Cast-Iron Honey Garlic Chicken

Add some olive oil, then butter to a medium-high pan. Season the chicken thighs and place skin down in the pan. We're not trying to cook it through, so all you need to worry about is getting the perfect golden brown skin. Remove the chicken and add potatoes and carrots to the pan. Same idea, cook for 8-10 minutes to get some nice brownage on the veggies. Meanwhile, make a sauce and preheat the oven to 425. This time I did honey, barbecue, soy sauce, chicken stock, soy ginger vinaigrette. Remove the potatoes and carrots and add onions. Then add garlic and the sauce. Simmer for a few minutes then add the chicken and veggies back in.

Above is ready to go into the oven. It gets 15-20 minutes in the oven. Below is after it comes out of the oven. The veggies are tender, the chicken is cooked through. 

Plate with the sauce over top. 

How To: Carbonara, Take Three

In the summer of 1999, my Dad and I took a road trip to the northeast. We met a family friend in Brooklyn who took us to an authentic Italian restaurant. I ordered fettucine carbonara. I was hooked. It took me three tries to figure out how to do it right at home.

Attempt #1.
Attempt #2.

I'm nearing the completion of a personal project, creating a cookbook. This is the last entree. And I finally figured out how to do it.

Ingredients

12 ounces angel hair pasta
8 pieces thick cut bacon, diced small
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 whole eggs
3/4 cup freshly grated parmesan
3/4 cup heavy cream
salt and lots of black pepper

Instructions

Dice the raw bacon and fry over medium heat until crisp. Remove from the pan, drain on paper towels, and season with pepper. Return the pan to the stove and throw in the onions and garlic. Cook until golden brown. Set aside. Drain but don't clean the pan.

Add the pasta to boiling water. Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix together eggs, Parmesan, cream, and salt and pepper until smooth. When the pasta is done, reserve a bit of the pasta water. Drain the pasta and place it in a bowl. While the pasta is still really hot, slowly drizzle in the egg mixture, stirring the pasta the whole time. The sauce will become thick and should coat the pasta. Splash in a little hot pasta water if needed for consistency (I didn't need to). Add to frying pan and stir briskly. Add the bacon, and sauteed onion/garlic.

The result is amazing. Cooking the onions and garlic in the bacon grease, and then finishing the whole pasta in the same pan gives it incredible flavor. And the ratio of egg and cream was perfect for me. (I know some people will say that cream has no place in a traditional carbonara. Okay. I guess this isn't traditional. But it's very, very good.)

HOW TO: Barbecue Cheeseburger Quesadilla + Homemade Fries

I made both of these yesterday, but didn't take pictures of the fries. And neither is that complicated to truly warrant a "how to," but that's my tag for recipes. 

Barbecue Cheeseburger Quesadilla

two small flour tortillas

one cooked, seasoned burger

cheddar

Gates bbq sauce (extra hot if you have it)

sour cream on the side

Assembly: put cheddar and bbq sauce on the inside of both tortillas, slap the burger in the middle. I used my panini press. Delicious. 

Homemade Fries

I finally found the secret to making good fries at home. 

Cut your raw potatoes into fries, 3 or 4 medium potatoes. Rub them with olive oil, then cover with plastic wrap in a big bowl, and microwave for 5-6 minutes. Then season nicely and cook for about 35 minutes at 440 degrees. Choice. 

HOW TO: make homemade biscuits and gravy

First a little backstory.

At my old job, after working there for over three years, I discovered something special. The little cafeteria on the 14th floor sold biscuits and gravy on Thursday mornings. One biscuit with gravy cost 85 cents. With tax, 94 cents. Which lead to an abundance of six cents laying around our house. And it was self-service. So you could load up that biscuit with as much gravy as you wanted. So I did.

Now in Denver, that biscuit and gravy fix came calling. But I figured, if you want to do something right, you better do it yourself.

- - -

My first attempt was last week. Before I started, my concern was getting it thick enough. My only complaint from the cafeteria b&g was that sometimes they were too thin.

So last week I loaded it up with flour...and it was too thick. Something I wasn't prepared for. Still good. But room for improvement.

- - -

The first step is putting the biscuits in the oven. I'm not ready to make my own biscuits, and really, don't think I'll ever want to.

