Category: minutiae

So I did make cookies. Go me. The cookies were the gialetti (my first blogged recipe). They turned out all right, but I forgot that I was using unslated butter and then forgot to add a pinch of salt. So, they’re a wee bland. Still pretty damn tasty, though.

And stock! Woohoo! But almost better than the stock is the fat… mm. Jon will probably make French onion soup with some of it, and I’m thinking I might make matzoh ball soup with the rest. It doesn’t matter that Passover’s done with, matzoh ball soup tastes wonderful all the time. And chicken fat makes wonderful matzoh balls. I’ve never made the real thing, just the Manischewitz mix (which I actually have a box of on my counter). My dad, who likes his matzoh balls made out of… let’s say tungsten, says that the secret is to refrigerate the dough twice, once before and once after shaping into small balls.

I have to offer an apology to Alton Brown. After some pondering, I have found that there are three of his recipes that work for me, and three that don’t. So he comes out sort of neutral. Recipes which work: pizza dough, croutons, chicken stock. Recipes that don’t work: tomato sauce, clam chowder, broiled chicken. Here is his chicken stock recipe.

Chicken Stock

Good Eats – Alton Brown

4 pounds chicken carcasses, including necks and backs

1 large onion, quartered

4 carrots, peeled and cut in 1/2

4 ribs celery, cut in 1/2

1 leek, white part only, cut in 1/2 lengthwise

10 sprigs fresh thyme

10 sprigs fresh parsley with stems

2 bay leaves

8 to 10 peppercorns

2 whole cloves garlic, peeled

2 gallons cold water

Place chicken, vegetables, and herbs and spices in 12-quart stockpot. Set opened steamer basket directly on ingredients in pot and pour over water. Cook on high heat until you begin to see bubbles break through the surface of the liquid. Turn heat down to medium low so that stock maintains low, gentle simmer. Skim the scum from the stock with a spoon or fine mesh strainer every 10 to 15 minutes for the first hour of cooking and twice each hour for the next 2 hours. Add hot water as needed to keep bones and vegetables submerged. Simmer uncovered for 6 to 8 hours.

Strain stock through a fine mesh strainer into another large stockpot or heatproof container discarding the solids. Cool immediately in large cooler of ice or a sink full of ice water to below 40 degrees. Place in refrigerator overnight. Remove solidified fat from surface of liquid and store in container with lid in refrigerator for 2 to 3 days or in freezer for up to 3 months. Prior to use, bring to boil for 2 minutes. Use as a base for soups and sauces.

Argh, I burnt myself last night. On a fork. While making toast. This prompts the question, “How?” Well, I don’t have a toaster. Usually I make my toast in a pan on the stove. But I was feeling impatient last night, so I just stuck the bread on a fork and put it over the open gas flame. Then the bread got stuck on the fork, and while I was trying to pull it off, I accidentally touched the tines. Ow, ow, OW. I kept my thumb on an ice pack while falling asleep last night.

Why don’t I have a toaster? Well, I had one, but it decided to stop working during the year I had it in storage. Now I’ve been going back and forth on whether to buy a toaster or a toaster oven. I’m leaning more towards the toaster oven, just because I can do more with it. Unfortunately, it would take up more counter space. I think they’re selling a Black & Decker down at Target on clearance, though. Maybe I’ll stop by tomorrow.

I haven’t really been eating anything interesting, sad to say. Yesterday and today I’ve been consuming a great deal (maybe somewhere close to the daily recommended amount!) of fruits and vegetables. I realized that the only green thing I’d had over the weekend was a piece of lettuce on a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Well, and basil in the pesto. So I ate a bunch of tangelos and steamed some snow peas. I’ve been snacking on edamame.

Tomorrow is stock day. Stock and cookies. And laundry.

Well, I didn’t make anything this weekend. Saturday I slept in, then went over to Jon’s house and ate his macaroni and cheese (and played ping-pong and watched the Lakers-Rockets game). On Sunday Rob and I went out for pizza (mmm… Amici’s… pesto and mushrooms) and then spent twelve hours creating a D&D character. I’m a dwarven barbarian! Fear me!

I got a library card! So I’ve been reading a couple of food-related books lately. (I’m taking a little hiatus from Quicksilver.) The first is How to Read a French Fry and Other Stories of Intriguing Kitchen Science by Russ Parsons, the food editor for the Los Angeles Times. This was a really quick read- it helped that about a third of it was recipes. Basically, if you’ve seen every episode of Good Eats, you’ve read this book. That said, I still really enjoyed it, and some of the recipes I might try. I’m a bit leery of Alton’s recipes, since I’ve had two of his recipes turn out quite badly. (Don’t make the tomato sauce from Seeing Red II: Pantry Raid. Seriously.) That being said, I still make his pizza dough all the time.

I’m about three-quarters of the way through Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk. It’s really interesting. I love how Ms. Volk talks about each of her family members in relation to their food. It’s made me teary a couple of times. Highly recommended.

No, it wasn’t the chicken. I guess I was just randomly sick. I ate a piece last night and was okay.

I think I’ve gotten to the point where I have enough bits and pieces of chickens (backs, necks, wings) to make stock. Yay.

I’m thinking of putting an ad up on craigslist in the free stuff section for half of the Orange Tea Cake, an unopened jar of expired baking powder, and four bottles of the worst beer I’ve ever had. (Mission Street Pale Ale, if you’re wondering. I got it at Trader Joe’s. It is ever so god-awful.) But I probably won’t.

