Feast: Gung Hei Fat Choi! - Sweet & Sour Ginger-Pineapple Chicken

Sometimes when I crave a food, I don't crave a "good" or "authentic" version of it.  

If I want a good burger, I make it myself using meat (or patties) from my butcher, and nestle it in a bun with crumbled Stilton, onions I've caramelised for the better part of an hour, garlicky sauteed mushrooms and a Dijony-mayonaissey spread. That said, from time to time I want the distinct industrialised flavour and greasiness that can only be satisfied by a trip to one of those ubiquitous multinationals that pride themselves on consistency of product, units sold and "community impact" through donations and sponsorships.  

No, it doesn't really make a lot of sense, but then my gullet is an equal-opportunity foodish place.

This week I wanted Chinese food.  Not the good stuff--the food made by kitchens trying recreate dishes from particular provinces, with subtle but sometimes complex flavours--but the not-so-good stuff.  Not what I consider "Canadianised Chinese food"-- a half-hearted nod to the land of the dragon, blandly spiced, ladened with as much MSG as it is with green bell peppers, but in a place that lies somewhere in between.

Very specifically I wanted sweet and sour chicken.  Something a step or two above what's available in food courts and many Canadian-Chinese restos.  Although there's nothing wrong with jolly puffball chicken nuggets, bronzed in a deep fat fryer and swimming in that sauce (cloying and puckering, and coloured an orange that brings to mind nuclear radiation), I think I can do without bobbing battered bird bits.

I flicked through a number of recipes and hovered over dishes as disparate as Gung Bao Chicken and General Tso Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pineapple Chicken.  Between several web pages and several tomes in my library, I came up with this version.

It's quite a simple recipe (although the ingredients list may turn off those accustomed to lists containing fewer ingredients than they can scan in the 12 items or fewer checkout.  Sweet veggies--carrots, bell peppers and onions--and seared chicken chunks bathed in a sweet and sour sauce. Yes, there's an orange sauce--not the 1970s disco as what I'm used to, but there's a suggestion of garishness that I'd expect from such a dish.

So while this dish probably won't ring in the Year of the Horse in many homes, it did in mine.  And although the new lunar year is a day or so old, it is off to a galloping start.

Recipe in progress: Sweet and Sour Ginger-Pineapple Chicken
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
450g/1lb boneless chicken, dark & white meat, cut into 2cm (0.75") cubes

Marinade:
1Tbsp/15ml cornflour
2Tbsp/30ml all purpose flour
60ml/0.25c light soy sauce

Peanut oil for frying
2-3 dried chillies
1 medium onion, chopped into 2cm (0.75") pieces
1 yellow or red bell pepper, chopped into 2cm (0.75") pieces
1 carrot, sliced into 5mm (0.25") thick discs
4 green onions, cut into 5cm (2") lengths (green & whites)

Sauce:
1Tbsp/15ml minced ginger
1tsp/5ml minced garlic
80ml/0.33c chicken broth
80ml/0.33c tomato ketchup
2Tbsp/30ml dark soy sauce
2Tbsp/30ml white vinegar
1Tbsp/15ml honey
125ml/0.5c pineapple juice
250ml/1c pineapple tidbits

Garnish (optional)
toasted chopped cashews

Method

Mix marinade ingredients with chicken and let sit for 10-15minutes.

Heat oil until shimmering and brown meat in batches. Don't worry about cooking the pieces all the way through, you're just looking to colour the meat. Remove from pan.

Wipe out the pan, and add a bit more oil. Again, when it shimmers, add the chillies and stir for about 30 seconds. Add the carrots and bell peppers and stir fry for about 3 minutes. Add onions and fry for 2 minutes. Add green onions and stir fry for another 1-2 minutes. Remove from pan.

Slick the pan one last time and add the ginger and garlic and stir until fragrant. Add the broth, ketchup, soy sauce, vinegar, honey and pineapple juice. Stir well and bring up to the boil. Reduce by about a quarter and add the chicken and its juices. Stir so the meat is coated and let the sauce reduce to about half. Stir in pineapple.  Balance flavours to taste.

Add vegetables long enough to heat through.

Serve over rice or mix in with noodles and garnish with nuts.

cheers! 
jasmine 
I'm a quill for hire!

Maple Harissa Chicken Wings

This post should have been a cookbook review.


But it's not.


A few months ago I received a gorgeous-looking book about Moroccan cooking.  Then I read it.


Augh.


Let's ignore the writing style that oozes braggadocious smarm and reeks of self-satisfaction.


Let's ignore little gems like telling the reader if they want to use this cookbook they should get a scale that weighs in fractions of a gram (since getting the book I've checked every kitchenware department I've come across and cannot find one that measures such minutiae...one gram, not a problem...less than that, I'd have to special order it in.


Aye, there's the rub.


Every cookbook review I do includes several recipes reviews, with each recipe blindly followed, you'd think I were a sheep crossed with a Disney-prodded lemming.  There's no question that the book had a lot of recipes...the question was which recipes intrigued me enough to try them?


Apparently each recipe I found interesting required me prepping ingredients at least a month in advance, or scouring my local shops for ingredients they hadn't heard of.   And those ingredients I could find made me balk at the pricetag.


Don't get me wrong.  I'm all for authenticity, but this book really made it clear to me that this book--and many others are really written for those in major metropolitan areas (and yes, I do live in a CMA of more than half a million people...but that's not big enough to carry some of these ingredients).  Home cooks who would like to try these recipes who don't have easy access to more exotic ingredients would have to order them in or try and make do with what they have, not really knowing what the called-for herbs and spices really taste like.


Needless to say...the book is still untested...and probably will remain so.


In the meanwhile...the book did trigger something.


Although his harissa recipe called for spices I couldn't find, the idea of harissa grabbed me.  After looking up other recipes and playing with the flavours, another idea grabbed me.  


