Daring Cooks May: Enchiladas

Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

Good Mexican food is hard to come by in Sweden. Sure, “Tex Mex” is extermely popular and is on the dinner tables of many Swedish families on Friday and Saturday evenings, but it's of course a “Swedified” version and, in my opinion, quite boring. I haven't found any good Mexican restaurants either, but we do have some Taco Bell-copies.

So, the alternative, as always, is to make it yourself. But then you run into problems at the grocery store. Corn tortillas? Yeah, maybe. Anaheim chilies? Errrr, no. Tomatillos? What's that? (Answer here.) As usual, our hosts were aware of the regional limitations of the global Daring Cooks, and provided us with some suggestions for substitutes. Tomatillos are apparently somewhat related to gooseberries. Fresh gooseberries are hard to come by during gooseberry season (unless you have a bush in you garden, or knows someone who does, your only bet is the local farmer's market. I have never seen gooseberries in a grocery store), and in May? Impossible!

So what's two Daring Cooks to do? Well, improvise of course!

We had of course great plans to make our own tortillas and all, but we didn't have time. We did, however, have time for a crazy chicken “grilling” experiment. The recipe says to use a gas grill or medium-hot charcoal, which we didn't have access to. Instead, we brushed the chicken breasts with Liquid Smoke (yay, artificial flavorings!), cooked them in the oven for about 20 minutes, and then Markus went over them with our kitchen torch (the kind you use for brulées). We don't know if the torch thing really did anything to the flavor, but it added some color and was so crazy we just had to do it!



And for the Anaheim peppers? Well, our guess was that they are mainly green and has a bit of a punch in them, so we opted for green bell peppers (for the color), regular red peppers (for the punch), and some jalapeño (for color and punch, turned out to be hard to peel them after roasting, so we ended up not using very much of it, which was probably for the better anyway.)



Oh, and since we were unable to get either tomatillos or gooseberries, we opted for gooseberry jam! Well, what's a daring cook to do?

So, here's the recipe for our gooseberry-pepper salsamathingy

450 g Green bell peppers
40 g Jalapeño
70 g Red chili
1 Onion
2 cloves of Garlic
1 tbsp Chicken stock concentrate
½ dl Water
250 g Gooseberry jam
1 tsp Dried oregano
Salt

Grill, peel and remove the seeds from the green bell peppers, the jalapeño and the red chili. Chop the onion and press the garlic. Mix it all up with a mixer, and stir in the chicken stock, water and seasoning. Taste on your own risk. Since we only had 250 g of Gooseberry jam, we halved the recipe at this time, using only half of the pepper mix.

To assemble the enchiladas, we used store brought corn tortillas, a mixture of Porte Salute, Cheddar and Parmesan cheese and the “grilled” chicken. We started with a thin layer of salsa, then added two layers of tortilla, salsa, chicken and cheese, and topped it all with a layer of tortilla, salsa and cheese.



The enchiladas were cooked for 15 minutes at 225°C, and served with guacamole and cold, Mexican beer – as is becoming of this kind of dish. We later found out that tomatillos are available in Sweden, but only as a prefabricated “Tomatillo & Green Chili Sauce”...



Thank you for a fun and tasty challenge! Make sure to visit the Daring Kitchen for the whole recipe and the other Daring Cooks' creations!

Daring Cooks January: Satay

It's a new year, both calender-wise and for us deer eaters: we just celebrated one year of food blogging! The highlight of this blogging year has definitely been the Daring Kitchen challenges. In the past twelve months, we have mastered the art of sushi making (ok, "mastered the art" might be a slight exaggeration if you ask a true Japanese sushi chef, but we're proud of ourselves, so there!); realized that if you find a macaron recipe that works for you, you should stick with it; we have turned disappointments around, ventured into vegan territory, put the pasta machine to use in two challenges, and even done molecular gastronomy à la Grant Achatz and Alinea.
In short: we have learned a lot, we have been challenged, and we have had loads of fun as members of this awesome community of food bloggers from all corners of the planet.

