Grill

Roast Garlic Herb Marinated Chicken Thighs

September 13, 2017 By Caroline Leave a Comment

Refuse to let go of summer—you can keep your BBQ going well into the fall (and sometimes early winter)! This bright green herb sauce with roasted garlic makes a wonderful marinade for chicken thighs. Make the marinade and coat the chicken the day before, for an easy dinner the next day that can be pulled together in time it takes to heat the grill and cook the chicken. Throw a couple of peaches (or figs would be great too) during the final 5 minutes or so of grilling for nice contrast to the garlicky, herbacious chicken.

To roast the garlic, take a full head, and slice off the tops to expose the cloves. The cloves are at different levels so I cut the tops from each row/level separately rather than a straight cut across the top, to maximize the garlic. Drizzle or spray with a touch of olive oil, wrap in foil, and roast at 375° for about one hour, until the cloves are soft when pierced with a knife. Allow to cool, and pop out the cloves with a butter knife into your food processor or mini-chopper.

Clean and prep your herbs, no need to chop them as you’ll be putting them into a food processor to blend with the roasted garlic. Parsley and mint work well to offset the garlic and give the sauce it’s amazing green colour.

Add the remaining marinade ingredients into the food processor and blend until the herbs are finely chopped and the texture is smooth.

Next, loosen the skin on the chicken thighs and rub the marinade under the skin, and then all over the outside the chicken, before placing into a bowl. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least one hour—if you can do this the night before, even better.

Finally, remove the chicken about 30–45 minutes before grilling to take the chill off the meat for more even cooking. Heat the grill to about 400°, and brush with olive oil (or spray carefully with non-stick spray). Note: with all the olive oil in the marinade, the flames can really jump up when you put the chicken on the grill, so allow excess marinade to drip off into the bowl before placing the meat on the grill. Start the chicken thighs skin side down, and grill until the skin is nice and crispy, then turn down the heat and flip the chick over to finish cooking at a lower heat.

Plate with your peaches or figs, and serve!

Roast Garlic Herb Marinated Chicken Thighs

Tender grilled chicken with an herbacious-garlic kick and crispy skin. The marinade can be made in advance to make this a quick weeknight dinner you can get on the table in 30 minutes.

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

Marinade

1 head roasted garlic cut top off garlic head, roast at 375°, wrapped in foil, for 1 hour until tender
2 cups packed parsley
3/4 cup packed mint leaves
3/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt

Chicken Thighs

8 chicken thighs with bones and skin
salt
freshly ground pepper
4 peaches, split into halves, pits removed
olive oil

Instructions

Squeeze cooled garlic cloves out of the head into a small chopper or food processor. Add remaining ingredients. Blend until herbs are finely chopped and a sauce forms.
Loosen skin from chicken thighs, and spoon herb sauce under the skin. Rub more sauce all over the outside of the thigh, and transfer to a bowl. Repeat with remaining meat. Cover and transfer to a fridge for a minimum of one hour, or overnight.
Remove chicken from fridge and allow to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. Heat a BBQ to 400°. Spritz grill with olive oil or cooking spray, then carefully add meat, skin side down, to the hot grill (all that olive oil can create big flames, so shake off excess oil/sauce before placing on the grill). Grill for approximately 10 minutes until the skin is well crisped and dark in colour.
Reduce heat to 300° and flip chicken pieces skin-side up, positioning them in indirect heat (turn a zone in the BBQ way down or off, placing chicken into that zone). Cook over lower heat for another 20 minutes or so, until the meat is cooked through. (Temperature should be 165°—I press down on the chicken with my tongs to get a sense of the firmness to see how cooked they are. Firmer meat means more cooked).
During the last seven or so minutes, mist the peach halves with olive oil and place on the grill, starting skin side up. Get some nice grill lines, then filp and finish cooking the peaches until juices are flowing and the fruit has softened.
Serve the chicken and peaches together on a platter.

