Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken

Last Year's Post: Hot and Sour Soup
Two years Ago:  Korean Seafood Pancakes

I had a love/hate relationship with my slow cooker for years.  I originally bought it thinking it would be great for cooking a meal during the work week, but then I realized that if you have an 8-5 job very few recipes call for cooking the 10-11 hours that you'll be gone.  So, it turned into more of a weekend or day-off type of meal prep when the recipe particularly benefits from low and slow cooking.

Boneless skinless chicken thighs are one of those things.  They're perfect for the slow cooker because they stay moist while they become fall-apart tender.  It's actually the only way I cook chicken thighs because they can turn tough and chewy when cooked faster at higher heat. No one likes chewy chicken.

This is a simple yet very flavorful recipe for teriyaki chicken.  You could even just buy a bottle of teriyaki sauce if you're really pressed for time, but the homemade sauce allows you to control sodium and vary the other ingredients according to your family's taste.  More garlic, anyone?  Tip of the day:  Trader Joes has excellent soy sauce that has one of the lowest sodium levels I've found.

Don't be tempted to substitute cooking sherry for the dry sherry because it tastes bad and it has sodium.  Salted wine?  No thanks.  Buy a bottle of dry sherry at the liquor store and keep it on hand - it tastes much better, it's not expensive and it keeps forever.

Kids love teriyaki, so this is a great family meal when paired with white or brown rice and some sauteed sugar snap peas.  Leftovers make an excellent lunch the next day - warm, cold, or in a sandwich with some sliced cucumbers.

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Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken

Serves 4-6

2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon dry sherry
3 cloves minced or grated garlic

Slice green onions, for garnish

Toasted sesame seeds, for garnish


In a small bowl, mix soy sauce, brown sugar, sherry and garlic together.

Place chicken in the slow cooker, cover with sauce.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4-5.  Serve with green onions and toasted sesame seeds on top.

Grilled Hawaiian Filipino Adobo Pork

Last Year's Post: Baked Italian Sandwiches
Two Years Ago:  Watermelon Gazpacho

How can a recipe be Hawaiian and Filipino, you ask?  I adapted this recipe from Steve Raichlen's BBQ USA and he explains it like this:

"Filipino cuisine is one of the world's best-kept food secrets.  Even if you live in a city with a large Asian community, like San Francisco or Seattle, I bet you'd be hard pressed to name a single Filipino dish.  This is a shame, because Filipino cooks draw on two rich culinary traditions - the Iberian cuisine of its Spanish colonizers and the vibrant flavors of the Far East.

Consider the following pork tenderloin adobo.  As the adobo moved from Spain to the Philippines, it picked up some Asian seasonings, such as ginger and soy sauce, a combination that's hard to resist.  This recipe comes not from the Philippines, but from Hawaii - home to a large Filipino community and one of the few places in the United States where Filipino cuisine is accorded the respect it deserves." 

Compared to other Hawaiian adobos I've had, the sauce is less assertively vinegary and the fact that it's made with pork (instead of chicken) and grilled (instead of stewed) is unusual.  But it's still just as delicious and a great change of pace from your regular barbecue stand-bys.  And healthy!  Adobo is traditionally served with white rice to balance the big flavors and absorb the sauce, but brown rice or another grain would be just as good.  Be sure to throw some fresh pineapple rings on the grill at the same time for a perfect sweet accompaniment. Note that the pork needs to marinate for 2-8 hours so plan ahead.

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Grilled Hawaiian Filipino Adobo Pork

Serves 4

½ medium onion, thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 piece (1 inch) fresh ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks

2 green onions, minced (and additional sliced for garnish, optional)

1 cup low-sodium soy sauce

2/3 cup rice vinegar or white wine vinegar, or more to taste

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

3 bay leaves

2 tablespoons Asian (dark) sesame oil

1 pork tenderloin (about 1 lb)

Kosher salt and black pepper

 2 tablespoons butter

½ onion, cut into chunks and layers peeled apart

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Combine the sliced onion, garlic, ginger, green onions, soy sauce, vinegar, paprika, bay leaves and sesame oil in a large zip-top bag; seal the bag and shake to combine the ingredients.

