We're celebrating food diversity this August with Market for All and it's fun to utilize a whole chicken. We bought a whole chicken from Hidden Stream Farm and turned it into 5 different dishes from around Asia! (plus treats for puppies) Nothing goes to waste in this post.
You can try all of the recipes and do what we did over a week of time or pick and choose only the recipes you're interested.
Recipe prep, styling and photography by CHOOCHOO-ca-CHEW
Here's what's on the menu (Sorted by easiest to more complicated):
Taiwanese: Apple Chicken Soup with Chicken and Rice | 蘋果紅棗雞 + 嘉義雞肉飯 (Carcass & Chicken Skin)
Indian Inspired: Coconut & Cardamom Chicken Curry by Spiced Up Mom (Chicken Thigh & Drumstick)
Satay Marinade or Yogurt Cardamom Baked Chicken Wings
Thai: Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce & Cucumber Relish (Chicken Breast)
Each single recipe feeds about two as a meal or if you make all of them to share, they'll feed about 4!
With each recipe, we will give you a shopping list, and where to find the ingredients. You'll be surprised by the diversity of foods you can find at our market.
Dissecting the chicken
Let's start by dissecting a whole chicken. Remove the skin and set them aside, separate the chicken into- thigh and legs, wings, breasts, and carcass. Debone the thigh and legs and add the bones to the carcass.
If you need some help and further instruction, here's Gordon Ramsay to the rescue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEJSHRSJCn8
Taiwanese: Apple Chicken Soup with Chicken and Rice | 蘋果紅棗雞 + 嘉義雞肉飯 by CHOOCHOO-ca-CHEW
(Carcass & Chicken Skin)
Taiwanese food often incorporates seasonal fruits or vegetables and herbal medicine to maximize health benefits. Apple chicken soup has a slight tartness, it's heart warming yet refreshing. Jujube dates, apples, and chicken soup are all known for helping with blood circulation in Chinese medicine. Soup is served with almost every home-cooked meal in Taiwan, it's a very important part of the culture.
Shopping list:
Rochester Farmers Market-
2 Apples
Asian Shallot
Whole Chicken (or just carcass, Hidden Stream Farm offers carcass)
Asian Food Store-
Jujube Date
Sushi Rice (also available at people's food co-op)
Condiments-
Soy Sauce
Salt
Sugar
Make a small pot of rice and set aside. Preferably short grain, we like sushi rice with our chicken and rice.
Apple Chicken Soup- Bring a pot of water to boil, add a few drops of vinegar and add the carcass and leg bones to blanch until the color has turned. Remove the carcass from the pot, dump out the water. (This step help makes a cleaner broth)
Put the carcass and bones back into the pot, cover with enough water and bring to a boil on the stove. Turn the heat down to medium and cook for about 10 minutes, remove the carcass and let cool slightly. Reserve 1/2C chicken broth.
Use your hands and peel off every shred of meat you can find on the carcass, if you did a good job butchering, you should have about 1 cup of chicken meat. Don't spare the neck! It's got some of the best meats.
Return the carcass to the pot, add 2 diced apples, 4 jujube dates and more water if desired. Bring to a boil then turn the heat down to a simmer, for 40 minutes then salt to taste. Your apple chicken soup(蘋果紅棗雞) is done!
Crispy chicken skin & chicken fat extraction- While your soup is simmering, make the chicken rice. Start by adding one tablespoon of oil to a cast iron pan(you can use any pan really, but we like to season our cast iron while we do this). On low heat, add the slightly cut-up chicken skins to the pan, fry until golden and crispy and all the chicken fat has been extracted. Remove crispy skin and add it to your rice later or they make awesome puppy treats.
Chicken and rice sauce- Add 4 sliced up Asian Shallots to the cast iron pan (still on low heat) and fry, stirring occasionally until golden, about 6 minutes. Add 3 tablespoons of soy sauce to the pan, careful it will splatter, 1/2C reserved chicken broth and 1 tablespoon of sugar, bring to a boil, season with more soy sauce, salt or sugar to taste.
Assemble chicken and rice- In a small bowl, add rice and some of the shredded chicken, crispy chicken skin if desired and add a spoon or two of the chicken and rice sauce on top. Serve with hot soup!
Chicken and rice recipe is inspired by:
Indian Inspired: Coconut & Cardamom Chicken Curry | by Spiced Up Mom
(Chicken Thigh & Drumstick)
Who better to ask for a amazing Indian recipe than our Master Chef contestant- Shari of Spiced Up Mom? When we asked what her favorite chicken recipe on the blog was, she recommended this one without hesitation.
"It's seriously delicious. My MIL(mom in law) liked it so much, last time they visited I had to make it three days in a row! It's not much ingredients or spices, a couple really nice jalapeños- for whatever reason, my favorite chili for this curry- add such good flavor!"
We used both thighs and drumsticks from our whole chicken with this recipe and it turned out AMAZING. Jalapeño's in season right now, here's your shopping list, let's get cooking!
Shopping list:
Rochester Farmers Market-
Whole Chicken (or just thighs/ drumsticks, about 6)
2 or more Jalapeños
1 Whole Garlic
1 Bunch of Cilantro/ Coriander
People's Food Co-Op-
Fresh Ginger (seasonally available at the market- Whitewater Gardens Farm)
1 Lemon
Plain Yogurt (you'll need 1-1/4C)
1 Can of Coconut Milk
Ghee or butter
Green Cardamom (Bulk Section)
2 Bay Leaves (Bulk Section)
Seasoning-
Salt
Black Pepper
Satay Marinade or Yogurt Cardamom Chicken Wings
For chicken wings, we experimented with Spiced up Mom's marinade for coconut cardamom chicken curry and Thai satay marinade(recipe below) then grilled them to perfection. Both marinade turned out really delicious, so take your pick!
Thai: Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce & Cucumber Relish
(Chicken Breast)
We're taking a page from Andy Ricker's famed cookbook- Pok Pok, replacing pork in "Muu Sateh" with chicken. It's definitely the most complicated recipe, and the hardest part is the peanut sauce!
This recipe will also be yummy with juicy chicken thigh. Satay is traditionally grilled over charcoal fire, but any grill works, let's get grilling!
Shopping list:
Rochester Farmers Market-
Whole Chicken (or just breasts, marinade up to 2 lbs)
8 Stalks of Lemon Grass
2 Whole garlic
Asian Shallots
Asian Cucumber ( crisp, thin-skinned cucumbers )
Red Thai chilis
Cilantro
People's Food Co-Op-
1 1/2 teaspoons coriander seeds (Bulk Spice Section)
Very small pinch cumin seeds (Bulk Spice Section)
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper (Bulk Spice Section)
Roasted unsalted peanuts (Bulk Section)
Yellow turmeric root ( at least 40 grams for both sauce and marinade, (seasonally available at the market- Whitewater Gardens Farm)
Sweetened condensed milk (also available at Asian Food Store)
2 Cans of Coconut Milk (also available at Asian Food Store)
Dried puya chiles (about 2)
Asian Food Store-
Galangal (at least 40 grams for both sauce and marinade)
Palm Sugar (For the sauce)
1 Can of Coconut Cream (For the sauce, or replace with coconut milk)
Tamarind Pulp (For the sauce)
Seasoning-
Sugar
Salt
White Vinegar
GET THE RECIPES:
(Replace the pork with Chicken and skip the skewer instructions with the fat)
WHEW. That's a lot of yummy goodness in one post. Remember you can take any one of the recipe and make a great meal out of it. Now go cook a feast!