Eric
Fermented Red Chili, Chicken, and Kimchi
1
Tag Archives: Chicken
Roasted Garam Masala Chicken, Cumin Tempered Quinoa, Garam Masala Crisp.
Eric
Going Mobile…..
I’m going mobile!! I got a new phone courtesy of my brother-in-law working for the best cell phone hardware company out there. This G2 phone is incredible and now I can post on the go. The pictures are decent enough that I am ready to post those as well.
The picture above is of some peppers being dehydrated…..sooooooooo fun!
Here is a picture of chicken I was fabricating about 10 minutes ago……….close to instant posting people…..this….is……awesome!!!
Eric
Wanna Play Chicken?
I use chicken as a practice protein for ideas I have. It’s inexpensive because I buy a whole chicken then just break it down myself and then go from there….stocks are made, nice little airline breasts, dark meat for braising and whatever else I can make into a meal.
In the picture above I’m getting ready to work with duck in the near future but duck is expensive so for now I wanted to see how it would work with chicken…duck breast isn’t cooked like chicken breast but it’s close to the same size and I wanted to see how medallions would look on top of couscous with two broken sauces.
I learned about broken sauces at work….instead of doing those tight sauces that I have learned at school then broken ones look really cool if you have the right things to make it with. At work we do a broken tomato vinaigrette….it’s f’ing delicious.
The dish above is a brined the chicken is sauteed in bacon fat and cut into medallions. It’s sitting on top of glazed leeks and carrots which is sitting on top of coriander cous cous. The broken sauce above is a kale puree (kale that Mindy grew!) mixed with popped brown and yellow mustard seeds. The sauce on the bottom is a broken dijon pan sauce. With duck it will be incredible….pretty awesome with chicken too!
I wanted to work with polenta and one day use transglutaminase to make a roasted chicken piece with skin on that will go below the polenta (rectangle chicken piece). The polenta will be a different shape on the second go -around. The sauce is a take from one at work….brown butter almondine but this uses pumpkin seeds, peaches, and sage……yes, excellent………the one at work is f’ing amazing too! The next time I make this I’m going to use compressed pumpkin instead of peaches.
This is a piquillo pepper polenta cake over a sauteed chicken medallion with a brown butter, sage, pumpkin seed, and peach sauce.
This was a sous vide stew I did one night at 2AM. I put all of the things you see in a plastic bag then vacuum sealed it, cooked it, then seared the chicken. It was pretty good and a good late night snack.
Chicken, the practice meat!
Eric
Pickled Red Chili Pepper/Honey Glazed Chicken and more…..
Here’s a little of what’s going on here.
I did a soy/ginger/shallot/sesame seed sous vide of some of Mindy’s carrots and some green beans.
I brined the chicken in rice vinegar, sugar, and ginger. I removed the chicken from the brine then did a hard sear of the skin then through it in the oven and basted it with a pickled red chili pepper and honey glaze that I made. When then chicken was about to be finished I through some green onions in the pan from Mindy’s garden….
They picked up the sticky glaze so I was able to mold them how I wanted and they were a little crispy too….awesome.
I removed the chicken and then reduced the sauce in the pan.
The rice is a made with black sesame seeds then some rice vinegar is folded in once it’s done….sushi style.
I eat pretty well at 2AM.
Eric
Roasted Chicken with a Mango/Togarashi Glaze with Ginger Rice and Yellow Bell/Carrot Topper
I had some of that honey mango puree leftover from the scallop “carpaccio” so I decided to make it into a glaze to put on some chicken. ”Wow Eric, you’re like McGyver in the kitchen without things going all explody time.
The glaze started off with a little chicken stock then I reduced it, added togarashi, added cornstarch then finally added the honey mango puree. I used the glaze on the chicken and to cook the carrots and yellow bell pepper.
The carrots and yellow bell pepper were cooked in sesame oil on low heat then the glaze was introduced. Carrots and bell, this is glaze. Glaze, this is carrots and bell.
