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.

Five Spice Powder Ribs
September 24, 2008

Ribs are an awesomely easy meal to make well, and only require some preparation ahead of time to really shine. These particular ribs are spiced up with some fantastic Chinese five spice powder which lends them a unique, strong and unexpected flavor that totally rocks. They just need a little dry rub, a little marination and then about 45~60 minutes in the oven. Simple.

Ingredients

• Ribs. I used beef short ribs here, but pork or beef ribs in general will work well with this method
• Chinese five spice powder
• Garlic powder
• Red chili flakes
• White sugar
• Brown sugar
• Salt
• Soy sauce
• Worcestershire sauce
• Chicken stock

The Method - Flavoring

These require some time spent up front, but its mostly hands off. Mix up all of your dry ingredients in roughly equal proportions (except the garlic powder, use about half of your proportion) and start rubbing it nice and hard into the meat. You're doing a dry rub here that's going to be spending about a day melding its flavor into the meat, so use some elbow grease.

Once you've got the meat rubbed down, plop it into a high rimmed bowl or baking dish, cover and stick it in your fridge for at least 8 hours. Let those flavors permeate nice and deep.

Now, 8 hours have passed and your meat's got a lovely fragrance to it. Take your soy sauce and chicken stock and fill the bottom of your bowl about 3/8 of the way (I know, I had to be difficult) and squirt in a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce. Go ahead and toss your ribs around to get liquid all over them and then put 'em back in the fridge for at least 2 or 3 hours. If you can, toss 'em around a bit half way through to get some nice easy coating.

The Method - Cooking

This is where the ribs become dirt simple. Once you've got your ribs all marinated and flavored up, kick your oven up to 350. If they're not already in one, get your ribs and they're tasty marinating juices into a high-rimmed oven-safe container and cover them in foil. Stick it in and wait about 45 minutes to an hour. The meat should easily come off of the bone when you've poked it with a fork and oh, the delicious smell will be filling your house.

These weren't actually dinner, I had already eaten about 4 hours earlier. Despite the fact that I was already utterly full I sat down and consumed three of these babies to great satisfaction. The five spice powder could be a bit difficult to find, but its certainly worth it once you obtain some. Once you do, be sure to give these ribs a try as they're a nice change from bbq / teriyaki ribs.

Shrimp Bisque - Holy Delicious Batman
September 22, 2008

Sunday cooking is always a good time for me, as the fridge is usually well stocked and I've got plenty of time to sit and stew about what I'm going to make with the delicious that's present. Tonight I turned to an old favorite for me, bisque. My usual bisque of choice is usually crab, but Paula Dean bless her butter loving heart, decided to come on my television and demonstrate shrimp bisque and I knew what was getting made this evening. Superior om noms came of this.

Ingredients

• 1 to 2 cups Shrimp (shell on, uncooked)
• 1 Onion
• About five cloves of garlic
• About 7 spears of asparagus (don't want it overpowering the bisque
• 1 package baby port mushrooms (you could use button, but... they're button.)
• A bunch of parsley (fresh, silly)
• 2 good sized potatos
• Tabasco (this can be omitted if you are weak.)
• 2 ribs of celery (pick from the inside'ish part of the celery bunch, its always better than the outer ribs)
• 1 can chicken stock (you could use fish stock, but I had chicken)
• About 1/2 quart heavy whipping cream
• Buttah.
• Optionally, some bread to make crutons from
• Dried Spices && Herbs: Dill, chili powder, Basil
• A couple good swigs of white wine into this baby would be awesome

I know, the list is a bit long but its fairly cheap to obtain these ingredients (save the shrimp, of course) and this really does make a ton of tasty food. You could also substitute canned crab in this recipe and it would be some damned good crab bisque instead (good stuff can be had from Geisha for about $1.50/can and you'd need 2 cans).

The Process

Before you get started with anything, and this is true of cooking in general, assemble, chop and prep your ingredients as much as possible. Crush and dice the garlic, mince the onion, break up the asparagus (you can hold the top in one hand and the bottom in another, snap it and it will naturally snap where you need to discard), chop the parsley, peel and chop the potatoes etc. Reserve the shells from the shrimp as you're peeling and deveining them.