Maple-harissa chicken wings: the smokiness of the spices matched maple syrup's smokiness.  Sweet and hot are generally a good combination.  It's a spicier version of honey-garlic and a smokier version of sweet thai chilli.


The wings also gave me an opportunity to try out Alton Brown's chicken wing preparation technique I saw ages ago --essentially render the fat first by steaming the wings and then roast the wings on a cookie rack.  It's a bit labour intensive but the end result isn't too bad.


The sauce is sweet, hot and smoky.  It may be too hot for some, and if you find it so, add a bit of roasted pepper or tomato paste to the pan with the maple syrup and balance flavours to taste.  




Maple Harissa Chicken Wings

Yield 750g/1.5lbs


Ingredients
750g (1.5lbs) chicken wings, split into drummettes and wings


For the sauce
For the Harissa
0.5tsp (2.5ml) coriander seeds
0.5tsp (2.5ml) caraway seeds
0.25tsp (1.25) cumin seeds
2dspn (20ml/4tsp) lemon juice
5 dried chillies, soaked in boiling water for 45 minutes
2 garlic cloves
0.25tsp (1.25ml) salt
1Tbsp (15ml) olive oil


3Tbsp Maple Syrup (to taste)
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)
1-2 tsp (5-10ml) tomato paste or minced roasted red peppers (optional, to taste)


Method


Preheat the oven to 225C/425F. Lay a tea towel or a double layer of paper towels on a baking sheet. Set a cooling rack over top the towels and set aside.


To cook the chicken wings, set about 2-3cm (approximately 1") of water to boil in a large pot. Lay the wings in a steamer basket and set in the pot. Lid the pot and let steam over medium heat for about 10 minutes.Remove the wings from the basket, place on the cooling rack, and pat dry. Let the wings cool. Remove the towels and line the tray with tin foil. Roast for 40 minutes, turning the wings once.


Start the sauce while the wings are roasting.  Toast the coriander, caraway and cumin in a dry pan, over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When the seeds have darkened and have released their aromas, remove the pan from the hob and tip the spices onto a plate to cool (five-10 minutes). Grind to a paste the toasted spices with the rehydrated chillies, garlic, salt, olive oil and lemon juice.


In a small saucepan, over medium-low heat, mix the harissa with the maple syrup. Taste the sauce--if it is too spicy for you, you can temper its zing by adding some tomato paste or finely chopped roasted red pepper. Balance flavours to taste.


When the wings are done roasting tip them into a bowl and pour the sauce over top. Toss the wings so they are evenly coated.


Notes

• If you don't want to make your own harissa, use about three-four tablespoons of bought sauce.

• You don't have to cook the wings in above-prescribed manner--if you prefer to bake or fry the wings, please do.

cheers! 
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Faux Chicken Pho

Hot cold hot cold hot cold.

This has been a very odd winter. For the most part we've had above-freezing temperatures, punctuated by the occasional reminder that this is Canada, at the time of year of short days and long nights with howling winds and fluttering snowflakes.

When temps vacillate as they have, people fall ill. It seems as if every third or fourth person I speak to is sick. Snuffly, feverishly, earpluggingly, barking like a mad seal coughingly, cracked voicingly and goopily sick.

Many of us grew up with the notion that chicken soup will cure whatever ails you. I think that's doubly true with Indian, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese soups filled with warming spices and revitalizing herbs.

Like many soups, I think a good pho can be made with what you have on hand--your choice of veggies and meats. The key, I think is in the broth--sweet, salty, hot and slightly sour. Once you get the broth tasting as you wish, the rest is up to you.

Chicken Pho
Serves 2-4

Ingredients
For the Broth
625ml (2.5c) chicken broth or stock
2 garlic cloves, minced
1.25cm (0.5") ginger, grated or minced
1 star anise pod
2dspn (20ml/4tsp) nam pla (fish sauce)
1tsp (5ml) brown sugar
1-2tsp (5-10ml) soy sauce, to taste

For the sustenance (suggested)
Rice noodles, cooked
Shredded chicken
Carrots, raw and thinly sliced
Deep, leafy greens, such as kale, chard or spinach, raw and chiffonaded
Mushrooms, raw and thinly sliced (or, if using enoki, broken apart)
Green onions, thinly sliced (both the green and whites
Red chilli pepper, such as bird's eye/Thai chilli, minced

Bean sprouts
Coriander leaf, chopped

Method
Add all the broth ingredients together and bring to a gentle boil, then reduce the flame and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes

To serve
Add as much of the sustenance to each bowl and ladle stock over top

Notes:

• You can substitute turkey for chicken
• You may want to fish out the star anise before serving, but you can leave it in the pot, so it can keep flavouring the broth

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Happy Birthday Edna: Butter-Fried Chicken with Milk Gravy

Happy Birthday, our Dear Edna!

Edna Staebler was a local gem who introduced the world to Waterloo County Cooking. Good, hearty fare that's very much rooted in country and Mennonite traditions.

When I was deciding upon which dish to present, my copy of Food That Really Schmecks literally fell open to page 57.

I think that's a sign.

Three recipes were on this page: a variation of Stuffing forRoast Fowl, Brown Gravy for Fowl and Butter-Fried Chicken with Milk Gravy.

Butter-Fried Chicken? I think Edna was definitely telling me something. And then I read the recipe:

"This is the way Mother cooked chicken most often and the way I like it best--even better than roast chicken--though that was supposed to be the most special. The milk gravy with this could be digested by a ninety-fve year old grandmother with a stomach ulcer, I'm sure, or a three-month-old baby"

She continued,

"This gravy--or sauce--poured generously over plain boiled or riced potatoes with the butter-fried chicken and fresh vegetables is my favourite of all meals--as I think of it at this moment."

Well, how could I not make this dish? Especially when she writes about how her mum would cut up a "nice yellow little hen."

That nice yellow little hen is hard to find in modern grocery stores as most of chickens offered are bred for today's lean palates. Not a layer of yellow fat to be seen. That's fine. It simply means less fat to skim from the pot. That said, if you are lucky to find a plump hen, skim the fat and keep it for frying or roasting, or even baking.