I chopped up a bunch of ginger then used some sweet sushi rice and put it in the rice maker with a touch of salt. If you eat this by itself then it’s nothing to write on a blog about but paired with carrots and yellow bell it’s quite amazing.
After the chicken was roasted I deglazed the pan with some whiskey then added some of the glaze to make the final sauce on the plate.
Green onions garnish, sauced plate, food is ready!
Eric
Cookbook: Minnie Rose Lovgreen’s Recipe for Raising Chickens
Mindy wants a farm one day. I’m not the farming type but I have to do what she says so I can keep getting amazing micro-greens for my plating. She used to have chickens when she grew up in Lacey so I have always been intrigued with the process.
I received an e-mail a few weeks ago from NW Trillium Press about this book. I think it’s the perfect time to re-release it. More people, myself included, have interests in controlling their own food supply. The problem is that there is a lot of information but nobody to tell it with a no-nonsense approach.
Minnie Rose Lovgreen does just that in her Recipe For Raising Chickens book. I have read it twice now and I’m pretty sure that you could raise anything using her advice. Roosters acting up? Give them a swat or as my mom would call it, a chancletaso (swat with a sandal for a disruptive Eric). ”The main thing is to keep them happy”. There are all these little gems of information that go beyond raising chickens, it’s pretty amazing.
The book was originally handwritten by Nancy Rekow which in this day is unheard of. I always wondered about those penmanship classes in school but I finally see what they were talking about, Nancy’s handwriting is really nice and ads to the character of the book.
It’s only 31 pages long but there is enough information in it for you to get started with your chicken farming. If you want a copy of your own then just check out NW Trillium Press (click).
Eric
Here is a note from Nancy Rekow:
Hi Eric,
Just saw your posting about our book, MINNIE ROSE LOVGREEN’S RECIPE FOR RAISING CHICKENS. Thanks ever so much for understanding and praising the book. And you’re right. Minnie Rose saw so much beyond just raising chickens. I’m Nancy, Minnie Rose’s friend who tape-recorded the book back in 1975. When she talked into my tape-recorder about getting hens to lay well, she spoke the words, “The main thing is to keep them happy.” What wisdom for all situations! So right away I said, “Minnie Rose, that’s your subtitle for the book.” And so it was. As for my hand-lettering in the book, it’s not so much that I was carefully taught penmanship. It’s more that I was always fascinated with books and words and type, so learned to experiment with handwriting. (Also I’d taught first grade for several years, so had printed a lot of words!) No wonder I’m now a writer, editor, publisher.
Anyway, thanks a bunch!Nancy Rekow
Random items
My sister and her husband invited me and Mindy over the other night. They were hungry, I cooked something. I wasn’t going over there to cook in the first place but that’s what I do when people are hungry, I cook. The difficulty with cooking at someone else’s house is that you don’t know what they do or don’t have. The difficulty with cooking at your sister’s house is that she is the opposite of me. She doesn’t cook at all but she does know her way around a wine rack or two…..if things go right she will be my sommelier one day….she just needs to start school soon…..Wait what? Yeah, my sister is thinking about going to sommelier school. Keep things in the family.
What you see above in the picture is a grilled chicken with dijon buerre blanc. Normally I would reserve that sauce for fish but it works fine with boneless skinless chicken breast…..no fat so it needs flavor! It is on a bed of fingerling potatoes made with rendered genoa salami, peaches, and basil…you think that sounds weird? Taste it, tell me about your experience….best potatoes ever?? Who knows….just another version 1.0.
Need someone to get rid of extra ingredients during the week? Meet Sunday Staff Meal Rivera. Hey Eric, I want you to cook with this or this and make it good. Sounds good. This week was extra fine Chinese noodles. I caramelized brown sugar then added pineapples, ginger, hoisin, plum sauce, soy sauce, and a little bit of sambal olek to make a sauce. Saute the hell out of the chicken, cook the noodles, combine them all, garnish with green onions and cilantro with a little dash of sriracha (THE ROOSTER). Lunch is ready!