This is called 'Mise en Place' or everything in (its) place. Its the concept of having everything ready so that while you're applying heat and time is of the essence, everything is where you expect and know it to be - making it a pleasurable experience of combination instead of a frantic dash to chop and find things.

k, good. You're got mise en place down pat? You're almost ready to get started. Group your onion and celery together with the garlic, and keep everything else separate. All of these items have different cooking times and since this is a bisque, we're shooting to have some freshness retained in the ingredients.

Get the potatoes boiling in one pot (I used a pan, no more pots available), put the reserved shrimp shells into a pot of boiling water (we're extracting the flavor to put back into the bisque) and get some butter melting in a LARGE pot over medium heat. You're well on your way to making some delicious. Once the butter's melted, start throwing in your onion+celery+garlic mix-up and let 'em sweat down a bit. You're not trying to get them to caramelize at all, so don't let the heat get up too high.

Your kitchen should be smelling lovely at this point and your cats should be coming to bother you. This is a good sign. Once the onion-celery-garlic almost trinity (onion, celery and carrot is a common start for French dishes) is starting to get a little soft pour in your can of chicken stock and mix in your dried herbs && spices. Keep it at a very low simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes until everything's very soft and you can't stop tasting the stock.

Do keep an eye on the shrimp shells. I wasn't paying attention and it boiled over creating quite a mess on my stove and sending me to panic mode cleaning everything up. Once you don't boil over your shrimp, it would be a good idea to start assembling your croutons.

Half-time: The Croutons

Sure, you could buy a big bag of store-bought stale crap. We're not about that over here, we want delicious and awesome and I'm not afraid of putting in a little elbow grease. Take any bread you've got handy and rip it up into some nice hearty chunks that won't be too big for you to take in a single bite. Toss 'em up with some olive oil (alas, I was out of olive oil and had to use peanut) and some of your dried spice/herbage. Get your oven going to 400F and stick 'em in for about 10 minutes or until crunchy. Obviously, these also rock for salads and warm fresh croutons always impress any friends you might have over.

Interesting side note, wikipedia suggests sautee'ing as an option. I wonder...

Back to The Bisque!

So, you've got your croutons getting ready and your bisque is starting to shape up with nice edible texture and deliciousness to the almost-trinity in the chicken stock. You're eating it straight out of the pot and its tastes good, right? This is the time to start adding in your potatoes and the rest of your fresh ingredients.

Strain your potatoes in a collander and get them into your forming bisque. While you're doing this, go ahead and take a turkey baster and get a good shot of the broth from the boiling shells. This will add a good shrimpy taste the whole matter, without having to overcook the shrimp. You can of course continue boiling the shells to get some awesome fish stock on hand.

Start with getting your mushrooms and parsley in there and letting them cook for about five minutes. Make sure that they're at a point where you'd eat them before mixing in the asparagus as you don't want it cooking for too long. If you've got Tabasco sauce on your mind, you can throw it in now too.

Once the asparagus is edible from the soup (notice a trend? I'm usually no longer hungry by the time I'm done eating. ;p) you're going to put your shrimp in. These guys should only take about five minutes or so and will change color to let you know they're done.

At this time begin mixing in your cream and sift in a bit of flour if you want it thicker. Your bisque is almost ready and your cats should be perched on your shoulder trying to snag a bite as you taste. It'll look a bit discolored at first, but after a bit it will pick up and get a nice creamy color. If it doesn't add more cream. This is the time to make sure everything tastes exactly how you want it, so feel free to season with salt, pepper or more tabasco sauce as you see fit.

Fin.

Your croutons should be getting done about now, and your bisque is definitely shaped up and looking good. Get yourself a hearty ladel full and top it with a nice layer of your giant croutons and be prepared for some awesome tastiness.

As usual, you can find the full photo set up @ flickr.

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?

Om nomie pizza margherita
August 24, 2008

Oh my, I made some definitely delicious pizza tonight. It was totally unlike anything that you could get from Pizza Hut or even Green Mill here in St. Cloud. It was light, crispy and totally focused on bringing out the flavors of the ingredients used. There was a heavy focus on using minimal quantities of everything to let all the ingredients stand out in flavor. The basics were an awesome crust, fresh mozzarella & goat cheese, basil, tomatoes and olive oil. Its a surprisingly simple dish to make, but there's a lot of waiting since there's dough involved.

Ingredients

• 4 Tomatoes
• Basil
• FRESH Mozzarella
• FRESH Goat Cheese
• Flour
• Olive Oil
• Water

Method - Dough

This is what will make this an awesome pizza instead of a mediocre pizza. Making dough by hand yields such a totally different and high quality flavor and texture that its more than worth it to make. Its a darned simple process to boot; the only thing you'll need to give it is some time.

