Chicken Tagine

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Chicken Tagine
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Course Main Dish
Cuisine Moroccan
Servings
servings
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Moroccan
Servings
servings
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Instructions
  1. Heat a tagine or heavy-bottomed shallow lidded pan on a low heat and add the oil, followed by a layer of onion. Mash the garlic with ½tsp salt and add to the pan.
  2. Sprinkle over the ginger, saffron water and cinnamon, followed by the lemon juice, and coarsely chopped pulp of one preserved lemon and the rind of both, cut into slivers. Add the parsley and 2tbsp chopped coriander and toss it all together well.
  3. Arrange the chicken on top and scatter over the olives. Pour 175ml water into the pan, cover tightly and simmer very gently for about 45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
  4. Season to taste and top with the remaining coriander, chopped.
Recipe Notes

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/mar/13/how-make-perfect-chicken-tagine

Can subsitute 1/4 tsp saffron with 1/8 tsp turmeric and 1/4 tsp sweet paprika.  Not quite the same, but supposed to be pretty good, and a lot cheaper!

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Indian Style Rice

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Indian Style Rice
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Course Side Dish
Cuisine Indian
Servings
Ingredients
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Indian
Servings
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Place rice in a sieve and run cool water through it to rinse it until the water runs clear. Soak the rice in cool water for 30 minutes. Drain.
  2. Bring 8 cups of water and the salt to a boil in a large pot. Add the rice and stir. Add the cloves, cardamom and cinnamon and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste the rice, and test if it is done to your taste; rice can take more or less time to cook depending on how old it is. If still too firm, cook a few minutes longer.
  3. When the rice is cooked to your liking, drain the rice into a colander and rinse with cold water to stop if from cooking. Remove the cloves, cardamom and cinnamon and discard. Set the rice aside to drain.
  4. In a pan large enough to hold the rice, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the mustard and cumin seeds and the chile flakes. Cook until the mustard seeds start popping, then add the onion. Sauté until the onion begins to brown, about 5-7 minutes.
  5. Add the garlic and sauté another 2-3 minutes. Add the rice and mix well. Sprinkle the turmeric over the rice and mix well. Cook for another 3-4 minutes, stirring often.
Recipe Notes

If you don’t have whole cardamom pods or stick cinnamon, add a pinch of each ground in with the cumin in step 4.

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Tandoori Chicken

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Tandoori Chicken
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Course Main Dish
Cuisine Indian
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Ingredients
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Indian
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Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Heat the oil in a small pan over medium heat, then cook the coriander, cumin, turmeric, cayenne, garam masala and paprika, stirring often, until fragrant (approximately 2-3 minutes). Let cool completely.
  2. Whisk in the cooled spice-oil mixture into the yogurt, then mix in the lemon juice, garlic, salt and ginger.
  3. Cut deep slashes (to the bone) in 3-4 places on the leg/thigh pieces. Just make 2-3 cuts if you are using separate drumsticks and thighs. Coat the chicken in the marinade, cover and chill for at least an hour (preferably 6 hours), no more than 8 hours.
  4. Prepare your grill so that one side is quite hot over direct heat, the other side cooler, not over direct heat. If using charcoal, leave one side of the grill without coals, so you have a hot side and a cooler side. If you are using a gas grill, just turn on one-half of the burners. Use tongs to wipe the grill grates with a paper towel soaked in vegetable oil. Take the chicken out of the marinade and shake off the excess. You want the chicken coated, but not gloppy. Put the chicken pieces on the hot side of the grill and cover. Cook 2-3 minutes before checking.
  5. Turn the chicken so it is brown (even a little bit charred) on all sides, then move it to the cool side of the grill. Cover and cook for at least 20 minutes, up to 40 minutes (or longer) depending on the size of the chicken and the temperature of the grill. The chicken is done when its juices run clear.
  6. Let it rest for at least 5 minutes before serving. It’s also great at room temperature or even cold the next day.
  7. Serve with naan, and Indian flatbread, or with Indian style rice, with yogurt-based raita on the side.
Recipe Notes

If you don’t have a grill, you can broil the chicken for a few minutes on each side to get some browning, then finish in a 325°F oven until done.

