recipe: Fran's Chicken

I like to cook, I like to eat, I like to share, I like to travel, and I like to feed people. When I go visiting I tend to cook my hosts dinner as a guest-gift (a gift given to thank one's host for her generosity, time, and trouble). “Tend to” as I do have a few friends who view such a practice as slightly less insulting than certain Italian hand gestures, because guests should not lift a finger, or their kitchens are sacred, or, more usually, a combination of both. (Gifts of chocolate, peanut brittle, books, and wine are then more appropriate.) When in doubt, bring the recipe and offer to do the shopping.

I tend to make this as a guest-gift more than any other single dish. We've eaten it on Christmas day and we've eaten it on Tuesday. I've grown up with this, though we don't make it as often any more. I'm not sure why.

This is a recipe from before I was born. Through a series of recipe exchanges my grandmother got it from someone at bridge, who got it from someone at church, who got it from someone else, who got it from Fran. I used to think it was my other (paternal) grandmother's recipe because her name is Fran, and with the kind of trusting assumptions that children are made of I never made the connection that my maternal grandmother made it all the time, and that my maternal and paternal grandmothers do not... precisely... associate. At all.

There are two versions of Fran's Chicken here, the first taken verbatim off the recipe card, and the second how I usually make it these days, complete with my “usual flair.” I hope you enjoy it, and that you make it in the spirit of hospitality.

Fran's Chicken

card version (verbatim, so don't come whining to me about “some” or “what size package?”)
(note: the recipe card says “Mexican chicken.” This recipe is very 1960s Southern-California housewife and as such is about as Mexican as Taco Bell.)

1 pkg corn tortillas (sliced into strips)
1 can whole green chiles (strips)
1 lb cheddar cheese grated
1 whole chicken, cooked, torn into pieces
1 can cream of chicken soup
6oz can salsa
1 chopped med onion

Mix soup, salsa, onion, & milk if too thick.
Pour a little sauce into a 9x13 pan, layer w/ tortillas, chicken, chiles, salsa, cheese. Repeat. Cook 30 to 40 minutes at 350ºF.

Stephanie's version
(evolved from the card above, then reverse-engineered from pouring freehand into a reasonably-followable recipe)

• 10-15 taco size corn tortillas which, if you're at my house, are likely to be frozen hard enough to be used as garden pavers
• 2 2.5oz cans diced roasted green chiles, or ½ cup fresh roasted mild chiles, skinned and diced, or whatever combination of same gives you chiles. Or use 1 can of chiles. Or omit the chiles completely if you're one of those people.
• Sufficient shredded cheese for your personal tastes, yes, I know this is leaving it really open. I tend to use ½ to ¾ of a pound, if it's block cheese and I'm grating it, or purchase a package of pre-shredded cheese and use the mysterious “enough.”
• Your favorite salsa, enough to get 1 to 1 ½ cups out of plus more for topping at the table
• 1 med to med-large onion, chopped
• Either one whole chicken cooked, dismembered, and torn into little pieces (tastes best); or 2 to 4 cooked chicken breasts, chopped or torn; or whatever assemblage of chicken parts or mild-flavored, preferably-bird-based meat comes out to the right amount. If you use tofu you are not allowed to call it “Fran's Chicken,” or even “Fran's Tofu.” Being a 1950s housewife I rather expect Fran would be deeply suspicious of tofu.
• 1 ½ cups cream of chicken soup, or one can if you are using canned, or chicken broth if you've neglected to plan.
• ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ¾ teaspoon salt (only if you are NOT using canned soup)
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• ½ teaspoon paprika
• Sour cream for topping at the table
• Sliced olives for topping at the table
• chopped green onion for garnish, if so desired
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes if so desired

