CHICKEN UPPER TIGHS WITH MUSTARD AND BUTTERMILK

This is a dish I created last year for a non conventional dinner with friends.
I took the inspiration from the indian cuisine that my husband and I love so much for its creamy texture and its abundance of spices and herbs.
I was trying to find the right combination between the simplicity of italian food and and the exotic note of eastern taste. The result was great!

for 4 people

4 chicken upper tighs
a tablespoon of french mustard
a teaspoon of mixed dried herbs (coriander, marjoram, thyme, rosemary and, last but not least, my best-loved “everlasting” if you’re so lucky to find some)
half a teaspoon of cumin seeds
half a glass of buttermilk
half a glass of white wine
4 tablespoons of olive oil
sea salt
ground black pepper
crushed hot chilly pepper

Take the skin and the bone off the tighs, dice the meat or let the butcher do this for you if you are half as lazy as I am.
Season with olive oil (use a brush or do it with your hands if you like dirty jobs!), dried herbs, cumin, pepper and chilly pepper, then put the diced chicken in the fridge to get all the flavours. Leave it for about half an hour.
Put the olive oil into a large pan and cook the chicken until it becomes light brown on all the sides of the cubes. Add the wine and let evaporate for a while, then add salt, mustard and buttermilk (if you can find it use 150 g of natural yogurt), put the lid and let cook for about 45 minutes. It doesn’t take a long time to cook because the chicken is diced and, moreover, tighs meat is rather soft.
At the end of this time, if you reckon that the cooking juice is too watery, transfer the chicken cubes into a serving dish and let the juice boil off until it is nice and creamy, then pour it on top of the meat.
Serve with peas (cooked in a bit of oil and finely chopped parsley) on a side.

BEEF "STRACCETTI" WITH PARMESAN CHEESE

No meat dish is as simple to prepare as straccetti and, despite this, these beef stripes are tasty and succulent and, on top of that, they work well as a base for more sofisticated dishes, depending on the ingredients you want to serve with them.
Here is the simplest way...

for 3-4 people

400 g of soft beef meat (you may ask your butcher to cut it extremely thin, in stripes about 3 cm wide, better if with a cutter)
2 tablespoons of wite wine
2 fresh sage leaves
1 clove of garlic
150 g of flakes of parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons of extravirgin olive oil
salt and black pepper

Put the garlic clove into a large frying pan with the olive oil, when it starts to brown lightly discard it.
Add the sage leaves, then the beef stripes and cook them for no longer than 2 minutes per side (it could be shorter or longer depending on one's taste)
Just before taking the meat off the heat add the wine, salt and ground black pepper and let boil off quickly.
Take off the heat and lay on top of the straccetti the parmesan cheese flakes. You could also add some rocket salad or some thinly sliced mushrooms, they work really well together!
Serve hot and...buon appetito!