I'm a big, big fan of Stonewall Kitchen's Cilantro Lime Dressing. Mostly I use it for marinating chicken before grilling, but at about $5.00 a bottle ($5.95 if you buy it through their website) it can get pretty expensive. I can go through a bottle of that with a whole chicken. So, in an effort toward living the frugal life I decided to make my own cilantro / lime concoction.
I put about 2-3 limes (cut away the peel), 1/2C fresh cilantro, 1 heaping Tbl of toasted, whole coriander seeds, a clove of garlic, and about a tsp. of salt in the blender. Then I added 1/4 of olive oil. I blended it really well for about 20 seconds. Then I poured in more olive oil while the blender was running to get it the consistency I wanted: a thick paste. Then I pourerd it over cubes of chicken in a shallow baking dish to marinate.
When it was time to get dinner going I jabbed the chicken cubes on to skewers and grilled them for about 8 minutes. Other grilled vegetables balanced out the menu (e.g., mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, tofu), and it was all served over rice.
Here are some of the good things about this:
1. It took hardly no time at all.
2. I got to use up some of my "older" limes.
3. The thick paste adhered nicely to the chicken, so a lot of the flavor stayed -on- the chicken.
4. It was truly delicious. Everybody said so.
3 comments:
It sounds great, but I gotta ask:
How much did it cost?
---your inquirying correspondent
As you know, I'm not a math person, and I do this strange economic voodoo: if it's in the house it's free! So the limes were left over from gin and tonic wannabes from a weekend barbecue. I usually get them 3/$1. The coriander was probably around a dollar something for the bunch. I didn't use that much, so the trick is to use up the rest in something else to make it worthwhile. My husband complains about how much i spend on olive oil, so let's not even talk about that. I'm going to Fairway tomorrow to get some more (and a cheaper variety).
So, in terms of ingredients, I'd say it was pretty cheap. But we can go to a deeper environmental level too. I didn't purchase some stuff in a bottle to use one time. That -has- to be good. I do, of course, recycle the bottles, but still...
All in all, I think I came out ahead (sorry Stonewall Kitchen).
I strongly believe in the "if it's in the house it's free!" way of thinking.
As for olive oil, Fairway has their own brand of olive oil. It is "packed in Italy"--so its probably a combo of some other country's olives, but its perfectly good for cooking. Plus, you can always buy those giant tins of olive oil and then refill your bottle for easier pouring.
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