easy weeknight chicken Archives

Skillet-Fried Chicken recipe by Bon Appétit Test Kitchen, Bon Appétit magazine, February 2012.

The Best Thing I Ate This Month
Skillet Fried Chicken, the Bon Appétit recipe that never lets me down

There are fancier things to cook this time of year. Dishes with pedigrees. Garnishes that require tweezers. Sauces that simmer for hours only to reduce into a glossy whisper you can barely taste.

And then there is fried chicken.

Not just any fried chicken, but the skillet fried chicken from Bon Appétit, a recipe I have been cooking for more than a decade. It has been with me so long it no longer reads like instructions on a page. It feels more like muscle memory. Like tying your shoes. Like calling someone you love without thinking twice.

Every year, I make it for my annual Southern Dinner with friends, a loose, comfort heavy spread that leans Southern in spirit but fully Canadian in execution. The table is gloriously crowded, bottles, bowls, and elbows fighting for space like nobody bothered with a seating chart. This chicken is the centrepiece. Not the mac and cheese. Not the dessert. Not whatever sad green vegetable I toss in to look like an adult. The chicken. (more…)

One-Pot Chicken & Saffron Orzo excerpted from Tony Tan’s Asian Cooking Class by Tony Tan. Photography by Mark Roper.

One-Pot Chicken & Saffron Orzo

An Asian cookbook written with fresh eyes by an author whose soul lies in Asia but who has adopted techniques and ingredients from the west that endear his recipes to cooks everywhere.

Structured by food type – from meat, poultry and seafood to vegetables, and dumplings – Tony Tan’s Cooking Class takes readers through the fundamentals of more than 100 beloved dishes, many core to the canon, others dishes that he has made his own. Tan shares insights on the key building blocks, from the art of the wok to understanding the role of oils and fats to noodles 101 and the essential pantry. Beautifully photographed, thoughtfully illustrated and evocatively written, this is the essential book for a new generation on the essential foods and techniques of Asian cuisine from a beloved teacher, cook, writer and respected expert.

Tony Tan’s Asian Cooking Class by Tony Tan is available at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Indigo.ca.

One-Pot Chicken & Saffron Orzo

If it’s not already evident by the number of rice recipes in this cookbook, I cook rice a lot. But when I want a pleasant change, one of my favourite carbs to cook is orzo. It absorbs flavour like a sponge, and when cooked with the right liquid ratio, it can be silky smooth and pleasant to eat. (more…)