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Chicken Paprikash Recipe

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Chicken Paprikash Recipe
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Course Main Dish
Cuisine Hungarian
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Hungarian
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Salt the chicken pieces well and let them sit at room temperature while you cut the onions. Slice the onions lengthwise (top to root).
  2. Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat and melt the butter. When the butter is hot, pat the chicken pieces dry with paper towels and place them skin-side down in the pan. Let the chicken pieces cook 4-5 minutes on one side, until well browned, then turn them over and let them cook 2-3 minutes on the other side. (Take care when turning so as not to tear the skin if any is sticking to the pan.) Remove the chicken from the pan to a bowl, set aside.
  3. Add the sliced onions to the sauté pan and cook them, stirring occasionally, scraping up the browned bits from the chicken, until lightly browned, about 7 minutes.
  4. Add the paprika and some black pepper to the onions and stir to combine. Let cook a minute more. Add the chicken broth, again scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, and then nestle the chicken pieces into the pan, on top of the onions. Cover and cook on a low simmer for 20-25 minutes (depending on the size of your chicken pieces). When the chicken is cooked through (at least 165° if you use a thermometer, or if the juices run clear, not pink when the thickest part of the thigh is pierced with a knife) remove the pan from the heat. (If you want, you can also keep cooking the chicken until it begins to fall off the bone, which may take another 30 minutes or so.)
  5. When the chicken is done to your taste, remove the chicken from the pan. Allow the pan to cool for a minute and then slowly stir in the sour cream and add salt to taste. If the sour cream cools the sauce too much, turn the heat back on just enough to warm it through. Add the chicken back to the pan and coat with the sauce.
  6. Serve with dumplings, rice, egg noodles or potatoes. (If cooking gluten-free, serve with rice, potatoes or gluten-free noodles or dumplings.)
Recipe Notes

We like cooking chicken skin-on and bone-in, but this recipe will easily work with boneless, skinless chicken pieces as well, if that’s what you prefer. Paprika can go flat and tasteless if it is too old. So check your paprika first, before starting this dish.

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Venison Sauerbraten

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Venison Sauerbraten Recipe
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Course Main Dish
Cuisine German
Servings
Ingredients
Course Main Dish
Cuisine German
Servings
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Bring marinade ingredients to a boil and turn off the heat. Allow to cool. Submerge the venison in the marinade and let it sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours, and up to 5 days. Three days is a good length of time. When you are ready to cook, take the roast out of the marinade and salt it well. Set it aside for 15-20 minutes or so.
  2. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Actually, 225 is a better temperature, but the roast can take up to 8 hours to properly cook then; this is what I do at home on weekends. At 275 degrees, the roast will probably take about 5 hours to cook. You can go up to 300 degrees – a typical venison roast will be ready in 3 1/2 hours at this temperature – but you will get gray, not pink, meat. It will still taste good, though.
  3. Now you have an optional step: You can, if you choose, brown the venison in butter or oil. I chose not to because if you then simmer the venison at a low enough temperature, it will remain pink all the way through. If you brown the outside, you will get a gray ring around the edge of the venison when you cut into it. Either way is fine.
  4. Pour the marinade into a pot and bring it to a boil. Pour it into a Dutch oven or other lidded pot and place the venison inside. Cover and put in the oven. If the venison is not submerged by the marinade, turn the roast over every hour. This is also a good way to test for doneness – you want the roast to almost be falling apart. When the roast is done, take it out of the pot and coat it with some of the 1/4 cup olive oil or melted butter. Reserve the rest of the oil or butter for later. Wrap it in foil.
  5. Now you make the sauerbraten sauce – and sauerbraten is all about the sauce. Strain the cooking liquid through a fine-meshed sieve into a bowl. Take the 8 ginger snap cookies and pulverize them in a blender. You want it to look like a rough meal or coarse flour.
  6. In a medium-sized pot, melt 3 tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat. When it is frothing and totally melted, whisk in 2 tablespoons flour. Cook until it is the color of coffee-and-cream, stirring often. Slowly whisk in the cooking liquid, one cup at a time. The mixture will turn to clay at first, then loosen into a silky sauce. Taste for salt – it will probably need it – and add enough to your taste.
  7. Whisk in 4 tablespoons of the pulverized ginger snaps. They will not dissolve completely at first, but keep stirring and they will disappear. Taste the sauce. Add another tablespoon of ginger snaps if you want, or add a tablespoon of sugar. The sauce should taste sour, warm (a pumpkin pie sort of spicy warm) and a little zippy and sweet.
  8. To serve, slice the roast into 1/4 inch thick slices. Venison can be dry – it has zero fat – so one trick I do is to coat each slice in melted butter before I serve it. You’ll need about 1/2 stick melted to do this trick. Serve with lots of sauce, some braised onions, and either mashed potatoes, egg noodles, or spaetzle. A hearty red wine would be an ideal match here, as would a dark, malty beer.
Recipe Notes

You can of course use beef for this recipe; brisket or a chuck roast would be good, and you could also use London broil or tri-tip.