To start off with, take some quick-acting yeast and "proof" it. To do this, take about a teaspoon of yeast (at room temperature!!), two teaspoons of sugar and about a quarter cup of warm (80F or so) water and mix 'em together. The yeast is inactive when refrigerated and is totally desiring delicious sugar for food when it wakes up at the 80F point. Its going to start eating the sugar, and pewping out air which will act to leaven or expand your dough.

Your yeast will take about ten minutes to proof, which is just about enough time to start working on the bulk of your dough. Take about a cup or two of flour and plop it in the biggest bowl you have. Now, start adding water (I think about a cup in the end) and incorporating with a fork until it starts getting a bit shaggy all around. Its totally a "feel" measurement on this one since there's so many factors. Bottom line, make sure its all one cohesive piece, but not totally wet and gooey.

Once you've got your flour + water combo set, your yeast should be proofed. It'll smell pungent and the yeast bits should be visibly larger than when you started out. Go ahead and pour it in to the dough, making sure not to make it too wet. If it starts to look wet and separated, add more flour to compensate. You want something wet but not dripping and with visible liquid. I like to mix in some olive oil while working with the dough to make it extra tasty.

Coat your hands in flour and start moving this fella around. You want to make the yeast feel at home and start getting it to breath life into your new dough. Not hard, just push it and start shaping it into a ball then plop it back in its bowl.

Stick this bowl in a warm place (75F did it for me) for about 8 hours or so. This dough is the start of any good bread product. From here, you could spread it very thin and make some naan or make it into a giant loaf for some out of this world bread. But now, we're going to stick with pizza. This. Is your dough.

Method - PIZZA!

This is the easiest part. Preheat your oven to as high as it will go. Mine goes at 450F, but I hear that 500F is the stellar point.

While your oven is heating, take your dough (which should have increased dramatically in size) out of its hiding place and place it on a well floured surface (you floured your hands too, right?). Start kneading it, moving it, spreading it, compacting it, and generally making everything shift around. Don't stir it, you want surface composure, but start making it change shape for about five minutes or so. Keep everything well floured as your working, as sticking will generally suck.

After working your dough a bit (you're getting delicious texture and causing more distribution in the air pockets) you're going to want to start spreading it out to about a 1/3inch thick flat surface. Keep in mind that this will almost double in the oven when determining how thick you want your delicious pizza.

Take the edges and start folding them over to make a little bowl that your ingredients will go in. This will be the container for your condiments which will enhance the awesomeness of your dough. I find that a rectangle pizza is generally easier to work with, just because of American cooking tools.

Once you've got your edges folded and your oven preheated, give the pizza a nice drizzle of olive oil all over. This will add some delicious flavor as well as improve the color.

You're going to bake this at your highest temp for about 20 minutes or so. You're looking for the beginnings of black spots before you remove your crust. Don't be tempted to remove it before then, the best traditional New York and Chicago pizzas have tons of "burn" spots which indicate awesome and complete done-ness.

While this is going, begin slicing your toppings. Slice your tomatoes super-thin, ditto for the onions. Get copious amounts of basil ready and unpackage your cheeses. Don't forget to crack that can of stewed tomatoes!

Once your crust has finished you'll begin adding your toppings. Keep that oven going! Take a spoon and ladle a very small layer of tomato sauce over the entire inside of the delicious crust bowl. This'll make the whole thing moist and delicious. Place your tomatoes in a thin layer and SPARINGLY apply each of the two cheeses. Seriously, leave about an inch between each of the bits of cheese. You're going to want more mozzarella than goat because the goat cheese is overpowering.

Put this back in the oven and let it go for about 10 to 15 minutes. Check it sparingly and once you see some dark spots developing add your basil and coat it with some olive oil. You want black on your pizza, or it aint done. The little spots of black let you know that everything has incurred the high heat wrath of a good oven and will yield the most delicious pizza possible.

Conclusion

Drizzle some high quality olive oil over the finished pizza (if you do it while cooking, you cook out the tasty qualities of a high quality oil - *never* use a high quality oil before cooking as its a waste). Cut it up, and enjoy the delicious!

I hope that this ends up being a delicious pizza for you! Since you're seeking minimalism in the condiments, I believe that this will end up being a very low acid pizza which capitalizes on the flavors brought out by high heat cooking. Om. NOM!

