RECIPE: Chicken with Leeks and Garlic (THE EASIEST chicken recipe ever)

This recipe would easily make my greatest hits recipe mix CD.

This versatile dish stands up to being served to guests or a constant on your weekday menu.  Serve along side a starch that can sop up the delicious sauce (pictured, wild rice, parsley, mushroom salad, recipe below as well).  Try this with thighs, breasts, legs...whatever you have in your fridge.  I recommended boneless, skinless chicken thighs.

Chicken with Leeks and Garlic
Serves 3-4

2 tsp grapeseed or olive oil
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 leek, white and light green parts only.  Sliced lengthwise, sliced into 1 inch half moons
2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 (or so) cups of white wine
1 small pat of cold butter (Let's say under a tablespoon, but no one's stopping you from adding more.)
2 tablespoons of fresh parsley, chopped
salt and white pepper, to taste

Prep the leeks:

If you don't know how to prep leeks for cooking, not to worry.  It's super easy.  First, cut off the root end and discard.  Next, cut right where the light green starts to turn to dark, tough green.  You don't want the tough, dark green part...rinse and save for stock.  Leeks grow in sand and are pretty dirty when you get them at the market.  So now you need to remove the sand.  Easy!  Cut down the white/light green stalk you've reserved lengthwise.  Next, cut crosswise, into 1 inch half moons.  Place your sliced leeks into a large bowl of cold water.  Agitate.  Let sit for a few minutes (15 or so).  The sand will sink to the bottom and your clean leek will float to the top!

Season your chicken with salt and pepper.  Preheat medium skillet (one that has a tight-fitting lid and is big enough to hold all of the chicken comfortably) on medium high heat.  Add oil.  When the oil is hot (shimmering, almost smoking), place your chicken in the pan.  After 2-3 minutes, turn.  Cook on the opposite side for another 203 minutes...until you get a nice brown sear.  Set aside.  Don't worry about cooking it all the way through, we'll finish them off later.

In the same pan add leeks, cook until soft, about 1 minute.  Add garlic, keep it all moving for another minute...until everything is nice and fragrant.  Add your chicken breast back on top of the leek mixture.  Pour wine in to just about cover the chicken, but not quite.  This will be your braising liquid.  Bring to a boil, then tune it down to a low simmer.  Put the lid on.  You should be on low heat now.  Walk away for 20 minutes  (less time if you are using breasts...those tend to get too tough when you over cook them).

Remove just the chicken on to a plate, tent with foil to keep warm.  Reduce the liquid by a third.  Remove the skillet from the heat.  Swirl in the cold butter.  Add the parsley.  Taste it!  Season it! Spoon over chicken.

RECIPE: Brown Rice/Wild Rice, Mushroom, Parsley Salad

I'm not sure what to call it, but I refuse to make up silly names for things that can't be categorized like Rachel Ray (Stewp?  Seriously?).

Great served room temperature or warm, I'll eat it any way I can get it.  I use a brown /wild rice mixture and cook it in my rice cooker, making this recipe even easier.  Cut down on the parsley if you don't like it as much...but in my opinion it is an underrated herb.   I like to let the parsley be the star in this "salad".  The batch I made below had too little parsley.

RECIPE: Brown Rice/Wild Rice, Mushroom, Parsley Salad
Serves 4

1 cup uncooked Brown Rice/Wild Rice
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb (one package) baby portabella mushrooms, washed, quartered,  and dried
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Juice from 1 lemon
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese for garnish
salt and pepper

Cook rice according to directions.  1 cup uncooked should yield about 2 cups cooked.  In a preheated medium skillet, heat about 2 tsps of the olive oil.  In batches, saute the mushrooms, ensuring a nice brown sear.  I can't stress the batch sauteing...if you don't give mushrooms a little space to cook, the moisture in the pan will steam them or the oil temp will drop in the pan, and no brown sear for you.  And don't forget to season!

To make the dressing: In a large bowl, whisk together the remaining olive oil (try using a good extra virgin oil for the dressing) and lemon juice.  Add rice, mushrooms and parsley.  Combine.  Taste, season.  Garnish with cheese. Enjoy!