Today I browned half a pound of hot Jimmy Dean sausage, breaking it up into little bite-size chunks. Then I seasoned the sausage with Lawry's seasoned salt and spicy montreal steak seasoning. And then I covered the meat with a generous sprinkling of flour. Stir it up until you can't see the flour any more.

Then it's time for the milk. I poured enough to almost fill my small skillet. Considering I had eight ounces of meat, I needed a bunch of milk to find the right ratio. I added a bunch of Worcestershire sauce for flavor.

After cooking it on medium for just a minute or two, it starts to thicken up pretty good.

Right around now the biscuits were ready to come out. So I took the gravy off the heat. Sliced open two biscuits and got them on my plate. That extra minute off the heat helped it thicken up even more. I probably used 1/3 of the flour today as I used last week, and it still got to the perfect thickness, without being too heavy.

I think these were the best biscuits and gravy I've ever had.

The best mexican food I've ever had

Looking for the best green chile in Denver, yelp led me to Santiago's. I ordered the enchilada dinner (1 chicken, 1 beef, 1 cheese) smothered in medium green chile. I ordered medium because yelp warned me that medium at Santiago's is already super hot.

The food was fine. The green chile was super hot, almost unnecessarily so, but at the same time there wasn't a lot of flavor from it, and there could have been more of it. Though as hot as it was, I couldn't really of handled anymore, if that makes sense. (I wish there had been more of a less burning my mouth green chile.) And surprisingly, the meats didn't taste that good--the cheese was my favorite of the three.

So I figured, if you want something done right...you have to do it yourself.

- - -

Last night my mom came into town, and I cooked for her some homemade mexican food, Denver style. I had a tub of the HOT pork-based Mark Schlereth's Stinkin' Good Green Chile. And after making myself a large soft taco with the green chile on the inside which was good, I thought I could take it up a notch. So this was my round two:

I started with a warmed flour tortilla and applied a foundation of sour cream. Then the meat was a mixture: half chorizo, half ground beef seasoned with chili powder, burger seasoning and Lowry's seasoned salt. Then I took a handful of shredded cheddar. Then, and this was key, I rolled it up and placed two bamboo skewers  through the overlap to keep it a tight roll, and then microwaved it for 20 seconds. Then I smothered it in my hot green chile, with plenty of chunks of pork sitting there, and microwaved it again for 20 seconds.

In one minute, I had the goodness of enchiladas, but done just the way I wanted. I really don't know how to brag this up any bigger than the title of the post. There was three different meats, the beef, chorizo, and the pork from the green chile. Melted cheddar. And the hotness of the green chile with the coolness of the sour cream. AMAZING. MORE PLEASE.

HOW TO: make homemade pretzels

BREAKING: Over the weekend I learned that it's possible to make giant soft pretzels at home. So I did.

They turned out awesome. This is the recipe I used. I saved a screenshot below in case that site ever goes down.

I don't have much experience with making dough/bread. In fall 2009 I made an unsuccessful beer bread and an unsuccessful pizza crust. 

I followed the directions exactly. I learned that my hand-mixer has dough hooks and used them for the first time. The dough rises for an hour and it was fun to roll and twist.

Though Brit and I differed on our methods. In the top picture, I made the top-left, a simple overlap. Brit made the lower-left, adding a twist before the overlap.

At one point I added more baking soda to the boiling bath and it overflowed big time. It happens.

I baked them on aluminum foil and generous cooking spray on the foil is essential. And I only needed one egg to make egg wash for 8 pretzels. I only had fine salt. I feel like thicker pretzel salt would have been nice.

They turned out better than expected. I'm pretty sure the pretzel-flavor comes from the baking soda bath, and I loved the bites that were bursting with the pretzelness.

Wish I had a great cheese sauce to go with them. I tried them with deli mustard and cinnamon sugar and both were good. I baked one of them with a shredded cheese topping at the end, but it didn't hit the cheese sauce mark.

I'm convinced these would make excellent pretzel buns for big burgers. And these would be a huge hit at a Super Bowl party.

green chile chicken soup

Following the success of last week's chili (and five leftover jalapeno peppers) I thought I would try to make a chicken version. I knew that I didn't want to just repeat my beef recipe and substitute chicken--I wanted to make something new, a green chile soup to give the chicken recipe its own identity.

