Chicken Salad / August 16, 2016 by Cynthia Raub

chicken salad recipe with croissants and crackers

Is there anything to dislike about chicken salad? Unless you are a vegetarian or vegan, or you don't care for mayonnaise (Amy . . . ), what is there not to love? Tender supple chicken accompanied by a crisp crunch of celery, a little sweetness from the fruit of choice, all brought together by a delicate mayonnaise dressing. Ahhh! Sounds like the perfect lunch or snack to me. I love sandwiches because they deliver the perfect bite and I especially have a thing for loosely filled sandwiches. I'm always looking for more recipes to make that keep well, and are easy to make larger quantities without much more work. This is one of those recipes and I promise it will be a crowd favorite, unless the crowd is vegetarian or hates mayonnaise (Amy . . . ).

Notes: This recipe requires a fair amount of chopping, but it comes together in a cinch. It involves very little to no cooking, depending on what chicken you choose to use. In a pinch, you can always shred chicken from a store-bought rotisserie bird or you can buy prepared chicken meat; however, I would strongly suggest you try the simple poaching method, (recipe below,) to get tender chicken and a delicious broth simultaneously with hardly any extra work. The grapes in this recipe can also be substituted with other fruit such as diced green apple or dried cranberries. I love chicken salad on a croissant because, why not? But, it's also a dream on sliced white bread, a simple roll, or on crackers.

Flatbread with Chicken Shawarma, Eggplant, and Caramelized Onions / August 2, 2016 by Cynthia Raub

Flatbread with Chicken Shawarma and Eggplant Dip with Caramelized Onions

Recently, I got an email from NYT Cooking that was sharing Sam Sifton's Oven-Roasted Chicken Shawarma. It is one of those invaluable and easy pantry dishes that come together with very little prep and even less hands-on cooking. Throw marinade and chicken into a bag, let sit, dump on a sheet tray and toss it in the oven. And then what emerges is fragrant, multi-dimensional, and tasty chicken. The chicken is highly versatile as it can be served alongside typical Mediterranean sides and dishes like pita, cucumber and tomato, hummus, and rice. Or, I thought, you could throw it on a flatbread (a.k.a. pizza dough) and feel like a real, true and actual genius. Do you know what else is genius? Outsourcing the luscious spread to marry the flatbread and chicken together. You see, I am all too familiar with Amy's love for eggplant and I decided to exploit it. I told her I was planning on making the chicken shawarma, and I thought about putting it on a flatbread but that's where my ideas ended. Dang, shoot, crud - I'm plum out of ideas! Oh what could possibly be irresistibly delicious to spread on the flatbread? Then like a horse out of the gate, Amy threw out a dozen ideas, and it ended with roasted eggplant with caramelized onions. That was it. We are going to make this together, eat it, and be happy.

Notes: I used this recipe for the flatbread and pre-cooked the bread before adding any of the toppings. Like pizza, flatbread can be topped with nearly anything, so in the words of Melania Trump (just kidding, FLOTUS Michelle Obama) about flatbread toppings, "the only limit to your achievement is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them." #foodwisdom

Swedish Meatballs / January 26, 2016 by Cynthia Raub

My two daughters had preschool potlucks on consecutive days - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. What could I cook that would work for both mealtimes? I wanted to bring something that: I could cook in bulk, was not very costly, could be prepared in advance, and was easy for preschoolers and standing parents to eat. Swedish meatballs were perfect! They are bite-sized and dense, making them an easy to serve and eat finger food. Not to mention, they are a preschooler’s favorite color of food: brown (see: crackers, toast, peanut butter, chocolate…). To make things interesting, I decided to quadruple the recipe to have generous portions for the two preschool parties, enough to freeze for my family and a bag for Amy.

Notes: In this recipe, I decided to shallow fry the meatballs to keep their beautiful round shape intact. This method is not for everyone, or for every occasion, but I was happy with the results. Alternatively, you can bake the meatballs at 350 degrees for 18-24 minutes; either directly on a baking sheet/baking pan or on a wire rack, so the fat can drip down. There are pros and cons to shallow frying and baking, but a big pro of baking is that you can scrape the little fatty bits from the pan into the gravy to make it extra delicious!

Also, this recipe calls for sweated onions, but I decided to cook half of the onion and keep half of the onion raw. I liked how the cooked onion lent a small amount of sweetness in a bite, but I loved how the raw onion cut through the beef flavor. The allspice and nutmeg in this recipe were so subtle that I think these meatballs are highly adaptable to numerous uses and cuisines. The spices are traditional for Swedish meatballs, but the gravy is what made it so. One night, my husband threw a dozen frozen meatballs into a vegetable soup for dinner and the allspice and nutmeg were almost undetectable. Amy used them in a completely different way, too, in her Meatballs with Tomato Sauce and Polenta.

READ MORE: THE SHARED MEATBALLS

Time: 1 hour
Servings: 30 2 oz meatballs, around 6 portions
Adapted from: Alton Brown, Swedish Meatball Recipe

For the Meatballs
3 cups of cubed white bread, crusts removed
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon kosher salt (plus more to taste)
1.5 pounds ground beef (I used 92% lean and 8% fat)
1.5 pounds ground pork
3 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
8 oz canola oil

For the Gravy
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken broth
Splash of Worcestershire or soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
Parsley, finely chopped- optional for garnish
1/4 cup sour cream, optional, to finish the gravy

Place bread in a small bowl, pour milk over and mix, set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan over medium heat. Add half of the onion (1/2 cup) and sweat until the onions are translucent and soft. Remove onions from the pan and set aside to cool.

In a stand mixer bowl, combine the bread and milk mixture, ground beef, pork, egg yolks, 1 tablespoon of kosher salt, black pepper, allspice, nutmeg, raw onions, and cooked onions. Mix until very well combined and the meat has become sticky and homogenous. Using a 2-ounce cookie scoop, portion, and then roll each meatball with your hands and place on a sheet pan.

In a 12" straight edge saute pan, heat oil to 250 degrees. Add the meatballs in small batches and fry until golden brown on all sides, about 7 to 10 minutes. Remove the meatballs to cooling rack with a slotted spoon or tongs.

In a medium saucepan, melt remaining 3 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat until foamy. Whisk in flour and cook until raw flour smell is gone and the mixture is lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Slowly whisk in chicken stock and bring it to a boil. Once at a boil, lower the heat to a simmer and cook until thickened, about 3 minutes. Whisk in a splash of soy sauce (or Worcestershire) and acid. Season with salt and white pepper. If you are feeling sassy, stir in 1/4 cup of sour cream to give the gravy a beautiful creamy look and tangy flavor.

Add meatballs to gravy and stir to coat. Simmer until meatballs are heated through. Garnish with chopped parsley!