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Chicken and Fruity Goop

Nov 13th, 2011
by Q. R. Murphy.
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Luscious.

 

Hi all, here is a recipe I made up somewhat on the fly recently, using a Googled recipe for some Carribean fruit-covered chicken as a foundation. My measurements will not be exact, as I more or less tossed shit in the sauce and kept tasting until it tasted the way I wanted. It ended up really awesomely.

Though not this awesomely.

 

This recipe comes in two parts: the chicken and the fruity goo you coat the chicken in. Let’s get started!

 

The Chicken

Ingredients:

  • Chicken (pounded somewhat flat. Not super thin, but you want the pieces to be of mostly uniform thickness)
  • Flour
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • White Pepper
  • Garlic or Onion Powder
  • 1 Egg
  • Oil of any sort
Unsurprisingly, you’ll be using the flour to make a dredge for the chicken. Pour some in a mixing bowl, then add in the salt, pepper, and other spices to taste. Feel free to experiment: I added some smoked paprika and chili powder to nice effect. Ground mustard can be nice too. Mix up your coating.
Next, break an egg into a deep bowl and whisk it until it is smoooooth like butter. Depending on the amount of chicken you are using, add more eggs as needed.
Take each chicken piece, and dredge it through the flour, then the egg coating, and then the flour again. As you do this, allow about 4 tablespoons or so of your chosen oil heat up in a wok or wok-like structure. Once it is nice and hot and you are finished dredging your chicken, toss the meat in the oil. Yes, you’re doing some quick frying. It won’t take very long, depending on how thin you pounded your chicken. Keep poking the meat with a fork, and when your fork slides in and out cleanly, take the meat off the heat. If you want to be more sure, then slice the chicken in half when you think it is done. You want to take the chicken off when the middle has just the barest hint of pink, as once you take it off, the absorbed heat will cook it the rest of the way. Any later, and the chicken will overcook itself.
You did it!

Meanwhile, this guy won the World Series after his rock gig. Feel free to feel bad.

Goop de Froot
Ingredients:
  • 2/3 cup some sort of fruit paste or jelly. Not the stuff from a jar that is sugar and artificial flavoring, some honest-to-God fruit baste in pseudo-bar form. I used guava paste, but I am confident some other fruit selections would work just as well
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons vinegar (of choice: I used rice wine vinegar this time and plain vinegar another and both worked fine. Choose your favorite vinegar flavor)
  • 1-2 cloves of garlic
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup water
The measurements are baselines, upon tasting during the cooking process add more of whichever flavors you need.
In a saucepan, combine the water,  jelly, soy sauce, and vinegar and bring to a boil. Stir and make sure the jelly breaks down and incorporates into everything else. When it reaches a boil, lower heat and simmer 2 minutes.
Mix 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch into 2 tablespoons water. Check your sauce’s consistency. If it is too watery, add small amounts of your cornstarch/water mixture and stir until the desired thickness is obtained.
Saute chopped garlic in your wok, and when it is nicely browned add your whole thickened sauce to it. Add your chicken pieces and cover thoroughly, mix, and then pull chicken out onto a plate. Serve with rice, veggies, whatever you like. Enjoy it thoroughly, for given the chance, the chickens will do the same.

To be fair, it looks like a delicious baby.

Posted in: Dinner, Experiments, Vegetarian.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

Nov 11th, 2011
by Nattie.
1 comment

FIRST POST! HI EVERYBODY!

Okay, lameness over, if you’ve been following my tweets, to soothe my angst over student loans and photography, I’ve been throwing myself into making lots of food. Gloria reminded me of this blog’s existence, and today I’ll share with you a pretty simple curried butternut squash soup that I thought up while eating a different, inferior, store-bought squash soup.

