Category Archives: Poultry

Best Freakin’ Posole Ever!

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I usually make this hearty Mexican stew after Thanksgiving when I can use the turkey carcass for meat and stock. But since the nice folks at Cholula sent me some of their new Chili Garlic Hot Sauce to try out, I couldn’t think of a dish I’d rather put it in.

Since this recipe takes a little while to make, I doubled it up to make a great Sunday dinner plus leftovers for my lunches the rest of the week. It also freezes up really well.

2 pounds boneless/skinless chicken thighs
8 ounces Mexican chorizo
4 cups chicken stock
2 (20-ounce) cans hominy (Juanita’s if you can get it), drained
2 (4-ounce) cans green chilies
1-2  jalapeños, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
2 red or green bell peppers, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
1 tablespoon medium chili powder
1 tablespoon Ancho chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried cilantro
1 -2 tablespoons Cholula Chili Garlic Hot Sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large Dutch oven, crumble the chorizo and brown it over medium-high heat. Drain off as much of the fat as your conscience tells you to. Add the bell peppers, chilies, jalapeños, garlic, and onions and cook until the onions are soft, about five minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Add the chicken stock, chili powder, cumin, and cilantro and bring to a simmer on the stove top for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the chicken thighs, nestling them into the sauce so they are mostly covered.

Put the lid on the Dutch oven and move it to the middle rack in the oven. Let cook for 2 hours, checking at the 1 hour make to make sure the stew isn’t drying out. Add more stock or water if needed.

Remove the Dutch oven to the stove top. Give the dish a stir – the thighs should just fall apart. Turn the stove burner up to medium-high and add the hominy. Let it come to a simmer and adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper, and hot sauce.

Serve with corn chips, a squeeze of lime, and a sprinkling of cojita cheese

Nutrition
Makes 6 (1 1/2 cup) servings. 446 calories. 11 Weight Watcher points, so not exactly a low-calorie dish, but you could easily bump up the veggies and the amount of broth.

The Verdict: ★★★★★
The title says it all – the chorizo, the fall-apart thighs, and the heat and complexity of the sauce made this a delicious stew. I may very well make this with turkey again, but I’ll never make it again without chorizo.

The Cholula Chili Garlic Hot Sauce was made for recipes like this. It added a lot of clean, rich garlic taste with some nice warmth. I don’t think it’s quite as hot as their original sauce, but I liked the combination of peppers and garlic.

Chicken & Veggies

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This is the time of year when zucchini start mysteriously appearing everywhere. Seems like we’ve had a glut of them at home, and we didn’t even plant any. If the neighbors aren’t unloading theirs on our doorstep, it’s my folks passing on their surplus.

Since we’ve been graced with a couple of extra weeks of grilling weather, I decided to make up a big batch of my Chicken & Veggies recipe featuring as many of the zucchini as I could squeeze into a 9×13 pan.

The Chicken
8-10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 tablespoons herbes de provence
1-2 tablespoons kosher salt

Lay the thighs out in a baking pan. Season both sides with the herbs and salt. Set in the fridge uncovered while you prep the veggies.

The Veggies
2 large zucchini, sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh ground back pepper to taste

Combine all of the ingredients in a disposable foil pan. Mix well.

The Cook
Set up your grill for an indirect cook over medium-high (400°F) heat. On the Big Green Egg I use about half a fire box full of lump charcoal, an inverted plate setter to diffuse the heat, and a trivet for the roasting pan.

Set the pan full of veggies on the trivet. Place a small wire rack or grill grate on top of the pan. Lay the chicken thighs skin side down on the grate above the veggies.

Close the lid and let cook for 20 minutes. Lift the grate with the chicken on it off of the pan and give the veggies a stir. Add more oil or a little chicken stock if they are starting to stick. Put the grate back on the pan and flip the chicken. Close the lid and cook for another 20 minutes. Check the veggies again. If they are done, take them off the grill and set them someplace warm while the chicken finishes.

I usually leave the rig set up for an indirect cook and let the thighs finish cooking, but I was running short on daylight and the thighs were looking a little anemic, so I pulled plate setter out and finished the thighs directly over high heat.

It only took about another 3 minutes a side to put some char on the thighs and finish them up.

