Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

My grandma came into town yesterday.  Usually, my mom makes some kind of nice dinner whenever family arrives.  Yesterday, she planned on chicken.  When she got home from work, I was all, “Do you want me to make the chicken?”  After all, it was her mom who was visiting, and she should get some valuable family time with her.  However, she was all “No; I was gonna butterfly them and cook them and make some beets on the side.”  Fair enough.  I sat back and relaxed as my parents had miscommunication after miscommunication about what my dad was to get at the grocery store.  This is typical.  The words beets, zucchini, and baguettes, were among some of the things I heard them say we were having for dinner. Zucchini?  Boooring. Whatever.

I should have seen what was coming next.  My mom started talking to her mom, and around 4:45, I was all, “did you want to make that chicken ever?”  (She wanted to eat at six) And she was all “Oh yeah…How long is that gonna take? Should I just roast it?  Should we sear it in a pan first?  I don’t think we can fit both chickens in the cast iron pan at the same time…Bother…”  We went into the kitchen, and I attempted to get some beets in the oven while she preheated the oven and then went to get more wine and talk to my grandma.  Screw it, I was back on the schedule…After a fit of throwing random things on other random foods, we ended up with a decent dinner.  The beets, I just roasted and topped with a little honey and black pepper…The recipes for the chicken and zucchini follow, mostly because I was pleased with how that shit turned out, given our family’s mega disorganized kitchen life.

A few notes:

• My mom makes great food; I don’t know why she has been in the weeds lately.  :-) Don’t judge my mama
• I am not fancy enough to have access to kaffir lime leaves in real life; I just happened to find some at our Whole Foods.
• I seared my chicken in Crisco, mostly because I think I was a southern black lady in a previous life and Crisco was our way of life back then.  You can use oil unless you, like me, have soul and a large tub of Crisco and/or lard.

Enjoy these recipes; they really are simple.

Chicken Marinade:

3 T dijon mustard

1/2 white onion, chopped

3 scallions, sliced roughly

1/2 bunch parsley

6 sprigs of thyme, leaves only

2 T rice wine vinegar

3 T olive oil

1) Prep all the ingredients for the marinade; toss them in a blender.

2) Blend until mostly smooth.

For chicken:

1) Butterfly two small to medium chickens; rub both with marinade and refrigerate at least two hours.

2) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

3) Heat a cast iron skillet on high heat; remove chicken from marinade and pat dry.

4) Season chicken with salt on both sides.

5) Pour enough oil into the pan to cover the bottom.

6) Sear the chickens on both sides, starting with the skin side down and then transfer them to a lipped baking sheet covered with parchment paper.

7) Roast for one hour, or until a thermometer inserted into the thigh reads 165 degrees F.

8) Cut chicken into pieces and serve with kaffir lime beurre blanc (recipe follows)

Kaffir Lime Beurre Blanc:

1 and 1/2 c white wine

1/4 c rice wine vinegar

5 sprigs thyme

3 or 4 kaffir lime leaves, torn

1 c heavy cream

8 oz butter, cold

1) Simmer the wine, vinegar, thyme, and lime leaves until reduced by about half.

2) Add the cream and reduce down by about half again, or until the base is thick and coats a spoon

3) Reduce the heat to low.

4) Cut the butter into 16 pieces (1 T pieces), and add two pieces to the sauce at a time, whisking constantly, adding more only when the previous addition has dissolved.  Once you have added all the butter, the sauce should be thick, smooth, and shiny.

5) Remove the aromatics ( I used a slotted spoon because I was slothin it, but you can also strain the mixture before adding the butter).

6) Serve with the delicious chicken.

Roasted Actually Good Zucchini

4 small to medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and across, forming quarters

3 cloves garlic, minced to a paste with olive oil and salt

1/2 c finely grated parm regg cheese

5 large basil leaves, chiffonade.

1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2) Arrange the zucchini on a baking sheet with parchment, cut side up.

3) Salt the zucchini liberally and let it sit there for 20 minutes; pat dry.

4) Rub the zucchini with your garlic mixture; top with cheese and sliced basil.

5) Roast about 20 minutes, or until cheese is brown and everything looks all delicious and you legit want to eat it stat.

Tags: baguette, beets, beurre blanc, chicken, dijon mustard, honey, kaffir lime, marinade, parm reg, thyme, wine, zucchini

Dear Getinmebelly, where the fuck are you?

I am still here!  Believe it or not, I am not dead or gone from the world of food blogs.  I’ve just been busy.  Although I don’t feel the need to give you readers a detailed play by play of where I’ve been in the past five months that I’ve been MIA from blogging, I do want you all to rest assured it was food related business.  I spent three weeks in June at the Culinary Institute of America taking my first class towards my associate’s degree there.  After that, I headed home and spent five weeks working at the legendary Momofuku Ssam Bar as an intern.  Then, I got mono and spent a week or so falling asleep at totally random times in unlikely places around the house.  I spent a few days at my grandma’s house, and then it was home again to prepare for my fundraiser for the Susan G. Komen Foundation to support finding a cure for breast cancer.  A week later, I found myself back in Ithaca getting ready to start my junior year at Cornell’s lovely School of Hotel Administration.  Meh.  Luckily, the semester has offered more interesting experiences beyond class time and angst-y group projects.

