Stuffed Chicken Breast

Over the years, I’ve seen many, many pictures of delicious meals such as chicken cordon bleu, braciola (Italian stuffed beef), and several varieties of stuffed pork tenderloin. The pictures always made my mouth water, and most recipes seemed fairly straightforward, save one thing: my lack of a meat mallet. Marriage to the rescue! When my husband and I got married, a meat tenderizer was among our presents. Three plus years later, I finally used it while making a simple baked stuffed chicken dish! I used ingredients I already had on hand and topped the chicken off with a simple breadcrumb mix for a nice crispy accent.

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

~1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

~1 cup feta cheese

~1½ - 2 cups fresh spinach

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

For breadcrumb topping

~¼ cup grated parmesan cheese

~¼ cup panko breadcrumbs

1 tsp garlic powder

dash of ground pepper, thyme, marjoram

Preheat oven to 350°F.

To make the filling: Place cheese, spinach, and minced garlic in bowl. Microwave on high for 1 - 1½ minutes in ~30sec bursts to wilt spinach and soften cheese, stirring in between.

To make the breading: Combine parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs. Season with garlic powder, thyme, marjoram, and ground pepper.

Assembly: Butterfly chicken breasts and use the flat side of a meat mallet to tenderize/thin the chicken to about ½ inch thick. Spread filling on one side, roll up and secure ends closed with toothpicks, and place on a baking sheet.

Finishing: Sprinkle the tops of the chicken rolls with breading mixture. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes.

Remove the toothpicks, slice and enjoy!

~Karla

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Egg Stuffed Paratha

Stuffed parathas are a very common dish in Indian cooking. The fillings range from vegetables such as potatoes, cabbage, to cheese, paneer etc. It’s basically thin bread stuffed with deliciousness, so the possibilities are endless! One of my favorites is egg stuffed paratha. This version of the paratha does not involve filling the dough before rolling. Instead, you roll out the dough very thin and then add the raw egg mixture onto it as the paratha cooks, and then fold the edges over to hold the egg mixture inside. I know it sounds very tricky! My mom has been making it for us for years but I only recently garnered the courage to try making it myself. I have to say my dough wasn’t rolled out as thin as hers, so the dough-to-filling ratio ended up being a little higher, but it was delicious nonetheless.

This paratha is best made on a concave pan, so that the egg mixture can stay in place without spreading outside the paratha. Since I didn’t have a pan like that, I decided to make it in a fairly small flat bottom pan so that the sides of the pan could help contain the filling.

Ingredients:

Chapati dough

Whole wheat flour

Oil (optional)

Warm water

Salt

Filling (enough for 2 parathas)

1 large egg

1-2 Tbsp chopped onion

½ Roma tomato, chopped

1 Tbsp chopped green bell pepper

1 tsp chopped cilantro or parsley

Minced green chilies (to taste)

Salt (to taste)

Any other spices/herbs that you enjoy in your omelettes

Make the chapati dough by mixing wheat flour and salt to taste. Add a little bit of oil (if using) and mix. Knead with enough water to get a soft (but not sticky) dough. Alternatively, you can skip the oil mixed in with the flour and put some oil on your palms as you knead.

There are several good tutorials for chapati/roti making online if you’ve never made the dough or the chapatis before. This is a good one from Aayi’s recipes.

Prepare the filling by whisking the egg and mixing in all the other ingredients. If you prefer, you could saute the onions first.

Make a small ball (~2” diameter) of the dough and using a rolling pin, roll it thin into a somewhat square-ish shape. If you have a flat bottom pan like me, it’s best to have the chapati size larger than the pan size, so that the filling won’t spread outside.

Heat a couple drops of oil in a pan over medium heat, gently transfer the chapati to the pan. Add half of the filling in the center and move the pan around to spread it a little. Bring in opposite corners and try to seal them with some of the egg mixture using a spatula. Once they seem somewhat secured, bring together the other two corners and do the same.

After the bottom is cooked completely and has some nice golden brown spots, flip the paratha over and cook on the other side. There might be some egg mixture leaking out if it is still too raw, but it tastes great so that shouldn’t be a problem!. Take the paratha out once both sides are cooked and the egg mixture feels like it is cooked - a good way to check is to press down gently with the spatula, and a perfectly cooked omelette inside the paratha will seem puffy and spring back.

Serve hot with ketchup or your favorite chutney.

~Gayatri

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Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Stuffed Potato Patties

I gave up eating meat a long time ago, but I do remember a few meat and fish dishes that I loved. One of them was kheema patties. Kheema is minced meat, and these little parcels of goat kheema are enclosed in a soft potato coating, then pan fried until golden brown. Just delicious! So delicious in fact, that every once in a while I still like to make “fake” kheema patties - with the filling made from mushrooms, peas, soy granules (like Nutrela), or Morningstar grillers crumbles (these are my favorite!, and also made from soy).

Ingredients (Makes ~10)

Filling

2 cups frozen Morningstar grillers crumbles (or minced meat, mushrooms, peas, any other chopped vegetables)

1 small onion chopped

~1 cup packed spinach leaves - finely chopped

1-2 cloves garlic - minced

1 tsp oil

2 tsp coriander powder

¼ tsp garam masala

⅛ tsp turmeric powder

Salt

Black pepper (optional - just salt and pepper can also be used to season the filling instead of the other spices)

½ tsp lemon juice (optional)

Coating

5-6 small potatoes - boiled, peeled and mashed

1 Tbsp minced spinach

Salt

Frying

1 egg - beaten (Use a couple Tbsp of Eggbeaters if you don’t want leftover egg - but it can always be used to make a small omelette!)

