A Passage to Indian

I had my first Thanksgiving dinner of the week last night and it was remarkably tasty. Shlee found an Indian-inspired/flavored Thanksgiving menu in a recent Food & Wine magazine; so she and Eric and Tommy and I decided to take recipes, prepare them, then get together and have at it. We made almost the entire suggested menu, excepting a Rosewater and Mango cocktail and Indian popcorn. If you enjoy Indian food at all, you should try this. (The pumpkin and yellow split pea soup that Eric brought is delish. The roasted curried butternut squash and chick peas is going to become a staple...I let my mom sample some...she's not the most adventurous eater, but she loved it. Tommy's chai caramel fondu was just decadent...and it's perfect with bananas.) It was one of the best at home, sit-down meals I've had in years. We ate until we were near-immobile. It was beautiful. The yogurt-and-spice marinaded turkey breast (Shlee's first turkey ever) was perfect: moist on the inside with a lovely crisped skin. I'm convinced that the marinade must enhance the properties of tryptophan because we all just zombied out for a bit, marshalling our stregnth until we could tackle the dessert course. Seriously...hit the hyperlink and check it. They also have two other full menus...so who knows what you might find.

Mmmmm Tasty

From Yahoo News.

Reuters Photo

Kitchen Bit

A few months ago I was obsessed with finding the perfect fried chicken recipe--I tried several, combined several, but am still in search. I found a recipe that claimed it had replicated KFC's proprietary blend of 11 herbs and spices. It made for an okay coating, but wasn't great--it was very aromatic but the flavors didn't carry through. I decided to adapt it as a brine to use before roasting or grilling. I experiemented and made a few tweaks but I've found the blend that suits me. So, I'm putting it up here. We still have a few weeks of grilling season left and are heading into fall and winter when roasting a chicken doesn't also entail roasting yourself.

Brine for Chicken

2.5 quarts of water
1/3 cup salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 bay leaves
1 T paprika
1 t black pepper (ground)
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion powder
1 t basil
1 t oregano
1 t allspice (ground)
1 t sage
¾ t chili powder
¾ t celery seed (ground)
½ t thyme
½ t savory
½ t dry mustard
1 carrot, washed and chopped

Note: I process all my spices and herbs (excepting the bay leaves) through a spice grinder before adding to the mix. Maybe it’s some culinary version of the placebo effect, but it seems to intensify the flavor.

Combine 1.5 quarts of water and all ingredients in a large pot. Stir well to incorporate and bring to a low boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes. Remove from heat. Allow to cool. Add remaining quart of cold water.

If brining a whole chicken brine from 4-6 hrs. If brining bone-in chicken pieces brine only 2-3 hours. For boneless, an hour to an hour and a half should be sufficient. Over-brining can make chicken rubbery or too salty.

We're Like Kristall

Checking out at Eddie's the other day I saw bottles of this Kristall Pear soda in the coolers. It was a sheer impulse buy...just something to sip at walking back to the apartment. It's great stuff. It doesn't taste artificial like a lot of fruit sodas. You don't really taste the pear until it's further back on the tongue; a little tart, not overly carbonated, really mild. When we were grabbing some last minute things yesterday I checked to see what other flavors they had--sadly just pear and lingonberry (the company also makes raspberry, orange, apple and black currant sodas.)

Cookie Cookie Cookie Starts with "C"

Brian has a habit of calling me Donna Reed when I'm on a cooking binge. (Either that or my penchant for house dresses, aprons and pearl necklaces.) He's coming for a visit next weekend and since I couldn't make it to Baltimore for his birthday I've gone into baking mode. Today I made Macadamia Nut Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookies (I've come to realize that I also have a habit of making things with multiple chocolates.) Anyway--here's the recipe--it's a riff on the one my mom used when I was a kid.

Macadamia Nut Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Wet Ingredients

5 T. Butter
5 T. Shortening
1/2 C. light brown sugar, tightly packed
1/2 C. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsps. Vanilla extract
2 T. milk (I prefer buttermilk)

Dry Ingredients
1 1/2 C All-purpose Flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
optional add-in: 2/3 cup cocoa powder

Chocolate and Nuts

1 4 oz. bar Semi-Sweet chocolate (I prefer Ghiradelli's)
1 4 oz. bar White Chocolate
1 4 oz bar Bittersweet Chocolate (I prefer the 60% cacao bars)
4 oz macadamia nuts

preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Chop nuts and chocolate bars into chunks and set aside.

Cream together butter, shortening and sugars until fluffy and increased in volume. Add vanilla. Add eggs one at a time; beat until well combined. Add milk.

Sift in dry ingredients a little a time, mixing slowly.

Fold in chocolate chunks and nuts with a spatula as gently as possible.

Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets. It might help to spray your spoon with Pam or occasionally wet it--it's very sticky. Wet or Pam your fingers and gently press down dough to flatten slightly. Batter should be dropped about 3" apart--it can spread like crazy if its too warm.

Bake for 10-12 minutes--cookies should look slightly underdone. Let them sit on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to finish cooling.

A Few Notes:

I usually split the dough before folding in the chocolate chunks and nuts and sift in 1/3 cup of cocoa to make a half batch of these in a chocolate variety.

You can use either all butter or all shortening--I've just found that a split between the two gives a better finished cookie. All butter tends to spread out more when baking and all shortening seems a little too crumbly to me.

