Skillet Fried Chicken

I hated to waste all that oil from the beignets, so I added a bit more and made fried chicken.  There's actually more to the story.  My roommate's mother died, and eating fried chicken was her way of coming to terms with it.  Everyone's got their own way of dealing with loss.  Mine was this blog.

We used to do an oven-fried chicken when I was growing up.  It involved shaking the chicken and coating in a bag.  The recipes I found online were very different.  This recipe is partially based on Alton Brown's, except I couldn't bring myself to use shortening.  I hear it produces a very tasty and crispy product, but I can't stand the smell of boiling Crisco.  Technique-wise, I used this video.  (Sorry about the commercial.)  I really liked the idea of chopping the breasts in half so they cook more evenly, and it was much easier than I expected.  My cleaver must be very sharp.

I may have turned them one too many times, because the skin started to fall apart.  Let's go with the one-turn theory and stick with it.

3 chicken half-breasts, cut in half (or mix it up with dark-meat pieces)
1 C milk
1 Tb apple cider vinegar
1 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
*1 tsp paprika
*1/4 tsp black pepper
*1/2 tsp dried sage
*oil for frying

1.  Place chicken pieces in a bowl.  Separately, combine milk and vinegar and let sit 5 minutes to make soured milk.  Pour over chicken.  Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours, or overnight.

2.  In a pan, combine flour, salt, pepper, paprika, and sage.  Start heating 1/2" of oil in a 12", heavy, high-edged skillet to 325º.

3.  When oil is hot, pick up chicken pieces one at a time.  Let milk drip off, then dredge completely in flour.  Place in skillet.  Repeat until pan is full and sizzling.  You'll notice that the oil is much higher now.  Cook on one side until golden, about 12 minutes.  Turn to cook other side until center of pieces are 165º on a thermometer.  Allow to drain on a rack over a sheet pan and serve once they have had a few minutes to cool.

Serves 3-4

Difficulty rating :)

Beignets & Funnel Cakes

I flipped through the Bible, looking for a fun breakfast idea.  Regular donuts take 3-4 hours.  If they kept overnight, I wouldn't mind.  Then the beignet recipe said it takes only 45 minutes, so I read on.

They're just cream puffs that you fry instead of bake!  Reading further, I quickly realized that, if you pipe the dough into the oil instead of drop it, you get kind of a funnel cake.  Even better.  Just decide if you want to be all French-fancy or backyard bbq.  Same dough.  (The funnel cakes you get at the fair are more like waffle batter so that it flows through a funnel.  This is just a thicker version.)

My piped cakes turned out right, but the beignets were a bit doughy in the middle.  Either I made them too big or the oil was too hot.  Or both.  Maybe, smaller is better for this recipe.

1/2 C water
1/4 C butter
1/2 C flour
dash salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
Oil for frying

1.  In a small saucepan, bring water, salt, sugar, and butter to a boil.  Remove from heat and dump in flour all at once.  Stir quickly with a wooden spoon to make a paste.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating mixture until smooth.  Stir in vanilla.

2.  Heat at least 1/2" of oil in a small skillet or a deep fryer to 375º.  For beignets, drop spoonfuls into oil, turning once when bottom is well browned.  Make sure you give them a bit of room, because they will puff up a bit.  For funnel cakes,  Pipe a stream in curly patterns into the oil and fry until bottom is golden.  Turn and brown other side.

3.  For both kinds of cakes, remove cooked pieces to a paper towel-lined plate and dust with powdered sugar.  Serve immediately.

Difficulty rating  :)

Spring's Bounty

For once, I'm not being sarcastic.  My fountain garden is doing wonderfully.  One of the asparagus plants is even trying a little.  The Brussels are sort of considering producing sprout stems, but at least the plant is alive and growing.  I hate to say it, but pesticides made the difference.

