Chicken soup

I forget now If I’ve done a write up of my chicken soup methodology before, but it has evolved recently and anyway bears repeating. I found myself sick this past week or two and ove the weekend I brewed a soup that knocked the shit out of a nuclear flu. So keep this in your arsenal. It takes a while but it’s a lot of easy stages so its not so bad.

Stock

Get one chicken carcass. I’ve found the best way to do this is to get a rotisserie chicken, as they are ultra cheap, and generally pretty well made. I also save chicken wing tips when I roast my own chicken and freeze them in bags along with the giblets. I think for this one I used a rotisserie carcass, a few wing tips, and a few neck and giblet sets. They go into the pot with like an onion roughly chopped, some garlic, and a liberal amount of salt and pepper. The flavors at this stage aren’t really important. The important thing is that you cover that shit, bring it to a boil, reduce to a low simmer, and then let it cook for like 8 to 12 hours, topping up the water as needed. Drain into a container and discard the bones. You can refrigerate for a few weeks, probably more, and freeze for much longer. This way you can make the stock any time you have chicken, and have it on hand for when you get ill.

If this seems inexact, its cause this stage is really more about chemical components and texture rather than flavor. Certainly quality ingredients never hurt a body even at this stage, but the real point is to extract the gelatin that hides in a body’s connective tissue. Carcasses are full of the stuff because in its unboiled state it is basically an inedible fiber, and because it tends to hide out with other fibers that will never ever boil away. As such the inedible bits we leave on chicken bones are full of the collagen that, when boiled, dissolves into gelatin. You will know this has worked because if you refrigerate your stock it will turn into a solid. If you filled this with vegetables and preserved meats you would have the basis of an aspic. Aspics are pretty gross but soups are not so let us move on quickly.

A Word About Pepper

I am between pepper grinders, by which I mean I had a disposable one and then accidentally bought whole pepper corns without a grinder. Luckily the wife and I had received a magic bullet from her grandmother for our wedding. I had already been using it as a spice grinder, and since the bullets come with shaker covers it made sense to turn to pregrinding my own pepper. This also opened the opportunity for playing with the usual pepper assumptions. After some experimentation I found that dropping three cloves into 3 tablespoons of pepper corns before grinding the whole thing makes a pepper blend that is pretty much the best thing ever. I use that for everything I describe as pepper in this recipe.

Broth and Soup

As Stock requires the infusion of gelatin from boiling bones, Broth requires infusion of flavor, in this case by boiling mean and veggies. Start by dicing a large onion, two stalks of celery, generous quantities of garlic, and a large carrot. Saute in a 16 gt stock pot with salt and pepper intil they start to take some color. Now is time for the meat. I got a pound each flat of drumsticks and thighs. I placed these in the pot with the stock, a package of fresh thyme, and enough water to equal the amount of stock. I brought this to a boil and then simmered until the chicken was done, probably about 20 mins. I then fished out the chicken pieces and let them cool. Once cool shred the chicken meat and discard the bones and skin. Toss into the soup with a cup of brown rice and a few more stalks of celery and a bunch of celery leaves, sliced, and some frozen peas. Simmer until the rice is cooked.

Of the above, the mirpoix of onion, carrot, and celery is all that is really necessary for chicken soup to taste like chicken soup other than the chicken. I always like my chicken soup to be heavy on the celery, thus the late addition of more. It also adds to the freshness. Mushrooms also go well, and pretty much anything you have in the kitchen. You could also add cooked noodles instead of the brown rice and serve without further cooking. Kreplach is traditional in chicken soup amongst my people, so any kind of frozen wonton will work. Go nuts. Have fun. 

Apple Pie

Yesterday I made Apple Pie. This is actually more a review, because I used crust and filling recipes from Good Eats episodes. My mom makes apple pie that will melt your face. her crusts are divine. Mine was alright.

First off the original recipes are here:

Crust:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/no-pan-pear-pie-recipe/index.html

Filling:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/good-eats/super-apple-pie-recipe/index.html

The crust I did basically as is. The Filling I made some serious edits. Firstly I pretty much just had Macintosh apples. I also used corn starch instead of tapioca flour, and bottled lemon instead of fresh lime. Finally for the spicing. I couldn't find grains of paradise, so I used five whole cloves, ten black pepper corns, and probably eight fennel seeds. I ground them up and tossed them in.

My big issue with this was that i followed the baking instructions from the filling, which were a bit over enthusiastic. If you do this I would advise sticking to lower temperatures or shorter times. My other issue was that the crust directions were a bit hard to follow for me. In the show i think it is better explained, and I know most crust recipes are more helpful. my crust came out a bit over cooked. BUT. the reduced juice topping was insanely delicious. it basically formed apple caramel all over the pie. It was awesome. Also my spice load out fucking ruled. normal pie filling is a major psychological event. My pie filling made normal pie filling look like dick cheese.

