ABOUT THIS FEATURE
New cookbooks flood the market every week. This feature will help you make sense of what’s new and what’s worth trying out. Email your questions and ideas to connie.post@coxinc.com
Future historians may call this the Decade of the Chicken. Priceonomics reported in 2012 that for the first time in 100 years, chicken had outpaced beef as the No. 1 meat consumed in America.
The trend has continued: Americans consume more chicken than anyone else in the world, and Super Bowl 50 weekend accounted for 1.3 billion chicken wings, the National Chicken Council reported.
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The council also has estimated 900 million rotisserie chickens are sold every year.
Whether roasted garlic, Italian, or lemon and herb — rotisserie chickens are prominently displayed in most grocery stores as well as at Costco, Walmart and other large retailers.
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The editors of Real Simple refer to rotisserie chicken as “the supermarket savior” and include it as one of the core ingredients in their new “Dinner Made Simple” cookbook. They offer 10 different recipes that start with rotisserie chicken. None of the recipes requires more than 25 minutes of hands-on preparation, and a couple, including this, take a mere 10 minutes:
BUTTERMILK CHICKEN AND TOMATO SALAD
¼ cup buttermilk
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
4 plum tomatoes, roughly chopped
Kosher salt and black pepper
2 romaine hearts, torn into bite-size pieces
1 2- to 2 ½-pound rotisserie chicken, cut up
½ tablespoon chopped fresh chives
Whisk together the buttermilk, mayonnaise and lemon juice. Add the tomatoes, ¼ teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Divide the lettuce among the plates and top with the chicken. Spoon the dressing and tomatoes over the salad and sprinkle with the chives.
Our assessment: I set the timer, and indeed, it took 10 minutes to have this dish ready to eat. No cooking is required so it makes a great warm-weather meal. If you're cooking for two people, you have two easy meals.
I also made CHICKEN NICOISE SALAD with some of the leftover meat:
½ pound green beans, trimmed
½ pound new potatoes, halved
4 large eggs
6 cups salad greens
1½ cups shredded rotisserie chicken
½ small red onion, sliced
½ cup cured pitted black olives
3 tablespoons red wine vinaigrette
Steam the green beans until tender, 4 to 5 minutes; rinse under cold water. Repeat with the potatoes, steaming until tender, 10 to 12 minutes.
Hard-cook the eggs; peel and halve. Divide the green among plates and top with the chicken, onion, olives, green beans, potatoes and eggs. Dress with the vinaigrette.
Our assessment: This recipe is a nice change from the first one I tried, but almost as easy and every bit as tasty.
Confession: I couldn’t find any black olives in the fridge or pantry, so I used green olives instead. Also, I cheated on the potatoes and zapped them in the microwave while I was steaming the green beans to cut down on prep time.
From the book: "Dinner Made Simple: 35 Everyday Ingredients, 350 Easy Recipes" by the editors of Real Simple; 352, $24.95. Published by Oxmoor House, 2016.
What you get: Starting with common ingredients, these dinner recipes will get you through the work week. Many recipes take 20 minutes or less to make.
In their own words: "Whether your favorite thing is apples or zucchini, you will find 10 recipes that celebrate the diversity of that thing." — the editors of Real Simple
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