Tag Archives: chicken

Chicken Tikka Masala

Posted on by
Reply

I love Indian food. Once in a while I will get together with some girlfriends and order a huge load of it. The restaurant always thinks the amount of food we order is crazy, but somehow we end up finishing it all. Burp. Eating Indian while following Whole30 is pretty tricky. Lots of legumes, dairy and wheat to navigate. Channa Masala (curried chickpeas) is one of my faves, but definitely something to avoid during a strict clean eating program like Whole30.

During the latest of these decadent nights out (where I magically avoided the butter chicken, naan, bhatura, channa masala and MORE), I chose some Chicken Tikka Masala and Baingan Bharta (Eggplant). Deelish. The only problem was that it left me wanting more. I set out to make a paleo-friendly Chicken Tikka Masala to fill that spot in me that was still craving some butter chicken.

Chicken Tikka Masala – serves 8-ish

  • 2 lb of cut up boneless skinless chicken pieces – breasts or legs, doesn’t matter.
  • 1T cumin
  • 1t cinnamon
  • 1t pepper
  • 1/2t cayenne
  • few grinds of salt
  • 3T ghee
  • 2T lemon juice

Combine all ingredients, marinate for an hour

The flavours in a curry dish can be very complex depending on the quantity and quality of spices that you use. Methods of preparation can also vary, and I’m still tweaking my perfect approach. For this one, I aimed for speed over perfect flavour.

Sauce 

  • 1 jar passata or crushed tomatoes
  • 1 onion
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 3T fresh ginger
  • 1t garam masala
  • 1/2t coriander seeds
  • 1.2t cumin seeds
  • 1/2t tumeric
  • 2t cumin
  • 2T curry paste (I use Pataks)

Have you ever used passata? It is just a tomato puree with nothing added to it. I like that it comes in glass jars. It makes a great base for recipes.

Get the onions, garlic and ginger ready with your spices

Add the sauce ingredients to a pot. I had intended on making this in a slow cooker until I realized that I didn’t have enough time. You can also soften your onion, ginger, garlic and spices in a skillet before you add the tomato.

Simmer it for 30 minutes or so until it begins to reduce

Here are some photos of my attempt at making Baingan Bharta. It wasn’t very good, so I’m not going to share my version of the recipe.

Serve with Cauliflower rice.

Enjoy the delicious Indian flavours. Serve with fresh chopped cilantro sprinkled on top. And some chutney, if you are so inclined.

Paleo Orange Chicken with Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice

Posted on by
4

Paleo Orange Chicken. You know, we don’t even need to call this paleo, really. It’s just damned delicious. I have passed this recipe on to friends who think paleo is nuts, batshit insane “wtf, what DO you eat?”, and everyone who has tried it has given it rave reviews. It’s delicious. Amazing.

It’s not my recipe, but one from Health Bent, and I think you should try it. Why else would I post it? Sheesh. I won’t re-post all the ingredients because I follow it pretty much as written. (Although, helpful tip… if you don’t have fresh oranges because your husband and son ate them on you, you can always use frozen orange juice concentrate!).

Paleo Orange Chicken from Health-Bent.com with Cilantro lime cauliflower rice.

To make the rice, just simmer 2-3 cups of riced cauliflower in half a can of coconut milk, the juice and zest of one lime, and 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro. Cook it over low-medium heat until slightly reduced.

Note: If you haven’t made riced cauliflower, it looks like this. I rice it and freeze it in bags big enough to make a meal. You rice it by pulsing it in the food processor until it is a texture that resembles grains of rice. You can also use the shredder blade.

 

 

Paleo [not-Pad] Thai

Posted on by
1

I’ve been obsessed with making Paleo pad thai lately. But then I thought to myself… it ain’t going to be pad thai if it’s paleo. At all. So rather than trying to make some imitation meal that wouldn’t come anywhere close to the real thing, I used a few recipes for “paleo pad thai” as inspiration (i.e. from Health-Bent, Primal Palate and Well Fed) and came up with a dish that is delicious in its own right. Paleo [not-Pad] Thai, we shall call it.

Paleo [not-pad] Thai – serves two

  • One batch of Sunshine Sauce. I kind of improvised the recipe for mine, using this as a loose guide. But just follow this one as written, because I said so. Melicious got it right.
  • Three small zucchini
  • Handful of sugar snap peas, sliced thinly on the diagonal
  • a handful of chopped green onion
  • two chicken breasts, cooked
  • one T of coconut oil
  • chili garlic sauce, chopped macadamia nuts, cilantro and lime for garnish

Use a julienne peeler or a mandoline to slice your zucchini. Use a sharp knife (or dull.. ha) to chop your sugar snap peas and green onions.