Eric
“Yeah, I’ll have the 8 piece fried chicken with champagne”
Awesome, have a seat this is going to take a little while.
“What, why?”
Well, I’m going to brine the chicken in a salt, brown sugar, and pepper solution for a few hours.
“Brine?”
It’s awesome, trust me.
“Alright, but I don’t have all day…”
Believe me, it will be worth it. I’m gonna brine that chicken then I’ll pour you a glass of champagne.
“So what kind of champagne are you going to serve?”
Huh, I guess it’s technically not champagne……those French people are a little weird. Anyway, it’s a rose sparkling wine to be “correct”. It’s good, that’s all you need to worry about. Champagne, sparkling wine, fermented grapes with carbonation….who cares, just drink it.
“Oh alright, I guess I’ll try it, I was expecting champagne”
I can say a couple words in French if it makes you feel better.
“That’s rude”.
Sorry, I don’t really understand the whole wine thing. However, this sparkling wine is a 92 point on some magazine…..Does that do anything for you?
“I love 90+ point wines so this will do”.
*cough* F’ing snob *cough*
“What was that?”
Oh nothing, so do you want this now or with dinner?
“Dinner is fine”.
Cool, hey let me whip up a quick salad for you while you wait. It’s a spring salad with goat cheese, diced strawberries, candied meyer lemon, and elderflower vinaigrette. It’s no 90 point wine but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
“This is really good! I can do without the wine comments though”
Sorry, I just get a little bent out of shape sometimes. You like spicy food? I was going to fry off the chicken wings early so you can have a little preview before the chicken comes, is that cool with you?
“Yeah, I love spicy!”
Alright, it’s a spicy wing with recao hot sauce, my own by the way, a little tabasco, lime, and cilantro. Let me know what you think.
“Geez, you went a little crazy with the sauce on the plate but it’s great”.
Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking…….Oh, fancy wings!!!! I’ll just keep it simple next time. I’m going to season the chicken real quick, I’ll be back.
Chicken is removed from the brine and run under water and left to dry. The it is seasoned with I’ll never tell you spices. Then lightly dusted with flour and put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. It’s removed, then I ran it through some spiced flour, into eggs, then into seasoned Panko, then back to eggs, flour, eggs, flour, and finally Panko (this gives it a nice layer of crunch). The chicken is then placed back in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Canola oil is placed in a large skillet, then pieces of chicken are placed in large skillet, cooked on one side then the entire pan goes into the oven at 400F until the meat is done. This is a better way to go than deep frying, the flavor develops more and you end up with a crispy crunchy piece of fried chicken.
I’m gonna serve up some waffle fries with this. I have something special I want you to try.
“Ok, uh sure”.
Alright, here you go fried chicken, champagne, with a tomato powder, urfa biber infused honey, enjoy.
“Urfa what?”
Don’t worry about it, just try it.
“Ok”
What do you think?
“I’ve never had anything like this, it’s great”.
Awesome, thanks! Here’s the tab by the way, just pay whenever you’re ready.
“YOU WANT HOW MUCH!?!??!?!?”
Hey man, that sparkling wine is expensive and this food didn’t cook itself. 
Eric
Sauteed Chicken with Braised Kale and Dutch Potato Chips
Kale is way to healthy for me. I’m not a big fan of the way healthy food is marketed. You always hear about all the great things….possible cancer prevention, amounts nutrients, vitamins, weight loss potential and all that jazz. My first question when someone goes on a healthy food product freak out is, HOW DOES IT TASTE?!?!??!?
Raw kale is gross. I’ve seen people put it in a smoothie then add 8 billion other ingredients in the smoothie to make it ridiculously unhealthy. Wait a second though, don’t be fooled here, I’m not a health food blogger. I’m not going to do a bunch of yo-yo dieting or tell you about how you can change your lifestyle by doing obvious things like “dieting” and “working out” so I can keep your attention and you can get inspired by my experience. I think about doing stuff like that all the time so this blog can finally take off……I won’t though, I cook!