Chicken Scrapple

Scrapple! What is it? Is it some species of apple? Is it industrial art? Even those who’ve eaten it might not know! Is it meatloaf? Is it sausage? Is it a winged god, riding a chariot of dongs across the very sky? WHO CAN TELL?

Scrapple is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dish that combines extreme thrift with high fat cooking, making it very popular in all parts of the country with traditional cooks. Anthropologically it is fascinating, as it is technically a form of polenta, but with a presentation that would make any Italian hemorrhage blood out of their eyeballs. As a flavor experience it has more in common with German sausage dishes, with their numerous spicing configurations and sometimes generous use of fillers, but the inclusion of corn marks the dish as definitively post Colombian exchange, and most evidence indicates it developed ingeniously in the Pennsylvania back country.

Enough Gibba Gabba! I had been researching scrapple and was intent upon making it, but lacked most of the ingredients. You see, traditional scrapple is first and foremost a pork dish, requiring generous quantities of pork organs and bones. I do not have any of those, nor do I know where to find them. BUT I had generous quantities of chicken parts, so I went with what I had. So I present to you: Chicken Scrapple

Two chickens worth of bones

Two bags of chicken giblets

A chicken breast

Water from steamed broccoli

A cup of thyme

Half a head of garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

An onion

Two stalks of celery

A big carrot or two mediums

One or two cloves

A tablespoon of whole cumin

Some Franks Red Hot

2 cup corn meal

At least five cups of stock

Flour

butter

The first step is to make a stock. Get the bones of at least one chicken, I used two, put them in water, and boil/ simmer for like a day. This is easier if you have a crock pot, but you can just use an oven burner if its all you have. Just use a big pot and make sure the bones are floating in a generous quantity of water. There is no need to fill the pot, just make sure the parts are submerged, or could be if they didn’t float. After a day or so, taste the stock. It should kick you in the face like some kind of liquid, chicken version of Chuck Norris. Add salt to taste, but you probably want more than you think you want. As a rule of thumb aim for how commercial chicken broths taste. You are unlikely to actually use as much salt as them, which is a good thing, but salt will bring out flavors. Now is also a good time to add pepper. Once the salt is dissolved, strain out the bones and return the stock to the pot.

I happened to steam some broccoli for a unrelated dish and decided to reuse the water for this stage, but its prolly not necessary. Just make sure you add a bit of water so nothing burns, and then add the chicken organs from the giblet bags of two grocery store birds. Also toss in one chicken breast. Simmer over night.

Get ye a food processor. Add any hard spices you are going to use and powder their asses, the add in the onion, the celery, the carrots, give them a whirl, then fish out the chicken parts from the stock and add them to the food processor. Give that a blend, and then start to think about spicing. I went with what I had and what seemed like it would taste good together and the ingredients above are an approximation based on what I remember, but don’t take it as gospel. Process everything together until it’s kind of a paste, then add 1 cup of corn meal and process again until combine.

Pour the stock into a big bowl and return the pot to the burner. Make sure it’s on the cleanish side. Add one cup of the stock back in, and whisk together with one cup of corn meal until smooth, then put the whisk aside and get a wooden spoon. Turn on the heat to medium, and add two cups of stock, stirring continually. When all is combine, add the meat/corn/spice mixture and stir stir stir. When that is fully incorporated, add two more cups of stock and stir. Keep stiring. Make friends with stirring because you are gonna be doing this for a while. Turn up the heat until you see bubbles breaking the surface while you are still stirring, then reduce the heat to a high medium. You want the bubbles to keep on with the surface and the breaking whilst you stir. And stir. You are gonna be stirring for like 15 minutes. Just when you have ceased to care about this dish you will keep stirring. When you have begun to understand how a person could go through life as an alcoholic necrophiliac it will be time to resume stirring. When you have begun to look fondly upon the entertainment value of Star Trek: The Motion Picture you can take a short break. Ha! No, I’m kidding, your gonna have to keep stirring. When your mind has merged with the cosmos, just like the space baby in the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, you will be ejected from the overmind so that you can resume stirring.

When the mixture starts to pull away from the side of the pan you are done. Congratulations. All your friends and relatives will have died, but you will be able to feed your grand children some delicious scrapple, though they are going to have to wait a bit longer. Pour the mixture into a loaf pan and allow to cool, then place in the refrigerator over night.

The next day, take the loaf pan and flip it over onto a cutting board. Using your rage at the continued evil of the future, whack the loaf pan until the scrapple drops onto the cutting board. Pour a bit of flour onto a plate, melt some butter in a non-stick frying pan, and slice the scrapple into half inch slices. For each piece drop it into the flour on each side, then tap to remove the excess. Place the scrapple over a medium high heat in the butter for five minutes per side or until golden brown and delicious.

