Jamie Deen’s Dijon Mustard and Rosemary-Grilled Chicken

The other day I saw Jamie Deen make this for dinner for his family. Its a kid-friendly recipe, which meant that even my one-year-old could eat it.

Ingredients for Jamie Deen’s Dijon Mustard and Rosemary-Grilled Chicken are:

6 portions of chicken breasts cut just above the bones (retain the bones for soup stock)
2-3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves chopped up
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 cloves of garlic, minced
Juice of one lemon
2 lemons halved
Quarter cup olive oil + 1 tablespoon
Freshly cracked black pepper
Salt

Marinate the chicken for up to 3-4 hours. But if you don’t have time, just mix everything up and do it on the grill right away.

Here is what I did. I mixed all the ingredients (except the halved lemons) in a large bowl and marinated the chicken in it for two hours.

Then I heat my grill pan and brushed some olive oil on it. Wipe off any oil extra with paper towels.

When the grill pan is roaring hot, place the marinated chicken on it. This way the chicken won’t stick to the pan. Give the chicken about 6-7 minutes before you turn it. This way you will get the perfect grill marks too on your chicken. Each side needs about 6-7 minutes to cook through.

On the same grill pan, keep the halved lemons face down for about 3-4 minutes.

Jamie Deen placed the grilled chicken on a bed of fresh baby arugula and served for dinner.

I just squeezed the grilled lemons on the chicken and served.

That’s a quick dinner for you and your family. I am pleased to announce that LMN ate Jamie Deen’s grilled chicken too and quite liked it. I served the Dijon Mustard and Rosemary-Grilled Chicken with my Herb, Cheese & Garlic-Baked Cauliflower, some Grilled Portobello Mushrooms and Roasted Garlic.

Thank you, Jamie Deen and Food Network for being my inspiration last night.

Herb, Cheese & Garlic-Baked Cauliflower

There is nothing primal about baking a cauliflower with cheese and herbs and garlic. But it makes a pretty good dinner.

So here is a quick recipe from my kitchen, something that was literally created with some leftover ingredients lying in the fridge. Like the fresh parsley from Maria’s Piri-Piri Chicken and all that cheese from LMN’s birthday party.

I got a beautiful head of cauliflower from the Farmer’s Market for just two dollars. And instead of making my rather favourite Chingri-Phulkopi, I baked it with whatever was at home!

Ingredients for Herb, Cheese & Garlic-Baked Cauliflower are:

1 medium size head of cauliflower, trim leaves and outer stems
Half to one cup grated cheese (I used a mix of grated Parmesan, Mozzarella and Cheddar)
Handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped + one more tablespoon chopped leaves + few stems for decoration
5-6 fat cloves of garlic, peel on (Use more, I regret not throwing in a whole pod!)
Juice of half a lime/lemon
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Freshly cracked black pepper
Salt

Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

Place the beautiful-looking head of cauliflower on a pie dish (or use a baking sheet).

Crack black pepper directly on the cauliflower. Season with salt.

Tuck in stems of parsley in the space between the flowerets.

Now heap the grated cheese and chopped fresh parsley on the cauliflower.  Throw in the unpeeled cloves of garlic too.

Drizzle olive oil covering the cauliflower and garlic cloves.

Bake for an hour.

In a glass jar or bottle add the remaining fresh parsley and pound with a wooden pestle. Add the EVOO and lemon juice. Mix and keep.

When the cauliflower is ready, drizzle the EVOO and parsley dressing all over, covering the cauliflower and the baked garlic.

Cut chunks of the baked cauliflower and serve. Taste the roasted, creamy, sweet garlic with each bite of the baked cauliflower. Enjoy with a baguette and a glass of good white.

Baba’s Baghdadi Mutton

Red onion is great. If you minus the lingering onion-breath and the tears it makes you shed when peeling and cutting. Growing up in Patna, every year the price of red onion would sky rocket during winters.

We are an onion-loving family! We love onions in everything. Raw, cooked, crisp-fried, or dunked in hearty stews. Onion inflation was a sore point in my Mum’s kitchen, like any middleclass housewife on budget cooking. Its another story though that that budget included gourmet meals pretty much every day.

One day in the middle of the onion price-rise, my Mum would announce – No onions from now in salads or jhalmuri. Its 80 rupees a kilo.

So?

In spite of her I-am-the-Tiger-Mom approach towards onions, we would still find slices of them in our salad or a good amount of it in her Mutton Do Pyaza. I still wonder why she even bothered with that onion embargo, with that feeble willpower when it came to serving onions to her family.

I don’t have my Mother’s Mutton Do Pyaza recipe today.
But what I do have is a simple, full of character goat meat dish. My Father-in-law’s actually. Its not one of those flashy recipes, where you can’t lay your hands on half the ingredients mentioned. It is basic, hearty and once you can crack it, you will be the most clever cook in town. And I am talking to kitchen virgins here who think cooking mutton is the most difficult thing.

To make good mutton, that fall-off-the-bones kind is the best thing I have learned in (slow) cooking. So here it is, Baba’s Baghdadi Mutton. Any relation with Iraq and this dish is highly doubtful. Just enjoy the name and the recipe.