RECIPE: Reinventing Game Day Chili

I love chili.  I like my chili beefy, spicy, with tender meat.  Before now, my chili was nothing to look forward to: dry, tough ground meat,  kidney beans and tomato sauce.  It tasted like I had combined beans, ground hamburger meat with a jar of spaghetti sauce.  I wanted to turn this recipe around and make a better homemade chili.

The first challenge was to solve the problem of dry, tough meat.  I decided to use an unconventional method of tenderizing the meat...I combined the meat with a panade.  A panade is (according to Epicurious.com) "a thick paste made by mixing bread crumbs, flour, rice, etc. with water, milk, stock, butter or sometimes egg yolks."  This is generally used to bing meatballs or fishcakes.  I remember reading an old issue of Cooks Illustrated, and they used this method to make a quick and tender bolognese.  Why not use it for chili?  I soaked a slice of white, crustless bread in about a half cup of whole milk.  Pulsed it in the food processor, then added my meats and pulsed together.  


The second challenge was trying to avoid using a tomato base, but still achieving the consistency of tomato sauce..something for the meat and beans to cling to.  I decided to brown tomato paste and then add a good quality beef stock.  It did the trick...no tomato sauce here in this recipe.


I also wanted big onion flavor but didn't want so many chunks of onions interfering with the chili texture.  I solved this by making a jalepeno, onion, garlic mixture (think...sofrito) in the food processor and additionally only chopping one onion.  This ensured there would be a nice onion flavor throughout as the "sofrito" melts into the dish and the one chopped onion adds some texture.


Enough of the chit chat!  Trust me..this is good:

Game Day Chili
Serves 6-8

1 pound ground veal/pork mixture
1 pound ground beef  ( I've been grinding my own meat lately, but, the supermarket meat works fine in this recipe.  See note below on how easy it is to grind your own meat)
1 slice of crustless, white bread
1/2 cup of whole milk
3 onions, chopped
3 jalapeños, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 cups of good quality beef stock
1 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cayenne powder
1 tsp cumin
1 bay leaf
salt, pepper

In a small bowl, soak the bread in milk.  Let stand, long enough for the bread to fully absorb the milk, minimum of 15 minutes.

In the food processor combine two of the onions, garlic, and jalapeños.  Pulse until the consistency is almost a paste...not quite a puree (think, sofrito).  Set aside.  Finely chop the remaining onion.  In an empty food processor add the panade.  Pulse into a thick paste.  To the panade add all of the meat.  Pulse in the food processor until everything is well combined.  Don't worry, this won't toughen the meat...the panade is in the to make sure it'll stay nice and tender.  Set aside.

Pre-heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Add meat mixture.  Break up with the back of a wooden spoon.  The meat should easily break up.  Add the one chopped onion.  Cook until the meat is done.  Transfer the meat to a separate bowl. Sauté the sofrito in the Dutch oven until all of the veggies are soft.  Add the tomato paste.  Combine well with the sofrito mix, until it looses its bright red color.  Add beef.  Stir well and add spices.  Combine well and add stock and beans.  Stir and simmer for about 15 minutes...until desired consistency is achieved.  Add more stock if you want a soupier chili.   Since we doctored up the meat, believe it or not, it's ready to eat when the beans are cooked through.


Note:  If you have a food processor, it's a cinch to grind your own meat.  If I'm not sure the establishment where I'm purchasing the meat from grinds the meat in house, I prefer to grind my own.  You never know how many different cows are in your package!  Gross.  Just take the cut of your choice, roughly chop into 2 inch pieces, removing any undesired fat.  Pulse through the food processor.  What a cinch!  It's a little rough on the wallet as you may be paying 7 bucks a pound to maybe 2 bucks...but at least you know where it came from.  All of this STILL sound like a pain?  Find a butcher or store that grinds their meat in house.

RECIPE: CSA Roasted Acorn Squash Soup

Our CSA basket is starting to taste like fall...and I had two large acorn squash (es?) staring at me for an entire week on my kitchen counter.  Overcome by the guilt of giving away my last batch of squash, I decided to stop being lazy and cook the them.  I was inspired by a recent inquiry about the Asian kitchen an old friend had (blog post to come with an answer...Dave, I promise).  I took a standard squash soup and give it a Korean twist.  Acorn squash has a sweet potatoey taste that I thought would pair nicely with a spicy Korean condiment (I like to think of it as Korea's tomato paste), kochujang. This soup is surprisingly sweet, smoky (from our secret ingredient) and filling.  

