cook: leftover rotisserie chicken done two ways

I try not to buy rotisserie chicken or only resort to the convenience food when I need to get dinner on the table that night without hours of cooking. Last week was one of those occasions. I've seen cookbooks with recipes incorporating rotisserie chicken, but who including my dogs can eat that much chicken? Note to self, if I ever write my own cookbook, it won't be about how to cook dishes from rotisserie chicken as an ingredient. I've also heard Patrick complain about his mom cooking chicken so often that he felt like he could pluck pinfeathers from himself. Which is why we supplement our diet of vegetables and grains with steaks and ground beef and fish more than chicken breasts or thighs. The last time I brought home a rotisserie chicken was before spring break a couple months ago, and I cooked Arroz con Pollo after the initial roast chicken and vegetables dinner. And by the way, a rotisserie chicken just doesn't compare to a roast chicken home cooked without the brining. Rotisserie chicken is so chock full of chemicals and salt that I'm sure is not healthy. While at the produce store last week, I shopped with the intention of making use of all this chicken.  

Hence, my mise en place included the usual suspects of shallots and lots of garlic.

 

And I always have scallions and with the warmer weather, basil, on hand.

 

I also bought a yellow squash, a few green beans, 

a red pepper, and some snow peas.                             

I lamented that there were no sugar snap peas, and so I took out some frozen petite peas too. I was all set to cook a Thai chicken curry, but then what would Patrick (who does not like Southeast Asian cuisine) eat? And so I set aside the coconut milk, red curry paste, fish sauce and palm sugar for the next night.

And then it was a flurry of boiling linguine, draining and setting it aside before sautéing the chopped vegetables in butter and olive oil and then adding heavy whipping cream and chicken to flavor into a sauce before tossing with pasta. I also sprinkled atop the pasta, fresh torn basil.

Patrick deemed the pasta primavera okay. Insert eye roll here.

And so the next night, I used the same vegetables plus the rest of the bamboo shoots from another Asian meal to make a Thai chicken curry. I had also added kaffir lime leaves and a jalapeno to the curry, and then removed the vegetables which had leached their water into the sauce so I could boil the sauce down some more to infuse it with that sweet and salty deliciousness of fish sauce and palm sugar.
         

I was first introduced to Thai food in San Francisco when I went to Marnee Thai in the Richmond District while still a college student. I loved, loved, loved whatever curry dish I ate, surprised that it didn't resemble a South Asian curry. And then a few years later would cook Thai chicken curry (both red and Panang) with a boyfriend and his friend for dinners after a day of woodworking and crafting. I had forgotten how easy it is to cook Thai food if one has access to those Southeast Asian ingredients like coconut milk, chilies, Thai basil, lemongrass, fish sauce and palm sugar though back then we used brown sugar instead. And our Thai dishes were maybe not as flavorful, using the curry paste without the lime leaves at a Ranch 99 and lemongrass which I can even find these days at a Safeway.

Thirty-five years ago, I would never have guessed that Thai dishes with all its raw ingredients and heavy use of fresh herbs would become so popular outside of Thailand. But I am vowing to not buying another rotisserie chicken for at least 3 months.