This is a very, very simple recipe: joint a chicken, cover it in boiling water, remove the pieces when they are tender and brown the pieces in butter. Reduce the boiling liquid to three cups, add milk and then a thickener.

I've made some changes to the recipe--adding aromatics to the cooking liquid, as if I were making a regular chicken stock. I'll probably revisit this recipe to play with the flavourings a bit--perhaps adding some middle eastern or Indian influences.

Oh...and the leftover gravy (if you have some)? Reheat it and pour it over some crusty bread. Edna says so.

Butter Fried Chicken with Milk Gravy

adapted from Edna Staebler's recipe in Food That Really Schmecks

Serves four

Ingredients

1 1.5-2kg (3-4lb) chicken

2L (8c) water

One onion, quartered

2 celery stalks, chopped into two or three large pieces

2 carrots, chopped into 5cm pieces

2 garlic cloves, smashed

1 bay leaf

1 sprig of thyme

1 sprig of sage

1 spig of rosemary

1dsp (2tsp/10ml) salt

1 rounded tsp black pepper

435ml (1.75c) milk, divided

35g (0.25c/60ml) flour

A handful (0.25c/4Tbsp/60ml) parsley, chopped

1-2Tbsp (15-30ml) butter

Method

Joint the chicken, that is to say, cut it into pieces: two legs, thighs, wings and breasts. If the breasts are large, cut them into two pieces each. Leave the skin on. Save the backbone, wingtips, neck and giblets (if your bird was lucky enough to come with its neck and giblets).

Layer the meat in a large pot, so the pieces don't overlap. Tumble in the vegetables, neck, wingtips and giblets, followed by the herbs and seasonings. Pour in water to cover.

Cover and set on a medium to medium high flame. Let the pot come to a boil and let it blurble for about five minutes, before turning down the heat to simmer the broth. Let simmer until the chicken is tenderly cooked--in total this should take about 30-40 minutes, depending upon the size of your bird and how long it takes to bring your water up to a boil.

Scum the broth. Remove the chicken pieces and pat them dry.

For the milk gravy:

Turn the heat up and let the stock, with the bones, veggies, etc, boil uncovered. When the liquid has reduced by half, remove the bones, giblets and veggies, then strain out any other bits (herbs, spices, any stray chickenny bits).

Return the strained liquid to the pot and let boil down to about 750ml (3c).

Stir in 250ml (1c) milk and let the gravy come up to a bare simmer. Taste and balance flavours according to your palate.

Make a slurry with the remaining 185ml (0.75c) milk and the flour. Whisk into the gravy let thicken. Check the flavours and adjust as you wish.

For the chicken:

Brown the chicken in batches by melting a couple of teaspoons of butter in a hot pan then adding three or four pieces of chicken to the pan. Turn the pieces to ensure any remaining fat is rendered out and that the skin is evenly browned and crisp. Remove the chicken and add more butter (if needed) and continue browning the chicken.

To serve:

Stir the parsley into the gravy just before serving.

Serve with veggies and potatoes (boiled, mashed, riced or roasted) or rice, pouring the gravy over the potatoes or rice...and chicken, if you wish,

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

The carbonnade that wasn't: Chicken and Ale Stew

It all started with beer. And beef.

No, this isn't a wayward tale that begins in a pub and finishes with me communing with a herd of Waygu, pouring Methuselahs of Sapporo into their four-chambered gullets...

Although that could be fun...if a brewer or a beef farmer wanted to sponsor me on such a journey, I'm open to discussion...

But I digress.

It's winter, in Canada. Snow blankets the ground and at times a fierce wind chills me to my very core. In my world, it's not salad eating season. I don't want lemonade or iced tea. I don't want sushi. I don't want mellons dripping with honeyed juices.

I want hearty, long-cooked food with earthy and rich flavours. I want beef. I want oniony and mushroomy gravies. I want beef-stuffed oven-baked pastas. I want giant burgers with poutine. I want hot chocolate...and this is the only time of year I really crave...beer. Not just any beer. Stout--deep, rich and heady with chocolaty notes. Oh, it's lovely stuff.

But I'm not much of a drinker--the occasional half pint (yes, I'm the one who orders half a pint while out), but then the rest of my cravings go into food: cakes, stews, breads.

Knowing how well beer and beef play together--beer-braised beef, steak and Guinness stew, beer-based sauces on barbecued steak--I fixated on Carbonnade à la flamande: a lovely, rich oniony Belgian beef and beer stew. I looked at a few recipes and cobbled together a plan.

I executed that plan.

I wasn't enamoured with the result.

Don't get me wrong--it was good: the beef was tender, the herbs and spices were and the aleish broth was oniony and and sort of rich. It definitely wasn't deep and lush as I'd hoped. But it was good.

When I revisited my plans and did more research into carbonnades, I found my error.

In all my frenetic note-taking, I didn't pay attention to what sort of Beglian beer to use. I should have used a dark brew. I bought a six-pack of whitbier. In other words I bought something better suited for lighter and crisper summertime sipping than a sturdier and darker pint.

Oh well. I looked at my remaining bottles of Hoegaarden. Truthfully, I read my remaining bottles of Hoegaarden. Two words caught my attention: orange and coriander.

Truthfully (again) I didn't pick up those notes when I tasted the ale. Mind you, I also don't pick up the plummy, oaky, peachy or other notes wines are purported to have.

But I digress (again).

I can work with coriander and orange and beer. I can work with those ingredients with chicken and mushrooms. I also happened to have a couple of links of Alsatian sausage in my freezer, from one of of the butchers I usually frequent, and though their peppery-clove spicing would also compliment the other flavours.

Every velvety and meaty mouthful combines sweet and spicy, with just a little bit of latent sourness from the ale and the mustard. The aromas hint at citrus and clove, in all its chickenny and sausagey goodness.