Trim the tenderloin of any extra fat or silver skin.  Cut into 1-inch cubes, season with salt and pepper and place in the zip-top bag.  Seal and shake to coat all the pork cubes evenly.  Place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 8 hours, shaking and turning the bag occasionally.

Remove the pork from the marinade, brushing off any onion pieces.  Strain the marinade through a strainer into a saucepan to remove solids.  Bring to a brisk simmer for 5 minutes to reduce and thicken the sauce, stirring as it cooks.  After 3 minutes add the butter.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper plus a splash of vinegar if necessary; the sauce should be piquant and highly seasoned.  Keep warm.

Meanwhile, heat the grill to high.  Thread the pork cubes onto skewers, alternating with pieces of onion.  Clean and oil the grill grate, then grill the pork skewers for about 8 minutes total, turning to brown each side.  Baste with vegetable oil as they cook.  During the last two minutes of grilling, brush the kebabs with a little of the sauce.

Serve the kebabs with additional sauce on the side and optional green onions for garnish.

Filipino Chicken Adobo

Last Year's Post: Egg Gratin
Two years Ago:  Swordfish en Papillote

If you ever find yourself in a state of peace and clarity with the world such that it makes you nervous, as in things are going too well so something bad must be about to happen, I can fix that for you.  Just start pondering the word "adobo" and your mind will get so twisted up, it will forget how much fun it was having.  Really, what is adobo?  Isn't it some sort of Mexican spice mix?  But apparently the same word is used for Hawaiian and Filipino meat-based dishes with vinegar that have absolutely nothing to do with the Mexican spice mix, or do they? And what about canned chipotles in adobo? See, you just forgot about peace and clarity, didn't you?

As with all conundrums, a little Google search reveals the answers to the universe.  In this case, blame it all on the Spanish.  The word adobo means "marinade, sauce or seasoning" and originally was a Spanish food preservation method that involved submerging raw meat into a vinegar-based sauce.  As the Spanish traveled around the world, so did the term. In Mexico and Puerto Rico it came to mean a salt-based seasoning mix in addition to the tomato-based sauce used to stew jalapenos (chipotles).  In Hawaii and the Philippines  the Spaniards encountered an indigenous cooking process that involved stewing with vinegar that reminded them of their own process so they called it adobo too, even though it's really not the same.

Confused yet?

Let's just say I've tried Hawaiian Chicken Adobo and love the taste although I can see how it might be a bit too vinegary for some people, so I was very interested to try this variation from Luzon (the largest island in the Philippines) where pretty much everything contains coconut in some form.  Adobo is so popular that it's the national dish of the Philippines, and chicken is one of the most popular versions. This recipe is adapted from America's Test Kitchen where the liner notes state that the coconut milk tempers the acidity of the vinegar and the saltiness of the soy sauce, bringing the dish into balance.

A note about boneless skinless chicken thighs - I've noticed considerable size differences from one brand to another.  If your chicken thighs are large, cut them in half to make them easier to work with (and serve), and cut down the number of thighs in the recipe to 6 rather than 8.

Some adobo recipes call for adding the garlic cloves whole, which doesn't make sense to me.  Who wants to eat a whole garlic clove?  Others call for crushing but not mincing or grating the garlic, so I made sure I really crushed the dickens out of it before adding it to the sauce.  By the way, don't worry about the amount of garlic (6 cloves) - the flavor is very subtle in the finished dish.

When I previously tried Hawaiian Chicken Adobo, it was very salty due to the soy sauce and a long marinating time.  For this recipe I used low-sodium soy sauce, and found it actually needed a touch of salt at the table to bring out the coconut, vinegar and garlic flavors a bit.  That's a good thing because you can add it to your taste.  I thought this was an excellent, easy, and unusual chicken dish and was happy to have tried the national dish of the Philippines.  Cooking is an adventure.

p.s. Next time I think I'll add some toasted unsweetened coconut as a garnish in addition to the green onions to heighten the coconut taste and for some toasty crunch.

