Penne con Tomato y Salmon
September 29, 2008

Om nom. I have some delicious seafood recipe up my sleeve for an awesome pasta dish that fills your kitchen with fantastic smells and establishes a great basic sauce that can dress up any pasta night. What is it? It's salmon in a fantastically simple tomato sauce that will make any Italian proud. Primary constituents for this dish are tomatoes, salmon, onion and garlic. These are always a great combination and I'll shopw you how to make them into an awesome pasta dish.

Ingredients

• Salmon (I used a salmon steak here, as it has some fantastic fat that you know I'm all about)
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 4 cloves garlic (diced)
• 3 branches of basil (chopped)
• 4 roma tomatoes
• 1 beefsteak tomatoes (I use the roma for intense flavors and this beefsteak for increasing available volume)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (don't skimp on this, seriously)
• Parmesan Cheese (some good cheese is worth the money, seriously you owe it to yourself to try this at least once)
• Red wine (something you would drink, of course)
• Penne pasta (or anything else thick, this is a thick coarse sauce that benefits from a big pasta capable of taking it up)

Method - Mise en place

Assemble everything before hand that you can. Chop your onions, dice your garlic and cut up your basil. Prep your salmon by cutting along the skin (seperating it) and removing any bones that you can find. Massage the salmon a bit and remove *any* bones that you feel. Reserve the skin, you're going to fry it seperately to make some awesome cracklin'.

Method - Tomato Prep

Ok, so you're working with fresh tomatoes and not canned ones. This is the way that things should be. Don't compromise your flavor for ease with a sauce, its so easy to make a right tomato sauce that you shouldn't let a little extra step keep you from it. Bring a pot of water to boil and gently place your tomatoes in for about 5 to 10 minutes. What you're doing now is trying to peel the tomatoes to get the skins out of the way so that you can make a nice smooth sauce. You'll know your tomatoes are ready when they start to split out of their skin. Once they're splitting, plop them into a colander and run them under cold water to prevent any further cooking.

By boiling the tomatoes you're making it nice and easy to peel off the skins. You should be able to remove them with your fingers quite easily, if not - they need more cooking.

Once done, just remove the skin

Method - Pasta

The pasta should be started second and its incredibly simple, really. Just bring some salted water to a boil and insert pasta. I threw in some of the wine to color the pasta and bring it more in line with the rest of the dish. Let it boil for about 15 minutes or until its al dente (tender, but a still firm). Midway through you should begin crafting your sauce...

Method - Sauce

This is pretty easy too. Heat a pan up to a medium temperature and add a good dose of quality olive oil and then pop in your garlic, onions and basil. Don't let this get too hot, if you see anything browning remove your pan and lower the temp. You're trying to make everything nice and soft - don't go fast, this isn't good here. When everything in the pan is fairly soft add in your tomatoes. I like to add in some chicken stock here too, just to make everything more tasty. This will continue for about 5 to 10 minutes until everything is nice and soft.

Whene everything's getting nice and soft you're going to be engaging in a bit of cheating. Take your sauce and pour it straight into a blender and get to making your sauce nice and smooth. I know, the traditional Italian will tell you that this is hogwash - but its far better than cracking a can of tinned tomatoes or *gasp* premade sauce.

Method - Salmon

Once your sauce is feeling nice and chunky and is in your blender, plop it back in on a low heat and get to working on your salmon. Crank a nice grill-pan up to medium high and make sure its totally hot. If you touch your salmon in and it doesn't sizzle, take it out and let your pan keep heating. Get your salmon and its skin in there and sizzling for a good 4 or 5 minutes and flip it. It'll be starting to change color and you'll definitely know when its done cooking.

Method - Finishing

Once your salmon is all done and your sauce is back in its pan go ahead and mix the pasta, salmon and sauce all together. You want this to cook together a bit for afew minutes in order to let al lthe flavors combine into some awesome beautiful flavor. Put the pasta in a couple bowls and go ahead and grate some of your fresh parmesan over this delicious combination of flavors to add some extra sharpness to the whole affair.

