Deus Ex Culina

Chicken with Oyster Sauce

This recipe is super fast and quite easy to make...especially when dinner is only 30 minutes away...

Miss me?

Well, I'm back with yet another ridiculously easy recipe.
Now...Less talk and more action...

Pantry Raid

1 Lb of chicken- I get the pre-cut ready to stir fry kind at my market. Otherwise, get some breast and cut it up.

Cooking (canola) oil

Garlic

Oyster sauce

Salt and pepper, or meat tenderizer/seasoning of your choice

For Side Dishes-

Brown Rice

I got mine at Trader Joe's. It comes in a little pouch and you can microwave it for 3 minutes. It tastes pretty good- nice nutty flavor. Otherwise, just get any rice of your choice (although the brown rice is tastier and adds a nice texture).

Garlic Asparagus

One bunch of asparagus

Minced garlic

Spray can of olive oil

Get Down

Heat up some canola oil in a skillet over a high-medium temp. When hot add the chicken and stir until it's coated with the oil. Next add the spices of your choice. Cook until the chicken is done and looking golden. Lower the temp to medium-low and add a few tablespoons of oyster sauce (found over at the Asian food section)- be generous, but don't overdo it. Depending on how big the chicken pieces are, I'll add three to four heaping tablespoons of the stuff. Mix well- add some garlic. Let cook until all chicken pieces are saturated with sauce and garlic is golden.

Once your brown rice is ready, stir in the chicken and sauce.

In a large skillet spray the asparagus with olive oil and cook over medium/high. You can add garlic, salt, pepper, lemon salt or celery salt. Fry until stalks are bright green but still crunchy.

Another option is to add more rice to the recipe, fry a few more different veggies and mix everything into the rice. I've also added shrimp with the chicken- it is quite tasty.

See- so easy you can do it when you're in a bad mood and eyeing the Take-Out menu.

Serves 2.

Enjoy in good company!

French Onion Soup

Yesterday dawned dark, cold and wet AND I was coming down with a cold. Just the day for a hearty soup !! I hadn't prepared onion soup in quite awhile so it seemed like a good choice, expecially after my wife said "Yum- sounds good!"
Since I had not prepared it recently, I consulted a few cookbooks to verify the details. I basicly used the recipe from Julia Child MTAFC. Result was pure comfort food heaven and perfect for a cold Sunday evening.

4 lbs Yellow sweet Onion
1/4c butter
1/4c olive oil
1 Tbls salt
2 Tbls sugar
2 Tbls flour
4 cans beef broth (I used Campbells low sodium)
1 can water
1/2c white wine
1 Bayleaf
4 hearty slices of baquete
1/4c parmesan cheese
8 oz Gryere cheese

Peel and thinly slice the onions.

Melt butter in a large stock pot- med heat, add olive oil.

Add onions and stir to completely cover the onions in the butter/oil. If onions start to burn or seem to cook unevenly, turn down heat. Stir and cook for ~15min, until onions reduce in volume and give off liquid.

Add suger, stir to completely incorporate, add flour and again stir to completely incorporate. Turn heat down slightly, cover and cook for 30-40min.

Check every 10min and stir. After 30 min, you should have light brown mass of very thick onions. Turn heat up and continue to cook, stiring constantly to prevent anything sticking to the bottom of the pot. Cook until onion color changes to a deep nut/dark golden brown.

Turn heat to high and add the wine. Stir as the wine sizzles, making sure to scrape up any bits on the bottom of the pot. After a few min the wine will have reduced by ~1/3.

Add the beef stock, water and bay leaf. Bring to a boil then turn heat down to simmer. Cover, leaving the top slightly ajar to allow steam to escape. Cook at a slight simmer for 2.5-3hr. Skim the foam from the top every 30-45min and stir.

~60min before you are ready to serve, brush baquette slices on both sides with olive oil and toast in a 350' oven until golden and crisp ~15-20min. Allow bread to cool.

When you are ready to serve, preheat oven to 400', ladle soup into individual oven proof crocks. Float a slice of bread on the top, sprinkle bread with parmesan cheese and lay slices of gryere over the top, covering completely. Bake in the oven until the cheese is sligtly brown and bubbling. Serve immediately !! Enjoy !!

Creme Fraiche!

So my local supermarket got creme fraiche in recently, and I had to use some. Both to encourage them to keep buying it, and because, well, it's full of fatty, creamy goodness.

This would be titled exotic californian flatbread with cheese 4, except it has no cheese, and I was inspired by a Montreal restaurant.

The goal here is to use the saltiness of the bacon and the tang of onions in vinegar to offset the sweetness of the cream.