I started by roasting my own 4.5 pound chicken.


Once it was rested I deboned it, separated the chicken breasts to save them for later. All the other little pieces of meat were ready to go.

I ended up using the entire 4 cup package of chicken broth. But I started with maybe 1.5 or 2 cups, all the chicken pieces and 4 jalapenos.


Then I added a diced onion, 5 cloves of garlic, 3/4 cup of hot green salsa, and a little oregano. That's it.

Then I let it cook for about 3 hours on low. Easy peasy.


Time to serve.


I went into this expecting the chicken version not to be as good as the beef, and it wasn't. It wasn't bad at all. But it was sort of one note--jalepeno. It wasn't too spicy, but not a very complex taste.

I suppose this ends up looking more like tortilla soup (minus the tortillas) than a chili, but I'm not entering this in a chili contest. I don't care what you want to call it. But the liquid definitely wasn't as thick as last weeks, not thick enough to coat a chip or spoon.

But it is a lot tastier than the tortilla soup that was served at the ISR Cantina.

HOW TO: make a thick, no-bean chili

Growing up, chili was a Christmas Eve dinner tradition. My mom made her recipe--a thin version made with ground beef, beans and tomato juice as the primary liquid. And I grew up thinking I didn't like chili.

And then somewhere between college and now, I realized that I what I didn't really like was the beans and the thinness of it. I tried a can of no-bean chili, and it was just okay. But I knew that it would taste a lot better if I made it fresh, with what I wanted.

But up until last week, I had never done so. I realized that I had talked all this game about how "I love thick chili with no beans" but had never put it to the test. Saturday I made my first pot of chili.

- - -

Also, this was the first culinary adventure where I wasn't using a recipe. I did some research, but nothing had everything I wanted. So I picked up some tips, and some techniques, and decided to invent my own recipe. Here we go.

- - -

Dave's Chili Recipe

Meats
1.5 pounds of lean beef stew meat

Chiles
1 poblano
2 jalapenos

Veggies
1 onion
1 red pepper
5 cloves garlic

Liquids & Spices
3/4 cup Pace Picante sauce
2 tbsp Gates bbq sauce
3 cups chicken broth
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cayenne powder
sprinkle oregano
sprinkle cinnamon
sprinkle chipotle hot sauce



I gathered everything I thought I might need. But the focus is on the meat. I thought about doing a two-meat or even a three-meat chili, but wanted to get the basic recipe down first, before I went crazy. Chorizo or italian sausage would have to wait. Plus, the smallest stew meat container I could get was 1.5 pounds, and that seemed like plenty of meat.


So the first step is to get your pot on a medium-heat burner and cut up your stew meat into half-inch chunks. Brown your meat with olive oil. I should have done in it multiple batches to get a better browning action. I had no idea there would be so much grease coming out. So drain your meat, then season with salt & pepper (I like using Lawry's Seasoned Salt if you have it).

Then I added 1.5 cups of chicken broth, and turned the heat down to low. I probably would have preferred beef broth, but I already had the chicken broth on hand, so that's what I used. Right away I cut up my poblano and two jalapenos. I had more jalapenos but figured I could always add them later and I had no idea how hot this was going to be. And I wasn't going for the spiciest chili. I wanted to get good depth of flavor. So I added the diced peppers to the broth and beef, infusing the flavor in the liquid from the beginning.

Also I figured, what's the point of making chili if you're not going to use fresh chiles?

(total time elapsed: 30 minutes)

Then I diced my onion and red pepper. For the garlic cloves, I left them in big pieces--4 per clove. I poured in some medium Pace Picante. I added a little Gates sauce and the rest of the spices. Here's what it looked like once I added everything.

(total time elapsed: 1 hour)

Then comes the easy part: just let it simmer on low. I only stirred it maybe once every 20-30 minutes. When I came back 1.5 hours later, a lot of the liquid had cooked off. You can see the residue on the side of the pot how much the chili had condensed. So I added another 1/2 cup of broth, took this next picture, and had a cup to sample.

(total time elapsed: 2 hours, 30 minutes)

At 2.5 hours, the flavor was perfect. Consistency was the way I wanted, nice and thick. The veggies were definitely cooked through. The only thing that needed work was the meat. It was just a bit chewy, and I knew it needed a little more time.