printable recipe

Filipino Chicken Adobo

Serves 4

8 boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of excess fat

1/3 cup soy sauce

1 (13.5 ounce) can coconut milk (unsweetened)

¾ cup cider vinegar

6 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

4 bay leaves

2 teaspoons black pepper

2 green onions, sliced thin

Hot cooked rice

Combine chicken thighs and soy sauce in a bowl, then cover and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.  Remove the chicken from the marinade and place in a large saucepan.  Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl with the soy sauce (except the green onions and rice) and stir to combine, then add the sauce to the pan with the chicken.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes uncovered.  Flip the chicken pieces and simmer for an addition 15 minutes, then remove the chicken from the pan.  Thicken the sauce over medium-high heat for approximately five minutes.

Serve the chicken and sauce over hot cooked rice and garnish with green onions.

Asian Roast Pork with Broccoli Slaw and Pasta

I recently spent a wonderful relaxing weekend in the sun with three girlfriends and we made this recipe together. It's actually considered a salad and can be served either warm or at room temperature. It's very light and  healthy although it's full of flavor - a perfect spring dish.  Although it came out great that weekend, I re-created it for this post back at home instead of using that experience for the visuals.  The reason has to do with what I call "full-bore blogger mode", which is what a food blogger is in when they're creating a blog recipe.  It goes something like this.

Dining with a Food Blogger
1.  Expect that the entire process of making the dish will be interrupted repeatedly for photo ops.
2.  You may be pressed into service as a hand model for action shots (see The Lawyer below for an example).
3.  When the recipe is done, the blogger will carefully and painstakingly plate and garnish one serving, then disappear to whatever part of the house has the best light for pictures (for example, the bathroom - bathrooms have great light).  You, on the other hand, are left to your own devices to plate your food.
4.  Particularly if other props are involved, the blogger could be gone for several minutes at which time the food may or may not still be hot.
5.  As you eat, you'll discuss the recipe.  Generic comments like "it tastes good" are nowhere near adequate.  You're expected to comment on the colors, visual appeal, plating, balance of flavors and textures, overall flavor profile, and what (if anything) should be changed.
6.  You may be interrupted as you eat if the blogger is particularly struck by how your plate looks and needs a picture.
7.  After you're finished, don't be surprised if you're left with a kitchen of dirty dishes as the blogger dashes off to the computer to check out all the visuals.

OK, that might be slightly exaggerated, but not much.  Now you know why the only person I regularly subject to blog recipes is the The Lawyer.  All I can say is that he's a very patient man.  Certainly I didn't want to do that to my friends, whose sole goal for the weekend was to relax and lay in the sun.

Not that this is a difficult recipe at all.   The hardest part is figuring out how to grate a carrot without grating your fingernails or knuckles in the process.  (If you can find a bag of shredded carrots at your store, go for it.)

Basically you make an Asian barbecue sauce out of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, ginger and garlic, then rub some of it on a pork tenderloin and roast it in the oven, saving the rest of the sauce to serve over the finished dish.

The Lawyer as a hand model

While the pork roasts, you briefly blanch some broccoli slaw and toss it with the carrots, cilantro and a little sesame oil.  (If you don't like cilantro, just leave it out.)

Then you cook some pasta and toss that with sesame oil also.  All that's left is the plating.  And the photography, of course.

printable recipe

Asian Roast Pork with Broccoli Slaw and Pasta

Serves 4

For the sauce:

1 ¼ cups hoisin sauce

5 tablespoons soy sauce

3 tablespoons rice wine or dry white wine

2 ½ tablespoons chopped garlic

2 tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped

1 pork tenderloin, approximately 1 lb

6 oz broccoli slaw

1 ½ cups carrots, grated or shredded

¼ cup chopped cilantro

½ lb spaghetti, broken in half

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil, divided

Salt and pepper

For the sauce:  mix all ingredients with ¾ cup water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until thickened, approximately 5 minutes.  Let cool.

Preheat oven to 350d.  Line a roasting pan with foil.

