FRESH PLATTERS APLENTY!
Big, easy, fresh meals that pile onto a platter and feed a crowd!
Annnnnd we’re back! Miss us? Hope you had a great few weeks. We’re certainly not short on Summer fruits and veggies—it’s PRIME PRODUCE TIME, Y’ALL! So we’re hitting you with two amazing-yet-simple fresh meal ideas that take full advantage of the roadside produce stand, and can be platterized. Think platterized isn’t an actual word? Well, you’re right. But the sentiment is that Summer entertaining isn’t about being fussy. It’s about having fun, enjoying your company, and setting out everything for the meal on one giant platter, so everyone can help themselves. Have guests bring some bottles of vino and desserts over—boom. Instant Summer Soiree!
“WISH I WERE IN GREECE” CHICKEN DINNER
EK: For as long as I can remember, I have loved tomatoes and that means that hot weather, vine-ripe, bursting-with-juice Summer tomatoes are one of the things that I look forward to every year. After I eat a white bread, slathered-with-mayo tomato sandwich—preferably over the sink—I am ready to make “dishes” with them.
One of my longtime favorite dishes is a recipe that I created after eating something similar at a restaurant in Palm Beach while I was writing my first book Taming the Flame. It was a “Greek” salad with a grilled chicken paillard on top. That might not sound that interesting, but it was well done and ripe for riffing.
The salad was made mostly of lettuce tossed with a pungent red-wine and oregano dressing, but had delicious creamy Greek Feta and salty oil-cured olives under the warm grilled chicken.
I was living in Chicago at the time, and had become enamored with the Greek Horiatiki salads that I ate frequently in Chicago’s Greektown. The Horiatiki salad is basically all the good stuff in the salad without the lettuce. Think chunks of crisp cucumbers, red onions, colorful bell peppers, ripe tomatoes, salty olives and creamy feta cheese sprinkled liberally with peppery dried oregano.
To be honest, I had forgotten about the recipe until this Summer when my Instagram feed became all Greek Islands, all the time. It seems like it is “The Summer of Greece” for everyone except Anthony and me!
AU: THIS! LITERALLY EVERYONE IS IN EUROPE! Or just came back from Europe, or has plans to go to Europe. The FOMO is palpable.
EK: Absolutely, and I have some real FOMO when I see the mouth-watering photos of the Greek salads, fresh fish, and the sunny blue water splashed across my screen!
So, I brought this Grilled Chicken Paillard with Greek Farmer’s Salad and Tzatziki out of my archives and into my kitchen! I’ve been making the Horiatiki salad and tzatziki for the past few weeks and just started adding the chicken to it.
I made the salad to my liking, subbing red, yellow or orange bell peppers instead of green, adding lots of my favorite peppery green extra-virgin olive oil to the red wine vinaigrette; cutting the feta into chubby chunks instead of a slab and topping it all off with a homemade garlicky-cucumber-yogurt dip (a.k.a. tzatziki).
I enhanced the flavor of the grilled chicken with a wet rub made with garlic, lemon zest and oregano and squirted the hot grilled chicken breasts liberally with fresh lemon juice. It is an all-in-one (platter) meal that captures the best of Summer and what I imagine being in the Greek Islands to be.
Best news is that you may already have most of what you need in your pantry and refrigerator—and if you don’t, it’s easy to get all the ingredients. If you are lucky enough to have a garden, you might be growing some of them!
The garlic-lemon-oregano wet rub is mandatory, but pounding the chicken into a thin paillard is optional. If you’ve never made a paillard before, it’s a fancy word for a piece of meat—chicken in this case—that is pounded thin.
This is easier than you might think. You can pound chicken breasts in between two pieces of waxed paper or slip them into a gallon-size re-sealable plastic bag and pound away. I like to use a rolling pin, but use a meat pounder if you have one. A little bit of olive oil on the chicken makes the pounding easier and helps prevent the chicken from splitting. If they do split, don’t worry, they will still taste great!
And, if you don’t like boneless skinless chicken breasts, feel free to use boneless skinless chicken thighs and follow the grilling method in Anthony’s recipe below. If you don’t like chicken, I think this recipe would be fantastic with shrimp.
Chicken Paillard with Greek Farmer’s Salad and Tzatziki
If you aren’t traveling in real time to Greece this summer, you can bring a taste of Greece to your table with this dish. A Greek Farmer’s (Horatiki) Salad that savors the best of summer gardens and Farmer’s markets. The salad is great on it’s own, but topped with the grilled lemon-oregano chicken, it becomes a special summer meal bursting with flavor.
