Spice Rubbed Chicken Cutlets

October 8, 2015

My first born starting school has opened up a world of culinary challenges: what can I make and pack for her that a) she’ll eat b) is nutritious (most of the time) and c) not too messy? The top two contenders so far as been a chicken “salad” sandwich made from leftover chicken curry, mayo and provolone cheese. First choice though, banana nutella sandwich. That’s my cop out sandwich. Something I’m sure Park Slope moms would be aghast at finding out was given to a child. You’ve heard about that, right? The parents who wanted to ban the ice cream truck coming ’round the block so they wouldn’t have to deal with their kids ice cream wanting tantrums. While I empathize with the tantrum dealing – I wonder how many parents in my generation reflect on the food they grew up versus the food they feed their kids. Sometimes I get so hung up on, “Are my kids eating enough greens?” “Are they getting enough fiber?” “Is it too late in the evening for chocolate?”. While it’s definitely good to be thinking of these things, some of us go off the deep end when it comes to this stuff. A certain parent comes to mind who flipped out when her daughter was given a rice biscuit or whatever too close to her dinner time. Do you know what my after-school snacks consisted of? Double chocolate chip muffins laden with all kinds of artificial flavorings and preservatives with a can of pepsi. Or entenmann’s chocolate cake. Or chips ahoy cookies with milk. My gourmet touch was microwaving the chips ahoy cookies to give ’em that just baked quality. Right.So, over the years, I’ve given myself a break. Not all their fruits and veggies are organic anymore. Sometimes they have nutella toast for dinner. And lollipops or ice cream in the evening? One heck of a reward for cleaning up their toys! Not to say I’ve thrown all caution to the wind. I snuck some baby kale leaves into my daughter’s wrap this morning. Usually I make her sandwiches with soft whole wheat bread. Pictured below is Malaysian style paratha which, if you were with me during my semester in Rome, you know it is crazy good. It’s a flaky flatbread that makes anything taste good (not that this chicken needs any help!!). My favorite part of this chicken is the wonderful caramelization from cooking it in the butter. Why didn’t we eat more butter growing up? It is so glorious when treated well. Buttered toast in our household usually meant Country Crock vegetable spread on lightly toasted Wonder Bread.So enjoy these chicken cutlets all throughout the week:

Sliced across the grain and over salad
Diced and mixed with a mayo dressing for chicken salad sandwiches
Sliced and inside wraps with lettuce and tomato
Diced and tossed with buttered pasta and peas
Or as is, with a side of quinoa and leafy greens!

Ingredients

2 large chicken breasts, each sliced in half widthwise to make 4 cutlets
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
pinch of cayenne pepper
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 tbsp butter, divided

Directions

Combine spices in a small bowl and sprinkle all or most of it evenly over both sides of each chicken cutlet.
In a large fry pan over medium high heat, heat 1 tbsp oil and 1/2 tbsp butter. When the bubbling of the butter dies down, add two pieces of the chicken cutlets. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side. You’ll know when to flip when the bottom side is golden brown and the white (cooked) part of the chicken creeps up to the middle. Flip and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes.
When the first two are done, remove from heat and let them rest on a plate (not a cutting board as the juices will run). Clean the pan with a rubber spatula to get the overly brown bits and oil off and into a ramekin or bowl. Add the remaining tablespoon oil and half tablespoon butter. Cook the remaining two cutlets the same way. Remove to plate and let rest 5 minutes before slicing.

Pistachio and Spice Roasted Rack of Lamb

July 12, 2015

Ramadan, the Islamic month during which Muslims around the world fast from sun up to sun down, is winding down. The last ten days is a time of great spiritual importance. Extra prayers, remembrance and mindfulness of acts of worship are highly stressed. My interpretation is that it’s a way to encourage keeping up the momentum, since Ramadan is 30 days long, and many start off the month with a lot of vigor, but find themselves struggling to keep up with the extra prayers and fasts as the days go by. Another important part of Ramadan for me is the communal iftar (evening, break-fast meal). One of the things that drew me to Islam as a child and again as a college student, is the community. When I attended my first ICNA convention as an almost 10 year old, I wore the headscarf for the weekend, per etiquette. And I recall descending on the escalator to the main convention hall and being amazed at seeing so many Muslims in the same room. For the first time I felt like I was part of something larger. Growing up in Queens, my childhood was characterized by my otherness. I was always one of two Bengali Muslim kids (no black, white, arab, SE asian or any other muslim kids in my neighborhood). We were all a rag tag team of immigrant kids – the only cohesive element being our physical classroom or schoolyard. So when I first felt that sense of community, it was exhilarating. I kept the headscarf on (with its ups and downs) since then. This was reinforced as a student at Barnard. The iftars hosted by Columbia Muslim Students Association was another reinforcement. A group to whom I didn’t have to explain my evening ritual of breaking the fast. A group that actually shared the values I was brought up with. I know we live in a society that in name celebrates individuality and uniqueness. But growing up in a society that is so different from your native one, is exhausting. How many times have I had to answer the question

Can your husband or father see your hair?
Do you sleep with the scarf of your head?
Do you shower with it? (admittedly this was a much rarer question, asked by the not-so-high scorers in my junior high class)
You can’t even have water while fasting?

