Chicken, Risotto, and the Wonder of Onions

I had a lovely dinner last night with some friends, and I experimented with cooking meat (recently switched from vegetarianism to occasional omnivorism). I made a vegetable-Porchini risotto, and chicken and green beans with a light white-wine dill sauce. My love of risottos is too expansive to be held in this post, and will be saved for another day. The chicken was easy and delicious, so I thought I'd share (serves 3-4):

Chicken and Green Beans with White Wine and Dill

• 2 T. butter
• 1 T. olive oil
• 1 lb. chicken breast, cubed (other forms of chicken would work t00)
• 1/2 - 3/4 lb green beens, trimmed and halved
• 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1.5 cups dry white wine (or 1 cup and 1/2 a lemon added at the end)
• fresh dill or other herbs, salt or soy sauce and pepper to taste.
• 1 T. flour

Brown the chicken on medium or medium high heat in a wok or large saute pan. When lightly browned, add the green beans and garlic. Cook for ~4 more minutes, until the vegetables are a bit browned but still crisp. Add the white wine and let steam off for a few more minutes. Add the flour to the liquid in the pan, making sure to stir this in quickly. Add the herbs and other seasoning to taste. Simmer for one more minute then serve with rice or pasta.

I've had some other cooking stuff on my mind too, so I present:

Entropic Cooking Primer #1

I made pasta with browned onions and tomatoes two nights ago. At first I wasn't going to write about it, because it seemed to be just too simple, but it was just delicious. I decided the dish illustrated a parallel between science and cooking.

Entropic cooking principles:

• If there are multiple ways to do the same thing, the simplest is often best.
• If you are going to test a phenomenon, its best to only change only one thing at a time.

So lets talk about a simple way to make pasta that can be varied easily and simply. Browned onions... Really..... Thats all.

Take 2-3 medium onions with a tablespoon or two of olive oil and fry them on high heat (maybe medium high if you have a serious gas burner). They should really be sizzling, but not so much that oil is splattering around. Only stir every few minutes, the key is to let them get nice and browned. This is important, because they will end up with a delicious, slightly smoky caramel flavor if you do it right. Any pan works, cast iron or aluminum will require more stirring, but are easier to get the onions to brown, non-stick you need to let the onions sit longer to get a bit of a crust. This process takes about 10 minutes, but the time isn't so important.

Bam! You can has pasta. Try these variations:

• Parmesan Cheese and fresh ground pepper. Adding a bitter green vegitable at the end of cooking the onions can be particularly delicious, such as broccoli rabe or arugula.
• Red peppers. Cook these with the onions, added a minute or two later. Add 1/2 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar to the pan and let it cook off. This is good with browned chicken too.
• As a pizza topping. Up the balsamic content of the last suggestion, and cook 5-10 minutes longer, adding a little water if necessary. Good in crepes or sandwiches too, particularly with goat cheese.
• A first step to soup/stew. For example, the lentil soup from my last posting.

I think I use browned onions in about 50% of everything I cook. You can puree them and put them in a sauce (barbecue, or some spicy asian style sauce). Its important to note the lack of garlic here. I love garlic, but its hard to perfectly cook both at the same time, as garlic really likes lower heat and a bit more oil, which isn't ideal for the onions. Its also nice to sometimes highlight one flavor in a reciepe, as garlic and onions each have such a lovely character. Bon appetit!