Teriyaki Pork Chops - Om. Nom.
September 16, 2008

Yes, I actually ate dinner this evening. Its been awhile since I've taken the time to cook / eat dinner, so this is definitely fitting. Teriyaki anything is always a staple for me, since its so incredibly easy to make just about any meat delicious and Asian (which are two important qualities for my enjoying food).

The ingredient list is pretty simple...

• Soy Sauce
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Brown Sugar
• Pork Chops
• Lemon Juice

Like I said, pretty simple. Combine all of these things in a large bowl and marinate for at least a half hour. Overnight would be optimum. Confused about how much to use? Its an art, just try to get some good swigs of Worcestershire sauce in with a large helping of soy sauce and a couple teaspoons of lemon juice. Pat the meat down with the brown sugar and massage it all thoroughly.

White wine or sake would be a welcome addition to this marinade. :) The little bits you see in the picture are chopped ginger, which most people don't like but I absolutely adore. Enjoy it if you wish. :)

Cooking these is the simplest thing in the world. Heat a good frying pan (in my case, a cast iron skillet) up to a nice medium high heat. Like most pan-fried meats, you want your pork chops to sizzle nicely as soon as they touch the pan. If they don't, remove them until the pan's hot enough.

After the pork chops are all done, you can pop in some chopped onions and brown them up for additional flavor. I deglazed the pan with some white wine which made for an excellent sauce to top the pork chops with.

In the end, definitely delicious and something I make all the time.

Deep Fried Southern Chicken
August 31, 2008

Andy has convinced me to finally get off my ass and get together my fried chicken expedition for presentation. Om nomie presentation. This is a more traditional Southern fried chicken, so its based off of corn meal instead of your usual fried chicken. It gives it a nice gritty feeling to the breading, instead of a smooth consistent texture that you get from a flour breading. This is also a relatively fast to prepare meal, short of the "marination" of the meat.

Ingredients

• 1 Whole Chicken
• Buttermilk
• 2 Eggs
• Chili Powder
• Paprika
• Red Chili Flakes
• Corn Meal
• A Boatload of Canola Oil

What to serve it with? I cheated and served this along-side a premixed bag of biscuit mix. You'll also notice in some of my pictures a curious item to deep fry, but there were also some delicious deep fried pickles. Emily wasn't fond of them, but I certainly enjoyed them.

The Method - Preparation

The only real time consuming part of this recipe is "marinating" the chicken. You need to go ahead and chop up your chicken into its appropriate pieces and get it into a bowl before you begin crafting up the delicious marinade.

By marinating the chicken for at least 8 hours beforehand, you're going to be making it extra moist and flavorful while enhancing its ability to receive breading. Go ahead and fill up your bowl of chicken with buttermilk and break in two eggs. Stir it all up and massage the chicken along the way to help everything make its way in.

This is also a great chance to season the chicken itself, so you should also go ahead and put in a teaspoon each of paprika, chili powder and red chili flakes. Mix it up and massage it all in again.

That's it. Wrap it up and stick in your fridge for at least 8 hours before moving on to the breading stage.

The Method - Breading

Breading the chicken is pretty simple, setup a quick assembly line with your chicken, a bowl of corn meal and a cookie sheet all laid out from left to right. In your corn meal, you should mix in a teaspoon each of chili powder, paprika, chili flakes, salt and pepper. This fried chicken's going to have a bit of a kick. :)

Just take your chicken pieces out of the marinade and slop 'em around in the breading making sure to completely coat each piece. If you have a kitty handy, you might have to rebread a couple pieces. Once you've gotten it breaded, just pop it onto your cookie sheet to await frying.

The Method - FRYING!

Get a big pot full of canola oil heated up uncovered on medium high. If you have a frying thermometer, heat it up to 350F - or if you're like me and don't have one, heat it up until it bubbles when you stick a wooden implement into it.

Once you've got the oil all heated up, you need to start putting your chicken in. Smoothly lay it in slightly pulling away from you to prevent spattering oil from getting you. If your oil doesn't start acting up and bubbling around, its not quite hot enough yet and you should take your chicken out and wait for it to get hot.

