For a special celebratory meal, last night I did two dishes. An appetizer of seared sea scallops on a corn and bacon puree which was then followed up with a cherry and goat cheese stuffed chicken breast. If I'm not mistaken, I've already done a seared scallop dish on the blog before, so I won't need to go into too much detail about the process of cooking those up. The stuffed chicken was a fun idea, however mostly made due to the fact that I purchased entirely way too much goat cheese for last weeks dish... Worked out well though. For sides, I tried to keep the plates colorful by having creamed spinach as well as a mashed butternut squash.
Seared Scallop with Corn and Bacon Puree
- Large Sea Scallops
- Olive Oil
- 1 cup frozen Corn
- 1 small Jalapeno Pepper
- 1 strip of thick cut bacon
- Parsley for show
As mentioned above, I won't go over the process of cooking up the scallops, rather I'll focus on the puree, which actually won't take too much time at all. First cut up the bacon into small pieces and fry on medium heat until the fat has melted down. Then add the jalapeno pepper, which would be diced up prior to throwing in the pan. I only use the flesh of the jalapeno, as I'm a heat wuss, but I'm sure if you were to add in the seeds it would give this a nice kick. While this is going on, you sure be cooking up your corn in some boiling water. Drain out the water, and add the bacon/pepper mixure with juices (aka fat drippings) with the corn into a food processor. In this case a blender since we don't yet have a food processor (if my wife is reading... this would be a great fathers day gift... ;D). Blend and add a bit of hot water until the desired consistency is reach. I'm not too sure what a good consistency is, so I probably made it a bit too chunky, but I'm cool with that. I dolloped the puree out onto a plate, and placed the seared scallops across adding a sprig of parsley (and a little straggler parsley as seen in the photo) and served. Big fan of the puree to add a little extra to both the plating and the taste of the dishes.
Cherry and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast
- Chicken Breasts
- Goat Cheese
- Cherries
- Parsley
- Paprika
One of my favorite dishes to make is stuffed chicken breast. You can literally make it like a million ways, switching out what you stuff it with, how you wrap it. it's just such a versatile dish. For tonight's (aka last nights) rendition, I used some Maraschino cherries and goat cheese as the filling of choice. Getting the chicken ready for stuffing for me is always the hardest part. I tend to cut the breast too thin as I roll it out. Basically you want to just cut the breast in half and pound it flat, but I always try to go fancy and do a half cut roll out method, which doesn't really make sense and/or work. So my advice, is to turn the breast sideways, and cut length wise until about a quarter inch and then unfold and pound flat with a meat pounder (probably not the official term). In the breast, I sprinkled some dry chopped parsley. chopped dried cherry pieces, and plenty of goat cheese. When doing a stuffed chicken you can never have enough cheese. I then lighted dusted with some paprika and rolled the chickens and tied using some simple twine. To cook, I seared the chicken in a frying pan to give it a nice color and then popped the pan in the oven until the chicken was cooked through. I always give the chicken a sear in a frying pan first. If you just cook straight in the oven, it comes out looking super white and looks like it's straight up under cooked.
Mashed Butternut Squash
- Butternut Squash
- Butter
- Maple Syrup
- Ground cinnamon
A very simple and quick side dish to make. I cut the squash length wise and placed face down on a piece of parchment paper on a cooking sheet. I popped the tray into the oven and baked at 375 until the squash was tender, usually about 45 minutes or so. Once finished, I scooped out the cooked squash into a bowl and added some butter and maple syrup (I don't have the measurements because I didn't really measure.... just went with my gut.... poor choice if you're wanting to recreate something later). Usually a potato masher, I mashed the squash into a nice consistency and it was ready to serve. As you may note above, the ingredients list cinnamon as well. I was planning to use some cinnamon to sprinkle on top to give a nice look and a little extra flavor, but I forgot about it. Awkward.
Also included in the dish was a nice creamed spinach as well as a cauliflower puree. I won't go into the details of these, as the post is already getting quite long, and I'm sure these will pop up on future blog posts.
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