Chicken Parmesan with Bolognese

Tonight we're having Chicken Parmesan with some home made Bolognese sauce!

Bolognese Step 1: Ingredients

6 tomatoes
4 Roma tomatoes (optional)
1 medium yellow onion
2 medium carrots
3 celery stalks
6 cloves of garlic
Fresh Basil
Fresh Oregano
Chicken Broth
Red Wine

Peel and chop the carrots, onion and garlic and chop up the celery.

Bolognese Step2: Saute the Onion

In a medium sauce pot, melt a tablespoon of butter and toss in the chopped onion. Saute until the onion is soft and semi-translucent.

Bolognese Step 3: Mix in everything but the tomatoes.

Once the onion is sauted, toss in the carrots, celery, garlic, basil, and oregano and stir that around for a minute or two, then add about a cup of wine and a cup of stock. Cover it with a lid and turn the heat down to low and let it simmer while you peel the tomatoes.

Bolognese Step 4: Peeling tomatoes the easy way

Fill a large pot almost full of water and bring it to a boil. Drop in your tomatoes for about 30 seconds, then transfer the tomatoes to a bowl of cool water. The skins will literally slide right off.

Bolognese Step 5: Squish the tomatoes

Mulch up the tomatoes by hand as you're adding them to the pot. Yes, your hands will get dirty, yes you'll likely squirt tomato juice all over your shirt... just do it.

 Bolognese Step 6: More Wine!

Pour in enough wine and stock so that the pot is 3/4 full or most of your ingredients are submerged, then put a lid on it and let it simmer for 3 or 4 hours.

We'll do more with the sauce but first, it's suppertime!

Chicken Parm Step 1: Hammer time.

Yes, that's a 10 pound sledge hammer. You don't have to be this ridiculous when you're pounding the chicken breast flat but.. why WOULDN'T you use a 10 pound sledge if you have one?

Anyways, pound the chicken breast flat. Alternatively, if you don't like what that does to the texture of the meat, trim the fat and gristle from the chicken breast, then cut it in half width wise.

Place the palm of your hand on top of the chicken breast and then cut each breast in half laterally, minding your fingers.

Chicken Parm Step 2: Breading Ingredients

You'll need three bowls.
Small Bowl: One egg yolk and about three quarters of a cup of water mixed together.

Medium Bowl: Mix a small amount of flour with salt and pepper and stir it together.

Large Bowl:  Mix plain breadcrumbs, salt and flour.

Chicken Parm Step 3: Frying time.

Put three or four tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and turn the heat to medium.

Take each piece of chicken, roll it in flour, move it to the eggwash, roll it in breadcrumbs then put it straight in the pan.

Cook one side for 3 - 5 minutes, depending on your stove, then flip and let the other side cook for 1.5 - 2 minutes.

Chicken Parm Step 4: Let it rest

Transfer the cooked chicken breasts to a draining rack and then shred some parmesan on top of them while they're still hot.

Bolognese Step 7: Look at how pretty

Your sauce is going to be very, very chunky... and I like that. However, if you want a nice, smooth sauce, hit it with an immersion blender until it looks like this:

This sauce is thick. If you don't like thick sauces, add chicken stock until it's the consistency you want.

So, here we have it folks, Chicken Parmesan with home made Bolognese sauce over Ziti Rigati:

Sri Lankan Pork Curry with Naan

I decided to try something I'd never done before, a proper curry dish! So, I went looking around on the internet and found a recipe that I really enjoyed. The original recipe I used as a reference for mine can be found here: http://www.dailyfoodrecipes.com/sri-lankan-pork-curry/

Also, Brendan made Naan to go with the curry. If you don't know what Naan is, it's a leavened, oven-baked flatbread... and man, it really, REALLY went well with this dish. I'll leave him to post his recipe for it but I am going to include a picture of the finished product close to the end.

In any event, on with the show!

Step 1: Ingredients for the Marinade

2 pounds of pork, I used pork loin for this particular dish
About a teaspoon of salt
About a teaspoon of black pepper
2 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium ginger root, chopped
2 Tablespoons of soy sauce
2 Tablespoons of chilli powder
2 Tablespoons of Yellow Curry Powder (also known as just "Curry Powder")
1 Teaspoon of Tumeric

Step 2: Chop the Pork

Chop the pork in to smallish chunks and put it in a gallon sized Ziploc bag.