Don't overload your pot, you'll probably need to do it in batches so don't worry if it all doesn't fit. Let each piece go for about ten minutes or until happily browned and an internal temp of 165F has been reached.

As you finish your chicken, put it onto a cookie sheet lined with paper towels and then cover it with paper towels to help absorb some of the excess oil.

Om. Nom.

That was some damned good chicken. Thanks to the marinating before hand, every piece came out juicy and tender with some good flavor and kick. I did up some pickles the same way I did the chicken, minus the marinade, and they ended up being pretty darned tasty. My one complaint, was afterwards I had absolutely no idea what to do with all the oil.

If you'd like to see more pics, you can check out my recent photoset up on Flickr.

Awesome Jerk Chicken
August 31, 2008

Today was a damned nice day of shopping and was concluded with the fantastic company of Becky and Tom. During my shopping spree, I had purchased a cast iron skillet and was just itching to try it out. What better way than by making a recipe that calls for some superb crusty browning followed by om nom'ie baking? So, for our guests I made delicious jerk chicken and stuffed peppers. The stuffed pepper recipe will come later, I swear.

Ingredients

• 1 Whole Chicken, cut into appropriate pieces
• Allspice
• Garlic
• 1/2 a white onion
• ~1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• ~1/2 cup White Sugar
• ~1/2 tsp Brown Sugar
• ~1/2 tsp Salt
• ~1/2 tsp Pepper
• ~1/2 tsp Smoked Paprika
• 2 Red Chili Peppers
• Lemon Juice

The Method - Prep

Jerk Chicken is basically like a Jamaican barbecue. You're making a dry rub that will permeate the chicken and give it a fantastic and deep flavor all through the meat. Mix up your rub by combining your dry ingredients (Allspace, cinnamon, sugars, salt, pepper and paprika). In a big bowl, start mixing your chicken with the dry ingredients rubbing and pushing and making sure its well coated. If it doesn't look totally coated, make up some more of your jerk seasoning and get back to work!

Once your chicken's all set in its dry rub, dice up your onion and mince very finally about 1/2 bulb of garlic. Put 1/2 your onion (that's half a white onion) and garlic on in with the chicken and give it a nice tossing with your hands.

With that, you're going to mix in the red chili peppers. Cut them in half lengthwise, then run your knife along the inside to remove the seeds. Dice 'em up and throw 'em on in with your chicken.

Get a couple squirts of lemon juice (lime would be more appropriate, but I forgot to get it from the store) and then another good tossing.

Let the chicken sit for *at least* a half hour before going to town.

The Method - Cooking

Here's where my sweet new cast iron skillet came in handy. You could, of course use a frying pan - but I don't think it has quite the searing capabilities to get the job done. Kick your stove on medium-high and get some olive oil in there while you're waiting for it to heat up. Don't, don't, don't put your chicken in until the pan is totally heated and hot hot hot. If you put your chicken in, and it doesn't sizzle, take it out immediately and wait.

Once your pan is totally hot, get as many pieces of the chicken in there as you can in a single layer. Don't touch or move them once they're in the pan, as you're trying to develop a nice crusty layer of almost caramelized delicious. Moving them around prevents this from developing, and defeats the purpose of searing them before baking. You'll also probably need to do these in batches, don't be afraid of that.

After about 2 or 3 minutes on each side, your pieces should have a fantastic looking crunchy coating on them that almost looks burnt. This will give a great crunch and bring out the jerk flavor even better. Stick the pieces on a cookie sheet after they're done.

Once you've got all your chicken pieces seared, its time to move on to baking. Stick 'em in a 350F oven for about twenty to thirty minutes flipping 'em about halfway through. They'll be nice and crispy looking when done, and the internal temp on the meat should register around 165F.

Of course, you could just grill the darned things too

Om. Nom.

This turned out to be some great chicken that was perfect for a quick get together with friends. I would have liked to serve it alongside a nice yogurt+cucumber sauce, but alas I forgot about that. Better luck for me next time, eh?