Pepperoni Chicken Rolls

So after my recent advances into new territory, I thought this week I'd do something a little closer to home for me. Something with pasta, chicken, cheese, and as it turns out, pepperoni. I actually really like pepperoni, but never see it except on a pizza. I just don't normally think about cooking with it. But that has all changed with this somewhat typical stuffed chicken breast dish.

The chicken breasts were halved and pounded thin, and treated to a sprinkling of salt, pepper, basil, and oregano. Slices of pepperoni were laid on the chicken, covered with a slice of mozzarella cheese, and more pepperoni placed on top. The chicken was then rolled up and secured with a toothpick. After being coated lightly in butter, the rolls were dredged in an Italian bread crumb mix, and placed in a baking dish. A generous amount of marinara sauce was poured over the chicken, along with a few more pepperoni slices, and the baking dish went into the oven for about 40 minutes. Upon exit, it was served on top of fettucini, which is probably too wide for the marinara, but I'm partial to fettucini, so I used it anyway.

I really enjoyed eating the results. It's very much akin to a chicken cordon bleu I've made, but with different meat and cheese stuffing, and with the sauce. I definitely appreciated the pepperoni, and am going to be looking for excuses to include it in some recipes in the future.

Tarragon Tuna Steaks

I don't really like fish. I suppose I don't have a decent reason for it, just the same one I have for olives or lima beans, I just don't like them. But over the last year or so I've had some rather enjoyable dining experiences starring aquatic creatures, so when I saw that tuna steaks were on sale, a crazy thought shot through my head. I tried to talk myself out of it, I really did. But in the end my desire to try something new was too strong, and I bought fresh fish for the first time ever.

My method of preperation was simple, perhaps overly simple given the fact that I knew I wasn't a fan of fish to begin with. The steaks marinated overnight in olive oil, rice vinegar, garlic, pepper, and lots and lots of tarragon. I spent a good deal of time reading about cooking tuna steaks because I found widespread discrepancies as to what degree of doneness the tuna should be cooked to, ranging from very rare to well done. But given that I knew that raw tuna was safe to eat, I thought I'd aim for about medium-rare, with a nice red center. The steaks ended up being in the skillet for about 2.5 minutes on each side, and I think that landed somewhere in the realm of medium to medium-rare. I seem to have a tendency to overshoot my target by a bit.

The verdict? I still don't like fish. But as fish go, this was pretty good, though I really should have made a sauce to go with it. I think next week I'm going back to something a little less radical for me.

Roasted Pork Sirloin with a Creamy Mustard and Onion Sauce

The closest I've ever come to having to worry about Valentine's Day was a few years ago when a professor jokingly, and unsuccessfully, attempted to set me up for the 14th with the girl sitting in front of me. Back in elementary school the day used to be like a little version of Halloween. Everyone in the class exchanged valentines and the ones from the kids with the cool moms always had candy. But at some point boys began to realize that there might be more to girls than cooties, and Valentine's Day went swiftly downhill.

Yet despite my cynicism, I still wanted to do something to commemorate the 14th, so pictured above is my attempt to cut one of the pieces of pork into the shape of a heart. These cuts are from the sirloin, which is considerably less lean than the center loin. The herb rub looks simliar to two weeks ago, but this time it was simply dry mustard, salt and pepper, and rosemary. The pork was browned on both sides, just about 30 seconds each, and then the whole skillet went into a 400 degree oven for about 5 minutes.

Pulling it out of the oven, I removed the meat and began to sauté some onions and scallions, managing to both burn my hand on the iron-cast skillet as well as set off the fire alarm. The pan sauce was finished by deglazing with chicken stock and adding dijon mustard, letting the sauce reduce, then stirring in some sour cream at the end.

I thought the sirloin was more flavorful than the center loin, but the sauce was just fantastic. It's somewhat simliar to the sauce for beef stroganoff, only with enough djion mustard to clear your sinuses for a week.

Cashew Chicken

Someone once pointed out to me that on the competative cooking show Iron Chef, the chefs always said the same thing when they were asked what their strategy was in preparing their dishes. The answer was always "I tried to accentutae the natural flavor of the (whatever food the show was about)" Now this makes sense when talking about venison or lamb or swordfish or many things. But could one ever say it about chicken? The natural flavor of chicken? Does chicken taste like everything? Or does everything taste like chicken? Or does chicken just taste like nothing and manage to accomplish both at the same time?

Of all the meats we eat, chicken seems to have least distinctive flavor of its own. It's perhaps why the little bird is completely left out of my book on meat, or why poor Gallus gallus probably doesn't feature prominently in the signature dish of any famous chef. Yet chicken is a staple all the world over, picking up flavor from whatever it's cooked in or with.

My chicken tonight picked up its flavor from a marinade of peanut oil, soy sauce, lots of chili powder, ginger and garlic. Naturally it was then sautéed, (one of these days I'm going to get around to using an oven, I promise), and set aside while the cashews boiled a bit, and the onions and scallions had their turn in the skillet. Then everything got thrown together and piled on top of rice. As planned, the marinade gave the chicken a much fuller taste then it would have on it's own, and who doesn't like cashews?

If anyone has noticed my new-found regularity yet infrequency in posting, most of it is due to a busier semester that cuts down on my nights available to cook. That as well as the fact that cooking big meals for only yourself can be moderately depressing, particularly around this time of year. But next week I think I'll give pork another shot, I still have to work on that cooking time..