Woking On Sunshine September 27, 2008
Posted by sicatmeow in Fun Gadgets, Recipes.Tags: carrot, chicken, egg, onion, rice, sesami, sirachi, tamari
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I guess I been getting my asian on lately. Got a wok. Now, usually, I am mo patient in the kitchen and I enjoy the projects. But when seasoning my new wok, I thought I would chuck the fiery ass iron out the window onto someone’s cabesa. Lucky R came to my rescue and finished it up for me. Basically, when seasoning a wok, after the initial washing and drying, you wanna wipe a thin coat of veg oil and over a low flame, and heat the metal so it absorbs the oil. First of all, you got to do this 4 times before using. Second of all, if you want an even browning, you have to hold it over the flame to get the sides, I swear you have to be freakin brooke hogan to do that shiv. But you know what? It was worth it, sore arms and all cause shortly after the seasoning debackle, we made some very serious fried rice.
Fried Rice with Carrots, Snow Peas, Chicken and Egg
3 cups cooked white rice (I dare you to try it with brown rice)
handful of snow peas, knotty bits at the end chopped off
1 chicken breast, cubed
1 carrot, sliced
1/2 cup white onion, chopped
2 eggs
1/4 cup tamari sauce (or more if you are into salty)
1/8 cup sesame oil (or more if you are obsessed with that flavor like I am)
sirachi to taste
veg oil for frying
This serves two.
Have all your ingredients cut, ready and accessible cause this shiv is going to go fast like a girl gone wild.
Heat your wok. When the veg oil starts to smoke, throw in your onion and stir like a madman. After 30 seconds, throw in your chicken. It will start to turn white immediately. After 1 minute, add your carrots. One minute later, the snow peas, all the while stirring furiously. When the heat gets back up, toss in your rice. Add tamari, sesame sauce and sirachi. When everything seems to be tasting delicious, make a hole in the middle of the pan and drop your eggs directly onto the wok. Left them fry a bit by continuously giving them real estate on the pan. As the egg hardens, scrape and add to the rice and veg in the pan. Do this until the egg is fully cooked.
Serve immediately in a big ol’ bowl. Offer your guests extra sirachi just in case they like fire mouth.
The key is to have very high heat, so you cook quickly, sear the outside, mainstain crispy veg and make hot food. That’s why the wok is so dope. Hey China, thanks for the wok (you can keep the milk).
Chicky Chicky September 13, 2008
Posted by sicatmeow in Health, Recipes.Tags: bread, carrots, chicken, chipotle, lemon, pickle, spicy, watercress
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In a short-lived attempt to eat less red meat, I been cookin the hell out of some chicken. Chicken is fun to cook with cause you can make it be anything you want. Blank freakin canvas, I always say. So, I thought I would get creative and make up a good ol sarnie. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Pickled Carrots, Watercress and Chipotle Yogurt
thin chicken breasts
juice of 1 lemon
carrots, shredded
the brine of your favorite spicy pickle
watercress
1 10oz plain yogurt (get the kind with active cultures cause they’re good for the vagina)
1 tbs chipotle seasoning
1 tsp cayenne pepper
delish bread of your choosing
salt and pepper to taste
oil for your grill
This serves 2.
Salt, pepper, and squirt lemon juice your chicken cutlets. Toss em on a stovetop grill. Now. This is very important, so listen up. If you want those cool ass grill marks on your meat like you see in the movies, drop your meat on the grill and let it chill for a few minutes. Don’t be all up in its face and moving it around and such or you’ll never sear those precious stripes. Leave it alone.
Anywho. If your chicken was pounded thin or cut thin, it will grill for about 4 minutes on each side, so you better get to workin.
Shred your carrots with the widest shredder you got. Grab your favorite pickles from the fridge. Mines For. Sure. are McClures Spicy Pickles. Hoe Man. Go Get urselves some now.
Anywho. Grab your favorite pickles from the fridges and pour some of the brine over your carrots. Ideally, you would have done this the day before. But, if you’re like me, you didn’t, and the carrots are more mild than you’d like. Set aside.
Grab your yogurt. Throw in the chipotle and cayenne. Mix well. Set aside.
Wash the watercress and dry well.
Cut your bread, throw on a healthy amount of watercress, add the chicken, then the carrots, then the yogurt. Eat and complain that the yogurt was only ALRIGHT. On the real, I would maybe try a different sauce for this. Got any good ideas? Maybe cayenne and paprika? Maybe substitute the yogurt with mayo and use less? Dunno, but don’t lie… that sammich looks real nice.
Jerk O Burgers September 9, 2008
Posted by sicatmeow in Health, Recipes.Tags: burger, chicken, green bean, jerk, soy
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Things that I love include jerk sauce, grillin and farmers market veggies. R and I made a meal last night in 10 minutes flat. In fact, it took longer to eat it than it did to make it. Check it.
Jerk Chicken Burgers and Green Beans with a Mustard Soy Sauce
1.5 – 2 lbs of ground chicken meat, essentially you want two servings worth
1 tbs of that magic jerk sauce I sweat or any jerk sauce you sweat
burger fixins such as lettuce, tomato, onion, etc
your fave burger bun, we did semolina with sesame from the bakery
2 handfuls of green beans
1 heaping tbs of dijon or brown mustard
1/4 cup soy sauce
This serves two.
