Rippin' Another Blog: Poulet au Riesling

Good morning darling readers!

I was thinking this morning... How often do we food bloggers - and food blog readers - prowl the internet in search of the most amazing looking, sounding, tasting recipes, only to bookmark or pin or comment on them...and then they go forgotten...?

They go unmade.

And as a food blogger myself, I rarely make the same dish more than once, even if it was fucking spectacular. The exception being of course, if I have company over for dinner and I want to share a recent culinary success story with them.

But because I need new posts, I need new recipes. New ideas. New new new! So I prowl. We prowl. We find inspiration in each other. But rarely, do we actually follow someone else's recipe. We think it makes us more distinguished if we create our own. What food masters we are! Yeaaahhh.....

That's why I love Haydn and my series, Rippin' Another Blog. I actually get the opportunity to make someone else's dish. Of course there are the odd modifications or substitutions based on availability and personal preference but generally, it's their recipe. And what makes a food blogger feel better than when someone actually makes their dish? Pretty much nothing. Except letting them know you made their dish. Comments my friends, we all love comments. We pine for comments!

Something else I pine for? More of Katie's Poulet au Riesling. Chicken? Good! Riesling? Good! And I relish the opportunity to use a sweeter white wine in savory cooking than a dry one. Why the heck not, right?

I first became acquainted with Katie's blog, So Tasty, So Yummy, through The Secret Recipe Club - another fantastic medium I participate in @ Gastronomical Sovereignty through which I make recipes from other people's blogs. And let me tell you, I'm glad I did. She's clever, inspiring and kind of hot. And by kind of, I mean the chick is smokin'.

...and so is this dish. Bland chicken? Hells no! Sweet, creamy, herby, fantastic chicken? Yes!

Poulet au Riesling

(printable recipe) - serves 4.

Recipe c/o So Tasty, So Yummy

Ingredients:

3 Slices of Bacon, chopped.

4 Pastured Chicken Thighs.

1 Medium Onion, peeled and chopped.

2 Garlic Cloves, peeled and thinly sliced.

½ Lb Forest Mushrooms, thinly sliced.

6 Medium Sized Carrots, sliced.

2 C Riesling.

2/3 C Heavy Cream.

2 Tbsp Parsley, chopped.

1/2 Tsp Freshly Ground Nutmeg.

Coarse Sea Salt & Fresh Cracked Black Pepper.

What to Do:

Heat a Dutch oven or enamel roasting pan over medium-high heat. Throw in the bacon and cook until crispy. Remove from pan and set aside.

Season the chicken well with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Arrange skin side down in the bacon fat and cook until brown and crispy. Remove and set aside with the bacon. 

Discard all but 4 tablespoons of the fat. Reduce the heat to medium and sauté onions and garlic until soft. 

Add the mushrooms and carrots, stir and continue cooking until heated through, approx. 3 minutes. 

Turn the heat to high and pour in the wine. When it comes to a rolling boil put the chicken and bacon back in the pot. Turn the heat down to medium-low. Simmer uncovered until the chicken is cooked through, approx 45 minutes. 

Remove the chicken from the pan. Add cream and boil until sauce is reduced somewhat and starting to thicken. Return chicken to the sauce. Add parsley and serve.

Eat.

Do you ever actually make the recipes you find online? Or do they get lost in Pinterest land?

Rippin' Another Blog: Paprikás Csirke (Chicken Paprikash)

The Lowdown:

Paprikás Csirke is a delicious (traditional?) Hungarian dish. It's silky smooth, creamy texture and mildly sweet, aromatic flavour is quite a formidable foe against blandness. It is simple to make, yet has a complex, heart warming flavour, that defeats even the most severe cases of the winter blues.

I'm not sure what Hungary's climate is like, but I can discern from their cooking style that it must be cold a lot. Seriously, all of my favourite cold weather comfort foods seem to be from that general region. This dish, which I've cooked periodically throughout my life, is no exception. Every winter I find myself craving the satisfaction that it provides -- savoury, aromatic, and comforting. Throw in a side of brussel sprouts, winter squash, or sauteed cabbage and you're in for a night of comfort. Seriously, bust out those paint covered sweat pants (that you always promise your significant other you'll throw out one day) because you'll need them to reach the maximum comfort level. While you're at it, light a fire and dust off that old copy of Home Alone. Despite my best efforts, I can't stress enough how comforting this dish is.