So I added another cup of broth and teaspoon of chili powder and let it simmer some more.

(total time elapsed: 3 hours, 15 minutes)

Here it is at the end of the cooking time. The meat was fairly tender. I could have keep the meat going, but I didn't want to leave the veggies going any longer and have them turn to mush. Going into this, I was prepared to let it cook 6 hours, but hadn't thought about how my ingredients would hold up.

Here's how I served it:


So how did it taste? Delicious. Exactly what I was going for, a nice depth of rich flavor. Spicy, but not overwhelming. A complex heat. Honestly it turned out better than I expected. And I liked having the Trader Joe's frito-style chips there for a crunch.

- - -

Thoughts For Next Time

So this kind of stew meat needs 3-5 hours to simmer. If I added some kind of sausage, it wouldn't need that much time. The chiles/veggies only needed about 2 hours, so don't be in a rush to add them right away. As for my ingredient choices, I don't really need to change a thing. I might try beef broth, and I could experiment with my chiles. And you could use whatever veggies and spices you want, though I think the onion, chili powder and cayenne powder are non-negotiable.

It's conventional wisdom that chili is better the next day, after the flavors have had time to blend in the fridge overnight. On Sunday, I had another bowl. It tasted just as good, but not better to my palate. As far as I'm concerned, "making it a day ahead" is an old wive's tale.

The only downside to making a thick chili like this, is that it doesn't go as far as you'd think. I had a pound and a half of meat and 3 cups of broth and it basically made three big bowls. It's not the live on this for a week portion that it might suggest.

So that's my chili. No beans. No water. And hardly any tomatoes (just the bit of picante). Mostly Texas style. Just how I wanted it.

HOW TO: make the best fucking steak

Alternate titles for this post:

How to make a perfect steak
How to get a restaurant-quality steak at home
Put away the steak sauce

- - -

This is a 10 oz New York Strip Steak that cost six dollars at the grocery store. One way to look at that is that you could spend anywhere from $30 to $50 for a NY Strip at a steakhouse. Another way to look at it is that you can spend six dollars getting a "value meal" at McDonalds.

First step, getting the steak out of the fridge and letting it come closer to room temperature sitting on the counter. I start by rubbing the whole steak in olive oil, a little salt and pepper. Also, right away I get my pan up a hair past medium on the stove.

While that's resting, I start cooking the asparagus. I'm using frozen spears, turn the oven to 425, cover in a drizzle of olive oil, bit of balsamic, salt, pepper, and whatever else seasonings seems appropriate. Goes in the oven.

Once my pan is hot and pour some more olive oil in the pan, and in goes the steak.


Boom! Now we're cooking. Literally. I don't touch it for 4-5 minutes. What's neat is that by looking at the side, you can see it cooking. My goal is to get that juicy, bright pink medium center with a nice crust on the outside. If that's not your goal, you could do a variety of other things, including finishing it in the oven, under the broiler, whatever--I believe what Alton Brown says, "If you like your meat well-done, you don't like meat."

So I flip it over, and you can see in this next picture how you can see the meat has cooked through on the (now) top side. After I flip I like to give the side that was just cooking and crusting a nice coating of seasoning salt and montreal steak seasoning.


The way it works out, is that by the time I get a good crust on the outsides, it's just about cooked how I want it. For fun, I put about half a pat of butter in the pan, and let the meat cook in the butter for 30 seconds, and then repeat on the other side. Just for that final color and taste.

Then I remove it to the plate. SUPER IMPORTANT STEP: I let it rest for at least 5 minutes. It works out that the asparagus has been in the oven for about 15 minutes now, so it's almost done.

So I take a little bit of white wine, pour it in the now empty steak pan to deglaze it, and add the asparagus. I let that cook for a minute or two, to absorb some nice flavor and color of the wine and steak drippings.


Now it's time for plating. Here comes the money shot.


Boom! Look at that crust. Look at the pink center. But wait there's more. Let's cut that bad boy open. Here's what it looks like, halfway though the meal.


Juicy, pink center and crust on the outside. Asparagus that tastes delicious and provides a nice, earthy contrast to the meat. So good. I did the same treatment last week with a 12 oz ribeye and they both turned out perfect.