What you’ll need:
Blender or Food Processor
Pot for soup. :P

Butternut Squash – medium sized, ours yielded about 4 cups of inner meat, but James ate a lot before I started making this. :P
1 medium onion – I used red because of what’s on hand, but up to you!
1 tbsp unsalted butter – OR all the butter you want in the world.
3 cloves garlic – confession, I used more, but I’m a garlic addict. Spice to taste.
1.5 teaspoons curry powder – again, I used 1 tbsp, but not everyone is as spice dead as me.
3 cups chicken broth – Vegetable broth okay.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Optional: Heavy cream for fancy spiral topping.

First things first, you have to roast the butternut squash. Cut that sucker in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, put it on a baking sheet face down and stick it in the oven heated to 400 degrees. After about 20-25 minutes, it should be done. Check on it occasionally. You’ll know it’s done when the outer skin is easily pierced by a fork.

Alternatively, you can cut the squash into quarters, put it on a plate, cover it all with saran wrap, and microwave it on high for 6 minute intervals until done. I vastly prefer baking, but James did it the microwave method, before swearing “NEVER AGAIN.” Now, that’s a resounding success if I’ve ever heard one.

After taking the squash out of the oven and setting it aside to cool, you can chop up your onion and garlic, and start frying up the onion in your butter. I just used a regular stainless steel pot that I knew would hold all my ingredients. When the onion starts looking translucent and yummily cooked, put in the garlic, chicken broth, and curry powder and start bringing it up to a simmer.

As that happily gets up to a warm bubbling, turn back to your squash. If you haven’t already removed it from the oven for whatever reason, do so, and prepare to scald your fingers. Now, remove the inside “meat” of the squash from its skin and put that meat into the soup on the stove. If you’ve baked it properly, the meat usually just falls off and it’s quite easy to separate the two. If you find yourself having some trouble, I use an ice cream scoop to get every little bit I can out of the rinds. You should have a yield of about 3-4 cups of squash meat.

Once all the squash meat is in your pot, you should now have all the ingredients heating on the stove – butternut squash meat, butter, onion, garlic, curry powder, and chicken broth. Bring this up to a nice bubbling simmer and let it sit for about 30 minutes. I check on mine and stir it around every 10 minutes, but whatever you feel comfortable with as long as it’s not on fire.

After 30 minutes, pour the mixture into your food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Salt and pepper it to your taste, or add more garlic/curry powder if you want, and tada! Delicious soup! Because I was trying to be fancy and had heavy cream lying around, I put a cream spiral on top of the soup I was serving, but this is completely optional. Highly recommended for those with steadier hands than me, though!

Posted in: Recipes, Soups, Vegetarian.
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Lamb Kapama

Nov 11th, 2011
by Ben.
3 comments

This is a dish I first had at Cava Mezze where it is absolutely to die for; it is also pretty good at Plaka Grill.

Lamb kapama with orzo

The finished dish

Recipe-googling produced quite a few variations on the basic idea (lamb stewed in a rich tomato sauce) but I wanted it like I’d had it in the restaurants: with orzo. The recipe I judged most credible came from Shaboom’s Kitchen; you can see it here.

I substituted lamb shanks for slices of leg of lamb. Lamb shanks are one of the toughest cuts and must be stewed for a while to become tender; the recipe calls for two hours of stewing and that was plenty to get the meat falling off the bone. Shanks also produce lots of gelatin as the connective tissues render out; I thought this added to the texture.

Shank bones

After you stew them, the meat just falls off...

There were two more very important deviations from the recipe. First, I added the orzo to the dutch oven after stripping the meat from the shanks, as pasta absorbing sauce = good. Second, I grated up some parrano (“The Dutch cheese that thinks it’s Italian”) and sprinkled it over top of our bowls. Delicious.

Regrets: the 1/8th teaspoon of cinnamon is probably not enough, at least with the pre-ground cinnamon I used. The undeniable hint of cinnamon is part of what makes this dish so distinctively delicious. I’ll be honest though, it was really good even without a noticeable amount of cinnamon.

Did I mention that this dish is really easy? Aside from the fact that it takes two hours of stewing (which takes no attention at all) and using my cast iron skillet for browning the shanks (guess who’s getting a bigger dutch oven for Christmas?) this is an extremely simple dish that only takes a cutting board, a dutch oven, a plate to rest the browned meat on, and a pot and strainer for the orzo.