Pistachio Parsley Mint Pesto (with Flank Steak)

August 1, 2017 By Caroline 1 Comment

It all started with the parsley. I came back from vacation and my herb pots were practically exploding with the most perfect, ready to eat parsley. But what to do with it all? I searched out a few options and decided to make a pesto. I whipped up this recipe from Serious Eats, and I have to say, the pesto is so beyond spectacular that I renamed the recipe to put the pesto first. Don’t get me wrong, it goes great with the flank steak, but it would be amazing with pasta, vegetables, on bread, and just straight up with a spoon!

You start with the amazing ingredients above. I used raw, unsalted pistachios, and toasted them for 10 minutes at 350° to bring out their full aroma and flavour. This is an important step not noted in the original recipe, although it did call for roasted nuts. Personally I think roasting them just before blending makes for deeper flavours.

Close up of the finished pesto. The parsley and mint get a nice lift from the lemon juice, and then the Parmesan just takes it all up a notch adding a nuanced nutty flavour that compliments the toasted pistachios so well.

Next, on to prepping the marinade for the steak (actually do this first, as you want to marinate the flank steak at least 4 hours before grilling). It’s pretty quick to chop everything up to prep this. I ran out of large ziplock bags, so I spread the steak out on a plate, and spread the marinade all over it, before folding it into a glass baking dish and popping it into the fridge. Another note: I like to score my flank steaks lightly on the diagonal, to help the marinade soak in. It also makes for nice looking lines after it has been grilled as the lines will show nice and golden. Do this just before you coat the steak with the marinade.

The way the juices gather in the score lines—drool inducing!

The final product—remember to slice the meat against the grain. You will want to dip everything on your plate into that pesto (and lick the plate). Get the recipe here.

Roasted Chicken & Veg Penne

July 19, 2017 By Caroline 2 Comments

Roasted vegetables, balsamic chicken and penne make for a great pasta salad you can enjoy hot or cold. A favorite I make often over the summer, it makes four generous lunch servings that taste great cold the next day. Or, if you’re looking for a quick weeknight dinner, grill and enjoy immediately.

A big timesaver when it comes to grilling is using an olive oil spray bottle—I prefer to buy the bottle and fill it with my own olive oil so I know exactly what’s in there. I fill it up with just a regular olive oil (saving the extra-virgin for drizzling or making dressings where you can savour the difference). The bottle I have has a pump in the lid so you can remove the air, allowing it to spray into a fine mist perfect for lightly coating the vegetables in this recipe.

I used to toss this pasta salad with a pesto, and that works out ok, but I’ve come to prefer this grainy mustard dressing. It coats the pasta and lightly dresses the vegetables without overpowering the dish.

I have a love-hate relationship with roasted red peppers. It took me years to figure out how to roast them to get the skins off. Unless you really, really blacken the skins like the pepper lid top right, it’s pretty tough to remove the skins. So, depending on my mood (and whether I forgot about the peppers and left them on the grill too long!), I either just under-roast the peppers a bit and leave the skins on (remove them before they get papery), or really blister them for deeper roasted peppers where the skins come off. Or sort of go half-and-half, like the peppers shown above, removing the blackened bits that come off easily.

Marinating the chicken briefly in balsamic vinegar and olive oil gives a great flavour and depth of colour when grilled. I separate the tenders and slice the chicken breasts to flatten them, so that the thickness is more even. that way they cook through quickly and won’t dry out. You’ll want to pull the tenders off earlier as they will cook more quickly than the larger pieces.

The final plated pasta topped with fresh ground pepper and some crumbled feta. You can always mix it up with this recipe: try it with mushrooms, goat cheese, asparagus or toss in some spinach while the pasta is hot to wilt it.

Lunch feasts packed up and ready to go. A great and healthy way to fuel your week at work.

Roasted Chicken & Veg Penne

Pasta, peppers, zucchini and mustard dressing come together for a quick and healthy meal.