So while I celebrate multiculturalism and pluralism as much as the next person, and in fact I think I’m the better for my experiences, it is really fortifying to be with members of one’s own group. That’s why I love hosting iftar. Why I love ending a long day of fasting with people I love. With food I love. In remembrance of our common purpose of pleasing our Creator. On to the food! This was actually the first time I’ve made rack of lamb. I took a risk by making something for the first time for a group and not even sticking to a recipe, but using a spice rub recipe by Deb Perelman and a cooking technique by Ina Garten. The spice rub recipe is from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. She uses it to encrust individual lamb chops and after an initial sear on the stove top, then finishes it in the oven (I’ve made it before here). As for Ina’s rack of lamb recipe, she does a traditional rosemary/garlic combo, then roasts the whole thing in the oven at 450 degrees F for 20-25 min. I smeared the spice rub on and let it sit at room temperature for about an hour before sticking it in the hot oven to allow the flavors of the spices to get into the lamb. I then roasted it covered for 15 minutes. After 15 min, I removed the foil, drizzled some olive oil and allowed to cook for 15 minutes longer. This got it to medium rare. If you’d like it done further, insert a meat thermometer into a good meaty portion of the meat and cook until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F for medium or 170 for well done. The lamb was from Honest Chops over in East Village. Perfect flavor every single time. I made Kabuli palau for the first time – and Afghani chicken and rice pilaf with carrots, raisins and nuts. Homemade naan. Roasted tomato and burrata Caprese salad (why aren’t there good tomatoes in the farmers markets yet?? Perhaps because it hasn’t been hot enough). Mashed potatoes. Watermelon/mint salad because Ramadan and watermelon go together like two peas in a pod. Pioneer Woman’s Kale Citrus Salad and Strawberry Lemonade. My only edit to the lemonade was that I made a Meyer lemon infused simple syrup with two cups of the sugar, 2 cups water, and the peel of 1 large Meyer lemon. Divine. My mom made cumber raita (yogurt, grated cucumber, smoked salt) and savory pancakes. My good friend Nargis made delicious boulani, a potato stuffed turnover. And because iftar is an evening meal, this was the best lighting I could capture for my photos. Wishing a blessed last few days of Ramadan to those observing!

Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Ina Garten.

Ingredients

1/2 cup shelled pistachios
3 tsps chaat masala
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp paprika
4-5 dashes of cayenne pepper (stick to 2 dashes if you can’t handle heat!)
5-6 pounds rack of lamb
salt and pepper
olive oil

Directions

Add first 5 ingredients to the food processor and process until pistachios are ground and spices are well blended.
Line a baking sheet with aluminum. Take lamb out of fridge and remove any impurities from the surface, rinsing under running water if necessary. Place on baking sheet, fat side up, and pat dry. Liberally sprinkle salt and pepper all over the meat. Rub spice mixture onto the fat side and let sit for 1 hour.
After 45 minutes, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Once the oven is hot, drizzle lamb with olive oil and cover meat with foil and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove the foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Cook longer, if desired, with a meat thermometer inserted into the meat reads 160 for medium or 170 for well done.
Take out of oven and let rest for 15 minutes. Slice and serve with yogurt dipping sauce.

Ridiculously Good Fried Chicken

April 24, 2015

If you follow me on instagram (kitchen3n), you’ll notice I went on a little trip recently! I had the opportunity to help organize a company retreat at the magnificent Qasr Al Sarab in UAE (about 2 hours south of Abu Dhabi). It was my first time abroad since having my kids so you can be sure leading up to the trip I juggled feelings of anxiety and excitement…but mostly anxiety.

As difficult as it was leaving the kiddos behind for a whole week, it was so refreshing and rewarding to immerse myself in work, in a new place, with faces that I don’t see often. The food at the resort was fabulous and plentiful. UAE is truly a mix of ethnic groups and it shows in the dining options. Traditional emirati dishes are punctuated by South Asian, Filipino and pan-Arab foods. Some of the most memorable items I had were fresh labne (strained yogurt), congee (chinese rice porridge with dried shrimp and soy sauce), stewed tomatoes, bbq beef short ribs, and mustard (yes – the condiment, a whole grain, fruity, spicy concoction) atop veal chops – ugh, it was heavenly.

