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.

Mini Turkey Pot Pies

March 2, 2015

Confession: I’ve never made an actual pot pie. Like with the flaky crust and roux (butter and flour mixture) thickened meat and vegetable filling. It just wasn’t something that was a regular on our dinner table. And given my zabihah-halal dietary restriction, ordering chicken pot pie at any ol’ restaurant just wouldn’t do. But, one day last summer (or was it two summers ago?) I was taking my New York-obsessed-child-prodigy of a niece around the city. After an eventful day of Top of the Rock, TKOs at Bouchon Bakery, and bumping into Naomi Watts in Soho, we were making our way through Chelsea Market and (I) decided we would have a well deserved sit down lunch at the green table.

Everything was so good. I couldn’t eat my salad fast enough. That’s right. The salad. But when my entree came out, it knocked me out of my seat it was so good. A mushroom pot pie. It was so earthy, so filling, so delicious. Not at all bland as I’d envisioned pot pies to be (I’m sorry! It’s just all the times I’ve watched it being made, there were few flavorings beyond chicken stock, salt, pepper and parsley.) This one, I could tell was made with the broth from reconstituting porcini mushrooms. That’s what gave it that special umami note.

I took a shortcut with these little guys since I had some puff pastry sheets in the freezer and 0.0000018394 minutes these days for anything. I didn’t even make a proper roux for the filling. I simply sauteed the awesome Honest Chops ground turkey with onions, carrots and garlic. Added some dried thyme, salt and pepper. Then vegetable stock for moisture and half a package of cream cheese for creaminess. At the end, some frozen peas and chopped parsley for color and pizazz.

I’ve been dying to showcase this beautiful muffin pan from Anthropologie that my dear friend Jaf had gotten me for my birthday ages ago. Oh, Anthropologie, why can’t you have more stuff on sale?

You can pretty much en robe anything in puff pastry and it will be delectable. It’s just the magical combination of butter, flour and salt. But you wouldn’t be surprised if I told you that at our house, these were topped with Sriracha, right? Don’t worry – you have my permission to do the same.

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil (not extra virgin)
1 small yellow onion, diced small
2 thin carrots (or 1 large), diced small
1 lb ground turkey (white meat)
2 large, fresh cloves of garlic, minced (garlic is fresh when the bulbs are held together quite tightly)
3/4 tsp dried thyme
3/4 tsp salt (more or less depending on your stock)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup vegetable or chicken stock (can use water if needed – just check the seasoning at the end)
1/2 cup frozen peas
4 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
2 puff pastry sheets, defrosted (leave it out on the counter for 2 hrs to defrost)
1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray muffin pans with non stick cooking spray.
Heat oil in a large skillet over pretty high heat. Add onions, carrots and meat, breaking up the chunks of meat. Cook until meat is no longer pink, 5-7 minutes. Next add the garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. Stir until thoroughly combined. Add stock and lower the heat to medium. Let cook 2-3 minutes until liquid reduces a bit. Add peas and cook for 1 more minutes. Turn off the heat and add the cream cheese and parsley. Stir until cream cheese has blended in and parsley is incorporated. Set aside.
On a floured surface, roll out one sheet of the puff pastry until it’s slightly larger than the area of the muffin pan. Using a sharp knife, cut out 6 or 12 rectangles, according to the size of your muffin pan. You should get 12 pot pies out of a regular muffin pan, or 24 mini pot pies from a mini muffin pan. Fill each gap with a rectangle of puff pastry, with the corners hanging extending beyond the borders a bit. Add 1 to 2 tbsp of the meat mixture and fold over the corners to cover as much as possible. Do this for all the rectangles. Brush each one with the egg and bake in the preheated oven for about 18-22 minutes. Tops should be golden when done.

Lamb Chops with Spiced Pistachios and Yogurt Dipping Sauce

February 13, 2015

I think I’m like most of you when it comes to lamb chops: straight up with a rosemary and garlic rub. But my copy of Smitten Kitchen’s cookbook had been sitting on the shelf long enough. Sure, I’ve looked through the pages MANY a time to drool at the beautiful, glossy pictures and so earnestly wish I were friends with Deb. But the execution just hadn’t happened. And though I’ve never had pistachio crusted anything before, I did have (almost) all the ingredients on hand for this recipe. Which is rare.

I was lucky I had just enough pistachios left over. You can bet that I was shelling them there were two bodies hovering around me picking them out of the bowl. It worked because I was working with such a small batch (the recipe was written for 6, I had just two lamb chops). And contrary to the directions in the recipe, I crushed the pistachios with a rolling pin instead of a food processor. Does anyone else find it a huge pain in the butt to clean the food processor? Sure, some spices made its way out of the ziploc bag as I banged out the mix, but doing so over a cutting board helped rescue some escapees.

