Spanish Roast Chicken with Romesco and Grilled Onions

I'm not sure how or why I ended up deciding that roast chicken or roast duck would be the perfect meal for New Years Eve, but I got it in my head that I wanted to roast a whole bird of some sort and I went to Fairway to buy both.  And then I looked at the recipes I wanted to make and decided that we would make the chicken for New Years Eve and make the duck on January 1.  We had to re-evaluate the duck and push it back until the weekend because the bourbon-pickled jalapenos need to pickle for 3 days so I'll report back sometime this weekend on how the duck worked out.  I'm pretty excited.  

Anyway, it has been a long time since we last roasted a whole chicken.  For the most part we roast bone-in chicken breasts because it is far less time and labor-intensive than roasting a whole chicken.  It also seems a little wasteful to roast a whole chicken when I'm really only interested in the breasts.  But every once in awhile we give it a shot.  And this recipe has me totally inspired to go out and roast more whole chickens.  It was delicious - the smoked paprika rub gave the chicken a really wonderful smoky, earthy flavor.  We were both a little worried when we pulled the chicken from the oven that it would be totally overdone (just look at how brown the skin is) but it wasn't at all.  The chicken was moist and juicy.  And when you ate it with the romesco (which was wonderfully smoky, bright and acidic and ever so slightly spicy) it was delicious.  I also loved the grilled scallions on the side.  We had some king oyster mushrooms in the fridge that I wanted to use so we threw them on the grill too while we were grilling up the scallions.  They kind of look like sunchokes in the picture, but they were mushrooms.  I can't wait to bust this recipe out at some future date.  There is more than enough romesco for 2 whole chickens.  I think if I were to have 4-6 people over I would cook two chickens, double the number of scallions, grill up some more mushrooms and serve it all with a salad and some nice bread.  Done.  Maybe I would start off the meal with some cheese and some Marcona almonds, but it would be a totally wonderful and relatively simple meal.  Now that I am back into the whole roast chicken game, there is an Ina Garten roast chicken recipe that I have been meaning to try for awhile that might just be my next attempt...

Recipe after the jump!

Black Pepper Tofu

This recipe is easily (and unequivocally) our favorite dish we have made from this cookbook.  Alex and I were unanimous on that point.  And I think both of us reached the decision independent of the other within minutes of taking our first bites of the tofu.  Everything in the cookbook has been very interesting and very unique.  I can honestly say that we don't have a single other cookbook that combines flavors and ingredients in the way that Plenty does.  But not everything has been something that I would make again.  I would make this recipe again and again.  It is delicious.  I would make a few modifications to the recipe.  For one, the original recipe calls for 11 tbsp of butter.  That is an insane amount of butter.  We used about one-third that amount (and substituted 2 tbsp of vegetable oil for 2 tbsp of butter).  We also cut down on the amount of black pepper that the recipe called for because it also sounded slightly excessive.  And then we made one last substitution/alteration - the recipe calls for mild red chilis but the only red chilis I could find at the grocery store were all fairly spicy - cayennes, fresno chilis and cherry peppers.  So we just lazily seeded them and went with it.  I mean, it's not like we used habaneros or anything, but none of those chilis are particularly mild.  One alteration that I wish we had made is to only use the scallion greens for the recipe, or to add the whites to the dish much earlier to cook them down a bit so that they lost a little of their harshness.  I guess another alternative would be to chop the scallions much finer and to potentially use fewer scallions overall (maybe thinly slicing the white and green parts and using say 10 scallions instead of 16 would be enough to tone it down).  Adding the such large hunks of raw scallion at the very end leads to some aggressive onion-y flavor that I wish had been toned down just a bit.  But the flavors of the sauteed shallots, chilis, garlic, etc was delicious.  And it went very nicely with the fried cubes of tofu.  I loved the texture of the tofu cubes - crisp exteriors with soft, pillowy interiors - and the flavor of the sauce, which was sweet, but savory and spicy.  It was absolutely wonderful.  You definitely want to serve this tofu with white rice to soak up the flavors of the sauce because it is delicious.

