Whole Wheat Penne with Italian Sausage, Spinach and Broccolini

I have to admit that this pasta was not exactly what I intended to make tonight.  I really intended to make pasta with Italian sausage and broccoli rabe, but it appears that either I bought the broccoli rabe and left it behind at the store, or I never actually bought it in the first place and only thought that I did.  I'm not sure which option is better.  I guess the latter because while it might make me delusional, at least I didn't waste any money on vegetables that didn't make it home with me?

This is the perfect type of pasta to really fill you up and stick to your ribs, without making you feel heavy and gross.  I was absolutely, positively starving when I got home from work today.  It was one of what I call my "insatiably hungry" days where I can't help but eat everything in sight.  Granted, this time my insatiable hunger is probably due to the amount of time I have spent tromping around in the snow with the dog the past few days.  Who knew that playing in the snow could be such a work out!  This pasta was exactly what I needed - simple, hearty, delicious, and filling.  It also didn't take a lot of time and effort to cook, nor did it require any unusual ingredients or extra shopping trips.  Instead it is something of a fridge clearing pasta that you can throw together with almost anything you have in the fridge.  Because we used whole wheat penne and lots of vegetables (we substituted broccolini and baby spinach for the missing broccoli rabe), I didn't even feel that guilty about eating going back for seconds!  I guess we could also have substituted turkey sausage for pork, but that might be taking things entirely too far.

Recipe after the jump!

Two-Minute Calamari Sicilian Lifeguard Style

After spending most of the time leading up to Christmas gorging with Alex and my mother, I wanted something light, but hearty for dinner tonight.  Over the course of a few days, we had lobster rolls at Luke's, amazing seafood at Il Pesce (the seafood restaurant at Eataly), really tasty noodle soups and dumplings at Lanzhou Handmade Noodle in Chinatown, and global tapas at Tolani.  So I immediately thought seafood.  And when I looked in the freezer I saw we had some calamari in there.  While I never tried this dish the one time I ate at Babbo, it has become the calamari go-to recipe in our apartment.  I first stumbled across the recipe online on the Food Network website and then realized that it was also on my bookshelf in The Babbo Cookbook.  I'm not sure what the name is supposed to mean, or if it is supposed to mean anything at all, but it doesn't do the dish justice.  It almost seems like ordering a dish on a Chinese takeout menu - where "Phoenix Rising Shrimp" turns out to be fried shrimp with pineapple chunks in a variation on sweet and sour sauce.  What is that all about anyway?  I am not sure what I would call this dish, except that I think the name should be more descriptive of what is on the plate.  Perhaps that's a little simplistic of me, but that's how I feel.

Moving on!  This calamari is something like a stew.  It has a wonderfully spicy and flavorful broth.  There is something about the mix of the spicy red chili flakes, the sweet currants, the briny caperberries and the buttery pine nuts combine to create what the cookbook calls a "sweet, hot and sour Arabic kiss."  I dunno about that description either, but it is delicious nonetheless.  I do play with this recipe a bit from time to time.  I love the brinyness of the caperberries so I tend to add more than the recipe calls for, but that's just me.  I have also substituted fregola for the Israeli couscous in the past and that works well, but you have to cook it a lot longer than the couscous.  This time we used a Trader Joe's Harvest Grains Blend, which contains Israeli couscous, orzo, red quinoa, etc.  It was wonderful and perhaps my favorite adaptation yet.  If you make the Basic Tomato Sauce in advance, the entire dish takes less than 30 minutes to create, including prep time!  One warning - be careful not to overcook the calamari or you're going to end up with little white rubber bands in your lovely broth.

Recipes after the jump!

Lemon-Almond Pound Cake

My husband is something of a citrus fiend.  If we need freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice while cooking, chances are that I will turn around to and find him sucking on the remains of the  lemon or lime he just squeezed.  Actually, chances are that he will suck on it, Brady will come to find out what he is eating and then Brady will try to steal it and run away with it.  But since Brady doesn't particularly like citrus he tends to spit out the lemon or lime, pick it back up, spit it back out again, then give it a last lick, before finally giving up.  Anyway, Alex loves lemon poppyseed muffins so I decided to give this Lemon-Almond Pound Cake recipe a try.  I'm always the one who decides that I want to bake and then what I will be baking, so this time I decided to pick something that I knew he would like.  I borrowed this cookbook from a friend awhile ago and I copied down a lot of recipes from it before I gave it back.  I have been sitting on this recipe for some time, but decided to make it last night because it was SNOWING outside (which makes me feel like baking), plus it was Brady's second birthday, which makes me feel like cake.  So we got ourselves a bottle of champagne and I baked a cake, and Brady got some new toys to play with (including a ball shaped like a frog whose toes he has already eaten off).  Sounds like a win for everyone, doesn't it?