One thing they did not have, was my fried chicken. That, you have to come to Kitchen3N for. My fried chicken is special in that I brine it in a buttermilk, salt and spice mixture that gives it incomparable tenderness and flavor (a nod to smitten kitchen’s buttermilk roast chicken). Then, to make it even more special, the coating it gets before hitting the hot oil is a combination of flour, bread crumbs and even more seasoning. Finally, I finish it in the oven on a wire rack atop a baking sheet because I can never seem to get it cooked throughout without burning the outside when I stick to just the stove top method. Thanks for the idea, Ina.

I don’t even know why I’m disclosing my secrets. Yes, I want you to have outrageously good fried chicken. No, I’m not opening a restaurant any time soon. I suppose these are good reasons for sharing.

I used to be horrid at fried chicken. I would impatiently put the chicken in before the oil was hot enough. I didn’t bother with the extra step of finishing in the oven so half the pieces would be pink inside. So now, when I make fried chicken, though it is a production with the brining, coating, frying, and baking, it is so worth the end result. I mentioned in earlier posts the immeasurable importance of a candy thermometer (pun!). It is essential in regulating the heat of the oil, as it varies so much from when all the pieces are just placed in, to when they are cooked, to when the pan is empty again in between batches. I kept my oil between 325 and 350 – this is optimal for ensuring the outside doesn’t brown too much.

Though I wish I could share a no-frills fried chicken recipe with you that didn’t involve more than 2 steps or kitchen gadgets, these were the things that I’ve found to set mediocre fried chicken apart from Ridiculously Good Fried Chicken. These are like Throwdown-with-Bobby-Flay Good Fried Chicken.

I served mine with some creamy dreamy mashed potatoes. But serve with a side salad if you are watching your carbs 😉

Ingredients

3 lbs chicken legs and thighs, skin on or off
2 cups buttermilk
3 cloves of garlic, halved
1 tsp paprika
2 tsps salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne or chili powder
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup of bread crumbs (preferably panko)
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black pepper, or more to taste
1/4 tsp cayenne or chili powder
vegetable or peanut oil for frying

Directions

Several hours or the night before cooking, combine buttermilk, garlic, paprika, salt and both peppers in a bowl or gallon ziploc bag. Combine well and add the chicken legs and thighs. Let marinate for at least two hours, but better yet at 6-8 hours.
Pour oil into a cast iron skillet or casserole pan so the oil is 1 to 1 1/2 inches deep. Turn on the flame and using a candy thermometer inserted into the oil and attached to one side of the pan, bring the heat up to 325 degrees F. This takes about 10 minutes or so over high heat.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place a wire rack over a baking sheet and set aside. The wire rack is essential here because if you place the chicken directly on the baking sheet, the underside will get soggy.
In a shallow dish combine flour, bread crumbs and remaining seasonings. Carefully take out chicken pieces, shaking off the excess and place into flour/bread crumb mixture. Coat evenly, 3 to 4 pieces depending on the size of your pan, and carefully lower into the oil. Regulate the heat so it doesn’t go above 350 or below 325. After 5-7 minutes, flip and cook until the other side is golden brown (another 5 minutes or so). Place on the wire rack and continue with the next batch.
When all the pieces are fried and placed on the wire rack over the baking sheet, bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes check one of the thigh pieces for doneness by cutting right through the middle and ensuring that the meat closest to the bone is not pink and the juices run clear. If not done, stick back in the oven for 5 more minutes.

Lessons in Spatchcocking

March 12, 2015

Don’t double check your calendar. It is in fact, March. I cooked a whole turkey in March.

What else are you going to do when your buddies over at Honest Chops send you a 17 pound bird? Since we didn’t do the whole turkey day shebang last year, I got to try out the spatchcocking technique I read about over at Serious Eats. So you see, it isn’t a word I made up for my kids. It’s a cooking technique that requires removal of the backbone (seriously, this turkey has seen better days), then pushing the bird down flat to encourage even cooking. People go all kinds of crazy to ensure breast meat doesn’t dry out. In past years I’ve tried brining in a brining bag (thanksgifiasco 2011 – brining bag broke and peppercorns were still being found in corners of my apt six months later). I’ve flipped the bird half way through the cooking process – starting breast down, the finishing breast up.