There are nutrition density charts that say kale is one of the healthiest things you can eat. Kale, today is your day to be knocked down a few notches, I’m tired of you doing nothing and getting all the credit.
Take some kale and cook it like some collard greens. Render some bacon, pull the bacon bits out, cook some onions, celery, and carrots then deglaze with white wine and add vegetable stock then add the kale and through it in the oven at 325F until it starts to wilt. Wait, that’s not so unhealthy…….. YOU WIN TODAY KALE!!!!!
The chicken is brined then salt and peppered. Sauteed in duck fat skin side down first until the skin is crispy then flipped over and finished in the oven.
The dutch potatoes are sliced thin on a mandoline. Deep fried then salted and peppered.
A light pan gravy is made with the chicken/duck fat. I leaned it out with pickled mustard seed juice then poured a little bit over the dish to bring it all together but not overpower.
All of this sounded way to healthy so I made some creme brulee for me, Mindy, my sister and her husband.
Oh yeah!!!!!
Eric
Roasted, Sous Vide, and Pureed Corn Soup
I love clean soups. I love clear soups even more but I decided to bring a few experiments together in order extract the most amount of corn flavor into a soup. What this ends up being at the end could be called a creamed corn soup but I think it’s a bit more than that.
I saw Heston Blumenthal do something similar to cauliflower except for his was a dish where he used a puree, a sauteed piece, and a roasted piece. I wanted to do the same 3 way play but decided to make a soup and substitute the sautee for sous vide. Why the sous vide? It allowed me to keep all of the juices from the corn intact while I played with the other techniques being used in the soup.
I started by roasting some corn in the oven with a little butter, salt, and pepper. Once the corn was done roasting I removed the kernels then pureed them, the strained them. I put chicken stock in a pot then added the roasted kernel juice. The soup was left to simmer while I had more corn in its vacuum sealed temperature controlled water bath (sous vide). Then I took some raw corn and made a puree then strained then added it to the simmering soup.
When the soup was nearing completion I sauteed some leeks in butter to use as a garnish. I had previously noted on this chicken stock that I used leeks so this would be a nice finishing touch….the green looks pretty cool floating around.
I prepared a piece of baguette with Beecher’s flagship cheese, thyme oil (prepared a few days ago), leeks, salt and pepper then broiled it until the cheese melted. I was going to cube it and throw it in the soup but I wanted a nice clean soup so I made the decision to serve it on the side as more of a dipping bread.
The soup was ready for the sous vide corn so I pureed it, strained it then added it to the soup along with some cream. I would love to learn how to make an essence of corn but I will save that for another time.
The cream helped thicken the soup a little bit which is what I was looking for. I adjusted the seasonings of the soup with a little salt and pepper then plated, garnished, and served. Everything worked the way I wanted to but I will explore different plating options next time.
Eric
Steamed Buns with Sauteed Brined Chicken, Lemongrass Chicken Glace, and Hoisin/Rooster Sauce
Like I said in a previous post. I’m working on a few techniques so the final product really isn’t that much of a concern but once again, this turned out great. I’m stealing all the plays from that Momofuku cookbook and I am starting to deviate from it in order to make things my own. That’s how things work in this cooking world.
(I just deleted a three paragraph rant…..blah blah blah)
The basic make up of this dish is from the Momofuku cookbook. I have added the Lemongrass Chicken Glace, jicama, carrots, and substituted pork belly for chicken (I was brining it at the time). These additions aren’t needed but are nice. The steamed bun idea is genius and I will be making them from scratch soon….so stay tuned.
Also, I’m keeping the procedure for the chicken sauce for myself. I’ll give you the ingredients but not much more.