It may not be a carbonnade, but it was warming and made my tummy incredibly happy.

Chicken and Ale Stew with mushrooms and sausage
Yield: approx 2L

Ingredients
For the marinade:
2 cloves garlic, minced
0.25tsp salt
0.5tsp black pepper
1tsp ground coriander, toasted (see notes)
0.25tsp ground cloves
1 sprig, thyme
juice of one orange
500ml (2cups) Belgian pale ale--approx 1.5 bottles (I used Hougaarden)

For the stew:
500g (1lb) bonless, skinless chicken (dark and light meat), cut into bite-sized chunks.
200g (7oz) mildly spiced sausage (I used Alsatian-style sausages), sliced into coins (optional)
butter or oil for frying
1tsp ground coriander, toasted (see notes)
0.25tsp ground cloves
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
4 onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
salt
pepper
500ml (2c) chicken or vegetable stock
2 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
1Tbsp brown sugar
2-3Tbsp whole grain mustard
4Tbsp soft butter
3Tbsp all-purpose flour
grated zest of one orange
a handful of chopped parsley (optional)
500g (1lb) mushrooms, sliced

Method:
Mix the marinade ingredients together and pour over chicken pieces. Let sit while you brown the sausage coins in batches in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Remove the browned meat to a plate. Brown the marinated chicken in the sausage fat (adding additional oil or butter, if needed). Remove the browned chicken pieces to a plate.

Over a medium flame, add the coriander and cloves to the hot fat and fry for about a minute, until the air is perfumed. Add the celery, carrots and onions to the pot and cook until the onions are transluscent. Add the garlic, some salt and pepper and stir for about 30-45 seconds, until the garlic scents the air.

Add the marinating liquid and bring to a boil. Add the sausage, chicken and chicken stock. Stir in the brown sugar and bring it back to a boil. Add thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Lower heat and let simmer for about an hour (or longer, if you wish).

While the stew simmers, sauté mushrooms and set aside.

When the stew is done simmering, make a beurre manié with the flour and butter by kneading them together into a paste. Add a ladle or two of the stew's liquid and stir into the butter-flour paste. Stir this into the stew. Turn up the heat and bring the stew back up to a boil and let boil for a few minutes. Fold the mushrooms, orange zest and chopped parsley (if using) into the stew.

Serve over boiled, buttered potatoes, egg noodles or rice.

Notes:

• To toast spices, simply put them in a dry frying pan and place over a medium heat. Stir occasionally until the oils release their scent.
• If you don't have mild sausage, you can totally omit it or use a smaller quantity of chopped, bacon--say four rashers--or ham (100-150g).
  
  
  cheers!
  jasmine
  I'm a quill for hire!
  
  
  
  

The contraption: Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

I asked Santa for a slow cooker.

My thinking, of course, was since I'm doing more pot lucks where I can neither pop home to get my prepared dish, nor have access to a proper stove, a slow cooker was the obvious option. I can either cook it during the day in some accessable space, or keep whatever I've made the night before warm enough to be palatable.

Santa heard. Santa bought. Santa delivered.

I'm now the owner of a seven quart (6.5L) slow cooker.

I fully realise that me (single and childless) owning such a vessel is akin to Kate Moss owning a 38G bra: wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst.

That's what Santa brought, so that's what I'm going to spend the next year of my life learning how to use.

My introduction to the contraption was akin to setting myself down in front of a blind date. After years of listening to friends and colleagues go on and on about how wonderful it is, and how we'd probably get along, there it sat across from me, all shiny and full of promise. I even found a recipe which I adjusted to better suit my palate.

And like many a blind date, I'm left wondering why on Earth I got my hopes up.

Problem number one: I read the instruction manual. Apparently only qualified operators are allowed to use it. How does one become a qualified operator? Well, one must read and thoroughly understand the manual. No testing. No certificate. Not even a tinned bit of Edward Elgar by kazoo.

I guess if I burned my condo down because I thought I understood the instructions, the manufacturer is trying to absolve itself of any liability. By their logic I obviously lack the necessary mind-reading skills deduce the manual-writer's intention, regardless of what he, she or it committed to words. Talk about a Catch-22.

Problem number two: I bought a couple of slow cooker cookbooks, both of which strongly suggested I brown meat and do some pre-cooking. This baffles me. I thought the entire idea of a slow cooker was essentially a one-pot, wham-bam-forget-it-ma'am type way to feed myself and the invisible army that my slow cooker's capacity dictates.

By the time I was done browning the meat (and by choice the sauteeing mushrooms and onions) I realised that I could easily finish the entire meal in about an hour or so, leaving the pot to quietly blurble away on a nearly invisible flame just to keep it warm. Regardless, by the end of it, I had three pots to wash.

But this was my first slow cooker meal. As per the manual, I didn't preheat the cooker and tipped everything into the pot.

Problem number three: My name is Jasmine and I'm a home cook. I adjust flavours as I go. I know even though these two carrots came from the same bag, this carrot over here could be more carrotty in taste than that one over there. I know that this chicken over here may have actually had the opportunity to walk around before it met with its Marie Antoinette-like fate, where as her cousin was probably stuck in some cage somewhere before she became a cellophaned carcass in the bigscarymegamart's meat case. In other words: ingredients are subject to variations in flavour. I may need more sour, less salt and maybe some sugar than a recipe calls to make the flavours balance. I don't know until I start browning and mixing and sniffing and tasting.

Slow cooking doesn't really allow me to do such adjustments. Every time I open the lid, I need to add 20 minutes of cooking time. Three lifted lids means an extra hour of cooking. So, in hopes of not adding cooking time, I prayed to the kitchen gods that I balanced out the flavours correctly before I turned on the contraption.

Good gravy.