I am definitely making this one again– it’s so delicious, it is now one of my main reasons for going to the restaurants I listed above. Go test drive it at one of those and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Posted in: Dinner, Recipes.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Nov 7th, 2011
by Gloria.
2 comments


Ewwwwwww, brussel sprouts are gross!!

Why do brussels sprouts have such a bad rap? Is it because they, unlike spinach, never had a Popeye-like character to extol their virtues to the public? I have so much love for brussels sprouts, but when I offer to bring them over people generally look at me blankly or make a face. However, most people change their minds once they taste this delicious recipe that, in its simplest form, only has a few steps:

      Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
      Cut the stems off brussels sprouts and then cut them in half. Spread on baking sheet.
      Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.
      Pop into the oven for 30-40 minutes.

This is truly the simplest way to prepare brussels sprouts and the easiest way to make them delicious. Once you’ve mastered this (which won’t take long), then you can get creative! Some of my favorite ways to add a little extra:

  • Cook several slices of bacon (I usually do about 5 slices per pound of sprouts) until almost done – before you would consider it ready for eating straing. Use kitchen shears to cut up into bits, and pour the bacon bits and all of the rendered fat from the pan onto the brussels sprouts. Make sure the fat is spread evenly, and supplement with olive oil if needed. Roast until delicious.
  • Throw some chopped pecans in with the sprouts.
  • Get those bags of shelled, pre-cooked chesnuts, chop into halves, and roast them alongside the sprouts.
  • Put the sprouts in a cast iron skillet instead of a baking sheet, add butter, garlic, cheese, herbs, and anything else your heart desires.
  • For people with a sweet tooth, try with some honey on top. Here’s a great recipe!

Now these are just some variations I’ve tried or thought about trying, but really – you can’t go wrong. As for cooking method, I enjoy roasting the best, but you can also boil them. However, I think that it’s much easier to over or undercook when boiling – just be careful!

You want some photos? Kalyn’s Kitchen has a nice recipe with awesome photos.

As for portioning, I’ve found that a pound of brussels sprouts will generally feed about 3-4 people with generous portions.

Posted in: Dinner, Side Dishes, Vegetarian.

Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup

Oct 11th, 2011
by Spanky.
No comments yet

Before I forget, I wanted to mention that I made this soup from Pioneer Woman, the Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup, which is apparently a copycat recipe from Olive Garden, which I haven’t been to in about 10 years or so.  But I have to say, if their food is like this, I should probably make the trip. As she says, this recipe makes a hearty soup that’s perfect for cold weather, plus I always love the elegance of a meal that provides a protein, carb, fat, and leafy vegetables all in one. Check out the vitamin content for kale sometime: it’s a little absurd.

So I halved the recipe shown to get something more like 4-5 servings of soup, and it turned out pretty well. I did cook the potatoes beforehand like she did, and I just took a potato masher and mashed up some of the potatoes as well to thicken it.  Towards the end, I took a teaspoon or so of cornstarch, and mixed it in a small bowl with a ladle of the broth, then mixed that paste back in to thicken slightly. The soup had a great flavor with the mild spices from the sweet Italian sausage, and the potatoes adding a hint of potato chowder. Don’t be afraid of the whole milk and half-and-half– it’s diluted with the chicken broth anyhow, and the result is nowhere near as thick and heavy as a restaurant chowder, but is still very satisfying. I expect I’ll be making this a lot in the coming months.

Posted in: Dinner, Recipes, Soups.
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Sandwich bread: take two

Mar 23rd, 2011
by Ellen.
No comments yet

Well then. On only my second try, I’m pretty happy with my white sandwich bread. It’ll soon be time to branch out. This time I got a lighter, fluffier, still delicious loaf; still on the short side, but if I make more dough that should solve that problem.