Mix your chicken and jerk with your fingies well, but do it lightly or the meat will get tough. Form some large patties and place on the grill. We used the one on the stove top. Cook for 6 minutes on each side. While cooking, gather your burger fixins and place the meat. This burger is good with ketchup.
While this is going on, steam your beans lightly – you want them to stay crispy. Mix your soy and mustard. Sauce the beans. Eat. Think about your delicious and juicy, fat-free meal, ya skinny mini.
Rooftop Dumplings August 5, 2008
Posted by sicatmeow in Restaurants.Tags: beef, cabbage, chicken, dumplings, mushroom, pork, sirachi
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Asian again. R and I had dumplings from Eton yesterday for dinner with a cold bottle of white wine on the roof of our apt building. It was such a brooklyn moment that i had to take pics. Plus, much props to Etan, the newly opened dumpling place in Carroll Gardens. The dude that owns it was a personal chef prior to opening his store. The mostly take out place, although he has about 3 tables, dons a hot plate for cookin. A HOT PLATE. He uses a hot plate to make his dumplings. Love how this guy can take like 6 bucks and open a place in bk, hire a few dudes to throw his dough around and make his dumplings from his recipes. $3.50 for 5 dumplings is a deal. Also found out he does catering. Go there.
We had pork and beef, chicken and mushroom, and veggie cabbage. Sauces included a duck sauce, caramelized vinegar, chili oil and Sirachi, all of which here homemade, except for the Sirachi. (remind me to do a whole post on this special sauce.)
Expect a dumpling recipe to come.
Turning A House Into a Home With Homemade Sausage July 22, 2008
Posted by sicatmeow in Fun Gadgets, Projects, Recipes.Tags: BBQ, cheddar, chicken, jerk, pork, sausage, scallion, spicy
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As a home-warming gift to ourselves, R and I got a sausage making attachment for my fancy mixer. We’ve done it twice now, the first time taking about 3 hours longer than our second attempt. What resulted were recipes for the following: Sun-dried Tomato and Jalapeño Chicken, Southwestern Pepper Pork, Scallion and English Cheddar Pork, Jerk Pork, and Bloody Mary Pork. Our second batch was good ol fashioned, Spicy Pork.
We bought chicken breast and pork butt from my second home, Los Paisanos. Cut them in large 2″ chunks and froze the meat, which makes it much easier to grind. Freezing the pork is most important because grinding fat, which is all up in the pork butt, is tough on the machine unless it’s as cold as possible.
We used all natural hog casing preserved in salt. The casings need to soak in cold water for 30 minutes prior to sliding onto the stuffer. The only part of this process that grossed me the hell out was using the casing. For some reason, the smell of the rawness, which is not strong at all, stuck in my nostrils for days. I washed my hands 72 times, but I would still wake up in the middle of the night smelling hog intestines. Will this stop me from becoming the Snausy queen of NY? No.
I don’t have explicit amounts cause we didn’t do it like that. We just perused the fridge, grabbed, chopped or grinded, and threw that shiv together. Here’s the list:
Chicken Sausage: Chicken breast, fresh jalapeño, oil-marinaded sun-dried tomatoes, lots of fresh garlic. All ingredients went through the grinder, pureing it all. No extra fat was added. This caused for a healthy, but crumbly sausage.
Southwestern Pepper Pork: B’s sis came through after her trip through the southwest. She brought a very spicy, sweet, and delish pepper relish. We folded tons of this stuff to the pork and a fresh chopped jalopeno.
Scallion and English Cheddar Pork: This was B’s idea and it was inspired by a traditional sour cream and onion dip. We grinded the scallion and cut the cheese in chunks so that when it cooked, the cheese would be gooey and melty. This was inspired by those crappy cheese stuffed hotdogs.
Jerk Pork: This was my second favorite sausage. But I’m not going to lie to you. The reason why I can’t claim it to be my fave is cause we used a jarred jerk. BUT, I’ll tell you why. This jerk seasoning is so damn delish, it’s the whole don’t fix-it-if-aint-broke thing. Do your self a favor and go buy Grace Jerk Seasoning. Anyway, we added a whole bunch of this spicy goodness to the pork, and damn, all jerked out.
Bloody Mary Pork: Now, this is my ultimate fave, mostly cause the ingredients were most original. We just added the best of what you would add to a Bloody Mary, besides the tomato juice: prepared horseradish, Tabasco, worchester sauce, green olives with pimento, spicy pickled green beans, salt and pepper.
All in all, the sausages were pretty good but they need some improvement. Since they were all pretty cumbly, we decided we would add more fat to the next batch. Also, the flavors could have been a bit more strong, so we’ll double that next time.
Good ol’ Spicy Pork: Our second batch we did a traditional spicy pork sausage with more fat. This time the sausages were perfect in texture, but again, we still need to add more flavor crystals. We added onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne, thyme, mustard powder, salt and fresh black pepper.
In conclusion, making sausage is not all that hard. Making it good, thats another thing. But watch out Jimmy Dean. I’mma comin.