Artie is putting out his (her?) annual flowering stem, and I just found two very small artichokes sprouting behind the central bud!  The first time the plant flowered and then died, I thought that was it and cut off everything above ground.  Turns out, artichokes do that, then keep growing back.  Just don't disturb the roots, and you could have several years of chokes.

The ensuing broccoli crowns haven't been as large or compact as the first.  I missed the window on one, and it started to flower.  Picked off the yellow broccoli flowers and cooked up the rest.  Kind of looks more like broccoli rabe when it's loose like that.  Maybe the plant is trying to be trendy.  And thanks to the spray, there were almost no bugs in the new florets.  I felt ok about eating them because I sprayed the plant when they were tiny buds, as the directions suggested, and hadn't treated them in a couple of weeks.  Still washed them thoroughly.  I'm having the last developed crown this evening.  It will be a few weeks before any more mature, which is fine.  I'm kind of getting a little tired of broccoli.

Once the tomatoes start to ripen,  I'm going to have a lot of cherry tomatoes to deal with.  The plant is very happy, despite me accidentally breaking off half a branch.  There are plenty of other clusters to make up for the two that were lost.  I have started a list of things to do with a plethora of tomatoes.

I keep forgetting about the green onions.  I water them, but don't really pay attention.  I pulled one, just to see how they were doing.  The roots were strong, but the whole stalk was small.  I think I need to water them twice a week instead of just once, especially when it gets hot, because of the shallow roots.

The cilantro decided to flower instead of putting out more herb leaves.  I wonder if I'll get coriander seed out of it.

The mint is, well, mint.  I didn't water it enough and it almost died.  Half a gallon later, it was fine the next day.  Made a batch of basil & mint iced tea to use some of it.

I'm really enjoying the idea of going out to the back to get an ingredient.  I've always been like that with the lemons, but now I get to do it more often, for more things.  With a little luck, this will be a fun culinary summer.

Pork and Queso Tamales

I had some pork shoulder left over from the Pork Pie and decided to make tamales for Cinco de Mayo.  Since there wasn't enough left for a full batch of marinated-pork-only, I decided to bulk up the filling with some veggies and cheese.  Sticking to the Mexican theme, I chose nopales, tomatillos, and a queso fresco.  It mixes up the textures for an unusual blend.

Most of the effort and ingredients seem to be in the filling.  The simmered pork is effort because you're also making the broth that will flavor the masa.  The veggies have to be chopped, then sautéed and mixed with the shredded pork.  Then you have to chop the cheese without getting it everywhere.  Once you finally get all that made, assembling the tamales is almost routine.

Yes, this is a giant list of ingredients.  Sorry.

*1/2 lb pork shoulder
3 C water
1/2 C onion, chopped
*1 rib celery, chopped
*1 clove garlic, minced
*1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
*1/2 tsp ground cumin
*1/2 tsp whole coriander seed
1/2 lb tomatillos, husks removed, chopped
1 nopales paddle, needles removed, diced
1 Tb olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tb lime juice
12 oz queso fresco, cut into 18 wedges
22 corn husks, softened in warm water
2 C masa flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 C butter
2 C pork broth (made while cooking pork)

1.  Into a medium saucepan, place pork, water, onion, celery, garlic, chili powder, 1/2 tsp salt, cumin, and coriander seeds.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 2 hours, until pork is very tender.  Strain off cooking liquid and reserve to use as broth for the masa.  Shred pork and set aside.  If you cooked it right, the meat will fall apart with very little effort.

2.  To prepare filling, drizzle oil in a skillet and heat on medium.  Lightly cook chopped tomatillos until they are soft and have given off most of their liquid, about 5 minutes.  Add cactus with 1/4 tsp salt and cook until they start to soften, but are not limp, another minute.  Remove from heat and add lime juice.  Toss in shredded pork.

3.  In a mixer with the paddle, beat butter until creamy.  In a separate bowl, stir together baking powder and masa.  Into flour, stir 2 C broth and make a thick batter.  Add to butter and beat into a fluffy paste, about 2 minutes.  If too dry, add more broth a tablespoon at a time.

