Fancying-Up Your Meat and Potatoes

Missy Tippens

I admit my food is not beautiful. I love to watch cooking shows and read cookbooks, and I admire the plating and beautiful dishes. Then when I make something, I pretty much just slap it on the plate. :)

When I share blog recipes with y'all, I often show the ingredients and steps of cooking but not the finished plate. Granted, sometimes it's because I forget to take the photos (like when I'm starving!). But not all the time. I have a lot of plated food photos in my camera that just aren't appealing to post.

Today, as I was looking back through my photos, I was struck by how many beautiful food photos I've taken at restaurants (although sometimes the lighting isn't great).

This is a wonderful salmon dish I had at Marlow's Tavern. It came with pea risotto underneath. But the really special part was the fennel, radish and orange on top in a wonderful dressing. Here's their description:

Grilled Atlantic Salmon. Sweet pea, mint barley risotto. Fennel, orange and radish slaw with citrus vinaigrette.

Sounds divine, doesn't it? Here is another dish I had recently at Carrabba's Italian Grill. This was the Parmesan-Crusted Chicken Arugula with a side of butternut squash ravioli.

The fresh arugula salad is tossed in Mediterranean lemon vinaigrette, then topped with parmesan.

So, taking a regular protein like breaded and sautéed chicken or grilled salmon and then topping it with something bright and citrusy is a great way to elevate the dish--as well as make it look beautiful!

This is something I want to try to do! I bought a cool kitchen device at a Pampered Chef party a few weeks ago. I bought their salad dressing shaker that comes with recipes right on the container. It's called the Measure, Mix & Pour. I'd like to try making more of my own homemade dressings, then tossing with fresh greens or crisp veggies or fruit to dress up some of my stand-by recipes.

Have any of you tried this? I'd love suggestions!

www.missytippens.com

Orange Chicken - Replicating a Restaurant Fave

Our family loves Panda Express. Our oldest son, though? He's passionate about it. In particular, their orange chicken. So when he was home from college this weekend and mentioned he'd found a recipe that replicated Panda Express's Orange Chicken, I knew I had to try it.

Of course, the key to orange chicken is the sauce. And the base of this sauce is comprised of three readily found ingredients.

1 cup Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce (they were completely out of it at my grocery, so I opted for the store equivalent)

1 cup Orange Marmalade (incidentally, even though this was a 12 oz. jar, it measured exactly one cup)

2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

So I mixed these three ingredients together in a sauce pan over low heat, stirring with a whisk to break up any chunks or marmalade. Then I tasted it. 

Hmm... Not quite right. Orange chicken usually has a little kick to it. Matter of fact, I've seem red pepper flakes clinging to the chicken. So I cautiously added a couple shakes of red pepper flakes and let the sauce stand for a little while before sampling again.

Still no heat. Time to break out the big guns.

Now, while other members of my family will use sriracha sauce like ketchup, I prefer it IN things and always add it sparingly. 

I added a few dribbles. No change.

A few more dribbles. Nothing. I wasn't looking for it to be hot, but I did want to know it was there.

I went for a full blown squirt. 

Yes! 

But something was still missing. It wasn't as tangy as the restaurant's sauce. 

So I added some vinegar. Just plain old white vinegar. Maybe a scant tablespoon.

That did the trick. Sweet, tangy, with a slight undercurrent of heat.

It wasn't exactly the same, but it was still good.

Now for the chicken.

Cube 2 pounds of boneless chicken breasts and set aside. 

In a separate bowl, whisk together 2 eggs.

In yet another bowl, mix together 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup corn starch.

Rather than dipping my chicken in the egg, I poured the egg over the cubed chicken and mixed it to coat each piece. Then dredge each chicken bit in the flour mixture.

I cannot do this without making a mess.

Heat oil in a large skillet and fry the pieces in batches.

Honestly, next time I think I might just deep fry them. It's quicker and would cook the pieces evenly. But that's just me.

Once browned and cooked through, remove chicken to a paper towel lined baking sheet and keep warm in oven until all of the chicken is cooked.

Now comes the fun part.

Place the chicken in a large bowl.

Pour the sauce over the chicken and toss to coat.

You may be tempted to not add all of the sauce, thinking there's more sauce than chicken, but remember that the coating on the chicken will be soaking up that sauce, so go ahead and add it all.

Serve over rice and eat it as a meal or, in the spirit of Jan's Super Bowl talk yesterday, have some toothpicks nearby and serve as an appetizer at your next party. 

The end result was a tasty one. And while it didn't taste exactly like Panda Express, it was a close facsimile. And that's a very good thing. Because it dawned on me that once we move to the ranch, the nearest Panda Express will be an hour away, not just around the corner, like I'm used to. But with this recipe in my arsenal, if I get a craving for orange chicken, I'm good to go.

Now I just need to go back and retrieve Ruthy's lo-mien recipe (you can find that here) and I'll be all set.

What favorite restaurant recipes have you tried to duplicate? What were the results?

We’ll Always Have Paris and Duck Dynasty.

