Hey guys this week's episode of basics is not only sponsored by Blue Apron, it
is itself a love letter to quick weeknight meals. Blue Apron is a meal kit
delivery service that's a great option for anybody who's trying to cook more,
cook healthier, or cook more deliciously. The first hundred people to use the link
in this video's description to sign up for blue apron will get $50 off their
first two weeks. We'll get back to that later, for now let's get down to basics....
Okay, so as far as weeknights a great place to start is the one pot meal I
first posted this dish to Reddit like four years ago and it's stuck by my side
ever since. We're starting by peeling and cubing 2 sweet potatoes pushing those
aside so we can peel, core, and dice 2 granny smith apples. You want to use this
or any other good baking Apple because we're gonna be well, baking this Apple, so
chop that up into similarly bite-sized pieces and we're gonna mince up some
fresh sage. So there we go, we got the foundation now let's go build us a house.
Into a lightly oiled ripping hot stainless steel or cast iron skillet we
are placing four chicken thighs skin side down.
We've already seasoned the skin side now we're gonna season the meat with salt
and freshly ground pepper and then we're not touching these until they are deeply
brown and pull away freely from the bottom of the pot. Are they still stuck?
Well ain't done yet! Pace around nervously as we let the other side of
the chicken get a little bit of color but we're not trying to cook these
through we're just trying to crisp up the skin and we're trying to get some of
this stuff on the bottom of the pot. Y'all know what this is: bond. Right now
it's swimming in a whole bunch of extra chicken fast so we're gonna drain off
most of it, reserving about a tablespoon into which we are depositing our sweet
potato and apple. We're sauteing these over medium heat for about five to seven
minutes. Again, not to cook them through just to give them some color and then we
are deglazing with the good stuff: a little bit of bourbon. If you know what
you're doing and you've got a fire extinguisher nearby you can go ahead and
flambé the rest of the liquor off but this is mostly just for showboating.
Doesn't really do much for the flavor to this we're going to add a little whisper
of chicken stock just enough so that you can see it pooling underneath the
potatoes and apples, we're not trying to braise this thing we're just trying to
eventually create a sauce. Add the minced fresh sage and toss around let everybody
get to know each other and then we're bringing the chicken back to the party.
Making sure that skin is not submerged in the liquid and then this guy's going
in a preheated 375 degree fahrenheit oven while we toast up some pecans.
Then once the thickest part of the chicken thighs have reached 175 degrees
Fahrenheit these guys are ready for extradition I'm gonna give this a little
squeeze of lemon but I hope you can see how you can change this up to make it
your own. You could swap the sweet potatoes and apples for root vegetables
you could change out bourbon for white wine, or garnish with hazelnuts or
almonds instead of pecans, add onions or shallots in the
earlier stages instead of garnishing with chives. The basic concept here is
did part cook your chicken by getting it nice and crisp and sautéing and
deglazing whatever starches fruits or vegetables you have underneath in that
sense it really all comes down to timing and an excellent exercise in timing is
sheet pan dinners. In this case we're gonna do a starch, a vegetable, and a
protein all on the same sheet pan in the same oven. For starch I'm going with halved
baby Yukon Golds that I'm coating an olive oil, salt, and freshly ground pepper
tossing to combine and then dumping onto a preheated sheet pan that I've had
waiting in a 400 degree fahrenheit oven for about 20 minutes
placing them cut side down this is gonna help them pick up a little bit of extra
color and they're going in the oven first as they take the longest to cook
about 40 minutes all told. That gives us 25 minutes to prep our vegetables in
this case: asparagus. I'm using the old bend to snap method which after a Google
search I discovered is a myth so just cut these... tossing with olive oil, kosher
salt, and freshly ground pepper. Then we're whipping up a quick sauce for our
protein in this case: salmon. So I'm gonna go with some crushed garlic, the juice of
one lemon; which you might notice I pressed and rolled there.. That actually
helps the juice come out more easily when squeezed, a nice little teaspoon of
Dijon mustard, a good glug of olive oil, some kosher salt, and freshly ground
pepper. There are so many different directions that you could take this
little vinaigrette but this one responds particularly well to the heat of the
oven. Next up, we're contending with our salmon fillets which I'm just gonna make
sure are free of bones... Fish mongers don't always get all the bones so always
give your fillets a little squeeze before generously coating in your
vinaigrette and now we're scooting the potatoes off of the side which you can
see if picked up some lovely brown color and since the salmon and asparagus have
roughly the same cook time about- 15 minutes they're getting arranged side by
side on the sheet pan and back into the oven they go until the salmon registers
125 degrees Fahrenheit at its thickest point. Now if any elements of the sheet
pan dinner is undercooked just remove the finished elements put
them under foil keep them warm until everybody is ready to go. Garnish a
little bit of parsley like I did if you want; and you've got yourself one super
easy super quick super delicious weeknight dinner. Now there is a whole
other strata of so the easy weeknight dinners that we
haven't yet discussed and that is: pasta. So we're gonna try out blue aprons
creamy pesto cavatelli and this is an excellent exercise in 'mise en place,' making
sure that we have everything in its place.
Let me just read the directions here... All right, so we're starting by taking the
zucchini cutting it into quarters lengthwise, and then slicing into
manageable mouth sized pieces. Likewise with a carton of cocktail
tomatoes we're cutting these into quarters, but it's a sliding scale based on what's
a reasonable size for your mouth, something that we're chopping down to
sub mouth sized pieces is garlic. Three cloves worth, finely chopped and now
we're ready to move over to the stove. Just got to get everything off our knife...
Here there we go, we've got a nonstick skillet heating over medium-high heat
into it goes a splash of olive oil and we're starting with our zucchini. Tossing
it just a coat and then letting it sit so it gets some nice brown flavorful
facets while we negotiate our pasta. Boiling for I think it said seven
minutes we got some color going on the zucchini so we're getting that a little
toss, and firing the flames and then I'm deviating from protocol here and adding
the tomatoes because I want them to get a little bit cooked. I personally like
not totally raw tomatoes in my pasta. Then, we're adding the garlic and some
red pepper flake if desired- if you want a little bit of heat- tossing that until
fragrant and then draining our pasta reserving one-half cup of pasta water if
you haven't learned by now pasta water is the stuff from which dreams are made.
We're adding both the pasta and the pasta water to the skillet adding the
little included pat of creme fraiche and stirring rounds of those flavors so they can get
to know each other, and that pasta can soak up all that delicious flavorful
liquid. Now just before killing the heat we're going to add about a cup of baby
spinach. We want this to just wilt from the heat of the pan so give it a little
toss kill the heat, and then we're adding the pesto. We want to avoid actively
heating pesto as that dulls the flavor of the basil. So we're just starting that
making sure everything is incorporated and most importantly tasting for
seasoning. We are then seasoning to taste, tossing to combine, and plating up for
dinner. As you can see blue apron once again saves the day with quick beautiful
meals featuring instructions you can follow and ingredients you can pronounce..
and again the first hundred people to sign up using the link in this video's
description will get $50 off their first two weeks. I hope you guys try making
these meals for yourselves put your own spin on it and see how lovely and fresh
a meal you can make fast than it takes to order a pizza.