Oh, I am SO glad no one took me up on my offer to come over for dinner last night. Because I did something wrong. Something wrong enough to wake me up at 2:30 and stick my head in the toilet. Good times.

I’m guessing cross-contamination took place at some point, because I overcooked the chicken this time. I don’t get it- undercooked chicken and I’m okay, overcooked and I’m sick. I just want to point out that it is MY FAULT, not the recipe’s, because the recipe is damn good (Cook’s Illustrated, if you were keen to know).

I got to use my lovely new Le Creuset skillet last night! And it was wonderful. Surprisingly, it was a lot easier to clean than I was expecting.

Along with the chicken, I made some jasmine rice. I put the sauce on the rice instead of the chicken, when really, I should have put it on both. The chicken was a wee bland without it. It’s so good that I just want to eat it with a spoon, but I’m going to have to throw it out along with the chicken, and that is killing me (see earlier statement about hating to throw away food). I wish I knew how to make the sauce without having to make the chicken, but it’s kind of hard to just buy chicken drippings. I’ve got some fat, though (skimmed off the top of the stock I used in the soup a few days ago). Maybe I could try it with that.

Please, try this recipe out. I had a bad experience with it. I’ve made it two other times before, and it’s turned out fine. I will probably make it again. Although next time, I’ll buy a package of already cut-up chicken, because dismantling a whole bird is hard (although cost-effective).

Pan-Roasted Chicken with Sherry-Rosemary Sauce

For the bird:

1 1/2 cups kosher salt (3/4 cup table salt)

1 chicken (3 1/2 to 4 pounds), cut into 8 pieces (4 breast pieces, 2 thighs, and 2 legs)

Ground black pepper

1 tsp vegetable oil

For the sauce:

1 large shallot, minced (about 4 tbsp)

1 clove garlic

3/4 cup canned low-sodium chicken broth

1/2 cup sherry

2 sprigs fresh rosemary, bruised

3 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into three pieces

Salt and ground black pepper

Dissolve salt in 2 1/2 quarts cold tap water in large container or bowl; submerge chicken pieces in brine and refrigerate until fully seasoned, about 30 minutes. Rinse chicken pieces under running water and pat dry with paper towels. Season chicken with pepper.

Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 450.

Heat oil in heavy-bottomed 12-inch ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat until beginning to smoke, about 3 minutes; swirl skillet to coat evenly with oil. (Turn on your vent and open a window.) Brown chicken pieces skin-side down until deep golden, 5-6 minutes. Turn chicken pieces and brown until golden on second side, 4-5 minutes longer. Turn chicken skin-side down and place skillet in oven. Roast about 10 minutes longer. Chicken is done when juices run clear or an instant-read thermometer registers 160 for the white meat and 175 for the dark. Using potholder or oven mitt (because it’s incredibly hot), remove skillet from oven. Transfer chicken skin-side up to platter, and let rest while making sauce.

Pour off most of fat from skillet, and add shallots and garlic. Set skillet over medium heat, and cook, stirring almost constantly, until softened, about 1 1/2 minutes. Add broth, sherry, and rosemary. Increase heat to high, and simmer rapidly, scraping skilled bottom with wooden spatula to loosen fond. Simmer until slightly thickened and reduced to about 2/3 cup, about 6 minutes. Pour accumulated chicken juices from platter into skillet, discard rosemary, and whisk in butter one piece at a time. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Return chicken pieces skin-side up to skillet; simmer to heat through, about 1 minute. Serve immediately.

I didn’t make anything today. Well, that’s a lie. I made a twice-baked potato. But I didn’t make anything new and exciting. I am, however, defrosting a chicken. I guess that’ll be what I talk about tomorrow night.

I’ve still got a LOT of cake.

First, a comment on last night’s soup. It tasted MUCH better today. I still don’t think I’ll make it again, but the time spent in the fridge did wonders.

Today, a cake! “Some kinda cake” as I called it in my now-deleted post from this afternoon. Orange Tea Cake is the actual name, and why did I choose it? Well, it was on the other side of the Creamy Scallion-Mushroom Soup magazine page. I flipped over the recipe and thought to myself, “That’s sort of interesting, and it doesn’t look very hard.” I still ended up going to the grocery store, because I needed blood oranges, sugar (I was almost out), and baking powder (I have an unopened jar of Clabber Girl which expired at the end of last year).

So, I was supposed to use a 9-inch springform pan. I don’t have a springform pan. What I do have is a Pyrex 8 1/2 inch round dish that, until now, I’ve been using for making large quantities of bean dip (it holds 1 1/2 quarts). Now, doing some research on bakeware capacities, I find that the 9-inch would have held 2 1/2 quarts (capacity table here). So, we should all be VERY surprised to find out that the batter filled my dish all the way up to the top. I put a baking sheet underneath the dish because I was afraid it might spill over when it rose (it didn’t, thankfully, but there is an amusing sort of muffin-top to it).

Since I was not using the springform pan, I had to work out how I was going to get the cake out of the pan. I created a two-part sling out of parchment paper that seemed like a good idea, but really wasn’t. I think if I were to do it again, I’d make a circle for the bottom of the dish, and then a tall collar around it. Maybe. I don’t know. That doesn’t sound quite as good an idea as when it was just in my head.

The question is, will I make it again? Probably not. Or if I do, there will need to be some adjustments to the recipe. It’s just kind of… boring. More oranges, or zest, or extract, something to give it a personality. The cake does look perfect on the inside; I was very happy with the texture. It was just missing… zing. Pizazz. Élan. A thesaurus.

Also, it was supposed to have a reddish tint from the blood oranges. It didn’t.