HOW TO: make pot roast in the oven (without a crock pot)

This recipe was inspired by my wife who asked me when the last time I had a real vegetable. When I said something like two weeks ago, it got me thinking about pot roast. This was a classic recipe from my childhood.

We always used to cook it in the crock pot, and if you've got one, you're golden. You just put it all in, let it cook for 8 hours and it's ready.

But what if you don't have one?

I started with a roast that was a little over two pounds. I rubbed the whole thing with olive oil, salt and pepper. And then I browned it in a big pot with more olive oil. Even though it was so big, it only takes about 5 minutes to get a nice brown crust on each side.


Meanwhile, I added my seasonings to 3/4 cup of water: onion powder, garlic powder, seasoning salt, montreal steak seasoning, and basil. I poured most of it into my roasting pan. Then I transferred my browned roast into the pan, and poured the remaining seasoning bath on top, making sure to get all the wet bits on top.


I covered the meat with foil (wet heat is key here) and put it in the preheated 300 degree oven. While that's in there, I prepped my veggies. I peeled and cut 5 carrots and quartered 3 potatoes. I took the meat out after 1 hour, 20 minutes, and added my veggies.


Recovered with the piece of foil, I put it back in the oven for another 1 hour, 10 minutes. I like my veggies on the tender side, but generally they will always need about an hour. If you have a bigger piece of meat, you'll need to cook it by itself for a longer time.

This is what it looks like when it's finished roasting:


What I love is how the liquid, which started as water, is now a delicious meat juice that flavors the veggies. I serve it by smashing the potatoes with a fork and covering everything on the plate with some nice spoonfuls of juice. The meat is fork tender and everything tastes delicious. This is a dish that could be served to company, yet it's super easy, and pretty cheap. My meat was $5.50, the veggies I used were each a dollar. So for 8 bucks, you can feed a table of four a high quality meal.

The only thing I'd do differently, is trim of some of the fat on the outside before I started. Coming from the background of steaks, I figured any marbling would be a good thing. But the slow cooking didn't render the fat. It was easy to trim off on the plate, but if I was serving to guests, I'd do it before hand.

HOW TO: make meatball subs

(1/30 - f3.5 - ISO2000)

Okay, confession. I didn't make the meatballs. Honestly, it seems like a pain in the ass. You have to mix all these ground meat, and cook them slowly rotating, but they're spheres so you're never really cooking every side perfectly, and then maybe they turn out dry anyways.

So I bought Trader Joe's meatballs. I did cook them in the oven, and then transferred them to my pan, where I tossed them with a drizzle of olive oil and a coating of garlic powder and then parmesan.

What I did do, was make my own pasta sauce. (Which is really a recipe from Brit's Mom, or as I'll refer to it now, a Verrette family recipe.) I can't say enough good things about this sauce. For one, I use it on pasta, my homemade pizza, and now on italian sandwiches. So I mixed up a batch today. I've switched over to using crushed instead of stewed tomatoes, which results in a smooth, chunkless sauce, and today I went heavy on adding diced peppers.

I made sure to buy S. Rosen's rolls instead of Turano, and I also picked up some smoked provolone.

For assembly, I applied a layer of sauce onto the roll, placed my meatballs, added more sauce, and one sliced of provolone cut in half. Then, using a makeshift aluminum foil holder, I put the assembled sandwich back in the oven, using the broil setting. In just a couple minutes, the cheese gets perfectly melted and the bread gets just a bit crusty on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside.

Absolutely delicious. Maybe one day I'll be a meatball making expert and I'll look back and think this was laughable, but for now this is damn good. I have a new found respect for how far a good red sauce goes in impacting the overall taste. And getting the right bread is key. And hey, the meatballs tasted pretty good too.

HOW TO: homemade carbonara round two

My first attempt at homemade carbonara was fine, but it wasn't as good as I expected it to be. Since I still had some pancetta leftover, I tried again.

The first time around, I went with two kinds of bacon, just egg and cheese in the bowl, and served immediately after tossing the pasta and bacon in the egg mixture.

This time I went with straight up pancetta. I cooked it a bit longer to get it crispier, and draw out more flavor. The longer cooking time meant more wine was able to be added and absorbed into the meat. I also used some garlic powder to coat the pancetta, which browns on the outside of the meat nicely.

