parsley, simmer for one more minute, and keep warm.

Cook the spaghetti for about ten minutes. You want to under cook it just a spec, so that it is just a bit chewier than normal. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce in the dutch oven. Stir, place it in a large serving bowl, and you are ready to serve.

Serving

Serve the spaghetti with lots of sauce, in bowls. To round out this Lenten feast, serve a huge tossed salad. 

For some good garlic bread, rub some toasted homemade bread with garlic, and douse the toast with olive oil and grated Parmesan. Open an ice cold bottle of Vinho Verde from Portugal, and ring the dinner bell.