Blog Archives
ffwd: chicken basquaise
Autumn is here! Fall weather with its crisp mornings and evenings with warm afternoons has always been my favorite. Food cravings change this time of year too. I’m actually tiring of tomatoes and corn and ready for squash and apples. I always think of peppers as a transitional vegetable. While their Mediterranean-ness plant them mentally in summer, they are most plentiful in late summer and early fall. Fortunately for peppers, they complement tomatoes and winter squash equally well.
This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie is about as peppery as you can get. Chicken Basquaise is a satisfying stew from the Basque region of France. Peppers, in the form of a silky piperade, star in this dish.
I would say that piperade is to peppers what stewed tomatoes are to tomatoes. First, sweet onions are sautéed until soft. Then a huge pile of peppers are added to the pan to soften as well. I used a combination of dark green, light green, red, and purple peppers. Finally, some diced plum tomatoes, garlic, and herbs are added to round things out. Everything cooks together for the flavors to meld.
For convenience, I made the piperade the day before I made the final dish. When it was dinner time, I browned the chicken thighs, deglazed the pan with white wine, then added the piperade. The stew simmered while I made rice and a salad.
I’m wondering if the piperade would freeze well. With the sauce already prepared, this was a quick meal to prepare. The piperade doesn’t take that long to make, but doing it all in one shot would be impossible on a weeknight.
Chicken basquaise was a hit. It offered wonderful comfort food for the changing weather. The aroma of the peppers was reminiscent of Italian sausage and peppers, and my husband mentioned that, based on the smell, he was expecting bites of sausage in the dish. There’s an idea for next time.
I’ve also set aside some of the piperade to try as Eggs and Piperade for a breakfast this weekend. Can’t wait to try it!
We don’t post the recipes, but consider getting your own copy of the book, Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
To see the other Doristas’ chicken basquaise, follow their links posted here.
ffwD: eggplant “tartine” with tomatoes, olives, and cucumbers
This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie tripped me up a little bit. I didn’t read through the recipe carefully. I didn’t even realize it wasn’t a true tartine, an open-faced sandwich with bread, until I saw some chatter about it. Then, when I was at the farmstand, I had picked up some slender eggplants, about the size of cucumbers, assuming the eggplant would be chopped, however, the recipe called for a large eggplant where the slices would serve as the base for the topping. I proceeded, following the mantra “cook with what you have” and surprised myself with a winning success.
All these ingredient hiccups resulted in total procrastination. I woke up this morning and, alas, still hadn’t made the recipe. I was going out for lunch and needed dinner to be extra quick tonight, plus Howard won’t eat eggplant, so he wasn’t about to try it. Still in my pajamas, I headed downstairs to roast my eggplant slices, make the tomato salsa, and slice the cucumbers. I would at least taste it, so I could participate with the other bloggers.
I have to mention that I love cooking in my pajamas. It always seems so decadent, and yet productive at the same time. Falling straight out of bed and into the kitchen to get things going, fitting in a shower while something bakes or simmers, it makes me feel like I’m squeezing something extra out of the day.
I hear that in the Middle East, they eat salads for breakfast, so I followed suit. I arranged my tiny eggplant slices on the plate, topped them with the tomato salsa, then loosely arranged some thinly sliced cucumbers on top with a little drizzle of olive oil. This served as an unusual appetizer for my usual breakfast of toast, cheese, and fruit.
My favorite part of this recipe was the caponata-like tomato salsa. I used a combination of diced farm-fresh tomatoes along with quartered backyard-fresh cherry tomatoes. These were tossed with celery (unpeeled, in case you’re wondering), scallion, garlic, olives, capers, and fresh oregano along with oil and vinegar. . I loved the contrast of the sweet tomatoes and the crunchy celery and scallion. I didn’t have any green olives on hand so used Kalamatas. I liked the way the purplish color of the olives complemented the similarly-colored skin on the eggplant.
Even though he doesn’t care for eggplant, Howard even took a container of the tomato salsa to eat as part of his lunch. We polished off the leftovers with tonight’s quick grazing dinner of things found in the fridge.
I liked the whole composition and would make it again, though more likely, I’ll only make the tomato salsa component to eat as a salad or to top some grilled chicken or fish.
I’m looking forward to reading about what my fellow FFwD bloggers thought about this week’s recipe. Check out their links here. We don’t post the recipes, but consider getting your own copy of the book, Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
A Plateful of Happiness 