1. Finish dismembering the chicken, if necessary, while the tortillas are thawing in the microwave. Slice the tortillas into strips. Finish any other necessary slicing, as a matter of fact. We'll wait.
2. Make the cream of chicken soup, if that's what you've got to do.
3. Mix the onion, cream of chicken soup, 1 or 1 ½ cup (depending on your tastes) salsa, and spices together. Taste and adjust seasonings if you feel competent to do so.
4. Decide on how many layers you're going for. You can manage two layers if you're generous, three if you're scanty with the toppings, and four if you're my grandmother. Three makes a “sturdier” casserole than two. Portion the various ingredients for layering (chicken, chiles, cheese, sauce, and tomatoes if you're using them) out into “layer groupings” now if you think it'll help. You'll need one portion of sauce per layer, plus one. Me, I always fail to plan. It comes out even in the oven anyway. Oven!
5. (optional) Remember that you need to preheat the oven. Turn it to 350ºF
6. Pour some (SEE, YOU CAN'T GET AWAY FROM “SOME”... oh, all right, all right FINE. 1/2 cup.) of the sauce in the bottom of your pan. Typical pan is 9x13 (inches, though I'd really like to see 9x13 meters if you can manage), your mileage may vary. When in doubt, go larger, or split it between two smaller pans.
7. Layer tortilla strips over the sauce in as CDO (or lack thereof) a fashion as you see fit. Any particularly spectacular examples of tortilla mosaic are totally “pics or it didn't happen.”
8. Layer up your remaining ingredients as follows, until you run out: chicken, chiles (and/or maybe tomatoes), sauce, cheese, tortillas.
9. Pour in the last of your sauce, if you've any left, and top the entire affair with cheese.
10. Place it in the oven. If you've neglected the optional step 5, remembering to preheat the oven, turn your ovens to 350ºF now, and set the timer for 40 minutes, 30-35 minutes if you've preheated, and whatever time you deem best if you've been with your oven for years now and know each others' peculiarities. Don't be alarmed if it boils over, because if you were quite generous with your layering, it probably will. If you are me, you will always forget this until after you open the oven.
11. Remove the casserole from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving. Serve with olives, and sour cream, if desired, and green onions or tomatoes if you're using them and didn't want to bake them in. If you're fancy, accompany with salad and/or a vegetable. Eat with friends.

Recipe: Basic Chicken for the Hopelessly Inexperienced

Quick and dirty basic chicken, free of abject horror.

If you like your meat dry, like I do, follow the recipe as set. If you like your meat moist, put a lid on the pan to conserve the steam and poke it frequently to avoid overcooking (this will also help keep you from getting bored). Strips, like chicken fingers/chicken nuggets strips, will cook through very quickly. I wasn't lying to my roommate when I told her that it'd cook faster in a pan on the stove. If you use two forks (or a fork and knife) and pull the meat apart, and it is white (or light brown, for dark meat) instead of pink, it's done.

A splash of olive oil
OR (for those who can't cope with “splash”)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
boneless raw chicken, as much as you're planning on eating, and the type you prefer (or happen to have. For bone-in chicken, either slice it off the bones or consider cooking in the oven.)
a frying pan or suitable substitute
forks (or fork and knife, or, if you are fancy, a spatula)
a loaded salt shaker

This is a fine recipe to pre-cook chicken for anything, including quesadillas, sandwiches, chicken salad, or Fran's Chicken. You can also just eat it. Or do both, and just eat some of it and save the rest leftover for sandwiches or chicken salad or quesadillas. Perhaps with a side of french fries or rice, if you're feeling fancy, and some microwaved canned or frozen vegetables. Look! Dinner! And you didn't make the ghosts of chicken cry to do it.