Recipe after the jump!

Watermelon, Green Onion and Mint Salad

While I ate this salad the only thing that came to mind was that this is the most savory watermelon salad we have ever made. And that's not a complaint - it's merely a statement of fact. I know I have proclaimed other watermelon salads as being very savory (like this Watermelon, Cucumber and Feta Salad), but this one took the cake.  With all of the herbs and the jalapeno this watermelon salad was just incredibly savory.  And it's a little surprising considering that this watermelon salad contained no cheese (which I tend to find inherently savory).  I really expected it to be a little sweeter and less savory.  I guess I was wrong.  Part of the "blame" for the level of savoryness might fall on the watermelon itself because it wasn't the absolute sweetest watermelon we have ever purchased, but I really think it was the combination of jalapenos, scallions, mint and parsley.  And beyond the combination of those ingredients, it was the proportions of those herbs and peppers - if you just look at the picture you can tell that the watermelon was liberally coated in herbs and stuff.  We served the salad as a side dish with Mario Batali's Leo Maya's Chicken with Green Sauce.  It made for a very bright and summery meal.

Recipe after the jump!


Watermelon, Green Onion and Mint Salad

Bon Appetit

July 2003

INGREDIENTS:

5 cups 3/4- to 1-inch cubes seeded watermelon

1 cup chopped green onions

3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped seeded deveined jalapeño chiles

1/4 cup olive oil (we only used 2-3 tbsp at most)

2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar

Combine watermelon, green onions, mint, parsley, and chiles in large bowl.

Whisk oil and vinegar in small bowl to blend. Pour dressing over watermelon mixture; toss to coat. Season salad generously with salt and pepper.

Negima (Japanese Grilled Chicken Thigh Skewers with Scallions)

I realized yesterday that it has been weeks since we made an Asian meal.  It's entirely my fault because when I go into my salad kick I don't think of any Asian salads.  I mean, to be perfectly honest, there really aren't many Asian salads (at least not using lettuce).  So I tend to stray a bit more into American and Italian cuisine during the spring and summer when produce at the farmers' market is just so irresistible.  But after a week or two of non-Asian food I start to think about how much I miss it.  This time I thought negima would be the perfect use for some of the gorgeous scallions I picked up at the farmers' market.  When the scallions were raw they were actually purple in places.  Apparently just like you can buy white and red onions, you can buy red and white scallions.  Who knew?  I was planning on saving these red scallions for a different use and using the regular scallions we picked up for the negima, but Alex was prepping lunch and he had different ideas.

Weather like this and dishes like this make me wish that we had a grill.  As I'm sure you can imagine (and as I have said before) you don't find a lot of grills in Manhattan.  So we are stuck "grilling" inside on our grill pan.  But I miss the flavor that the grill imparts.  The grill would have done wonders here to just add another level of smokey flavor.  The combination of smoke and the slightly sweet sauce would have been delicious.  Even without a grill it was a nice dish.  But it could have been that much better.

P.S.  I'm not sure how we ended up with two kebobs/skewers in a row (especially since we made the lamb for dinner on Thursday and cooked the negima for lunch today, but such is life. I promise no more kebobs for the week!

Recipe after the jump!

Stir-Fried Mongolian Lamb with Scallions

As a precursor to things to come, Alex and I have to decided to start slowly ramping up for our week of Chinese New Year meals by cooking one to two Chinese meals per week.  Last week Alex made Red-Braised Pork (Hong Shao Rou) and tonight we made this Stir-Fried Mongolian Lamb with Scallions.  This dish was one that I was considering for Chinese New Year, but it didn't quite make the cut.  Rather than forgo making it entirely, I decided to go ahead and make it tonight.