The Verdict: ★★★★☆
I think this is one of the best ways to cook chicken. Cooking the chicken above the veggies means the veggies soak up all those lovely chicken drippings and the moisture from the veggies keeps the chicken nice and juicy. Win-win.

My only issue with this recipe was using boneless, skinless thighs. They tasted great, but just don’t cook up as crispy and juicy as chicken with the skin still on it.

Rub note: I liked the herbs on this and might need to work up a rub like John Henry’s Chicken Tickler.

Crazy Day Leftover Chicken Corn Chowder

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1/2 of the rotisserie chicken from yesterday, chopped
1 big slice cottage bacon left over from Sunday breakfast, diced
The small red potatoes left over from the Tuna Nicoise, quartered
2 cups sweet corn kernels (grilled, cut off the cob, and frozen at peak freshness this summer), thawed
However much onion is left in the crisper, chopped
Whatever chicken stock is left in the carton in the way back of the fridge
About a cup of heavy cream, but leave enough so my dear wife can have some in her coffee the next day, or else
Hot sauce
Salt and pepper
Bacon grease from the cottage bacon

In a medium saucepan, melt the bacon grease over medium heat. Add the bacon and onions and cook until the onions are soft (about 5 minutes). Since it’s already late, and you don’t have time to mess around, just go ahead and nuke the potatoes while the onions are cooking to soften them up a bit.

Add the stock to the pan, then the chicken. Bump up the heat so it starts to boil. Add the corn and potatoes and cook for about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat and add the cream. Cook, stirring in between taking out the trash and emptying the dishwasher, until it comes to a simmer.

Taste and add hot sauce and salt and pepper as needed. Cook covered for 5 more minutes while you go get out of your work clothes, put on your comfies, and make a round of drinks.

Dish into bowls and serve with the last of the baguette from Tuesday and more hot sauce if needed. Sigh and smile. Tasty way to end a crazy day.

Sweet & Tangy Thighs with Peanut Noodles

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Sometimes you need a little help. We had a friend visiting from out-of-town and I wanted to put together a nice meal on the Big Green Egg. We also had a lot of other things that we wanted to do, but was really feeling short on time.  Lucky for me, I hit these two two saviors while I was digging through our pantry.

SAN-J makes a lot of gluten-free sauces, but they are hard to find in our local grocery stores. Fortunately, I’d run into a bunch of them at an Asian market and grabbed a few to try.

Peanut Noodles
3/4 pound dried spaghetti (use corn or rice noodles to make it gluten-free)
1 (10-ounce) bottle SAN-J Gluten Free Thai Peanut Sauce
4 green onions, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips

Cook the pasta according to the direction on the package until al dente (if you are going to let this sit in the fridge, shorten the cooking time for a little firmer pasta). Drain into a colander and rinse with cold water.

Dump the pasta and veggies into a lidded container and pour about 2/3 cup of the peanut sauce over them.  Put the lid on and toss to combine. Store in the fridge until just before dinner, then remove and let warm up a bit before serving. Add more sauce and maybe a squirt of sriracha before serving if needed.

Sweet & Tangy Thighs
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 (10-ounce) bottle SAN-J Gluten Free Sweet & Tangy Glaze
4 flat, wooden skewers

Put the chicken in a zip-top bag and pour on enough of the glaze to cover them (about 2/3 cup). Toss to coat. Squeeze the air out of the bag, seal it, and put it in the fridge to marinate for at least 2 hours. Put the skewers in a pan of water to soak.

Set your grill up for a direct cook over high (450°F) heat.

Thread the thighs onto the skewers (about 3 on each). Grill chicken about 10 minutes per side or until the internal temp hits at least 180°F. I like my thighs a little more done, so I went another 10 minutes until the meat started to get a good crispy char on it and the internal temp was 200°F.

Remove the skewers from the grill and let rest 10 minutes before serving over the noodles.

The Verdict: ★★★★½
Where these as good as my usual Teriyaki Kabobs and Peanut Noodles? I didn’t think so, but the meal met with rave reviews (although that may have been the Cucumber Margaritas talking), so who am I to argue?

The thighs were indeed sweet and tangy with a good mix of savory umami and bright fruit flavors. The noodles were rich and peanutty and had a nice crunch from the veggies. I would have added a bit more garlic to the chicken and a little lime juice to lighten up the noodles,  but that’s more niggling than complaining. In the end, the trade off in taste was minor for the ease of putting this meal together.