I'm not sure if I should be proud or ashamed. I went into my spice cupboard and noticed that I have four types of paprika. It is just one of those spices that I always find myself using. The "fake" stuff for adding colour to dishes or garnishing. The hot, smoked variety for adding a bit of zip and aroma to dishes. The rest, for various uses as I see fit. With the mercury dropping at a steady rate, I'm sure I'll have no problem making dishes that require paprika; after all, I always find myself craving these sorts of dishes around this time of year.

I've never used a recipe to make this dish; however, it is hard to write a post when there is no recipe to follow. So today, for the first time, I am following a recipe (sorta, kinda). The Domestic Man has provided me with said recipe. This also fits perfectly into our latest scheme. No, not taking over the world... the other one: rippin' another blog.

The Playlist:

3 Chicken breasts, bone in
1 Onion, finely chopped
4 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
3 tbsp Goose fat*
2 tbsp Hungarian paprika (sweet)
1 tsp Marjoram, dried
2 cups Chicken broth
1/2 cup White wine (optional)
1 cup Sour cream
Water, to cover chicken
Pepper, to coat chicken

* Any form of lard can be substituted for this (after reading other sites and blogs, butter is not an acceptable replacement).

The Skinny:

1. Debone the chicken breasts, then generously cover chicken with fresh, fine cracked pepper.
2. In large skillet: heat goose fat on medium-high heat. Add chicken breasts and brown the side with the skin (the skin should be crisped up). Brown the other side of the chicken, as well as, the onions and garlic.
3. Move the chicken and onions to the side and put the paprika into the spare portion of the skillet. Cook the paprika for 30 seconds then add the chicken broth, water, white wine, and marjoram. Cover tightly and simmer for an hour. If your lid does not perfectly fit the skillet, place a sheet of wax paper between the lid and the skillet to ensure that steam doesn't escape.
4. Remove chicken and cut into the desired size. While chicken is out of the skillet you can simmer, on high, the liquid until it reaches the desired consistency (I prefer mine to be quite brothy, as opposed to stew-like).
5. Reduce the heat and mix a few tbsp of the liquid into the sour cream until there are no clumps, then put the sour cream mixture and the chicken into the skillet.
6. Serve on spetzle, egg noodles, or rice.

 

Featured on: 33 Shades of Green, Premeditated Leftovers, Chef in Training, Food Renegade

Stay Rad -h

Butter Chicken (Murg Makhani)

The Lowdown:

Like approximately 2,456,328.7 people, butter chicken (murg makhani) is one of my favourite dishes. I don't know exactly where it lands in my top 10, but it is nestled in there somewhere between goulash and leftover pizza. Despite your best efforts to deny it, you all know that day old pizza is one of your favourite dishes. One exception - taco pizza. 'Nuff said.

In reality, what isn't there to like about butter chicken? It's extremely flavourful, pleasantly colourful, aromatic, and mysterious. Well, I don't know about mysterious, but it made my point seem that much more credible. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that even people who say, "blabbidy blah blah" about curries (seriously who listens when people complain about food) would enjoy butter chicken. If not, I'll force them. After all, it's the way I learned to enjoy food. Sort of like Clockwork Orange, but with food.

If you've read the "about us" section, you'll know that I've been planning on making this dish since the first time I ate it. A decade later, and I'm finally making it. I'm such a procrastinator (as opposed to an amateur-crastinator).Here it is after two days of marinading, four hours of simmering, and ten years of procrastinating.

This dish is amazing because not only does it taste amazing, but it can be frozen and reheated. If you have the room, doubling the recipe and then freezing the rest in single serving ziplock containers is a great idea. By great I mean grrrrreeeeaaat (just like Tony the Tiger).

