Sasha's Kitchen: Alice's Lapsang Souchong Tea Infused Chicken Sandwich & Cucumber Sandwiches

Another great recipe from Alice's Tea Cup from the new Alice's Tea Cup Cookbook - for lapsang souching tea sandwiches. These sandwiches were always my favorite for lunch or brunch in the restaurant, and the ones I made using their recipe came out just perfectly. You actually steam the chicken breasts in Chinese lapsang souchong tea, which you can buy from the Alice's website, or elsewhere.  It is a tea from the lapsang souching province in China. You have to plan ahead with this recipe, because the breasts need to marinate for two days, so just keep that in mind when you are planning your meals for the week. This is a pretty cool way to incorporate tea into a recipe that you normally wouldn't think of making with tea.

And for those of you who are longing for more of my cupcake posts, never fear, I am making Jets-Patriots football themed cupcakes for the big game tomorrow and will be posting those very soon!

Alice's Chicken Marinade
2 T lapsang souchong tea leaves
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup plus 2 T balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 small cloves of garlic, diced
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
4 tsp dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Combine the tea in 1/2 cup of boiling or hot water and allow to soak for three minutes before discarding the tea leaves by straining. Combine all the remaining marinade ingredients above, plus the tea-water and two cups of cold water. Place the chicken breasts in the marinade, and marinate for two days. The book says you can even let it go for three.

To prepare the chicken, season with 2 T of Chinese five-spice powder, salt and pepper. Using your steamer, add 1/2 cup of water and 1/4 cup plus two tablespoons of the tea leaves, and steam the chicken to cook it over the tea leaves. This will infuse the chicken with the flavor of the tea as it cooks, and it is also quite healthy. Flip the chicken breasts over about halfway through. It should take about ten minutes to cook, and you can use a meat thermometer to check the chicken, which should reach but not exceed 160. When the chicken is fully cooked, allow it to cool for about 20 minutes, before slicing thinly using a sharp knife

Alice's Herbed Goat Cheese Spread
1 small clove garlic
8 oz goat cheese
2 T cream cheese
3/4 tsp dried tarragon
3/4 tsp dried chevril (I left this out)
3/4 tsp minced fresh chives
3/4 tsp fresh thyme
pinch of salt
pink of black pepper

Roast the garlic and puree all of the ingredients for the goat cheese spread in a food processor.

Alice's Chicken Sandwich
Sliced chicken
sliced green apple
toasted bread
goat cheese spread
1 cup mesculin greens

Spread the goat cheese spread on the toasted bread and combine the other ingredients into a sandwich. the steamed tea flavored chicken is the perfect combo with the herbed goat cheese and tart green apple. My husband loved these sandwiches too!

You can also make these delicious cucumber sandwiches which are quite heathy and easy too! I dreived the simple recipe from the Alice's book.

Cucumber Sandwiches

Sliced cucmber

toasted bread

1/2 stick of butter pureed with 2 T of chives to make the chive butter spread (you will have some leftover)