Enough with the retrospective, onwards to this month's challenge:

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

Yay, we love satay! We have made it a couple of times at home but never really found a perfect recipe for the peanut sauce. This challenge was very easy (although you could make it more involved by for example making additional sauces or doing more types of satay using pork, chicken, veggies, tofu etc.). As we did this the very last minute (sounds familiar....?) and were both tired and hungry, we were happy that it was uncomplicated and didn't take much time. I made the marinade in the morning (chucked everything into the food processor - whiiiiiirl, and done!), stuck the chicken in the fridge during the day, and in the evening we had dinner on the table in about 40 minutes, the rice taking the longest to make.

This marinade is a real find, it made the chicken super-tender and super-tasty. It will definitely be put to use during the BBQ season (which feels far far away now - we have lots of snow and temperatures of about 10-15 below Celsius (5-14°F) - shudder!). The peanut sauce was good, but still not the satay sauce we're looking for. I guess the quest continues... It was really easy to make, and quite close to the satay sauce we've had in Malaysia and Indonesia, but there's something missing from all the recipes we have tried. Any ideas?

Thank you Cuppy for a nice challenge! I wouldn't call it challenging, but it was tasty, easy and we will definitely make it again. For the full recipe, go to Cuppy's blog or to the Daring Kitchen recipe archive.



Chicken satay

1/2 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp ginger root, chopped (optional)
2 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
2 tbsp vegetable oil (or peanut or olive oil)
1 tbsp fish sauce (optional, but gives a more authentic Thai flavor)
3 chicken breasts

You could cut the chicken breasts into narrow strips, for skewering and grilling/broiling. We just kept them whole.
Anyhoo, either do the marinade by hand (chop the vegetables really fine) or do the cheater version: dump everything into the food processor and mix until smooth. Place the chicken breasts in a plastic bag, pour in the marinade, mush it around a little, seal well and place in the fridge for 2-12 hours.
Get the chicken out of the marinade. Broil or grill at 290°C/550°F (or pan fry on medium-high) for 8-10 minutes or until the edges just start to char. Flip and cook another 8-10 minutes. We pan fried our chicken, and I didn't bother to wipe of any excess marinade, I just put the chicken into the pan. The marinade did get quite a bit of color quickly, but it wasn't a problem, we just lowered the heat and put a bit of foil over the pan to keep the heat in.

Peanut sauce

3/4 cup coconut milk (180 ml)
4 tbsp peanut butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1-2 dried red chilies, chopped

Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well.
Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and your soy-lemon-seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.
All you’re doing is melting the peanut butter, so make your peanut sauce after you’ve made everything else in your meal, or make ahead of time and reheat.



Serve the satay as an appetizer, side dish or main course. Enjoy!

Chicken Parmigiana, and a versatile sauce

This dinner was a result of me craving the Chicken Parmigiana I saw over at The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and Markus wanting to make a roasted vegetable sauce that he had seen on a food show on Swedish TV. So, we simply used the vegetable sauce instead of tomato sauce for the chicken.

The roasted vegetable sauce is easy to make, spreads a wonderful smell in your kitchen, and is extremely versatile. You can use other vegetables, and feel free to tamper with the amounts. It can be served on its own with pasta, used as a flavoring in casseroles, stews and paellas, or as a base for soup. You don't need all the sauce for the chicken here, so you will have some left-overs to experiment with. The sauce can be frozen.

Roasted vegetable sauce

3 yellow onions
8 tomatoes
2 red bell peppers (we used the pointy kind)
1 green chili fruit
1 parsnip
4 small carrots
2 large cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Later:
Vegetable stock (~3 dl)
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oven to 175°C.
Take a large oven-proof dish and prep it with either some oil or with parchment paper.
Halve the onions, but keep the skin on. Place them skin up in the dish.
Halve the tomatoes and remove the seeds. Quarter the bell peppers and remove the seeds. Peel the parsnip and carrots and cut in slices. Halve the chili fruit and remove the seeds. Peel the garlic and give it a little crush by pressing down on the cloves with the side of a knife blade. Place all the vegetables together with the onions in the dish. Sprinkle with some olive oil.
Put in the oven for 1-1½ hours, until the veggies are soft and roasted.
Remove the skin from the onions.
Transfer all the vegetables to a mixer fitted with a blade, or to a large bowl or pot. We used a large pot and an immersion blender. Mix/blend until you have a purée. Add vegetable stock until you have the consistency you want (for the chicken below it should be quite saucy). We used water plus concentrated store-bought stock, but homemade vegetable stock would of course be better.
Add salt and pepper to taste.