There! You are done. The presentations are numerous, from on a plate with some apple sauce to in a sandwich with sour crème and everything in between. Enjoy it with your remaining descendants and remind them that even in the future it is not polite to have your tentacles on the table, and stop secreting waste at your sister.

Pit Hole

This was something of a collaboration between myself, my mother, and miscommunication. Various things in the house needed to get used up, we never really decided on a singe way to go, so mom started one way and I used what she had started with to reach an acceptable conclusion. This recipie was made for a person who hates black pepper, it’ll probably turn out better in future if you use black pepper instead of red pepper flakes.

Take one onion, a bunch of garlic, some fresh dill, a tomato, a chilli pepper, and put them into a food processor until they resemble something you might think about putting in a meatloaf. Set aside.

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Take a pound of ground meet and place in the cookie sheet. Push down with your hands so it is a rectangle in the pan, then cover the whole cookie sheet with plastic wrap. Get a rolling pin and roll out the meat so it completely fills the bottom of the cookie sheet in a very very thin layer. Remove the plastic, and sprinkle with salt, garlic and onion powder, and allspice. Now, take the aluminum foil and fold the meat in half, and then use the plastic wrap and rolling pin to even out the meat on one half the cookie sheet. Take a large knife or pizza cutter and divide into six squares. Sprinkle with salt and red pepper flakes.

Preheat a cast iron or stainless steal pan. Spray with olive or canola oil, and then melt a small pat of butter. when the butter has foamed out, start adding your patties, being sure not to overcrowd the pan. Cover, and cook two minutes per side. When all the batches are done, cover and set aside. Meanwhile…

Dice 3 or 4 mushrooms finely and add to the still hot pan with a bit more butter. When the mushrooms start to take on a bit of color add a quarter cup of the veggie mixture and saute. When they veggies have started to take on some color, add about a half cup of rum. Careful of the fire that might happen. Deglaze the pan. Add about a cup of milk. You may want to thicken with some cornstarch or rice flour. If you are thinking ahead make a roux, if not don’t worry about it. Bring to a simmer to let the starches tighten up the sauce, then add a shot of Pernod. Meanwhile…

Make a box of angel hair. Drain and place in a large bowl with some oil, and toss to avoid clumping. Serve the patties over the angel hair, covered with the pan sauce. Meanwhile…

Pour some lemon juice into a small bowl or saucer. Slice and avacado in half and remove the seed thusly.

http://youtu.be/vJB1FlyxN-Y

Take a small brush and coat the exposed flesh with lemon juice. Spoon enough veggies into the pit hole to form a small mound the same shape as the pit that had been in the pit hole.

Pit hole.

Its fun to say. Say pit hole.

Say it out loud.

Are you alone? Cumon. No one cares if you say it. We’re all friends here. Say pit hole. You think you’re better than us? You think we’re all silly, saying pit hole? I don’t know if I can finish this unless you say pit hole. I won’t help someone who thinks they’re better than me. Just do it. You’ll be glad you did. It will make up for that one time you wouldn’t go along with that joke at that party and everyone thought you were kind of boring and you blushed really bad and went back to your room and cried. So go on. Just say Pit Hole and we can all move on.

Anyway, drizzle with your favorite oil, I like toasted sesame oil personally, and a little salt and pepper. Serve with the angel hair stuff and enjoy!

Pit Hole.

cassoulet

2 chicken breasts
1 can white beans
half an onion
1 shallot
2 handfulls baby carrots
2 stalks celery
3 andoie sausage
white wine
apple cider
a cup of rice

cook the rice. heat a pan, sear the chicken breasts, then remove from the pan. place in a different pan with s cup of the wine and cider, then finish cooking in the oven. add the veggies, and sliced sausage and saute. when the veggies start to brown, add the beans with the liquid. add a splash of the cider and the wine. use a spatula to deglaze the pan. simmer until the beans are done. add the liquid from the chicken pan. chop up the chicken and add the the cassolet, and simmer for a bit. plate with the rice.

Mad Skills

mad skills that i stole form Alton Brown

I was inspired by my viewing of his show on poaching. much of this is just cut and paste.

Court Bullion

Mr Brown calls for peppercorns but i left them out because one of the people i was cooking for just really hates black pepper. i also doubled the celery and the garlic because i like them and ours was looking like it needed to get used up. 

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 celery rib, chopped
• 2 garlic clove, chopped finely 
• 4 to 5 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 bay leaf 

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8 minutes.

Separately, make a roux with 3 tbs of flour and 3 of butter. set aside. Cook some Tortellini and set aside. mine came from a box. so sue me. please dont im poor. 