My wife is back from vacation, which means that the camera is back from taking pictures in South Carolina! This means that further cooking posts will probably have some pictures associated with them ala my cabbage rolls.

Tomorrow is fried chicken so look out for some extra goodness!

Delicious Lamb Chops
August 20, 2008

Continuing my trend of cooking entries with no pictures; I has to tell you about how freaking easy it is to make delicious lamb chops. Seriously, its almost a no-brainer to make these fantastic chops in about 15 ~ 20 minutes.

Method - The Chops

Coat the chops, each one, in about a teaspoon each of salt and garlic powder. Place them into a pre-heated pan over a medium-high heat and listen for delicious crackling from the fat. If you don't hear it, remove you chops and raise the heat. You're goal is to sear in the delicious juiciness of the chops, so high heat is necessary. You're going to want to sear these delicious puppies for about five minutes on each side. When you flip them, you should see delicious dark brown crust. When searing them, be sure not to move them or to press them down. Both of these are novice manuevers which cause you juices to escape from your meat.

After you've got a delicious brown crust (you're not *coating* them in the crust, you just need to see a good bit of it) on both sides, add in some water and some white wine. Cover the chops about a quarter way, and then put a lid on it. Keep it going about another 5 minutes or until you can start to see the bottom of your pan (directly!) through the liquid. Once this has occurred; remove your chops and its time to start making some gravy. OM NOM!

Method - The Gravy

This is straight forward, but might be new to some. You've got some delicious reduction in your pan, but no idea what to do with it? Never fear! I is here! First, add some water (or chicken stock if you've got it!) to start melting away your delicious. Maybe a quarter of the way covered in the pan, let that reduce until you can see the pan some and then add enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Take some flour in your hand and start *slowly* *agonizingly slowly* squeezing your hand and spraying it lightly into the mix, all while stirring continuously. You'll know once you've achieved the right consistency because it will stick just right to your spatula. Feel free to reduce and add white wine many more times as it will enhance the flavor (IMHO).

Method - End Game

Plate your chops and pour your delicious white-wine gravy over them. Proceed to insert fork, draw knife back and forth and bite into these fantastically simple but absolutely delicious lamb chops.

Om.

Nom.

This Aint Peter's Pork Chops and Applesauce
August 18, 2008

ZOH. MY. GAWD. I just made the absolute most delicious pork chops that I have ever eaten in my life. They were so good, that there is absolutely no picture remaining to prove their delicious. They had a perfect balance of sweet and spicy, with lots of deep warm flavors that mixed perfectly with the pork's overall flavor. Wanna know how I made 'em?

Ingredients

• 2 Pork Chops
• Chili Powder
• Chili Flakes
• Garlic Powder
• Paprika
• Whole Peppercorn
• Coarse salt
• Worchestershire Sauce
• Soy Sauce
• Brown Sugar
• White Sugar
• 1 Apple
• Lemon Juice
• Balsamic Vinegar

Method - Sauce

You should start the sauce about 15 minutes to a half hour before the chops. It takes awhile to reduce, and you really do want several reductions to occur. Quarter the apple and plop it in a pot. You can skin it, or you can pick the skins out as it reduces. Your choice. Add in about a teaspoon of chili powder, chili flakes and paprika.

Pop a bunch of peppercorns and salt into a coffee grinder and pulse them until you get a coarse'ish texture, certainly not as fine as a store-bought pepper. Put about a teaspoon of this in there, but you'll need more for the chops.

Now, put about a handful of brown sugar in there and half a handful of white sugar. This will interact with the apples' flavor and make the whole sauce a lot sweeter. Delicious.

You've got your dry ingredients in there, now you should put in your wetness. Mix in about quarter cup of soy sauce and about five or six dashes of worshestershire sauce in there and then put a squirt of the balsamic vinegar. Done yet? Not quite. Put about a quarter cup of lemon juice in there to help break down the apples while you're cooking.

Now, put in enough water to cover the apples and start it'a'simmerin. Bring it to a slow boil and leave it alone for awhile keeping your eye on it. Throughout the whole process it will reduce to a sticky consistency and you'll fill it back up with water about five times. Hooray reduction!

You'll know its done when the apples are indistinguishable from the sauce.

You could omit the apples and sugar, add in some Sri-racha sauce and some fish sauce and you would have a good start towards a Vietnamese sauce.

