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- Thread starter Potoooooooo
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Underseer
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Pickles and cheese and eggs? You have a wild imagination!
Wiploc
Veteran Member
Wiploc’s Fajita Stir Fry
· Peanut oil, 3tbs
· Lime juice, 2tbs (one lime)
· Garlic, 4 cloves, smashed
· Paprika, smoked, 1.5 tsp
· Sugar, 1tsp, I’ve never done this
· Salt, 1tsp
· Cumin, ½ tsp
· Pepper ½ tsp
· Cayenne pepper, ½ tsp
Blend these in a bowl. Coat 1.5lbs chicken. Let sit for an hour, or half an hour. Then strip off excess.
When timely, preheat the oven to 375. Rack in bottom position.
Rice:
Good on rice. Consider making rice. For breakfast, I have it without rice
Char the chicken:
Put chicken between layers of saran wrap and smack it with a frypan until half inch thick.
This gives you plenty of surface to char.
Start the fan and open the windows. Fry on high for 4 minutes. Do not jostle or stir.
Bake the chicken:
Move the chicken, char side up, to a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet.
Bake until done, maybe 15 minutes? 375 degrees? Recipe says 7-10 mins at 200, but that sounds crazy. It also calls for pounding the chicken into half-inch-thick cutlets, which I’ve never done, but it still sounds crazy. (Okay, tonight I actually used a frying pan to pound the chicken breasts into half inch cutlets. I cooked baked them 400 degrees for maybe 15 minutes.)
Stir Fry Sauce:
· Soy sauce, ¼ cup
· Chicken stock, ¼ cup. Or bullion. I just use water.
· Toasted sesame oil, 2tbs
· Rice vinegar, 2tbs
· Corn starch, 1 or 2 tbs.
Stir that all up together. The corn starch will fall out and need to be stirred up again, so I usually wait and stir in the corn starch at the last moment.
Veggies:
Whatever’s in your refrigerator. But, archetypically:
- Mushrooms, a pound.
- Onion, a pound.
- Snap peas, a package. I wonder how much that is.
Fry the onions in peanut oil at medium high, or the onions and mushrooms. Add the other veggies and then the chicken, which you chopped at some point, trying not to eat too much as finger food. When it’s ready, add the sauce. Give it some seconds for the corn starch to thicken. Toss to coat.
Serve.
Tonight I made a triple batch of the chicken, so we can freeze some for later.
I like stir fry anyway, but when I make it with that charred marinated chicken, then it blows me away.
I made cornbread pudding.
Thomas II
Contributor
Elixir
Made in America
Works for me!
So does spreading dill & mustard over it while baking...
Best I ever had was straight out of a river and onto a fire, though.
Works for me!
So does spreading dill & mustard over it while baking...
Best I ever had was straight out of a river and onto a fire, though.
Another of life's guilty pleasures: when you don't have to share with anyone roast a whole chicken and just.. eat.
gmbteach
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Delish!
I don’t think we eat enough fish as hubby isn’t a fan, but I am working on it! We had fish poached in the oven with butter, lemon juice and soy and it was delish!
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Looks yum!
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mmmmmmmmmm.
Works for me!
So does spreading dill & mustard over it while baking...
Best I ever had was straight out of a river and onto a fire, though.
Another of life's guilty pleasures: when you don't have to share with anyone roast a whole chicken and just.. eat.
Underseer
Contributor
On a lark, I bought a giant bag of dried anchos. I am kicking myself for not experimenting with ancho before. Had to look up a YouTube video for how to use ancho as an ingredient, and it's a lot like some Japanese dried ingredients that are dried and then partially rehydrated. Coolness.
Kitchen sink chili, v2
This is mid-cooking. Not quite done yet. Once it cooks down more, I'll add a can of beans or two. Tomorrow I'll adjust the spices and add unsweetened chocolate.
7 or so anchos were de-capped, flayed open, and had the seeds scraped out. Cooked lightly in a skillet, then boiled/simmered for 20 minutes. The resulting mess (water and all) was tossed in a food processor with about half a bulb of garlic, a little extra powdered garlic, two fresh jalapenos, and a little salt. Buzzed until puree mush.
Two pounds of ground beef and two tubes of raw chorizo browned in a wok. Added one big diced onion, shredded carrot, and two sliced stalks of celery and cooked until onions translucent.
Transferred to a big pot and added sliced yellow squash, a small pile of sliced mushrooms, and about 8 diced roma tomatoes.
Added ancho mush from food processor (see above), tomato paste, canned tomato sauce (that was probably redundant), a bit of water, and about three big spoonfuls of Szechuan spicy fermented bean paste.
Added powdered cumin, "chili powder" (probably redundant) and salt to taste.
Tastes great so far. I'll try to type up a more organized recipe with an ingredients list tomorrow after the other ingredients are in and I've tried it.
Kitchen sink chili, v2
This is mid-cooking. Not quite done yet. Once it cooks down more, I'll add a can of beans or two. Tomorrow I'll adjust the spices and add unsweetened chocolate.
