Flour-Dusted Roast Chicken with Asparagus in Lemon-Curry Sauce

Yesterday, THE BEST OF FRIENDS was released, and I wanted to celebrate with a really good meal. In the morning, I happened upon a Food Network show on which they were making roast chicken with olives and onions. I came upon the show in the last few minutes, so I didn’t know how to make their recipe, but roast chicken sounded like a very nice way to celebrate my latest book. (Read Chapters 1 and 2 for free here: THE BEST OF FRIENDS excerpt)

One of the most popular recipes I’ve shared so far was the Crispy Baked Parmesan Ranch Chicken, and I wondered if there was a way to roast a whole chicken and make the skin as crispy and delicious as it was on that recipe.

My flour-dusted roast chicken recipe turned out delicious. It would be wonderful served with mashed potatoes and gravy made from the drippings. If only carbs weren’t evil.

I served it with roasted asparagus and red pepper, and a lemon-curry sauce of my own devising. I actually devised two versions, one with wasabi, then decided I liked this one best. So I threw out the other one, only to realize I had thrown out the one that I preferred. Then I had to throw out the wasabi one, wash all the bowls and measuring spoons, and start from scratch. Which means that I can say definitively that this recipe is reproducible.

Flour-Dusted Roast Chicken

One 4-5 pound roasting chicken

¼ C all-purpose flour

2 t season salt or garlic salt

¼ t cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the flour, salt, and pepper. Place half of it in a bag that’s large enough to hold the chicken with room to spare. If you have nothing else, a plastic grocery bag should work, though you’ll want to work over the sink in case there are any small holes. Put the chicken in the bag, then toss in the rest of the flour mixture. Shake to coat the chicken all over. Remove the chicken from the bag and shake off the extra flour.

Lightly oil the rack in a roasting pan, and place the chicken breast side up on the rack. Roast on the lowest rack of the oven, basting occasionally with its own juices, until the thigh temperature reaches 170. The chicken will take about 90 minutes to 2 hours. Let sit for about 10 minutes before slicing.

Asparagus in Lemon-Curry Sauce

Lemon-Curry Sauce:
¼ C mayonnaise

¼ C plain, unsweetened yogurt

1 t curry powder

1 t soy sauce

1 t honey

1 t lemon juice

Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Roasted Asparagus and Red Peppers:
1 lb. asparagus

1 red bell pepper

To prepare the asparagus, snap off about one inch at the bottom and discard. Snap the remaining asparagus spear into two pieces. Slice the red bell pepper thin. Toss the asparagus and the pepper with about half of the lemon curry sauce. Lay in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, until the asparagus is crisp-tender. Arrange a serving on a plate and then drizzle it with lemon-curry sauce.

THE BEST OF FRIENDS - Available today!

I'm thrilled to announce that my second women's fiction book, THE BEST OF FRIENDS, is available today! This is a fast-paced, emotional look at female friendship. As women, we need friends in our lives, but at times, our girlfriends make us so crazy we have to scream. In THE BEST OF FRIENDS, Jayne has always been the “go along to get along” kind of girl. Now that she’s started to stand up for herself, will her friendship with the glamorous Rebecca survive? Should it survive?

THE BEST OF FRIENDS – Find your sparkle! I’ve included a book club discussion guide in the book. If your book club chooses to read THE BEST OF FRIENDS and you’d like to talk to me about the book on the phone, please send me an email. I will be happy to set up phone calls with book clubs to chat about this book.

I'm making roast chicken tonight, so be on the lookout for a recipe later this week. In the meantime, find your sparkle with THE BEST OF FRIENDS!

The Best of Friends Shrimp Margaritas

This week, I wanted to create a recipe in honor of the release of THE BEST OF FRIENDS, which will be in stores on September 28. THE BEST OF FRIENDS is a fun, poignant story about female friendships, so I thought about what foods mean “friendship” to me. And the first things that came to mind were margaritas.

Okay. Not a food.

But I do have gorgeous, hefty, hand-blown margarita glasses that would look really pretty on my blog. What to do, what to do…

Shrimp Margaritas!

Shrimp Margaritas?! Could that work? It sounded crazy, but some of my best ideas have been crazy. I decided to give it a shot.

The three key ingredients are tequila, lime juice, and salt. Sounds like a good basis for a marinade to me, but I added some honey to sweeten it up, and a couple Mexican spices. The honey was sticky and hard to dissolve, which brought another crazy idea to mind. I could use the honey on the rim of the glasses and then press them into crushed tortilla chips.

The Best of Friends Shrimp Margaritas were adorable and delicious. I think they would taste just as delicious with chicken in place of the shrimp. Make a batch, then call your girlfriends over to enjoy them together! Oh, and if one of your friends will bring extra glasses, you can even serve them with margaritas!