This cake is lovely and lemony and light.  It has just the right amount of sweetness to balance out the tartness of the lemon, without turning the whole cake sugary sweet.  I also love the crunch of the almonds.  I think I might prefer the crunch of the sliced almonds to poppy seeds, but I just don't know.  I was a little worried about the lemon glaze, and we did use it sparingly, but it's really nice too.  It would make a fantastic breakfast, a really nice snack and a wonderful light dessert.  Granted, it's not your typical birthday cake, but that's just fine with me!

Recipe after the jump!

Deviled Eggs

I know that deviled eggs are as old school as them come.  The next thing you know I might be posting about jello molds and Waldorf salad.  Only my mom used to make deviled eggs for my family around the holidays.  So they are totally nostalgic for me.  She never made a jello mold.  So no worries there - we won't be whipping up any in our kitchen anytime soon.  As for Waldorf salad, she did make that for me occasionally, but as much as I enjoyed it at the time, I can't see myself making Waldorf salad for Alex and I at any point.  Any salad involving mini-marshmallows just seems wrong, no matter how delicious I remember it being.

While I thought about mixing it up and making an exotic twist on deviled eggs, but that just seemed to miss the point.  If you're making something due to nostalgia, why not make it the way you remember it, rather than going crazy with it and trying to make the dish fun and new?  So I made these deviled eggs just the way I remembered them.  I thought about putting in a call to my mom to find out exactly what she puts into her deviled eggs, but I decided that I could wing it pretty well based on memory.  I know that Mom puts mayonnaise, very finely minced onions, dijon mustard, and very finely minced ham in her eggs.  She also sprinkles a tiny bit of paprika on top.  I didn't have any onions or shallots, so I used chives instead.  And I decided that paprika was unnecessary because I preferred the fresh green of the chives to the red of the paprika (which adds almost no flavor anyway).  I also thought that a little more fresh onion flavor is never a bad thing to serve as a counterpoint to rich egg yolks and mayo.  Yum.  These aren't my mom's deviled eggs, but they sure are close.

Recipe after the jump!

Chicken and Vegetable "Cobbler"

My first chicken pot pie was a Marie Callanders version fresh out of the freezer at the grocery, heated up in the microwave.  It left a little to be desired (as all frozen meals do), but it was still quite good. Since then I have tried a few versions, including one I made myself last fall.  Unfortunately, my filling was more than a little soupy.  So it was chicken soup topped with puff pastry...  Since that version I have been meaning to make a new version topped with biscuit dough.  Then I stumbled across this recipe for "Chicken and Vegetable Cobbler" on Mark Bittman's NY Times blog Bitten several months ago.  And it used a homemade biscuit dough as the topping.  So I bookmarked it to make it once the weather got a little colder.  Since it was cold and snowy outside today, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  So Alex and I trudged down to the grocery store in the snow and bought all of the ingredients and then came home and whipped it up this evening, after romping in the snow with the puppy for an hour.  Did I mention it's his birthday today?  Brady is two!

As with many of the recipes that I find online, I modified this one a bit.  Neither Alex, nor I, are huge fans of peas and cooked carrots, but we do love corn so I cut down on the amount of frozen peas and carrots and added in some frozen corn.  I wish I had also increased the amount of chicken stock because by the time the cobbler stopped cooking, there was no "juju" left.  So while the filling was flavorful, it was a little dry.  Actually, it was very dry, even with chicken thighs instead of breasts.  And the biscuit topping was a little thick and doughy, rather than buttery, light and flaky.  I think it is safe to say that if we make another chicken potpie, it won't be this one.  Moreover, I think we will use pre-packed puff pastry for the pot pie topping.  Because it turns out that I'm more of a pot pie person than a cobbler person.