Let’s keep the conversation foodie, yes?  After that crazy summer, I’ve continued to cook delicious food and brew delicious beer as much as possible.  Because it would take forever to cover the past five months, though, I’ll focus on the present.

Right now, I’m sitting on my couch after a weekend of delicious New York City eats.  Since all of my roommates were going to NYC for various Hotel School reasons, they coerced me into going along, and I convinced my boyfriend he simply couldn’t stay alone in Ithaca (read: it was extremely hard for them to convince me to drive to the city for some delicious food).  After eating out a lot and emptying my pockets for my love of food, I think now to the big day next week: Thanksgiving.  So how about a look back and then a look forward?

Saturday morning, I drove a car of fatigued friends into Manhattan for the New York Hotel Show trip.  Chase and I went to my house in New Jersey to de-car-ride before going back into Manhattan for dinner.  Standing room only was worth it on that bus, I tell you.  By the time we got into the city, it was dark from the damn daylight savings time, but the night had just begun (I mean really–if we could convert all the daylight hours we’re putting in savings to money, here, we’d be out of the national red by now). The dark night slipped off with our coats as we stepped into Bar Jamón for a pre-dinner drink and snack.  Although it is a small place, it was full and sexy as hell with its list of tasty Spanish tapas on the wall and extensive wine list.  It’s tough not to be smitten holding a glass of seductive Spanish white (Godello, here), nomming on a funky octopus appetizer, and sitting across from the man of your dreams at once.  Fuckin’ A, It was gonna be a good night.

After our amazing start to a night of good eats, we met up with the rest of the droogs at April Bloomfield’s The Breslin Bar and Dining Room for a wee feast.  We sat down after chilling in the bar with some drinks; I got the “Back in Black”–a concoction of Guiness, Irish whisky,  Amaro, and bitters.  It was smooth and malty with some spicy bitter nuances, also known as my cup of tea.

We sat down in the dim dining area and perused the menu.  It was all so enticing, but I had to wonder where the meat was.  Besides a chicken dish and the famed lamb burger, the entrees were predominantly fish.  I broke out in nervous sweats searching for more entree meatiness, to find that the specials board had my beloved stuffed pig’s foot!  Yay!  But no, because they were sold out of it. Wah.  It was OK, though; I made up for lack of meat with snacks and appetizers.  Between the chicken liver pate with madeira gelee, scrumpets (braised lamb that it breaded and fried, what!), beef and stilton pie, and the scotch egg, I barely needed more meet, let alone more food at all.  For the whole week.  But that is not how I play, so we all kept eating.  Yeah, yeah I lubed up the old intestine with the Breslin’s cask ale, and I was good to go.  Chase and I split a yummy bluefish entree, and then I could truly fit no more.  Besides.  If I had, I may not have had room for the next night’s epic feast at Momofuku Ssam Bar.

Let’s cut to the chase.  Sunday night was all about Momofuku.  I hadn’t been back since my internship and wanted to visit, and besides, the food is bad ass.  Chase and I got there a little early and had some pork buns and Troegenator Double Bock while we waited for our table.  Once my friend Juli arrived, we sat down to a meal whose epicness we did not anticipate.  We ordered a few appetizers and one entree to share among the three of us and ended up receiving a mad onslaught of thirteen dishes.  It was nuts.

Two platters of delicious country ham with red eye mayo.  Sexy pieces of raw corvina with tart plum.  Uni with chawan mushi.  Chanterelles with pickled quail eggs and bone marrow.  Thinly sliced sirloin with edamame and delicious herbal lemon verbena broth poured tableside!  Spicy tripe!  Mussels with kale, apple, and pork jowl.  NOMNOMNOM.  Catfish in kabocha squash curry.  Braised goat!  Chocolate parfait with dulce de leche and delicious green tea whipped cream business.  BAHH.  This was the never ending culinary orgasm, and the pleasure on the palate trumped the pains of a full stomach right to the last bite.  Not to mention the delicious drinks we enjoyed–Leitz Riesling for Chase and Juli and the ramp brine martini for myself.  That would be the equivalent to a dirty martini with ramp brine in lieu of olive juice.  And the pan am clipper with apple brandy, lemon, absinthe, and pomegranate juice.  Refreshing.

I think the mussels stood out the most as the dish with the most interesting flavor combo, but everything was great.  How can I say no to ham?  The Edward’s ham is my favorite, but it’s hard to say that after cleaning up all four kinds.  They all rock.  The pork buns are always right, the corvina has the perfect balance of subtle clean flavor and hint of fattiness.  Who doesn’t like chanterelle shrooms?  The curry was bright.  The sirloin was tender and herbal.  The goat was funky and yummy.  Nothing came out wrong.  Although I’m still nursing a bowling ball style post-showdown gut, I’m OK for sure.

To the Momofuku team, I say thank you for a beautiful food adventure.  It was great.  I will work for you any time if it means I can cook that delicious food.  If it also means I get some extras going there, hell yes.