Put the tenderloin in the roasting pan; spread 1/3 of sauce over all surfaces.  Roast 25-35 minutes, until the internal temperature is 140d (temperature will continue to rise as the meat rests to the eventual target of 145d).  Remove and let cool slightly.

Reheat the remaining sauce to a simmer.

Bring water to a boil in a large pot; add broccoli slaw and cook 30 seconds.  Using a strainer, remove vegetables (do not dump the hot water) and refresh in cold water, then drain again.  In a medium bowl, toss the broccoli slaw, carrots and cilantro with 1 teaspoon sesame oil.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Reheat the water and cook the spaghetti according to directions.  Drain and toss with the remaining 1 teaspoon sesame oil.

Cut the pork across the grain into thin slices.  Arrange pasta on each plate, top with carrot/broccoli slaw mixture and some pork slices.  Drizzle some sauce over the mixture and serve the remaining sauce on the side.

Orange-Pecan Salmon with Three Pea Salad

Last Year's Post: Spinach Salad with Spicy Orange Dressing

Think Spring
For some reason this dinner says "spring" to me, although the ingredients are available year-round.  Maybe it's the beautiful green peas or the sweet-tart orange sauce on the salmon.  Whatever, if you find yourself longing for spring this is a great meal to make plus it's healthy.

The salmon is quickly marinated and then served with a unique and fabulous sauce made with orange marmalade, soy sauce, and chopped pecans. Although the salmon recipe specifies plain toasted pecans, I like to make a batch of spiced pecans to freeze and use for recipes like this in addition to topping salads or stir fries.  The sweet-spicy coating adds another layer of flavor to the dish without being overwhelming.

The three pea salad is made with sugar snap peas, snow peas, and green peas with a fresh and light vinaigrette.  It goes beautifully with the salmon.  Here's another idea - if you're planning Easter dinner, the three pea salad would be a fabulous side dish to an entree of ham along with some au gratin potatoes.  The pink ham and creamy white potatoes would look beautiful alongside the emerald green peas.  (I learned the importance of food colors on the plate from The Lawyer's parents, who are both artists.)

The recipe that was the inspiration for this salad included sour cream in the dressing.  I couldn't imagine covering up that beautiful green color with a creamy dressing so my version leaves it out.

After this meal we found ourselves with some leftovers and combined them the next day with some cooked brown rice for a great cold salad.  The orange sauce flavored the rice while the peas added crunch and the salmon added meatiness.  Yum.  Be sure to make extras!

Orange-Pecan Salmon printable recipe

Orange-Pecan Salmon

Serves 4

  

1 cup orange marmalade

½ cup reduced-sodium soy sauce

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

4 6-oz salmon fillets, approximately 1” thick, skinned

1 cup toasted chopped pecans

  

In a small bowl, combine the marmalade, soy sauce, salt and pepper.  Pour 1/2 cup marinade into a large resealable plastic bag.  Add the salmon; seal bag and turn to coat.  Refrigerate for up to 30 minutes.  Set aside the remaining marinade.

Drain and discard marinade from salmon.  Place salmon in a greased 11”x7” baking dish and bake, uncovered, at 350d for 20-25 minutes or until the fish flakes easily with a fork.

In a small saucepan, bring reserved marinade to a boil; cook and stir until slightly thickened.  Serve sauce over the salmon; sprinkle with pecans.

Three Pea Salad printable recipe

Three Pea Salad

Serves 4

  

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

¼ lb sugar snap peas

¼ lb snow peas

6 oz frozen baby peas

In a large bowl, whisk together the shallot and vinegar.  Add the olive oil while whisking, then add salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside to allow the flavors to meld.

Trim the sugar snap peas and snow peas by cutting off the tough ends.  Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil.  Fill a large bowl with ice water.  Add the sugar snap peas to the boiling water and blanch for 20 seconds.  Add the snow peas and cook an additional 20 seconds.  Add the frozen baby peas and cook for 30 seconds longer.  Drain and immediately transfer the colander with the peas to the ice water to stop the cooking.  Drain again; spread the peas out on a clean towel and pat dry.

Add the peas to the dressing and toss to coat.