Tasty, but not photogenic...

Chicken Parmigiana
adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

2 chicken breasts
1 dl flour
Salt and black pepper
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
2 dl freshly grated parmesan cheese
Roasted vegetable sauce (recipe above)

Place each chicken breast in a ziplock bag, or in a normal plastic bag which you tie up very well. You don't want chicken flying about your kitchen. (Yuck.) Anyway, either take one of those meat-hammer thingies, or do as we do and use a rolling pin, and pound the chicken breasts flat. You want then to be ½ centimeter thick or so. Mix the flour, salt and pepper on a plate, and coat the chicken breasts.
Heat the butter and oil in a pan. When it's hot and the butter has melted, you fry the chicken breasts (we had to do them one at the time) until they're nice and golden brown, about 2-3 minutes on each side.
Clean out your pan (or grab another one). Put in however much of the roasted vegetable sauce you think you'll eat. If we would have had some wine (red or white) at home, I would have added a splash of that at this point, so do that if you're so inclined. Bring the sauce to a simmer. Place the chicken on top of the sauce. Sprinkle the parmesan generously on top of the chicken. Place a lid on the pan and simmer until the cheese is melted and the chicken is heated.
We served this with mashed potatoes (made with more cheese!), but obviously pasta works as well. If you have any fresh herbs (parsley, basil) you can sprinkle that on top.
Enjoy!

Phở Ga 2.0

Some week or so ago, we made Vietnamese chicken noodle soup - Phở Ga - with the Daring Cooks. We were disappointed with the results, but saved the leftover broth in the freezer to try to improve it at some point in the future. Turns out the future was today, mainly due to a whole bunch of fresh cilantro that we forgot to use in yesterday's dinner.

We added more toasted spices - maybe 6 whole cloves, 3 whole star anise and 2 tablespoons ground coriander seeds. We also charred a large onion and a big chunk of ginger and added those, together with a large bunch of stems from the fresh cilantro. We brought the broth to a healthy boil, added chicken breast and thighs, boiled those for about 15-20 minutes, and then boiled the soup for another 20 minutes or so.

And guess what! It was delicious! More flavorful and complex; you could definitely taste the warm fragrant spices, the ginger and the onion. So, the key to making a nice Phở Ga was: more vigorous boiling for a longer time plus extra spices and more ginger and onion. A lot of Daring Cooks were very happy with the original recipe, but next time we're making Phở, we'll make sure to up the amounts of flavoring and increase the cooking time.

I'm so happy that the challenge turned out satisfying in the end. Thanks to our fellow Daring Cooks for their encouragement in comments on the original post, and to Jaden of the Steamy Kitchen for sharing her recipes!

Daring Cooks October: Phở Ga (and a little extra something)

Fall is here: the days are getting shorter, the temperature is creeping towards zero, and the trees are showing off their new colors of orange, red and yellow. It's the perfect season to escape to the kitchen and make stews and casseroles, apple pie and hot chocolate. Or as in this month's Daring Cooks challenge: a flavorful, warm soup.

The Daring Cooks had a special guest host this month, Jaden Hair of the blog Steamy Kitchen, who just published her first cookbook: The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. As the challenge, she graciously shared her recipe for a Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, Phở Ga.

We had great expectations for this challenge. I love noodle soups, and Vietnamese food has never disappointed me. I remember the Phở Ga I had at a small Vietnamese place in a back road in Jordan, Hong Kong. It was packed with flavor of warm, fragrant spices, the noodles were perfectly cooked and the chicken oh so tender.

I was very excited about getting to recreate something so yummy in my own kitchen. We could either do a quick version of Phở, using store-bought chicken stock, or a longer version, where you make the chicken stock yourself. We of course opted for the longer version - making the broth from scratch would surely mean that the soup would be super delicious!


Meet the meat, up close and personal.

