Wednesday, September 29, 2010

A book sale and Dijon chicken

Book sale:
We cherish some sales as remarkable and incredibly fantastic. One among them is the book exhibition. I am not a great fan of novels, but love to read on various culture, cuisines , arts etc. I have a good collection of folk tales and comics in our house in India but never thought of experiencing one here till I saw a pamphlet on the side-walk.

Various books we bought from the sale. That is the brown bag I mentioned here.
Some months ago, we went to a book sale conducted by the public library of Piscataway, NJ. They called it as the 'brown bag sale'. I hope this is common in many parts of the country. The sale was on some marked books aimed at removing the clutter, it seems. They sold big brown paper bag for $5 and people were allowed to fill the bag with the books they wish. It was much beneficial for both the ends and I could see happy faces all over the hall. That was like cherry picking for the book worms and thrillers were sold the best. I was surprised at their cook book collection as well as the arts side. While hubby was browsing the mystery novels, I gathered some nice books on cooking, quilting etc. Look at the treasure I got:)
Wow! what a catch for $5.
Dijon Chicken:
Then I tried a simple recipe, Dijon chicken from the book 'Hooray for chicken', by Family Living magazine. All the ingredients are very common except the dijon mustard. So I bought it from Shoprite and prepared this dish along with pasta. It was a big hit.
If you cannot get dijon mustard, please see the guidelines to make one. I prefer wine-less dijon mustard, so look for the ingredients before buying, if you have any preference. (Vinegar is substituted for wine in  my pack).

Dijon chicken served with pasta.
Ingredients:
chicken boneless / breast - 1 lb
Dijon mustard - 3 tbsp
(its a sauce available in supermarkets)
butter - 5 tbsp
garlic powder - 1 tbsp
onion - 1 (crushed)
salt - to taste
black / white pepper powder - 2 tbsp

Method:
wash and clean the chicken breasts (approximately 4).
I cut it into 3 inch size pieces. But the original version calls for using the whole big pieces.
Mix Dijon mustard sauce, butter, salt, pepper, onion, garlic.
Add to chicken and marinate for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 deg.
Grease a baking pan.
Place the chicken pieces separately in a baking pan and bake for 1 hour.
Broil to get the red color.
Garnish with parsley. (I didn't have parsley, so I left it).

Serving suggestions:
Generally they use big pieces of chicken for this recipe, but I chopped mine for more marinated effect.
Makes a good side dish for pasta.

10 comments:

Home Cooked Oriya Food said...

yummy mustard chicken... new one!

chow and chatter said...

looks like you got some cool books love simple recipes

Hamaree Rasoi said...

WOw Viki, it seems you did enjoy picking up lots of books from the sale .....I also feel the marination effect works best with small chunks ....BTW I bought the cones from the local market of Delhi. He just charged 3 rupees per cone:-)

Deepa
Hamaree Rasoi

Cham said...

Not bad the book sale, I haven't seen in my place! The dijon chicken is worth to try!

Niloufer Riyaz said...

will surely try this out!! looks delicious

Niloufer Riyaz said...

will surely try this out!! looks delicious

Priya Suresh said...

Cool, wish i can get some books as like u..Dijon chicken looks irresistible

Nandinis food said...

It's a chicken dish I'd love to try for the coming winter. Looks spicy and hot! Admire your collection of books.

Suja Manoj said...

Wow nice collection dear..chicken looks yummy...
we were in Piscataway, NJ..so sad we could not meet.

Vikis Kitchen said...

Suja: Is it so Suja? Really missed you....

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