And as much as I generally like the combination of lamb with scallions, this dish was just ok to me.  I didn't think it was anything special.  I really didn't get the flavor from the Sichuan peppercorns and when I did, I wasn't sure that it actually went with the hoisin mixture.  Actually, I'm fairly certain that it didn't because the flavors didn't seem to meld together for me at all.  The flavor of the lamb was fine - a little gamey, a little savory, a little sweet, but it just didn't do it for me.  I guess if I had to give the dish a letter grade, it would be a solid B/B- (probably the B-, although I hate being that harsh).  If I were to make the recipe again (which I probably won't but if I were), I would throw the scallions in after the hoisin mixture.  I think stir-frying them for 30 seconds is more than enough to soften and mellow them, but leave a little crispness and texture.  Cooking them for the amount of time specified in the recipe was overkill.  Oh and we cut our lamb a little on the large size.  If I were to make this dish again, I would definitely cut the lamb into smaller pieces.  Oops.

Recipe after the jump!

Chicken with Ginger (La Jiang Men Ji)

This might be my new favorite chicken stir-fry recipe and I think I am going to use this cooking method when making stir-fries in the future (with a few tweaks).  It is just uber warm and comforting, and gently, rather than aggresively spiced.  I loved how the flavor of the ginger really permeated the dish without overwhelming it.  For me this is the epitome of comfort food.  With that said, I had a few minor comments/complaints.  First, I think you need to hike up the heat a little while stir-frying the chicken initially in order to get the edges to turn golden and begin to caramelize.  Medium heat just wasn't going to do it for us.  Second, be careful when seasoning/salting the dish after you add the stock and begin to simmer because as you reduce the chicken stock mixture it will get saltier and the flavors will be more concetrated.  Don't season it too aggressively in the beginning or it will be overly salty when you finally get around to eating it.  I also wish we had thrown in just a few more scallions for a little more freshness.  Maybe one more sliced scallion would do the trick?

Anyway, constructive criticisms aside, I loved this dish.  It just made me happy.  I might try making it in the future with a few more veggies thrown in (I'm thinking asparagus and water chestnuts for starters) for some variety.  Or I might try to combine this recipe with my mom's usual stir-fry recipe and see what happens.  Here's to more delicious cooking and kitchen experimentation in 2012!

Recipe after the jump!

Creamy Cheddar Grits

When I am feeling sick, there are a few basic dishes that I generally want - Vietnamese chicken noodle soup and pho usually top the list.  But I'm dealing with a sore throat right now and all I could think of was how great grits would be.  I guess grits are kind of like congee and cream of wheat, both of which I consider to be serious sick day food, so maybe my craving makes more sense than I first thought.  Anyway, I had been saving this Creamy Cheddar Grits recipe for the day when I finally have people over for brunch (which I have been talking about for years and we have never gotten around to doing) or when I finally make shrimp and grits at home (another thing I have been talking about forever but haven't gotten around to).  But grits sounded too good to pass up today, so I went ahead and made them.  And they were delicious.  Even Alex, who isn't generally a huge fan of grits, really enjoyed these.  Between the two of us we plowed our way through a heaping bowl of grits.  They are creamy and cheesy, with the bright oniony flavor of the scallions making the dish a little lighter than it would be otherwise.  Alex said that the scallions were the thing that really made the dish.  It has never occurred to me to add scallions to grits before, but it was really delicious.  The dish is still a bit of a gutbuster, but in the best way possible.  It's wonderfully homey and comforting.  And it was exactly what I wanted to help me get over feeling under the weather.

Recipe after the jump!

Luscious Chile-Oil Tofu

So this is a rather strange statement, but I wish Alex and I ate (and cooked) more tofu.  I really enjoy tofu.  It's a little strange considering as a child you couldn't have paid me to touch tofu with a ten foot pole and given that I rarely ate it in China (except mapo tofu and riben tofu - aka Japanese tofu, both of which I love), but there you have it.  I want to cook and eat more tofu - and not just because it's healthy and a good substitute for meat, but because I like tofu.