7 or so anchos were de-capped, flayed open, and had the seeds scraped out. Cooked lightly in a skillet, then boiled/simmered for 20 minutes. The resulting mess (water and all) was tossed in a food processor with about half a bulb of garlic, a little extra powdered garlic, two fresh jalapenos, and a little salt. Buzzed until puree mush.
Two pounds of ground beef and two tubes of raw chorizo browned in a wok. Added one big diced onion, shredded carrot, and two sliced stalks of celery and cooked until onions translucent.
Transferred to a big pot and added sliced yellow squash, a small pile of sliced mushrooms, and about 8 diced roma tomatoes.
Added ancho mush from food processor (see above), tomato paste, canned tomato sauce (that was probably redundant), a bit of water, and about three big spoonfuls of Szechuan spicy fermented bean paste.
Added powdered cumin, "chili powder" (probably redundant) and salt to taste.
Tastes great so far. I'll try to type up a more organized recipe with an ingredients list tomorrow after the other ingredients are in and I've tried it.
gmbteach
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Looks good. What are chorizo tubes? When I cook with chorizo it’s like a sausage that is dried like a salami. Do you take the skin off and cook it up?
Underseer
Contributor
Just raw chorizo. I wasn't sure how to describe the amount, but at the grocery store the raw chorizo is always in about the same amounts wrapped up in sausage-shaped tubes covered in waxy plastic wrap. I just said "tube" to try and describe the quantity. Sorry.
I just looked it up. The tubes would have been 8oz to 15oz. I threw away the wrapper, so I'm not sure, but the two together seemed about as much as a pound of ground beef, so I'm guessing they were 8oz packages.
The next time I make this, I'm going to omit the canned tomato sauce entirely, omit the chili powder (which is mostly cumin anyway, and thus redundant), use less ground beef, and add more kinds of chili peppers and cubes of firm tofu.
Underseer
Contributor
OK, so this isn't what I did, but what I wish I did. I'm writing this all down here to have a stored record for next time I make this. (Hence, I'm being more specific about amounts than usual.)
Kitchen Sink Chili
Garnish
*The tofu makes the dish even cheaper (added mass for little money) without changing the flavor. If you want eaters to know there is tofu in the chili, use firm tofu and/or cut into bigger blocks and/or add later in the cooking process. If you want to hide it, use silken tofu, cut into smaller cubes and add earlier in the cooking process.
The point of tofu is that it makes a dish cheaper and healthier without changing the flavor. If you can't get tofu that is fresh and cheap, don't waste your time.
The fermented bean paste adds heat, depth of flavor, and incredible bean flavor.
Brown meat in a pot with a bit of salt for the beef (the chorizo is already salty).
Add onions, carrot, and celery. Cook at medium to low heat until the onions are translucent.
Crank up heat on pot to high, add squash, mushrooms, and fresh tomatoes. Stir until squash and mushrooms start getting soft.
Add fermented bean paste, ancho paste from above, tomato paste, beans, cumin and oregano. Add just enough water to cover the ingredients.
Bring to a boil and simmer at least two hours, stirring occasionally. One of those slow-cookers is probably ideal for this part, but I don't own one.
Add unsweetened chocolate near the end of the cooking process, mostly because I'm paranoid about it creating a crunchy crust at the bottom of the pot during simmering. When you add the tofu depends on how you want it to turn out (see italicized text above). As soon as the tofu tastes like the rest of the chili, it's cooked enough.
Serve over rice, over pasta, or with crackers or bread on the side. Garnish with diced raw onions and shredded cheddar cheese.
For the non-Americans: chili con carne freezes well. It tastes better the longer you cook it, so the leftovers will actually taste better. Put whatever you don't eat in the freezer for some night when you're too tired to cook.
Other leftover idea: take some portion of the leftover chili, cook in a pot with brown sugar. Optionally, you can add a bit of ketchup and/or mustard. Serve open-faced on a sliced roll or bun of some kind for a dish called "sloppy Joe."
Kitchen Sink Chili
- 6-8 dried ancho pods
- Two fresh jalape[ent]ntilde[/ent]os
- Half to whole bulb of fresh garlic
- Salt
- (Unspecified additional dried or fresh chiles)
- 1 lb ground beef
- [ent]frac12[/ent] to 1 lb raw choirzo
- One large yellow onion, diced
- One small carrot, shredded
- One stalk of celery, sliced or diced.
- 1-2 small yellow squash, sliced
- One small package of mushrooms, sliced
- 8 roma tomatoes, diced or sliced
- 12 oz can of tomato paste
- 3 heaping teaspons of Szechuan fermented bean paste
- 2-3 cans of beans (drain or don't drain the beans as you like, it's good either way; I used black, pinto, and kidney beans)
- small handful of ground cumin
- couple teaspoons oregano
- One bar of unsweetened chocolate.
- Optional: one block of tofu*, cubed
Garnish
- diced raw onion
- shredded cheddar (chile con carne is American not Mexican, so keep the Mexican cheeses out of this you Philistine!)