This time I really wanted to try dry brining. But ain’t nobody got room in their fridge for a 17 lb bird to do its thing for 3 days!! I couldn’t even defrost this thing the “proper” way, according to “US Department of Health guidelines”. I left it out on my counter for 24 hours and am living to see the light of day. Please don’t do the same, then sue me if you get sick. Just do what the Man says and defrost in your fridge for 08765336789 days.

This is not a technique I’d recommend if you’re petite like me. Unless, of course, your even more petite desi mom is around to help and manages to whack that bird flat without breaking a sweat. I should’ve known – plenty of experience with that backhand.

Key takeaways:

It’s hard removing the backbone with regular ol’ kitchen shears. If this is something you want to try, I’d recommend getting poultry shears.
Once I did get it out, I loved having the backbone available, along with the innards, to make turkey stock. It just bubbled away on the stove top while the bird cooked in the oven. Soups, pastas, quinoa and rice pilafs for dayssssssss.
The cooking temperature was wayyyy too high. I appreciated how fast the thigh meat cooked through, but at 450 degrees, things were smoking up and my smoke alarm kept ringing. I turned the heat down to 425 and carefully poured in some water into the baking sheet to keep the veggies and juices from scorching. Even then, at 1 hour and 10 minutes, the breast meat had dried out. Why oh why?!

I have no idea where this beautiful gravy bowl came from. Does this happen to you? If you’re the beautiful soul who gifted this piece to me, please stand up. Thank you! I don’t even care for gravy – this is all beautiful, luxurious, reduced pan drippings. Happy Spatchcocking!

Technique from Serious Eats.

Ingredients

2 tbsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp paprika
2 tsp dried thyme
olive oil (not extra virgin)
2 lemons, halved
2 onions, halved
2 heads garlic, halved

Directions

Combine all the spices in a bowl and smear all over the spatchcocked turkey.
Placed halved vegetables on an aluminum lined baking sheet. Place wire rack over the veggies. Drizzle the turkey liberally with oil and lay on the wire rack. Bake according to directions. I would go with a lower cooking temperature, say 350 degrees F, for 70-90 minutes depending on the size of your bird. The best way to tell is by sticking a meat thermometer into the deepest part of the thigh and getting a reading of 165 degrees.

Valentine’s Surf and Turf: Rib Eye Steak & Jumbo Shrimp

February 10, 2015

This Ribeye from Honest Chops was absurd…

Ly delicious. I’ve only had a handful of steaks in my life. Namely because halal steaks are so hard to come by. Most halal butchers don’t differentiate between all the wonderful cuts (I think we’ve discussed this before). Nowadays, you can find some halal steaks at select NYC restaurants by way of Creekstone Farms. However, the last steak I had at Marc Forgione, just wasn’t that great. Not so much a reflection of the meat, rather the preparation.

When you cook up your own steak, you can season it to your heart’s content. My absolute favorite part of steak is the salty, peppery, crusty exterior you get when the seasoning’s just right and the caramelization’s just right. The last time I had the pleasure was when my brother in law owned a butcher shop and gifted me an entire tenderloin. You can bet I sliced off the tip and made myself a filet mignon that was to die for. It was my first proper steak. There was a party in my mouth.

This gorgeous, bone-in Rib eye from Honest Chops is perfect for my surf and turf Valentine’s Day meal. I’m going to be transparent here: I’m usually not big on Valentine’s Day. I remember how much it sucked being single and watching every other girl get showered with balloons and chocolates and yadda yadda. But, now that I am married, who’s gonna say no to some good chocolates once a year. Amiright?! But for my good friends over at HC – I am pulling out the big guns (read: shrimp):

Perfect, just shy of Medium, Rib eye Steak
Skewered chili and garlic Jumbo Shrimp (hey, if both people have garlic, then it cancels out, right?)
Baby Spinach Salad with pears, blue cheese, dried cranberries and slivered almonds with a honey balsamic dressing

Hear me out on the cooking time before people start going all Planet of the Apes on me for daring to go anything beyond medium rare. Pretty much any recipe I read on rib eyes advised on a cooking time of 3-4 minutes per side over a high heat (either grill or pan) for medium rare. However, after reading this article on Food52, I decided on 5 minutes per side to just venture beyond the medium rare stage (I’m not crazy about the metallic taste of blood, so sue me). They say rib eyes are best just shy of medium doneness. I personally just tried reaching for an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit. And though my meat thermometer never reached 145, I trusted the cooking temp and time and tented the meat with foil after the allotted 10 minutes. Oh My Goodness. Was it a perfectly cooked piece of meat. I could eat it for days. I could tout it as a body scrub, once the whole coffee scrub craze passes.

