Valentines Day is coming up and on a budget and with no kitchen skills it may be hard to come up with something classy to cook for that special someone. Lets try something that just plain sounds fancy but if you have a little bit of time to work on it, its hard to go wrong. On the menu we have Jasmine Green Tea poached chicken, fresh cooked green beans, and jasmine green tea rice. The kicker is that the broth you make for the chicken will get used in everything else for flavor. Check the game play at the end to get an overview of the time it will take.
Ingredients:
Broth-
- 4 tea bags or 1/3 cup of loose leaf Jasmine Green Tea
- About a 3 inch chunk of Ginger, skinned and sliced
- 1 tbs Soy Sauce
- 1 Elephant Clove or 5 regular Cloves of Garlic
- 8 cups of Water
Everything else-
-2 Chicken breasts
-1 handful per person of fresh green beans(not from a can)
-1 cup of rice(not instant)
-Lil Bit-o-Olive Oil
1. If your using frozen chicken breasts start to defrost them. If not lets work on the green beans. Rinse your beans and pinch off both ends of the green beans. Compost the ends but otherwise leave them mostly intact. Looks prettier to keep them whole.
2. Broth time, get 10 cups of water in a big pot and start getting that to a boil while you get the ginger, garlic, and tea ready.
-Carefully skin and slice your ginger. Keep a couple of big slices to put into your rice but otherwise toss the rest in the water pot.
-Slice your garlic, 1/3 of it will stay sliced to put into the rice. Take 1/3 of it and put it in the water and the last 3rd will get used in the green beans so put it aside somewhere.
-Get your tea ready, when the water starts to boil, put the tea bags/infuser into the water and turn heat waaaay down to a simmer.
-Add your soy sauce and let the tea steep for at least 10 minutes. Take out the tea bags when done steeping.
3. Rice time. In another pot just for the rice add one cup of rice and 2 cups of broth and bring that up to a boil.Toss in the last of your ginger and the garlic slices you had set aside earlier.
4. Boiling? Good turn the heat down so the water is just at a simmer. Pop a lid on and forget about the rice for 15 minutes.
5. Pull another half cup of broth and set aside. Get your big pot of broth to a boil and put your chicken in. Cover and let poach in the broth. Depending on the thickness of the chicken your going to want to leave the chicken in the broth for 7-9 minutes on the boil.
If you have pink in your chicken it is not safe to eat. Place it back in the broth for another minute or 2.
6. In a saute pan add a drizzle of olive oil and get that hot. Toss in your green beans and left over garlic. Make sure they don't burn. When the beans start getting bright green toss in your broth you set aside for a quick steam finish. Set on low while you finish your chicken.
7.Take out of the broth and slice all pretty(on a bias).
8. Plate it up! Rice on the plate, green beans, and sliced chicken breast.
PRE-Game:
-Thaw chicken
-Prep vegetables
-Make broth
Kick Off!- Boil broth for rice and chicken.
15 minutes to go- let rice sit
10 minutes left- get chicken in
7 minutes left- heat up saute pan for green beans
5 minutes left- toss green beans
3 minutes left- slice chicken
1 minute left- turn off all heat
Game Over-
-Plate up dinner
-Light candles
-Woo your significant other
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