Grilling Method: Direct/Medium Heat
Serves 4-6
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
Olive oil
Lemon-Oregano Wet Rub:
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
Zest of two lemons
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt
¼ teaspoon water
½ teaspoon ground pepper
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 lemon, cut into wedges
Strips of lemon zest for garnishing, optional
Tzatziki (Garlic-Cucumber Yogurt Sauce), below
Horiatiki (Greek Farmers Salad), below
Special Equipment: rolling pin or meat pounder
Preheat the grill. Blot each chicken breast with a paper towel, remove tenderloin if still attached. Brush lightly with oil on both sides (this will make the pounding easier). Place each chicken breast between two pieces of parchment or waxed paper about 8” x 8”. Using a rolling pin or meat pounder, flatten each breast to about an even ¼-inch thickness. Set aside. If you don’t feel like pounding the chicken, skip this step.
Mix garlic, lemon zest, salt and water in a mortar or a shallow bowl. Grind with the pestle or the back of a fork. Add pepper and oregano and grind again to mix. Divide mixture into 4 equal portions.
Brush each piece of chicken “paillard” with olive oil on both sides. Spread each piece with a quarter of the wet rub mixture on both sides with clean fingers or a butter knife, making sure to coat evenly. (Note: the rub is very flavorful and will be too strong if left in clumps on the pieces of chicken.)
Using tongs, place the paillards on the cooking grate directly over the heat for about 6-8 minutes, turning once halfway through the cooking time. When the chicken is marked and cooked through, remove from the grill.
Immediately squirt 1-2 lemon wedges over each piece of chicken and let sit for 2-3 minutes. Garnish with lemon zest, if desired. Serve topped with Tzatziki sauce and a Greek Farmers’ Salad.
Tzatziki (Garlic-Cucumber Yogurt Sauce)
I make tzatziki from whole-milk strained yogurt—you could use Labne as well.
Makes about 2 cups
2 cups plain yogurt, preferably Greek yogurt
½ medium seedless cucumber, peeled and diced
3 cloves of garlic, grated with a microplane
1-2 tablespoons Extra-Virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste
If using regular yogurt, Place the yogurt in a strainer set over a large bowl. Allow to drain overnight in the refrigerator. Discard liquid. If using thick Greek yogurt, you can skip this step.
In a medium bowl, mix the yogurt with the diced cucumber, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and fresh ground pepper. Mix well. Refrigerate before serving.
Tip: Make the Tzatziki up to three days in advance. The flavors intensify and actually taste better once they’ve had a chance to meld. Just be sure to stir before using as the cucumbers give up their juice as they sit.
Garlic Tip: The older the garlic, the stronger it tastes. If your garlic is a little past its prime but hasn’t started sprouting yet, you can still use it, just reduce the quantity by half if you don’t like a strong garlic flavor. Likewise, if you love the taste of garlic and your garlic is extremely fresh and firm, increase the amount of garlic for a more pronounced flavor.
Horiatiki (Greek Farmers Salad)
The vegetables in this salad will keep for several days in a well covered container in the refrigerator which makes it convenient for weekday meals. You can prep it in advance, and it will be ready to assemble when you are ready to eat your salad.
Serves 4-6
1 (12-ounce) container cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 European (long seedless) cucumber, peeled and cut into ½-inch chunks
1 yellow, orange or red bell pepper cut into strips
1 small red onion, cut in half and sliced into semi-circle rings
20 oil-cured black olives, more or less to taste
Kosher salt
Freshly-ground pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1-2 ounces feta cheese, cut into slices.
Wash tomatoes and cut in half.
Wash cucumbers and cut ends off cucumbers and discard. Slice cucumbers into a salad bowl and add tomatoes.
Add sliced onions and olives. Mix well and season with salt, pepper and dried oregano.
If using the feta cheese, serve Greek style with the cheese laid on top in thick slices or cut into big chunks.
Serve with chicken paillard and tzatziki immediately.
A PEACHY PLATTER…
AU: So if you haven’t yet noticed, I’m a lazy cook. I don’t like to dirty a bunch of dishes, and don’t even come near me with an ingredient list that’s ten miles long. Am I alone here?
EK: A bunch of dishes are the worst. Probably one of the reasons that I gravitated to the grill—virtually no clean up! And, I put everything but my knives in the dishwasher, so I am extra lazy!
AU: Well, that’s exactly why I love a platter dinner. “What in the world is a platter dinner?” you might ask. Well, it’s essentially a full meal on one plate to which dining companions can help themselves. It’s easier on you, the host, and it always elicits a wow-factor gasp from the people who are about to enjoy it. A win-win for everyone involved!
EK: Mark my words, Anthony’s Platter Dinners are the new Sheet Pan Suppers—you saw it here first, folks!
AU: Peaches are hittin’ hard right now at the green markets, so pick some up! Eat one over the sink with the juice dripping down your arm, because that’s what you’re supposed to do in the Summer. Then you should obvi make some kind of cake or peach ice cream. The next thing I’m going to say can be quite polarizing: use some peaches in a savory setting. I know quite a few people who take a very hard stance on the “no-fruit in my meat” issue. I don’t typically love a fruit-based entree (like, keep the strawberries out of my friggin’ salad, thanks!)… but I do enjoy a GRILLED fruit, and if the accompanying savory dish is crafted to bolster the fruit flavor, instead of using it as an afterthought, I’m all for it!