 

 

The Best of Friends Shrimp Margaritas

1 lb shrimp
Tequila-lime marinade (recipe below)
2 T honey
¼ C crushed tortilla chips
4 C shredded lettuce
2 T fresh cilantro, minced
1 carrot, shredded
2 green onions, sliced
2 oz pepper jack cheese, cut into ¼-inch chunks
1 avocado, chopped
Salsa, store bought or homemade

Marinate the shrimp in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours. Drizzle the honey into a circle the size of the rim of four large margarita glasses. Swoosh the glass around in the honey, then swoosh it around in the crushed tortilla chips. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to broiling (500 degrees). Toss the lettuce, cilantro, and carrots and divide equally into the four glasses. Top with onions, cheese, and avocado.

Drain the shrimp and place on the rack of a broiling pan. Broil for 2 minutes on each side. Divide the shrimp equally into the four margarita glasses. Top with salsa and serve.

Tequila-Lime Marinade

½ C tequila
Juice of one lime
1 T honey
1 T water
2 T fresh cilantro, minced
1 t Kosher salt
½ t chili powder

Mix all ingredients until salt and honey have dissolved.

Brined Chicken under a Brick

Many times, I’ve read recipes that talk about weighing down a piece of chicken with a brick wrapped in aluminum foil. I always kind of wanted to try it, but – you may not know this about me – I’m not the kind of woman who has bricks lying around the house. So to try this cooking method, I would actually have to go out and buy two bricks.

It never seemed worth the effort before, but now that I have a cooking blog, I have to step outside of my comfort zone for your entertainment. And believe me, brick yards are wayyyyyyy outside of my comfort zone.

But for you, I’d do anything.

Almost.

I didn’t go to a brick yard. I don’t even know where there is a brick yard. I thought, surely Lowe’s would carry bricks. So I put the chicken in brine and went to Lowe’s. It took me a while to find the brick aisle. I got distracted by all the beautiful shower curtains and bathroom accessories. I love being a girl.

Here’s how you do it:

Brined Chicken under Bricks

For the brine:
10 C lukewarm water
½ C Kosher salt
¼ C white sugar
Ice

For the chicken:
2 chicken halves with bones and skin
1 t black pepper
½ t garlic powder
½ t onion powder
¼ t cayenne pepper (spicy) or paprika (mild)
¼ C olive oil

Put the sugar and salt in a bowl that’s large enough to hold the chicken and the water. Add the water, stirring constantly until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Then add the ice to cool the water. Rinse the chicken and place it in the bowl. Cover the bowl and put it in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Overnight is fine.

Cover two bricks with a double layer of aluminum foil. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Drain the chicken and pat dry with a paper towel. Combine the spices and rub over the skin. Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet on the stovetop over medium high heat, just until the oil gets glossy but not so long that the oil smokes.










Put the chicken in the pan skin-side down, then weigh it down with the bricks to hold the skin flat against the pan. Cook on the stovetop for about 10 minutes. Without removing the bricks, transfer the whole pan to the hot oven. Bake until the juices run clear, about 18 minutes. Remove immediately from the pan, trying not to break the skin, and allow to rest on a plate for about 5 minutes before eating.

This is some seriously delicious chicken!

 

But now what am I supposed to do with the bricks?

Shrimp Tacos

I love eating in restaurants. Truthfully, I love it much more than cooking. But sometimes, a restaurant just plain gets it wrong. I recently ordered Shrimp Tacos and was presented with cold cocktail shrimp on a cold flour tortilla with coleslaw on top. Coleslaw.

If this isn’t a travesty of justice, I don’t know what is. Isn’t coleslaw German? Now if they had called this Shrimp Schnitzel, I might’ve been able to accept the claim. I wouldn’t have ordered it, but at least I wouldn’t have fumed with righteous indignation.

Sadly, my lawyer said misrepresentation is hard to prove, so my only recourse was to make shrimp tacos the way they were meant to be made.

I found a terrific recipe from Rookie Cookie. Shrimp Tacos One of my goals with this blog is to help bring attention to some of the terrific cooking bloggers out there. I include a link rather than the recipe so that you’ll go to Rookie Cookie’s site to get the recipe. (And I don’t believe in taking credit for someone else’s work.)

No coleslaw in site. These are taco toppings, people! And the shrimp was cooked immediately before serving so it was warm. “Fresh shrimp” does not mean “fresh from the fridge.”

I cut down on the prep work by buying pre-peeled and –deveined shrimp. Makes life so much easier that it’s worth the higher price. I did make a couple small additions to her recipe. I added a dash of cayenne pepper to the marinade to give it a little kick, and I included shredded cheese with the toppings.