Anyway, I enjoyed this dish more than Alex did because I like tofu more than Alex does.  I think the only tofu dish he voluntarily orders is mapo tofu.  This tofu has just a hint of heat from the hot chili oil, some nice numbing spice from the Sichuan peppercorns, and the freshness of the scallions.  And then the pork gives it all another layer of flavor and texture.  I wish that the dish had a few more scallions.  Alex agreed with me there.  If I were to make this tofu again I would throw in another scallion or two - probably two.  I might even add in a garlic clove.  Alex as usual wishes the tofu had a little more heat to it, but I'm ok with the level of heat given that the dish includes both hot chili oil and Sichuan peppercorns.  There we can agree to disagree.

Recipe after the jump!

Sake-Steamed Chicken with Ginger and Scallions

After a week of eating fairly heavy meals on the ski slopes (think chili, hamburgers, tuna melts, curly fries, etc), I am dying for a few weeks worth of lighter, healthier meals.  And since the weather in NYC this week looks like it is going to hit the low 60's - which means that spring is finally coming - lighter, healthier meals seem even more apropos.  So we went to the grocery store today and ended up with about $150 in new groceries (which is surprisingly easy to do in NYC given how ridiculously expensive groceries are), including a whole chicken.  And since the whole chicken was by far the largest item we purchased, we decided to make it for dinner tonight.  I have some other things defrosting in the fridge for later in the week, but you will have to stay posted to see what else we make this week.  I have all sorts of ideas bumbling around in my head, but I'm not sure how many of them will come to fruition.  My menu planning always seems to work a little that way - I write out a week's worth of meals and it is a good week if we actually make 3 or 4 of them.  I guess that's not so bad if you really think about it.

I found this recipe on the NY Times website.  I really enjoy the blogs and recipes that you find on the NY Times.  Some of them are a little out there, but they are all very interesting.  I rarely steam things, partially because until recently we haven't had a pot with a steamer basket.  But we received the All-Clad Stainless Steel Multipot as a wedding gift and it occurred to me that this would be the perfect recipe to experiment with steaming in our new(ish) pot!  I thought that the chicken was good, but not earth-shattering.  Alex and I have made better chicken dishes at home.  Granted, we have also made worse, but let's stick with the positive for now.  The chicken is just barely kissed with the flavor of the sake and the steaming leaves the dark meat from the legs and thighs buttery and moist.  It is so tender that it almost falls off the bone.  The breasts are flavorful, but not as moist as you would hope for.  And I thought that the sauce was a little sweeter and heavier on the citrus flavors than I would have preferred, but when you combined the chicken and the sauce it made a very flavorful and unique combination.  We served the chicken with some black forbidden rice, the nuttiness of which I thought was a great foil to the sweetness and tenderness of the chicken.  All things considered, I would make the dish again, but I would play with the ingredients a bit.  In a lot of ways the dish reminds me of the Poached Chicken with Ginger and Scallion Sauce that we made back in the fall, but seeing as it was some time ago I can't provide a great side-by-side comparison.

Recipe after the jump!

Egg, Shrimp and Scallion Pancakes

After the past few meals we made for the blog, all of which were fairly meaty, I was craving an easy seafood option.  This was one of the first options that I came across in my Into the Vietnamese Kitchen cookbook and it seemed perfect - super easy, very few ingredients, and full of yummy shrimp.  At first I thought about making a shrimp stir-fry or another seafood dish (and saving this recipe for another day), but the fact that this recipe was so easy was the deciding factor seeing as I wanted to go to spinning and we had to do laundry tonight too.  There is nothing worse than trying to do laundry while cooking dinner - periodically running down to the laundry room in the basement of the building, having your dinner grow cold while you are grabbing your laundry, and then at the end of the night having a kitchen full of dirty dishes in addition to several laundry baskets full of freshly clean laundry to fold.

This is the type of dish that reminds me of something my grandmother would have made - homey, easy, and filling.  It is not a dish that you would ever find in a restaurant.  The pancakes only require 5 ingredients, plus some soy sauce or fish sauce to serve as a dipping sauce.  We served the pancakes with some of our leftover pickled carrots and daikon from our Vietnamese Noodle Combos with Vietnamese Grilled Pork Balls, but I would typically serve them with some rice.  The beauty of this dish is the simplicity of it all.  It's easy, the flavors are simple, and the pancakes are very satisfying.  It's nostalgic and comforting, like the food that any grandmother would serve.