Roasted Acorn Squash Soup
Serves 4

2 acorn squash, halved and seeded
3 cups chicken (or veggie) stock, heated
1 onion, diced
1 sprig of thyme
salt and white pepper to taste
1 TB gochujang (Korean red bean paste)  You can find it at your local Korean food store
Freshly shredded Parmesan cheese (for garnish)
1 tsp grapseed oil

Preheat oven to 375.  Place acorn squash cut side up on a baking sheet.  Roast for 50 minutes or until the flesh is done (can be pierced easily with a fork).  Let cool and spoon flesh out of the rind.

In a preheated medium pot, sautee onions until translucent.  Add kochujang and stir frequently for 30 seconds.  Add roasted squash.  Stir in warmed stock and thyme.  Bring to a boil.  Remove thyme sprig.  With a stick blender, puree soup until desired texture.  Season with salt and white pepper to taste.  Serve immediately topped with Parmesan cheese.

Weighing in on CSAs

As mentioned before, Michael and I had joined a CSA this summer and went in on a half of a share.  What does this mean?  Every Thursday we had a box delivered to our door full with fresh, organic and local fruits and veggies.  We are now on month three of our deliveries and I thought it ample time to weigh in CSAs, before I convince you (or don't) to join in on your own.

CSA:  Virginia Green Grocer ( of Warrenton, VA)
Delivery days for Oakton/McLean/Vienna: Thursdays
Variety of food:  I was looking forward to cooking some crazy things, but surprisingly everything was really normal....basil, peppers, watermelon, salad greens, LOTS of tomatoes and eggplant.
Customer Service: Excellent. If you don't like something (I really can't stand bok choy) you can call and tell them to never give it to you again.  Or if you're out of town one week, they'll put extra stuff the following week. They are also on Facebook with weekly postings of what will be in the basket if you are a weekday meal planner.

Ok, if I learned anything in corporate America its that if you keep your desk covered with papers and books, people will likely leave you alone because they think you're busy.... and that tables are a great way to organize your thoughts:

I apologize for the grainy table image...I tried making on in the HTML editor.  Impossible.

CSA Shares...Pros and Cons

So my final thoughts?  Next year I would totally consider doing this again if I shared with another family (dropping the $700 or so fee to a more manageable $350) OR going to a farmer's market weekly to get only what I need/want.  There's a farmer's market almost every day in the area you can stop by in the morning or evening.  The delivery CSA seems ideal for the working professional, but you do have to take in account how much time you are willing to wash and prep.  Warn your taste buds too.  I tell you now this stuff tastes better, but to be honest, that big, beautiful stalk of celery from California is superior in taste to your puny stalk from Warrenton , VA...but just think about why.  A friend of mine and environmental consultant, Kristin Murphy wrote an interesting blog  post on "franken-foods" that you might find interesting.   I'll take a local tomato any day over one grown in Canada (I just peeled off a grown in Canada sticker from a tomato I bought from Harris Teeter's "Farmer's Market" brand. Watch out for that!  I was horrified.)  Happy shopping!

RECIPE: Jap Chae

I recently made a dinner for HYKC's contest winner, Amelia, and DC's finest last night.  On the menu was Jap Chae (Korean's version of stir fried noodles) and a "Ssam Bar" (assorted meats wrapped in lettuces).  It was my first time making Jap Chae, which in hindsight, was a risky choice for a dinner party dish.  But I've stuffed my face full of it so many times I was confident I could pull it off.  I at least knew what it was supposed to taste like. Which is always an advantage in the kitchen.  This is true for much of the Korean cuisine that has inspired me to cook.  I grew up with these flavors, I know them as well as you may know a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or meatloaf (which I didn't experience until I was like, 12 years old).  So it only makes sense that as of late I've been cooking a lot of it lately.  It is my comfort food.