Char Siu Chicken with Chinese Long Beans

Technology is amazing.  I published my last two blog posts from Africa!  I drafted them before leaving on vacation and I wanted to do some editing while sitting in the Amsterdam airport on layover.  You can imagine how I felt when my blog appeard in Dutch.  Luckily, I found the language button and all was well.  It was an amazing vacation that I would highly recommend to anyone.  Luckily I had a post or two waiting when I returned as I recover from jet lag!

I have this love-hate relationship with my slow cooker.  I love the idea of slow-cooked foods but don't like everything I eat to be mushy and taste the same.  At least for me, the solution is to use the slow cooker for part of the meal and prepare part fresh (unless you're making chili or some other classic one pot meal).  In this recipe, boneless skinless chicken thighs are marinated in a Chinese barbecue sauce and then slow-cooked until they're so tender and moist that they come apart easily with a fork.  I prepared crisp-tender Chinese long beans for freshness and because they look dramatic on a plate, and served everything with white rice.

Chinese long beans are the drama queens of the green bean family.  Most recipes I reviewed tell you to cut them into smaller pieces but for me that takes away the whole point of using long beans in the first place.

I've never seen long beans in a typical grocery store but have found them at farmers markets and Asian grocery stores.  If you don't have a favorite Asian grocery store, do a little research online to find out where the highest-rated one is in your town and go have a little adventure -  they're really interesting to wander around.  I shared my favorite one with my friend John when he had two Chinese foreign exchange students living at his house for a month.  They went several times and I think he enjoyed it although he did say they needed a shopping concierge to help you figure out what all that stuff is.

Anyway, I discovered why the recipes tell you to cut the long beans before cooking when I tried to stir fry them.

It was like wrestling with an octopus.  Conventional stir fry techniques simply weren't going to happen, so I fried the one side for a minute, flipped the entire mess over and let it fry for another minute, then added a little water and jammed the lid down to let them steam until they became slightly more cooperative.  You could always cut them first or use regular green beans but that wouldn't be nearly as fun.

The marinade turns the chicken a beautiful mahogany color as it cooks and because you use low-sodium soy sauce it's not nearly as salty as you would think.  (I've said it before, Trader Joe's has the best low sodium soy sauce on the planet.)  The flavor is different than a teriyaki marinade and simply delicious.  The chicken is so tender that it shreds easily, so it would make an outstanding filling for moo shu chicken or a chicken banh mi sandwich if you shredded it and put it back into the sauce to thicken for a few minutes.

* * click here for a printable recipe * *

Char Siu Chicken with Chinese Long Beans
Serves 4-5

Note: the chicken must be marinated for at least two hours before placing in a slow cooker for 6-7 hours, so plan ahead. If you can’t find Chinese long beans you can substitute fresh green beans.

For the chicken:
¼ cup low sodium soy sauce
¼ cup hoisin sauce
3 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons honey
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
½ teaspoon five spice powder
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs

For the Chinese long beans:
1 bunch Chinese long beans
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
Black and white sesame seeds

Hot cooked white rice


For the chicken, combine the first 8 ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Place in a large zip-top plastic bag. Add chicken to bag and seal. Marinate in the refrigerator at least 2 hours, turning occasionally.

Place the chicken and marinade in an electric slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours.

During the last 30 minutes of cooking time, prepare white rice and Chinese long beans. For the long beans, trim the ends of the beans and cut into shorter lengths (optional). Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat in a large sauté pan or wok. Saute the beans for one minutes, then flip and sauté the other side for 1 minute. Turn the heat down to medium and add 1-2 tablespoons of water, then cover and let steam for 2-3 minutes (depending on the size of the beans). Uncover and let any remaining water evaporate, then add the garlic and shallot and stir fry for one minute more.

Serve the beans with white rice, chicken thighs, and sauce spooned over the chicken. Garnish the beans with sesame seeds and serve.