Sandwich bread

Here’s what I did:

  • Decreased flour a bit. The recipe I quoted last time called for three and a half cups of flour, but I added a bit more to make the dough firmer. This time I did not add a teaspoon about three and a half cups, which made for a sticky and difficult-to-work with dough, but it seems to have worked.
  • Let it rise longer. In this particular case, I let it rise in the fridge for about ten hours, then out of the fridge for another hour. After I shaped it into a loaf, it was another hour and a half before it reached the top of the loaf pan, and that’s when it went in the oven.
  • Warmed the milk. Hard to tell how much of an effect this had compared to the other two, but I warmed up the milk in the microwave before adding the yeast. The yeast did seem a bit bubblier.

Posted in: Experiments, Recipes.
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Sandwich bread: take one

Mar 14th, 2011
by Ellen.
3 comments

I have long wanted to master basic bread-baking, and since a coworker got a copy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, which has a lot of bread recipes, I decided now was a good time to try.

I’m really happy now with my recipes for risotto and penne alla vodka, but it took a number of tries to get them right; I’m sure the same will be true for bread. I’m starting with his basic Sandwich Bread recipe:

Ingredients

  • 3 1/2 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast (or 2 teaspoons active dry yeast)
  • 1 tablespoon sugar or honey
  • 2 tablespoons softened butter
  • 1 1/3 cups milk

Directions

  1. Rehydrate/activate the yeast. Add the other wet ingredients and about half the flour and mix, then add the rest of the flour a bit at a time until it forms a slightly sticky ball.
  2. Let rise in a bowl for at least 2 hours. Punch down into a ball and let rest 15 minutes, then form into a loaf and put in a greased loaf pan. Let rise for at least another hour.
  3. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees F.

DSC_0005-LL

My first attempt: not bad. I have a tasty loaf of buttery white bread. The main problem is that it’s short, squat, and extremely dense, not soft and fluffy at all. I’ve researched some things to do next time and regretted some things I did this time, so here’s what I’m going to try with the next loaf:

  • The milk I rehydrated the yeast in probably wasn’t warm enough, in retrospect. Some sites also recommend using water for this task even if the recipe doesn’t call for any, and cutting down on the amount of milk.
  • I actually let the dough rise for almost 3 hours the first time ’round, but my kitchen is pretty chilly at the moment. I’ll let it rise for a ridiculously long time next time!
  • Several sites recommended cutting down on the amount of flour and just using a stickier ball of dough, which makes sense.
  • I may eventually try bread flour instead of all-purpose, but I have enough of the latter lying around that it won’t be with the next loaf, at any rate.

In a couple of weeks I will be trying again. ‘Til next loaf!

Posted in: Recipes.
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Creamy Tomato Veggie Soup (Healthy Edition)

Mar 13th, 2011
by Gloria.
No comments yet

During a recent volunteer shift at Miriam’s Kitchen, I had the good fortune to taste a truly delicious creamy tomato vegetable soup concocted by the chef. He mentioned that instead of using actual cream to thicken the soup, he pureed white beans! I set out to make a reasonable replica of the soup, and it worked pretty well. Here’s the recipe – I was making it up as I went, so the measurements are only guidelines.

Ingredients

  • 1 can crushed tomatoes
  • 2 whole tomatoes, diced (optional, I added them but wasn’t sure how much of a difference they made)
  • 1 can great northern white beans
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • Garlic (I used an entire small bulb of it), minced
  • 5 stalks of celery, diced
  • 3-4 carrots, diced
  • 1/2 head of cauliflower, cut roughly into half florets, stalks
  • ~1 cup of thinly sliced snow peas
  • ~2 cups frozen corn
  • Milk
  • Chicken broth
  • Herbs (I used rosemary, bay leaf, thyme – you can use whatever you want)

Instructions
Cut up all the veggies you want to add. Saute carrots, onion, and celery with some oil in the pot you want to make the soup in. Add in minced garlic during this process. When the veggies are soft, add crushed tomatoes and chicken broth until the soup reaches about 3/4 the volume you want it to be at when done. At this point, I put a small spring of rosemary with a bay leaf into a tea bag (for easy removal later) and threw it in to the soup. Add cauliflower, diced tomatoes, corn and peas. Bring to a boil, then let simmer on the stove. While it is simmering, blend the white beans with a splash of milk. Add the beans to the soup and continue to simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste. I also added some red pepper flakes (less than a tsp) to give it a bit of a kick. Wait until the soup has come to a boil again, then it should be about done.

