Hurry it's Curry Time

I don't know about you, but I love curries. Sometimes curry dishes can take a lot of time, but the dish I made tonight is simple and quick. I would say no more than 40 minutes. This recipe can be found on the Food Network, I know you're shocked! It's called Curry Chicken Thighs. I prefer chicken thighs over the breast b/c they have more flavor and they retain their moisture. Let me share how to do this dish. What you need: a large skillet (not a non stick, they don't allow your meat to brown- unless you have a new Calphalon), 6 boneless skinless chicken thighs, 2 tbs veg oil, 1 tbs butter, S & P, 1 med onion chopped, 3 tsp curry, 1/2 tsp cayenne, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1.5 c low sodium chicken stock, 2 carrots peeled and sliced on the diagonal, 1 c broccoli florets, 1/4 c heavy cream, 3/4 c frozen peas. You will also need to cook up some basmati rice and if you can find it Indian Naan Bread. Add your butter and oil to the skillet and heat over medium heat until melted. In the meantime season both sides of your thighs w/ S & P, add them to your skillet and brown on both sides (about 4 minutes/side), remove thighs to a plate. Add the onions to the skillet and cook until they are tender, add the carrots to the skillet and coat them with mixture, addd the spices and mix it in w/ the onion and carrots and cook about 1 minute. Add the chicken stock and simmer 2 minutes, add the thighs and the broccoli to the skillet, cover and simmer over med low heat for 15 minutes. Add the heavy cream and peas and stir until mixed in. Serve over basmati rice w/ Naan bread. That's it! Enjoy!

The Winner of the Food War...

The suspense must be killing you, so the winner of the Cincy Chili War is SKYLINE!!!

Food Wars!

Cincinnati is famous for a few things and one of them is Cincinnati Chili. Tonight my honey is going to do a blind taste between two of Cincinnati's finest- Skyline Chili and Gold Star Chili. Empress Chili is a also a favorite in the Queen City, but we don't have one close to us, so we couldn't compare. Tonight I chose to taste the Cheese Coney. Funny story about cheese coneys, once when I was a child I went to a Dairy Queen in southern Kentucky with my uncle. When we got to the counter, he asked the girl for 2 coneys, the girl looked at him kind of funny and returned with 2 ice cream cones. My uncle wasn't too pleased, he had to explain to the girl what a coney was. Apparently, back then in the south a coney was not a hotdog on a bun with chili. Anyway, from the picture you can see that the coney on the left looks more appetizing than the one on the right. The right coney appears to have less cheese and little pieces of chopped onion on the top edges of the bun, it just looks sloppy! I tasted both and the right coney was saltier and had a stronger cinnamon flavor. Let's see which one Will prefers. He liked the bun on the left coney better, he said it tasted like it been basted in butter and toasted very lightly. The hot dog on the right coney had a smokey flavor and was larger and had better flavor. The chili on the right had a sweeter flavor. The cheese on the left coney tasted more natural, the cheese on the right had a powdery texture. Overall he liked the bun, chili and cheese on the left and preferred the hotdog on the right. The winner is......Why don't you try the test and let us know which one you prefer. Good Eats!

Valentine Dinner

Happy Valentines!! Steak or seafood or both are typical valentine foods, but I hate fish and Will doesn't really like shrimp, scallops or lobster, so steak it is. I made the steakhouse steaks which can found in a previous post. Although this time I heated my cast iron skillet on med not med high. Oh yeah, I wrapped applewood smoked bacon around the steaks this time too. So yummy, Mmm like butta!! With the steak I served bundles of asparagus also wrapped in bacon with a poached egg atop and a simple pasta. You know how to do the steak, so I lets move onto to asparagus. My bundles were huge, and I could've gotten four bundles out of the bunch, but hey, it's V-Day! So, I drizzled the asparagus with olive oil and sprinkled with Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper and I wrapped my bacon strip around the bundle. BTW, I preheated my Breville Toaster Oven to 400 degrees (don't knock the toaster oven this thing rocks-check out their website.) I placed them in the oven and I roasted for 25 minutes. While those were roasting, I started my water for my pasta and my poached eggs. I chopped up a handful of fresh flat leaf parsley and 2 cloves of garlic. When the pasta was finished cooking I added the garlic and parsley and 1/2 of a container of Boursin Cheese (see photo if you don't know what Boursin is). Boursin has such a delightful flavor and I use it a lot in pasta and potato dishes and it's great mixed with italian sausage and stuffed in mushrooms. I also reserved a cup of the pasta water and poured into the pasta so that that it didn't stick together and set aside. Poached eggs represent fertility, so why not it's V-Day? I poached the eggs for 2 minutes and just laid them atop the asparagus bundles. Mmm, so easy to do and so yummy. Ok, so that's it. The time to prepare this meal was probably 30-45 minutes and it was so easy. Once I plated the food, I sprinkled the pasta and the asparagus bundles with some parmegiano reggiano cheese and fresh ground pepper. The wine we served is a Cabernet Sauvignon called Educated Guess, price $19.99 a bottle. It has a lot of complexity and very smooth. This is a fun meal to prepare and it tastes great. Dessert are BonBon cupcakes from the Manna Cupcake in Lebanon Ohio. Bon Appetit.

