Herbed Shrimp and White Beans with Arugula – dinner in 30 minutes

This herbed shrimp and white beans dish with arugula can be on your dinner table in less than 30 minutes and even less if you ask your fish monger to peel the shrimp for you.

The month of October has been extremely busy for us. We’ve taken two driving trips, one to see old friends in Alabama one weekend and another long weekend in Arkansas for my high school class reunion. To use a southern expression, “we’re pooped.” When it gets too cold in the mountains to wear flip-flops and deck shoes and we have to get our socks out, it’s time to go south. Very soon we’ll be heading south for the winter, entailing another long and tiring trip on the road.

This is exactly the kind of meal we like to prepare when we’ve returned home from our travels. Quick, easy, and light. If you have a well stocked pantry and an herb garden, there’s not even much shopping to do. Pick up some arugula, maybe watercress or use all arugula, a few cherry tomatoes and a pound of shrimp at the store and you’re good to go. If they are available, buy wild caught shrimp. They are sooo much tastier and fresher than the farm raised ones.

I’ll be taking a mini break, so if you don’t see me around for a week or two, don’t be concerned. I’ll be busy settling in for the winter down south and shall return soon.

For my friends who are suffering from the effects of Hurricane Sandy, you’ve been in my thoughts and prayers and will continue to be. The eye of Sandy passed over our old homes in the Bahamas last weekend before setting her sights on the northeast. Living in the islands for years, we know what hurricanes and long power outages feel like. It wasn’t easy being without power for thirty seven days after Hurricane Floyd. But we kept busy rebuilding our dock that was totally destroyed. I hope you recover quickly and your life is back to normal very, very soon, and that you can keep your sanity through it all.

Herbed Shrimp and White Beans with Arugula 
Adapted slightly from Cooking Light – serves 4 – a quick & easy recipe

Vinaigrette:
4 teaspoons sherry vinegar
4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
Freshly ground black pepper

2 cups loosely packed arugula
1 cup trimmed watercress (or use all arugula as I did)
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 (15.5-ounce) can Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained well
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon water
24 peeled and deveined medium wild caught shrimp, about 1 pound,
Cooking spray
Kosher salt

Combine vinaigrette ingredients in a small jar with a tight fitting lid and shake well. Place arugula, watercress if using, tomato halves, parsley and beans in a large salad bowl and toss with the vinaigrette.

In a medium bowl combine honey and water and stir with a whisk. Add shrimp to the mixture and toss to coat. Heat a grill pan over medium high heat and coat with cooking spray. Sprinkle shrimp with salt and add to pan. Cook 2 minutes on each side, or until done. Serve with the salad.

Alternately, if you don’t have a grill pan, you can sauté the shrimp in a non-stick pan with a little olive oil, following the cooking directions above.

* * *

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farms, Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday, Foodie Friday at Simple Recipes, Foodtastic Friday at Not Your Ordinary Recipes, Seasonal Sunday at the Tablescaper, and On the Menu Monday at Stone Gable.

Have a great weekend everyone. I’ll be back before you know it. 

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone. Have a good one. And to all of you who are in the path of Sandy, you are in my thoughts and prayers. Hurricane Sandy's eye went directly over our old houses in the Bahamas before heading to the US. Stay safe and please take all necessary precautions.

Cassoulet ~ a lighter, easier version of one of France’s greatest and richest stews from the South of France

Cassoulet, pronounced [ka.su.lɛ], is a hearty, slow-cooked, meat studded stew from the South of France. The name cassoulet comes from the traditional cooking dish, the cassole, a deep, round earthenware pot with slanting sides.

A typical French cassoulet contains the traditional ingredients of duck confit, goose, pork or bacon, sometimes mutton or veal, but always combined with wine and beans. Some might call it the great- granddaddy of Boston baked beans. Toulouse and Carcassonne, villages in southwestern France, are thought to be the capital of cassoulet. In France cassoulet is often found in a glass jar on the shelf in the store. When we were staying in Saint-Remy de Provence, we actually bought a jarred cassoulet from our favorite boucherie and found it to be of excellent quality.

This is a lighter version and uses chicken as the base of the meats. I don’t know about you, but duck confit isn’t easily found where we live nor does it come cheap if it can be found. I’ve used traditional white beans, or haricots blancs as they’re called in France. Feel free to substitute your favorite bean as I did in this cassoulet using black-eyed peas (recipe here). Interestingly enough, the black-eyed peas brought a certain smokiness to the dish and a nice change from tradition.

A word of caution about cooking the bacon. You don’t want crispy bacon in this. Its texture would be all wrong and it would get lost in the stew. Cook your bacon, but don’t let it get crispy or too browned.

If you’re looking for a dish that can be made in advance, cassoulet is perfect. Stick it in the refrigerator after it’s cooled, then reheat it later and you’re good to go. This is also the perfect time to use those left-over chicken breasts that you’ve cooked in advance for salads and sandwiches. As you know, almost every week I cook chicken for that purpose.

The butter crusted brown topping provides a crunchy texture to the creamy rich, garlicky beans. Be sure that the bread you use is dry, otherwise the topping will become mushy. Served with a green salad dressed with a tangy vinaigrette, cassoulet makes a nice comforting dinner in front of the fire.