Course Lunch, Main Course

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

Pasta

3 cups whole wheat penne
2 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil + additional for veggies
salt
freshly ground pepper
2 red peppers tops cut off, seeds & ribs removed
2 zucchini sliced in half lengthwise
3 green onions
100 g crumbled feta cheese (about 1/2 cup)

Grainy Mustard Dressing

1 1/2 tbsp grainy mustard (medium hot)
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
salt
pepper, freshly ground

Instructions

Combine olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a dish large enough for the chicken. Prep chicken breasts: remove the tenders, and slice into the thickest part of the breast, opening it up like a book. Set chicken breasts and tenders into the prepared dish and marinate for 15–30 minutes.
Heat grill to 400°. Prep vegetables: spray lightly with olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
In a small bowl, combine the grainy mustard dressing ingredients.
Cook penne according to directions, drain and place into your final serving bowl. Add a few tbsp of the dressing to keep it from sticking while you prep the remaining ingredients.
Grill vegetables to desired tenderness. If you're in a hurry, grill the red peppers lightly so you can leave the skins on and simple dice and serve. If you have a bit more time and prefer to roast them fully, blister the skin so that you can more easily remove it before chopping and adding to the pasta. When the vegetables are cooked, chop them up and add them to the pasta. (Discard the green onion ends, and just adding the chopped roasted bulbs)
Lightly oil the grill; place the balsamic chicken breasts and tenders onto the hot grill. After 2 minutes, reduce heat to 350°. The tenders will cook more quickly, check them after about 8 minutes and remove when cooked through. Continue cooking the breasts an additional 5–6 minutes until cooked. Remove to a cutting board and chop, adding to the pasta bowl.
Add remaining dressing to the pasta bowl, season with additional salt and freshly ground pepper to taste if needed. Divide among serving plates, and top with crumbled feta.

Simple Summer Sides: Grilled Baby Potatoes

July 12, 2017 By Caroline Leave a Comment

Summer is all about taking it easy, recharging outside and soaking up the long days of sunshine. The last thing you want to do is spend all day in the kitchen. What you want are simple, delicious meals that are perfect enjoyed on a patio with a glass of wine. These potatoes deliver. Crisp, flavourful young potato skins pop with hits of coarse kosher salt that brings out the natural sweetness of the creamy potatoes. Rosemary adds just a hint of colour and delicate flavour.

I grow the Rosemary right on my patio. I love rubbing a leaf between my fingers and taking in the scent. You just need a few sprigs, finely chopped, as your seasoning along with the kosher salt. I really prefer the coarse texture of kosher salt for these potatoes, to deliver a hit of flavour on the skins.

To start with, par-boil the potatoes for 8–10 minutes until they are starting to soften, but not fully cooked through. Don’t overcook them or your final product off the grill will be mushy.

Drain the potatoes and transfer to a bowl. Add the olive oil, salt and rosemary. Stir to combine.

Next, toss the potatoes on the grill. I find the top rack works well to get a nice golden skin and soft, perfectly cooked insides. Once ready, transfer from the grill into the same bowl you seasoned them in, and toss them around in the olive oil and seasoning that’s left to give them a nice finish. Enjoy (careful, they get pretty hot right off the grill—cut one open to test before popping a whole one into your mouth) you’ve been warned!

Grilled baby potatoes

Simple perfection, just four ingredients to bring out the natural sweetness and beautiful texture of new baby potatoes.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 3 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 23 minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

1.5 lb Baby Potatoes (680 g)
2 tbsp olive oil
3 sprigs Fresh rosemary finely chopped
Kosher Salt

Instructions

Scrub potatoes and set into a large pot filled with cold water. Bring to boil over high heat and cook for 8–10 minutes until they are partially cooked. (Overcooking here leads to a "mushy" texture after they are grilled. You are looking for a softened, but still firm, cook on the potatoes)
Drain potatoes and transfer to a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil. Add rosemary, and sprinkle with kosher salt to taste. Stir.
Add potatoes to hot grill (400°). Grill until golden and skins are crisp, approximately 10 minutes. Test to ensure the potatoes are soft and fully cooked through—insert a sharp knife to the centre to ensure they are soft.
Remove from grill back into the bowl, and stir to coat with a touch of olive oil and rosemary remaining in the bowl. Serve.