I love it when the grocery store has those big package sales on chicken. It means you get to compare outcomes from recipe variations. When I do cooking demos, I am fond of casserole dish cooking with chicken. The basic ideas is that you put chicken in the dish, cover the chicken with a flavor and bake until done. That is about the simplest I can make cooking.
Tonight was all new dishes for me. It was time to try honey mustard roasted chicken. So, put the desired amount of chicken in the casserole dish, cover it with a thin layer of honey mustard, add 1/2 cup of water the the bottom of the dish, and bake for 40 minutes at 350 f. Serve hot. See, I told you that is about as simple as cooking can get. This process works for just about any flavor you want to try on chicken.
The partner on the plate for tonight was creole cabbage. While I have had this dish before, I have never actually cooked it myself. Here is how I started it out.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion (diced)
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1 green bell pepper (diced)
I got the onion and friends started on medium heat and gave them a head start of about 5 minutes or until the onions started clearing up. Now, it was time for the cabbage. I also had a bag of “baby” cauliflower in the frig. They aren’t really baby anything, but baby sounds better than calling them a bag of cauliflower shoots that didn’t make a head. They are still amazingly tasty.
1 small head of cabbage, finely shredded (or half a large head)
2 cups of baby cauliflower (pulled apart into bite sized flowerets)
Once the cabbage was on the heat, I folded everything in the pan over a couple of times about every 2 minutes or so. Somewhere around ten minutes, everything is nice and tender. Pull it all off the heat and uncover so it can cool and rest for minute while we get the seasonings together.
We have a few options at this stage of the game. We can dry spice, aka, just sprinkle about a tablespoon of creole seasonings over the top and fold it in or you can go for a creamier approach (wet) and mix your tablespoon of seasonings into a couple of dollops of mayo and mix that into your dish. I prefer the wet method. I think it gets a more even distribution of flavor. Either way will work just fine. As for the seasonings, there are several commercially available creole/Cajun spice mixes. Any of these will work wonderfully. Now, if you want more spice, feel free to season to taste on the plate. Remember, with cooking, we can always add more flavor, but we can’t take it out. For those of you who like to do your own spice mixes, here is a simple one. This is not fancy and feel free to add or substitute at will.
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
However you want to do it, have a good time and enjoy cooking.
The Cooking Today Show 