For want of a food processor...

I tried (and failed) to buy a food processor during the holidays. Macy's had a sale, but apparently I arrived a day late and the sale was over. I've wanted one for a while, but its been a little hard to justify as I don't cook all that much (athough I'm trying to cook more) and I'm perfectly capable of chopping. So I found myself waiting for another Macy's sale to drop the price under $100, but really wanting to make a recipe from my first issue of Cook's Illustrated (thanks for the subscription, Mom!).

The recipe was for Spicy Thai Chicken with Basil. A pretty standard Thai dish made with minced chicken. Sort of like this (although I didn't take this):


The recipe is pretty simple... if you have a food processor. As discussed, I do not. Yet I was determined to give it a go anyway. That translated into about 45 minutes of extra work: finely chopping basil, jalapenos (couldn't find the thai chilies at my local corner stores), garlic, and chicken. And mincing chicken, with no cleaver, is not a lot of fun.

That said, once the everything was chopped the actually cooking time is less than 10minutes total. So this really is an easily prepared and flavorful dish. The ingredients aren't too numerous either- probably only need an extra trip to the store to pick up some fresh chilies (jalapenos worked fine if no thai chilis) and shallots (the recipe actually has a bunch of shallots) as long as you have the thai standards of fish sauce and oyster sauce.

A good back-pocket recipe when a quick dinner is needed- at least after a food processor appears in my kitchen.