Recipe after the jump!

Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper, and Sea Salt

I love biscuits.  It's a seriously Southern thing that I picked up at Chapel Hill while I was there and one I plan to never give up.  Unfortunately, good biscuits are much harder to find here in NYC than they were in North Carolina.  Actually, some might say that it's nearly impossible.  So I have taken to making my own whenever I have a serious biscuit craving.  The only problem that biscuit-making makes a mess.  And when you're me, it makes a HUGE mess. I should take pictures of the kitchen after I engage in a bout of biscuit-making.  Today for example, I ended up with floury hand prints on our olive oil cruet and bits of biscuit dough decorating the floor.  I'm nearly certain that I have ended up with flour in my hair at least once, which begs the question of what exactly I am doing while making my biscuits.  I wish I could tell you, but I can't.

Anyway, I love these biscuits.  Love, love, love them.  I have been saving the recipe for some time now, but I always forget to pick up self-rising flour.  Luckily, Alex picked some up to make his crazy Dutch cookies so this morning when I woke up this recipe was the first thing I thought about.  Actually, first I thought about pizza.  At about 10:00 am I told Alex that I wanted some pizza and he told me that I'm an idiot.  Isn't he sweet?  But the second thing I thought about was this biscuit recipe.  So I toddled into the kitchen in my pjs and I made my biscuits.  OMG.  They are delicious.  They have a perfect flaky, yet very tender texture typical of really good homemade buttermilk biscuits.  Nothing against Grands biscuits out of the can, but they're never quite as crisp on the outside, and yet flaky and tender on the inside.  Instead they're basically buttery and tender all the way through, which is nice and all, but they're certainly not buttermilk biscuits.  So the texture is amazing.  Actually, I think that's the first thing I told Alex after my first mouthful of biscuit.  That the texture was perfect.  And they have loads of flavor from the black pepper and the scallions.  That was the first thing Alex said.  They are absolutely gorgeous.  I think Alex has already eaten four whole biscuits, which is a huge testament to how delicious these biscuits are because he usually has one biscuit and calls it a day.  I think these biscuits could very well be the best biscuits that I have ever made.  And I don't say that lightly.


Recipe after the jump!

Chicken (Skewers) with Honey and Turmeric

I don't know about you, but I consider chicken breasts to be the most versatile thing in the world to cook.  You can do just about anything with boneless, skinless chicken breasts and absolutely anything is possible - any type of cuisine, any cooking method, and any assortment of ingredients.  It's fabulous.  I think that this versatility comes with a price.  How often do you eat a chicken dish based on boneless, skinless chicken breasts that really blows your mind?  Not that often.  I know some people prefer chicken thighs to chicken breasts because dark meat has more flavor than white meat, and also more fat so they don't dry out.  But I really only enjoy chicken thighs in certain preparations.  I think that the extra fattiness of the dark meat just doesn't work sometimes.  It just seems greasy to me.  I know my aversion to dark meat chicken doesn't make any sense because I really like duck, which is just as greasy (if not more greasy) as chicken thighs/legs.  But I just don't like dark meat chicken.  What can I say?  I'm picky about certain things.

So this chicken has a nice mild spice to it.  The spice level was the first thing that Alex commented on.  It has just enough Korean red pepper flakes to give it a hint of heat.  That heat balances out nicely with the sweetness imparted by the honey and OJ in the marinade.  I wish that the ginger had a slightly more pronounced flavor, but that's just me.  I also wish that the chicken had a little more depth of flavor to it.  I'm not sure what I would add to give it another layer of flavor.  The skewers were supposed to be grilled, which would have imparted some smokiness to the chicken, which would have been wonderful, but grilling isn't an option for us here in NYC.  Aside from the smokey flavor, I'm not sure what else I would want to add here to kick the chicken up a notch.  Alex thinks that the smokiness from the grill would really make the chicken taste that much more delicious and I am inclined to agree with him, although I think that there are probably other ways that would be equally successful.  All in all, I give it a solid B.