The biggest variation was that used a decent amount of heavy cream, in addition to my eggs and parmigiano reggiano. Also, once I tossed the pasta in the egg/cream, I returned everything to the bacon pan. The cream sauce absorbed the wine and bacon grease and turned a beautiful brownish color.

(1/100 - f4 - ISO2000)

As you can see, it's a lot creamier than the last time around. Which was the goal. Although it wasn't quite thick enough for my taste. And even though spaghetti is the traditional pairing for carbonara, it wasn't ideal for holding sauce.

Frankly, even though it looked great, and everything that went into it was great (cream, cheese, eggs, pancetta, wine--what's not to like?) it tasted a little bland.

Perhaps there's a way to let the sauce thicken (or maybe I just needed less cream) and add more flavor? It's good, but for the effort and the expense and the fattiness of the ingredients, I'm expecting something more.

HOW TO: make homemade carbonara

A double how-to Saturday!

I first had fettucine carbonara on vacation in Brooklyn in 1999. I was hooked.

I found a recipe in my Italian cookbook and gave it a shot. The recipe wasn't as daunting as it seemed. Matt's advice beforehand was to not overcook the eggs.

Here's the gist of the recipe I used, you sizzle up some pancetta (or American bacon) in a pan, with some garlic, olive oil and wine.

In a serving bowl, you mix two eggs with some parmigiano, pepper, and parsley.

You add the freshly cooked pasta (traditionally spaghetti) to the egg/cheese bowl and toss. And then you add the bacon, dripping with wine, to the pasta/egg bowl. That's right. I had to read that a few times, the raw egg mixture doesn't touch any heat at all. You just add the hot pasta to the eggs, and then add the bacon and serve.

- - -

The only pancetta I could find, came pre-diced into tiny cubes. So I decided to use both pancetta and American bacon. Double the flavor, double the texture, right? And I swear the proportions of the recipe are way off. It called for cooking 1.25 pounds of pasta, but only using two eggs. Since I was cooking for one, I barely used .25 pound of pasta, but I still used two eggs, since the one egg seemed so lonely in the bowl. Also, I didn't really cut down the bacon in the recipe, so it was fairly heavy on the bacon. Which is a good thing.

Here's a shot of the two kinds of bacon cooking in the wine.
(1/13 - f8 - ISO1250)

The rest was straightforward. I opted for fettuccine just because I don't like spaghetti much. I cooked the pasta, tossed in the cheesy/egg bowl, and then added the bacon. I plated it, took a picture, and took a bite. It was cold. Somehow the cold egg was enough to overpower the hot pasta and the hot bacon. So I zapped it for 30 seconds.

(1/100- f4 - ISO1250)

It was good. Though I thought that it hadn't reached my expectations. It was simple, fresh, and seemed very traditionally Italian. Perhaps I'd need a second opinion. The more I ate the more I liked it. But I'm still not sure if you couldn't get a better carbonara at Olive Garden. I don't know.

I think when it's served in restaurants, it's more like a full cream sauce, basically an alfredo with bacon. Well, this one had no cream or milk or anything, just egg and cheese. And I know I didn't overcook the eggs.

HOW TO: make thin pancakes

As I wrote a few weeks ago, the only pancakes I really like are the thin ones my Grandpa would make. I don't have lard, and I don't have a cast-iron skillet--mostly because it sounds like too much work. But I digress. He didn't have an official recipe, he just eyeballed everything.

So here's how I made mine this morning.

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs
a little bit of fat (vegetable oil or butter)
vanilla

That's it. Today I used canola oil. All the recipes online recommend cooking them in melted butter. So I figured instead of adding butter to the batter, I'd add oil. Whatever.

(I actually experimented with a different recipe I found online this morning. They told me to mix the flour and eggs together first. Well, that just creates eggy flour balls that never mixed with the milk. Terrible. Had to throw it out.)

So yeah, mix the flour and milk together first, then add the egg, and oil.

So I put my pan on medium heat, and let a pat of butter melt in the middle. Then I pour the batter into the butter zone. This helped keep the edges relatively circle like. The one time I tried it without a butter radius, the edges wanted to drip away from the middle like windex streaking down glass.