Which leads to problem number four: This is a mightily wet cooking method. Whereas most stews and saucy dishes I make benefit from slow cooking but also reducing liquids to produce clinging, thick, flavourful sauces, my first venture into slow cooking left me with a very wet, soup-like stew. Of course I could add a thickener: a beurre manié or cornflour, but they lack the flavour building that evaporation brings. I must admit that when I reheated leftovers the next day, I tipped everything into my wok and simmered it for about 20 minutes. I was happier.

Before I did that, I tasted it.

Problem number five: Everything tastes the same. The carrots taste like the chicken taste like the mushrooms taste like the peppers. Maybe it's my innate Canadianness, but I think dishes like soups and stews are better when you can actually appreciate and identify individual ingredients, and how well they work together, as opposed to tedious homogeneity.

I know. It seems weird and somewhat wrong. This elevated concept of dump and heat "cooking" is my 2010 project. It's a bit more than that. I'm trying to convince myself that this contraption is not a waste of space, nor a waste of Santa's hard-earned money. My books tell me this thing is much more than an overblown soup-maker, and can make puddings and cakes as well as roasts and ribs. Wish me luck. I think I'm going to need it.

Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore
1.5 kg chicken, cubed into 2-3cm pieces
225g sliced mushrooms
1 rib celery, sliced thinly
1 carrot, sliced into thinnish coins
2 onions, sliced into lunettes
1 bell pepper, slivered
3 Cloves garlic, minced
1 x 796ml tin chopped tomatoes
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
0.5 tsp dried thyme
0.5 tsp dried rosemary
Olive oil

Saute onions and mushrooms until soft. Remove to cooker.

Brown chicken in olive oil, remove to cooker.

In a slow cooker, place the carrots, celery, pepper, tomatoes, garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, chicken broth and chicken. Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours.




cheers!
jasmine


I'm a quill for hire!

Roast chicken and young love

"You know, under that crusty and cynical exterior is a soft and glooshy romantic."
-- my former colleague and (still) dear friend Helena

Never say I don't do things for young couples in love.

Late Friday I received an email from one of the women I work with. Her brother-in-law entered a contest in his local paper to perform the perfect proposal. The prize is a gorgeous ring. The winner is decided by on-line voting and although he was doing well, he wasn't in first place. Could we please vote for him?

He has absolutely lovely things to say about her: beautiful, hard-working, realistic (and by inference: patient). They've just graduated from uni, bought house and are starting their lives together. Unfortunately the house has turned into a money pit (no matter which way you slice it $60K in repairs is cause to say "ouch.") and a cause for a delayed engagement ring.

What does his perfect proposal include? Asking her father's permission is first and foremost. We hope Daddy says yes. Assuming that happens, proposal day (their anniversary) begins with a dozen roses delivered to her work, followed by a champagne-flowing limo ride to one of London (Ontario's) best restaurants. The table is decorated with her favourite flowers, white orchids. Her boyfriend is no where to be seen...

Then in walks a giant chicken.

The chicken approaches other women at the restaurant. Some laugh (hey, it is London...not a place known for a healthy sense of humour), but they aren't whom le grand poulet's looking for.

Giant chicken approaches the lonely diner, and hands her a card asking if she is the women he is looking for. One hopes she nods "yes."

The chicken hands her another card saying that he has been sent to her by someone very special.

The chicken then hands her a third card saying that he is sorry that he has been such a chicken for so long.

The chicken then hands the young woman a paper bag with a small engagement ring like box inside, with another card which reads "I love you."

The chicken mask comes off, he goes down on one knee and proposes to her.

Gosh...isn't that just so...sweet?

Although Cupid recently decided to bruise my own heart, I couldn't help but let my usually well-hidden glooshy side out for them. So I voted for him.

Normally I don't ask you to do this sort of thing, but I'd really like him to win the contest, the ring and the girl. If you can, please vote for him on this site:
http://www.lfpress.com/perfectproposalvoting/index.php?action=showform&page=proposal&id=65&start=70&n=10&sort=id

You do have to register an email address, but you can check the "please don't email me" ticky box to not be bothered by the newspaper and its partners. You can vote a maximum of once/day per computer (yes, we know people who are voting at home and at work). Voting closes on 6 April, so there's still some time...and I'll let you know if he wins.

In exchange, I offer you a compound butter that's a great baste for roast chicken. Simply mix all the ingredients together and squoosh some between the skin and meat and again on the skin. Sprinkle the skin with salt and pop into a 350F/180C oven. As the butter and chicken fat melt out, slurp the flavourful fats with a baster and baste the chicken (I do this every 10 minutes or so), until the chicken is cooked.


Ginger-Lime-Coriander Compound Butter
3 Tbsp butter
half a thumb ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
2-3 generous pinches black pepper
Zest and juice of half a lime
2 Tbsp finely chopped coriander leaf
0.25 tsp chilli garlic sauce


edit: One of my readers has requested a video of the proposal if he wins the ring...I have forwarded this to the powers that be...

cheers!
jasmine

Milk Calendar Mondays: Chicken and Fresh Spinach Tortellini

Dare I say it?

This is the sort of thing the Milk Calendar people should be aiming for when developing and choosing recipes for their calendar.

You read right. Two passing grade recipes in a row. Who'da thunk it?

When you actually read this month's recipe for Chicken and Fresh Spinach Tortellini, you might easily figure out why it works: the dairy component (in this case milk) serves a real purpose. That is the milk is supposed to be there and substituting it for water or stock or wine would probably make the recipe worse.

Milk wasn't used to boil rice. Milk wasn't used as pasta water.

The milk was used for sauce. And not some wretched, bland and pallid imitation of what should have been a bold and flavourful coating. It was a sauce that worked well enough and easily adapted to the cook's preference.

In keeping with the calendar's raison d'être it is an extremely easy recipe. And in keeping with the other recipes, it is designed so as to not offend Canadian's stereotypically timid tastebuds. The "adventurous" additions really aren't that daring: bitter greens (Swiss chard) and bacon (pancetta)--but I'm a half-bacon-fiend who's more than Swiss chard friendly, I went that route.