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Gougères

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Gougères
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Course Appetizer
Cuisine French
Servings
gougères
Ingredients
Course Appetizer
Cuisine French
Servings
gougères
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. The easiest way to describe gougères is to call them cheese puffs. Their dough, pâte àchoux, is the same one you’d use for sweet cream puffs or profiteroles, but when the pâte àchoux is destined to become gougères, you fold in a fair amount of grated cheese. In France, I use Gruyère, Comté, Emmenthal, or, just for fun and a spot of color, Mimolette, Gouda’s French cousin; in America, I reach for extra-sharp cheddar, and sometimes I add a little smoked cheese to the mix.
  2. Gougères are made everywhere in France (and can be bought frozen in many stores), but their home is Burgundy, where they are the first thing you get when you sit down in almost any restaurant. In Burgundy, gougères are often served with the local aperitif, kir; chez Greenspan, where I serve them no matter what I’m pouring as a welcoming glass, my favorite sip-along is Champagne. I love the way Champagne’s toastiness and gougères’ egginess play together.
  3. Although you must spoon out the puffs as soon as the dough is made, the little puffs can be frozen and then baked straight from the freezer, putting them in the realm of the doable even on the spur of the moment.
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Quiche Lorraine

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Quiche Lorraine
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Course Main Dish
Cuisine French
Servings
servings
Ingredients
Course Main Dish
Cuisine French
Servings
servings
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Instructions
  1. If you are making your own pie crust, roll out the pie dough into a 12-inch round. Place it in a 10-inch wide, 1 1/2-inch high tart pan, pressing the dough into the corners. Use a rolling pin to roll over the surface of the tart pan to cleanly cut off the excess dough from the edges. Freeze for at least half an hour before blind-baking.
  2. Pre-bake the frozen crust (also called “blind” baking). Preheat oven to 350°F. Line the frozen crust with heavy duty aluminum foil or with parchment paper. Allow for a couple inches to extend beyond the sides of the tart or pie pan. Fill two-thirds with dry beans or other pie weights (I’ve heard copper pennies work well for this too). If you are using a pan with a removable bottom, place the pan on a rimmed baking sheet in the oven to catch any spillage. Bake for 20 minutes. Then remove from oven, remove the pie weights (the easiest way to do this is to lift up the foil by the edges) and the foil. Using the tines of a fork, poke little holes all around the base of the crust. Return to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes, until lightly browned all over. Remove from oven and set aside.
  3. Cook the bacon. Heat a large frying pan on medium heat. Arrange strips of bacon in a single layer on the bottom of the pan (you may need to work in batches or do two pans at once). Slowly cook the bacon, turning the strips over occasionally until they are nicely browned and much of the fat has rendered out. Lay the cooked strips of bacon on a paper towel to absorb the excess fat. Pour fat out of the pan into a jar (not down the drain, unless you want to clog the pipes) for future use, or wait until it solidifies and discard in the trash. Chop the cooked bacon crosswise into 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch pieces.
  4. Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add the nutmeg, salt, black pepper and chives and whisk a little more. Add the milk and cream and whisk vigorously to incorporate and introduce a little air into the mix – this keeps the texture of the quiche light and fluffy.
  5. Arrange the bacon and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust.
  6. Whisk the egg-milk mixture hard again for a few seconds, then pour it gently into the pie crust. You want the bacon and cheese to be suspended in the mix, so you might need to gently stir it around just a little. You also want the chives, which will float, to be evenly arranged on top, so move them around with a spoon until you like where they are.
  7. Put the quiche into the preheated oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. (If using pan with removable bottom, be sure to place a rimmed baking sheet underneath.) Check for doneness after 30 minutes by gently jiggling the quiche. It should still have just a little wiggle. (It will finish setting while it cools.) Cool on a wire rack.
Recipe Notes

Onions or shallots can be used in place of the chives. Use about 1/2 cup, finely chopped, and sauté in butter first, before spreading over the bottom of the quiche crust with the bacon.

Eat at room temperature, cold (a quiche will keep for several days in the fridge), or reheated gently in a 200-degree oven.

