Poultry

This is a typically Italian way of preparing chicken, but Italians rarely combine chicken with pasta; by serving chicken over wide ribbons of fettuccine I’ve created a hybrid Italian-American one-dish meal.

I rely on this dish whenever I’m hosting a ladies’ lunch or wedding shower, or when I just want something tasty and healthy in the refrigerator to snack on. The trick here is using a purchased, roasted whole chicken. It’s important to use a whole chicken because it stays moister and more tender than precooked breasts.

When we’re hosting game night and have lots of my husband’s friends coming over, I make this salad. It’s hearty and colorful, and because it holds very well at room temperature, I can make it ahead of time so I can take part in game night, too!

These patties are inspired by the Middle Eastern dish kibbe, most often made of ground lamb and bulgur wheat. The combination of turkey and quinoa is particularly rich in protein, with a chewy texture that contrasts nicely with the crisp cucumber and red-onion slices, and the creamy tahini dressing served alongside.

For milder chili, reduce the green chiles by half. You can also replace the canned beans with 4 cups cooked dried beans (page 202); replace half the chicken broth with bean cooking liquid.

This rich pumpkin-seed sauce, based on traditional Mexican moles, is made with green herbs, and is just as satisfying as cheese- or cream-based sauces but contains far less saturated fat and fewer calories. Serve the dish with rice for an authentic accompaniment.

After the chicken is browned and the vegetables are sautéed, the meat is braised until fork-tender. Orange juice adds vitamin C and brightens the dish, but you can omit it and increase the chicken stock by half a cup.

This salad features Madras curry powder—a blend of spices that includes turmeric, coriander, cumin, and cinnamon, all of which are antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and detoxifiers. Watercress is also a potent detoxifier.

A relative of spinach and beets, Swiss chard offers fantastic antioxidant protection in the form of carotenoids, which help maintain eye health, boost immunity, and may even fight cancer. Here, chard leaves are rolled around a protein-rich quinoa-mushroom filling for an elegant entrée.

Avocados in the salsa supply a generous portion of monounsaturated fat and fiber. If fresh corn is not in season, opt for frozen; it will taste better and have more nutrients than any “fresh” corn in the grocery store.

Lower in saturated fat than chicken, turkey provides one of the leanest sources of animal protein. The nutrient-dense poultry also contains heart-healthy B vitamins and selenium. Round out this simple preparation with a side of steamed green beans.

Walnuts add a healthful dose of omega-3 fatty acids to bread crumbs, which keep the chicken moist. Roasting the chicken, rather than frying it, yields a crisp crust without adding much extra fat. If you don’t have day-old bread, lightly toast fresh bread to use instead.

Cooking the chicken with the skin and bones intact ultimately makes the dish more flavorful (and economical), but feel free to substitute two boneless, skinless breast halves for the whole breast in this salad if you prefer (reduce the cooking time to 15 minutes). Bok choy, abundant with cancer-fighting compounds, makes a nutritious accompaniment.

Before the development of canning, pickling was one of the most important preserving methods, along with salting, drying, and smoking. Particularly in warm countries, pickling was favored for the way it used acid to stop or retard the growth of bacteria. Some historians credit the Egyptians and Romans for developing this technique, which was brought into Spain and then to Mexico. Turkeys, especially ones raised naturally, have a rich, dense flesh and dark, meaty flavor that can stand up to—and are improved by—heartier, more complex flavors like this escabeche. My favorite garnish for each taco serving is a slim feathery frond—no more than two inches long—from the top of a small stalk of fennel. It looks pretty, has good flavor, and is delicious with this filling.

Native to North America, turkey has always been a celebratory bird (or at least it was celebrated by those who dined on it). Turkey (guajolote, in Spanish) was used for special feasts in pre-Columbian times and was a favorite food of the American Indians. In Mexico today, turkey in mole is still the preferred holiday dish. For Thanksgiving dinner one year at Coyote Café, we raised almost thirty wild turkeys (so much better than the modern domesticated turkey) on open ranchland so they were free to go anywhere and eat anything. The flavor of those turkeys was magnificent! This recipe is a tempting taste of what awaits any traveler to Oaxaca or Puebla, two of the great Mexican mole capitals. Commercially produced mole sauces are widely available throughout most major grocery store chains in the United States. We have used turkey breast for this recipe, but any part of the turkey will work. Note that the turkey must marinate overnight before cooking.