Chicken Stew

Tonight we made Ina Garten's Chicken Stew. There are a lot of steps in this recipe, so be sure to follow closely because it's very easy to make a mistake like I did. This recipe calls for homemade biscuits which I don't do. Anyway, I thought something was wrong with the dough, but since I never make biscuits I wasn't so sure. Anyway, the biscuit portion of the recipes called for 3/4 C half and half cream and I used 1 3/4 C of half and half. It was very very wet, but I had already placed the dough onto my surface. There was no way that I could roll out this mess, so I just kept adding flour until I thought it was at the consistency that a biscuit should have. Anyway, the stew turned out ok, but we both agreed way too oniony, I think this recipe would be better with 1 c of chopped onions and no baby onions. I didn't add the baby onions b/c I don't like them and it was still very oniony. You could also make this dish minus the biscuits and served over some Kluski Noodles. If you want to try this recipe just click on the link above and search chicken stew. It's not difficult, it just has some layers to it. I won't make this dish again, what a disappointment.

Mandarin Fried Rice

This recipe is from Ming Tsai a renowned Asian Chef. The recipe is very simple, yet the complexity of flavors are just incredible. I hope you will give it a try. You will need: canola oil, 3 eggs slightly beaten, 2 tbs minced garlic, 2 tbs minced ginger, 1 bunch chopped scallions, use only the white part, 4 strips of cooked bacon cut into 1/4" pieces, 8 C of long grain rice (can be made a day before, but if you make the day of it must be completely cooled), 3 tbs soy sauce, 1/2 tsp white pepper. In your wok, add your canola oil and soft scramble the eggs-remove and set aside. Add your bacon to the wok and fry but not too crispy, remove with a slotted spoon and set aside, with bacon drippings in wok add your garlic and ginger and stir fry for about 1 minute, add your scallions and cooked bacon and stir fry an additional minute, add the rice and mix thoroughly, add your soy sauce, white pepper and eggs and continue to mix. Serve immediately. This dish is great on it's own or you can serve with your favorite stir fry or with steamed dumplings. Jinjinyouwe!!

Shao Mai Dumplings

My honey loves steamed pork dumplings so last nite I made some with mandarin fried rice. If you've never made dumplings they can be time consuming, but the end product is better than most from a restaurant. I will give credit to ArLoi Dee Thai Restaurant in Mason, because they have the best that I've ever had. Anyway, this is a simple recipe, so if you have some time on a Saturday or Sunday you might want to give it a try. This recipe will make about 35 dumplings. You can deep fry them, but we prefer to steam ours. For the sauce you will need: 1/4 C soy sauce, 1 tbs sesame oil, 2 tbs honey, 1/4 tsp roasted sesame seeds, 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper, 2 tsp finely minced ginger, just mix it all together and set to the side. For the dumplings you will need: 1 head of Napa Cabbage chopped to line the bottom of your steamer 1 pkg of wonton wrappers (I use the round ones for this recipe, if you can only get the square wraps you will have to cut the edges, otherwise they will be too big and unsightly), 1 lb of ground pork, 1 can rinsed and drained water chestnuts finely chopped (I put them in food processor), 2 tsp grated ginger (you can use you a fine cheese grater for this), 1 tbs cornstarch, 1 tbs sesame oil, 1 tbs soy sauce, 1 tbs rice wine vinegar, 1 tsp kosher salt, 2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper. Mix all together by hand in a med size bowl. You will need a small cup of water to moisten the edges of the wrappers. Tools needed: some type of steamer- I like to use the bamboo steamer, a sheet train lined with parchment, a large skillet to immerse the bamboo steamer, 1 teaspoon, fork for pinching sides of the dumpling. Before we make the dumplings, go a head and line the steamer trays with the cabbage, place bottom tray of steamer into the skillet. Add water to the skillet until it reaches the middle of the bottom tray of the steamer. You will need to add more water between batches. Let's make some dumplings. Lay out 6 wrappers at a time on your surface (they tend to dry out, so that is why I only do 6 at a time), dip your index finger into the water and moisten the edges of the wrapper, take a spoonful of you mix and place in middle of wrapper, fold the wrapper over and with you fork pinch the edges together and place on your sheet tray. Repeat process until all of your dumpling mix is gone. You will have leftover wrappers, you can save them for later use. Next bring the water in the skillet to a rolling boil. In each steamer tray place 7-8 dumplings and make sure they don't touch one another. They need to steam for a total of 20 minutes, but 10 minutes into steaming you will need to rotate the trays. BE CAREFUL it is very hot, use your oven mittens for this. Once your dumplings are finished steaming, place them on a serving tray with your sauce. BTW, if you don't want to steam all of your dumplings you can store them in a sealed container in the refrigerator up to 7 days or you can freeze them. Sihk faahn!!