Salt

Oil for shallow frying

For the filling, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onions and garlic and saute until translucent. Leave a Tbsp of spinach out for the coating, and add the rest to the onions. Add grillers crumbles and saute for a minute. Add the spices and season with salt. Once all the liquid has evaporated, add the lemon juice, mix well and take off the heat.

For the coating, mix 1 Tbsp minced spinach with the mashed potatoes and season with salt.

Assembling the patties

Take a little potato mixture and form a ball (about 1.5” in diameter). Flatten it out to about ¼” thick and add 1-1.5 Tbsp mixture in the center. Fold the edges over and seal. Gently shape into discs about 1” thick. Repeat until you run out of potato mixture or filling.

Frying the patties

Heat some oil over medium heat for shallow frying. Beat one egg and add a pinch of salt. Dip a prepared patty in the egg. You really only want a very thin coating of egg on the patties, so what I usually do after dipping them in egg is to wipe off the extra with my fingers before putting the patty in the pan. Shallow fry on one side for a minute or so until golden brown, then flip and fry the other side. Repeat with rest of the patties.

Enjoy warm with ketchup.

~Gayatri

Notes

• If using meat for the filling, adjust cooking time accordingly. You can also pre-cook the meat.

If you have any coating left over, its great on its own as mashed potatoes. If you have any filling left, it is also delicious on its own, but you can also mix it with the leftover beaten egg and make a nice omelette.  

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Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Thursday, July 16, 2015

Stuffed Sweet Cubanelles

While visiting my good friend Pranati and her husband a couple weekends ago, I came across a picture in one of their photo albums – it was a picture of her proudly posing with the delicious stuffed sweet peppers she had made for lunch! This is a very easy and relatively quick recipe, so Pranati and I used to make these often when we were in grad school. The reason I like Cubanelles is because they are minimally hot once steamed, but any other pepper would work if you want more heat. The peppers in her picture looked so good, I had to make some once I was home :-)

Ingredients:

3 green Cubanelle peppers
1 medium onion – finely chopped
½ cup chopped cilantro
1 ½ cup grated coconut (I never have fresh or frozen coconut at home, so I use desiccated coconut – add just enough milk to soak the dry grated coconut and let it sit for 15-20 min)
2 tsp oil
2 tsp coriander powder
salt

For tempering (optional, but it certainly enhances the flavor)
Mustard seeds
Cumin seeds
Asafoetida powder (typically used in Indian food for tempering)

Heat oil on medium high, and add mustard seeds. Once the seeds start sputtering add the cumin seeds and asafoetida, followed by the chopped onion. If not tempering, add the onions directly once the oil is hot.

Sauté onions until they are translucent. Add coconut, coriander powder, and salt and sauté for a couple minutes until the mixture dries out a little (don’t let it lose all the moisture). Mix in cilantro and turn off the heat.

To prepare the peppers for stuffing, slit them open lengthwise without removing the stem. Carefully remove and discard the seeds. Stuff the peppers with the filling - really pack it in! Steam the peppers with the cut side up until they are soft (test by poking with a fork or a knife). I used a steamer, but this can be done in a rice cooker or pressure cooker as well.

Once the peppers are steamed, you can eat them as is, or crisp up the skin in a frying pan with little or no oil (I didn’t use any). If any more filling is left, that can be toasted in the pan with the peppers as well. Serve hot with roti or rice!

~Gayatri

Stuffed Peppers

Sadly, there isn’t a particularly noteworthy back-story for posting this recipe. I simply wanted to try my hand at stuffed peppers. I’ve had lots of stuffed vegetables before – stuffed zucchini in Italy that was to die for, stuffed baby eggplants that I still need to learn from Gayatri how to make, stuffed tomatoes, etc. Peppers seemed like a good place to start – mix a bunch of stuff together, put inside peppers, and bake. Easy, right? Right! :-)

Ingredients

6-8 bell peppers (red, yellow, and orange all taste better than green, in my opinion)

~2 lbs ground turkey

~ ½ - ¾ cup chopped spinach (fresh or frozen)

~2 cups cooked brown rice (I used 2 bags of the 10-minute boil-in-a-bag kind)

~ ½ cup chopped onion (I usually use dried)

Black pepper to taste

Ground red pepper to taste

Garlic powder to taste

~ ¾ - 1 cup low-fat ricotta cheese

~2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Small jar pimientos (optional)

Low-fat or fat-free Feta cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Slice the peppers in half and clean out the insides. Place them cut-side-up on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.

While the peppers are baking, cook the ground turkey in a pan or skillet over med-hi heat. Add in the spinach, chopped onions and spices. The brown rice can also be cooked at the same time according to the boil-in-a-bag directions (bring water to a boil in a pot, add the rice – still in the bag – and let boil for 10 minutes). When the rice is done, drain the water. In a large bowl, mix the turkey and rice, and stir in the ricotta cheese. Add pimientos and Feta cheese if desired.

After the un-stuffed peppers have baked for 30 minutes, remove from oven and let cool before stuffing. Stuff each pepper – be sure to get filling into every nook and cranny! You will more than likely have a bunch of extra filling that can be used to make delicious wraps, sandwiches and pasta.

Top the stuffed peppers with shredded mozzarella cheese. Bake the stuffed peppers for another 15-20 minutes. Let cool before serving…then enjoy!

~Karla