So yea! This was another one of my back dated cooking adventures. Cinco De Mayo passed and i was like DAMN i feel like something spicy with a Mexican flavor. I looked around for what i would like and I saw this article on Brown Rice in May’s Saveur. There was this recipe called Chicken and Brown Rice with Chorizo. It looekd so good on the page that i wanted to cook it. The ingredients were simple and they sounded good! It’s kind of like Arroz Con Pollo but not. Though i might just make Arroz Con Pollo next time! I love Saffron! Anyways back to the food.
Here are the pictures of my little adventure
The Ingredients are
- 4 Chicken Thighs with Skin and Bone
- 1/2 Link of Chorizo (I think it was about 3/4ft Long) Sliced into nice 1″ diagonal slices
- 2 tbsp of Oregano
- 1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
- 4 Cloves of Garlic
- 1 Large Yellow Onion, Thinly Sliced
- 1 Bay Leaf
- 1 Cup of Long Grain Brown Rice
- 1/2 Cup of White Wine
- 2 Roma Tomatoes, Sliced into quarters
- 3 Cups of Chicken Broth
- 1 Cup of Frozen Peas
So basically start off by preheating the oven to 400F. You need to then find a dutch oven or iron pot which is oven safe. You first season the Chicken Thighs with Salt and Pepper. Heat up the pot on medium-highish heat add some olive oil and sautee the chicken skin down till the skin is a nice brown color about 8 minutes or so. Take the Thighs out and put it aside. Dump out the oil inside the pan. Then sautee the chorizo in the pan. Cook it till it’s lightly brown on both sides, about 5 minutes. Then take out the chorizo onto a plate but leave the chorizo oil and juices in there. Throw in the Oregano, Red Pepper Flakes, Garlic, Onion and Bay Leaf and let it cook for a while until the onion is soft and brownish, about 8 minutes. Then add the rice and stir it around coating rice with the oils inside the pan and all around, about 2 minutes. Add the white wine and bring it to a boil to cook off most of the alcohol. That should be around a minute or so. Then throw in the Chicken Thighs, Tomatoes, and Chorizo and pour the chicken broth in along with some salt and pepper for seasoning. Cover the pan and bring it to a boil. After it starts to boil transfer the pot to the oven and let it bake for about 1hr-1hr 10min. By this time everything should be cooked nicely. Be careful about the pan!! I burned myself many times touching the pan because i forgot it was in the oven! Then uncover the pot and throw in the peas. You want to mix them in gently so you don’t shred up all the chicken. The heat of the food will cook the peas. Recover the pot and let it rest for 10 minutes. Everything should be ready to serve! Bon App!!
So yea. Back long time ago i went to Japan with my best friends. We had an awesome time there and one of the best meals we had was a really traditional style Sukiyaki. I was so nice and there was some lady that cooked it for you and everything. The beef was so good and everything was just great. Well i felt like i had to make it. Since no where in Ann Arbor which i have seen has a good sukiyaki it was my goal to make an awesome sukiyaki. This was my take at sukiyaki. I took a bunch of recipes all over the place and my memory of japan and did this. The ingredients might not be exactly what is in sukiyaki but it worked. Hopefully i can make it even better as i keep making it!
here are the pictures of my sukiyaki adventure
So the ingredients i used are
- 5-7 large Sukiyaki sliced beef (Thin slices of really tender marbled beef)
- Half a package of Shirataki (Konnyaku noodles does matter color)
- Half a package of Firm Tofu
- 2-3 Naganegi (Japanese Bunching Onions, they are in between a leek and a green onion)
- Handful of Shungiku (Chrysanthemum Leafs)
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- 1/4 cup of soy sauce
- 1/4 cup of mirin
- Slice of Beef Suet (Fat from the kidney but any fat would really do)
- White rice
- 1 egg
You first want to start out by cooking the Shirataki. First chill the shirataki (or take it right out of the fridge) and then boil it for about 5 minutes. You should notice that it has gotten a little stiffer now. After you cook it cool it really quickly to stop it from cooking and to chill the noodles. Cut them into nice lengths so you don’t have to slurp it. Next chop up all your other ingredients. Slice the Naganegi ince long diagnol slices. Wash the Shungiku and then slice the hard root part. Usually it will come with a longer stem which is really hard to eat. You want to cut that off. Finally cut the firm tofu into nice 1-2 inch blocks or so. The blocks should be big enough so they don’t fall apart when picked up with chopsticks but not too small. Oil a pan on medium heat and fry it on all sides so you get a nice brown on all the sides.