This batch made about 5 or 6 medium size pancakes. I top them with WARMED syrup and brown sugar. It looks like a crepe, tastes like awesome.

(1/20 - f6.3 - ISO1250)

I feel like I'm honoring Grandpa two ways: 1) By continuing the tradition of making pancakes his style. 2) My pancakes will never taste as good as his.

HOW TO: make the best damn chicken salad

I only discovered that I liked chicken salad over the holidays while having some with the in-laws. But it's not something that's good to buy in grocery stores. It's made with full-calorie mayo, who knows what preservatives, and it's not that fresh or healthy.

I'd made a few batches just using light mayo and pickle relish which canned chunks of chicken. It tasted good enough, but the canned chicken has a really bad smell. And it wasn't super great.

And then I saw Subway's commercial for their new Orchard Chicken Salad sandwich.


Last Sunday I finally tried it. It was good. Like really good. But then I started to realize things.

1. I could make that myself, and it would be fresher.
2. I could grill my own chicken breasts, instead of canned chicken.
3. Using my light Miracle Whip it would be healthier.
4. I could build on their recipe, making it better.

So I did.

I started by grilling two chicken breasts, hitting them with my chicken rub as soon as they come off the grill, when they're still hot and juicy. I chilled those and diced them up. Then I added a diced Granny Smith apple, some dried cranberries, golden raisins, and some crushed candied pecans. Then I added my Miracle Whip and pickle relish. And let the flavors mingle in the fridge.

To serve, I toasted some whole wheat Sara Lee bread, and placed two slices of romaine, my favorite lettuce by far. How's how it turned out:

(1/25 - f7.1 - ISO2000)

Photography note: Since I was indoors and went down to a 7.1 aperture, I needed a slow shutter and high ISO. The 7.1 aperture allowed me to get my the entire chicken salad in focus, and still have the blurry background effect on the back piece of toast. I'm pretty happy with this picture.

HOW TO VIDEO: dueling steaks on the grill

Sear & Slide vs. Sear in the Rear

The main reason I'm posting this is to preserve this for myself for when I've got a grill going. Not only do they compare techniques (spoilers below the video) but there are just some good general tips, including how and when to season your steak.

Recap:
Sear First: for a better crust
Sear Last: for more tenderness

Looks like you can't go wrong either way.

HOW TO: make pan-fried pork cutlets

After last week's practice run, I knew what I was doing with the second half of my fresh pork cutlets. The package I bought was actually labeled pork tenderloin cutlets, but as long it's boneless pork tenderloin and not too thick, it should work. I set up my station with a milk soak and a flour dip.

Pork in milk! Yeah for keeping kosher!

I let them soak in the milk for 15-30 seconds and then rolled each piece in the flour, shaking off the excess. I've heard of seasoning your flour, but that seems like a waste, since you end up throwing out so much flour. Plus, you don't want the seasoning to burn. I like to season as soon as a side is done cooking, so it's hot and oily and ready for flavor. In the pan heated up to medium, I poured some olive oil in to cover the bottom. And in go the pieces.


These 4 pieces were originally 2 long pieces, but I cut them down for ease in flipping and more uniform cooking. It takes about 5 minutes on the first side. And you don't want to move them around, you want that crust to build. So it's a good chance to just clean up the milk/flour station and wait for it to bubble up.

This is the only tricky part. On my first attempt, after I flipped and cooked the second side, I discovered that the lovely flour crust was now stuck the bottom of the pan. The first side you cook is no problem though. So while flipping this time, I hit the pan with a little non-stick spray, and made sure there was enough oil.

In the picture below, with three pieces just moved from the pan, you can see that it leaves behind plenty of little bits, but not an entire crust. Again, as soon you flip, hit the finished side with salt and pepper.


And those little bits, they look like burned garbage. But don't throw them out! Scrape them off before they get too black, and they taste like perfect fresh bacon bits. Last time I served mashed potatoes on the side, and put my pork bits right in there. This time I didn't bother with potatoes, so the extra brown bits just went right on top, for a double crunchy coating.

I went 3 for 4, in terms of getting the perfect coating on both sides. The bottom left piece in the picture below had a little stickage problem, but I just scraped it up and put it back on.