- Preferred hot sauce to taste
*The tofu makes the dish even cheaper (added mass for little money) without changing the flavor. If you want eaters to know there is tofu in the chili, use firm tofu and/or cut into bigger blocks and/or add later in the cooking process. If you want to hide it, use silken tofu, cut into smaller cubes and add earlier in the cooking process.
The point of tofu is that it makes a dish cheaper and healthier without changing the flavor. If you can't get tofu that is fresh and cheap, don't waste your time.
The fermented bean paste adds heat, depth of flavor, and incredible bean flavor.
Ancho paste
Pull the caps off the ancho. Use a knife or kitchen scissors to open up the pods so you can lay them out flat. Get rid of the seeds. Boil water in a small pot. Lay flattened ancho pods in a dry hot skillet until they get a little softer. Put the pods in boiling water. Kill the heat on the pot and soak for 20 minutes.
Put into a food processor with de-capped de-seeded fresh jalapenos, fresh garlic cloves, and a little salt. Buzz into a paste, add cooking liquid and buzz some more.
(Unspecified additional chiles would go here.)
Pull the caps off the ancho. Use a knife or kitchen scissors to open up the pods so you can lay them out flat. Get rid of the seeds. Boil water in a small pot. Lay flattened ancho pods in a dry hot skillet until they get a little softer. Put the pods in boiling water. Kill the heat on the pot and soak for 20 minutes.
Put into a food processor with de-capped de-seeded fresh jalapenos, fresh garlic cloves, and a little salt. Buzz into a paste, add cooking liquid and buzz some more.
(Unspecified additional chiles would go here.)
Brown meat in a pot with a bit of salt for the beef (the chorizo is already salty).
Add onions, carrot, and celery. Cook at medium to low heat until the onions are translucent.
Crank up heat on pot to high, add squash, mushrooms, and fresh tomatoes. Stir until squash and mushrooms start getting soft.
Add fermented bean paste, ancho paste from above, tomato paste, beans, cumin and oregano. Add just enough water to cover the ingredients.
Bring to a boil and simmer at least two hours, stirring occasionally. One of those slow-cookers is probably ideal for this part, but I don't own one.
Add unsweetened chocolate near the end of the cooking process, mostly because I'm paranoid about it creating a crunchy crust at the bottom of the pot during simmering. When you add the tofu depends on how you want it to turn out (see italicized text above). As soon as the tofu tastes like the rest of the chili, it's cooked enough.
Serve over rice, over pasta, or with crackers or bread on the side. Garnish with diced raw onions and shredded cheddar cheese.
For the non-Americans: chili con carne freezes well. It tastes better the longer you cook it, so the leftovers will actually taste better. Put whatever you don't eat in the freezer for some night when you're too tired to cook.
Other leftover idea: take some portion of the leftover chili, cook in a pot with brown sugar. Optionally, you can add a bit of ketchup and/or mustard. Serve open-faced on a sliced roll or bun of some kind for a dish called "sloppy Joe."
Last edited:
Underseer
Contributor
Yes, I tend to use ludicrous amounts of garlic when I cook. That's the result of a combination of family preferences and habits from a time I had to eat a low salt diet.
gmbteach
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Ahh. I see. We buy our chorizo from the deli when they are about $2 - $2.50 each sausage and they are about 150g each. I pair them up the cacciatore sausage. Some largely diced chunks of ham, tomatoes, fresh and canned, and whatever fresh veg I have and a chilli or two.
In my freezer I currently have 3 chorizo and 2 cacciatore sausages, which, when combined with 400g of chopped ham etc, will make 5 substantial portions which freeze and we use for quick dinners and serve with pasta. I won’t make this up until I use the other three meals I have left in the freezer now.
Also, what is ancho?
Underseer
Contributor
Mexicans have different words for the same ingredient if it's prepared different ways.
When it's green and fresh, it is called a poblano. When it's ripened and dried out, the same pepper is called ancho, and when I say "dried" i mean not all the way. It should still be a bit flexible.
https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-an-ancho-chile-pepper-995560
Just to give another example, jalapeno is the name for another chile when it's green, fresh, and unripe. If you ripen it and smoke it, it is called chipotle.
How to prepare:
Anyway, back to the Kitchen Sink Chili, I couldn't quite remember why I recommended putting the chocolate at the end. Today I had a reheating mishap that triggered a memory of why I put the chocolate in at the end. Once the chocolate is in there, the resulting chili has to be stirred more frequently while on the heat, or else you get a burned crust at the bottom of your pot.
Beware.
The chocolate is really tasty in there, but once you add it, maybe do your reheating in the microwave unless you're willing to stir frequently.
Potoooooooo
Contributor
Question for the group: Have anyone here ever made a traditional British pork pie? Is it something a novice chef (like myself) could pull off?
gmbteach
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Question for the group: Have anyone here ever made a traditional British pork pie? Is it something a novice chef (like myself) could pull off?
I have partaken, but not created! I think it’s the jelly that is the hardest to achieve.
If you do make them, please let me know how you go.
Thomas II
Contributor
gmbteach
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Looks good. I would probably buy the cases though.