Cassoulet – the light version 
Adapted from Eating Well with Bert Wolf - serves 4 to 6.

1 lb dried white beans, Great Northern or navy beans
3 bay leaves
A couple of large sprigs of fresh rosemary
5 or 6 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 large chicken breasts, with bones & skin
4 oz thick bacon, cut in 1-inch pieces, cooked but not crisp
1 tablespoon fat reserved from the bacon
8 oz little link sausages, cooked & cut into 1” pieces, or ¼ pound dried sausage, cut into ¼” slices
1 tablespoon chopped fresh garlic
2 cups canned whole tomatoes, chopped with juices
2 cups low sodium, low fat chicken broth
1 cup or more dried fresh bread crumbs
2 tablespoons softened unsalted butter

Soak beans overnight in a large stockpot filled with water. Drain the beans and put into a pot with fresh water to cover by four inches. Tie the three herbs together with a string and add them to the pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, lower heat and simmer until tender, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. After one hour, add salt and taste for doneness. When done, drain beans, discard herbs and add freshly ground black pepper to taste and more salt if necessary. Put into an attractive oven-proof casserole you can use for serving as well as cooking.

Preheat oven to 350. Rub chicken with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake about 35-45 minutes or until internal temperature is 160 degrees. Remove from oven, discard skin and bones and cut into one inch pieces. Add to beans along with cooked bacon and cut up sausages.

Sauté the garlic in a skillet in about 1 tablespoon reserved bacon fat. Add the tomatoes and their juices and simmer 5 minutes. Add chicken broth and cook over medium high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour over the bean mixture and blend well. Mix bread crumbs with softened butter and spread over beans to make a crust.

Place beans in a 325 degree oven and bake, covered, for 45 – 60 minutes. If beans get dry, carefully add more broth while not disturbing crumb crust. Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes or until crumb topping is browned.

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farms, Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday, Foodie Friday at Simple Recipes, Foodtastic Friday at Not Your Ordinary Recipes, Seasonal Sunday at the Tablescaper, Carol's Chatter Food on Friday, and On the Menu Monday at Stone Gable.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Monday Musings ~ a Scary Crow

This scary crow is welcoming leaf lookers and wishing them and you a Happy Halloween in downtown Blue Ridge, Georgia. 

Have a great week everyone.

Chicken Dijon ~ Poulet à la Moutarde

Poulet à la Moutarde, better known in this country as Chicken Dijon, has been a menu staple in our home for as long as I’ve been cooking. It’s a simple bistro style dish staring sharp, tangy Dijon mustard.

There is always a bottle of Dijon mustard in our refrigerator. It’s one of the things I never let myself run out of, just as in the case of mayonnaise, anchovies, capers, and other “can’t live without” condiments.

Our favorite brand of Dijon mustard is Maille, the one with the black label and lid. They have been making Dijon mustard for 260 years. Maille mustard is so famous in France that they have two boutiques if you can believe it – one in Paris and one in the city of Dijon. Maille also make flavored mustards, but our favorite is the traditional Originale. You would not want to use one of the flavored mustards in this dish. But the supermarket brand Grey Poupon, or “poo-poo” mustard as Meakin called it when he was a boy, will more than suffice if you can’t get your hands on the Maille brand.

This is an easy French dish which requires little in the way of skills compared to some of the older recipes for Chicken Dijon. I can remember having to temper the two eggs that went into the dish. As a young cook, my egg tempering skills weren’t all that great. That recipe came from The Art of French Cooking by Fernande Garvin, a long out of print little paperback originally published in 1958. Sometimes used copies can be picked up for a song at Amazon. My 1965 edition is stained and the yellowed pages are falling apart from use, but I wouldn’t part with it for anything. There are too many good memories in that book.

James Beard always served roasted chicken on a bed of watercress as I’ve done with this chicken and there’s a reason why he did that. Roasted chicken is rich and the crispy tang of watercress is the perfect foil for that richness. The sauce acts like a dressing if you will with the watercress and smoothes the dish. Oven roasted crispy potatoes would make a delicious side to the watercress. I added the red tomatoes for color.

I present to you the very easy French dish ~ Poulet à la Moutarde

Chicken Dijon ~ Poulet à la Moutarde
From Bon Appétit – serves 4

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, about 1 1/2 pounds
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 small leeks, white and pale-green parts only, rinsed & thinly sliced, ½ cup
½ cup minced onion, approximately 1 small onion
4 small garlic cloves, minced
2 cups low-salt, low fat chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup good Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme, plus thyme leaves for garnish
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Watercress for serving

Season chicken breasts with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Heat oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Place chicken in skillet and cook until brown on both sides, 12-15 minutes total. Transfer to a plate, tent with foil to keep warm, and set aside.

Place leeks and onion in same skillet and sauté until tender, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and sauté until tender, about 2 minutes. Stir in broth, wine, Dijon mustard, and minced thyme and bring to a simmer. Return chicken to skillet. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat until chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes.

Transfer chicken to plates and tent with foil to keep chicken warm. Bring liquid in skillet to a boil; cook until sauce is thickened and glossy, about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter. Taste and season if necessary with more salt and pepper. Place watercress alongside the chicken, spoon sauce over the chicken, and garnish with fresh thyme leaves.

Printable recipe 

The table is set and ready. Bon Appétit!

Have a great weekend.