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Three Cup Chicken Recipe

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Three Cup Chicken Recipe
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Course Main Dish
Cuisine Chinese
Servings
Ingredients
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Chinese
Servings
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Cut the chicken into pieces and marinate them with baking soda. Set aside for 10 minutes before rinsing the chicken off with water. Make sure the baking soda is completely rinsed off. Pat dry the chicken pieces and set aside.
  2. Heat up a claypot on high heat and add the dark sesame oil. Add garlic and ginger and stir-fry until aromatic. Add in chicken and do a few quick stirs. Add soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and continue to stir-fry the chicken. Cover the chicken and lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add basil leaves and stir well with the chicken, dish out and serve immediately.
Recipe Notes

This recipe calls for dark sesame oil, which is different from regular sesame oil. Dark sesame oil is a lot more expensive but the flavor is more intense and with a stronger toasted sesame fragrance. You can skip the first step of tenderizing the chicken with baking soda. I personally like it because it makes the chicken so tender. If you don’t have a clay pot, you can use a regular wok to make this dish.

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Three Teacup Chicken

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Three Teacup Chicken
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Course Main Dish
Cuisine Chinese
Servings
servings
Ingredients
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Chinese
Servings
servings
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Make the braising liquid: In a bowl combine the soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, and Shaoxing wine together and mix well. Set aside.
  2. Place the oil in a wok or large saute pan over high heat and swirl until hot. A drop of water should evaporate within 1-2 seconds. Add the garlic, ginger, scallions, and Sichuan peppercorns/chili pepper if using and stir-fry for 30 seconds or until fragrant.
  3. Add the chicken and stir-fry until no pink on the surface remains (you just want to sear the outside nicely).
  4. Add the braising liquid and star anise or anise seed if using and cook for 1 minute ensuring that the chicken is well coated in the braising liquid. Add the water and cover and cook for 4 more minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and no pink remains. Serve immediately over rice with hearty amounts of the broth. Garnish with a little extra chopped scallion.
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Turkish Baklava

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Turkish Baklava
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Course Dessert
Cuisine Turkish
Servings
peices
Ingredients
Course Dessert
Cuisine Turkish
Servings
peices
Ingredients
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Instructions
  1. If clarifying your own butter, start with 1 lb of unsalted butter. In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter. It will separate into 3 layers: a foamy froth on top, a clear liquid in the middle and a white solid at the bottom. When the butter is heated through and no more foam is developing, remove from heat. Remove the foam with a spoon. You want to keep the yellow liquid. You can save it by decanting it from the saucepan without disturbing the milk solids, or strain it through a cheesecloth-lined strainer.
  2. Preheat the oven to 375F.
  3. To make the syrup, combine the cold water with the sugar in a medium-size saucepan. Boil the mixture for 5 minutes, then lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 15-30 minutes. The syrup is ready when it is light yellow, and when a small spoonful dropped onto a wooden surface is tacky when cooled. Once ready, stir in the lemon juice into the syrup and set it aside to cool.
  4. Place the nuts and sugar in a food processor and process until medium to finely ground (but not too fine!). Set aside.
  5. Brush the inside of a 14 x 18 x 1 inch baking pan (if your phyllo dough is bigger than your pan, let it hang over and trim it off at the end to fit) with a little bit of the clarified butter. Place 1 sheet of phyllo dough in the pan. With a wide pastry brush or paper towel, lightly brush the dough with the clarified butter. Continue layering the dough and brushing with butter until one package of dough is used.
  6. Spread the nuts over the dough and lightly sprinkle it with water – a plant mister is best- to help the dough adhere to the nuts where the next layer is added. Using the second package of phyllo dough, layer the dough over the nuts, brushing each sheet with clarified butter. Trim the pastry edges to fit neatly within the baking pan. Brush the top layer and the edges with clarified butter.
  7. Using a sharp knife dipped in hot water, cut through the dough halfway down the height of the pan to make 48 pieces (4 lengthwise and 12 cross-wise).
  8. Bake the baklava in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes. Lower the heat to 325F and bake for an additional 30 minutes until the top is lightly golden. Remove the baklava from the oven and let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Recut the pastries along the lines, all the way to the bottom of the baking pan. Pour the cold syrup evenly over the cut lines (I generally use around 2/3rd of the syrup solution). Sprinkle the baklava with chopped walnuts or pistachios, if so desired, and let it cool completely. Serve at room temperature.
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