I cooked up some caramelized onions and peppers to serve alongside the steak – but it totally didn’t need them! So I’m not bothering including that here. The skewered jumbo shrimp is a luxurious compliment to the steak. Alongside, is one of my favorite salads. You don’t want to go heavy on the carbs for your Valentine’s day meal and risk passing out from a food coma! I had a Costco sized pack of jumbo shrimp, but you can easily halve the recipe for two. Finally – don’t pour all the dressing at once! Leftover dressed salad is no fun.

Ingredients

For the steak

1 organic bone-in Rib eye Steak
salt and ground black pepper
vegetable or light olive oil
1 clove of garlic, sliced in half

For the shrimp

about 2 lbs of jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
3 tbsp olive oil

For the salad

3 oz organic baby spinach
half an anjou pair, thinly sliced
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese (if blue cheese is too strong for you, substitute goat cheese)
3 tbsp toasted slivered almonds (just add slivered almond to a warm pan and heat until lightly browned. Keep a close eye on them!)
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp honey
salt and pepper to taste
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Make the steak: leave the steak out at room temperature for 45 minutes. Heat a cast iron skillet (preferable but any heavy skillet will do the trick) over high heat for 5 minutes (for me that’s at heat level 5 out of 6 on my hottest burner. I actually toasted my almonds in the cast iron skillet as it was heating up. Clever girl, Naureen.) Rub your steak with the garlic clove (optional) and season it liberally with salt and pepper. Add some vegetable or olive oil (NOT extra virgin) to your pan and immediately add the meat. It should sizzle. Do. Not. Touch. It. For the next 5 minutes. When 5 minutes are up, flip it over and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Finally, remove from the pan and cover with aluminum. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes.
While the steak rests, cook the shrimp. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine the shrimp with the garlic, chili, oil and salt and toss to combine. Add to skewers, 3 per skewer (TIP: soak your sewers in water for at least 30 minutes to keep them from burning). Arrange on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes.
For the salad: combine spinach, pear, blue cheese, dried cranberries and almonds. Combine the next 6 ingredients in an empty jar, put the lid on, and shake! Use dressing as required.

Beef Tagine

February 6, 2015

I have been bitten by the travel bug. Not recently. The bite’s been smoldering more or less my whole life with my actual escapades limited only by finances and well, youth. And now, in the absolute DEAD of winter. With over a foot of snow in NYC in the past two weeks and with even more snow on the way this weekend!!! This is usually about the time New Yorkers duck out for more tropical climates. My husband and I ran away from a devastating snow storm in March 2010 that brought down power lines and trees in upstate NY. So, we were jerks and literally left our friends in the dark while we frolicked around Montego Bay.

That same winter I had gone to Fez, Morocco for a work retreat. Although I didn’t have a chance to see Casablanca or ride camels in the desert, it was a great bonding experience with my colleagues. We did this great exercise in negotiation where small groups of us ventured into the bazaar with trinkets we had brought with us from our respective countries and tried to barter for the best deal. Someone traded an NYC Taxi Magnet for a lamp. Someone else bartered a snow globe for, what was it…a tagine?!

Segwayyyyy! A tagine is a Moroccan earthenware pot that’s meant for low and slow cooking. It’s got a flat bottom with low sides and a conical top that’s supposed to accumulate the condensation. That ends up basting the meat throughout the cooking time. Now, I didn’t make it back with a tagine, but I did score a Martha Stewart dutch oven when I got married. It’s got little bumps all along the inside of the lid that effectively does the same thing as the tagine top.

With the bottom round roast from Honest Chops, you want something that cooks for a long time to break down and tenderize an otherwise tough cut of meat. I went through all my recipe books and as much as I would’ve loved to try beef bourguignon or a beef daube, or even a pot roast, I just don’t have a good substitute for wine! Do you?

And since I’ve posted many a curry on this site, I thought I’d try something different. So I went with Jamie Oliver’s recipe for beef tagine. Spices, beef, chickpeas, vegetables, broth. Right up my alley, right? Unfortunately, it wasn’t. I felt like there was a spice overload. A whole tablespoon of cinnamon – not bad. But then a tablespoon of cumin. A tablespoon of ground ginger. Paprika. Ras el hanout. I don’t even have ras el hanout (literally – top of the shop) spice mix. So I just did a quarter tsp of spices typically found in it – ground cardamom, coriander, chili powder, turmeric, nutmeg and all spice.

You rub the spices into the meat and let it sit overnight (or at least 2 hours). They look and smell great at this point. Like fragrant truffles (is that redundant?). And when you brown it in the oil, it gives off the slightest golden hue from the turmeric. But that’s where my love affair ends. I tasted it 1 hour, 1.5 hours, and 2 hours into the cooking time. And I thought it was perfect at 1.5 (which is half the cooking time he suggests). I just wanted to avoid the fate of a certain boneless short ribs. But it was good at 2 hours as well. The prunes were a good additional as well. All in all – worth trying, just not my favorite.

