Patio Dining: Grilled Chicken and Spinach Salad

My friend Judy talked me into it. She had been planning an excursion to Costco to load up on victuals for the holidays. We both live alone, so bulk buying really doesn’t make sense for either of us, but we each had our families coming for an extended visit and the larders were bare. I don’t have a Costco membership and it had been easily 15 years since I’d set foot into a big box with food, so I went as her “guest.” After carefully strategizing the exact day and hour that seemed the optimal time for tackling the crowds, off we went on the 20-mile trek to Consumer Mecca to discover what we couldn’t live without.

I was fascinated with how the products were displayed, the variety of goods and the surprising high-end selection of many of the items. There were a number of organic and healthy choices. I examined lots of ethnic foods, prepared platters that only need to have the wrapping removed before serving, and tons of fresh fruits and vegetables. No doubt about it, times had changed from the Costco I knew years ago.

One of the items I picked up was a jar of smoked paprika. But like so many of Costco’s products, it was an outrageously large quantity. At 8½ ounces, it was easily three times as large as any container of spice I usually buy. I looked at that jar and figured I would never live long enough to use it up before its natural shelf life expired. So we agreed to split it after we got it home.

That buying spree took place six months ago, and I am still in possession of way too much smoked paprika.  I’ve sprinkled it on grilled chicken and substituted it for plain paprika in several recipes, but I don’t think I’ve made a dent in the quantity that’s still left. So I was delighted to find a recipe in the new issue of Sunset magazine that called for more than a dusting of the stuff.

I wanted to share the recipe with Judy, my co-conspirator on the Costco excursion, but she was out of town, so I asked my neighbor Jo Ann to join me for a grilled salad on the patio. Because so much of the preparation can be done ahead of time, and assuming you can grill and chat at the same time, this recipe gives the cook plenty of time to visit with guests. That was important to me because I don’t see Jo Ann often enough and she’s great company.

 Grilled Chicken and Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing

½ Cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ Cup sherry vinegar

1 Shallot, minced

4 Teaspoons smoked paprika

1 Teaspoon kosher salt

1 Teaspoon dried oregano leaves

½ Teaspoon fresh pepper

2 Chicken breast halves, boneless and skinless

1 Ear of corn, husks and silks removed and left on the cob

2 Portabella mushrooms, stems removed

5 Ounces of lightly packed baby spinach (or a generous handful of spinach leaves per person)

2 Scallions cut into 2-inch slivers

Whisk the oil, vinegar, shallot, paprika, oregano, and salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Set aside ½ cup of the dressing and put in the refrigerator to chill. Add chicken to the remaining dressing, turn to coat and chill, covered, for at least 1½ hours or overnight. Let chicken and reserved dressing come to room temperature before serving, about 30 minutes.

Heat the grill to medium-high. Remove the chicken from the marinade and transfer to a plate. Add corn and mushrooms to the marinade and brush to coat. Grill the corn, mushrooms and chicken until the vegetables are just browned and the chicken is no longer pink in the center (about 12-18 minutes for the chicken, 3-4 minutes longer for the corn.) Transfer to a cutting board as they are done.

Cut the warm corn kernels off the cobs into a large bowl. Cut the chicken and mushrooms into strips, and then add to the bowl along with the spinach, scallions and reserved dressing. Toss to coat. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Comfort Food, Part Deux: Chicken & Dumplings

The girls were planning another midweek get-together, something we'd all looked forward to before our pal Katrina returns to England. Since the weather forecast was for wind and some late season rain and I was in the mood -- again -- for comfort food, I volunteered to bring the main course: savory chicken and dumplings. I had made this dish a few times before, but had always served it straight from the stove, right after the dumplings were done. I wasn't sure how to the timing would work after pre-cooking it at home, cooling the pot before lugging it to a friend's house, then waiting for cocktails to be consumed before re-heating and serving to the ladies. I found out.

 After the chicken is browned, add the vegetables and herbs.

This is a very fragrant dish to cook. My kitchen was redolent with rosemary and thyme, freshly plucked from the garden. It started out beautifully: nicely browned chicken and colorful vegetables, but by the time it was served (almost 4 hours later), it had become a colorless blob. A couple of the ladies volunteered that they had never eaten chicken and dumplings before ("It's a Southern dish, isn't it?") and I hope they will not judge the dish by the way it was looked last night.

Here's the process. I've divided the ingredients into groups, according to each step.

Chicken & Dumplings

6-8 chicken thighs, boneless and skinless
2-3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika

1 large onion, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped or 1+ cups packaged baby carrots
3 stalks celery, chopped
3 large cloves garlic, chop fine
1 Tablespoon fresh parsley, minced
2 Tablespoons fresh thyme, minced
3 Tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced

1 cup dry white wine
2 cups chicken stock

Heat the oil until very hot, but not smoking, in a large stockpot -- wide, not deep. Toss the chicken pieces together in a plastic bag with the flour, salt and pepper, and paprika until the chicken is well coated. Place the thighs in the hot oil and brown on both sides. If the pot won't hold all the chicken pieces at one time, brown them in batches, setting aside the finished pieces while you add new pieces. Add the onions, carrots, celery, garlic and herbs and cook for about 10-12 minutes until the onions become translucent. Add the wine and stock and bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for about an hour until the chicken is tender.

Meanwhile, make the dumplings.

1/4 cup shortening (like Crisco)
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal (keeps the dumplings from getting too doughy)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
3/4 cup milk

Mix the dry ingredients together with the parsley in a large bowl. Cut in the shortening. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the milk. Mix lightly until the milk is incorporated. No need to handle the dough and roll into little balls. Just use a teaspoon, and drop 1-inch globs of dough on top of the simmering chicken. Cover and cook 10 minutes until the dumplings have expanded and become fluffy. Do not stir and do not lift the lid: the dumplings need the steam to cook properly.

This served the five of us, with plenty of leftovers.

 Dumplings steaming in the pot with the cooked chicken.

While some cooks like to pull apart the cooked chicken into lots of smaller bite-sized pieces, I like to keep the chicken thighs whole. That way, the rich brown coating adds to the visual appeal. I also think that one dumpling per serving is sufficient and looks better than a bowlful of dumplings hiding the chicken and veggies underneath.

In the end, my lovely chicken and dumplings were woefully overcooked by the time we tucked into dinner. I'd be the last one to end any cocktail hour prematurely, but if we'd eaten an hour earlier, I think this time-honored Southern staple would've been better received.

P.S. The wine, asparagus, salad and dessert were great!

Sharing a Pizza

Although we are longtime friends going back almost 40 years, it had been way too long since KT, JM and I had met to visit and catch up. One had spent half the summer in Idaho, the other was in and out of town on short vacations, and the third was laying low, hobbled by a bad back and a broken toe. On a magnificent summer day recently, we met at Ojai's popular new restaurant, La Fonte Pizze, for lunch and conversation. We sat in a quiet corner on the restaurant's back patio so we could talk, and talk, and talk.

After much deliberation (their menu is lengthy), we decided to split a large salad and a pizza, and we agreed on their specialita del giorno, a chicken pizza adorned with sliced fresh peaches. I don't think the others were as enthusiastic about this dish as I was (maybe because I was the one laying low with the bad back and not getting out much), but I thought it was inventive and delicious. Delivered on a wooden peel, the thin-crust pie was piled high with chunks of white meat chicken and local yellow meat peaches, garnished with fresh basil.

This, I thought, probably wouldn't be too hard to do at home. I own a pizza peel, and the ingredients are easily available. So, why not? Well, because my homemade pizza would not come with two cherished friends and chit-chat refined over 4 decades. That is what can never be replicated.