We followed the recipe perfectly, and even threw in an extra chicken carcass that we had laying in the freezer, to get some extra bone and marrow in there. We took great care to toast the spices and char the ginger and onion - these are steps that both Jaden and other Daring Cooks said were essential in creating a rich, flavorful broth. Judging from the smell coming from the oven and the stove, it would indeed be lovely.

We had started cooking kind of late, so the clook was approaching 9pm when I finally dipped a spoon into the broth in anticipation of what was to follow: the taste of a rich broth with layers of flavor from the spices.

Total anticlimax.

The broth was watery, and didn't taste much else than chicken fat. We were so disappointed. We really don't know what went wrong. We both went back and re-read the recipe, but no, we hadn't missed anything. The only reasons we could come up with as to why the broth was so flavorless were:
1. We couldn't find whole coriander seeds, only ground. We used the same amount, they were fresh and had a lot of aroma, so I can't imagine that this would have done that much for the end result.
2. It hadn't been simmering enough. The recipe said to simmer for 1½ hours on "low". We did exactly that - we even let it simmer for closer to two hours, but maybe we should have cranked up the heat a little bit to get some more bubbles going. We think this was problem.



We ate the soup with all the sides: rice noodles, the cooked chicken breast, bean sprouts, red onions, red chilies, freshly squeezed lime and fresh cilantro. We had also found sriracha sauce in the store (another bottle of strange condiments for the fridge), and we found ourselves pouring a lot of sriracha into the soup to make it taste something.

While we were eating, we had turned up the heat on the stove so that the broth was simmering more vigorously. The recipe yielded a lot of broth, and the idea was to freeze the remainder, so that we can make more Phở in the future. I want to say that the broth tasted more after it had boiled for another hour or so, but I couldn't really tell, so maybe that's just me wanting to like this recipe. Because I really want it to be great. It has potential, definitely. But in this version, I'm sorry to say, it was only... meh.

Anyway, the remainder of the broth is now in the freezer, and I hope that when I thaw it, heat it and add those lovely Phở ingredients, I will be pleasantly surprised. Maybe the extra boiling was the secret key to a flavorful, rich Phở. I will report back when we have tried it.

The recipe for the long version of Phở Ga can be found on the Steamy Kitchen blog. Jaden also has a recipe for a beef Phở (the challenge said that we could do chicken, beef, seafood or vegetarian/vegan). The recipe for the quick version of Phở Ga can be found on the Daring Kitchen website, where you also can see the other Daring Cooks' creations.

The fine print:
The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

But wait, there's more!

As a bonus, Jaden gave us her recipe for deep fried chocolate wontons (you'll find the recipe in the Daring Kitchen). This optional challenge was to make a creative wonton dessert. Sadly there were no wonton wrappers in our grocery store, and it was way too cold to bike across town to the Chinese shop (we got our first snowfall yesterday; it didn't stay on the ground, but still kind of early in the year), so I had to use phyllo dough instead. I hope this will count as "in the spirit of the challenge"! Voilà, my dessert:



Ganache filled banana in a wrapper

Bananas (the thicker and straighter, the better)
Dark chocolate ganache (I used this recipe)
Phyllo dough
Melted butter
Vegetable oil for deep frying
Vanilla ice cream
Caramel sauce (I used this recipe, scroll down for caramel sauce)

Peel the bananas and cut them in smaller sections of about 5 cm. Use an apple corer to make a hole through the banana (this is why you want straight and thick bananas).


Bananas with holes, ready to be filled with ganache.

Make sure your ganache is soft but not runny. Use a pastry bag to fill the banana with ganache (this didn't work for me so I had to use my fingers, which was messy but got the job done). Place the chocolate filled bananas (standing up) in the freezer for about one hour.

Things to remember about phyllo dough: the sheets are very delicate and need to be stored under a wet cloth, otherwise they'll dry out and break apart!

Cut the phyllo dough into squares of about 15×17 cm. Take a sheet of phyllo, brush it with some melted butter, and put another sheet on top. Place a chocolate-filled banana piece on the short end of the square, roll it up and twist the ends (carefully!) to make it look like wrapped candy.