The Playlist:

Marinade

9 Chicken thighs, deboned and skinned

650ml Plain yogurt

1 tsp Cardamom, ground

2 tsp Garam masala

2 tbsp Lemon juice

2 tsp Paprika

3 cloves Garlic, minced

2 tbsp Ginger, minced

Butter Chicken Sauce

1 Red onion, chopped

3 tbsp Ginger, diced

5 cloves Garlic, diced

3 tbsp Oil

2 cups Methi leaves (fenugrek leaves), chopped

1 tsp Salt

1 tbsp Cloves, ground

1 tbsp Coriander, ground

1 tsp Cinnamom

1 tbsp Paprika

8 pods Cardamom, whole

1 tsp Pepper, ground

1 tbsp Honey

4 Tomatoes

3 tbsp Butter

The Skinny:

1. Mix all the marinade items in a sealable container then add chicken and ensure that all the pieces of chicken are coated. Refrigerate for a day (or a few hours at minimum).
2. In large saucepan: saute onions, ginger, garlic in oil. 
3. In blender: add water, paprika, tomatoes, and honey and puree until smooth. 
4. Add tomato mixture into saucepan once onions are transparent, stir then add remaining spices. Simmer until mixture reduces by about 1/4 volume, cool then puree. Refrigerate for a day (or a few hours at minimum).
5. Remove chicken from the marinade and cook in butter until browned. Then add chicken to the tomato sauce. Simmer together for about 30 minutes, then slowly add the marinade into the tomato sauce until the desired texture and flavour is reached.
6. Serve with rice or naan.

Featured on: Premeditated Leftovers, 33 Shades of Green, Food Renegade, Chef in Training

Stay Rad -h

Beet Medley & Quail Egg Salad w/ Honey Anise Vinaigrette

The Lowdown:

Okay, so this is meal is purely because I have been a horrible person over the last few days. I'm pretty sure in the last week I've eaten fast food at least 40 times. Not to mention, my lovely girlfriend declared that she only wanted to eat fruits and vegetables all day (Ha! That's going to happen). To make up for all that crap I've put into my body, I'm going to repent. I'm sorry father for I have sinned, please accept this healthy meal as a testament to my willingness to change my ways... temporarily.

How could this meal possibly be bad? It has more beets than Dr. Dre. Normally I hate salads. I find them boring, cold, and about as eventful as a Dilbert comic strip. How is that comic still being produced anyway? I mean seriously. The only thing funny about it is the irony that it isn't funny. 

http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Reference, 2012

Point, set, and match. This is crap. Now that I've wasted a sufficient amount of your life reading that comic strip I will resume with wasting a sufficient amount of your life reading this post. 

To recap; salad = Dilbert = boring. 

Where as, beets + quail's eggs + anise = ♥.

Just so everyone knows, I hate black licorice. However, the hint of it that this dressing has goes quite nicely with the earthy notes of the beets. Other than the pain of getting the anise seeds out of the husks (I actually just got lazy and blended the crap out of the star anise pods), this was a simple and easy recipe that offered quite a different take on the usual ways to prepare beets. The different colour beets also provide for a nice display and can add to the wow factor. It is also a great cure for the common fast food bender.

The Playlist:

(Printable Recipe)

1 Red beet

1 Golden beet

1 Candycane beet

2 Chicken breasts, cooked and thinly sliced (optional)

5-10 Quail's eggs, hard boiled

1 cube, Chicken bullion

Salt & Pepper

Olive oil

Vinaigrette

1/2 inch Leak (white part), minced

1 tsp Pepper (or more to taste)

1 tsp Kosher salt

1/8 cup Apple cider vinegar

1/8 cup Champagne berry vinegar

1/4 cup Virgin olive oil

1-2 tbsp Honey

1tsp Anise seeds, ground

The Skinny:

1.  Mix all the vinaigrette ingredients together and refrigerate until ready to be served.
2. Put the beets in separate pots and cover with water (the candycane and golden beets can go into the same pot). Add the chicken bullion to the water. Bring to a boil and cook until beets pass the "fork test" (about 45-60mins). Pour water out of pots and fill with cold water. Allow beets to cool.
3. In a small pot add quail's eggs and enough water to boil them in. Boil for 5 minutes then remove from heat, allow to sit for 5 minutes, and then pour the water out. Allow eggs to cool.
4. Skin the beets. If cooked properly you should be able to apply pressure using your thumbs and the skin will come off easily. (The beets can be done ahead of time and refrigerated).
5. Peal the shells off of the quail's eggs and cut in half lengthwise.
6. On medium heat, heat olive oil (or butter) in two large pans. Place the different colour beets in separate pans and saute until slightly browned (10-20mins).
7. Add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Put beets, chicken, and eggs together and add dressing.
9. Serve while beets are still warm.

Featured in:33 Shades of Green, Chef-in-Training, Mandy's Recipe Box,


Stay Rad - H