om nom nom » Dinner

Pão de queijo (Brazilian cheesebread)

George — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:21:29 +0000

Last night for dinner I attempted to make those cheesebreads we get at Chima (the Brazilian steakhouse in Tysons). Whenever I go to Chima I have often wondered (as I gorge myself on cheesebreads and roasted leg o’ lamb) how these wonderful little things are made (are they essentially soufflés? is it dark magic?). The answer is “tapioca flour.”

The recipe I used couldn’t be simpler: Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, grease a mini-muffin tin (we only had a muffin tin; this works too, though your cheesebreads will come out “larger and in charger”). Then in a blender, blend the following until very smooth:

1 egg
1/3 cup olive oil (not too strong tasting, but use your own taste!)
2/3 cup milk (I used skim and everything was fine)
a scant 1 1/2 cups tapioca flour
1/2 cup grated cheese of your choice (I used as the recipe recommends, a Mexican queso fresco, but I imagine other things are good too)
1 tsp salt
other herbs/spices you might want in your cheesebread such as thyme, oregano, or red chili flakes!

Pour the resulting batter into your muffin tins about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up, then pop them in the oven. They will get EXTREMELY POOFY. You should take them out after they look nice and golden brown (this took me somewhere between 18-25 minutes?). Cool them on racks and eat them once they’re cool enough to touch… or immediately—steam burns be damned! The texture is just what you remember from Chima: toothsome on the outside, almost mochi-like on the inside.

N.B. If you’re the type of guy or gal who tastes batter even if there’s raw egg in it (such as myself), you may think the batter is somewhat salty. Do not be alarmed: the salt is much less concentrated in the final product.

Served it up with flank steak rubbed with salt, pepper, minced garlic, and olive oil, then broiled on each side until there was no pink on the surface of the meat. The meat rested while I baked the cheesebreads, and it came out somewhere between medium and medium-rare. Juicy and delicious! :3 Michael took a picture of our “Brazilian Steakhouse Night” plates but I do not have it.

Chicken and Fruity Goop

Q. R. Murphy — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:00:56 +0000

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.

Lamb Kapama

Ben — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:53:36 +0000

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.

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.

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.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Gloria — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:37:08 +0000

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.

Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup

Spanky — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:30:55 +0000

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.

Creamy Tomato Veggie Soup (Healthy Edition)

Gloria — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 02:30:39 +0000

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.

Adventures in veganism (part 1 of… 1?)

George — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:26:01 +0000

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!

Minestrone

Gloria — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 01:40:59 +0000

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.

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.

Slow-roasted Spiced Pork Belly

Spanky — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:18:44 +0000

The next few posts are going to be from the backlog, since there are several posts I’ve been meaning to make. The following dish I’ve made twice, and it’s turned out pretty good both times.

Pork belly is a cut of meat that’s not often used directly in Western cooking, though it’s the cut that’s used to make bacon and pancetta. It usually has the skin attached, a layer of fat under that, and then tender, marbled meat under that. Any Asian grocery store with a butcher’s counter will stock it, it’s very cheap, and it’s really, really good. The only thing I’d add to the recipe is to be careful when you’re scoring the skin to put the herb/spice paste in. Pork skin is tough to get through, so either use a sharp knife, or a serrated one, and be careful to let the serrations do the cutting, rather than pushing down and sawing the skin back and forth. The deeper into the top layer of fat you can get the herbs and spices, the better. As the pork belly roasts, the flavors from the rosemary, thyme, and fennel will be carried down with the melting fat, seasoning the rest of the meat as it drips into the pan. I didn’t take any pictures, but below is the image from the recipe page, and it’s turned out exactly like this:

Slow-Roasted Spiced Pork at Cook Almost Anything

Risotto, the food of the gods

Ellen — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:04:36 +0000

Today I made risotto so good I could not believe that I had made it. It was an epiphany.

I know, I know, George already posted a risotto recipe, and mine is not that different from his, but it’s simpler, and has things in it I like. So there.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups arborio rice
6 cups liquid*
2 tbsp. olive oil or butter
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
extra things: mushrooms (about a cup, white and crimini), spinach (a couple handfuls, chopped), blue cheese (a couple tablespoons) in this case
salt and pepper to taste

* You need about four times as much liquid as rice. I split mine up like this: 4 cups vegetable broth; 1 cup water; 1 cup wine. I’ve seen recipes that suggest only 1/2 a cup of wine, and all the rest broth… the main reason I put water in is because the easy-to-buy container of broth only has four cups in it. You could also, obviously, use chicken broth.

Directions

Heat up/melt the olive oil or butter in a big pot. Add rice and stir until coated.
If you’re using wine, add it now. Stir constantly until it’s mostly absorbed.
Meanwhile, cook the mushrooms and spinach separately.
Add the rest of the liquid about 1/2 cup at a time, waiting for each batch to be absorbed before you add more, stirring stirring stirring as you go. The rice should be
Mix in the mushrooms and spinach, stir around, cook for another couple of minutes.
Add the blue cheese and parmesan cheese and stir until melted. Add salt and pepper if you want them.

This recipe is deceptively simple. The drawback of amazing risotto is that it takes about an hour of constant stirring and pouring.