4.  To assemble tamales, arrange everything on the counter: softened husks, masa batter, pork & veggie mix, and queso slices.  Place a kitchen towel on the counter as an assembly surface.  On the stove, set up a steamer.  I use a stock pot with a colander that happens to fit it perfectly.  If you have a steamer basket, great.  Start simmering two inches of water at the bottom of your steamer while you put everything together.

5.  Lay one corn husk on your towel, pointy end down.  On top half, spread about 3 Tb of masa batter. Onto that, spoon 1 Tb filling and place one piece of cheese.  Bring in sides of corn husk and fold up pointy end.  Take one of the husks that looks a little torn and tear off 1/2" strips to use as ties.  Tie tamale and place, open end up, in steamer basket.  Repeat until out of masa and fillings.

6.  Place steamer basket over hot water, cover tightly, and cook for 90 minutes.  Masa will expand slightly as it cooks.  Check water level every half hour or so.

7.  Serve hot with salsa, sour cream, or your choice of accompaniments.

Makes about 18 tamales, 6-9 servings

Difficulty rating  $@%!

Garlic Spinach with Quinoa

This is a very easy side dish that qualifies both as a vegetable and a starch.  You could even use it as a stuffing.  Best of all, it is low in fat and salt, without sacrificing flavor.

1/3 C quinoa
2 C frozen spinach (still frozen)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp salt

1.  Combine all ingredients and 1/3 C water in a medium saucepan.  Slowly bring to a boil, which is about when the spinach is thawed.  Stir, cover, reduce heat, and simmer until water is absorbed and quinoa is cooked, about 15 minutes.  If too dry, add 2 Tb water and cook until absorbed.

Serves 2-3

Difficulty rating  π

Compound Butter

I saw the commercial for a new product: butter cubes with herbs in them that you can use to add flavor to things you sauté.  That is not a new idea, but making money off the pre-packaged version of it is.  Don't get suckered into this over-priced, over-salted, totally unnecessary product.  It isn't that big a deal to make your own.

There are many specific kinds of prepared beurre in French cooking.   Many of them involve browning the butter, or at least clarifying it.  I prefer to ignore the formal recipes and make the butter work with whatever I'm making.  And while fresh herbs are lovely for this sort of thing, don't rule out dried.  Just use less.

Any compound butter should be made a day ahead, so the flavors have time to meld and work their way through the log.  I'm giving a sample recipe for some fish I made.  The most common type of compound butter is called beurre maître'd, and consists of butter, lemon juice, and chopped parsley.  I guess this is a version of that one.

1/2 C butter (actual butter)
1 Tb chopped fresh parsley or 1 tsp *parsley flakes
1 Tb lemon juice
*1 tsp dill weed (or 1 Tb chopped fresh dill)
1 Tb olive oil
pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter)

1.  Soften butter to room temperature.  In a mixer, beat together all ingredients until uniform and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

2.  Set out a piece of parchment or waxed paper.  Spoon butter onto paper and roll inside of paper into a log.  I found my sushi roller to be very helpful.  Seal paper with tape, if necessary, and refrigerate until firm.  To serve, slice appropriate-sized pieces off of log.  1 Tb per person is good, more if you're using it as a cooking sauce base.

makes 1/2 C, about 8 servings

Difficulty rating  π

Pork Pie

I've heard of a pork-pie hat, but I never connected it to an actual pork pie.  No surprise, it looks like the hat.

The extremely traditional recipe I found on the British site recipewise is labor intensive, takes three days, and uses way more pieces of the pig than I had in mind.  What I am presenting here is an Americanized, lighter, dumbed-down version that you can make in one day and serve the next.  Well, not totally dumbed-down, but you could substitute a store-bought double crust.  I don't really recommend that option, and it's ok if your pastry crust comes out hard, awkward, and barely edible.  This is a free-standing pie, and you don't want it collapsing.

