Chicken in creamy amaretto sauce

Not so long ago I was writing how much we like chicken filles stuffed with goat cheese and prosciutto. Well here is another version of this dish and what is really particular about it, is that it utilises amaretto to create really fragrant, delicious sauce. When I saw it on lol foodie I immediately knew I have to make it. Combination of amaretto, chicken, goat cheese and cured ham sounded peculiar and I knew it will be delicious. I decided to change the recipe slightly, I used shiitake mushrooms from Lapland and made the amaretto sauce based on cream instead of stock. I served the chicken with mashed potatoes and honey roasted root vegetables. It was a really memorable dish and definitely we will be making it often.

INGREDIENTS:

3 chicken breast halves, lightly pounded

Salt & freshly ground black pepper

6 tbsp fresh goat cheese

3 thin slices of prosciutto

4 tbsp butter

several tbsp of flour

150g shiitake mushrooms

200ml single cream

1 tbsp chicken stock concentrate

2-3 tbsp Amaretto liqueur

chopped thyme

1.  Season both sides of the chicken filles with salt and pepper. Spread each chicken breast half with 2 tbsp of goat cheese and top with 1 slice of prosciutto. Roll the chicken into a tight cylinder. Tie with kitchen twine or bind with skewers.

2. Melt 1 tbsp of butter over medium-high heat in a pan. Add the mushrooms and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Remove the mushrooms to a plate, and set aside.

3. Dredge each chicken “roll” in flour. Add the remaining butter to the pan. Once melted, add in the chicken rolls.  Fry for several minutes turning the rolls from time to time and in the meanwhile keeping the pan covered. Remove the chicken to the plate with mushrooms.

4. Take the pan off the heat. Add the cream, chicken broth concentrate and bring the pan to the heat. Bring it to the boil and scrape to deglaze all the bits from the bottom of the pan. Add amaretto and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced. Return the chicken and mushrooms to the pan, turning to coat in the sauce and heating through. Serve with chopped thyme.

Herby citrus salmon

The good point of living in Finland is that it it always easy and pretty cheap to get your hands on salmon. It is one of the cheapest and most abundant fish here, not to mention how delicious it is. We have it quite often as a midweek dinner, simply baked with pesto and served with a seasonal salad.  Nowadays, one can buy here pestos of a really good quality, and it is extremely fast to prepare salmon this way. As much as both of us love red pesto, Mr. No Onion Please complains that the green basil pesto has too strong herby taste for him. Therefore, I tried to create a kind of herby paste that wouldn’t have such a strong taste, but would compliment salmon nicely. I decided to incorporate some citrus flavour as well. The outcome was pretty good and both of us liked it.  The salmon was served on a salad bed made of wild rucola, goat cheese and cherry tomatoes confit.

Ingredients

500g salmon filet

3 toast breads (skin cut off)

zest from 1 lemon

juice from half a lemon

half a glass of basil leaves

half a glass of thyme leaves

2-3 tbsp of olive oil

salt

1. Wash the salmon filet and put it into greased ovenproof dish.

2. Put the bread, lemon zest and juice, basil and thyme into a bowl and blend it well to a paste

3. Add olive oil and salt to your liking. My paste was pretty thick, I wanted it to create a nice layer of  it on the salmon. If you wish you may add a bit more of olive oil to make it more pesto like. Spread the paste on top of the filet.

4. Bake in 200C for 25 min of until ready. I put the aluminium foil after 15 min of baking to avoid browning of the paste.

Cod in pistachio crust

Ohoh, summer has really come here, I’m so lazy with writing new posts Not that I don’t cook, but I just don’t feel like writing somehow…. at all…. Lately I have lots of writing to do at work and in the evenings I just can’t put myself to write several simple sentences. I  need holidays. Fortunately, they are nearly here! We’re flying on Saturday to Poland for whole two weeks Can’t wait, I also hope we will make a day trip to Slovakia and be sure I’ll post lots of pictures from our beautiful Tatra mountains . However, now time for a copy-cat recipe I’ve found it on Trissalicious blog, it’s fast and gives a really nice outcome. I’ve just noticed I’ve never posted any fish recipe here before. And again it’s the same story we eat them but I don’t write about them, or no wait… it’s rather that I don’t find fish photogenic. Or …. ok, well ok I’ll just admit it… I can’t make nice fish pics… there I said it…. snif…. I kept to recipe pretty much, apart from folding the fish and adding still a spoon of Parmesan to the crust as well as omitting egg white (ups … I forgot about it). Below is an original recipe, enjoy

INGREDIENTS:

2 cod fillets, skinned and deboned

35 grams butter

75 grams pistachios

2 cloves garlic, crushed

3 springs thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1 egg white

4 slices lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 180c
2. Season the fillets with salt and pepper
3. In a food processor combine the pistachios, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper (Parmesan optionally)
4. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the pistachio mixture. Cook for around 2 to 3 minutes.
5. Allow the mixture to cool for a few minutes. Add the egg white and mix well (not necessary)
6. Bend fillets in half, put 2 slices of lemon inside. Coat the fillets in the pistachio mixture
7. Place the coated fillets in an ovenproof dish
8. Bake the fillets for around 10 to 12 minutes until cooked through.

Astoria soup

I’m lately quite lazy when it comes to writing posts, I guess mostly it’s because I should still go through some pictures from Istanbul and I can’t put myself to do it. This post is somehow unintended one. I usually don’t blog about the mid-week food as it is always cooked in the evening, in a rush and I’m too hungry to make pictures. However, this particular soup turned out to be so amazingly delicious that in spite of terrible photo I just had to blog about it. I’ve recently borrowed Jamie’s America cookbook and must say there are quite many recipes that I would like to try. One of them was Astoria soup and since I had most of the ingredients in my kitchen it was first on try. No disappointment here. I guess it’s even one of the best soups I have been eating recently! I’ve changed slightly Jamie’s recipe – instead of bulgur I  used quinoa, added juice of 1 lemon (the soup really needs some acidity to develop the flavour fully) and adjusted spice amounts to my own liking. Below you can find the original recipe. Don’t be discouraged by the photo, the soup is truly great!

Ingredients

3 peppers (red or mixed colours), deseeded and sliced
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
olive oil
2 tbsp sumac
2 tbsp zataar
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
1l chicken or vegetable stock
salt and pepper
bulgur wheat

1. Cook bulgur/quinoa until tender and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a big pot. Add peppers, garlic, sumac, zataar, cumin and paprika and saute for several minutes.

3. Add the stock and tin of tomatoes. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 min.

4. Add the wheat, cherry tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, cook for 2-3 minutes more.