Recipe after the jump!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Buckeyes

Oh yum.  These things are delicious.  And addicting.  Apparently peanut butter buckeyes are named after the nut of the state tree of Ohio.  And they are named that after the tree because they look like the nuts.  If you Google buckeyes you will eventually see what I mean.  I found one picture here on Serious Eats where the resemblance is quite obvious.  Anyway, I decided to make these chocolate-covered peanut butter confections for two reasons.  First, my dad is from Ohio so it just seemed appropriate.  Second, I love the combination of peanut butter and chocolate.  I guess there was a third reason - they just looked so easy to make!  So I made them and omg.  So good.  I brought like 30 of these bad boys into work and they were gone in minutes.  And Alex and I combined ate far more of them than was probably wise, but I just couldn't stop myself.  I loved the salty-sweet combination and the smooth and creamy peanut butter center.  I'm glad that I used a mixture of dark and semisweet chocolate to dip the buckeyes in because I think milk chocolate would have been far too sweet, but dark chocolate alone might not have been quite sweet enough.  I also found that my favorite way to eat these candies is right out of the freezer.  I love them when they are frozen (hence the ice crystals you can see on the buckeyes in the picture - they were fresh out of the freezer).  You can't leave them out for long because they will melt (due to the high butter content), but they are worth the hassle.  Promise.

I think we might have found a new Christmas tradition!

Recipe after the jump!

Adobo-Marinated Chicken Quesadillas

I love good Mexican food.  And I have found that truly good Mexican food is hard to find.  So I have started making my own, although I don't claim that my version of Mexican is authentic.  I basically just make it up as I go along, sometimes with a little help from Google, a restaurant I have eaten at or a cookbook.  For instance, for tonight's dinner I got the idea from the chicken mole quesadilla at our local Mexican joint, The Great Burrito.  And then I looked online and in Rosa's New Mexican Table by Roberto Santibanez.  Then I sent Alex to Zabar's to pick up some dried chilis and we improvised like we always do.

Our past two meals have been smashing successes (which is exciting).  Last night's Pork Vindaloo was delicious, but I might have preferred these quesadillas for a variety of reasons.  First, while this chicken has a brief marinating period, the entire dish comes together much more quickly than the pork did.  One problem with braising pork is that it takes forever, whereas sauteing up some chicken strips takes less than 10 minutes.  Both dishes were very flavorful and tender.  I just feel like this dish is one that everyone will like, whereas the pork is only going to appeal to some.  So I'm not sure that I necessarily preferred the flavor of these quesadillas over the flavor of the vindaloo, but I think as an overall dish and experience I preferred the quesadillas.  There was a tiny bit of heat from the chilis in the adobo, and a bit of tang from the apple cider vinegar.  I'm glad we used apple cider vinegar instead of regular white distilled vinegar, because that gives the chicken a tiny bit of sweetness which works really nicely with the cinnamon and cloves.  I think this chicken would make a really nice topping for a taco salad, tacos, or a tostada.  You can use the marinade to create all kinds of different Mexican dishes and I bet they would all be delicious.

Recipe after the jump!

Pork Vindaloo with Aromatic Yellow Rice and Spicy Cucumber Wedges

So our last few attempts at Indian food have been less than stellar.  We attempted to make a tandoori-style shrimp a few weeks ago and it tasted more like a shrimp scampi than anything else.  All you could taste was butter - nothing else.  And then we tried to make a spiced rice that was bland and overly wet.  The meal was not at all memorable, except in how mediocre it was.  It was an absolute and utter letdown.

But this Pork Vindaloo was everything that I love about Indian food - spicy, aromatic, and flavorful.  As I walked down the hall to our apartment I could smell it and I knew I was in for a treat.  I've never had a pork vindaloo before, nor have I ever cooked a vindaloo, so this was a first on several levels.  It was delicious.  But consider yourself forewarned - this dish is SPICY, just as all good vindaloos are.  The pork is nice and tender from the slow braise and falls apart with the slightest nudge from your fork.  But if you don't like spicy food, then I would not make this recipe.  I guess you could dial down the spice level by using sweet paprika instead of the Kashmiri red chili powder, but the heat is half the fun.  I will admit, I tend to prefer plain white basmati rice to any sort of spiced rice and this recipe for Aromatic Yellow Rice hasn't changed that.  While it is good and has a delicate, but discernible, bouquet of spices, I would still prefer some plain basmati rice.  Alex likes spiced rice more than I do and he said that the rice was a nice accompaniment to a meal because it's not so heavily spiced that it would overcome or compete with the flavors in your entree.  I can agree with that.  But I would probably still make plain basmati instead.  I thought that the Spicy Cucumber Wedges were a really nice and fresh side dish.  They had far more flavor than I had expected, given that they don't marinate at all before you serve them.  I loved the combination of the roasted cumin seeds, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and fresh cucumbers.  I think they would make such a wonderful dish at a potluck or a picnic!  Actually, I think that this entire meal would make a wonderful potluck or picnic meal.