Jap Chae

1 lb of Korean Starch Noodles (vermicelli).  Amelia says it looks like grey witch's hair. I concur.
1 bunch of spinach
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 carrot, julienned
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1 bunch of scallions, sliced thinly
1/2 cup of dried shitake mushrooms that have been soaked according to the package

1 box of white mushrooms, sliced

1/2 lb of thinly sliced beef (ribeye, round, whatever).  Optional.

1 tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds
2 tablespoons of sugar
Grapeseed oil
A few good glugs of sesame oil and soy sauce
Plenty of cracked black pepper

Cook noodles according to package in a large pot...probably 10 minutes or so.  Transfer to a large mixing bowl, reserving the boiling hot water in the pot.  Toss the noodles generously with sesame oil and soy sauce.  Cut the noodles in half with kitchen shears as the noodle strands come as one and need to be cut in half to be separated.   Keep the pot and reserved liquid with the heat on the stove.  Place the spinach inside and cover.  Remove the spinach when it's wilted down and cooked through.  Drain well and wring out excess water with a clean, dry kitchen towel.  Chop into one inch pieces and throw into the noodle bowl.

In a large skillet, heat up a small amount of grapeseed oil or any other neutral tasting oil.  Sauté each of the ingredients separately, removing each group as they finish and putting it into the bowl with the noodles: onion, scallions, red pepper, carrots, white mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, beef.  This is to ensure the lighter colored veggies to no have any discoloration.

Toss all of the sauteed veggies with the noodles, sesame seeds and add the sugar.  Mix in the cracked black pepper...a few good grinds should do you good.  Add sesame oil and soy sauce to taste.  I ended up using about 3-4 tablespoons of sesame oil and about a fourth a cup of soy sauce (yeah, salty, but so good).  Drink plenty of water and have a low salt day tomorrow...that's how I justify it. Enjoy!

RECIPE: Korean Taco..takes 1 and 2 with Sriracha Sour Cream

What the DMV (DC, Maryland Va...I know, I hate that term too, but it's so tempting) area needs is a Korean Taco Truck.  I might not be starting one anytime soon, but that doesn't mean I can't experiment in my own kitchen.  Going beyond the kimchee quesadilla,  I decided to give the Korean Taco a try.  Without a recipe in hand and no trip to the Asian food market (I believe anything is possible after a shopping trip there) I improvised with what I had on hand.  Therefore, I believe this recipe has huge room for improvement.  I have two versions below: one on a traditional warmed corn tortilla, and the other on a sesame leaf (from my neighbor's garden!).  The beef is a riff on the traditional Kalbi (Korean BBQ) but this will work for now.  Stay tuned for Take 3.

PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LEE

PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LEE

RECIPE: Korean Taco (takes 1 and 2) with Sriracha Sour Cream
Serves 4

Beef:  (See Note below)
1 lb of top round thin sliced, then sliced again into bite sized one inch pieces (sirloin, ribeye, or tenderloin can be subbed)
1/2 medium onion, sliced thinly
1-2TB of toasted sesame oil
1 TB low sodium tamari soy sauce
1 TB brown sugar
1/2 TB sesame seeds
Lots of cracked black pepper

Sriracha Sour Cream:
2 TB Light Sour Cream
1 tsp (or more if you dare) Sriracha

Wrap it up:
1 cup Kimchee, diced
Few sprigs of cilantro
Corn tortillas (warm according to directions)
OR
Sesame leaves (can be found in Asian food markets)

The Beef
Preheat a grill pan on medium high.  Whisk together onions, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and sugar.  Toss together with beef pieces.  Sear on the hot grill pan, about five minutes should do the trick.  Since it's thin sliced, the beef will cook quickly.

The Sour Cream
Mix sour cream and sriracha.  That was easy. Not my most creative moment, but it works.

Assemble and enjoy!

Note:  In the beef marinade try adding sliced scallions and pureed Asian pear.  Decrease the sugar by half and marinate over night.  I didn't have time to get to the Asian food market so this part of the recipe was omitted.  My mother used pureed Asian pear in her Kalbi...it helps tenderize tougher cuts of meat.  Also add a 1/4 cup of cooking wine to the marinate.

PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LEE