This was the first time I used chaat masala to actually cook something. Chaat masala, for all you non-masala eaters out there, is a South Asian spice mix. It’s bright. It’s funky. It’s spicy. It’s savory. It’s Heather from work. A combination of some usual (cumin, coriander, black pepper) and some unusual (dried mango powder, black salt, asfoetida) ingredients. It usually adorns pani puri, bhel phuri, chatpati, and other street foods that if consumed every day, from actual Dhaka street vendors, over the course of 2 weeks will give you the nastiest stomach bug known to man (truth). I usually put it over fruit and yogurt to make fruit chaat. It’s delightful.

The spices, the cooking method, the superb meat – it’s like when all the pieces come together to make a beautiful work of art!

I have nothing further to add to this glorious hunk of meat. It didn’t even need the yogurt sauce. But. If you do go down that road, make sure to add 1/4 cup of shredded cucumber to make a proper raita. I didn’t have cucumber on hand, but I did have some handy dandy black salt (it’s got a wonderful smokey/savoriness to it that’s hard to imitate).

Recipe adapted from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. I used 1/3 of the recipe for the chops.

Ingredients

Raita

1 cup full fat plain yogurt
a pinch of salt
a pinch of black salt (if you don’t have black salt, do a 1/4 tsp cumin)
2 tbsp minced fresh mint or cilantro leaves
1/4 cup grated cucumber
pinch of cayenne pepper

Chops

1/2 cup shelled pistachios
3 tsp chaat masala
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
pinch of cayenne pepper
6 lamb chops, 3-4 ounces each
salt and pepper
olive oil

Directions

For the raita: mix all the ingredients in a bowl and adjust the seasonings to taste.
For the lamb chops: pulverize the nuts with the spices in a food processor or by putting them in a ziploc bag and beating with a rolling pin. Pour onto a plate and set aside.
Season lamb chops with salt and pepper and let rest for 10-15 minutes. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Heat a cast iron or other heavy skillet over high heat. Add oil. When it’s hot but not smoking, add chops, two at a time. Cook for 2 minutes on each side then place directly onto nuts. Coat in nut mixture then place on baking sheet. Finish cooking the chops in the preheated oven for 5 minutes. Serve with yogurt sauce.

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!

Sausages with Peppers and Onions

January 14, 2015

This past Sunday, my daughter turned 4. There was a time, a dark time, deep in the winter of 2011, when I thought I wouldn’t live to see that day. In my zombie-like state, trying to comfort my colicky baby between bouncing on an exercise ball with white noise machines running and skin to skin contact – her infancy seemed like an eternity. Days kind of melted into each other, with nothing more signaling a new day then the slight shift of the hour hand on our clock. But, thankfully, I did survive those first few months, and apparently first 4 years. And despite all my attempts to outsource the party by hosting it at a charming local art studio – I still had quite a bit to do in the kitchen! From making waffles (with homemade blueberry compote), to the fruit platter, to my homemade Bengali milk tea, and the birthday cake, of course.

So, it was a relief, to be able to whip these Honest Chops sausages up the next day. It’s as easy and popping them on a hot skillet for 3-4 minutes on each side, then DONEZO. Butter up some warm rolls. Make the pepper and onion mixture if you’d like. If not, opt for the usual ketchup & mustard. But I must say, the sweetness of the peppers and onions perfectly complements the savoriness of the sausages. Plus – they’re veggies so this constitutes a complete meal, right? I remember throughout the course of my Italian language education, at San Gennaro festivals or cultural events, sausages with peppers and onions always being a popular, yet out of my reach option (recall I keep halal). But thanks to Honest Chops, I can enjoy and customize the dish to my liking! I topped mine with a cheese sauce but then decided it was better without it. Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 green pepper, core and seeds discarded, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, core and seeds discarded, thinly slice
a pinch dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
Honest Chops sausages
hot dog buns/rolls
butter

Directions

In a large skillet or fry pan, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onion, peppers, oregano, salt and pepper (about 1/2 tsp each) until softened – about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and let caramelize for about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
In a cast iron skillet or non stick skillet, butter the surface and heat over medium heat. Add the buns. Warm through until browned on one side, then flip. When both sides are browned and bun is warmed through, remove from heat. Set aside on a (preferably) warmed plate.
In the same skillet, lightly grease with oil or non stick cooking spray. Add the sausages and do not move for 3-4 minutes (3 minutes for a thinner sausage, 4 for a thicker one). After the allotted time, flip and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes.
Assemble hot dogs: place hot dogs in the buns and top with peppers and onions.

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.