Salade Niçoise with Smoked Trout and Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Salade Niçoise is the queen of all salads. Contrary to popular belief, the part that makes it Niçoise is the olives. Gorgeous, tiny, salty Niçoise olives. Traditionally, canned tuna is the fishy topping of choice, but we've gotten totally hooked on Ducktrap Smoked Trout from Trader Joe's, so that's what's on my salad! The salad is pretty simple to make, but requires a bit of preparation. A good mis en place will help tremendously with the actual making of the salad. Also, make sure you're using the largest plates you've got!

Blood Orange Vinaigrette
juice of 1 blood orange (you can use orange, lemon, grapefruit, or a combination if you can't get blood oranges)
1 T red wine vinaiger
2 T olive oil
1 t Herbes de Provence (fresh would be best, but who has time for that?)
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and let stand until you are ready to make the salad.

Salade Niçoise with Smoked Trout
2 eggs
2 medium vine tomatoes
6-10 oz baby red potatoes
8 oz haricots verts, or small green beans
large head or bag of butter or Boston lettuce (I like butter lettuce and radicchio blend)
about 20 Niçoise olives
1/2 small shallot, thinly sliced (or red onion slices)
1 filet of smoked trout or a can of tuna (preferably packed in olive oil) or fresh grilled fish or shrimp
2 T capers, drained

A few hours before you plan to eat, hard boil 2 eggs (of course I always make a bunch because YUM) and then put them in the fridge to chill.

Have a bowl of ice water ready. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cut a small X in the skin at the bottom of the tomatoes. Carefully lower the tomatoes into the water and boil until the skin at the X starts to peel back. With a spider or slotted spoon, remove the tomatoes from the water and place them in the ice water. Do not discard the boiling water. Let the tomatoes rest in the ice water for a few minutes, then remove them so they don't get soggy. Once cooled, remove the skin and seeds and roughly chop what's left. By the way, these are called tomatoes concassé and since I'm not terribly fond of tomatoes, this is how I prefer them in my Salade Niçoise. You can just use fresh quartered tomatoes if you're of that persuasion, though.

Cut the potatoes into bite-sized pieces and boil them until they are tender. Remove them with a spider or slotted spoon to a bowl and drizzle, while still warm, with 1-2 tablespoons of the dressing. Again, do not discard the boiling water. You can either put the potatoes in the fridge to chill or serve them slightly warm, that part is up to you.

Place the haricots verts into the boiling water for about 1 minute, or until they start to become tender and bright green. Remove them to a fresh ice water bath to stop them cooking and retain their color. At this point, you can discard the boiling water. Remove the green beans after a minute, drain them well, and toss them with about a tablespoon of the dressing.

Place the lettuce into the large bowl you made the dressing in and toss it up well. Pile the dressed lettuce in the middle of your large plates. Quarter the chilled hard boiled eggs and arrange them along with the potatoes, haricots verts, tomatoes, and olives around the lettuce. Lay the shallot or onion slices on top of the lettuce in the middle. Break up the trout fillets into bite-sized pieces and place on top of the shallot slices. Sprinkle the salad with the capers. Serve with some nice bread!

Serves 2.

Grilled Marinated Chicken and Stuff

This chicken was SOO good. I apologize for not having pictures of the meal once completed (though you do get bonus leftovers pics), but it actually wasn't terribly pretty. I was craving fajitas, but didn't want to cut up a bunch of chicken or cook indoors, so I decided to leave the chicken breasts intact, marinate them, and make my husband grill them!

Marinade:
orange juice
soy sauce
white vinegar
sunflower oil (just a touch)
garlic powder
ground cumin
ground coriander seed
cayenne pepper
black pepper

Place all ingredients in whatever proportion you want into a large zipper bag and mix it around a bit. Add in some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and refrigerate for at least 6 hours. You could use lime juice instead of orange, but I needed to use up some orange juice that I bought for my dad since we don't drink it.

Accompaniments:
bell pepper, cut into strips
jalapeño pepper, seeded and cut into strips
yellow onion, sliced
olive oil spray
salt & pepper
can of black beans
shredded Mexican cheese blend (I bought a light blend and can't tell any difference)
sliced avocado
tortillas

Place the veggies on a large sheet of aluminum foil that has been sprayed with olive oil, then spray the veggies. Sprinkle salt and pepper over them and toss. Seal up the foil to make a pouch for grillin'.

Grill the chicken and veggie pouch over high flame. We like our meat kind of charred and our veggies caramelized. Make sure you flip everything at some point. Cook the chicken until an instant-read thermometer registers at least 160° F, then let it rest for 5 minutes while you heat up the beans and tortillas. Note: I heat tortillas directly over the flame on my gas stove. Slice up the chicken and plate it with the grilled veggies, beans topped with shredded cheese, avocado, and tortilla.

