Feb 7th, 2010
by foodwithlegs.
Buffalo Wings Super Bowl Dip, the finished product
The idea behind this dip is a good one, I think. Chicken wings are messy to prepare and the demand for them has gotten to the point where only boneless, skinless chicken breasts are more expensive on a per pound basis so they no longer fit into the “finest cheapest” category. If we can avoid the mess and expense and create a dish that can be easily carried to the ubiquitous Super Bowl party without sacrificing any of the delicious attributes of chicken wings all the better. But I can’t take total claim for the idea. My friend, Ian, adapted a version from a recipe he found on Chowhound and I’ve tasted his version but don’t have his actual recipe so today I’m piecing together my own version.
Chicken leg quarters
But what are these “delicious attributes” of which I speak? Well, wings have a relatively intense chicken flavour because they are active, high-twitch muscles so we’ll have to use dark meat. Some recipes actually call for canned chicken. Yes, I too, vomited a little in my mouth when I read that there are people who eat canned chicken. Instead, I’ve opted for chicken leg quarters. Other recipes like ones mentioned in this Chowhound thread use whole chickens. Continue reading →
Posted in: Entertaining, Meat.
Tagged: blue cheese · carrots · celery · chicken wings · chowhound · Cook's Illustrated · dip · dressing · Super Bowl
Feb 4th, 2010
by foodwithlegs.
Filling and delicious lentil potpie served with an improvised spinach and red onion salad
As the calendar creeps into February I’m more motivated to make sure that I put some food-related, Christmas gifts to good use. I haven’t yet called the Emile Henry terrine pan into service (note the masculine fig colour in the picture below) and I have only cooked one recipe from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home. After some careful pondering I decided that I’d kill three birds with one (delicious) stone and use Chef Keller’s Lentil and Sweet Potato soup (slightly adapted) as the filling in a potpie with his recipe for the crust. All baked in the terrine-loaf pan, of course.
Emile Henry loaf and terrine pan in fig
I wrote a post back in December about the usefulness of smoked turkey legs and how they can add flavour to less assertive ingredients like beans. I happened to find one chilling in the meat drawer of the refrigerator so subbed it in for the bacon in the original recipe. Don’t think for a moment that my love for bacon has faded but the smoked turkey leg is a nice change and while it doesn’t provide as much (well, any) glorious pork fat it keeps its shape better to provide more substantial, meaty pieces. Continue reading →
Posted in: Baking, Meat.
Tagged: Ad Hoc at Home · lentils · potpie · sweet potatoes · terrine · Thomas Keller
Feb 2nd, 2010
by foodwithlegs.
Chef Yeung de-pans beef pot pies at lightning speed
Women like a man who can cook. I lack the perspective to confirm or deny this but I can tell you that having a woman enjoy something you have cooked is right up there on the ego-stroke scale with having a woman laugh at your jokes.
Last Friday I had the opportunity to put my cooking (and jokes) to the test as a guest of MaryLuzonFood at the Aprhodite Cooks Singles Supper Club. At these events, thirty singles in a particular age group (this time it was 30s and 40s night) are brought together for a night to cook and make attempts at charming conversation.
After signing in the evening begins with an ice-breaking drink and some very low-impact mingling amongst the pots and pans on the second floor at Nella Cucina’s Bathurst and Bloor location. Within half an hour we were asked to move into the all business, stainless steel filled teaching kitchen–featuring food porn lighting. Aphrodite Cooks’ organising chef, Vanessa Yeung, and her team quickly explained the safety and sanitation ground rules and then randomly assigned us to three teams that tackled a few recipes each. Continue reading →
Posted in: Events.
Tagged: Aphrodite Cooks · blue cheese bread pudding · cooking class · couscous and sweet potato · green mango salad · Nella Cucina · singles · Vanessa Yeung
Feb 1st, 2010
by foodwithlegs.
Browned sausages in a cast iron skillet
After the sausage-making marathon I think we can be excused for deferring the formal tasting of the fruits of our labours for a full seven days. We convened the 1st Annual Celebrity Sausage Tasting Panel (i.e. family members) and cooked up all five varieties of homemade sausage for sampling and (gentle) critiquing.
A platter of cooked sausage pieces and healthy pile of sauerkraut
First, let’s spend a moment discussing how to get the sausages from raw (or frozen) to perfectly-cooked. In my opinion grilling sausages is largely about ambiance–it’s pleasant to be outside to cook a meal in August, not so in January. From a culinary perspective the challenge is that sausages are best cooked over very gentle heat and that can be a hard thing to get with gas and especially charcoal. They don’t spend enough time on a charcoal grill to pick up enough smoke flavour to balance the difficultly involved in controlling the temperature.
Directions for sausage cooking often combine a gentle simmer with a hotter sear by starting the sausages in a flavourful liquid (like beer) over medium-low heat and then by removing the lid and increasing the heat until the liquid evaporates and the sausages have browned. Without the perfect pan and a burner with a very wide range I find that this method is too hot and makes a mess of the pan. I would rather simmer the sausages, remove them from the pan, pour out then water and then brown them in the reheated pan. Continue reading →
Posted in: Meat.
Tagged: bratwurst · cheeseburger · chorizo · Hank Shaw · hot italian · Michael Ruhlman · pizza · sausages
Jan 24th, 2010
by foodwithlegs.
Backlit by the winter sun, Seville orange marmalade
“If an epicure could remove by a wish, in quest of sensual gratifications, wherever he had supped he would breakfast in Scotland.” -Dr. Samuel Johnson as quoted in John Thorne’s Mouth Wide Open
In the chapter “Maximum Marmalade” in his book Mouth Wide Open, John Thorne describes marmalade as being the most masculine of breakfast preserves and shares his theory of how it evolved in Scotland to replace the morning snort of whisky. To agree with Thorne’s writing on food is like agreeing with Hemingway on fishing and so I’ll just fall back on quoting his description:
“It is, after all, the only fruit preserve with an attitude problem. Where the others are all lambs, this one is a lion. Ordinarily, sugar works as a calmative, soothing everything into unctuous fruitiness. With marmalade, it plays the lion tamer, which with whip and chair just manages to keep its bitterness at bay.”
If we accept this description–and I do–and extend the analogy further it goes without saying that if it’s suitably masculine to attend this breakfast circus by eating marmalade it has to be even more manly to go behind the scenes as the ringleader and create our own recipe. For both scotch and marmalade we appreciate that the careful craftsmanship involved is integral to their balanced natures. I don’t think I’ll ever make my own fifteen year-old whisky but in today’s post I’ll take another shot at creating a perfect marmalade recipe. I’m after a finished product which assertively presents thick-cut, fragnant, yet bitter Seville orange peel as the main act and not just a bitter garnish suspended in a sweet jelly. Continue reading →
Posted in: Jam.
Tagged: Ball Blue Book of Preserving · John Thorne · marmalade · Mouth Wide Open · Scotland · Seville oranges