And now, the good times are in the past, but with some good ones coming up.  Thanksgiving weekend has grown and grown in the past couple years at my house.  This year, we’re doing a “First Thanksgiving” theme and we’ll be about 24 people with my friends and family.  AHHH!  The madness is coming.  We plan to cook a huge red snapper, venison, and turkey; tons of root vegetables, sweet potato concoctions, collards, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, and other delicious things.  I for one cannot wait.  Cooking all day, going outside in the afternoon to nom on some cheese and drink a Marzen beer, an amber ale, a roggenbier, or maybe a tripel will be heavenly, especially after another week of Cornell shenanigans.

Well, it’s the end of a long day.  If I can leave you with one thing, I beg you to make your own pie crusts for Thanksgiving.  It is so easy compared to how much people bitch about it.  Flour, butter and/or lard, cold water.  That’s it!  The ratio is 3 parts flour: 2 parts fat: 1 part water.  3 cups flour, 2 cups butter, 1 cup water.  Do it.  Cut the butter into the flour, add water, mix in. done.  Chill 30 minutes, roll out, cut, fill, bake!

The only decision you have to make is whether you want to use lard or butter or both.  Lard=flaky crust with good crunch and maybe a subtly piggy flavor.  Butter=tender and flaky crust with buttery flavor.  Do half and half for a good time.  Why not?  Just don’t go buying those frozen pies or pie crusts, damn it!  If you do, you may as well unsubscribe to this blog now, because I believe in you too much to have pie-faker readers.

DO it!  Happy Thanksgiving!  It’s good to be back.

Free Food! In Review.

A bout a month ago, a woman contacted me saying she had read my Cornell Daily Sun article on the best snacks suited for an all-night study session during finals week.  Excited that I had mentioned Bear Naked Granola, a product she advertised for, she asked me if I was interested in trying some other products by Bear Naked and other brands and writing about them.  Did I ever—I don’t really say no to free food, and I am not a sell out, since, as you can read below, I gave very honest opinions:

Bear Naked Chocolate cookies

Although my mom was afraid they tasted “too healthy” for my younger siblings’ taste, I liked the whole-grain, naturally sweet vibe from these cookies.  Even though they were “healthy tasting,” they were also very chocolaty and also had many decent sized chocolate chunks.  In my opinion, these cookies were a quasi-hippie-fantasy junk food.  And they are not bad as a breakfast replacement.

Bear Naked Fruit cookies

These cookies, which were very similar to the chocolate cookies in texture, were like eating a chewy, compacted disk of trail mix—in a good way.  I liked the variety of dried fruits and nuts in them, and they were definitely sweet enough without being overly sugary or cloying.

Bear Naked Chocolate Cherry trail mix

This trail mix was a good play on the classic chocolate-cherry flavor scheme, even though I felt it was a bit lacking in complexity.  You got a plain kind of earthy cocoa flavor and super-tart cherry.  Maybe it was a bit boring, but it decent enough.  Although not my first choice for a snack, that trail mix may be the chocoholic’s trail mix dream.

Bear Naked Pecan Apple Flax trail mix

This trail mix was very troubling.  Although I liked the idea behind it, the granola clusters in it tasted exactly like Play Doh.  Did I eat Play Doh as a child?  Probably.  Did I smell it a lot?  Definitely.  And it smells a lot like this Pecan Apple Flax business.  Perhaps this is a fun starter solid food for kids transitioning from a Play Doh phase, but that is about it.

Bear Naked Cranberry protein trail mix

This mix was probably my favorite.  Simple, nutty, fruity, sour, sweet—everything anyone could ask for in a good, solid trail mix.  I would take it hiking any day.

Stretch Island Fruti Co. Fruit leather

I am not normally a fruit leather person.  As a kid, I though fruit leather was the snack of children whose insane parents wouldn’t allow them fruit by the foot.  But now, in retrospect, I see I may have been wrong.  These more naturally sweet fruit leathers, ranging in flavors from apricot to apple, grape, strawberry, and raspberry, offer a lower calorie fruit snack that doesn’t turn one’s mouth blue and is still satisfying and sweet.

Annie Chun Ramen

I’m a college student.  I know ramen.  Even though I don’t really buy it myself, I have friends who live off only ramen.  And because of that, after trying the Annie Chun Ramen, I was somewhat disappointed.  Most familiar with the MSG laden Top Ramen, I felt Annie Chun’s lacked seasoning and that satisfying umami we college students grow to enjoy when we look forward to ramen.  Unfortunately, Annie Chun’s was not my favorite.

Metromint water

I have tried Metromint water before, and I have enjoyed the regular mint water and the chocolate mint water.  After trying the berry mint water, I was a little disappointed.  Rather than being refreshing and cooling, it was really just medicinal and strange.  On the bright side, that’s really only one flavor I don’t enjoy from Metromint.

All in all, I enjoyed most of my samples and would recommend them to others interested in trying these products.  Especially the cookies!  I would definitely buy those again.

Tags: bear naked, granola, metromint water, ramen, trail mix