By FAYE LEVYChicken dish 521(photo credit: MCT photo)
During this busy week before the holidays, there are plenty of ways to serve delicious suppers even though many of us can’t spend a lot of time preparing food.Sometimes it’s useful to highlight a certain food – perhaps a special cheese or smoked meat, luscious tomatoes or sweet ripe peppers – by planning a meal around it. The ingredient can star as the main flavoring of a pasta or grain dish, a scrambled egg dish or an omelet, or can serve as a sandwich filling or a topping for a green salad.Paula Hamilton, author of The 5 in 10 Cookbook: 5 Ingredients in 10 Minutes or Less, emphasizes the importance of a carefully stocked pantry for making dozens of delicious, speedy dishes. Some particularly useful ingredients are chicken and beef broth for quick soups, canned salmon for crispy croquettes and pitted olives to puree as a topping for grilled fish.Hamilton discovered that by sticking to this formula, her family started to eat more healthfully and to save money as well. “Although saving time was our goal, we found that we saved a fortune when we stopped bringing in carryout a couple of nights a week and started limiting the number of ingredients we purchased.”To complement quick-cooking meats like thin turkey breasts, it’s a matter of “adding lively flavors, such as roasted red pepper strips and capers, or artichoke hearts and green peppercorns... or Dijon mustard and whole mustard seeds.” Her chicken breasts picante call for sauteed chicken with roasted red peppers from a jar, white wine and capers. For a fish supper, she coats fillets with a sauce of sour cream, Dijon mustard and lemon juice and bakes them with a sprinkling of chives.Even humble sardines become a sauce for pasta, along with chopped tomatoes and zucchini sauteed with garlic.To prepare meals in minutes from fresh ingredients, Paulette Mitchell, author of The 15-minute Gourmet Vegetarian, emphasizes the importance of organization. “Advance planning is the key,” she writes. “Keep a running list of staples tacked inside a kitchen cabinet and replenish your supplies as you run out. Plan several menus for the week and make a list of the fresh ingredients you need... This way, you’ll shop for the fresh foods you need and use them while they’re at their peak....“The more efficient your kitchen, the more capable and relaxed you are likely to feel. Arrange spices in alphabetical order.... Store frequently used items in accessible places so you can find – and grab – them quickly.”Although Mitchell’s recipes call primarily for fresh foods, she uses some good-quality canned, frozen and packaged ingredients to save time or as a substitute for out-of-season produce. She recommends canned beans, frozen peas, canned tomatoes and vegetable stock powder.Here are some of Mitchell’s “15 tips for flawless 15-minute cooking”:• Prepare some ingredients for future meals. If you are chopping onions for a stir-fry tonight, chop extra for tomorrow’s pasta dish. Prepare extra if you are grating cheese or toasting nuts.• Prepare some basics, such as tomato sauce and pesto, in advance.• Get things going – start water boiling, preheat the oven, start chopping foods.To bring water to a boil quickly, cover the pot.• It’s not always necessary to complete one step in a recipe before going on to another; you may be able to chop some ingredients while others are cooking.• Preheat the oil before adding ingredients to saute. The food will cook more evenly and brown more quickly.TO SAVE time, Mitchell plans entrees that can stand on their own as a meal, with the addition of a simple salad. Most include a protein source, such as legumes, nuts, eggs or cheese. She serves spinach pasta with a sauce of herbed ricotta cheese, pine nuts, sauteed onion, garlic, lemon juice and grated lemon zest. Another pasta dish features Chinese tahini sauce seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and garlic chili paste. Her Italian garden frittata, or flat omelet, has sauteed mushrooms, zucchini, sweet peppers, onions and garlic with herbscented beaten eggs and Parmesan.Professional chef Rozanne Gold, author of Radically Simple, has a different approach to simplifying meals: “I regard each radically simple recipe as a three-dimensional creation, with time, technique and the number of ingredients making up the axes on which they are plotted. Some recipes may have lots of ingredients, but they’re assembled and cooked in a jiffy. Some may require careful technique, but the shopping and cooking parts are easy. Others may reward an early effort in preparation with the alchemy of long and patient cooking while you do something else. I strive for a harmony of all three.”Some of Gold’s dishes can be whipped up in less than 15 minutes, and others have few ingredients and require almost no preparation.To make chicken ras el hanout with tomato-ginger chutney, Gold marinates chicken thighs with olive oil and the Moroccan spice blend ras el hanout. After broiling the chicken, she serves it with an uncooked sauce of tomatoes blended with garlic, ginger, fresh hot pepper, cumin and brown sugar.Her simple but colorful dish of white beans with spinach, tomatoes and rosemary has canned beans and briefly wilted fresh spinach with a sauce of shallots sauteed in olive oil, simmered briefly with baby tomatoes, rosemary and chicken broth. Gold recommends the beans as an accompaniment for lamb or roast chicken. Bean dishes like this also make tasty main courses, and you can vary the kinds of beans and the selection of vegetables according to what you have on hand.The writer is the author of 30 Lowfat Meals in 30 Minutes. CHICKEN WITH CUMIN TOMATO SAUCE If you have tomato sauce on hand, this is one of the quickest ways to prepare a flavorful chicken dish. The Middle Eastern tomato sauce, flavored with cumin, sauteed onions and garlic, makes a delicious partner for the sauteed chicken.To give it a Yemenite flavor, substitute Yemenite soup spice blend (hawaij marak) for the cumin. Serve this entree with a green salad and, if time allows, with couscous or rice.700 gr. (11⁄2 lbs.) boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs, patted dry salt and freshly ground pepper 11⁄2 tsp. ground cumin 2 Tbsp. olive oil or vegetable oil 1 small onion, chopped 2 large garlic cloves, chopped 1 cup tomato sauceSprinkle chicken with salt, pepper and total of 1⁄2 tsp. cumin on both sides.Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken and saute until no longer pink inside, about 5 minutes per side; press occasionally with spatula to flatten. Remove with slotted spatula.Add onion to pan and saute about 5 minutes or until softened. Add garlic and remaining 1 tsp.cumin and saute 1⁄2 minute. Stir in tomato sauce and simmer over low heat 2 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning. Return chicken to sauce, cover and heat gently about 3 minutes, turning once.Makes 4 servings CHICKPEA ZUCCHINI CURRY Flavored with sauteed mushrooms and tomatoes, this vegetarian entree is from The 15-Minute Gourmet Vegetarian. Author Paulette Mitchell serves this dish over egg noodles and recommends spaghetti, rice or couscous as alternatives.
2 Tbsp. canola or safflower oil11⁄2 cups sliced mushrooms1 small zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into 6-mm.- (1⁄4-in.)-thick slices1⁄4 cup coarsely chopped onion1⁄2 tsp. minced garlic2 tsp. curry powder400-gr. (5-oz.) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed(11⁄2 cups) 170 gr. (6 oz.) canned tomato paste1 cup water1 large tomato, cut into 1-cm. (about 1⁄2-in.) cubes1⁄4 tsp. pepper, or to taste225 gr. (8 oz.) wide egg noodlesBring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat.Heat the oil in a large nonstick saute pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, zucchini, onion, garlic and curry powder; cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes or until zucchini is tender but not mushy. Add remaining ingredients except noodles; cover and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for about 6 minutes. Adjust seasoning to taste.While sauce is cooking, add noodles to the pot of boiling water. When water returns to a boil, stir occasionally to separate the noodles. Reduce heat to medium-high and cook for about 6 to 8 minutes, or according to package instructions, until noodles are tender. Drain well.Spoon vegetable mixture over individual servings of noodles.Makes 4 servings
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