1.Take the chicken out of the package and wash it. If you prefer strips or pieces otherwise smaller than what it currently exists as, cut it up. After dealing with your chicken WASH THE CUTTING BOARD before you use it for anything else. Chicken has cooties.
2.Put the oil into the pan, and put the pan on the stove. Turn the appropriate burner (y'know, the one your pan is on) to medium-high heat. If the stove dial were to be a clock and OFF is 12, this is about four, four-thirty.
3.Wait a minute or two for the pan and oil to heat up. Don't you dare go to the internet, you'll set the cabinets on fire, or at the very least, set off the smoke alarm. Forgetting about oil is VERY BAD.
4.In fact, if you're planning on eating anything besides chicken tonight, now is a great time to prepare that while you wait for the oil to heat. Open cans, open bags, pour into microwave-safe containers, set for the appropriate time. I'd tell you how to microwave frozen veggies without burning them, but, see, the manufacturer already did. It's on the package. No, really! It even works! I promise.
5.Test to see if your oil is hot. I do this by washing my hands, shaking the excess water off of them, then flicking my fingernails at the pan from about two or three feet away. If it sizzles, you're good. It's important to shake the excess water off FIRST. The why is below, after the rest of the recipe.
6.Put the chicken in the pan, carefully, so you don't burn yourself with splashing oil. Shake some salt on it, turn it over, shake some salt on the other side, and turn the heat down to medium low. If you're on the clock-face analogy, this is somewhere between eight-forty-five and nine-fifteen. It depends on your stove.
7.Cover, if you want moist chicken. Otherwise just turn the chicken over from time to time, whenever you happen to get bored. After about five to ten minutes (or when your microwaved veggies are done), check it to see if it's cooked enough. If it looks like you'd eat it, it's done.
8.Transfer the chicken to your plate (or plates) and turn off the stove. Dish up some veggies if that's how you roll, plop your bad self down on the couch, and eat your dinner. Or proceed to cook something more complicated, if this chicken is but one component in something greater. Enjoy.

Now, the reason why we do not shake large drops of water into hot oil was demonstrated, on a larger, more impressive scale, on Mythbusters. Here are a few of the underlying principles that add up to the point:

• Oil does not turn into vapor when hot, and water does. (Google something called the “smoke point” if you'd like to know what oil will eventually do instead of turning into vapor. Hint: this is also why I told you not to go online and forget about it. (Short answer: it turns into FIRE.))
• Water sinks, oil floats.
• A tablespoon-plus of oil will completely cover a couple of fat drops of water,
• Which, being small and finding themselves in hot oil, will almost immediately convert from liquid to vapor
• Which, yanno, expands
• Violently.
• And, instead of a welcoming little sizzle, sprays you with hot oil

...which would be the point.

Recipe: cream of mushroom soup

A lot of the recipes of my childhood use canned cream of __________ soup. Now that I don't eat wheat, my father doesn't eat MSG (not that any of us should), and multiple members of my family don't eat soy, now we make cream of ___________ soup.

It's much easier than I always thought it was. The key, at least for cream of mushroom soup, is to use dried mushrooms. Fresh won't give you a strong enough mushroom-broth.

And, for the curious, here is the recipe in terms of "some":

Fill the pan with water, add some bay leaves, cover, and bring to a boil. Once boiling add some dry mushrooms and reduce to a simmer. Add some fresh mushrooms a while later. Forget about it for about five minutes after the time goes off. Mix some cornstarch and some water. Remove the mushrooms from the broth, add the cornstarch and water, and return to a boil. Slice the mushrooms, remove the boiling broth from heat, and add some milk. Put the mushrooms back in, add some salt, and use, serve, or store.

Now here it is in terms I reasonably expect someone else to be able to follow:

5 cups water, plus a bit at a later point
2 packages mixed dried mushrooms, plus fresh if desired (or if there's any leftover floating around your refrigerator)
4 bay leaves
2 cups milk or cream
2 tablespoons cornstarch
salt to taste

1. In a medium-size saucepan, bring the water and bay leaves to a boil.

2. Once boiling, turn the heat down to low, add the dried mushrooms and follow the directions on the packages (usually this is to simmer or soak for 20 minutes, covered). If you are using fresh or leftover mushrooms, slice them and add them for the last 5-10 minutes of soaking/simmering.

3. When the mushrooms are done, remove them and the bay leaves from the broth and drain. Set aside.

4. Mix the cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of water and stir well. Pour (drizzle, not dump) it into the mushroom broth while stirring, and return to a boil uncovered.