Posted in: Dinner, Side Dishes, Vegetarian.
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Adventures in veganism (part 1 of… 1?)

Jun 3rd, 2010
by George.
No comments yet

For the next couple of days I’m staying with my college friend Ryan in the Chicago “gayborhood” (god I hate portmanteaux). He’s a lactose-intolerant vegetarian, which means he’s a vegan most of the time. I thought it would be nice to thank him for letting me stay at his place by trying my hand at vegan cooking. The meal was something of a disaster, though the entrée turned out quite well!

Here are some ingredient notes: If you’ve never had quinoa, it is an experience I highly recommend! In addition to being tasty (something like ever-so-slightly bitter couscous) it’s also obscenely nutritious. Tamari is a gift from god. Carménère is one of my favorite kinds of wine, and the particular label I used (Chono) is Chilean and I think the grapes are grown organically, since they serve it at Yield. The flavor notes include “roasted red peppers,” “dark chocolate,” and “leather.” So… heh. I got it for $14.99 at a nearby “under $15 per bottle” store. :q

There are obviously many variations you can make on this recipe. For example, you could use a wine other than carménère; my opinion on the “cooking wine” issue is that you should use a good wine but hey, you only need a cup and you can drink the rest! Couscous would be a worthy (yet somewhat less nutritious) substitute for the quinoa. If you can’t find nori, but have fresh sage in spades, then you can replace the nori with sage leaves fried in olive oil or browned butter (not as vegan). Finally, ignoring the vegan theme, this would be an excellent side for a roast chicken. PS I totally made the whole thing up, so if you think it’s missing something, please let me know (also, please come up with a shorter name).

[This is a fairly "easy" vegan recipe because the ingredients are widely available. It doesn't have agave syrup or arrowroot or seitan or "nutritional yeast flakes" (shudder).]

Quinoa with mushrooms, nori, pinenuts, and a carménère-tamari reduction

  • 1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
  • 2 cups water
  • olive oil
  • 1 shallot, finely minced
  • 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped mushrooms (I used some mix of gourmet kinds from Green Giant)
  • 2 sheets nori (toasted), crumbled
  • 1/2 cup pinenuts (not toasted)
  • 1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce, plus extra to taste
  • 1/2 tablespoon white rice vinegar
  • 1 cup carménère (or other spicy red wine)
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
  • salt and pepper

1. Prepare the quinoa: It’s basically prepared the same way rice is prepared. You put 1 part quinoa 2 parts water into a pot, then bring it to a boil, cover it, and bring the heat down to “negligible.” Do this *while* you make the stuff that goes into it (as opposed to right before or after).

2. Sauté the shallot on medium in olive oil until translucent, then add the mushrooms, a dash of tamari, and half the crumbled nori. Sauté until the mushrooms have rendered all their liquid, then bring the heat up to medium-high to burn off said liquid and (ideally) char the shallots a little. Remove to a bowl and cover with a paper towel.

3. Wipe the saucepan from the previous step dry, but leave any traces of shallot or nori that got singed to the pan if you can (we want them in the sauce). Toast the pine nuts briefly on high heat until they’re fragrant and they’ve rendered some of their oils. Remove to a bowl.

4. Reduce heat to medium, and immediately deglaze the still-hot pan with the wine. Reduce the wine by a little less than a half, then add the rice vinegar, tamari, and brown sugar. Reduce slightly, until flavors have combined. Reduce heat to low, add the thyme, then taste and adjust for sugar, tamari, salt, and pepper.