Use the chocolate of your choice--around here the best I've found in grocery stores is the Ghiradelli's--it chops easily into nice chunks. Other baking chocolates I've found make curls and shred. The cookies are still tasty--but there's just something about seeing huge chunks of chocolate and nuts.

Since the recipe calls for baking soda as a leavener I prefer buttermilk--it reacts with the soda and gives a lighter texture than sweet milk does. It also negates a little bit of the alkaline taste.

If you don't want to deal with such a wet dough (or you want a chewier cookie consistency) refrigerate the dough for about 20-30 minutes before baking.

Parchment paper is a gift from god. Due to the amount of chocolate in the cookies the paper makes a much easier cleanup than using a bare pan does. It also helps minimize spreading.

Makes about 40 cookies.

Mmmmm, Fierce!

I've been manic about hydration the past few days and moreso with starting the Z-pack. I picked up one of the big 32 oz jugs of Gatorade Fierce Grape. Usually I like the Riptide Rush, but there was none in stock. So I went with the Fierce.

This is some good stuff. It tastes like those big chewy grape Sweet-Tarts. It looks purplish in the bottle--due I think to the red/orange labeling--but once it's in a glass you realize it's this strange dark blue. A color not found in nature. It's heaven in a glass.

Pie

I gave in last night to my inner Betty (no...not that betty [shudder] this one) and baked a couple of pies. A Shoo Fly and a Fudge Pie. (For some reason I channeled Aaron for a second and giggled saying fudge pie out loud.) Both are over the top rich and very very satisfying. I think if I ate more than a small slice I'd go into shock. But they fit the bill.

I decided to get my Irish on early and do corned beef and cabbage for dinner. We'll see how it goes. I'm starting with a plain brisket and going into uncharted territory. Now if I only had a bottle of Jameson's or Powers' whiskey around the house...but alas, no booze.

Dreamed last night about a plane crash in the neighbor's field. Highly unpleasant. Later had a short dreamlet involving book cases and Jack Spicer's Collected Books volume.

Ephemera

Went out today to get some deadheading and weeding done before the rains come. Breezy out, warm, lots of birdsong. The earth isn't quite so warm you can smell it yet...but it's close. I love those couple of weeks when even the grass and its tight little mats of leaf and root and sod can't contain that scent. I've been thinking of it a lot the last few days--what that scent is exactly; why it acts on me the way it does; how much longer it will be before it's here. Soon, I keep telling myself, in this and so many other things, soon.

Big crocuses have opened up since yesterday. They are alarming--rich violet and amazingly orange stamens and pistils. So hard to find just the right word to describe the intensity of that orange without being cliche. So let me just say: they're really damned orange.

Fletcher is the gift that keeps on giving. Returned from my labors to find a single dead shrew-like thing. Since the weather's improved the cats have been far happier. Like me they get cabin fever. So the more agreeable temps. and conditions have allowed them more time outside to climb and hunt and do what they do. It's drawn down their "running of the circuit"--during the coldest snowiest weather they were prone to making high-speed kidney shaped runs through the house beginning in the kitchen, into the living room and bath and back. They'd do this two or three times in a row then go off somewhere and collapse. It could be the warm weather and their free time outside or it could be the liberal doses of catnip I've been giving them. Either way, we all seem more content.

I'm in the mood to bake. I've been craving starch all week--potatoes particularly. I hate when I get these highly specialized cravings. It makes me feel out of whack. Maybe some pie or another batch of molasses cookies will help. (This recipe from epicurious is fabu. Delicious, spicy, and a perfect texture for dunking in coffee. M'm M'm good. I recommend giving the dough a thorough chill before working with it--very very sticky.)

Bummer SASE news--but that just means another round in the mail Monday.

Happy Year of the Fire Pig!

To celebrate, I'm going to share a tasty pork ribs recipe. It's a riff of a recipe found at epicurious.com. See the original here. Part of my changes are for taste (I prefer chinese five spice to plain star anise; found the original glaze a little too sweet and thought that essentially brining the ribs in the cooking liquid would add extra flavor and juiciness) and part is due to a lack of some equipment (a wok.) Either way--they're tasty. It's a great website if you're into cooking and want to find something a little different.

ORANGE-GINGER GLAZED RIBS

For the Ribs:

2 pounds pork spareribs (boneless) 3-4 lbs if bone-in
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 T grated fresh ginger
4 green onions, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 tsp Chinese Five Spice Powder

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For the Glaze:

1/2 cup chicken broth
3 T. Soy Sauce
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
Zest of 1 orange
1 tsp. Sambal or other chili paste (or to taste)
2 T minced fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
2 T canola oil

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Sesame seeds and sesame oil (for serving)

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Combine, 1/4 cup soy sauce, sliced ginger, green onions and chinese five spice and about 1 qt. water in a dutch oven or other large oven-safe pan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add ribs to marinate in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight. Before cooking add enough water to insure ribs are covered. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Simmer until ribs are cooked through, about 30 minutes for boneless, add another 15 to 20 minutes for bone-in. Cool to room temperature in cooking liquid. Drain ribs.

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

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Combine chicken broth, soy sauce, sugar, orange zest, ginger, garlic and oil in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat and allow to cook until slightly thickened. Pour glaze over ribs in dutch oven. Bake glazed ribs in oven for about 30-45 minutes or until you’re happy with the thickness of the glaze.

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Toss with sesame seeds and drizzle with a little sesame oil before serving.