Recipe courtesy of Jamie Oliver.

Ingredients

1 tbsp cinnamon, cumin, paprika, ground ginger
1/4 tsp turmeric, nutmeg, coriander, chili powder, cardamom and all spice
2 tsp salt (more to taste)
1/2 tsp pepper (more to taste)
1 to 1.5 lbs organic, grass fed, bottom round roast, cut into cubes
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
1 bunch cilantro stems, chopped
1 can chickpeas (14 oz)
1 can crushed tomatoes (14 oz)
3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
2 summer squash, sliced (I don’t know if this is the type of squash he had in mind, but he didn’t specify so I went with the easiest one)
6-7 prunes, chopped
cilantro, for garnish
cooked couscous, quinoa or rice for serving

Directions

Rub all the spices with the meat and let sit in the fridge overnight or two hours at a minimum.
Heat oil in a tagine, dutch oven, cast iron casserole, or large pot over high heat. Add the meat, spices and all, and let brown for 5-7 minutes. Add onions and cilantro stems and stir, scraping up browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Cook for an additional 5 minutes. Add chickpeas, tomato and broth and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and cook for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom.
After an hour and a half, add squash and prunes. Cover and cook over low heat until squash cooks through (about 30 minutes).
Taste for seasoning. Garnish with cilantro and serve with preferably quinoa and a hit of lemon or lime juice.

Sloppy Joes

January 30, 2015

I recall an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations when he was schooling his viewers on some things every home cook should know. Among them:

How to slice and onion. Key take away: don’t leave your fingers sprawled all over the onion. You are asking for it. Tuck your finger tips under like you’re tossing a knuckleball. Life-saver.
Beef bourguignon. It’s just a pot of unattractive, purple-hued beef cubes simmering in an even less attractive liquid base UNTIL the magic time is up. For the first two, two and a half hours, that’s all it is. But when the time is right, it all comes together to become the legendary French stew. That’s a lesson I’ve carried with me for all my stews and curries. The key factor is time. Time for the meat to flavor the broth and for the broth to cook/tenderize the meat. You have to learn what that time is for each dish to have truly delicious stews and curries.
There were a few other lessons. Since I’ve forgotten them, they clearly weren’t as life changing.

I’ve made sloppy joes the traditional American way before, loaded with ketchup, brown sugar, sometimes Worcestshire sauce and/or vinegar. It’s just too sweet for me. In my version, I add some warming spices, paprika to complement the bell pepper, a tiny bit of sugar to bring out the sweetness in the crushed tomatoes, and peas (hey food groups!). Both version wayyy surpass the school lunch version I had as a NYC public school student.

I have my usual brioche buns as the delivery vehicle for this hot mess. You can use kaiser rolls, hamburger buns – so long as it’s nice and porous and soaks up all the juices.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion or 1/2 large yellow onion, diced
1 red/orange/yellow pepper, seeds and ribs removed, diced
about 1 pound Honest Chops organic ground beef
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/4 to 1/2 tsp cayenne/chili pepper
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 bay leaf
1 can of crushed tomatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley

Directions

Heat oil in a pot and add onion, pepper and beef. Brown over high heat for 5-7 minutes. Add garlic and spices and mix well. Add bay leaf, crushed tomatoes and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to medium low, cover and simmer for 20 min, stirring occasionally.
Add peas and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes. Off the heat, add cilantro and stir to combine. Serve on hamburger buns, kaiser rolls, brioche buns – something that’s going to absorb all the juices!