Step 3: Add everything

Add the rest of the ingredients for the marinade in to the bag, work it around with your hands so the meat gets a nice coating and let it sit for at least two hours before cooking.

Step 4: Ingredients for the Curry

1 yellow onion
1 chile or pablano
2 Teaspoons of Coriander Seeds
6 Cardamom pods
6 Cloves
2 Tablespoons of Curry Powder
2 Cinnamon Sticks
12 Black Pepper corns
1 can of coconut milk
Olive Oil

Step 5:Preparation

Go ahead and chop the onion and chile/pablano, then measure out and set to the side the rest of the spices.

Step 6: Cook the Cinnamon. Yes, really.

In a large pot, put juuuust enough olive oil on the bottom to give it a light covering and then turn the heat on medium high. Once the oil gets hot, toss in the two sticks of cinnamon and let them fry until they uncoil.

Step 7: Add the spices

Toss in the rest of the set aside spices and stir until it turns brown but DON'T BURN IT.

Step 8: Onion and Pepper

Toss in the onion and pepper and stir fairly constantly for a minute or two.

Step 9: Coconut Milk

Once the onion starts to get a little soft, pour in the can of coconut milk, turn the heat down to medium-low and stir it in.

Step 10: Realize you've done things out of order

Technically, the recipe I was following said to add the pork to the spices before you added the coconut milk and cook it over medium heat for 8 minutes. I didn't do that. So, I took a frying pan and put the heat on high and cooked the pork, turning occasionally, for about 8 minutes.

Step 11: Add it together

Add the pork to the pot, then turn the heat down to low and cover it. Let it simmer for 30 minutes.

Step 12: Add Yogurt

Right before you serve it, add a big dollop of Greek Gods' Plain Yogurt and stir it in and the final product should look like this:

Here's the Naan that Brendan made. Hopefully he'll post the recipe soon!

and here we go, Sri Lankan Pork Curry with Naan!

A Southern Delight

Some Southern cooks think that what I'm about to do is sacrilege... but I don't care. I'm going to share my fried chicken recipe with you and we'll also go over how to make buttermilk biscuits!

First, let's start with the biscuits because the fried chicken is going to demand all of your attention once you start:

Step 1: Ingredients

4 cups of all purpose flour
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
1.5 cups of buttermilk
Between 2/5ths and 1/2 stick of butter

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Step 2: Mix the dry stuff together

With a fork, mix together all of the dry ingredients. Also, I'm holding the butter to show you about how much you want to use. Once you have the dry ingredients mixed together:

Step 3: Pinch little dabs of butter

This picture came out a little oddly, the camera didn't like the contrast of the butter against the flour but I hope you can pick out the little dabs of butter in the flour there.

Step 4: Butter a piece of foil

Before your hands get too gooey, tear off a piece of foil and butter it. Yes, you can use non-stick spray but... why would you?

Step 5: Add the buttermilk and knead the dough

Add all of the buttermilk at once, then reach in there and knead the dough until it makes a ball like this:

Step 6: Make biscuits!

Tear off chunks of the doughball and roll them around in your hand, then clap your hands together until you have biscuit shaped pieces and place them on the buttered foil. As you can see, this recipe makes 12 biscuits. You can half the recipe if you only want to make 6.

Slide them in the oven for between 13 and 15 minutes, depending on your oven. Now, on to the chicken!

Step 1: The Soak

Chop your chicken in to nugget sized pieces and soak them in buttermilk for at least 20 minutes. The longer you let them soak, the better the end result will be, so for the best results, let it soak overnight.

Step 2: The Breading Mix
Fill a bowl with about this much flour:

Coat the top of the flour with salt, coat the salt with garlic powder, coat the garlic powder with onion powder:

Now, the secret ingredient in my fried chicken is red curry powder. I like to use the Chiang Mai Red Curry blend from World Market. Coat the top of the flour with the mix, then stir it around with a fork until it's all evenly mixed together.

At this point, you want to put a frying pan on the stove and give it a quarter inch of olive oil, then turn the heat on Medium-High so it can get nice and hot while you're doing the next step.

