Entrees
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Entrees
I make this recipe for my kids about once a week. Beer is the secret ingredient. You can easily control the heat by altering the amount of chili powder and the tabasco sauce. it should be a crime to serve this recipe without cornbread.
This has been a Sunday afternoon staple in our family for years. Katie is the paella master. You can always tell if there are Spaniards in your group. They are always the ones digging to the bottom of the paella for the crunchy, stuck to the bottom of the part of the paella. While not traditionally Spanish, cooking a paella in a large cast iron (16” - 20”) pan creates the best crust on the bottom of the pan. Katie has Americanized our paella recipe a bit, substituting pork spare ribs for rabbit and snails, which are found in a traditional Valencian paella.
Growing up, I had a steady diet of those mini Marie Callender's Chicken Pot Pies. I couldn’t get enough of them. I would eat them so fast I always scorched the roof of my mouth. I found this recipe on Tasty. This is an easy one-pot recipe you can make for the whole family in a 10” - 12” skillet. If you prefer turkey pot pies, you can substitute dark turkey meat for the chicken. Make sure you let it cool a bit before serving!
Martha Stewart’s fried chicken recipe is spot on. The secret is to brine the chicken overnight in buttermilk. Another thing I like about this recipe is that you don’t need to use a whole bottle of oil to fry up the chicken in a deep fryer. Heating some oil in a skillet and frying the chicken pieces and turning them with tongs will do the trick. You’ll never go to KFC again.
This is another easy dinner that tastes great. All it requires is that you marinate the chicken first. The longer you marinate it, the stronger the flavor. It’s important to cook the chicken skin-side-down before flipping it in the skillet and putting it in the oven. That way the skin will get nice and crispy. While the chicken is resting, make the pan sauce.
I came up with this recipe a long time ago. It was my first pass at creating a stir fry recipe. The pineapple, pineapple juice and the stir fry sauce give this stir fry a sweeter taste, reminiscent of some polynesian and cantonese dishes--just a lot easier to make.
I first made this dish for Katie when we first started dating. I knew she had grown up in the Philippines, and wanted to make her something special. This recipe is fun because the cooking steps are backwards from a traditional Philipino adobo recipe. In the Philippines you typically fry the chicken first, then braise it in vinegar and soy. In this version, the chicken is braised first, then fried. That way when you serve the chicken with nice crispy skin, rather than with soggy skin. It must have been ok because she (eventually) married me.
🍗 Sam’s California Chicken Burrito
(coming soon!)
I saw this recipe on Sam the Cooking Guy's YouTube channel. He has to be my favorite chef on the planet. He cooks on an Evo Affinity outdoor grill. I don't have one of those, so I adapted his recipe to cast iron. I'm getting ready to move to Mexico. Burritos are an American creation, so I'm bringing his recipe with me.
Caribbean food has always been my favorite ethnic food. Having lived in Atlanta, I was able to travel to Jamaica frequently where I could explore the local cuisine and learn what real Jamaican food should taste like. In culinary school I scored a 100 on my final, cooking jerk chicken with rice and peas. So I was pretty psyched when I ran across this recipe on the Kitchn blog. It’s a simple, one-pot skillet recipe that enables you to cook the jerk chicken and the rice and peas together in one pan.
Another staple at Chez Briggs-Parsons. It’s all about the marsala pan sauce. This is my daughter Molly’s favorite recipe. We often double this recipe and use the chicken and prosciutto the next night combined with fettuccine alfredo.
NOTHING cooks duck like cast iron. Find the largest breast you can. Cook them skinside down for ¾ of the cooking time. I’ve always served my duck with some kind of fruit-based sauce. While the French duck à l'orange is more famous, I prefer my duck with a blackberry sauce made from fresh blackberries.
When you cook it like a smash burger on cast iron, you get that crunchy, caramelized edge to the patties, almost like the socarrat at the bottom of a paella fan. I use my Griswold #10 skillet for this recipe. I like using the sides of the pan to help me get under the beef patty with my spatula and flip the burger.
I've spent a lot of time in Ireland. No surprisingly, much of my time there has been spent in pubs. This classic Irish pub dish is probably available in jus about every pub in Ireland. Perfect comfort food for those cold, wet rainy days days. It goes without saying that it needs to be accompanied with a pint of Guinness. ☘️
We make a premium version of this recipe the day after Christmas. We always serve prime rib and Katie’s unbelievable garlic mashed potatoes for Christmas dinner. We use those two ingredients the next day as the basis for our shepherd’s pie. This recipe offers us an easy alternative when starting from scratch. I sometimes add some Guiness when I’m feeling nostalgic for the mother country.
I was raised on this meatloaf. My mother made this every couple of weeks or so when I was growing up. She recently told me she got the recipe from her mother-in-law, my grandmother. I make it in a cast iron loaf pan, which is not only more fun, but the cast iron will give the bottom and sides of meatloaf and crispy exterior, while leaving the inside moist and tasty.
Skillet Meatballs (coming soon)
Cooking meatballs in an iron skillet enables you brown the outside of the of the meatballs. This caramelization results in the meatballs having a nice, crunchy exterior. Then putting them in the oven allows you to achieve a perfectly cooked, soft and juicy interior.
