Blue Apron Diary - Persian-Style Chicken

Today was a day of experimenting.

The chicken preparation was mostly simple, just a bit of chopping of vegetables and stirring in seasonings. What I am keen on writing about are the things I changed up a little bit. First off, the recipe called for "crispy rice" which meant cooking it, then baking it, then re-mixing it. Reading through the recipe card, I felt that was a lot of work for a little bit of extra texture that didn't matter anyways, so I forwent that step and opted to simply fry the rice a little bit instead. That did not go exactly as planned, since the pan I was using was far too small to toss the rice properly, so it ended up a little mushy instead. It wasn't porridge, so that's good, but it could have been a little more fluffy. 

Flavor-wise, it was delicious. I am a huge fan of turmeric, so the rich flavors were welcome. My cutting board got a little stained but that will wash out in time. 

Then, for dinner, I decided to cook something using the leftovers from the Steaks recipe. My plan was to fry/roast the potato fingers, steam the rice with the asparagus to kill two birds with one stone, and then sear up a nice hunk of meat. 

The result was satisfactory, but not great. I left the potatoes standing for just a minute too long and they ended up charring rather badly (but not super burnt - the taste was relatively unaffected). The rice, once again, was a little watery because I ended up adding extra water to help steam the asparagus. The meat came out well-done (as intended, I wanted some toughness). Overall, it was nice knowing that I could pull stuff together. Learned a few things as well about timing, which my mother is always poking me about when imparting knowledge on work in the kitchen. My sense of flavoring/seasoning is improving as well; I didn't need to add extra salt or pepper nearly as many times as before.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the last entry for this box of Blue Apron. I've set up my schedule to skip every other week seeing as I won't have time to cook while I have classes to attend - so more will come in another week! In the meantime, I'll see if I get confident enough to buy my own groceries and make up my own recipes.

Thanks for readin'! We'll see you after the break.