Recipe after the jump!

Corn with Green Onion Oil Recipe

Many of you probably don't know this about me but I have an obsession, literally an obsession, with grilled corn.  My obsession started in China when street vendors with little portable charcoal grills would set up outside bars and sell skewers of grilled meat and vegetables to the waiting crowds.  I'm not sure exactly what the blend of spices was that they sprinkled over the meat, but boy was it phenomenal.  Ever since I tried their version of grilled corn I have been on the lookout for new grilled corn recipes to add to my repertoire.  This dish was adapted from a recipe I saw on Momofuku for 2 (which is an absolutely amazing food blog based out of Vancouver).  As always, I decided to play with the recipe a little bit and adapt it to my tastes.  I didn't have a red chili, so I used a jalapeno instead.  And then I wanted to throw in some cilantro because I just love cilantro.  After the experience with the fried corn at the New Amsterdam Market, I decided to try to pan-roast/pan-fry the corn in a cast iron skillet in some grapeseed oil.  I chose grapeseed oil because it has a high smoke point and also because I wanted an oil with a completely neutral flavor.

The green onion oil that goes with this corn is fabulous.  The fish sauce gave it just the right amount of salt and flavor to complement the fresh flavors of the scallion and cilantro, and the very slight heat from the jalapeno.  Combined with the sweet corn it was just fantastic.  In the future I will probably cut the kernels off the corncobs so that the green onion oil is more evenly distributed through the corn.  With the corn on the cob, there were patches where the oil really stuck and gave the corn great flavor and then there were patches where the oil with the green onions and cilantro slid right off.  I didn't want to cut the kernels off this time because I didn't want to take the time and risk the corn getting cold (plus it's just a pain to do), but I will just suck it up in the future because this recipe is totally worth it.  So I'm writing the recipe like I did cut the kernels off, but you can grill it whole instead of pan-roasting the kernels if that's your thing.

Recipe after the jump!

Mirin-Glazed Salmon and Mint, Scallion Soba Noodles

For evening #2 of my all Asian-inspired Chinese New Year week menu, I decided to go ahead and make some Mirin-Glazed Salmon with some soba noodles.  I guess this is my fully Japanese-inspired meal for the week, whereas I would say last night's noodles were Chinese-inspired, with a dash of Japanese.  Anyway, when I was planning out my menu for this week I noticed that I had some nice wild salmon that has been hanging out in the freezer for awhile and some soba noodles up in the cupboard, so this sounded like a good time to break both of them out.  After tonight I am done with the noodle component of my menu for this week.  This meal also marks the conclusion of my Japanese-inspired portion of the menu.  Now I get to move on to the rest of Asia!

I usually make these soba noodles during the summer.  They make a wonderful cool summer meal or side dish.  But I thought they would provide us with a nice contrast from the rich sweetness of the mirin glaze on the salmon.  The salmon was good, but I think it needs some tweaking.  I am not sure what I will add to it the next time I make it, but it needs something else for contrast - perhaps some acid.  However, while this is not a spectacular meal, it's solid.  It is also quick to prepare and very easy, which counts for a lot.

Recipes after the jump!

Homemade Scallion Pancakes

I love scallion pancakes - love them.  They are delicious.  And usually I buy them frozen down in Chinatown, but after making them in a cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education, and realizing that they aren't THAT complicated to make, I figured why not try making them at home.  So here goes.  The recipe we followed at ICE was pretty good, but I made a few small changes, including using sesame oil during the cooking process to give the pancakes more flavor.  While I can't say that I will be doing this often, just because of the time commitment, it's a delicious alternative to the frozen scallion pancakes I almost always have in the freezer.  And as these scallion pancakes are pan-fried instead of deep fried, I somehow feel much better about eating them.

Recipe after the jump!