Ingredients

1 thin pizza crust
creme fraiche (about 4 ounces)
3 or 4 strips bacon
1 red onion
rosemary
oil, vinegar

Take out the creme fraiche so it's warm when you need it. (Creme Fraiche is like sour creme in consistency, or thicker.) Take 2 or 3 slices through the onion, and soak in the vinegar. Preheat the oven to 500.

Cut the raw bacon lengthwise, into 1/4" strands, like thick spaghetti, then cut it again into 1" bits. Heat some oil to a shimmer in a pan, add the bacon, and brown. You don't need to overcook the bacon now, because you're re-cooking it on the pizza.

Slice the onion into smallish bits, an inch or so long.

Spread the cream on the crust. You want a layer like you might spread cream cheese on a bagel; more than just a translucent flim here, because that would melt into the dough. If your pizza stone was warmed in the oven, this can be tough, because it'll be melting and slide around.

Scatter the bacon, onion and rosemary, and cook until the crust and creme are browning. Cool for a few minutes and serve.

Alchemist's Chili

The following chili recipe was originally unveiled to the public for the 2002 Superbowl, in which the New England Patriots won. It won rave reviews from all corners, and my friend Adam asked me for the recipe. Last year, I made the same recipe but added in more hots, which made it unbearable. So this year, I'll stick with the original.

Somehow, this recipe failed to migrate over from the original Blogsplat site, so it's really a repost, but I shall make it this year for the Superbowl. So here it is if you're planning your own Superbowl party.

What follows is the original recipe.

Ingredients:

• Two pounds of beef roast
  
• One pound of pork tenderloin or chops
  
• Three large onions, chopped up
  
• Garlic to taste, probably one head, peeled and chopped
  
• 2 Bass Beer
  
• Chicken Broth (if needed)
  
• One can crushed tomatos
  
• One can Pinto Beans
  
• One can black beans
  
• One jar of Pickled Jalapenos
  
• Sour Cream
  
• Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Spices:

• Adolph's Meat Tenderizer (unsalted preferred)
  
• Ground Sage
  
• Medium Dried Chipotle Powder
  
• Frontier Chili Powder
  
• Ground Tumeric
  
• Onion Powder
  
• Garlic Powder
  
• Salt
  
• Fresh Ground Pepper
  
• A bay leaf, maybe two
  
• Paprika
  
• Ground Cumin
  
• Sage
  
• Cayenne Pepper

To Begin:

Take your beef and pork, and cut into approx. 1 inch cube pieces. Trim off all large pieces of fat and gristle and set aside. Begin adding spices to a large bowl. Start with the salt. If you are using the meat tenderizer with salt, just use that instead. Otherwise add meat tenderizer to the salt. Put enough in the bowl such that you think there's enough to coat every piece of meat. Then, put in your paprika, cumin, sage, tumeric, chipotle powder, onion and garlic powder, and fresh ground pepper. Mix the spices in such a way that they taste god to you. Cumin is very important, as is the paprika. I like to start there, balancing those out with the salt, making the remainder to taste. Add enough such that the spice blend basically looks reddish in color, overpowering the salt. What you have there is a basic chili powder. Add commercial chili powder to taste or add volume, I like Frontier brand. Then, add your cayenne. Remember, cayenne is the hottest spice, and it will become hotter when heated, so be careful there. Finally, grind in some pepper to taste and add your meat. Toss it around so everything is coated. You should have a bit more spice mix that can't quite cover the meat. This is good. Let sit for at least 45 minutes, or until the meat juices soak through the spice rub, making it glisten.

Heat your chili pot, add a touch of oil to the bottom. Take your fat scraps and throw them in your chili pot. Render the fat out of them, and when they're all browned and shriveled, remove them from the pot and discard.

Open your Bass beer. Drink. Open your second Bass beer. You will notice that the cooked fat scraps left behind a brown crust on the bottom of your chili pot. Pour a touch of beer in and deglaze the bottom of the pan with the beer. When the bottom of the pan looks clean and there is a little bit of beer swishing around in the pan, start adding the meat, a few cubes at a time, to brown them in the bottom of the pan. As they get browned, continue adding beer a little at a time to deglaze anything that sticks to the bottom of the pan. You will have spice mixture left over. Set aside for the end of the recipe.

Add 2/3 of the onions to the pan. Add all the garlic. The onions will slowly wilt in the heat. Once wilted, add the crushed tomatos and a bay leaf or two if you desire. Let simmer for a while, like maybe an hour. As the mixture thickens, add chicken broth or beer as needed, to maintain desired consistency. After about two hours, add the cans of beans, drained. Let this simmer until the beans appear to be about to burst. You may even see some bursting. Then, drain all the vinegar out of the jar of jalapenos, and add jalapenos to the pot. When jalapenos are tender, add the last of the spice mix. Let simmer for a few more minutes and serve.

Make sure to add fresh cut onions to each bowl of chili as it's served, and sprinkle with sour cream and cheddar cheese to taste.