5. While waiting for the liquid to boil, discard the bay leaves and slice the mushrooms into small, spoon-size pieces.

6. Once the broth is boiling remove from heat, let the foam (if any) die down, and add the milk or cream slowly while stirring. Add the sliced mushrooms and salt to taste.

Cool slightly, and serve or use in cooking, or cool completely and store for use later.

A preface to recipes

To understand my recipes you don't need very much. To appropriately appreciate them (and, perhaps, to find them entertaining) you need to understand a bit about where they're coming from, and, in the process, understand me—or at least, understand how I cook.

I'm extremely intelligent and very right-brained. What this means is that I'm highly creative, think in sensations (images, impressions, scents, sounds, and emotions), and am more concerned with “now” than with either the past or the present. I think and reason abstractly instead of concretely and in parallel instead of linearly. Yes, this does make it more difficult to make a coherent and effective narrative, since my first instinct is to tell the reader absolutely everything at once. Yes, it also looks a hell of a lot like ADD without actually being ADD.

But what it also does is lend itself marvelously well towards art and cooking. I am an artist, raised by an artist, and am naturally inclined to be an artist. This is much less a thing of production of art (which requires discipline and planning and focus and more discipline) as it is of the artistic process. When I say “I am an artist” I mean I apply the artistic process to pretty much everything.

This looks an awful lot like being a nut. It is an awful lot like being a nut, or perhaps a flake, or just living inside a bowl of granola.

Which brings us back to cooking.

I cook by the senses. How things look, how they feel, how they smell, how they taste. I time the adding of ingredients by these things and, because we're being honest, by making a lot of mistakes and, from time to time, remembering not to repeat them. (For example, eventually I learned not to cook zuchinni and meat at the same time. You may, if you wish, but be prepared for your vegetable to turn into a gelatinous slurry and for nobody with any self-respect to eat it.)

I have been cooking for a very long time. Since before I could reach the counter, in fact, and given how tall I am that was a long time ago. Some things become part of muscle memory after a while. Like cutting off the tip of one's finger because the TV was on, again.

I am horrifically guilty of using that ancient and traditional mystery of ingredient measure, the legendary “some.” I use it in everything. Lucky for you all I'm connected enough to reality not to expect you to be able to follow the “some,” and so, despite rarely using measurements in the things I make most often, I've made the effort for you all. I hope you appreciate it, because I am here to tell you that translating “some” into cups and teaspoons and pounds is a pain in the ass even to the person doing the cooking.

Recipes are like language—they change over time, and change on the situation. Who's eating, the tastes of the cook and the diners, availability of ingredients, amount of time to spend cooking, the current societal fashion. If you think home cooking doesn't follow fashion you have never seen a recipe book from the seventies. (If you'd like to be horrified and fascinated all at once, go for it. Anything between 1950 and 1980 is fair game. Anything older and you'll either be already familiar with such things, if you hunt or fish, or be too confused by cooking processes no longer in use to be properly appalled at what they found suitable for cooking.)

Finally, I am in love with leftovers. I like instant gratification, love appropriate shortcuts, and have better things to spend my money on. Use leftovers whenever appropriate, and hunting for where on earth you put the mayonnaise is an excellent excuse to throw away everything fuzzy, slimy, forgotten, unidentifiable, or capable of self-government. Cleaning out the refrigerator is less onerous when done often.

Ingredients I would rather not do without (in no particular order)
bay leaves
salt
black pepper
red pepper (ground)
turmeric (ground)
cumin (ground)
Little Green Flakes (basil, oregano, parsley, marjoram, herbes de Provence, and/or Italian seasoning mix)
cinnamon
vanilla
nutmeg (ground, but it's simple to grate it)
eggs
onion
garlic
olive oil
sesame oil
vinegar (rice, balsamic, and apple cider)
rice

Things I would rather not do without (in no particular order)
A cutting board
A good large knife
A good small knife
food processor (with cheese grater attachment)
frying pan
stock pot
soup pan
roasting pan (it's like a cookie sheet with a lip)
good large spoon
spatula

Things that are really nice (again in no particular order)
beer
wine
oven bags
someone else to do the dishes