At the end of August, we took a 5-day trip to Kingdom Trails. We rented a room at the Inn at Mountain View Farm that we’ve stayed in before, which we knew had a full kitchen. Because we’d spent the previous week in Maine, eating out, and had a week of riding in front of us, I wanted to make sure our nutrition was spot-on and that we ate well every night. It was a challenge – although I had a four burner stove and plenty of prep space at my disposal, I knew that the cookery available to me wasn’t what I’d choose. In order to minimize how much we had to pack in the car – we also had the kids’ bikes to load in, and two Rottweilers taking up the best space in the back of our bigger vehicle – I decided to bring only knives and three trusty iron skillets – one small (12″), one large (16″), and our grill pan. It wasn’t like cooking at home, but we still managed some lovely meals! Here are two of them:
Chicken Under a Brick and warm Corn Salad with Local Shishito Peppers and Tomatoes
Two locally grown chicken breasts seared under a “brick.”
Chicken under a brick is probably one of my favorite meals. Simple and pleasing, it lends itself to endless variations in seasoning, and is great as a main dish or salad topping. This time, we went super-simple and seasoned only with salt & pepper, throwing a few smashed garlic cloves into the pan for some extra flavor. I set the pan over med-high heat and constantly adjusted it because the stove I was working with was wonky; put in the breasts skin-side down; and set the other two skillets on top, covered in tin foil, to act as my “bricks.” After around 10 mins, when the skin was crispy and fat was rendered, I took the pans off and flipped the meat, cooking it over low for another 10-ish minutes.
It’s really important when choosing your meat to get SKIN-ON breasts. This way, as the fat renders, the skin crisps and gives a nice pop of crunch to your chicken breast. Skinless chicken gets a dry, flavorless, chewy texture when cooked this way.
Colorful and satisfying, this salad was a good way to use up leftover August corn!
After I took the “brick” pans off, I set the small one over high heat with a splash of olive oil and seared a pint each of shishito peppers and tomatoes. Once they’d swelled and popped with the heat, I added the corn cut from two leftover ears and heated it through. Voila. Dinner!
Seared Steak, Broccoli from the Garden, and pan-fried New PotatoesÂ
Good fuel for the next day’s ride.
We ate this feast halfway through our trip. It was not the most successful iteration of this meal, because we were working with an oven and stove that weren’t behaving like ours at home, and because we were already exhausted from riding when we cooked. We brought the steak to temperature (some temperature – not 115 degrees, which we were hoping for) in the oven, then seared it quickly in butter and vegetable oil over high heat. I cut the broccoli florets into approx. 1/2″ heads – largely because this is what the kids will eat, but also because, at this size, it cooks quickly and ends up with a soft crunch when sauteed gently with garlic over medium heat for a few minutes. The potatoes were boiled at the beginning of the steak-warming process, and then cut in half or quarters, according to their size, and fried in olive oil with copious amounts of pepper and salt. They were the star of the meal, because they were delicious and because we rarely eat potatoes any more, and also because we were ravenously hungry.