Quick Chili, that can’t be beat!!

Ok, so it’s been way to long since I’ve posted, but here goes nothing…. Last week I concocted a quick chili that was pretty damn good, give it a shot adjust the heat to your liking…
1lb spicy charizo
1/2 med onion (diced)
1/2 green pepper (diced)
1/2 red pepper (diced)
1 large jalapeno (diced)
3 cloves fresh garlic (crushed)
3 large fresh tomatoes (diced)
1 large can of pinto beans
2 tbsp cumin
1/4 cup dark red chili powder (ancho, or something of the sorts)
sautee all peppers, onion, garlic, and jalapeno with the charizo, then drain the fat off the sausage, add the beans*, tomatoes, cumin, chili powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about 1/2 hour and Ariba’ good quick chili….
*when adding the beans only drain about 1/2 the water off of them.

recipe: Tuna ai linguine

I recently returned from Firenze, Tuscana, Italia. As you may know, I am very partial to Delta (Cajun, Creole), Iberian (Portuguese, Spanish) and Southwestern (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico) styles of cooking, but I must admit, my culinary heart is still with the true heirs in France and Italy. I do carry a bit of disdain for Italian-American cooking and as flawed as it may be loving other recreations of recipes in the Americas to dislike the bastardization that occurred with Italy’s beautiful simplicity upon being rendered to the American palette. It is a shame because the recipes were, just, so clean and fresh and even when there were spices the natural flavors of the root ingredients takes hold.

I came home to a somewhat empty fridge so a quick trip to the store and a few lucky finds later and I had a meal in mind, inspired by the food I am surely going to miss for the next several weeks until I re-adjust my tongue. I’ve actually done variants of this recipe using sun dried tomatoes and other fish and different herbal combination but this was the softest and simplest way I could prepare it with what I could find quick including fresh pasta (always nice to get and not have to make!).

tuna steak
olive oil
cherry tomato
shallot
basil
garlic
celery leaves
red pepper flakes
house seasoning

Split the garlic cloves and place them in the oil with the red pepper flakes and allow to set (for a few minutes to a few days depending on what you have)
Add the tuna steak to the oil in a holding pan so it covers no more than 1/3 of the tuna and allow to set (no less that a few minutes no more than 20 minutes) and be sure to flip it at least once at your half way mark
Roast the tomato in the broiler (or in a cast iron skillet) until the outsides begin to char evenly all the way around. Do the same with the shallot and garlic if you so choose as well.
Slice the tomato into halves or quarters, finely dice the shallot and garlic.
Combine the roasted tomato, shallot and garlic with olive oil to create a base with some red pepper flakes and allow to meld

Timing is key from here on out as the fish will take the same amount of time to sear rare to medium rare as the fresh linguine will take to boil. The fish will need the same time to set as the pasta will to drain and cool.

Salt the pasta water (if you are using dry, the pasta may be salted enough to not need this, and, they will require longer cooking) and bring to a boil.
Add the pasta
Set the tuna steak in the hot skillet and sear the first side
Dredge the pasta to ensure equal cooking and separate the strands
Flip the tuna as the sear moves up the side of the steak showing the level of cooked
Pull the pasta from the heat and drain
Add the chopped celery leaves and parsley leaves to the sauce of olive oil, garlic, shallot and cherry tomato
Add the drained pasta and toss with sauce described above.
Pull the tuna from the heat and allow to set

Serve one of two ways… either with the pasta on the plate and a tuna steak offset with it, or family style with the pasta in a deep large dish that is inset with the oil sauce soaking the pasta and a softly fork flaked version of a or several steaks over the dish.

Recipe: salmon with spicy brown sugar rub

Normally, my daily eating habits revolve around a well plotted routine. If I eat a weekday breakfast, it’s usually yogurt, followed by steamed mixed veggies for lunch, an afternoon snack of Cheerios and then, come home and make dinner. There’s usually a few cups of coffee in there and a lot of water. Hence, why almost all the meals I post are dinner meals. I don’t post most of my dinners though, just because fish and veggies are not necessarily the most exciting things to write about (or read for that matter). I always have a good stockpile of frozen fish and veggies in the house and once a week or so, I’ll get fresh of both and treat myself to something really special. Most of the dishes are very simple and I usually spicerub the fish or use light salad dressings to make a really simple sauce and match the fish and veggies and accouterments. Till now, I typically only write about good inventions or more thought provoking meals, which provoked a thought from a friend regarding some recent recipes: “yo, you’re one of the healthiest eaters I know, but I read your recipes and scratch my head, these are damned good but I wonder sometimes how good for me roux and sausage can be.” True, very true observation. So, I’ll jot down a few more that are maybe less exciting but a the other part of the representation of what I try to eat.

I use a pretty good variety of fish in my cooking but the defaults usually are salmon, flounder, cod, catfish and tuna (not from a can!). Tonight’s meal is with wild caught salmon. You can tell wild caught from the farm raised stuff pretty quick just on the color, with the pinkish color usually wild and the more orangery shade being the less flavorful farm version. The first time I made it it was with long line caught arctic char and absolutely beautiful piece of fish and every time I see it available I always take the opportunity to buy it. The next few times trying to perfect the recipe, I did it with salmon and it works with several other fish with a little imagination. By the way, in this case, leave the skin on, the skin is edible, if you do the recipe right, it’ll crisp up really nicely under the fillet as it chars off giving you a great contrast in textures and really in flavors too. The original version was with pure molasses and although I enjoyed it, people wanted a dry rub version or were to skeeved out with the hot/bitter or thought they didn’t like molasses and wanted a more bitter/sweet balance, so yes, this has sugar in it and that’s not tip top healthy, but there are so many variations in this idea that the fish, the type of “rub” etc with a little imagination does good things.