The pork was 3.99/pound. I think this package was under 5 bucks, and I got two huge meals out of it. Way better and cheaper than something you'd order at Cracker Barrel and pay 14 bucks for.

HOW TO: make pizzeria-quality pizza at home

After my last go round, I entered my kitchen with confidence.

The first step is gathering all the ingredients. In order to do that I had to make a fresh batch of my all-purpose homemade pasta sauce which deserves a post of its own. (Sauteed onions and garlic, crushed tomatoes, sliced peppers, brown sugar, oregano, basil, salt, pepper, garlic powder.)


Then I grilled some fresh Italian Sausage, and grilled some peppers and onions. I cut up a 8 0z. ball of fresh mozzarella and spread out my dough. (The dough, like the sausage and cheese, was fresh from Trader Joe's.)

A little bit of olive oil on your fingers helps the dough from sticking and adds flavor at the same time.

On to assembly! As opposed to last time, I went with toppings under the cheese, allowing me to get the cheese brown and bubbly like I wanted. (I actually had to turn on the broiler for the last two minutes, but be careful, it doesn't take long at all to brown up.) And as soon as it came out, I used a spatula to brush olive oil on to the exposed outer crust.

In a word...superdelicious. The biggest hit was using the fresh, grilled Italian Sausage. It is fast moving up the ranks of my favorite meats. (One thing I wish I had discovered earlier...for years I had been buying pre-cooked brats and sausages. They taste good and they turn out good on the grill or in the microwave if you're in a hurry. But I discovered that they don't hold a candle compared to fresh sausages. Another tip: on the Foreman, put the curved side down. It will flatten out, allowing you to cook all sides evenly. If you start by just cooking on it's side, you'll never get it to go flat.

But even in bites where I wasn't getting the sausage, the sauce was always present with big flavor. The veggies provide a nice balance with the meat and cheese, for depth of flavor. And the cheese, the fresh mozz is so good that I don't even want to try using regular shredded cheese.

I suppose the weakest link in the chain is the crust, but it's actually pretty good. So I don't feel like messing around with other dough recipes that could be a disaster.

- - -

As I walking to work today, it occurred to me that baking the pizza itself is sort of a wonder. The fact that the same time and temperature you need to turn the dough into crust, is also the perfect time and temp for melting the cheese and heating the sauce, it's amazing really. Imagine if the sauce needed 20 minutes to heat up, the cheese burned in 10, and the dough wasn't perfect until 15. Or if the sauce was burning hot after more than 10 minutes, the dough started to burn after 15 minutes, but the cheese didn't melt until 20 minutes. That's terrible.

So of course the animation is cool, what about the details? Here's a hi-res shot of the finished product, that would beat out Papa John's and Domino's.

click for HD

HOW TO: make a spicy-sweet chicken panini

I've alluded to this before, but love this sandwich recipe I've created so much, that I thought it deserved this post.

This sandwich was inspired by cuban sandwiches, that are made with pork, swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, and then pressed flat.

I've kicked it up a notch. (Incidentally, this was the first bread that I had in three weeks. I discovered that Pepperridge Farm makes a whole wheat bread without any non-earth ingredients.)

1. Lay two pieces of bread open. Spread one side with garlic mayo (easily made by stirring a significant amount of garlic powder in with mayonnaise) and "bread & butter sweet pickles."

2. Spread the other side with your favorite mustard (I like French's Honey) and sliced jalepenos.

3. Pile a layer of heated, roasted chicken (or roasted pork would work just as well) in the middle and assemble your two sides.

4. Time to press! You can go straight on to a panini press/George Foreman. But I know that my Foreman is "seasoned" with bits of crusted meat, salt, and pepper. Which is fine for grilling the chicken, but if I were to put this sandwich on my grill, the bread would absorb some blackened bits and not be good eats. So, in a flash of brilliance, I covered the sandwich in aluminum foil and grilled it for a few minutes.


If you don't have a machine and want to cook it in a skillet, you could, using some cooking spray. But you really need to press it down to get the full "cuban" effect of melding the ingredients into one cohesive taste.

The result is a sandwich that got the outside of the bread crispy, the inside soft (something a toaster couldn't do) and all the flavors combine into a delicious mix of sweet and spicy.


Plus, it's from the earth.