Put the zucchini in a hot pan with coconut oil. Saute for a few minutes

In a separate pan, toss in your sliced cooked chicken (or if you are cooking your chicken right then, use the pan you cooked your chicken in!) and the sugar snap peas in with a wee bit of coconut oil. You are just warming this stuff up, not cooking the crap out of it.

Throw the sunshine sauce in with the zucchini. Stir it. Gently.

It looks like this. Simmer simmer. Reduce the sauce a little bit.

Plate it. Top with cilantro, lime, chili garlic sauce (missing: the chopped nuts because I forgot them on the cutting board in my excitement to get outside and eat!)

 

 

 

Mushroom faux-breaded chicken

Posted on by
4

When I was a kid I loved chicken fingers. Like loved loved loved. They made my world go round. My family ran a restaurant. I “helped” in the kitchen a lot. I knew how to use the deep fryer. I knew where the chicken fingers were stored. I was a master chicken finger chef. Probably the reason I was an obese child…

I still love those disgustingly delicious salty, breaded flavourful pieces of heaven. Arby’s has the best ones, for the record. BUT, I don’t eat them anymore. I still love me some “breaded” chicken though. I came up with this recipe that uses ground almond, ground flax seed and magic mushroom powder.

Magic mushroom powder is a concoction from nomnompaleo.com. The full recipe is available on the iPad app, but essentially it is a mixture of salt, thyme, red pepper flakes, pepper and dried mushrooms all pulverized to a powder. The original recipe uses 1oz of mushrooms and 2/3 c kosher salt. I would cut the salt in half next time. You can play with these ingredients to get the mixture as you like it. I think the original recipe was intended for it to be more of a seasoning salt, so the way I used it in this recipe made it WAY too salty. Almost inedible salty but we ate it anyway.

Mushroom faux-breaded chicken – Serves 4

  • 4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 1/2 c of magic mushroom powder
  • 1/4 c of ground flax meal (I use Bob’s Red Mill… only because it’s the only one I seem to find!)
  • 1/4 c of ground almond
  • 1/4 c dijon mustard
  • 1 egg

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Put the flax meal, mushroom powder and ground almond on a plate.

Mix it all up

Mix 1/4 c dijon with an egg.

Dunk your chicken breasts and mix well

Toss in the “breading” mixture

Place on a baking tray and put in the oven for 35ish minutes. Until they are done. Use a thermometer if you want to make sure.

Yum.

I served them with fiddleheads for dinner, but you could just slice them up and eat them (maybe I did that, maybe I didn’t…) or I also put them on a salad with microgreens and some olive tapenade. They are yummy cold too!

Roasted chicken breast + broth. Double whammy!

Posted on by
Reply

I’m all about the dual purposing of recipes. This one is like a meal that keeps on giving! Deliciously crispy roasted chicken that is pretty enough to serve to guests, easy enough to use for leftovers, AND some delicious bone/veg broth to put in your freezer or make into a soup right away!

Roasted Chicken!

  • 2 giant bone-in chicken breasts (unsplit!) Or you can use split. Or thighs. Or legs. Or hell, a whole chicken if you really wanted to. Just adjust the cook time accordingly. Don’t use boneless chicken. Please don’t.
  • 3 onions, peeled, cut into thick slices
  • 1 lemon, cut into thick slices
  • a few sprigs of thyme
  • ghee or butter
  • salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 375. Lay your sliced onions and lemons in a pan. Toss on the thyme springs. Use dried thyme if you don’t have fresh.

Place your chicken breasts on top of the veg. Rub some butter or ghee on your chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Toss it in the oven.

Bake until it’s done. 40 minutes? 45? Depends on the size of your chicken breasts. Use a meat thermometer to be sure. It’s 185 for poultry. I think. ha. You can stick it under the broiler for a few minutes to make it extra brown and crispy. And when it’s done it’s PRETTY. Yes, I ate the skin right off of these babies. Delicious…

NOW!… take the meat and skin off the chicken. Toss the bones into your crockpot. Dump in the contents of the pan too. Add some celery and carrots if you have them around. Cook on high overnight. Why yes, I do roast chicken at 10pm. That’s just how I roll…  This is what it looks like in the morning. Stick the crock in the fridge while you’re at work for the day.

When you come home, strain the broth. I pour it through a mesh colander lined with a clean tea towel.  Then, I funneled it into a jar and stuck it in the fridge to be turned into a delicious soup. Or frozen, if I don’t get around to it. It’s so nice and flavourful from all the vegetables. Nice and dark! Yummo.