Ingredients:
- Chicken drum sticks and thighs brined in sugar/salt mixture then drained and topped with salt and pepper then sauteed and finished in the oven then pulled apart
- Jicama, thinly sliced
- Carrots, thinly sliced
- Green onions, thinly sliced
- Cucumbers, quick pickled
- Cilantro
- Hoisin
- Sriracha (THE ROOSTER)
- Lemongrass Chicken Glace: Chicken stock (reduced a ton), lemongrass, japones peppers, brown sugar, galangal root, kaffir lime leaves, ginger, szechuan pepper, cornstarch
- Steamed buns (wow, what a pain in the butt these were to find)
Procedure:
- Combine all ingredients on freshly steamed buns and arrange as shown.
United Way of King County’s Hunger Action Week: Braised Chicken on Carrot and Leek Bed with Herbed Potatoes
I had a chance to actually cook something and not just eat a sandwich with tomato and lettuce, and a homemade mayonnaise (1 cup canola oil + 1 egg). I was excited because I knew I would have leftovers from this meal or so I thought.
Snacking isn’t really a big for me because I normally eat bigger meals through the day. I’m not on a diet or anything so I don’t really pay attention to what I eat or when I eat it but as this hunger week is going on those little snacks are starting to become necessity and I’m really starting to look forward to when the food is ready. I take a lot of time when I cook because I want it to turn out right and I pretty much have 60% of the use of my left hand since that injury at work.
When things take longer I notice myself rummaging through the food that was set away from the hunger challenge. If I eat this celery stick will it be enough for the soup tomorrow? If I eat this carrot will it be enough for the carrot puree the next day? Normally, celery sticks or carrot sticks are indispensable but I actually have to have them planned for something it makes things a little more stressful. I do have money to buy more but I don’t want to just gorge myself and jump away from my plans.
I started this chicken dish by pouring a little clarified butter (click here) into a 10 inch cast iron pan with 4 inch high sides. I set the oven to 250F then dusted a little bit of kosher salt and black pepper on top of the chicken.
I took the chicken and placed it in the hot cast iron pan with butter then proceeded to sear each side until I achieved a golden brown color. It gives a nice crispy texture and contrary to popular belief it does nothing to “trap in the juices” (don’t sear it then weight it before and after and you will find that you lose the same amount of juices when you sear it). Searing the meat on the outside is more about texture than juices.
While the meat was searing I did a little chopping, slicing, and a concasse of tomato (click). Below you see the leeks, carrrots, and the tomato concasse. All three give a depth of flavor and will later be served with the dish as the accompanying vegetable. Normally I will toss the vegetables that were seared with the meat then during the last 30 minutes of cooking add fresh vegetables to the braise but like I said, I want to eliminate waste, if it’s edible then I would rather eat it than throw it in the trash.
The chicken is looking like it’s just about to the color and texture I want so I started placing the vegetables in the pot along with 1 1/2 cups of that chicken stock I made. The key is the have liquid going about 3/4 of the way up on the meat and making sure the liquid stays at that amount so having a another 1/2 cup to 3/4 of a cup of stock is a must. I made about a gallon of chicken stock from the 1 chicken carcass so using a maximum of 2.25 cups is no big deal.
Vegetables on are on, stock is in, cast-iron pan goes in the oven for 2-3 hours. You can actually cook it longer if you want. This would be great a dish for a crock pot but you can’t sear in a crock pot and having crispy anything is delightful so go with this method instead. After about an hour or two I start prepping the potatoes.
Nothing crazy, just some fresh herbs, a little clarified butter, salt, pepper, and a touch of white wine vinegar.
I cover the potatoes with foil and place them in the oven until they are tender. At this point I remove the cast -iron pan and strain the juice out of the pan. I place it in a smaller pan and reduce the juices by 50% then add a little bit of flour to thicken it. Normally I would add wine to the mix to give the sauce more flavor but that’s not an option.
The sauce is to the right consistency so I take some whole butter and slowly work it into the sauce to finish it off. I know what you’re thinking, “sounds like you use a lot of butter through this whole recipe”. It sounds like it but I have only used about 2-3 tbsp. total….for everything.
