Buffalo Chicken with Avocado-Goat Cheese-Jicama Relish

This is a recipe that my daughter Lisa pinned on Pinterest, and Kathy had her eye on it for a while before she remembered to suggest that I make it sometime.  Glad she did.  Among other things, it is the very first time that I really liked jicama -- I will like it always from now on.

Lisa found Buffalo Chicken with Avocado-Goat Cheese-Jicama Relish on the Elly Says Opa! blog, and I have added that blog to my favorites. 


I feel better after reading Elly's description of her results - her breading didn't stick very well either. (Next time I will do the flour-egg-coating routine.) I don't feel so bad about mine now.  Anyway, my chicken may have been a little ugly, but it was delicious!

Buffalo Chicken with Avocado-Goat Cheese-Jicama Relish

Servings: 4

Ingredients 4 medium chicken breasts, about 4-5 oz. 2/3 cup buffalo/wing sauce 1 cup breadcrumbs 2 Tbs canola oil 1 large avocado, diced 1 cup peeled and diced jicama (about 1/2 of a jicama) 3 oz goat cheese, crumbled 2 radishes, thinly sliced and halved 2 Tbs chopped parsley or cilantro Juice of 1-2 limes

How to Make 1 Pound the chicken breasts to about 1/3″ thickness.  Place in a dish or bag and toss with the buffalo sauce. (You can do this in advance and just leave in the fridge or do this in the beginning, before starting the rest of your meal). 2 Season the breadcrumbs with salt and pepper. Remove the chicken from the buffalo sauce and dredge in the breadcrumbs. 3 Add 1 Tbsp. canola oil to a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Once hot, place 2 of the chicken breasts in the oil. Cook until chicken is done, flipping once, approximately 3 minutes per side. Remove the chicken, add the remaining oil, and cook the second batch of chicken. 4 Meanwhile, make the relish. Combine the avocado, jicama, goat cheese, radishes, and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper to taste; add lime juice and lightly mix to combine. 5 Serve the relish on top of the buffalo chicken.

Source: Elly says Opa! blog Web Page: http://ellysaysopa.com/2012/02/14/breaded-buffalo-chicken-with-avocado-goat-cheese-jicama-relish/

Tips When I looked at this recipe, I thought it probably needed a bit of cornmeal in the breading. I processed some corn meal in my spice grinder to get something like a coarse corn flour and used that in the coating with the bread crumbs. Really a great addition! I had the same problem that Elly at Elly Says Opa had -- the breading didn't stick very well. Next time an egg wash after flour and before bread crumbs.

Author Notes *If you don’t want to pound your chicken, pan-fry it as usual for about 2 minutes per side and then move to a 375° oven to finish cooking. If your chicken is too thick, the coating will burn before the inside is cooked thoroughly.

This is a picture of Elly from her Elly Says Opa! blog.  She is a cutie, and she has at least a kajillion good recipes.  She is from Chicago, my favorite city in the world -- and that also says something good about her. You ought to try her blog sometime. 

Jambalaya

Pretty good day today - got a few errands done, set up the new rain gauge (ok - I know that's wierd), and, most importantly, got to talk to my wife, my daughter, my son-in-law, and my grandbaby twins.  Skype is a wonderful thing.  Kathy is in Champaign helping Leslie take care of the babies who are getting fat and sassy, but that is no reason that I can't fix a nice meal. Wish they were all here to enjoy it with me, but I'll get to see them all soon.

Tonight's meal was a nice Jambalaya, which was based on a recipe from Emeril Lagasse - his Clean Out the Ice Box and Freezer Jambalaya recipe.  I love it, because it is just an idea - do only what you  want!  Preceded by a Sazerac cocktail, which I have previously posted, and served with a tangy coleslaw (cabbage, lime, cider vinegar, parsley, minced jalapeno, onion, and mayonnaise) and an Abita Amber beer, which I found in the beer fridge.

This really is a recipe that you don't have to follow.  Just make sure that you use liquid in proportion to the amount of rice you use.  Everything else is whatever you want to make it.  Tonight - no shrimp, and added some tomato paste with the rice after the chicken was browned.  Substitute freely - I ran across some Johnsonville Andouille at the store today, which was the inspiration for this meal, but use some nice Kielbasa or some other spicy pork sausage that serves as your inspiration.  I went heavy on the cayenne, which I happen to like but could be left out depending on who is eating with you. (Kathy likes lots of cayenne too, but if my dad was here, there would be none - I would add some Crystal hot sauce or Tobasco when it was served.)  Whatever is leftover in the fridge is fair game.  Beef, pork, any kind of shellfish -- it's all good.

I hope you will try this, and if you do, let me know what you added and how you liked it.

Chicken and Yellow Rice (Arroz Amarillo con Pollo)

You may have figured out from my previous posts that Cuban food is among my favorites, and this Arroz Amarillo con Pollo is near the top of my list. It is a meal that everyone likes - very flavorful, but not spicy, and safe to serve to everyone except your strictest vegetarian friends. Every Cuban restaurant in Tampa makes this dish, but none are any better than this version which is an authentic Spanish recipe used at the famous Las Novedades restaurant in the Cuban Ybor City neighborhood from 1890 until the restaurant closed in the 1970's.

When you make Chicken and Yellow Rice, I would suggest using only the dark pieces of chicken, which will not dry out as easily as chicken breasts, and which will have a lot more flavor.


Also - very important- spring for a good quality saffron. It is expensive, but you don't need much. Do not use any kind of saffron powder, and absolutely do not add turmeric to make the rice more yellow like some recipes call for.  If you use good saffron, it will almost certainly be yellow enough, and it will definitely have a very fine flavor. (Saffron can be pretty choosy, though, about who it turns yellow for.)

Serve this with a red sangria, but choose a recipe that is not so sweet as the Sangria Mexicana I gave you with the recent Shrimp Ceviche post.  A good one to try would be my sister Alice's Sangria that she shared with Kathy and me a few years ago.