Chicken Chow Mein

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It might sound dorky but I've loved chicken chow mein since I was a little kid.  It was the first "exotic" food we ever had as take-out.  I liked the little white boxes with metal handles but what really sold me was the transluscent paper bag of crunchy noodles.  Chow mein is not chow mein without the crunchy noodles.  I now realize that most takeout chow mein is green goo with little bits of diced meat on the top so I was happy to find a healthy and updated version a few years ago.  In this recipe, the flavors are vibrant and the overall texture is very crunchy from crisp-tender celery, onions, and water chestnuts. Did I mention the shiitake mushrooms? Gourmet chow mein, indeed.

It might seem odd to post a chow mein recipe during the holidays but you can't eat cookies and fruitcake every day for the next month, right?  Do your body a favor and give it something healthy to eat every once in a while.  Six ounces of chicken for four servings doesn't sound like much, but chow mein has lots of vegetables too.  I think you'll be surprised at really how much chicken there is per serving when you're done - much more than in the takeout versions. 

If you haven't made many stir fries from scratch you might not be familiar with oyster sauce and dark sesame oil.  Both are readily available in the Asian section of your grocery store and give the sauce wonderful flavor so don't be tempted to leave them out.  Just be aware that sesame oil comes in two varieties - regular which is pale in color like other oils, and toasted which is dark in color.  The flavors are completely different.  The toasted variety may or may not say "toasted" on the label, so the most reliable way to know is simply to look at the color.

Left to right in the photo above you see oyster sauce, regular sesame oil, and toasted sesame oil.  Oyster sauce is very thick and dark with a mild flavor that I can't describe, you just have to try it. (But it doesn't taste like oysters.)  Regular sesame oil also has a mild flavor and is so pale it almost looks clear in the little glass bowl above.  Toasted sesame oil is much stronger with a rich nutty aroma and flavor, and it's always used sparingly in recipes for that reason.  If  I come across a recipe that specifies sesame oil but not the specific variety, I make a decision regarding which they intended based on the amount called for - toasted sesame oil is rarely specified in amounts greater than a teaspoon or two.  If you're intimidated by the unfamiliar ingredients, don't be.  They come together in a very tasty sauce and you would never guess the specific ingredients.

Like all stir fries, once you start cooking everything goes fast and you can't stop, so prep all your ingredients in advance.  The whole recipe takes maybe a half hour to prepare from start to finish with most of the time spent slicing ingredients, so this could be a great weeknight meal.

* * click here for a printable recipe version * *

Chicken Chow Mein

serves 4

Note: prep all ingredients in advance – cooking goes really fast once you start.

½ cup low-sodium chicken broth
3 T. oyster sauce
1 T. dark soy sauce, plus more for the table
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon sugar
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, about 6 ounces, cut into thin 2” long strips
1 teaspoon dark (toasted) Asian sesame oil
2 T. peanut oil
1 heaping tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
3 cloves of garlic, minced
4 scallions, white and green minced, divided
salt
black pepper
½ medium yellow onion, thin sliced
2 stalks of celery, thin sliced on the diagonal
10 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded and caps thin sliced
1/3 cup thin sliced canned water chestnuts
6 ounce bag of chow mein (rice) noodles
6 ounces fresh bean sprouts


Whisk together the chicken broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch, and sugar in a small bowl and set aside. Season the chicken with the dark sesame oil, salt and pepper and set aside.

Heat a large skillet or wok over high heat. Heat the two tablespoons of peanut oil until hot, then add the ginger, garlic and one minced scallion and stir fry for 30 seconds. Add the chicken and stir fry until lightly browned, about 90 seconds. Add the onion, celery and mushrooms and stir fry until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Add the water chestnuts and spread the ingredients to the outside of the pan to make a well in the center. Pour the chicken broth mixture into the well, bring to a boil, and stir to coat all ingredients. Remove from the heat and season generously with black pepper.

Place approximately one cup of chow mein noodles on each plate, then top with the chow mein mixture, bean sprouts, and remaining green onions.  Serve with additional soy sauce, if desired.