Step 3: Mix it together

Pour about half of the buttermilk out of your soaking chicken, then add the entirety of everything else in to the flour mix. Reach in and start mixing everything together until every piece of your chicken is coated in the flour mix.

Step 4: Fry the Chicken

Add your chicken pieces to the frying pan and let them fry until you see them get a bit "leaky", like this:

To give you a closeup of what I mean:

Notice the little white liquidy bits around the edge there? That's when you know it's time to flip your chicken:

Let it cook on the flip side for about 45 - 60 seconds, then:

Step 5: Let it Rest

Move the cooked chicken to a draining rack or wire rack over foil while you put in successive batches of chicken until you have a big pile of chicken nuggets, like so:

and here we have it, folks, a real Southern delicacy. Fried chicken with mashed potatoes, green beans and buttermilk biscuits:

Barbacoa with Home Made Tortillas

It's time for Barbacoa! If you're not sure what this is, it's a Mexican dish that's really just very slowly cooked pork, beef, chicken or lamb. I really enjoy this particular rendition of Barbacoa which is loosely based on a recipe I found about a year ago with my own interpretation of ingredients and spices.

We'll also be going over how to make home made Tortillas. Brendan made them but they seemed surprisingly easy, especially compared to some of the other breads he's made.

Step 1: Ingredients

A 3 - 5 pounds pork roast
5 jalapenos
2 limes
1 bulb of garlic
Olive oil
Chicken broth/stock
Salt
2 teaspoons of Ground Cloves

Oregano
Cumin
Bay Leaves
Apple Cider Vinegar

Step 2: The easy way to peel garlic

So, you know how garlic can be a bit of a pain to peel? I friend linked a video to me a little more than a year ago of a way to peel garlic in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. All you have to do is break up the bulb of garlic and put it in a metal bowl or, if you're like me and don't have metal bowls, metal mixing cups. Cover your metal thing with another metal thing, so stack two metal bowls on top of each other with the rims facing or put another metal cup over your metal cup and shake the absolute crap out of it for 20 seconds.

Ta-da!

Go ahead and roughly chop your garlic and the jalapenos, seeds and all.

Step 3: Sear the meat

Heat a large pot or stock pot on medium high to high. You want it hot! Put your pork roast in and let it sear on that side for 2 minutes, then flip it and sear the other side for 3 minutes:

Step 4: Add Stuff

Pour in enough chicken stock to come halfway up the side of the pork roast, then add about a third of a cup of apple cider vinegar and turn your heat down to medium-low. Give it a healthy dusting of salt, cumin and oregano, then add 2 teaspoons of ground cloves.

Step 5: Flip it over and add more stuff

Flip the roast over so all of the spices are in the broth/stock, then toss in your diced jalapenos.

Step 6: Zest and Juice a lime

Grate all of the zest off of the lime and then juice it:

Cover the pot and let it sit on medium low for 4 hours.

Step 7: Break the meat up

After 4 hours, use a pasta grabber to break the meat apart until there are no more large chunks and then let it cook uncovered for another hour.

Now, during that hour, let's make Tortillas!

Step 1: Ingredients

4 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1.5 cups of water
6 tablespoons of olive oil

Step 2: Mix the dry ingredients

In a large mixing bowl, add the flour and salt and sift them together.

Step 3: Mix in the wet ingredients

Toss in the olive oil and then slowly, slowly mix in the water, constantly mixing and kneading with your free hand. If your dough starts to look too wet or sticky, stop adding water. Now, I know the recipe calls for 1.5 cups of water but if it's really humid, you may not need that much or if it's really dry, you may need more. You want the dough to be tacky but not sticky.

Step 4: Knead and Rest

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for about 10 minutes, then let it rest for 10 minutes.

Step 5: Cut it up

Section the dough off in to 16 pieces.

Step 6: Roll it out and cook it

Roll each piece of dough out until it's about 7" in diameter or until it's as thick or thin as you like your tortillas. Put a frying pan on the stove and turn the heat on medium. Let it get nice and warm before you toss the first tortilla in and let it cook for 1 minute per side.

and here we go, Barbacoa with home made Tortillas!