Chicken Garlic Sausages

I can't get enough of this sausage maker.  It's really easy.  Check it out:

Get some chicken thighs.  The breasts don't have enough fat to work well.

Cut it up to manageable sized pieces, so it will go through the grinder easily.

If I can't get fresh casings from the butcher, I use dried skins that need to be rinsed and soaked.  That will take a while, so we'll start that now.

This is a garlic sausage, so we'll need a lot of garlic.

We'll also lightly grind cumin, coriander, and mustard seed.

Add the spices to the chopped chicken along with red pepper flakes and salt.  Toss to combine.

Here's the grinder.  She's a beauty.

Push the chicken and spice mixture through the feeder, and let the grinder do its thing.

You're done, really.  That's sausage.  But if you want to step it up, add the stuffing tube, slide that skin on, shove the ground sausage through again, tie off one end, and make sure it's feeding smoothly.

That's what it looks like.  Twist it into equal sized links, prick the skin in a few places, and let dry. That's it.

From there, you can fry it up on the stove and serve however you want.  This is with a puree of celery root and cauliflower.

Cheezy Poofs!

We had a taco party.  We went kind of nuts with the cheese.  What to do with the leftovers?  Cheezy Poofs!

Fine, it's a pate a choux.  A Gougeres (pretend there's one of those accent things over the first "e').  Whatever.  Melt a LOT of butter in water.

Dump in a bunch of flour, and start stirring.  This will get really thick.

Your arm will begin to hurt, because then you want to take it off the heat, and add an egg, stirring until it's fully incorporated.

SIX TIMES.

It's going to get both fluffy and stickily heavy at the same time.  Ready?  Add the cheese.  Stir some more.

Dump the whole mess into a ziplok bag and snip off a corner.  Or, if you're fancy, load it into a pastry bag.

Squeeze out puff-sized blops onto a buttered cookie sheet.

Dab each one with a wash of egg and water, then bake until golden.

Try not to look too greedy when you eat them.

PS - thanks to mom for the recipe!

Yaka Mein!

It's no secret I adore New Orleans.  So when i came across an article where Big Freedia* shares her momma's recipe for Yaka Mein, I had to drop everything and try it out.  For more information on what the hell Yaka Mein is, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaka_mein .

Anyway, the vegetables, as one might expect: Onion, bell pepper, celery, green onion, garlic, serrano, parsley.

Sear some cubed chuck.  Doesn't need to be cooked through, just browned.

Remove the beef, lower the heat, add onion, peppers, and celery.  Cook down for about five minutes.

Raise the heat, throw in the rest of the veggies, sauté for about 30 seconds.

Toss the beef back in, and add a heap of cajun seasoning (shown: Joe's Stuff).

Add beer, chicken stock, water (or some combination of the three) until the beef is covered.  Stir, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cover for about 2 hours, or until the beef is tender.

Remove the beef, and shred it.  Return it to the pot.

Cook some noodles, put into a bowl.

Ladle the beef mixture over top, garnish with more green onions and a hard-boiled egg.

Tasting notes: OHMYGAWD SO GOOD.











*The queen diva, you best-a believe-a, girl down, you already knooooow!

One-Pot-Pasta?

I caught wind of that "9-minute linguine" recipe that was floating around recently, and decided to see what was up.  It looked pretty basic, so I jazzed it up a bit.  Let's see if it's all it's cracked up to be.

First off, I browned some mushrooms.

Then I grabbed some orecchiette, chopped up some tomatoes, sliced onion and garlic, and picked a bit of basil.

Then I put it all in a pan with some water.  I know.  I know.  I also added salt, and crushed red pepper.

Bring it to a boil, and let the water cook out.  Stir well.

When it's about halfway down, I tossed in some roast chicken I had lying around.  Check the pasta to see if it's done, and adjust for flavor.  If it's not done, add a little more water, and then check again.

Amazingly, it does seem to be creating its own sauce.  Because I gotta be me, I threw in some shredded kale.  Because health.  Or trend.  Or something.

When the pasta's done, and the sauce is as thick as you want it to be, spoon it into a bowl, add lemon and parmesan cheese, and have at it.  Total time: 20 minutes from browning the mushrooms to plate.

Tasting notes: It's supposed to be a sauce, sure, but even so the flavors seemed a bit muddled together.  Plus, the tomatoes never really broke down enough to change their character.  I think I may try this again, but simply cook down the pasta by itself, then toss it with fresh ingredients.  A noble experiment, nonetheless.

Thai Grilled Chicken

We all have a mental picture of American Thai food: It’s either some sort of stir-fried rice or noodle, maybe a curry, and while there’s a nod towards the idea of “all five flavors” being balanced, the general result is, well, “bland with peanuts” or “incredibly freaking hot, with peanuts”.  But surely that’s not all, is it?  I mean, what about…

…Roast chicken?

I mean, you may not see it on menus here in the states, but surely the concept of “put a whole bird over a fire” is rather ubiquitous.  So let’s see how they might do it in Thailand.

(This recipe, and more or less any other Thai recipe on this blog, is from Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok, which is as close as I can get to knowing how they’d do it in Thailand.)

Anyway, let’s get to it.  We need a brine.  We’ll take sugar, and pound garlic (sure, leave the skins on), ginger, lemongrass, and white peppercorns together, then throw it all into a bucket with cilantro stems and roots, green onion, and top it off with water.

                                                  

We’re going to use Cornish game hens.  Completely submerge in the brine, and let sit overnight.

Remove, and stand it up on a rack so it can drain.  Place, uncovered, in the fridge for a few hours so it can dry out (OMG.  RAW CHICKEN EXPOSED IN THE FRIDGE.  CALL THE AUTHORITIES.)

For the stuffing, we’re going to smash more lemongrass, garlic, and cilantro stems together.  Fill the birds, and stand them up in a container.

Make a marinade using fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, black pepper, and a bit of water.  Brush all over the birds, and let it sit for a couple of hours more.  Hey, no one said this would be quick.  Halfway through, flip birds over and re-apply marinade.

Fire up the grill, and using indirect heat, grill the birds for about 30 minutes or until cooked through.  In the last five or ten minutes, baste with a combination of honey, shallot oil, and water.  Flip birds more often in the last part of cooking to get the skin brown.

For a dipping sauce, combine sugar, water, vinegar, and Thai chilies.  Cook until slightly syrupy.  Congrats, you just made the ubiquitous hot and sweet dipping sauce.

Chop the bird into pieces, and serve with the stuffing and dipping sauce.  Some sticky rice would compliment the stuffing, as well.

It’s worth the wait.