Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Can I get a yee-hah?

Happy Cup Day! I'm not even into horses, but I love Cup Day... I worked a 4.75 hour shift today with DOUBLE PAY! And because Cup Day's a public holiday, we hardly had any customers... so I got to have a good chat with my workmates. Sweet as.

169. The Tenderest Chicken

This chicken needs overnight marination - thus the recipe involves advance preparation... which usually results in my total avoidance of the recipe. But I got all the ingredients yesterday when I went shopping for the Scallops and Bacon, and marinated them with a view to using them tonight. They're part of a fab-sounding menu - oysters and sausages, the chicken, and a chocolate raspberry pudding cake for dessert. I was thinking of saving this chicken recipe until I had an opportunity to make the whole menu, but I have no idea when that might be. And the chicken seems simple enough to be repeated at a later date, should I elect to do the menu in its entirety.

You marinate the chicken overnight in a mixture of buttermilk, garlic, dijon mustard and soy sauce, then wipe the pieces dry, brush them with melted butter and bake them.



It turned out to be mega-hot today, like 30 degrees, so I decided to have the chicken with just a salad, which I Americanized (see photo below) with some fab accompaniments that my friend, the lovely Lisa sent me!

The salad is just cos lettuce with radish (leftover from the bunny salad), which I dressed with Ranch Dressing. I'd never had it before, but according to Lisa, "Americans are like, obsessive about it, I think. Especially Californians". It's a flavoured powder sachet, which you mix with milk and mayo. On Lisa's advice, I mixed it with milk and buttermilk (cunningly leftover from the chicken marinade). According to the packet it's supposed to thicken up but mine was quite runny - probably because I used too much milk. But whatever, it tasted fabulous, and there's heaps left for the next few days.


Ranched up salad

We also served the chicken with Crystal Hot Sauce (like tobasco), which tasted wonderful, but in my opinion, not as hot as ordinary tobasco. I think I might actually prefer it to tobasco!

The chicken itself is totally ace. The buttermilk really tenderises the meat and juicifies it, whilst the garlic, mustard and soy sauce give the meat heaps of flavour. And it's so easy! I could totally see myself making this again, repeatedly.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

Hey DG,

Ooh... I'm sure I'd look hot in a stetson and cowboy boots... but I think I'll leave the D&G crystal encrusted cowboy jeans to you! I mean, they've just got your name written all over them :P

xox Sarah

Randi said...

its funny, i saw your pic before i read the write up and i thought to myself " wow, they have ranch dressing in australia? " you dont even need a packet to make it. You can make it with spices and the buttermilk and mayo. There are tons of recipes on the net for Ranch Dressing. Green Goddess is good too.