This week is our thirty-third anniversary. This is also the week my radiator gave out. Guess what I am getting as an anniversary present? The joke in our house is we always have to replace an appliance around holidays and special occasions. Man O insists that a car is not an appliance. I say it is since it make my life easier. That’s my definition of an appliance.

 

This is a 1930s car radiator. Modern versions don't look that much better. Jewelry it is not.

We had grand plans of going out to our favorite French restaurant, run by natives of that glorious country.  Man O gets the sea bass and I get the duck. We can count on stellar ingredients and beautiful presentation. The ingredients are pure. No preservatives. No allergy issues. A high price tag for our little culinary adventure. Sigh. Not in the cards this year with the car issues. True love always faces trials.

Speaking of true love and trials.... One of the reasons I fell in love with Man O is because he fell in love with the movie Casablanca, containing the famous line, “We’ll always have Paris.”  A girl with seven years of French under her belt and a passion for old movies thinks that way. 

What a view! Oh, and Paris looks pretty good too.

Man O and I celebrated our 25^th anniversary in Paris.  We took a boat tour on the Seine, seeing all the famous bridges spanning the river.  We visited museums, climbed the Eiffel Tour and busted our knees getting to the top of L’arc de Triomphe. But most importantly, we ate well, in little street bistros, grand chateaux and country inns.

At one chateau/fine dining establishment, I ate pigeon. Pigeon that practically cooed. Pigeon that was so raw I couldn't eat it. I tried to be polite and not send it back. But the chef caught wind of my discomfort. He was not amused. Never, ever, ever make a French chef mad. They are rather temperamental. In the middle of his lecture, I vowed to stick with duck as a fancy chicken alternative for the rest of my life. Never had I been served one that quacked!

Now back to our anniversary meal. I was prepared to learn how to duck hunt by watching Duck Dynasty. I thought it would be that hard to procure it! But hunting up duck in my local stores was not difficult. Nothing about the recipe was as difficult as I thought it was supposed to be. Maybe my view had something to do with an expensive restaurant price tag. 

Until now, I thought of duck as special restaurant meal, not a fix at home dish. But Duck L'Orange is one of those recipes that sounds challenging but isn't. It also isn't as expensive. If you don't hunt, duck can be found in the freezer section of your local grocery. Duck breasts run around six dollars in our area. 

We are cutting down on meat so I made medallions and filled the rest of the place with sauteed spinach, baked potatoes, and a bakery croissant for Man O.  The whole meal was less than an appetizer at our lovely French restaurant. Add some candles, Parisian music on the ipod, a tablecloth and grandma's old china. All set for a romantic celebration!!!! 

Now for the instructions. Brace yourself. I am listing all the alternative ways you can make this dish with ingredients on hand, if you are watching sugar, fat or have allergies.  I tweaked it and removed the expensive ingredients like grand mariner and fresh shallots.  But I can tell you, it is a special occasion dish worth the use of a little sugar and butter.

Easy Duck L’Orange

1 duck breast (or more)

1 orange (half juiced, half sliced) or ½ cup orange juice  (Double with each breast added.)

1 cup chicken stock (I use my own stock but canned stock is okay. Organic is better but pricier. Do not add salt if you use processed stock. It has enough already.)

3 tablespoons butter, divided

1T balsamic vinegar

¼ cup sugar ( if cutting sugar, use a teaspoon and follow thickening instructions)

1/4 teaspoon Penzey's Sunny Paris seasoning, Herbes de Provence, or diced shallots, sauteed

Dash salt

Got my ingredients ready to go, well, most of them.

Step 1: Score duck skin in crosshatch marks. Place two tablespoons of butter in skillet and melt. Add duck, skin side down. Cook on medium low until done to desired, approximately 12-15 minutes for medium rare and more for medium. Do not turn but lift to make sure skin is brown and crispy. Some recipes suggest medium rare but we are more medium people. We were scarred by the pigeon experience. Remove and set duck aside to rest while you prepare the sauce.

Step 2: Pour duck fat out of pan. Add tablespoon butter and melt on medium low. Add sugar and stir until melting into the butter, scraping browned bits as you go.

This is how the L'Orange Sauce with look at the beginning.

Step 3:  Add  chicken stock and orange juice. Turn up heat and reduce the sauce until thickened, stirring constantly.  [If not using sugar or in a hurry, put one tablespoon corn or potato starch in the cold stock or juice and stir to dissolve, then add to the pan. But it is better not to use the starch, just sayin'. Use patience and do the reduction. ]

Your sauce will thicken and look like this.

Step 4: Add the vinegar, spices and/or sauteed shallots. Stir to blend and take off the eye. The sauce will thicken even more as it cools.

Step 5: Place the breast (or cut medallions, if you are sharing one piece) on the plate. Pour sauce over the meat. Decorate with orange slices.  

As the French say, "Voila!"

Yes, I cut out some ingredients to make it cheaper. Yes, I cut out some steps to make it faster. But the end result was still delicious, inexpensive, and I feel empowered to try more "difficult" (or so I thought) dishes!

Do you have a special dish you make after finding out it really is not as hard as you thought?Or do you go to a special place every year for celebrations? Do tell!