Place your little packages in the freezer for at least twenty minutes. Heat the oil for deep frying. Deep fry two rolls at the time for 2-3 minutes, turning them halfway through. Place on a paper towel to get rid of excess oil before plating. Dust with confectioner's sugar. Serve with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.


Needless to say, this was incredibly yummy!

Daring Cooks June (part two): We ate 'em!

So, the post that went up on the reveal day of June's Daring Cooks challenge was kind of sad, right? We (no, correction, Markus) prepared lovely Chinese dumplings with chicken filling, and then we both got sick and couldn't eat them. Thanks for all your well wishes in comments by the way!

But luckily the flu passed by quickly, and today, it was time to get some dumplings out of the freezer and steam them. We love our bamboo steamer (even if I have managed to give it a slightly pink hue by steaming radishes in it). After ten minutes of steaming the dumplings were done, and we ate them with a very tasty dipping sauce that I whipped together without paying any attention to measurements at all. It consisted of:

*mushroom soy
*red wine vinegar
*some liquid from one of those cans of candied ginger in syrup

The dumplings tasted delicious, but we thought the texture was a bit too tough. Maybe that's because they had been frozen? The filling was good - we both agreed it tasted Chinese which is a great thing in our book - but Markus admitted that he should have cut the ingredients finely by hand rather than being lazy and using a mixer (which he would have known had he only read the whole recipe! Sorry honey, just teasing you a little...).

Anyway, the dumplings were great! We are definitely keeping this recipe and will for sure return to it in the future, trying out other fillings - hand chopped then. :)

Thanks Jen for a great challenge and for sharing an old family recipe with us Daring Cooks!

Daring Cooks June: Chinese dumplings - a half finished challenge

This post will not turn out the way we had hoped, unfortunately. It's time to present the second ever Daring Cooks challenge, hosted by Jen of use real butter (love that name - butter is better!). She has chosen Chinese dumplings/potstickers as the challenge.

We were so excited about this challenge, given our recent infatuation with Chinese food and Dim Sum. We started to make plans about all the different fillings to make. But time flew, we were busy, but on Thursday, three days before the reveal, we were finally going to make the dumplings.

Enter the flu.

I felt like crap all day, so Markus volunteered to do the cooking on his own (I tried to give some helpful advice and ask what I should do, but he kept sending my fever-clogged body back to bed). And then, when he had pleated about 2/3 of the dumplings, he started feeling woozy too. Neither one of us felt like steamed chicken dumplings, so the ones that were ready got tossed into the freezer - thankfully this months challenge is freezable! We had some dough and filling left, but frankly it never got used.

So, our dumplings are sitting in the freezer, while we are under the down cover, freezing too. We'll of course make a follow-up post on how they tasted once we have cooked them. We'll give you the recipe for the filling we made here; for full instructions on how to make the dumplings (including different fillings and cooking methods) go to Jen's blog. For the dough we used the method of Jen's mom, which worked really well.

Markus made really pretty dumplings and he reported that they were easy to make. To see the creations of the other Daring Cooks who made it all the way through, visit the Daring Kitchen!

Thank you Jen for a really great challenge - we are definitely returning to this one once we've stopped shivering...

Chicken dumpling filling:
(enough for one batch of Jen's mom's dough)

200 g grilled chicken meat
40 g bamboo shoots (canned)
40 g water chestnuts (canned)
20 g fresh ginger (cleaned weight)
20 g mushroom soy
15 g sesame oil
1 tbsp rice flour (the recipe called for corn starch, but we were out...)

Chop the chicken and vegetables very finely - Markus used a mixer, because he missed the detail in the recipe which told us not to do this. He says it worked well, so go ahead and be lazy as well if you want to. :) Mix the wet ingredients with the rice flour, and add it - if you're using a mixer, take her for one more spin.

Fill the dumplings as per Jen's instructions. Now, we can't vouch for the taste of this, so unless you're feeling adventurous (in Hong Kong we found that Chinese eating is about being adventurous so feel free to be that way) you might want to wait until our update before heading to the kitchen.

TNT chicken salad?

I had no inspiration whatsoever for dinner cooking tonight, and I also felt very particular about what I wanted to eat. It had to be quite light and preferably a bit fruity, but I also wanted something... well, gooey is probably the best word actually.

