Chicken eggplant bucket

Abstract:
Easy nutritious dinner with pressure cooking.

Recipe:
two whole chicken breasts (amish freerange) cut up into smaller chunks
2 eggplants
2 boxes of button mushrooms
3 shallots
4 dashes dried rosemary
some olive oil



How I made it this time:

three whole chicken breasts (amish freerange)
one eggplant
one box of button mushrooms
three shallots
4 dashes dried rosemary
some olive oil

Rinse pressure cooker bucket (I always do this with mixing bowls, pots, pans, and glassware to make sure there's no dust or soap in there. a habit leftover from lab work). Always use cold cold water from the tap (if distilled, doesn't matter).

Wash eggplant in a vinegar water solution to get the pesticides off. Chunk eggplant (so much easier than slicing rounds) into 1"x2" pieces. Put in pressure cooker bucket.

add olive oil and rosemary to bucket, shake around.

peel shallots, chunk and throw in bucket.

Rinse dirt off mushrooms. drop in bucket. Shake bucket around.

Rinse chicken breasts. Shove to bottom of bucket, underneath all vegetables. (As a rule, I try to handle raw meats last, because I never know how long handling the veggies will take due to weird tap water temperatures or something else equally stupid, and I don't want the raw meats hanging out at room temp. And that's how we avoid food poisoning!)

Sprinkle some more rosemary on top for good measure.

Plug in, turn on pressure cooker to high pressure, 14 minutes. That means it'll take a while to get to pressure, then stay there for 14 minutes. I made this time interval up, since I've cooked eggplant in there before(11 minutes), and I've cooked chicken in there before(3 minutes each side sautee, then 9 minutes to pressurecook), but never together, and the bucket was almost full to start. Better safe than sorry, I added a few minutes, and was pleased with the result, so... 14min it is!

While pressure cooker is doing its thing, boil some distilled water in a rinsed pot for pasta. I used al dente fiesta pasta because we had some left over and it takes 3 minutes to cook.

Plate pasta immediately after draining.

Careful with steam release and other pressure cooker quirks, when the bucket is done, take chicken and add to pasta plates. top with eggplant and mushrooms (the shallots will be partly dissolved and there will be a surprising amount of broth but I guess the eggplants release a lot of water). Add salt and or butter to taste.


It's satisfying and full of protein (so much protein!) and surprisingly flavorful.

Doing it again I'd use less chicken, and more eggplant, because eggplant is cheap and I usually aim for a lower meat to veggie ratio anyway, but we had to use up the chickens as they were leftover from a different cooking experiment and didn't want to leave them in the fridge for two more days.

Also, I made this thinking we'd add our favorite marinara sauce to the leftovers, and have a completely different meal. Variety is important.

How I'd do it next time:

two whole chicken breasts (amish freerange) cut up into smaller chunks
2 eggplants
2 boxes of button mushrooms
3 shallots
4 dashes dried rosemary
some olive oil