Now it’s time to start the actual Sukiyaki cooking! Start out by heating a nice pan on low-medium heat. A iron sukiyaki pan would be the best but i didn’t have one at the time so i used a frying pan. First melt some Beef Suet so there is enough oil to cook. The Beef Suet provides a really nice flavor. Then turn the heat up to medium heat. Start cooking some of Naganegi in the pan. You want to get the flavor of the Naganegi in the oil. Turn it so both sides of the Naganegi get cooked. Right before the Naganegi starts to brown slightly put the slices of beef on top of the Naganegi. I moved the Naganegi around so that all the slices of beef would lay on top of it. I let it cook till the meat was still red but also turning color. Then i put the sugar on top of the beef and also the soy sauce and mirin. I carefully mixed the sauce together in the pan, in order not to break apart the pieces of meat. Then i added all the ingredients in except the Shungiku. I positioned all the ingredients so they would each be in a region of the pan. Right before the beef was just about done i put in the Shungiku because it cooks really fast. Voila! the Sukiyaki part is done. Eat it with a bowl of rice and 1 beaten egg. You have to dip the Sukiyaki into the egg then eat it over the rice! That’s the best way to eat it!!!!!!! Don’t chicken out and not use the egg! Bon app!
I have no idea what i made. Yesterday i was talking to Mojtaba about Persian food and i was like damn i should make some Persian Food. I usually do the generic saffron rice but i wanted to play with some spices today. I went through a bunch of different spices and smelled them and tasted them to see if they fit into what i thought of Persian food. Well at the end i came up with Allspice, Cloves, Cumin and Cardomom seeds. It worked out great but i have a feeling they all had similar flavors. I don’t know if that’s suppose to be a good thing or a wasteful thing.
I first preheat the oven to 400F. I didn’t really take pictures of everything this time but basically i made a dry rub of all the spices (minus the shell of the cardamom) and also some fresh peppercorns and salt. I have a spice grinder which is one of the best things i’ve ever bought. I put the dry rub all over some chicken thighs and then let it sit for a while. I then browned the skin of the chicken and then put it aside. I used the left over oil and threw in a bunch of sliced onions. I added some more of the rub mix to the onions. Then i threw in basmati rice, and some blanched almonds. I really like eating basmati with almonds. After tossing it for a while i poured the water to cook the rice. I then put the chicken back in. I grinded a small pinch of saffron with sugar and then melted it in some hot water. This brings out the most of the saffron. After the water in the rice has boiled for a little i poured in the saffron mix. I swished the water around once and then threw it with the top on in the preheated oven. I let it stand for like an hour. I took it out cut up some roma tomatoes. I took out the chicken and then mixed up the tomatoes with the rice. The nice thing about this is that you get a nice crust of rice on the bottom that isn’t burnt but when you stir the rice the crust comes off and you get a really nice crunch with the almonds and rice in the rice. That’s basically it. You can try it and see how it goes. But it was really good. Next time i make it i’ll take pictures. This time it was really just a test.
Soooo i have many different things in the recipe backlog. I’ve made so much but i thought i’d start off with something simple. It’s Mark’s kimbap! I used to always buy the kimbap on the weekends at the manna store down the street and paid the 7 or 9 bucks for the two rolls. I then thought to myself damn i spend a lot on kimbap. So i thought why don’t i just make my own kimbap!!! I went and bought the ingredients and figured i could actually make like a bunch of kimbap rolls for the same price as 1. So i bought all the ingredients at manna and made them myself.