A pork pie is basically pork encased in pastry.  It's almost a sausage in pot-pie shape.  You need some serious vegetables on the side to make this a meal.  Just a heads-up.

Crust

3-1/2 C flour

3/4 C + 2 Tb shortening

1/2 C water

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg, beaten, for glaze

Filling

1-1/3 lb pork shoulder, fat trimmed to 1/4"

1/2 tsp each salt and pepper

2 Tb water

1 14oz can chicken stock

*1 bay leaf

sprig of thyme (or 1/2 tsp *dried thyme)

several sage leaves (or 1/2 tsp *dried sage)

1 envelope gelatin

1.  In a medium bowl, stir together salt and flour.  In a small saucepan, bring shortening and water to a boil until all of the shortening is melted.  Pour into flour and mix with a wooden spoon until a smooth dough forms.  (It smells like churro dough, in case you ever wondered what churro dough smells like.)  Add water a tablespoon at a time, if necessary.  Let sit until room temperature, about an hour, kneading occasionally to check for firmness.  Meanwhile, chop the pork into 1/2" cubes.  Back to that in a minute.

2.  When dough is firm enough to hold a shape, break off about 1/3 to use later.  On a rimmed, parchment-lined baking sheet, mold dough into a flat-bottomed bowl shape approximately 7" in diameter and 3" high.  It helps if you were any good in pottery class as a child.  I wasn't.  That's fine; it's supposed to look "rustic".  This is going to take you at least 5 minutes, so don't worry if you have to start over.  If it's lopsided, just break off some from another area and patch the low side.

3.  Preheat oven to 400º.  Get out your bowl of chopped pork.  Toss with salt, pepper, and water to mix.

4.  Place meat in crust.  It's going to help your bowl to hold its shape, which will be a huge relief.  Shape remaining third of dough into a lid and place on top.  Crimp up rim to seal.  Cut a vent in the middle large enough for a funnel, because you're going to use one later.  Brush top and sides with egg wash.  Store the rest of the wash in the fridge for another brushing later.

5.  Bake at 400º for 10 minutes.  Lower heat to 325º and bake another two hours, turning after an hour.  That's when you'll find out if you sprang a leak anywhere.  Oh well, too late to fix it.  Remove from oven briefly, brush again with the egg wash, and bake 10 more minutes to set the glaze.  Allow to cool to room temperature while you're making the stock filling.

6.  Soften gelatin in 1/4 C cold water.  In a saucepan, heat chicken stock, bay leaf, thyme, and sage.  Simmer for 30 minutes.  Strain out herbs and stir in softened gelatin until dissolved.  Pour into pie using a funnel until filled, just a tablespoon or so at a time.  You won't use more than half a cup of the stock at this time, but refrigerate the rest for later.  What you're doing is filling all the tiny nooks and crannies inside the crust with a jellied aspic.  Chill the pie for at least 2 hours, then re-warm the stock and see how much more you can fit in the pie.  Again, you won't use all of it, but you can discard the rest now if you don't have another use for it.  Chill pie overnight.

7.  Being a British thing, this meat pie is served cold.  Slice it like any pie, and serve with an interesting mustard available as a condiment.

Serves 5 to 6

Difficulty rating :-0

Cherry-Almond Coffee Cake

I was going through my jams and preserves before the tomatoes ripen and I start canning again.  I need to start dating my preserves, because I found a jar of cherry pie filling that is probably from July.  Home-processed canned fruits and vegetables have about a one-year shelf life unopened.  I decided to use up the jar this week, but what to make of it?  I wavered between turnovers (I still have some puff pastry dough in the freezer) and coffee cake.  After some deliberation and flipping through the Bible, I decided to merge two different coffee cake recipes on page 430 into an über-rich cherry cake.  (Wow, spell-check recognizes correct German spelling.  Who knew?)

