Rosie Makes Another Of Aartie's Recipies.

I've been watching Aartie's Paartie on Food Network and in spite of the reappearing stupid flower in her hair, her annoying giggles, her "cutesy" names for her dishes, the idiotic story arc of her "accountability group" coming over, and the opening graphics, apparently designed by a twelve year old, I do believe she has something to offer. I just hope TPTB at FN don't have her dumb down her apparent talent and Indianize American recipes, like her Sloppy Bombay Joes.

Last Sunday, she made chicken breasts that I wanted to try. She called them "I Ain't Chicken Chicken." What the hell does that mean? Are you chicken? Or not?

Here's my chicken with roasted sliced Yukon gold and sweet potatoes. Basically, Aartie made a compound butter of orange zest, ginger, and cardamom and stuffed it underneath the skin. Sounded good to me, plus I actually have cardamom seeds on hand.

Check out the price on these bosoms - $0.97/pound.

I had whole cardamom seeds, which I shelled, then pounded the innerds.

I took a one-inch cube of frozen ginger, peeled it, nuked it for 20 seconds, then I was able to squeeze a bunch of juice out.

I grated the rest of the ginger and added it to the butter. You could also use a garlic press for the ginger. Frozen ginger is best for grating. If you've already nuked your ginger for the juice, use the garlic press.

Zested one orange and added that.

Added in the rest of the cardamom.

This smells pretty darn good.

Mix well.

Separate the skin from the meat, stuff some of the compound butter inside, and ...

... massage to distribute throughout.

Drizzle with some EVOO. That's Extra Virgin Olive Oil!

And add some salt and pepper. Buy yourself grinders and get sea salt and whole peppercorns. It makes a difference.

I thinly sliced a sweet potato and ...

... a Yukon gold.

I drizzled ELBOO over the potatoes. That's Extra Light Bertolli Olive Oil!

Aartie said to bake the chicken in a 500 degree oven for 30 minutes. That ain't enough. I gave mine 45 minutes. If you want to be exact, a thermometer should read 160 degrees for chicken. After 30 minutes, it was only 138 degrees.

Here's our lunch. The chicken was tender and juicy and I truly liked the flavors of the ginger and orange zest and the cozy warmth of the cardamom. The first thing I ate was a slice of potato. It was infused with the above flavors and was quite lovely. The chicken skin, though quite flavorful from the compound butter, was not crisp. I need to get the skin crisp, then it would kick ass. Next time, I'll cook the potato slices separately. I like my taters crunchy. Some of these were crisp - the ones not soaking up the delicious chicken juices. I like crisp.

This is good but I need to crisp the skin.

Yukon gold potato slices imbued with chicken/orange/ginger/cardamom flavors and crisp sweet potato slices.

I'll remember this dish and, of course, I will try to perfect it. The skin! The skin! I'll remember that I made it on a Thursday afternoon after I'd been with Surfsquatch on the beach and as I waited for Earl to make his nocturnal visit. Good times.