I made a couple of changes to the recipe--instead of baby spinach, I used grown up spinach (I'm beginning an antipathy for baby veggies--apart from the price, I'm increasingly unconvinced of their flavour) and my dining companion has a citrus allergy, so I didn't use the lemon rind, but to add the teeniest bit of sharpness used a about a quarter tsp of white wine vinegar.

It was a pretty effortless affair and the recipe came together in a rather quick fashion--I think I had dinner on the table within about -45 minutes, from start of prep to dishing out the pasta. To keep it as a one-pot dish, I crisped the bacon in the cooking pot, removed the pieces, but kept the fat in the pot when whisking the flour into Ahe milk. The flavour was pretty good--it would definitely benefit from a bay leaf and the bacon should be manditory--tried it without and it didn't work for me or my friend...and if you aren't making your own stock and like me used an insta-boullion, you may want to keep the bacon fat in the dish because of the lovely all-over depth it added to the dish.


cheers!
jasmine

Milk Calendar Mondays: Super-Fast Chicken and Vegetable Curry

Okay...so I'm a little early with this month's Milk Calendar Monday adventure. I suppose I could have waited until next week, or the week after. But while sometimes these recipes are the gustatory equivalent of forcing yourself to clean out a meat-filled freezer that's been accidentally unplugged during the hottest weekend of the year, the subsequent post can be like cup of sweet, steaming hot mint tea that not only masks the taste of the sorry excuse for "adventurous" but it makes your tummy feel good.

And this blog is pretty much about feel-good tummies.

As Elizabeth noted during May's post, June's offering is the Super-fast chicken and vegetable curry. She wasn't the only one afraid to look at the recipe.

I really tried to go into this month's recipe with an open mind and receptive tastebuds. But the truth is My Dear Little Mummy is the best-ever South Indian cook. Period. She makes the very yummiest curries--hot, mild, swathed in gravy, thickened juiced clinging to each and every piece of meat--she has never, ever, ever made a bad curry (spaghetti, muffins, and the occasional soup can be different stories). Yes, I do make my own curries--while not quite as good a Mummy's, my offerings do have their fans.

As expected, the dairy people provided a very, very, simple "curry." You aren't making your own masala, nor are you really layering any flavours. Such exercises take time, and I suppose if one of your objectives is to quickly pull together a meal (and when I say quickly, I do mean a combined prep and cooking time of less than 30 minutes), such tasty things are sacrificed. Also, Indian food carries the unfortunate stigma of being complicated with long ingredients lists. For the novice, uncertain, or lazy amongst us, spying half a dozen spices could be off-putting.

For me, the off-putting parts were *surprise* the half-litre of milk and the cornstarch. I know why the milk is there (the half-cup of yoghurt probably wouldn't be enough to warrant its calendar placement), but, again, I think it's a waste of good milk. I know the cornstarch is there to mimic the effects of long-cooking--to produce a clingy gravy--but the starch combined with the milk made is seem rather nursery-food like to me.

And yes, I went the "adventurous" route (sans coriander leaf--totally forgot to pick some up, and as it wasn't in the main recipe, I didn't feel like nipping out to the shop) and used fresh ginger and chillies. The other changes I made were using hot curry powder, instead of mild (I don't have any mild right now and didn't feel like making some) and toasted almonds instead of peanuts..and I used more nuts than called for.
I served it to a friend (one who is not Indian). He thought it acceptable in a non-curry-like way. To him it was perhaps a soup; it could be a stew. He admitted that if he went to a restaurant and ordered a curry and received what this recipe produced, he'd probably feel misled.

Me...I thought it had as much bearing to curry as Chef Alphadoodlio's canned kiddie-friendly pasgetti does to anything Mama Cream Puff makes for our favourite Cream Puff.

And again, I have no idea what I did wrong, but this recipe made so much I could have easily filled my sink basin with the "curry." In fact, I swear it kept reproducing in my wok...regardless of how much of the stuff I dished out, the quantity never seemed to change. I even checked underneath the wok to see if there was some sort of tube system hooked up to it to automatically refill my vessel with the stuff. Nope...no tube system...just a lot of "curry."

We both agreed that something was missing--it was definitely lacking in something. I began listing the ways I would fix this recipe, and try and keep it within the easy, commonly pantrifed and thoroughly dairied mandate the recipes seem to follow. Get rid of the half-litre of milk and the corn starch (but keep the yoghurt). Tweak the spicing with some black mustard and fenugreek...maybe some others. Add fried onions along with an acid--lemon or lime juice.

But then I realised my version might actually take some effort...which would make it palatable...and perhaps people would like it...which doesn't seem in keeping with several of the recipes I've tried thus far...

Meh.

cheers!
jasmine

Cookbook Giveaway: Eat, Shrink and Be Merry

The Cookery Book Fairy paid me a visit this week, leaving a small pile of books in my cubicle. Yes, apparently when I spend too much time at the office, she comes looking for me in the most obvious of places.

You see, she's in the midst of an office move and found several extra copies of Janet and Greta Podleski's Eat, Shrink and Be Merry (the cookbook that accompanies the TV show of the same name). Why did she have extra copies? Her manager bought a whackload to give to staff or to be used as prizes or something, and four remained, taking up valuable real estate. The accompanied message was "You'll know what to do with them."

My...that was ominous...

If you aren't familiar with the sisters, this is their third cookbook, following Crazy Plates and Looney Spoons. They specialise in healthier, lower fat cooking. They also have their own frozen foods and a very colourful line of kitchen utensils.

I've owned a copy of ES&BM for a little while and have cooked from it a few times-- the recipes are easy and don't taste like diet food. Each recipe contains nutritional information and the book itself has many, many tips to healthy eating. It's also filled with puns. Some are good, others aren't worth mentioning (there, you've been warned). It's this combination that made the sisters successful foodish authors. The book and its authors are popular--you know when an AVP stops dead in his tracks to tell you how much he likes the recipes and how often he and his family cook from it, simply because you have four copies on your desk, there's something slightly different about this tome..