After much cookbook page turning and searching through the brain-based recipe index, I actually found something that seemed up that alley. In the Thanksgiving and Christmas chapter of Nigella's book Feast there's an Asian-style salad with left-over turkey in a peanut butter based sauce (Nigella calls it Bang Bang Turkey for some reason I can't quite comprehend). We didn't have any leftover turkey (we have never had any leftover turkey, seeing as us Swedes aren't big turkey eaters other than smoked turkey breast on sandwiches), and I couldn't find all the ingredients for the sauce in the grocery store so I played around and as usual, my version bears little resemblence to the original recipe (which by the way can be found here if you don't happen to have a copy of Feast. Scroll down about half way for the Bang Bang recipe).

Anyway, it was quite light and fruity and definitely gooey so it did do the trick! In the spirit of Nigella I will also name this dish after explosive noises. Or you could just call it Peanut and Hoisin Chicken Salad, if you're boring like that.



Big badaboom chicken salad

For the sauce:
3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
2 tbsp Hoisin sauce
1 tbsp water
2 tsp neutral-tasting oil

1 whole grilled chicken
50 g spring onions
½ cucumber
1 mango
1 handful of fresh cilantro

Start with the sauce: simply mix all the ingredients and put aside.

Remove the skin from the chicken and get the meat off the bones. Shred the meat by tearing it apart using your hands. Put the chicken meat in a bowl, add the sauce and mix around so that the chicken is coated in gooeyness.

Finely chop the spring onions. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and then in thin half moon slices. Cut the mango in smaller pieces. Put all the veggies and on a plate (this salad should be served on a large plate, not in a bowl) and mix around. Top with the chicken. Bang - you're done!

Birdie nam-nam

Roasted chicken is one of my favourite comfort dishes. It's simple, homely and fills your house with the most wonderful smell. If I don't know what to make for dinner and I'm in the mood for easy and stress-free yet filling and "robust" food, chances are I'll end up making roast chicken of some kind. The flavorings vary: sometimes it's lemon and parsley, sometimes it's chorizo and peppers.

Of course you could use a whole chicken as well (I usually do, but my store didn't have any today) and adjust the cooking time accordingly. One thing though: I think the kind of mozarella I used melted quicker than normally, so you might want to roast the eggplant for a while first, get it out and add the cheese, and then put it in the oven for a few minutes again to let the mozarella get warm. I ended up with an awful lot of melted cheese all over my baking sheet and the eggplant was not completely done.



Roasted chicken with tomatoes, eggplant-mozarella towers and potatoes

Serves 2, and leaves extra for lunch boxes

1 kg chicken legs
250 g cherry tomatoes
As much garlic as your want (I used about 5 cloves)
Half a dried red chili pepper
1 tsp thyme (dried)
A couple of potatoes (maybe 3 per portion)
1 eggplant
125 g buffalo mozarella
Salt and black pepper
Olive oil

Put your oven to 200 degrees C. Place the chicken legs in a snug fitting pan. Poke a small hole in each of the cherry tomatoes. Peel the garlic. Place garlic cloves and tomatoes on/around the chicken. Cut up the dried chili pepper in small pieces and sprinkle it on top of the chicken (I dry my own chilies by hanging them on pieces of string in a pantry). Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt, pepper and thyme. Put the chicken in the oven and get to the potatoes.



Wash the potatoes, but you don't have to peel them. Slice them about ½ cm thick. Place on a parchment covered baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and give the salt grinder a good couple of turns . Put the potatoes in the oven (under the chicken) when the chicken has cooked for about 15 minutes.
Slice the eggplant ½ cm thick in an even number of slices (I got 12). Slice the mozarella in half that amount (i.e. 6 for me). Place a slice of mozarella on an eggplant slice, cover with another eggplant slice, drizzle olive oil on top and season with salt and pepper. As I said above though, you might want to bake the eggplant for a while before adding the mozarella. Bake until the eggplant is done and the mozarella is melting (but not competely runny). Make sure the chicken is cooked through before serving. I put the eggplant-mozarella thingies on top of each other to make little "towers" but of course you don't have to.