Ingredients for  Baba’s Baghdadi Mutton are:

500 grams goat meat, bone in, cut into two inch pieces (no lean meat please, get meat with good marbling. I usually get the shoulder portion of a baby goat)
1 very large red onion, slivered thinly
300 grams plain yogurt
1 teaspoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon garlic paste
1 heaped tablespoon freshly cracked black pepper
7-8 whole dry red chillies (I usually add about 20 since my husband and I have a high heat quotient, so adjust the heat accordingly, play safe if kids are eating)
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable or canola oil
Salt

For starters, get a large bowl, and marinate together the mutton, sliced red onions, yogurt, ginger-garlic paste, black pepper and the dry red chillies. Keep refrigerated overnight or on the counter for at least 5-6 hours.

Warm (not heat) oil in a thick pan, use the pressure (cooker) pan if you want to. Add the marinated mutton and coat well with the oil. Cover and cook, mixing and moving the mutton and spices for the next 40-50 minutes on low-medium heat.

You will see the mutton release its natural fat and juices as it comes close to being completely cooked. Add salt and a little water if needed. Move it around well. Do a taste test and remove from heat.

Serve the Baghdadi Mutton with a big garden salad (don’t forget the onions!) and phulkas/chapatis/ruti.

This is probably the quickest and easiest mutton dishes I have made. But no less tasty for that. Very few ingredients, simple flavours and takes you to a different direction of cooking mutton – with so little oil! Go try.

Mutton Stew

This mutton stew is sure to keep you warm in the upcoming winter. Its got a rustic character to it because of the way the ingredients are cut. I love this stew with some freshly baked bread or Kaiser roll.

The earthy flavours of this Mutton Stew make it a household favourite of ours. I add big pieces of goat meat, whole baby potatoes and shallots and chunks of carrots for it to cook slowly and some of it to disintegrate into the liquid creating a great balance of the natural sweetness from the ingredients.

You can make this stew with chicken, but goat meat beats the chicken variation any day!

Ingredients for Mutton Stew are:

500 grams baby goat meat, cut into 4 inch pieces, fat and bone in (you can add a couple of pieces of liver too)
7-8 baby potatoes
1 large carrot, cut into big chunks
6-7 shallots or baby onions, peeled
1 medium size tomato, roughly chopped
4-5 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons atta/whole wheat flour + extra if needed
15-20 whole black peppercorns + extra black pepper powder for seasoning
2 black cardamoms
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons canola/vegetable oil
Salt

Heat the oil and the butter in a pan or pressure cooker. Add the meat pieces and sear them on both sides on high heat. Make sure you do not crowd or cover the pan, that way the meat will not sear and will start releasing moisture. The idea behind searing the meat is that it will trap all the juices and flavour right inside the meat without releasing them.

Remove the meat from the pan and keep aside. In the same oil, add the black cardamoms, bay and peppercorns. Sauté for a minute and toss in the potatoes, onion (or shallots) carrot and garlic.
Mix everything together without moving them around too much. Let them brown a bit on all sides.

Now add the atta or the whole wheat flour directly to the vegetables and lower the heat. Mix well. This will create a rue for the stew which will help to thicken it when it cooks.

Add the seared meat to the vegetables. Give it a good mix and add salt and enough water to cover all the vegetables and meat. Now add the chopped tomatoes.

Pressure cook till the meat is done. I let 3-4 whistles go off for my stew. (If the liquid of the stew is still too runny, add some more atta mixed in a little water and add to the stew.) Season with black pepper powder and serve hot with your favourite bread.

Jamie’s Whole-roasted Chicken with Homemade Barbecue Sauce

The star of this recipe is the barbecue sauce that Jamie quickly puts together. I just copied him using some of my own measurements. Just the sauce is so awesome that it got my taste buds going as it filled my hands and the home with the most fantastic smells.

The idea of using fresh, gutsy, woody herbs and spices and aromatic ingredients are a great olfactory turn on for me.

Ingredients for Jamie’s Whole-roasted Chicken with Homemade Barbecue Sauce are:

1 whole chicken, skin on, without giblets (about 1.5 kg)

With a pair of kitchen shears, remove the backbone of the chicken and “open (the bird) down like a book”. Score the chicken on its legs, thighs and breasts.

For the dry spice mix:
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
10-12 black peppercorns
4-5 cloves
2 teaspoons salt

In a mortal and pestle, bash all the dry spices till coarse and keep.
For the sauce:
3-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
4-5 sprigs of fresh thyme
4-5 fresh bay
1 pod of garlic
2-3 red chilies
Half cup Balsamic vinegar (I did not have it at home and used regular vinegar)
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
Juice of one orange
Zest of one orange
Three-fourth cup tomato ketchup (Jamie used organic)
2 tablespoons canola oil

On a chopping board, put together the rosemary, thyme, garlic cloves, red chilies and orange zest. Chop everything in together and into each other!

In a baking dish, toss in the chopped fresh herbs, etc., the dry ground spices, fresh bay, tomato ketchup, vinegar, orange juice, and smoked paprika.
 
Mix all the ingredients well. Lay the chicken on the sauce and massage the sauce into the chicken. Make sure you cover all the nooks and corners. Jamie does not marinade the chicken, I however kept my bird in the barbecue sauce for an hour. If you have more time, I suggest marinating for 5-6 hours.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Start with the chicken face down in the baking sheet. Drizzle a little oil on the chicken and toss it in the oven for one hour 30 minutes. Turn the chicken once mid-way of cooking.

Its not possible for us to do an outdoor barbecue in this weather. But on a clear, summer day, I am going to do what Jamie did! Barbecue the bird on an outdoor grill with this heavenly sauce.
This chicken is one of the most “simple, honest and bloody good” things I have eaten in a long, long time.

P.S. If you have not seen this TED talk by Jamie, please do.