Grilling your peaches can take a “meh” peach and turn it into a YOWZA peach. Because fruit is full of natural sugars, you get amazing caramelization in no time at all. And lucky for you, Elizabeth shared the best method to grill fruit—it’s so easy!
Grill peaches over medium direct heat (we don’t want them to burn) until you get some nice grill marks (about a minute), then flip them and move them to indirect heat to finish cooking. You’ll know they’re done when the skin starts to peel away from the flesh. The result is something between a fresh raw peach and a fully-cooked peach… which to me, is peach perfection.
I used boneless skinless chicken thighs, but you could use breasts if that’s your thing. Another bonus of using thighs: if you overcook them a smidge, they’re still good and juicy, thanks to having a little more fat than their busty brethren.
You can season the thighs simply with salt and pepper, but I was feeling a little extra (shocking, I know), so I made a quick rub of ground coriander, granulated garlic, chili pepper, and toasted-then-crushed fennel seeds. I think it really compliments the bright, tart-sweet flavor of the grilled peaches.
Once you’ve grilled the peaches and chicken, it’s just about piling all the goodness onto a platter (or cutting board! or sheet pan!) and setting it out for your guests to devour. I like to serve things like this on a bed of lightly dressed greens (arugula in this case), so that it feels like you have a side dish built right in. Then dot everything with ribbons of silky, salty prosciutto, some creamy, dreamy burrata or fresh buffalo mozzarella, a generous drizzle of hot honey, and some fragrant, freshly torn basil. This one will be on repeat for the rest of the Summer!
Grilled Chicken & Peaches with Burrata
When it’s too hot to turn on the oven, it’s time to take dinner-making outside. This dish takes advantage of peak Summer peaches, and combines them with savory grilled chicken thighs, salty prosciutto, creamy burrata cheese, and the sweet heat of hot honey. If your dining companions are spice-adverse, feel free to use a good-quality aged balsamic vinegar or even pomegranate molasses instead. This is the kind of casual Summer meal that doesn’t need to be precious–just pile everything onto a big serving platter and let folks devour it!
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Neutral Oil (like Grapeseed, Vegetable, or Canola)
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon aleppo pepper (or ¼ teaspoon red chili flakes)
½ teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon whole fennel seeds, toasted, then crushed or ground in a spice grinder (or ½ teaspoon ground fennel)
3 medium peaches, halved and pitted
1 lemon
3-4 slices prosciutto, torn into pieces (optional)
1 ball of burrata or fresh mozzarella
1 bunch baby arugula
¼ cup fresh basil leaves
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Hot Honey or Balsamic vinegar, for garnish
Method:
Preheat grill to medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Once preheated, turn one side of the grill to low heat (keeping the other side on medium) to create two-zone cooking: direct and indirect heat. Make sure grill grates are very clean when grilling fruit.
In a small bowl, combine kosher salt, black pepper, aleppo pepper (or chili flakes), granulated garlic, ground coriander, and ground/crushed fennel seeds. Mix spices until combined. Coat boneless, skinless chicken thighs with a light layer of neutral oil and sprinkle generously with spice mixture on both sides. Set aside while you prepare the peaches for grilling.
Coat pitted peach halves with a thin layer of neutral oil. Lightly season with kosher salt. Grill peaches cut-side down over direct medium heat for 30 seconds - 1 minute to create grill marks on the fruit’s flesh. Flip peaches skin-side down, transfer to the low indirect heat zone, and continue cooking for 3-5 minutes. You’ll know they’re ready when the skin slightly separates from the flesh. Remove from grill and set aside until ready to assemble meal.
Grill seasoned chicken thighs over direct medium heat for 5 minutes on one side, flip, and then cook an additional 3-5 minutes on other side, depending on size. Internal temperature of the boneless, skinless chicken thighs should be at least 165ºF. Let chicken thighs rest for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, assemble the rest of the meal.
In a medium bowl, toss arugula with juice of half a lemon and 2-3 tablespoons of good-quality olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
To serve: Spread the dressed arugula onto a serving platter. Quarter grilled peach halves and distribute evenly atop the bed of arugula. Add grilled chicken thighs and slices of prosciutto. Working over a small bowl to catch any spillage, gently tear burrata (or fresh mozzarella) into bite-sized pieces and place on the platter. Sprinkle with torn basil leaves, and drizzle with hot honey or balsamic vinegar, plus additional extra virgin olive oil before serving.
That’s it for this week! As always, if you make our recipes, tag us on the ‘gram (@kitchensitch & @elizabethkarmel), and use the hashtag #whats4dinner. Happy cooking!!