I plate ti all up and pour some of that sauce over the chicken then ta-da! Worth the wait, inexpensive, and definitely not a lame tomato and lettuce sandwich.
I make this dish completely different when I can use whatever I want. To compare check this out (click).
Here are a few words from the United Way of King County about hunger.
Many local food banks don’t have enough capacity to store all of the fresh and frozen produce they receive and are frequently forced to turn it away. You can help by supporting “Yes We Can,” a project which will help a local cannery save fresh foods that might otherwise perish. The newly canned food will be distributed to local food banks, reducing their need to purchase such items, and helping hungry people access healthy food. The project is a partnership of United Way of King County, the South King County Food Coalition and Northwest Harvest. Click here to give and learn more about this innovative program.
|
|||||
|
|||||
United Way of King County’s Hunger Action Week: 3+ meals in 1
Chicken, it’s inexpensive, filling, and is an easily manipulated item in the kitchen.
One of the things I looked forward to in culinary school was learning how to butcher my own food. I didn’t go out and kill the chicken myself but I do know how to break it down so I can save myself some money and use every part of the chicken order to eliminate waste.
I cut up this chicken into 5 pieces so I can have a 2 breasts, a leg and thigh connected, and finally the carcass with remaining meat for a flavorful stock. Instead of buying smaller pieces of chicken like I did last year I can now control what I want to eat and how I want to eat it while saving the maximum amount of money. There are more ways to break down a chicken but I felt for two adults this way will allow us to eat a few substantial meals while on a slim budget for the week.
There will be lots more coming up on this blog throughout the week for Hunger Action Week so stay tuned. If you like what’s going on here or even if you don’t and you hate me then just forget about that and donate to the United Way of King County. My words, pictures, and recipes don’t matter. Making sure someone has something to eat for their next meal is important, you can help.
United Way of King County (click here)
Here is a little more information about how hunger from the United Way of King County:
| Hunger is on an alarming rise in our state. The number of households that are financially stretched to the point where they can’t be certain that everyone will have enough to eat has increased by 13%
In Washington state, 112,000 households now meet the definition for hunger—”very low food security”? and rates of hunger are higher in households with children. Read the new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and join us as we take action against hunger. How you can help:
|
|||||
|
|||||
Roasted Chicken Halves on Leek, Carrot Bed with Herbs De Provence Potatoes with Pickled Mustard Seed Pan Gravy
Mindy’s dad is in town and we rarely get to see him. She told me he really likes chicken so I decided to put on a little show. Oh, he also brought me a bunch of cast-iron pans so I had to put them to the test!
The pan gravy isn’t pictured but it was a monster sauce, so many textures and layers to it….actually, everything in this dish had a lot of textures and layers. The pickled mustard seed…..David Chang is a f’ing genius….if you haven’t picked up a copy of MOMOFUKU then you’re not really cooking. Yeah, that good.
Ingredients:
Chicken
- 1 whole chicken, cut in half with sternum, wishbone, and back bone removed
- Duck fat, uh huh
- Kosher salt and crushed black pepper
Braised Leeks and Carrots
- White through light green parts only, cut into 6-8 inch long pieces about 1/2 inch wide
- Carrots, peeled, then with peeler makes cuts to equal same size as leeks
- 1 garlic clove peeled
- White wine
- Chicken Stock
- Shallot, 1/4 thick shavings
- Clarified butter
- Fresh Thyme
- Herbs de provence, dry mix
- Salt and pepper, tt
- Picked mustard seeds
Potatoes
- Red Potatoes, quartered
- Clarified butter
- Herbs de provence, dry mix
- Salt and pepper, tt
Pan Gravy
- Flour
- Drippings used from every pan except for the potatoes
- I made a smaller fortified sauce to lean this out. It was a reduction featuring the mustard seeds, shallots, parsley stems, dijon, and a chicken glace de viande
Procedure:
- Would you make this or am I just wasting my time posting a long procedure? Let me know if you want it.
- Enjoy
Eric
