[Sca-cooks] Meat/Bread to make ahead

Christiane christianetrue at earthlink.net
Thu Feb 12 15:52:18 PST 2009


Dame Serena gave her version of the pasticcio; here's mine:

1 boneless chicken breast
1 or 2 boneless chicken thighs (depends how big they are)

Spices:
1 TBS of sumac
1 TBS of white pepper
1 TBS of ground cubebs
1 TBS of cumin
1/2 cup of white balsamic vinegar
sea salt to taste
olive oil for sauteeing

1 cup of coarsely chopped fresh parsley
1 or 2 TBS of capers (the ones in brine, not vinegar)
1 large onion, minced finely
Juice from two large lemons
2 eggs
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup of toasted almonds
1/2 a cup of pistachios
1 large round loaf of Italian bread

Sautee the chicken with the spices, onions, and olive oil; when the onions have caramelized, deglaze with the vinegar and let cook until the vinegar mostly evaporates and mellows. Set aside to cool.

Take your bread load, take a slice off the top to act as a lid, and hollow it out. I use a small ice cream scoop. Reserve the bread chunks. Some you can use let get stale and use any time you need bread crumbs to thicken a dish; you'll really need only about 1 or 2 cups of bread crumbs at the most for this recipe.

Grind the nuts in a food processor, put in a mixing bowl with the bread crumbs. When the chicken has cooled, grind that in the food processor, using the juices from the pan and a bit of olive oil to create a paste. Add that to the bowl as well, and mix everything with the chicken broth, eggs, and lemon juice. Finally, stir in the capers and parsley.

Put the mixture into the hollowed breadloaf, and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool and wrap for travel. You can cut it into wedges like a cake.

This also tastes wonderful if you add a bit of garlic when cooking the chicken and white wine instead of vinegar.

YIS,
Gianotta







More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list