Chicken

Chicken Parmesan is one of my favorite Italian dishes and my mom makes the best ever. It’s the perfect combination of crunchy chicken and cheesiness, and because it’s made in the oven, there’s no oil mess on the stove. You may want to make extra because it’s so good left over.

This is another dish that you can easily adjust to suit your tastes. You can use any vegetables you like. When your budget is squeaking tight, make it with just peas and carrots. But when you have a little more wiggle room, try it with red peppers, zucchini, and sugar snap peas.

This is an easy way to make tasty fried chicken without any of the mess. I like chicken legs, so whenever they are on sale I buy one of those huge packages with about twelve in it and make them all. It is never a problem to get rid of leftover fried chicken.

This recipe may look complicated because it has a lot of ingredients, but it’s not. You can prepare the whole dish in the time it takes to cook the rice. I use water chestnuts and pea pods in the recipe, but this is one of those dishes where just about any vegetables you happen to have in the refrigerator will work fine.

This is a delicious low-fat version of a standard curry dish. You might think that low-fat means you won’t be full, but with all the potatoes and chicken in this easy-to-prepare meal, even big eaters will be satisfied. Curry can be a refreshing change especially if you’ve gotten stuck in a culinary rut.

This is a healthier and simpler version of one of my favorite recipes, chicken piccata. Usually I eat this dish with rice pilaf, but when I’ve overindulged, I save calories by skipping the breading and serving it on spinach. Even though I’ve never been a big spinach fan, it’s yummy when you mix it with the lemon sauce.

Although this recipe isn’t hard, it does involve a fair amount of chopping. To me it’s worth it because I love lettuce wraps, but the ones in restaurants are too high in calories. Using vegetables in place of some of the chicken dramatically cuts the calories in this dish, but it doesn’t change the flavor. Fair warning though; if you’ve never used chili paste before, it’s hot. You may want to start with half the amount and taste the sauce before adding more.

This is a basic low-fat stir-fry recipe that can be adjusted almost any way you want. I often add pea pods, bean sprouts, celery, or whatever vegetables I happen to have on hand. One word of warning though; if you are making this for fewer than 4 people, cut the recipe down accordingly, as it doesn’t reheat well. (And that’s being kind.)

Oh, Barbecue Chicken Pita Pizza, how I love thee! Okay, that might sound kind of weird, but try it and you’ll know what I mean. These silly little pizzas are the easiest things in the world to make and most excellent to eat. In my opinion, that’s the perfect combination. I like making them this way, but you could use almost any toppings you want.

I adore tortilla soup, but a lot of restaurants make it too spicy for me. I’d rather make it at home where I can control the heat by using milder salsa. This is an easy version that can be made from start to finish in less than 30 minutes.

Real chicken Tetrazzini combines pasta and chicken in a sauce made with sherry and Parmesan cheese. It should come as no surprise that I have opted for an easier version that uses canned soup and can be made very quickly. Even though it serves four, I sometimes make it just for myself because it’s super tasty and makes great leftovers.

This is a perfect dish in my book. It’s super simple to put together, it makes a lot, and it tastes terrific even when it’s reheated. When my mom makes this, she cuts up a whole chicken. But I’m only willing to go so far to save money and cutting up whole chickens is beyond that point. I buy whatever parts of the chicken are on sale and already cut up.

When I was an exchange student, my German host mom made “hooner schnitzel” every day for my host dad’s lunch, but my favorite part was always the brat kartoff (fried potatoes), and the crispier, the better. This is truly a German dish that is served in almost every restaurant. You can also make Wiener schnitzel (veal) and schnitzel vom schwe (pork) the same way.

Chicken and dumplings is a great cold-weather dish. When we lived in the Midwest, we would always have this after a day of sledding or building snow forts, but when we moved to Arizona this tradition became a problem. Now when I want chicken and dumplings, I turn down the air conditioning, close the blinds, and pretend it’s snowing outside (if I don’t close the blinds, the palm trees kind of ruin the effect).

The beauty of cooking is that you can make things exactly the way you like them. For example, chicken piccata is usually made with capers, but since I don’t like capers, I just use parsley instead. It also means that I can make a double batch of rice pilaf so there are plenty of leftovers. This is not exactly a quick dinner to prepare, but it is so good that I don’t mind taking the time to make it.

I love Caesar salad but, of course, my sister has to ruin it by adding chicken to cover up the taste of the lettuce. I mean really, how can you not like lettuce? This dressing is also really good on pasta salad, and at least Jill doesn’t feel the need to add meat to that.

Cheese, or no cheese, that is the question. I like cheese melted on top of the croutons on onion soup, but I also like the crunchiness you get when you add the croutons just a few at a time. So depending on my mood, I will either melt a couple of slices of provolone or Swiss cheese over the croutons, or not. But for the best of both worlds, I sometimes melt the cheese over the top and then push it into the soup and add more croutons as I go.

This is my standard, multipurpose Asian chicken stock. Good-quality chickens are a premium ingredient, so make the most of your investment. Save and freeze chicken parts as you prepare other dishes. Every once in a while, especially when the freezer gets full, brew some stock. It freezes beautifully. And in a pinch, make the shortcut version from canned broth (see the Variation, below).

Banana leaf packets of coconut sticky rice are prepared in many parts of Southeast Asia. These spectacular ones from Indonesia are filled with intensely flavored chicken. Among my favorites, they are a fine example of Indonesian cooks’ ability to create foods that are lusty, earthy, and chock-full of complexity. Lemper ayam are a popular snack and can be simply steamed or grilled; during cooking the banana leaf imparts a deep tealike flavor to the rice. For the best, most robust flavor, grind the spices from seed and use the galangal and kaffir (makrut) lime leaf; these latter ingredients are available at Southeast Asian markets and specialty-food stores, as are the candlenuts and banana leaf. Traditional Indonesian cooks use toothpicks to close up the ends of the banana leaf, whereas many modern cooks staple them shut. Serve the packets alone or as an interesting side dish.

Opening up a steamed lotus leaf packet and inhaling its alluring musty fragrance is part of many Cantonese dim sum rituals. Inside, the sticky rice is stained a rich brown from the leaf, and once you start digging toward the center with chopsticks, there is a treasure trove of succulent ingredients. Figuring out what comprises the filling is most fun. Chicken is often included, as jī (fowl) is part of these packets’ name in Mandarin; they are called lo mai gai in Cantonese. Chicken is commonly combined with shiitake mushrooms and Chinese sweet sausage, as is done here. But cooks can add a myriad of other boldly flavored or rich ingredients, such as roasted char siu pork (page 224), roast duck, dried shrimp, salted egg yolk, and chestnuts. Lotus leaf packets can be made large enough for several people to share, but I prefer to present a small one to each guest. I freeze extras as a homemade convenience food to be later revived and packed into a lunch box or enjoyed on the road. At Chinese and Southeast Asian markets, you will find the sticky rice and dried sweet sausages. Packages of fanlike dried lotus leaves are usually near the dried mushrooms; they are inexpensive and last indefinitely if stored in a dry spot. If you are making lotus packets for the first time, soak a couple of extra leaves in case you tear them.