Boneless Short Ribs with Asian BBQ Sauce

December 11, 2014

How can I explain to you how good these are? Do the pictures do justice to them? Are you drooling on your keyboard? If so, then I’ve done my job. Though I have a confession to make: I’ve never made short ribs before. I’ve never even had them before, you know, as a separate entity. Sure, I’ve eaten them as part of a larger curry, but not like this. But hooray for internet, right? I checked my cookbooks and could not find anything for boneless ribs. They all had recipes for bone-in ribs, the type that you braise in a casserole. Balsamic braised. Beer braised. Red wine braised. But then, I found this recipe for easy bbq boneless ribs! And though I was grateful for Sunny Anderson’s (easy) cooking technique, I knew I wanted an Asian BBQ type thing, something rich in soy sauce and garlic with a hint of sesame flavor, but not one that was so authentic I needed to make an extra trip to my local Asian grocery. Na’m sayin? In keeping with halal guidelines, I’ve never had korean or japanese bbq (I doubt any halal establishments exist in NY). But I knew I really wanted to try Korean BBQ short ribs, or Kalbi. The problem is, you need a special cut of short ribs to prepare in that way – called the flanken cut. And if I had thought a little bit in advance, I could have convinced my friends at Honest Chops to hook it up. But I didn’t. And here we are. For this post, I took a page out of my research days, when, clueless about coding, I’d have to piece together bits from existing code, tweak it according to my data, and try to make some science! So I took a little from a recipe here, a recipe there, and badda bing badda boom. Definitely feel free to swap out the regular soy sauce for low-sodium. I served it here with rice, but I actually liked it better when it was shredded and wrapped in lettuce leaves. The cool, crisp texture and flavor of the lettuce worked perfectly with the slow cooked, soy sauce spiked flavor of the ribs. I used Sunny’s cooking technique with an adapted version of the Kalbi recipe below (I didn’t have an asian pear, and I wasn’t about to venture out into this torrential rainfall to get some). And I had to add chili flakes. Had to. I found by the end of the recommended 3 hours, the meat dried out a bit (that didn’t stop me from inhaling them). I did taste it at 2 hours, and it was tender enough. I would recommend for this amount of meat, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. And there is more than enough sauce. I actually used some of the leftover sauce to season some salmon. You can easily do 4 lbs of ribs in it.

For leftovers: shred the beef, mix with some mayo/lemon juice, and fill a pita or other flatbread with it and some lettuce. So good.

Recipe adapted from Food Network: Kalbi, Easy BBQ Short Ribs.

Ingredients

About 2 lbs Honest Chops GRASS FED boneless short ribs
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tbsps garlic and ginger paste
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp black pepper
a pinch of red chili flakes
1 small red onion, quartered
4 scallions, chopped at a diagonal in half in slices

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
Measure out the first 4 ingredients in a large glass measuring cup. Add garlic and ginger paste, sesame oil, black pepper and chili flakes. Stir to combine.
Add quartered onion into food processor. Process for a few seconds, then slowly drizzle in soy sauce mixture.
Cut the short ribs into 1 1/12 to 2 in thick strips. Lay across a baking dish and drizzle the sauce over all the pieces.
Cover with aluminum and bake for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, turning once half way, then once again 15 minutes before removing from the oven. Garnish with chopped scallions.

Brisket Burgers

December 5, 2014

For our third installment of HCxK3N (what? you don’t think it’s catchy?), we’re serving up some brisket burgers. Notorious for being overcooked, I’m sharing my experience in cooking these delicious burgers up. Don’t judge the placement of the cheese slice. It’s adjusted below.Just look at that caramelization!

And to give you some background, burgers are to Naureen as hunny is to ____. Pooh. The answer is Winnie the Pooh. Don’t judge my TV selections as of late. I LOVE burgers. But sometimes I wonder if I’m more about the burger fixins than the actual burger. For me the patty is more of a vehicle for the most wonderful combination of sauce, cheese, veggies and bread. I’m probably not supposed to be saying that but regardless I’m going to share with you the secret to keeping your burgers nice and juicy. The secret’s in the sauce. No it isn’t. I’ll be sharing my not-so-secret sauce recipe below.

It’s in the cooking method. You want to cook it over pretty high heat so you sear the outside and you don’t want to overcook it. The longer it sits over the pan, the more juices that come pouring out. So I found 7 minutes on each side, on a hot cast iron skillet does the trick. This gets the burger to a medium doneness. If you can stomach a rare burger, 4 minutes on each side should do. Well done, 9-10 on each side. If your burger loses some of its juiciness at that point, compensate with sauce (that’s what I do…don’t hate!).

Ingredients

4 1/4 lb Honest Chops Brisket Burgers
4 brioche buns
4 slices swiss or american cheese
a few slices of tomato
a few slices of red onion
a few slivers of pickles
some iceberg lettuce leaves
2 tbsp mayo
1 tbsp ketchup
a dash of hot sauce or chipotle adobo sauce
1 tsp chopped pickle
pinch of salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat a cast iron skillet or a non stick skillet over medium high heat. Season both sides of the burgers with salt and pepper. Add a little grease (veg or olive oil) to the pan. Add 1 or 2 burgers at a time depending on the size of your pan and don’t move until ready to flip (4 min each side for rare, 7 for medium, 9-10 for well done).
When the burgers are done, top with cheese (you can add the cheese in its final stages of cooking, but I hate dealing with the mess of melted cheese) and set aside while assembling the rest of the ingredients.
Warm the brioche buns in the same pan the burgers were cooked in or in your toaster oven.
Make the sauce: combine mayo, ketchup, hot sauce, chopped pickle, salt & pepper in a small bowl. Smear sauce on both sides of the bun. Add burger and layer with whatever ingredients you like, I listed the classic toppers above but feel free to substitute caramelized onions and sautéed mushrooms or avocado and cilantro. The choices are endless!