main dish:
salmon fillet
brown sugar
minced garlic
black pepper
red pepper flakes
crushed rosemary
onion powder
celery powder
black pepper
skillet (cast iron)

Combine the brown sugar, minced garlic, black pepper, red pepper flakes , crushed rosemary, onion powder, celery powder, black pepper in a bowl. If the dry rub is too dry add a little bit of olive oil or molasses.
Take the fish fillet and rub the spice mixture into the flesh – if possible allow the mixture to meld with the fish 20-30 minutes
Set up the skillet over medium to medium high heat and add the fish to the skillet (if not using cast iron you may want a very very light coating of oil over the fish skin before hitting the pan, depends on the pan)
Allow the fish to cook with a cover for several minutes under a cover (depending on thickness of the fillet) until the thickest part of the fish is mostly cooked by the residual steam
Remove the top, increase the heat and allow the fish to finish searing
Once the fish is done (flakes easily with a fork or on a slight touch at the middle portion no longer feels squishy) remove from heat and allow to rest

The sides:
asparagus
shallots
butter
large fry pan or griddle

Rinse the asparagus and snap off the ends
Finely dice the shallots and place with butter in a saute pan over medium heat
Grill or pan fry the asparagus until cooked through, do not overcook
Lightly drizzle the butter and shallot mixture over the asparagus and serve

recipe: cold sesame noodes with ginger soy fish

I probably should be making a meal that will sustain the upcoming snow storm but I was thinking about this all day since today is part of the Chinese New Year celebration, so I decided to come home and just go with it. Who am I to argue with my stomach? I’m not terribly versed in the techniques of Asian cuisine so I’m fairly sure this recipe is about as far from authentic as you can get, but I find it very tasty and it seems to work and for now, so that’s what counts. I tried to break it up into parts to make it easier to follow, however, typically, as like tonight, I am doing most of the steps simultaneously… it is a super quick meal overall, which is a big part of the reason for enjoy it (although, I hate cleaning it up!).

Noodles portion
noodles (spaghetti works fine)
Black Tea bags
Bowl of chilled water
pot

Bring the pot of water to a boil
Steep the tea bag in the boiling water
Add the noodles and cook until al dente (according to package instructions)
Once cooked, drain and chill the ice water

Sesame Sauce portion
Sesame oil
Sesame seeds
creamy Peanut Butter
Black tea
Soy Sauce
Cilantro
sauce pan

Add about 1:1 mixture of Black tea and peanut butter in the sauce pan over low heat
Combine the tea and peanut butter slowly until they are creamy, do not let them boil or begin to burn to the sauce pan
Begin to add the Sesame oil and a bit of soy and a few red pepper flakes (to taste) to the mixture making sure to keep the constancy creamy and rich
Once you have the sauce together plate the noodles and drizzle the sauce over the noodles
Sprinkle some sesame seeds, cilantro and if desired red pepper flakes over the sauce

The fish portion
Typically, I’d use a nice white fish, but realistically, this could be easily made with almost anything that is fresh. Today, it was a nice piece of Mahi Mahi, but the first time I ever made this dish it was actually with line caught Salmon, it was nice. The ginger can be fresh (which, is always preferred) but if you have the dried kind, it will reconstitute in the same way you’d use onion flakes or dried rosemary, etc. in a liquid

Fish fillets
ginger
shallot
black pepper corns
soy sauce
cilantro
Black tea
water
medium skillet

Fill the skillet about 1/3 with tea and soy sauce (2:1 tea to soy), and add chopped ginger, chopped shallot, the black pepper corns and the dried cilantro and bring the boil the mixture
Continue the boil to reduce by about half and add the fish to the mixture
Poach the fish in the liquid until it is cooked through, do not let the liquid completely evaporate during cooking
Plate the fish and drizzle the liquid over the fillet for a light sauce

Cabbage Salad portion
cabbage
onion
olive oil
cider vinegar
soy sauce
sugar
2 mixing bowls

Shred the cabbage and slice the onion and combine in bowl
Whisk together 2:1 ratio of oil to vinegar, sugar and a dash of soy sauce
Add dressing to veggies, toss and serve
A nice touch to this is to add some toasted ramen and cashews too

One last note: a trick is to reuse the tea from the noodles in the other steps rather than steeping tea several times in the process.

RECIPE: The revenge of General TSO aka little blast from the past!!

So, back in the day and still I love to experiment with the deep fryer….Myself and The Doormouse had talked about general Tso’s bacon, and he had dropped a challenge for me to come up with a recipe and way to batter and deep fry bacon, well here’s what I came up with..

1lb thick sliced bacon (14/18 is a good thickness)
1/4 cup rice flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1cup club soda
1tbsp sesame oil
1 1/2 tbsp black sesame seeds
1 tsp kosher salt
crushed red pepper flakes to taste
So, cook off your bacon but don’t cook the hell out of it leave it a little soft and flexible it has to go into the deep fryer remember our friend the deep fryer?
after the bacon is cooked, let is drain on some paper towels, while mixing the A/P flour, club soda(add this in 1/3rds add until you get a thin paste consistancy),sesame oil, salt, sesame seeds, and crushed red peppers (add alot of these and give this dish some balls) now take your drained bacon put it in a sealed container and add the rice flour and shake the hell out of it to lightly coat the bacon(it helps the batter stick) the get your deep fryer up to a smooth 375 degrees dip your bacon in the batter a gently place it in the fryer for about 1 to 1 1/2 min. or until batter is golden brown….
Now I thought battered bacon would be a little over kill, but hell no!! it’s damn good just don’t tell your cardiologist about this recipe….The irony of this all is this, General Tso, she was a vegiterian!!