Method - Pork Chops

Oh, these are delicious on their own - but the applesauce mentioned above makes the dish absolutely fan-fucking-tastic.

First, the dry rub for the chops. You're going to rub them down with about a teaspoon each of chili powder, chili flakes, garlic powder (I like garlic, so I used more), your salt and peppercorn mixture from before (confession, I used about a tablespoon) and paprika. You're going to augment this mixture with about a 1/2 cup (a handful) of brown sugar and a 1/4 cup of white sugar.

Let these sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes to let everything set in before continuing the delicious.

Once they've sat awhile, and your apple sauce is underway, put your chops into a high-edged cookie sheet and fill it with water covering about half of the height of the chops - you'll be sort of braising them in the oven. To this add in a couple dashes of worcestershire sauce for some nice deep flavor, and about 1/4 cup of soy sauce to flavor everything.

Pop this in the oven @ about 250~300F for about 1.5hrs flipping the chops every half hour. After about 1.5hrs, drain the juice (you could save this for something, I'm sure) and put a pad of butter atop each chop and pop 'em back in for about 15 minutes. Flip 'em, and then put 'em in for another 15 minutes.

Delicious!!!

Om. Nom. This dish is a deliciously warm and deep play on traditional pork chops and applesauce. Once you;ve had home-made applesauce like this, you will never even consider Mott's to be applesauce. Enjoy!

Delicious Cabbage Rolls
January 02, 2008

True story; I was browsing the cooking board on 4ch and somebody posted a picture of some delicious looking cabbage rolls. This picture inspired a week long quest to figure out how to make these damnable things and ended in me falling back to my precious and incredibly informative joy of cooking. Before we begin, I have taken pictures of my endeavor and posted them to my flickr account. They are all tagged and place here.

Ingredients

• 1 head of cabbage (outer leaves washed, of course)
• 1 lb of ground pork
• 3 or 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 or two small onions
• 1/2 cup cooked rice

Procedure for the Mixture

The rice is the easiest part of this entire process. Go ahead and mix the usual 1 cup of dry rice and 1.5 cups of water into a pot. Let it come to a boil that starts to shift the lovely little kernels around in the pot. Reduce this newly boiling rice to the absolute lowest point your stove will go, cover and leave it the hell alone for 20 minutes. Set a timer and keep your hands off the pot or more specifically the lid.

While the rice is cooking, you can go ahead and begin prepping the rest of your ingredients. You’ll need to;

Mince your garlic - Mince if relatively finely. You can press down hard with the flat of your blade to squish this lovely vegetable out of its skin to make the whole process easier.

Cut your onions - You could mince, dice or simply cut your onions depending on how much you like onion. I like onion and I find cooked onions a delicious surprise when biting into things so I cut mine on the bigger side. Reduce the size according to your dislike of onion.

If your rice isn’t near completion by this point (based on the time! Don’t touch that lid!) then you probably haven’t been cleaning up after yourself. Naughty. Go clean up so that the rest of the process is as painless and stress free as possible.

Start mixing it up! - With your rice coming to completion you can begin mixing your ingredients together. You should only mix half of your ingredients at first, just to make sure that you don’t end up with too much mix left-over at the end. So, mix a couple pinches of the garlic with a couple handfuls of the onions and 1/2 of the pork. Keep adding and futzing until it looks about right for what you like (less garlic, more garlic, less onion, more onion)

Add the rice - Add a couple tablespoons of rice to the mixture and keep adding until there is about a 4:1 pork:rice ratio. You can obviously increase or decrease this depending on your starchy desires.

Procedure for the Cabbage

This is the time consuming and labor intensive part. Put your mixture into the fridge to let it sit for awhile while you wrangle your way into this cabbage head.

You’ll notice in my pictures that there is a whole in the middle of the cabbage. Several recipes told me to “core” the cabbage - but I had no clue what they meant and went about trying to hack into the core with a knife. I am told that you can slam the cabbage (core side down) onto a table and the core should pop out. I really have no idea if this would work or not given cabbage’s density. Incidentally, the hole that I carved out while trying to core the cabbage ended up being quite useful while wrangling the cabbage in the pot.

Get a pot of water boiling - You’ll be sticking the cabbage into this, so it needs to be enough to cover about the bottom half to third (depending on your bravery) of the cabbage head. Go ahead and test this before boiling the water, the cabbage won’t mind getting wet.