So, back to my given task...

Contest time!
Instead of doing a first-come, first-served thing--which never seems fair to those in different timezones--or coming up with an event--which I don't have time to organise,and I know others may not have the time to cook for --I wanted something that fell between the two...

As I mentioned, the book is filled with puns: The Choke's on You (a hot, baked artichoke dip), Melancauli Baby (cauliflower soup), Shroom with Ado (marinated mushroom fajitas), Turk du Soleil (turkey burgers), Britney's Spears (asparagus)...so that's what I'm looking for. An original punny recipe title, with a brief description of the food or drink.

If you would like your name to be entered into a draw for a copy of the book, please email me at cardamomaddict at gmail dot com (you know what goes where) before 23:59 GMT 31 March 2008 with:

• your name (real or your online pseudonym, your choice)
• an original punny recipe title with brief description of the food or drink--since you are not sending me a recipe, you don't have to worry about it "working" or even tasting good. All it needs to be is try to be funny...notice it doesn't have to be successfully funny...

Other bits:

• I'll draw four names at random and email the winners for their snailmail addresses. I'll post the winner's names and their punny entries on my blog shortly thereafter.
• If you leave your entry as a comment, you still have to email me so I have your email address and can contact you if you win. If I cannot contact you, I cannot send you a book...
• You can enter as many different titles as you wish, but you can only win one copy of the book. So if you enter two titles, your name is entered twice. At draw time, if your name is pulled after you've already won a copy of the book, that draw will not get you another copy, and I will select another entry.
• Now, obviously, I can't verify if your title is original as I do not have a copy of each and every recipe known to humankind, and there's the possibility that two people could come up with the same or similar titles, so let's just agree to play nice...
• This giveaway is open to anyone, regardless of where they live (well, okay, you have to be on Planet Earth with a valid snailmail address). Would love to see entries from far and wide...

Email me with any questions...

In the meanwhile...I pulled my copy from my rickety shelves and kindasorta followed their recipe for Kickin' Chicken. Kindasorta because I didn't use the light peanut sauce and I kept the bone and skin on the thighs...I'd used peanut sauce on chicken and pork before, but hadn't combined it with any tomato-based sauces. Easy, flavourful and adaptable, I'll probably come back to this, but do a whole, jointed chicken..or pork back ribs with this sauce.

Kindasorta Kickin' Chicken
adapted from Eat Shrink and Be Merry
Serves six

12 (approx 1kg) chicken thighs, left in tact
180ml peanut sauce
125ml salsa
20g fresh basil, chopped

Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Line a baking tray with tin foil (for easy clean up) and lightly oil.

Combine the peanut sauce, salsa and basil, and reserved some sauce for serving. Pour the rest into a bowl and add the chicken. Coat well and remove to the prepared baking tray. Spoon the the chickeny sauce over the meat and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until cooked. Serve with reserved sauce.

cheers!
jasmine

Hatful of butter chicken

Inspiration arrives in various and unexpected forms. But I must admit, I scratched my head at it's latest chariot.

It's no secret, music can fling me to my kitchen, and urge me to come up with something new or different from my norm. Jann Arden's Cinnamon Buns is such a dish, but in that case, she talked about pastries during the concert.

In no way would or could I call myself a hardcore fan, but every time I hear The Smiths on the radio, the volume mysteriously increases and immediately transports me to a happy place (yes, I am proudly an Alternative fan). But I have no idea why, this time, How Soon Is Now? sent me head first into butter chicken during one of Morrissey's "I am human and I need to be loved/just like everybody else does" ..but it did.

And no, I'm not going to enter into a discourse about shallower and deeper meanings held by its lyrics, though I do think those 14 words ring true to most people at one point or another. I just think it's fairly safe to say it has nothing to to with chicken, curry or chicken curry.

So...I've got a hankering for butter chicken (or murgh makhani)...but I don't know what it's "supposed to" taste like, so I really can't go with taste memory (only what I don't want it to taste like). My Dear Little Mummy doesn't cook it. My forays into trying it have left me unsatisfied: a frozen dinner, and a dump and heat sauce. I could tell what the instafood manufacturers were unsuccessfully trying to do when they created cheap, fast and inoffensive foodstuffs, but when the instructions are to heat the meat and the sauce separately before tossing everything together just before serving, you know you've got something that may as well be Chicken McNuggets dumped in Bollywouldn't sauce.

I called my parents (fyi: jackfruits keep falling on Mum's head, which I'm sure will be her excuse for shrinking in height just that much more) and asked Mum about butter chicken. After a not-so-quick conversation, which centred on her intense dislike of many things dairy I think I began to figure things out.

The first is the yoghurt. Several recipes called for it to marinate the meat, but Western plain yoghurt is creamy and just slightly sweet in comparison to my mother's yoghurt, which is just as thick, but a bit more sour. The taste is closer to fresher buttermilk, crossed with old (but not yet expired) sour cream.

Most recipes I've seen use tandoori chicken and then put it into a sauce, or use a doctored garam masala for the chicken. Well...I know if I have tandoori chicken, I'll probably eat it as is and only have scraps left for the butter chicken...which might as well be called "butter scraps." Garam masala is fine if you can't get the individual spices to come up with your own flavouring...but, the best Indian dishes I've had centre around specially-made masala..and let's face it, I'm feeling creative.

I'm not after "perfectly authentic" because, apart from not having a decent reference point, I don't think there is a right way to make butter chicken. I just wanted something that was slightly sweet, on this side of tangy, and flavourfully spicy. I also wanted to make it something my Mum would eat (she balked at the cream I mentioned, so I've given up the decorative pour). I came up with this dish and I think it's a keeper.