This is a great winter dish to make. It’s very easy, and makes your entire house smell amazing for the three hours it takes to prepare and cook the short ribs. Another added bonus is that you can puree the remaining meat, vegetables and sauce to make a short rib ragu pasta dinner for the following night.
When Katie and I have an evening alone, this is the dinner I make. I’ve changed it quite a bit over the years. The truffle oil adds an earthy flavor to the filet mignons. Add to it the brandy and mushroom pan sauce, and I’d say this is the best dish I know how to cook. Perfect for a stay-at-home date night.
A more rustic dinner than the steak au poivre. It's not surprising since the name Porterhouse originated from English pubs that served “Porter” ale. I love cooking a porterhouse because it gets you both a filet mignon and a New York strip steak. Cutting them into strips enables you to ensure the smaller filet mignon cooks at the same rate as the NY Strip.
Fajitas are one of those classic dinners cooked and served sizzling in cast iron. This isn’t just an everyday beef fajitas, this is a steak fajitas, made with top sirloin steak. Using a quality steak means it will be tender and juicy inside the tortilla. This recipe is simple to make, and can also be used for chicken, or both together at the same time!
🥩 Birria Tacos (coming soon!)
I first came to appreciate birria-style tacos while living in Sayulita, Mexico. The best ones were sold from street vendors. The magic when it comes to birria tacos is the sauce, which is derived from the braised meat. The sauce is then re-used to fry the tortillas prior to assembling the tacos. This sauce is then re-used again as a dipping sauce for the tacos.
There’s something about apples with pork chops. They are the perfect combination. Martha Stewart's quick and easy recipe is simply the best. I didn’t used to be a big Martha Stewart fan, but after seeing her with Snoop Dogg on “Martha & Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party”, I’ve taken a second look. I’m glad I did, as some of her recipe’s, like this one are really good.
Another staple at Chez Briggs-Parsons. Very easy to make. Just put the 3 ingredients and the pork loin in a ziplock for 2+ hours (or overnight), then roast it in the oven for an hour or so. That’s it. it will come out with a lot of flavor, and will be very tender-not dry like many other pork loin recipes.
We used to serve this at La Petite Rive in Mendocino, where I did my internship during my Le Cordon Bleu program. The key to making this recipe is to make sure the butter is at room temperature and then really slather it on as thick as you can before placing it in a skillet and roasting it in the oven.
I never used to eat lamb. But after moving to New Zealand, where they really know how to cook lamb, I was quickly converted. It doesn’t get any easier than this recipe. Rack of lamb plus 4 ingredients. The marinade is really strong, so don’t marinate for more than 2 hours. If cooking two racks, pin them together with toothpicks, with the bones pointing upward, to make a crown. Great presentation.
Braised lamb shanks are another dish I discovered when I moved to New Zealand for a year, where lamb is the red meat of choice over beef. This recipe may look a bit familiar, because with the exception of the lamb shanks, it's exactly the same as my braised short ribs recipe. The lamb has such a different flavor, you'd never know recipe is the same. Cook it for at east 2 hours and the meat will literally fall off the bone.
I ate a lot of this when I was in Jamaica, This recipe is the closest I’ve found to the real thing. It comes from “Authentic Recipes from Jamaica” by John DeMers, which, if you are interested in Jamaican food, is the only cookbook you'll ever need.
It doesn’t get much easier than this dinner by Nigella Lawson. Searing scallops on cast iron is the only way to go. I wouldn’t have thought about combining these two together, but it's quite good and very quick and easy to make. Get the freshest, larger size scallops you can find. If the are too fat you can cut them in half to make them thinner if you like.
One of the unique qualities of cast iron is the sear you can when cooking things like duck, scallops...and salmon. The key to this recipe is to let the salmon sear in your skillet undisturbed until it is ready. The other important part is to not add the salmon until the sauce has reduced enough to become nice and creamy, before adding the salmon back into the pan.
🐟 Julia’s Sole Meunière
(coming soon!)
This recipe changed the course of Julia Child’s life. It all happened one evening in 1948 in Rouen, France at Restaurant La Couronne. It was most likely prepared table-side by the maître d’hótel. From her description of the experience, it changed her from a person who lived to eat, rather than simply eating to live.
This recipe first caught my eye, because it was on the cover of “Cast Iron Cooking” by Dwayne Ridgaway, which is one of my favorite cookbooks. Once you make the linguine, shrimp scampi comes together and is ready to serve in 10 minutes.
This one-pot dish is a no brainer for the family. It’s so easy you don’t need to even boil the spaghetti noodles separately. Once it’s done, take it out of the oven and serve it right in the pan. It doesn’t get much easier than that. We usually serve it with garlic or cornbread.
This is simply the best lasagna recipe you will ever taste. Katie is the lasagne master, and has let me copy down the recipe and share with you all. I purchased a Wagner baking pan at an auction recently and this was the first meal we cooked in it.
🍕 Skillet Fig, Goat Cheese & Garlic Pizza
(coming soon!)
If you like a nice, crunchy crust, then you’ll love making your pizzas in cast iron. The only downside is, unless you have a giant cast iron pan, you’re limited to small and medium-sized pizzas. This is my interpretation of a yummy pizza I used to eat at Figs Restaurant on Charles Street in Beacon Hill in Boston.
