Chicken Marsala: Take Two

I made chicken Marsala back for Valentine's Day. Unfortunately made it a creamy version that, on top of whole grain pasta looked entirely too beige and therefore unworthy of Valentine's Day, much less a blog post.

In any event, this was very much a "let's do this from memory!" rendition.

I had half a bag of dried porcini mushrooms which I quickly rehydrated in my cast iron skillet with a little water and a pat of butter. When they looked thoroughly soaked, I added half a sweet onion in thin slices and a crushed garlic clove. I let the onions get about half way to absolutely caramelized, then I added two whole chicken thighs to the skillet. I let them develop a crust, then flipped them. After the second crust I gave a generous glug or two of wine (don't you love my precision?) to the skillet and put a lid over it. The chicken essentially wine steamed to done, the raw wine flavor melted away and the onions were super sweet. I "mounted the sauce" by melting another pat of butter to the skillet and served it, once again, over whole grain pasta.

I tell you, though my photography skills are lacking, it was very attractive. The Boyfriend made appreciative noises when he looked at his bowl.

I thought it was super tasty and visually pleasing, so I will be making this again.

Nabe for the ladies

The Boyfriend is off visiting relatives until Christmas proper and I have to work the day before and after the 25th so I stayed behind. To keep myself from being too sad and lonely (and because she's an amazing person) I invited my good friend Lilian to spend the night.



Before he left, The Boyfriend and I traded presents (I got him a very nice hat). I received the "Thunder Range" gas grill. So before work, I finally got around to re-firing my nabe (fill with water, put in hot oven for an hour to avoid cracking your nabe over the open flame) and looked at my nabe recipe book and found the Fukugawa recipe which traditionally is for two people, which they bumped up to four and I bumped back down to two.



Clams (which I left in the shell), mizuna (which I substituted spinach), tofu, and mushrooms went into a dashi stock with some miso paste smeared on the lip of the pot so it would caramelize and slowly melt into the stock. It was very fun to put a few clams into the broth and eagerly wait for them to open.



Of course, the best part of nabe is spooning the enriched broth over some rice (or noodles) and devouring the essence of your entire meal over the pleasant chewiness of hot rice.

The Boyfriend definitely "did good" with present shopping this year.

Congee

I managed to burn my right thumb and index finger while making this.

Actually, I burnt them while trying to hard boil quail eggs (told you you'd hear from them again), so my hand isn't feeling too nice while I type this.

Congee is basically rice soup from what I can understand. I had accidentally made too much rice a day or two ago, and had a lot of mushrooms and such in the fridge, so I figured it might be a good time to try it out.

I put the rice back in the cooker and added what looks like way too much water. Then I turned it on. While that was happening, I sliced some more shiitake mushrooms, along with the enokidake mushrooms. I also sliced up some more tofu. I let it all cook until the rice was very fat and the soup thick.

After serving it up in bowls, I threw a handful of spinach into each bowl and let the residual heat cook it down. I added soy sauce at the table.

This is apparently something you eat when you've got a cold and the like (congee in general, not specifically my mushroom enhanced version).

Even with the soy sauce, this tasted way too bland. I think next time I'll lace my cooking water with some kind of stock (chicken or the like) and see how that does.