Recipe after the jump!

Baked Double Chocolate Loaf with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Spread

So I have been holding onto this recipe for a long time and waiting for a "special" occasion to make it. Really, I was waiting for someone else to come over so it wouldn't just be Alex and I inhaling our way through an entire cake. I got the recipe from a Tasting Table email, but it was from one of the Baked cookbooks so I was super excited for it. I just knew it was going to be delicious. Not only do I love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, but it was a Baked recipe and after baking and loving the Baked Brownies, I had utter faith in this recipe.

Sadly, I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong - the recipe isn't bad. I just felt like it was a little off. For instance, the cake to frosting ratio is just way off. I'm not one who generally likes a ton of frosting on my cakes or cupcakes, but this cake was so dense and dry that it really needed more frosting. The cake was really deeply and intensely chocolaty (which you would expect given the amount of cocoa powder and dark chocolate that went into the cake), but forkfuls of plain cake were just lacking something. The cake was almost more of a brownie than a cake. And given that there was buttermilk, oil and eggs in the cake I just expected it to be a little more moist. Instead it was bordering on dry and crumbly. Actually, it was so crumbly that I literally couldn't get a piece of it to take a picture of because every piece I tried to cut basically exploded into a pile of crumbs with frosting on top. I tasted the batter so I knew that it wouldn't be a very sweet cake, but I expected the addition of the chocolate chunks and the frosting to make all of the difference. I think that if I make this cake again in the future I will turn it into cupcakes. And I will double the amount of frosting. And add more buttermilk so that the cake is far moister. I will also consider either substituting semi-sweet chocolate for the dark chocolate in the cake, or adding more sugar to the frosting to sweeten that up. I will probably do one, but not both. Our friends who were over last night recommended perhaps turning the cake into a layer cake (with frosting between the layers), so I guess that could work too. So I'm a little sad that the recipe that I have been saving and holding onto with such faith in its utter awesomeness turned out to be a little less awesome than expected. But given a few tweaks, I still have faith that it can become utterly awesome. It's just not quite there yet.

Recipe after the jump!
Tasting Table

San Diego

When we were going to San Diego all I could think of was sun and warm weather.  And then it hit me that San Diego is the home of the fish taco - and I looooooooove fish tacos.  Give me fish tacos grilled, fried, whatever.  I love them all.  And one of my friends who used to live in San Diego gave me a recommendation for a restaurant that she claimed served the best fish tacos in the city called South Beach Bar and Grille.  That was the one non-negotiable thing for me on this trip.  I didn't care what else we did, so long as we hit that restaurant for some fish tacos.  So our first full day in the city, we went for dinner.  And wow.  They were delicious.  Perfectly fried - not at all greasy, and very flavorful.  And during happy hour from 3-6 pm, the baja fish tacos (pictured above - I know it is crazy over-exposed, but the restaurant was so dimly lit that I had to use my flash) and the grilled mahi mahi tacos were only $2.50.  Being from NYC I assumed that they would be absolutely tiny, but they were much larger than I expected.  So we over-ordered just a little bit...  We tried two baja tacos, two mahi tacos, and one wahoo taco, plus a ceviche cocktail.  If I were to go again, I would avoid the ceviche cocktail and stick with the tacos (particularly the baja and the wahoo) because they were delicious.  This was definitely my favorite meal of the trip.

More after the jump!

Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper, and Sea Salt

I love biscuits.  It's a seriously Southern thing that I picked up at Chapel Hill while I was there and one I plan to never give up.  Unfortunately, good biscuits are much harder to find here in NYC than they were in North Carolina.  Actually, some might say that it's nearly impossible.  So I have taken to making my own whenever I have a serious biscuit craving.  The only problem that biscuit-making makes a mess.  And when you're me, it makes a HUGE mess. I should take pictures of the kitchen after I engage in a bout of biscuit-making.  Today for example, I ended up with floury hand prints on our olive oil cruet and bits of biscuit dough decorating the floor.  I'm nearly certain that I have ended up with flour in my hair at least once, which begs the question of what exactly I am doing while making my biscuits.  I wish I could tell you, but I can't.