Nutrition info:

Bonus: Leftovers!

Poor little (big, actually) blurry chicken breast

In a very large bowl, I have:
2 C butter lettuce
2 C baby spinach
1/4 C light shredded Mexican cheese blend
1/2 C shredded carrot
1/2 a red bell pepper, sliced
6 oz leftover chicken breast, cubed

Avocado ranch dressing:
1/2 an avocado, mashed
1 T Greek yogurt
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 t red wine vinegar
1/2 t Buttermilk Ranch Seasoning from Penzey's Spices.

Pretzel-Fried Chicken

Have you ever craved something you've never had? Somehow, I got it in my head that I was craving chicken strips rolled in crushed pretzels and then fried. Suddenly, I just had to make it.

Yes, the worst of the worst - boneless skinless chicken breasts

Cut into strips, put into zip-lock, and add buttermilk, olive oil, S&P

Seal the bag, slosh it all around, and refrigerate overnight

Peel some sweet 'taters, then cut into sticks

Toss fries in peanut oil, S&P

Coating dish

Pound the pretzels

Leave some larger pieces and pour into dish

Add an egg to the soaked chicken

Heat up frying oil

Fry in 325-350°F oil until golden

Remove to paper-towel-lined plate

Drizzle sauce over chicken

Chicken

Boneless skinless chicken breasts are not the ideal choice for much of anything, but for fried chicken strips, I need no bones or skin, and the work is already done. Had I come across a package of just tenderloins, I would have gotten that. I paid the premium for some butcher somewhere to do what I'm too lazy to do, and sometimes, that's fine.

Start by cutting the breasts into strips. Put the strips into a zipper bag and pour over buttermilk, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and some salt & pepper. Close the bag tightly and massage the chicken and liquid such that it's well mixed and all the strips are covered. Let the chicken soak in the refrigerator at least overnight.

When you're ready to cook, crush up several handfuls of hard pretzels (I used a strong freezer bag and small pot, though in hindsight I think a rolling pin would have been better). Let the pretzel crumbs be inconsistent - you want some floury stuff and some chunks for texture. Pour the crumbs into a shallow dish for dredging.

Heat up about an inch of oil (I prefer peanut) to 325-350°F. In order to get the pretzels to stick better to the chicken strips, crack an egg into the bag of chicken, and mix well. Pull a chicken strip or three out of the buttermilk mixture and let it drip for a second before dredging it in the pretzel crumbs. Then, carefully lay the strips in the hot oil and let them brown for a minute or so before flipping with a pair of tongs. Only fry 3 or 4 strips at a time to keep the oil hot, and let it heat back up to temperature before frying the next batch. Don't dredge the strips until you're just about to fry them, or the pretzels will soak up the liquid and fall off the chicken. When the strips are deep brown all over and firm when pushed on with the tongs, remove them to some paper towels.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Peel sweet potatoes and cut into batons. Toss the batons in vegetable oil (I like peanut) and salt & pepper, then arrange in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. The easiest way to do that is to toss the batons in oil and seasoning on the baking sheet itself. Bake at 450°F for 20-30 minutes to desired crispness. I happen to like them with burnt ends.

Honey Mustard Sauce

Since I'm a big dork and forgot to make the sauce before starting to fry the chicken, I directed my husband to do it and don't have any photos. Here's what I told him to do: get a small bowl, squeeze a couple of tablespoons of raw honey into it, add about a teaspoon of whole-grain mustard and as much yellow mustard as he wanted, then mix in about 1/3 cup of mayo. It was delicious!


Bonus: Leftovers!

Keep the leftover fried chicken strips in a dry container in the refrigerator (line the container with a paper towel if the strips are still warm or moist to the touch). 

I have a guilty (and rather pedestrian) pleasure: fried chicken salad. Use whatever you've got in the fridge and whatever you happen to like in salads. As for dressing, that's up to you as well. I like ranch-type dressing on my fried chicken salad, so I made a buttermilk dressing from scratch, as I find most bottled ranch dressings repulsive.

Cut up into bite-sized pieces

Make buttermilk dressing

Add a little sauce for fun

Salad
Cut the cold fried chicken strips into bite-sized pieces and lay them over a bed of greens. I shredded some carrot and Tillamook medium cheddar (my go-to all-purpose cheese in "baby loaf" form from Costco), and added some chopped chive and cilantro.

Dressing
Mix a few tablespoons of buttermilk with some chopped fresh herbs (I used chives and cilantro again) and salt & pepper. Pour over salad and drizzle some leftover honey mustard. YUM!