As my roommate put it, "It smells like Christmas in here".

1/4 C butter + 2 Tb
1/2 C sugar + 1/4 C
1 C flour + 1/2 C
*1/2 C almonds
*1/2 C sour cream
2 Tb milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
*1/2 tsp vanilla
*1 C (or 1 small can) cherry pie filling

1.  Grease 8x8 square baking pan.  Preheat oven to 350º.

2.  Cream together 1/4 C butter and 1/2 C sugar until fluffy.  Add 1 C flour, almonds, sour cream, milk, egg, baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla.  Beat until smooth and similar in texture to Toll House cookie dough, about 2 minutes.

3.  Spread cake batter in bottom of baking dish.  Layer on pie filling.  In a bowl, mix together remaining butter, flour, and sugar until coarse crumbs form.  Sprinkle over cake.

4.  Bake until golden brown, about 45 minutes.  Allow to cool completely before serving.

Serves about 8

Difficulty rating :)

Linguine with Sausage and Vegetables

I transferred at work.  It is a positive thing for the most part, but I get home at 7pm three days a week.  I don't want to start cooking that late, so I have to find things I can make in the morning that will store well.  I kind of do that anyway, making about four portions and eating leftovers until it's gone, but now I won't always get to eat the first portion fresh.  However, I'll get to have breakfast at home almost every day.  I got out of the habit of making fancy breakfasts, but I do love them.

I tried to cut down on the number of pots and pans for this one, but there are just a lot of pieces.  If you're making it to serve fresh, it's going to take at least three.  Making it ahead, I was able to reuse the pasta pot for the sauce and the sausage skillet for the veggies.  This also gave me time to portion everything into four containers.  I kept two in the fridge and froze the other two for later, like making my own frozen dinners.  Anything that keeps me from stopping at McDonald's on the way home.

The Yellow Apron
Frozen Entrées Factory

8 oz (about 1/2 box, depending on the brand) linguine
4 Italian sausage links (about 12 oz total)
1 Tb olive oil
1 lb tomatoes
1/2 lb mushrooms
2 ribs celery
1/2 onion
1 green bell pepper
1 C milk
2 Tb butter
3 Tb flour
1/2 C parmesan cheese
salt, pepper, and paprika to taste

1.  Boil water in a medium saucepan and cook pasta until done.  Drain.

2.  While that's going on, heat sausage according to package directions.  Chop into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

3.  Also while 1 & 2 are happening, coarsely chop vegetables and sauté in olive oil until onions are translucent, but veggies are not limp.  Set aside.

4.  Get out another small saucepan and melt butter.  Stir in flour to make a roux and slowly add milk to make a basic white sauce.  Add cheese, taste and add salt, pepper, and paprika as needed.

5.  Toss all parts together and serve.

Difficulty rating  :)

Barbecued Asparagus

OK, this is kind of a cop-out "recipe", but this idea turned out way better than I expected.  The asparagus actually picked up the smoky barbecued flavor.  Can't say enough good things about choosing to get a basic charcoal grill over a gas one.

In Southern California, there are perhaps 30 days out of the year that you would not want to barbecue.  Half of them are because of rain, and the other half because of high winds.  There is no such thing as bbq season, just days that you feel like it more than others.

1/2 lb asparagus
2 Tb olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1.  Get your grill going and make sure you put on the top for small items or that's in a checked pattern.

2.  Cut off tough bottoms of asparagus spears and rinse well.  Toss with oil, salt, and pepper.

3.  Carefully arrange spears on grill so they don't fall in.  Close lid and let cook 10 minutes.  Open lid, turn asparagus, and close lid for another 5 minutes.  The spears should look slightly charred, but not dry.

4.  Serve hot, either by themselves or with a sauce.

Difficulty rating  π

And almost totally unrelated to cooking, I got the workbench in the garage cleaned and organized!  I say almost because I found a kebab skewer and the missing steak knife.  What?!