Grit Cakes With Grilled Chicken: Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Grilled Chicken with Grit Cake
and pureed peas

This meal is an extension of the previous evening’s festivities. It started with Chris’s search for a way to use the rest of the grits she made for the stuffed peppers. We had some chicken she wanted to use and, of course, every family dinner needs a green veggie plugged in somewhere along the way. Even though the grits were leftover, she put a twist on things that became a totally unique and original idea that was a big hit with our little family.

The idea was to turn the grits into cakes, much like the crab cakes that Ivan devours anytime they are in arm’s reach. This was to be the platform for some grilled chicken breasts and all would be served on a bed of peas. There was a step or two in the process that I was a little unsure of but I have learned not to question the instincts of the chef, so I just grabbed my pen and took these notes.  

Like many of Chris’s creations, she did not know exactly what she wanted to do until she did it so there may be a few areas that could get polished up a bit. The recipe here is as it happened and we will get to the polishing of this gem at the end…

Golden Brown Grit Cakes

Grit Cakes

¼ cup of cooked grits were formed into a patty. She started them off on the stove top but they were not “behaving properly” so they were moved to the oven.

Bake in the oven at 375 for about fifteen minutes.

Upon checking them, Chris noticed that the cakes were spreading out a bit so she repattied them and kicked on the broiler for a minute. This helped give the outside the crunch she was looking for out of the skillet originally.

Chicken

               

Before the grits got going, she marinated the chicken. I apologize for this being out of order but that is the way the grit cakes crumble. Sorry, that was terrible.

First she filleted the breasts to make them more “cutlet-like”.

The chicken marinated in a delicious mix of paprika, ground coriander, cumin, onion powder, garlic salt, fresh ground pepper, kosher salt, olive oil and cayenne pepper.  I neglected to pay a bit of attention to how much of each she used but I imagine that it will vary based on your own personal preferences.

The chicken marinated for about thirty minutes while the above grit episode was going on.

Cooking the chicken was simple…

Chicken cutlets were added to hot, dry, iron skillet.

Cook until “nice and brown before flipping the little buggers”

Flip and cover the chicken.

Cook until browned, remove and tent to rest.

Peas      

One bag of frozen peas cooked on stove top with olive oil, salt and pepper, and one clove of smashed garlic.

Once brought to heat, she emersion blendered the rest with a little bit of milk and a dab of butter.

Whirled Peas

Serve

The pureed peas were the base of the plate with the grit cakes making a little island in the center and the chicken taking up residency on the island. Each was plenty tasty in its own right but all together they turned downright delicious.

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned during the previous night’s meal, we are not grit people so the idea of eating them two nights in a row in totally different ways was new territory for us.  Personally, I have to admit that I had personal concerns about the pureed peas… visions of baby food kept popping into my head and I worried that they would take away from my enjoyment of the overall meal.

I need not have worried, because the meal worked on every level.

This was, however, an idea that developed as Chris cooked it so there are things she might do differently.  The one thing that we agreed on was that the “textural contrast” was not exactly what Chris had hoped for. The meal lacked a “crunch” that would have been a nice touch when taking bites of all three things at once. Her hope was that the grit cakes would have been a little crispier on the outside but as I mentioned, they chose to misbehave a bit. Alternatively, she could have breaded and fried the chicken cutlets… and this has my vote because I enjoy fried chicken more than Colonel Sanders did.

Either way, these are minor changes to a meal that was a great success, especially considering that Chris sort of made it up as she went along.  It would have been easier to just heat up the peas and grits and grill some chicken to serve along side of them but this was way more fun and featured my two favorite ingredients in Chris’s kitchen – creativity and love.