Ground nuts or seeds are the singular ingredient in the sauces known as pipiáns, which are sort of like Southwestern pestos. Peanuts, native to South America, were first used, as were pumpkin seeds, but regionally, cooks would incorporate what was available—in the American Southwest, for instance, it could be pine nuts or pecans, or wild hickory nuts in other parts of the country. The richness of the duck is perfectly complemented by this rich, complex sauce that I created to use New Mexico pecans, a wonderful local crop. It’s very versatile, a great condiment for grilled satay skewers or as a sandwich spread or a party dip. It’s much easier to prepare than it sounds—a whirl in a blender, then a quick turn in a skillet to marry the flavors.

Achiote paste is a distinctive staple marinade of the Yucatán peninsula that infuses food with a brick-red hue, a part bitter–part acidic flavor, and an earthy intensity that lingers on the palate. It’s usually combined with the bitter orange of the Yucatán and the fierce, tropical habanero chile. This recipe has a distinctly Caribbean flair, evoking personal memories of the early market in Merida, capital of the Yucatan and famous for its beaches. There, you’ll find wonderful whole fish marinated in achiote paste and cooked on fires on the beach over coconut husks. Or chicken tamales with achiote paste wrapped in banana leaves steamed, then finished over an open fire. These tacos are traditionally served with black beans, rice, and a heaping side of fried plantains (see page 140). You can make your own pickled onions for the garnish: Slice red onions into thin half-moons, sprinkle with oregano, and marinate in the juice from a jar of pickled jalapeños for about 20 minutes.

Chorizo is usually made from pork, but you can find wonderful beef or chicken chorizo as well as an excellent vegetarian chorizo made from tofu. I’ve had a delicious green chorizo in Puebla that was a regional specialty composed of fresh green herbs and chiles blended with pork. The green marinade for the chicken plays wonderfully against the red chile of the chorizo. These hearty tacos are also great served with queso fresco or grated Cheddar or gouda cheese. Quail eggs fried sunny-side up makes a tasty garnish, if you like.

Here in New Mexico, we have a number of really good goat-cheese producers who sell their products at farmer’s markets. Spanish settlers originally introduced goats to the region along with the craft of making goat cheese. For Mexican recipes, I prefer the flavor of goat cheese to American cheeses made with cow’s milk. Mexican cooking is rich and needs the counterpoint of a sharp cheese for balance and lively taste. Cow’s milk cheeses are usually too creamy and flat in flavor, absorb too much of the flavor accents from a dish, and lack a certain acidity and sharpness common to Mexican cheeses. New Mexico also has great apples, as good as those I grew up with in New England. At an elevation of 7,000 feet, Santa Fe experiences very cold nights in the fall that “crisp” the apples and set the juices. The sweet juiciness of apples is a perfect match to the mild creaminess, tang, and richness of goat cheese. You can use the goat cheese as a garnish, if you prefer, rather than mixing it into the filling.

This recipe makes use of nopales cooked sous vide—under vacuum, a technique from the professional kitchen that I’ve modified here for home cooks (see also Nopales en Bolso with Vegetables Escabeche, page 28). Nopales—cactus leaves—have a wonderful texture and fresh flavor almost like fresh green beans or green squash. In Mexico, they grow wild everywhere, available for the picking. The most amazing place to see nopales is at the central market of Mexico City, one of the truly great markets of the world. Arranged in circles are huge, round burlap bags, five feet tall by four feet wide. Each bag holds hundreds of nopales, and workers handle sixty to seventy-five bags simultaneously. Women whittle away at mountains of nopales with long, sharp knives, trimming off their sharp spines in seconds while gossiping with their neighbors, stopping only to sell to shoppers. The enormous amount of nopales sold underscores how important they are to the daily diet.