Gingered Turkey and Spinach Salad

It's always been a mystery to me why more Americans don't eat turkey year-round.  It's a very lean protein, delicious and cheap at the store.  What more could you want?  I think one reason why people don't eat it more is because the traditional Thanksgiving whole roasted turkey thing can be so daunting.  Not to mention that if you have a small household you'll be eating turkey forever. Luckily, you can find smaller turkey cuts readily available in the stores these days.  This recipe uses a split boneless skinless turkey breast that makes just four servings.  When I bought it at the store it cost slightly more than $5.00 as a bone-in breast that I skinned and boned myself.  Not bad.

The following recipe has a definite Asian flavor but not at all like a teriyaki.  The turkey tastes primarily of ginger with light garlic and cinnamon notes.  It's much more complex than your regular heavy soy-sauce taste.  Although the salad is light and healthy it's surprisingly filling due to the crunch of the noodle/nut/seed combination.  Altogether it's a wonderful light dinner that I really encourage you to try.  (The turkey also makes an amazing sandwich on whole wheat with sliced cucumbers, lettuce and mayo.)


Note that this recipe requires some advance planning as the turkey needs to be marinated and roasted in advance.  Sometimes this can be an advantage -  this past weekend is a great example.  I knew we would be visiting an Alpaca farm on Sunday afternoon due to The Lawyer's highly developed sense of whimsy.  I marinated the turkey on Saturday and roasted it Sunday morning, then threw it in the refrigerator before heading off to Alpaca Land.  Note that the afore-mentioned sense of whimsy combined with a passion for photography can lead to some pretty interesting pictures.  The Lawyer recently created a photographic series of Domestic Animal Noses and Beaks.  What can I say?  You can't make this stuff up.

alpaca photos courtesy of The Lawyer

When we returned home from the Alpaca adventure, all we had left to do was mix a quick salad dressing, slice the turkey, toast some crunchies and toss the whole thing - 20 minutes tops.  Obviously this would be a great recipe for any busy night (including work nights) if you marinate and roast the turkey in advance.  Even if you aren't heading to an Alpaca farm.


** click here for a printable recipe version **

Gingered Turkey and Spinach Salad

Serves 4

Note:  plan ahead as the turkey needs to be marinated and roasted in advance.

For turkey

1 (2 lb.) turkey breast, skinned and boned (weight is before skinning and boning)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
¾ tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons peeled and grated fresh ginger root
¼ cup unsalted chicken stock
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

For salad

4 tablespoons olive oil
1-1/2 tablespoons sugar
1-1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1-1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 3-oz bag Asian noodle soup mix (such as Top Ramen), noodles coarsely crushed
1/3 cup slivered or sliced almonds
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 6-oz bag of baby spinach
6 green onions, white and green tops thinly sliced

To Make Marinade:

Combine garlic, cinnamon, ginger root, stock, sesame oil and soy sauce in a gallon zip top bag.

To Prepare the Turkey

Put the turkey in the bag and turn several times to make sure it is evenly coated.  Refrigerate, turning occasionally, for at least 8 hours and preferably overnight.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Remove the turkey from the marinade and scrape off any excess garlic and ginger.  Reserve the marinade and allow the turkey to come to room temperature while the oven preheats.  Heat the vegetable oil in an oven proof skillet over medium-high heat.  Saute the turkey until golden brown on the first side, then turn and continue cooking for one minute.  Put the turkey in the oven for 45 minutes.  While it bakes, bring the reserved marinade to a boil and remove from heat.  After 20 minutes, remove the turkey from the oven and baste with the reserved marinade, then return to the oven for the final 25 minutes.  The thickest part of the breast should read 165d on a meat thermometer when it comes out of the oven.  Let rest until cool, then place in a fresh zip top bag with any accumulated juices in the refrigerator for several hours.

To Make the Salad:

Whisk 3 tablespoons of olive oil, the sugar, vinegar and soy sauce together in a small bowl.  Season with salt and pepper.  Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a medium skillet over medium heat.  Add the noodles (reserve seasoning packet for another use), nuts and sesame seeds and stir until toasted and golden, about 5 minutes.  Pour contents of skillet into a large bowl and cool 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, slice the turkey into thin slices.  Add the spinach and onions to the large bowl and toss with enough dressing to coat.  Divide between plates and place turkey slices on top.  Drizzle turkey with any leftover dressing.

after browning, before roasting