Cheesecake Factory Style Chicken Marsala

Crust Chicken with Mushrooms and White Wine, Kielbasa and Corn Chowder, Bananas Foster

Recipe for chicken:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/08/jacques-pepin-crusty-chicken-with-mushrooms-white-wine-sauce-recipe.html



Recipe for chowder:
http://www.yumsugar.com/2346430


Recipe for bananas foster:
http://lucyzhang.vox.com/library/post/deceptively-easy-dessert---bananas-foster.html

Alfredo Chicken Florentine

Bombay Chicken and Rice

Recipe from AllRecipes.com

Baked chicken parmesan with spaghetti and clam chowder

Japanese chicken dish with green bean casserole

Angel hair pasta with chicken cream of mushroom sauce

A delicious family-style Chinese meal with friends

Chinese herbal chicken soup with Shittake mushrooms

Chicken breast stir fried with broccoli and bok choy

Yushang eggplant with ground pork

Our Olin cooking club plus two guests!

Gourmet cupcakes from Cupcakery

Japanese chicken curry

One of my favorite Japanese foods, aside from sushi, is Japanese curry over steaming hot white rice. Japanese curry is very different from Indian curry, in that it is not particularly spicy and has a more rounded savory flavor with hints of sweetness. Whereas Indian curry complements vegetables, Japanese curry goes best with meat. In fact, one way that Japanese restaurants often serve this curry is poured over a battered and fried cutlet of meat (pork, chicken, or beef). It is so delicious...

Anyway, it's really easy to make your own Japanese curry at home, because most supermarkets sell these curry roux blocks in their Asian aisle. Popular brands tend to be S&B Curry or Vermont Curry. All you have to do is cook the meat and vegetables for your curry, and then dissolve these curry blocks into boiling water to get a thick and delicious curry that will make the rice fly off your plates. It also makes for lots of leftovers, which is great if you don't have time to cook all the time.

The recipe itself is very flexible, so I'll just describe it generally. First you decide what vegetables and meat goes into the curry. I generally like to do it with chicken thigh meat, as it is very juicy, but chicken breast, pork, and beef all go well with it. In terms of vegetables, I suggest carrots and onions, and optionally potatoes if you would like more bulk in your curry. The box of curry blocks will tell you how much meat and vegetables to use, although you are free to adjust. Chop up all the ingredients into cubes.

Sautee the onions and carrots in a skillet while you boil the potatoes until they are soft. Drain the potatoes, then add the onions and carrots, along with a couple cups of water to the pot with the potatoes, bringing the liquid to a boil. Meanwhile, stir fry the meat in a skillet until 3/4 cooked through. Transfer meat to the pot of vegetables.

When the water comes to a boil and all the vegetables are soft to the bite, break the curry block into cubes and stir into the liquid to dissolve. Add more water as needed to achieve the desired curry consistency, but remember that more liquid means a more dilute curry flavor. This can be ameliorated with more curry blocks, but if you're using up a whole package and have no extras to spare, keep that in mind. When the curry starts to thicken, turn off the heat and ladle on top of rice to serve.

Dani's chicken parmesan with penne

For our inaugural Olin cooking club dinner, Edwin had already decided way in advance that he wanted to try and make a chicken parm recipe that he tried at our classmate Dani's house. It was a pan-fried chicken parm that did not use cheese, paired with penne and a tomato basil sauce, yum. We made a trip to our local Schnuck's supermarket for the necessary ingredients, and then it was time to go to town on our dinner!

I have to admit, for someone who has barely ever cooked a meal before in his life, Edwin really nailed this dish. Having very precise directions in the recipe also helped :P There were a few blunders along the way... namely when I accidentally dropped the penne that I was trying to strain right into the kitchen sink. Whoops! Back into the pot it went for a quick sterilizing boil haha. It took just about an hour to put everything together, and it came out just simply delicious. The aroma of the pan fried breaded chicken was so mouth-watering when we were putting everything together. Many times we contemplated just hoarding the entire pot for ourselves...



Dani's Chicken Parmesan with Penne

Ingredients: (serves 6)
1/2 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic
2 tsp pepper flakes
28 oz. canned diced tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 bunch basil
box of penne pasta (about 12 oz.)
2 eggs
2 cups bread crumbs
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
paprika as needed
1 lb. thin-sliced chicken breast

Directions:
1. Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and saute for a few minutes. Sprinkle in red pepper flakes, saute for another minute. Pour in diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, and add basil. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Meanwhile, bring large pot of slightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta, cook according to directions, and drain.

3. Heat remaining olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. In a bowl, whisk eggs. Place bread crumbs in a second bowl. Stir in garlic powder, salt, and pepper into bread crumbs. Dip each chicken breast into the egg, then coat with bread crumbs. Dip a second time into egg, and coat again with bread crumbs.

4. Gently place breaded chicken into heated skillet. Repeat for each chicken breast, and fry in skillet for 5 minutes per side, or until the coating is a golden brown color.

5. Stir cooked penne into tomato sauce, simmer for a few minutes. Cut up cooked chicken and toss in with pasta. Serve immediately, garnished with paprika.