5. Mix the mushrooms and pinenut mixtures into the quinoa (now done and hopefully still quite hot). Serve drizzled with the wine-tamari sauce and garnish with remaining nori.

I served this up with Henry/Rachel Ray’s famous roast broccoli (which came out mostly wrong because I did it wrong), and Smitten Kitchen’s strawberry-rhubarb crumble. As for the latter, I totally skipped over “butter” the first time I read the ingredients, so I ended up substituting vegetable shortening, which is less good.* Definitely a winner, though, so I’m looking forward to making it again. :v

The reason dinner was something of a failure was that I totally forgot that Ryan doesn’t really eat at all. XD So I ate most of it myself, though he sampled everything and approved. Also, he took a tylenol and could only have a touch of wine, so I ended up drinking nearly the entire bottle myself, but hey… it helped me sleep!

* By the way, Crisco has trans fats in it as does anything with “partially hydrogenated” whatever-the-fuck. They can say it contains zero grams, so long as it has less than one gram. Thanks FDA and food industry lobbyists!

Posted in: Dinner, Experiments, Lunch, Side Dishes, Vegetarian.
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Minestrone

Apr 4th, 2010
by Gloria.
3 comments

This recipe is delicious, easy to make, and yields a massive amount of food! It would be perfect when you have company over, or when you want to save on meals for a week and don’t mind eating the same thing every day. :)

Recipe is from Food Network’s Michael Chiarello, who was that Italian chef on the first season of Top Chef Masters. While I wasn’t a fan of his attitude, his recipes are usually a hit. It’s named “Super Quick Minestrone”, which is to say that it still takes upwards of 40 minutes to make, but the process is straightforward and involves enough down time that you won’t really feel like you’re slaving away at the stove all evening.

I followed the recipe pretty closely, substituting sage sausage for the pancetta and foregoing the thyme.  My pasta of choice was wheat elbow macaroni, and I added some chili powder to the seasoning at the end. The result was better than I was expecting – a great balanced comfort dish.

Minestrone

Extra bonus: you can definitely practice your knife skills when chopping all the veggies up in the beginning. That part was the most tedious, but at least it will get better with practice!

Recipe reproduced from the Food Network website:

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup (4 ounces) tubetti pasta, or other small pasta shape
  • Extra-virgin olive oil
  • 6 cups chicken stock
  • 1/4 pound pancetta, cut into 3 pieces
  • 6 medium garlic cloves, each cut in 1/2 lengthwise
  • 2 cups finely chopped yellow onions (2 small onions)
  • 1 cup small-diced celery (2 medium stalks)
  • 1 cup small-diced carrots (2 to 3 medium carrots)
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary or thyme leaves
  • 1 (14-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes
  • 4 cups small-diced zucchini (green/yellow) (5 small zucchini)
  • 2 cups small-diced, peeled russet potatoes (1 large russet)
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions until al dente. Drain and transfer the pasta to a baking sheet. Toss the pasta with a little olive oil to prevent sticking.

In a large saucepan over medium heat, warm the chicken stock.

In another large saucepan over high heat, heat 1/4 cup oil. When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the pancetta and cook until it begins to brown, 3 to 4 minutes, turning occasionally. Add the garlic and cook until it begins to brown, about 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Lower the heat to medium and add the onions, celery, and carrots.

Cook until the vegetables are soft, 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent browning. Add the chopped herbs. Raise the heat to high. Add the beans, tomatoes, zucchini, and potatoes. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Then bring it down to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender, 12 to 15 minutes, skimming any foam off the top of the soup. Season generously with pepper. Add salt, to taste. Just a few minutes before serving, add the cooked tubetti pasta. Serve warm with Parmesan and olive oil passed at the table.

Cooking notes: Add the cooked pasta just before serving. If it sits in the soup too long, it develops a flabby texture. Tubetti (little hollow tubes) are the classic pasta for minestrone, but you could substitute another small shape of pasta.

Posted in: Dinner, Recipes.
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