Here is the end result of my kimbap adventure!
The ingredients i used were very simple
- For the beef
- 1/2 Pound Thinly Sliced Beef (Bulgogi sliced beef)
- 1 tablespoons of grated ginger
- 2 tablespoons of grated korean pear
- 4 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
- 1/2 medium onion
- For the rest of the kimbap
- Package of Burdock root strips
- Package of pickled radish
- 2-3 carrots
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 tablespoon of mirin
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1/2 cup of frozen spinach
- 2 teaspoon sesame oil
- a bunch of cooked white rice
- a bunch of seaweed sheets
I put the ingredients but for the bulgogi i really just did it by feel. I threw the sliced beef into a big ziplock bag and then threw in all the other ingredients for the bulgogi in the bag and shook it all up. Basically you want a sweetish marinade so that the beef absorbs it all. The grated pears actually contain calpain which is a natural meat tenderizer like in papaya and kiwis. It also adds a nice clean taste. So shake it up and let it sit for a while in the marinade. Remember don’t let it sit too long or it’ll get too soft. While that’s marinating go and prepare the eggs. I beat up the eggs and added mirin and sugar to make the eggs taste sweet. I was going to add some dashi too but got lazy. Basically i was making edo-style tamago but without all the ingredients. So cook and while you cook the eggs fold them so it creates a nice thick rectangle piece of egg. Boil the frozen spinach till it’s done. Then take it out and chill it in cold water. Strain and then mix the spinach with the sesame oil. Slice up all the vegetables so they are nice strips to be put into the kimbap. After the meat has tenderized go and throw the meat and onions in a medium-high heat pan and cook it. I usually just put the meat in and not the juices because more juice will come out of the meat when you cook it.
Now it’s just time to put it all together. Lay the seaweed down on your bamboo sushi roll roller and then spread a thin layer of rice all over the sheet. Don’t put too much rice or you won’t be able to put a lot of ingredients inside. Then lay all the ingredients down in the center of the roll. Put however much of each you like. Then roll it up however style you like rolling it. Voila! Simple Kimbap! You can now feed an army of hungry people! Enjoy!
So Christmas is coming and i thought let’s make some cookies. I searched online and found a nice recipe for molasses crinkles. They are like the ginger snap cookies with that nice spice flavor you get around christmas time. So what could go wrong with Molasses Crinkles? Well Nothing went wrong. Just I realized don’t make cookies that taste just like if you bought them. I made these cookies and thought to myself …. I can just buy the same thing. I should of made something like crazy ooey gooey chocolate chip cookies or something. Though i have to say i do enjoy the cookies especially with some milk but i’m not going crazy over them! Next time i’m gonna make a carrot cake or something like that.
Anyways here are the pics of my little cookie monster adventure
The ingredients for these cookies were
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1/3 cup sanding or raw sugar for topping
Whisk together the Flour, Allspice, Cloves, Ginger, Salt, Cinnamon, Baking Soda so that everything is mixed together. Start beating together the Vegetable Shortening, Butter and Brown Sugar for about 3-4 minutes in the mixer. When it’s mixed and fluffy add the egg and molasses and keep beating it together. When that has been mixed in lower the mixer speed to low and slow pour in the flour mixture. Keep mixing until everything is mixed together very well.
Preheat oven to 375F. Start rolling the cookie dough into 1 inch balls. It helps to have wet hands when doing this because the batter can get really sticky. After you roll the balls dip one side of the ball into the sugar you have for topping. You want one end to have sugar so when it bakes it is on top. Put these balls about 1-2 inches apart from each other on baking sheets. Put the cookies in the oven for about 8-11 minutes. The longer it cooks the crisper it is. I did around 8-10 and it came out half and half. Next time i might go for about 8 minutes. Anything lower than that and the cookies are still in a ballish shape. So after the time is up take them out and let them cook for a couple minutes. I had to do about 3 rounds of baking because i only had 2 baking pans. It’ll make around 50-60 depending how big your dough balls are…. 
There you go! Molasses Crinkles! Enjoy!