Anyway, I love these biscuits.  Love, love, love them.  I have been saving the recipe for some time now, but I always forget to pick up self-rising flour.  Luckily, Alex picked some up to make his crazy Dutch cookies so this morning when I woke up this recipe was the first thing I thought about.  Actually, first I thought about pizza.  At about 10:00 am I told Alex that I wanted some pizza and he told me that I'm an idiot.  Isn't he sweet?  But the second thing I thought about was this biscuit recipe.  So I toddled into the kitchen in my pjs and I made my biscuits.  OMG.  They are delicious.  They have a perfect flaky, yet very tender texture typical of really good homemade buttermilk biscuits.  Nothing against Grands biscuits out of the can, but they're never quite as crisp on the outside, and yet flaky and tender on the inside.  Instead they're basically buttery and tender all the way through, which is nice and all, but they're certainly not buttermilk biscuits.  So the texture is amazing.  Actually, I think that's the first thing I told Alex after my first mouthful of biscuit.  That the texture was perfect.  And they have loads of flavor from the black pepper and the scallions.  That was the first thing Alex said.  They are absolutely gorgeous.  I think Alex has already eaten four whole biscuits, which is a huge testament to how delicious these biscuits are because he usually has one biscuit and calls it a day.  I think these biscuits could very well be the best biscuits that I have ever made.  And I don't say that lightly.


Recipe after the jump!

Kruidnoten

So while I was off in San Diego with my mom, Alex made cookies.  When he said that he was going to bake cookies, I literally thought the world had ended.  Alex is not a baker.  In fact, he periodically places a baking embargo on our kitchen.  I don't usually fully comply with the baking embargo, but that's just me.  But I can't remember him ever baking anything else.  He used to help his mom bake the slice and bake cookies you buy at the grocery store around the holidays, but that's as much as I can ever recall him doing before.  Anyway, back to the cookies.  These cookies are Dutch cookies that Alex used to eat around Christmas-time when his family lived in the Netherlands.  They kind of remind me of gingerbread - they are dry and crunchy like gingerbread and use similar spices. As far as cookies go, I have to admit that I prefer softer cookies. I like a good shortbread cookie every once in awhile, but if push comes to shove I want a nice peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. Gingerbread has never been among my favorites. 

So it is no surprise that these cookies are not my favorite. Alex definitely likes them more than I do. He said that there are a few things he would change about them, but he likes the flavor (although he did mention that he thought the flavor would be a bit more "intense" and taste a little less like gingersnaps, and a little "spicier"). He thinks that they are a little dry (I think they are a lot dry, but like I said, I like softer, moister cookies than he does). According to him the cookies should be a lot smaller than he actually made them. The cookies are supposed to be 1/2-inch marble-sized balls, but his cookies were more like 1-inch balls. He blames their size for the dryness. Either way I totally think it's adorable that Alex baked! 

Recipe after the jump! 

Crunchy Chicken in Green Sauce

I know that we have done dozens of variations of breaded chicken breasts.  And yet we keep finding (or inventing) and cooking more variations.  I guess when you find something that you like, you can't help but do it over and over again.  My favorite thing about all of the variations is how easily you can vary the flavors and breading so that all of the variations are completely different from each other.  For instance, we have done variations on Japanese Cornflake Chicken Katsu with Tonkatsu Dipping Sauce, a few Southern-inspired variations including our Cornmeal-Crusted Chicken Breasts with Honey-Mustard Dipping Sauce, and Spicy "Fried" Chicken Cutlets with Honey-Tabasco Sauce inspired by a dish at WD-50.  Not all of our variations have been blog-worthy, but that's ok.  I have to admit that as far as breading choices go, I think that the panko, cornmeal, and cornflakes are all equal in my mind.  As far as cooking methods go, I think that it tends to work better to bake the chicken on a cooling rack like I did with my chicken katsu and the "fried" chicken.  The chicken cooks more evenly, the breading stays on without slipping off when you try to clip the chicken and cook the other side. and I think the breading gets crispier.  With all of that said, if you cook the chicken carefully on the stove-top you can achieve similar results.  So when this recipe said to cook it on the stove-top I figured why not?