Stick the cabbage in for about 10 seconds - After about ten seconds, start turning the cabbage so that the whole surface gets heat for about ten seconds. This should start turning the outer leaves to a darker color and you should notice them getting softer.

Pull your cabbage out - You should notice that the outer leaves / leaf and fairly easy to pull off without any difficulty now. If you don’t, then you need to heat it longer. It’s rather crucial that you don’t demolish the leaves while peeling them off.

Place the leaves on a large platter - Let them cool, but you don’t really need to rinse them under cold water or anything.

Repeat until you have about 3 more leaves than you want rolls - Because you will probably break some while working. Now, sit back and contemplate how you just spent thirty minutes peeling a head of cabbage.

Assembling the Rolls

Cut the spiney part out - of each leaf of cabbage while you’re working with it. Don’t cut out the whole spine, only the biggest and toughest part of it lest you will be left with no cabbage to work with.

Spoon in about two to three tablespoons of pork mixture - and begin folding up the roll like a burrito. Each roll will end up having a slightly different shape so you’ll have to improvise your folding method from time to time.

Place each roll folded side down - on a big platter and let them rest.

Marvel - at how you just spent 20 minutes folding beautiful little cabbage packages.

Cooking the Rolls

Sort of Fill a big frying pan with chicken broth - or you could water it down some depending on your economic desires. Make sure that there’s enough to cover about the bottom 1/4 of the rolls. You can put a roll in there to judge the size, if you like.

Place the rolls in the pan - folded side down. Try to fit them all in there, it’s OK if they crowd a bit since they’ll end up getting steamed a bit.

Pour a bit more broth over the tops of the rolls - just to moisten them up a bit.

Turn your burner up to medium, get the broth simmering and cover

The brother should just be at a low simmer, if it’s more than that lower the burner a bit. Keep checking on the rolls from time to see how they’re doing.

They should take about 20 - 30 minutes to complete - You should be able to tell just how close they are because the cabbage will be slightly transparent giving you a nice view of the meat. I would also nominate a roll to stab with a kitchen thermometer from time to time.

Delicious!

Enjoy your delicious cabbage rolls! Remember, if you want to see pictures of this process they're all posted on my flickr page tagged as Cabbage Rolls. This is a very time consuming process, so don't expect to make them quickly for dinner one night. As you can tell by the clock on my stove in the cooking photos it ended up taking me about 1.5 hours a good chunk of which was prep time. Unfortunately, they are so delicious that I will be forced to make them again. Seriously, a little tabasco sauce and these were some of the most delicious packages I've eaten in awhile.

Tasty Ramen
October 17, 2006

Ramen happens to be one of my favorite food products. I purchase the flats of it, and it comprises my lunch or at least my snack almost every day of the week. Did you know that Ramen is actually a quite delicious and sometimes lavish and expensive soup rooted in China, but popularized by Japan?

Did you also know that those bricks of Instant Ramen noodles and dried soup powder can be doctored up to make a very tasty and simple soup? You will require these ingredients that you probably have onhand:

• Some precooked beef or chicken; as much as you like. It can be cooked plain with butter, or stir fried in Soy Sauce or Teryaki for extra flavor.
• Soy Sauce (a couple dashes)
• Two chopped Green Onions
• One Clove Garlic
• A tea(or table, depending on your healthiness)spoon of vegetable oil
• One Egg
• The obvious pack of Instant Ramen
• Bok Choy is a nice addition if you've got it. I've used Spinach (FRESH!) in the past with no ill results

You've got that in your fridge, right? I thought you did.

Simply boil the water and mix all above ingredients. I prefer to add the egg towards the end, just crack it and plop it in. I tend to seperate it halfway through it's cooking process right along the yolk (so you don't get a mess of runny yolk throughout your ramen).

Just cook everything until the egg is done, and you've got delicious ramen! Serve in Japenese style bowls with chopsticks (just chopsticks!) for extra tastiness. Drink directly from the bowl and slurp up the noodles with your chopsticks, because as we all know soup noodles are not tasty until slurped!

* Wikipedia has a nice article on ramen with lots of tantalizing pictures.

** Yes, as demonstrated in many anime and in Wikipedia's article on Japanese Dining Manners - it does appear to be quite acceptable and expected to slurp your soup noodles. Truthfully, before the Wikipedia article - I always thought that the anime renditions were always accentuated. James, correct me if I'm wrong.