Poached haddock

3 Haddock filets, cut into strips and sorted by size into big, thick strips and thinner strips
Court Bullion
probe thermometer

bring Bullion to a simmer, gently add filets, a few at a time, such that the big ones are in the pan or the thin ones, not both. leave the probe in the broth, and not the bottom of the pan, cover, and remove from heat. if the broth goes below 140 return to the heat and try to keep it there. allow fish to poach for around 8 minutes for the thicker fillets, around 5 for the thinner ones. after five minutes check the internal temperature of the filets. when they are done remove from the broth. then return the broth to a simmer and repeat the process until all your filets are cooked.

Bastard Burre Blanc

Classic burre blanc uses a ton of butter and some cream to thicken white wine and lemon juice simmered with shallots and garlic. Court bullion is white wine simmered with onions and garlic. I didn't have much butter or any cream, and i really didn't feel like fucking up a new sauce on the fly. So I made that roux from before, and after the fish were done poaching I returned it to a simmer and added the roux. after some whisking, I had a nice think sauce that, while not a burre blac, sure was awesome. as it happened my tortellini had stuck together, so i used the sauce to unstick the tortellini, then poured the whole thing over my fish. it ruled. the sauce needed a little salt which i supplied with parmesean cheese topping. my mom also made a salad with lettuce, walnuts, cucumber, tomatoe, feta, dill, and watercress. we ate goooood.

the sucking hole in your life.

Its been a while and I made a very tasty meal last night so let’s hit this with a big black dildo.

Rose Hip Rum:

1/4lb dried rose hips

1 handle rum

Combine rum and rose hips in an air tight container for several months, store in a dark, room temperature location.

The quality of the rum and the rose hips are key. My attempt wasn’t so successful because I waited a year or two before using the rose hips, and I used low quality clear rum. This would probably work way better with high quality dark rum, and some spices would probably not hurt things. That said, this is super forgiving. The alcohol will destroy any germs that get in, so you really can just leave this in a corner for a while. My attempt isn’t so great to drink but it is great as a cooking additive, and it tastes distinctly of rose.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes:

This was based on Alton brown’s mashed potatoes recipe, but I made substitutions based on what I had in the house. Namely, I had no Cream or milk, but I had a can of coconut milk.

3lb potatoes

1 can coconut milk

6tb minced garlic

Salt

Peel the potatoes and cut into 1 in thick wedges. Place in a large pot and just cover with water. Place on high heat and dissolve enough salt that the water tastes as salty as seawater. Bring to a boil.

In a saucepan combine coconut milk and garlic. I like the pre-minced jars of garlic, mainly because I’m lazy, but they also have a uniquely garlicky flavor. If you wanna peel 6 cloves go for it. Anyway, place on heat and bring to just boiling, then immediately remove from heat and stir.

When the potatoes fall apart when poked with a fork they are done. Do not overcook. Drain and return to pot. Add coconut milk mixture. Mash vigorously. It may seem too liquidy but as you let it sit it will thicken.

Rose Broccoli

Three large heads of broccoli,

1 tb of garlic

1 onion

½ tb of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

¼ lemon

½ cup rose hip rum or other flavorful alcohol.

Wash the broccoli. Separate the florets from the stem. Remove bad parts from stem and slice into 1/4in thick discs. Mince the onion. Heat a pan. Coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil, if you have a spray that is best. When the oil is hot add the onions, salt, pepper, and broccoli stems. Sauté until the onions have started to brown, then add the garlic. When the broccoli stems have just started to brown add the florets and squeeze in the lemon and cover the pan, ideally with a glass lid, and allow to steam 2 minutes. Add the alcohol and de-glaze the pan, then remove from heat, cover, and allow to finish steaming. Contemplate the meaninglessness of existence.

Hamburgers

I like hamburgers rare. The FDA will tell you the only way it is safe to eat them this rare is if you grind your own meat.

Whatever.

1lb hamburger

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil spray

Ikea rye crackers

Form hamburger meat into patties three inches in diameter and maybe an inch thick. Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper.

Heat pan. Spray pan with olive oil. When the oil is hot enough that water sizzles when dripped in, add the hamburgers, gently, one at a time, giving a twist to the burgers just after they hit the pan to ensure they do not stick. When all are in shake the pan to prevent sticking, then allow to cook until the meat has changed from red to gray about a quarter way up the side of the meat. Gently flip the burgers, and give a shake to prevent sticking. Allow graying to come halfway up the side of the meat, then remove from the heat and allow to rest for 5 to 10 minutes.

Get a plate, and spoon on the mashed potatoes and the broccoli. In the remaining space place a rye cracker disc. Place the burger on the disc to soak up juices. Eat the food while whispering my name.

Midnight Snack.

1 Package Lax Najad from Ikea

4 or 5 slices of cucumber

Fresh dill

A few slices of farmer cheese

Rye cracker rounds

Put on a plate, arranged decoratively. Eat it.