I really liked this sauce.  I thought that it had great flavor and it had never occurred to me in the past to make a sauce out of chicken stock and salsa.  It was a great idea and a very easy way to add lots of flavor very easily and very quickly.  As for the chicken, I thought that the brief soak in the spiced buttermilk kept the chicken moist and gave it more flavor.  Actually, the buttermilk worked surprisingly well without any egg to help the breadcrumbs adhere.  The only problem with this dish is that by cooking it in the pan, and then removing it to a plate while you cook the sauce in the same pan, the breading loses some of its crispness.  Perhaps if we had mixed panko with the cornmeal it would have worked a little better, but I think that the next time we cook this dish, we will bake the chicken in the oven and cook the sauce on the stove-top to avoid that problem.

Recipe after the jump!

All I want for Christmas...

Well I want a lot of things.  But not all of them are food-related, so I won't list them here.  Actually, this isn't exactly my Christmas list.  Instead it's more like my "gifts I want, or have received and recommend to others for Christmas" list.  Does that make sense?  Whatever, we're going to go with it.  Or at least I am going with it.  All of you reading this can decide for yourselves. 


Cookbooks:

1. Baked: New Frontiers in Baking and Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented - Baked is a bakery in Brooklyn that is famous for their brownies (and various other baked goods).  If you Google "Baked brownie" you will come up with dozens of blogs that have tried the recipe out (including mine).  The brownie is amazing.  I am also dying to try their Brewer's Blondies.  I haven't tried any of the recipes yet from Baked Explorations since it was just publised in October 2010, but I'm sure that the recipes there are just as amazing as the ones in their original cookbook!
2. Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian - I am always looking for new vegetarian recipes to try so Alex and I can at least made a good faith effort to get the recommended daily allowance of vitamins, minerals, etc.  I almost always fail, but I think with this cookbook I would be much better equipped to succeed!  I already own two fabulous Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks so I have total faith in her, and I have paged through it several times at the bookstore, and there are tons of really delicious sounding vegetarian recipes.
3. Ad Hoc at Home - For any somewhat accomplished home cook and foodie, this cookbook is a must have.  I know it's kind of pricey (and a little unwieldy since it is bordering on huge), but it is totally worth it if only for the Ad Hoc Creamed Summer Corn recipe, which is flat out amazing.  This cookbook is definitely not for the novice cook, nor are the recipes intended to be quick and easy weeknight meals.  They all require some level of preparation (including the right tools and ingredients) and some level of skill.  But the results are delicious.

More ideas after the jump!

Lemony Chicken with Cilantro

There is an Indian restaurant near our apartment that serves a chicken dish called Chicken Xacutti, which is a chicken dish prepared with ginger, garlic, green chilis and a ton of spices.  Now I have two Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks and neither of them contain a recipe for Chicken Xacutti or anything similar.  So I'm actually not sure why I led in with talking about the Chicken Xacutti, except that thinking about that chicken dish inspired me to make this Indian chicken dish because it is similarly prepared with ginger, garlic, green chilis and a ton of spices (although far less spices than the Xacutti).

What I love about this chicken is the depth of flavor you get in a relatively quick cooking dish.  The cayenne and the jalapeno give the chicken some heat, and then there's the lemon and the cilantro to brighten and freshen the whole dish up.  You get a hint of smokiness from the ground cumin, plus the flavors of garlic and ginger.  It's just such a fun and flavorful dish.  I also like that the flavor combinations are totally different from what you expect from your average Indian dish.  My initial thoughts when it comes to Indian food are chicken dishes in heavy sauces (butter chicken, chicken korma and chicken tikka masala) or tandoori chicken.  A dish like this with a relatively thin sauce made primarily of lemon juice and herbs and spices is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind, but I really think it's a wonderful dish.  The next time I make kati rolls I will probably make this chicken to use as the filling.  I also think this chicken would be a wonderful topping to an Indian-inspired pizza or some sort of naan-ini (a panini made with naan instead of normal bread).  Seeing as this was the first dish we have made at home this week due to work (and will probably be the last homemade meal I make until after I get back from San Diego next Monday), I think it was an excellent choice.

Recipe after the jump!