Braised Lamb Shoulder

November 27, 2014

Happy Turkey Day everyone! In honor of this national holiday, I’m posting about…lamb. I know, I know – ill timed. But, come this weekend, when you won’t be able to stomach another ounce of turkey or leftover cranberry sauce, you’re going to looking for a hearty, warming meal like this one. Now, most days are not braise days. Most days are mac and cheese from a box, or spaghetti aglio olio, or chicken curry days. I usually leave the braising of big cuts of meat (lamb shanks, shoulder, or short ribs) to the pros at my favorite Persian or Turkish or Afghan restaurants. But sometimes, you have to pull out the big guns. Visiting relatives. Someone got a raise, or maybe just got a year older. Or, perhaps you’re snowed in. Look at it just getting all cozy in its bed of tomatoes, onions and spices. When the occasion calls for a braise, the long, slow cooking of a piece of meat in order to render all of the fat and break down the muscle fibers to make for a tender, delicious meat, tomatoes and onions are my best friends. Many French or European recipes rely on the acidity of wine to get the job done. My mother and many on the Subcontinent might rely on green papaya as a meat tenderizer (strange, I know, but it works!). So, when deciding how to prepare this awesome lamb shoulder, I noticed most of the recipes in my cookbooks called for about 2 lbs cubed, boneless lamb shoulder (oops). Since this piece came bone-in, I decided to make the most of it! I love bones (it’s the Bengali in me). Since I don’t cook with wine or chicken stock for the most part, I rely on the bones in the meat I prepare to flavor the broth that it cooks in. I reviewed many different recipes before I went ahead with this one. It’s a conglomerate of all of them (cooking technique based loosely on Andrew Zimmern’s stovetop method, spice mix based on Gourmet’s Ras el Hanout recipe). I used my dutch oven for this – it retains heat really well and the inside of the top cover is lined with bumps that allow the moisture to drip down and baste the meat. Any large pot will do, though. You want to cook until the meat is tender and falling off the bone, but not so long that the meat will dry out (not to worry, there is a fairly large window of time between the two). After a cooking time of 1 1/2 hours, I took the meat out and shred it with a fork. During this time, I took the pot off the heat, and blended all the chunks in the cooking liquid with my immersion belnder to make a satiny smooth sauce. You can do this in your blender, in batches, or leave as is for a more “rustic” look. I left the meat immediately around the bone in tact, for presentation purposes, or for the Fred Flinstone in your family. I served this with couscous cooked in a saffron broth, and vegetables lightly sauteed with garlic and rosemary.

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 Honest Chops lamb shoulder (this one was 1 1/2 lbs)
1 large yellow onion, diced
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne (1/4 tsp if you prefer it mild)
1/4 tsp cardamom powder
1/8 tsp cloves
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp ginger paste
1 lb tomatoes, quartered (you can use the equivalent amount of crushed/whole tomatoes from a can)
3 cups water

Directions

In a large dutch oven or casserole, heat oil over high heat. Season the lamb shoulder with salt and pepper. Add to the pot. Don’t move until the side that’s down is nice and brown (2-4 minutes depending on heat level). Rotate to the next side, carefully. Repeat until all sides are browned (about 10 minutes). While this happens, dice the onion and assemble the spices. Take the shoulder out of the pan and onto a plate. Set aside.
Add the diced onion to the hot pan, stirring vigorously to get the brown bits off the bottom. When they start to sweat, add tomato paste and ALL of the spices (up to the cloves). Add a splash of water, if necessary to dissolve all the spices and form a nice mush. Once the spices are dissolved and you have a nice onion/spice paste, add garlic, ginger and tomatoes. Stir to combine. Next, add the water, then nestle the meat in. Bring up to a boil.
Reduce heat to a simmer and put the lid on. Simmer for about 1 1/2 hours, rotating the meat every 20 minutes or so to ensure even cooking.
After the 1 1/1 hours is up, remove meat from pot and check for doneness and seasoning (should be fork tender and delicious!). Shred most of the meat with two forks on a cutting board. Remove pot from heat and blend the broth with an immersion blender, or in batches in a conventional blender, or leave as is for a more rustic look. Also check the broth for seasoning. Return to heat and boil over high heat for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Add the meat back and cook for an additional 5 minutes.
Serve on a bed of couscous or rice, garnished with a sprinkling of fresh parsley.