A Treat from Chef James “Chicken with Artichokes and Olives in a White Wine Sauce”
Hispanic Lifestyle’s On the Menu Cooking Demo with Chef James – Chicken with Artichokes and Olives in a White Wine Sauce
Hispanic Lifestyle met with Television Personality and Celebrity Chef James Tahhan. The restauranteur and author gave us a special treat and prepared for us one of his original creations Chicken with Artichokes and Olives in a White Wine Sauce. In this exclusive video with Chef James, we get tips on how to prepare a healthy meal and cooking insights. The full recipe is below along with behind the scenes photos. A special thank you to our new friends at Mazola® Corn Oil for their assistance in setting up the introduction.
Did you know? September is Cholesterol Awareness Month and Mazola® Corn Oil, America’s #1 Heart-Healthy Cooking Oil, has teamed up with renowned chef, restaurateur and best-selling cookbook author James Tahhan to show families how to cook easy and delicious, heart-healthy meals. Mazola® Corn Oil, an all-purpose cooking oil, is a smart, heart-healthy choice in the kitchen when it comes to helping lower cholesterol.
“As a professional chef, I take pride in creating delicious dishes full of flavor. But, it is also just as important that the food I serve is part of a heart-healthy meal,” said Tahhan. “Maintaining healthy cholesterol levels is important to heart health and when it comes to impact on cholesterol, not all cooking oils are created equal, which is why I choose corn oil instead of olive oil or canola oil.”
According to a study cited in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology, Mazola® Corn Oil can help lower cholesterol two times more than extra virgin olive oil, with the power of plant sterols – plant-based micronutrients that can help reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the gut when consumed as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol2. Plant sterols are naturally present in fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, cereals, legumes and cooking oils and a serving of Mazola® Corn Oil has four times more cholesterol-blocking plant sterols than a serving of olive oil, three times as much as vegetable oil and nearly one-and-one-half more than canola oil3.
“Whenever I cook, I focus on using simple, high-quality ingredients to produce delicious and healthy meals,” said Tahhan. “I also look for products that have health benefits and cooking with corn oil is an easy way to incorporate more of these cholesterol-blocking plant sterols into your everyday diet.”
From baking and grilling to sautéing and marinating, Mazola® Corn Oil can be used for a variety of cooking techniques to create heart-healthy meals. With its neutral taste, corn oil lets the true flavors of food shine through in marinades, dressings and more. Additionally, corn oil’s high smoke point (450°F) makes it a great all-purpose cooking oil that is better suited to handling the heat in the kitchen than many other cooking oils. Many home cooks may not realize that all cooking oils have a smoke point that, once exceeded, negatively affects the food’s flavor and nutritional value.
Hispanic Lifestyle’s On the Menu Cooking Demo with Chef James – Chicken with Artichokes and Olives in a White Wine Sauce
Chicken with Artichokes and Olives in a White Wine Sauce | Serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
- Salt
- Pepper
- Splash of Mazola Corn Oil
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 1 tomato, diced
- 4 ounces kalamata olives
- 1 cup of white wine
- Parsley, chopped for garnish
Preparation
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper
- In a pan, add a splash (2 spoonful’s) of Mazola Corn Oil and warm over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken in the pan, remove, and transfer to a pate.
- In the same pan, sauté the shallot with the tomato, artichokes and olives. Deglaze the pan with the white wine and reduce until the wine has a thick consistency.
- Return the chicken to the pan and let it simmer in the in the sauce.
- Serve, garnish with the parsley.
Carne de Mechada Arepas – Serves 6
Carne Mechada Ingredients
- 2 lbs. flank steak
- 4 bayleafs
- Black pepper
- Splash of Mazola Corn Oil
- 5 garlic cloves
- 1 onion
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 tsp. cumin
- Salt
- ½ cup crushed tomatoes
- 2 tbsp. tomato paste
- 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
Carne Mechada Preparation
- In a deep pot, cook the meat completely submerged in water with a couple of bay leaves and a few grains of black pepper, simmer for two hours.
- Once the meat is ready, remove and shred by hand.
- In a separate pot, begin by making a sofrito, add a splash of Mazola Corn Oil, garlic, onion and red bell peppers and combine with the cumin, salt and pepper before adding the meat.
- Next, add the crushed tomato, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce and let cook over medium heat for 30 minutes.
Arepas Ingredients
- 1 lb. corn masa
- Water
- 2 tbsp. Mazola Corn Oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
Arepas Preparation
- In a bowl, mix the corn masa with water. Consistency should be a creamy yet compact masa. Add the Mazola Corn Oil and mix well, followed by the salt.
- Form balls of the size of a golf ball, flatten them for the desired thickness.
- Place in a pan and fry for about 4 minutes per side. Remove, open the middle and fill with the shredded meat.
About The Homemade Chef: Ordinary Ingredients for Extraordinary Meals (explains Chef James’s cooking philosophy): The debut cookbook from the star co-host of Telemundo’s Emmy winning morning show, Un Nuevo Dia, celebrity chef James Tahhan, who has become a household name by offering expert culinary advice with his signature WOW factor.
Trained at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu, Chef James is known for world-class Pan Latin cuisine at his award-winning restaurant, but his passion extends far beyond his restaurant’s kitchen. When it comes to learning about food, preparation, and everyday cooking, this innovative chef is hard at work finding simple and efficient ways to make your kitchen a creative yet comfortable space in your home. Drawing on his roots as a young home chef, Tahhan shows that anyone can make delicious and impressive dishes for all types of casual and formal occasions. In his debut cookbook, Chef James focuses on simple, high-quality ingredients from different parts of the world and blends them with Latin flavors to create extraordinary food.
In addition to the array of spectacular recipes, James invites readers to go behind the scenes of his life as a professional chef, sharing valuable tricks of the trade to help you avoid common kitchen errors, be creative when you miss a step or two, pick the best ingredients at the farmers’ market and the supermarket, and learn foolproof shortcuts for faster food preparation. Whether you already love to cook or are just starting out, Chef James takes home cooking to another level with simple and wholesome meals that are sophisticated, flavorful, and exceptional.
Exclusive photos by Richard Sandoval
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