Murgh Makahni (Butter Chicken)
Serves 6

Ingredients
2 Tbsp masala, untoasted and ground finely, made from:

• 2 Tbsp coriander seed
• 1 Dspn (two teaspoons) fenugreek
• 1 tsp black peppercorn
• 1 ¾ tsp chili pepper flakes
• ¼ tsp turmeric
• 2 cloves
• seeds from 1 fat cardamom pod

1kg chicken thighs, skinned and bones removed, cut into bite-sized pieces
250ml sour cream mixed with buttermilk
4Tbsp garlic and ginger paste, divided (see note)
juice of half a lemon
1 globe onion, chopped
unsalted butter and oil, for frying onions
156ml can of tomato paste, mixed with enough water to make one cup
1Tbsp muscavado sugar
a thumb of minced ginger
a handful of chopped coriander leaf

In a zippy bag, mix together the sour cream, half the ground masala, half the ginger and garlic paste, and lemon juice, adding as much salt as you wish. Give it a good squoosh to thoroughly mix the marinade, before adding the chicken. Seal the bag and squoosh again, this time to thoroughly coat the meat. Let marinate for about an hour--but don’t go too much longer otherwise you risk woolly chicken.

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F and bake the chicken for about 20 minutes, then turn off the oven and let the chicken sit in the oven for 10 minutes…which is approximately how long you’ll need to fry the onions. The meat will be partially cooked, which is okay, because you will finish cooking it on the hob.

Over a medium flame, heat the butter and the oil together and fry the onions for about eight or nine minutes, or until the onions are soft and caramelised. Add the remaining garlic and ginger paste and fry for another minute. Tip in the partially cooked meat and any yoghurty liquid that has collected in the pan, followed by the tomato paste and water. Cover and simmer for about five minutes. Stir in the sugar and let blurble away, partially covered until the gravy thickens – about 15 minutes. You aren’t looking for islands of meat in a sea of thickened tomatoey soup but instead chicken that’s swathed in a thick burnished sauce. Adjust seasoning to taste.

While it’s thickening, toast the remaining masala in a dry pan until the essential oils release.

When the chicken is ready, take it off the heat and add the toasted spices, coriander leaf and minced ginger.

Notes:

• Left over masala can be stored for a few months in an airtight jar.
• If you cannot grind your own spices for this, then substitute 1½ Tbsp garam masala mixed with ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• Garlic and ginger paste: grate and mix together equal parts garlic and ginger. This can be made in quantity and then frozen in an ice cube tray and kept in the fridge for future use.
  

cheers!
jasmine

An evening in Provence

Well...not quite.

I'm in those last, few glorious hours between classes. Two weeks (ish) have passed and I've tried to get back to normalcy--you know, cleaning, a bit more cooking, more cleaning. I even got to the cinema (Hot Fuzz is very fun, btw). What am I most pleased with?

Pleasure reading.

As a treat to myself--a bit of literary tourism, if you will--I bought Georgeanne Brennan's A Pig in Provence, and have been enjoying a mini holiday in Provence. If you haven't read it yet, it's a very sweet and easy reminiscence of discovering Provence: making goat's cheese, buying pigs, truffle hunting. Brennan's writing is light and evokes wonderful imagery. You could finish it in an evening--it's not very long.

I must admit that I'm predisposed to this sort of book. I devoured Peter Mayle and Tim Parks years ago and Bill Bryson has a home on my shelves.

Georgeanne's book made me realize I've not been anywhere in three years. Quite depressing, really. So...I've decided that after my I'm done this set of courses (December, methinks), I have to go somewhere. Apart from a weekend in New York City, the last bit of travelling I did was to India and England. This time I was waffling between Sweden and Provence. I think Provence is winning...especially since I found out there are culinary vacations (including a cooking course by Georgeanne). These courses aren't cheap, but they should be interesting. I've been saving my pennies, so I'm hoping in autumn 2008 I'll be hopping an aeroplane to Nice. At the very least I'll brush up on my French while I'm over there.

One of the nice things about his book is apart from being a food-centric memoire, is it's also a bit of a cookbook. Each section ends with a Provence-inspired recipe. Simple food made with fresh local ingredients (aren't those the best recipes anyway?). I decided to try and give myself a taste of France and try one out. The mushroom lover that I am, I had to try the receipt offered in "fungal obsessions"--Poulet au genièvre farci aux champignons sauvages (Juniper-rubbed chicken with wild mushrooms).

It was simple and tasty. I didn't have any wild mushrooms, so I used the "interesting" ones found at the local bigscarymegamart--oyster, shitaki, cremini, portabello. Because she is a home cook, the recipes work really well and read like something you'd get from a friend or your auntie. The chicken was delicious. Plain and simple.

...and yes, Beanie did get a little, teeny bit.

Poulet au genièvre farci aux champignons sauvages (Juniper-rubbed chicken stuffed with wild mushrooms)
adapted from Georgeanne Brennan's A Pig in Provence

1 roasting chicken
sea salt
pepper
crushed juniper berries (about half a dozen)
butter
two shallots, finely minced
four handful (or so) of mixed mushrooms, sliced or chopped
a few slices of stale bread, cubed
a couple of pinches of dried thyme
250 ml white wine

Preheat oven to 400F/200C, or whatever temp you'd normally set the oven to when you roast a chicken.

Saute the shallots and half the mushrooms in the butter until the fungi have just turned golden. Season with some of the spices and the thyme and add in the bread cubes and mix well.

Season the bird's cavity and outside with the remaining spices and stuff with the bread mixture. Roast and baste as you'd normally do (I roast for 35 minutes plus 20 minutes per 500g, and baste every 10-15 minutes...I also poke it with a meat thermometer, for good measure).

When the bird is done, remove it to a cutting board. Drain off the fat. Add the rest of the mushrooms to the pan and saute until golden. Add wine and scrape off the lovely roasted bits that have clung to the roasting tin and let simmer for a bit.

Carve up the chicken and serve with the stuffing and the pan sauce.

cheers!
jasmine

tags: Georgeanne Brennan Chicken Mushrooms
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