Here’s what we did:

Four days before: Thaw that turkey

One day in the frig for every 4 lbs of turkey. We had a 16 lb turkey this year, so it thawed for four days.

Day before: Marinade

• 24 tbsp (3 sticks) of salted butter brought to room temp
• 1/3 cup minced fresh sage
• 1/3 cup minced fresh rosemary
• 1 tbsp kosher salt

In a mixing bowl, allow the butter to become very soft. Add the fresh herbs and salt, mix well.

Remove the thawed turkey from its plastic, remove the neck and the bag of from the cavities, rinse the turkey well, dry it with paper towels inside and out.

Save the neck and innards in a plastic bag for later.

Place the turkey in a pan that will fit in your frig; this may not be your roasting pan.

Using your bare hands, work your fingers under the skin at the breast. Push and pull your fingers  under the skin without tearing it.

Take a handful of herbed-butter and rub it under the breast skin. Really work it down. Once the breast-skin is thoroughly coated, smear the herbed-butter over the rest of the turkey. Go ahead and marinate the inside too.

Place the pan in the refrigerator overnight.

The morning of: Aromatics

Get the turkey out of the refrigerator and place on the counter. Don’t drop it.

Place the roasting pan on the counter and get ready to fill it with:

• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 5 bay leaves
• 5 sprigs of thyme
• 5 smashed garlic cloves
• 1 cup apple cider
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 tbsp of kosher salt
• 1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
• the neck and innards

Just dump it all into the roasting pan, stare in there, and imagine just what’s going to happen to this mix of stuff.

The late-morning of: Stuffing

I like stuffing, which means putting stuff inside the turkey. Some people like dressing, which is made in a separate pan. Take a moment to say a prayer for these poor slobs and then keep reading.

Preheat the oven to 350 F, putting a cookie sheet in the oven to preheat it.

Take 8 slices of cheap white bread and rip them into 1″ squares.

When the oven is preheated, take the cookie sheet out, spread some bread on the sheet in a single layer, pop the tray in the oven for five minutes.

Remove the tray, set the bread aside, repeat toasting the bread crumbs until they’re all toasty and dry.

Let the bread crumbs cool naturally while we make the rest of the stuffing.

• 1 cup chicken stock
• two Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and finely chopped
• 1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 4 tbsp salted butter
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp dry ground sage
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp fresh ground pepper

Melt the butter in a saute pan.

Add the celery and onion, saute for five minutes.

Add the chicken stock and salt, bring to a simmering boil.

In another bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, apples, pecans, sage, cinnamon, and pepper.

Add the chicken stock and veggies to the breadcrumbs and stir.

Your stuffing is ready!

T-5.5 hours prior to eating: Stuff and truss dat

Open up das turkey and lightly jam the stuffing in there, letting it overflow and sort of “mushrooming” out. Don’t densely pack the stuffing but don’t be whimpy either.

Truss the bird. Watch the linked video if you have questions on this.

T-5 hours prior to eating: Cook dat

Preheat the oven to 450 F.

This time can be adjusted for the size of your turkey. You want 1 hours of cooking for every 4 lbs of turkey if your guests don’t want to see any turkey blood. This will result in a bird that some of us consider just a tad — a tiny tiny bit — dry. But there’s nothing worse than under-cooked poultry, so I can’t disagree with being safe and secure instead of trying for “perfectly moist white meat”.

Also, you’re going to let your turkey rest for at least 30 minutes prior to eating, so don’t forget to tack that on the end of the cooking-time.

And the first 40 minutes of cooking don’t count as all we’re doing is turning the skin deep brown.

Place the turkey in your roasting pan, right on top of the aromatic veggies.

Slap that enchilada in the center of the oven and set a timer for 40 minutes.

After the buzzer buzzes, lower the temp of the oven to 325 F and roast for the correct time, about an hour for every four pounds of turkey.

Take the roasting pan out of the oven and take a second to see what majesty you hath wrought.

T-30 minutes: Gravy time!

Now take the bird, place it on your serving platter, tent it with foil, and set it on the table. The turkey is good to go! It won’t cool off but will actually distribute its own juices throughout the meat, which is whatcha want.

Put the roasting pan with all the aromatics on the stove top. Add 3 cups of chicken stock, then use two burners to bring the juices to a light boil while scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon a few times to get all the stuck-on goodness up and into the broth.

Melt 3 tbsp of unsalted butter in a sauce pan. Add 3 tbsp of flour and wisk it like a crazy person for one minute. This is our roux!

Once the roasting pan juices are lightly boiling, add the roux and wisk the roasting pan until the juices turn into Gravy. Then wisk some more. Then wisk once more.

Taste the gravy. If it needs more salt, go ahead and add a little. Mine needed nothing other than a man with a rifle to keep the guests away.

Turn the heat off and put your gravy boat in the oven.

Get a metal strainer and place it over a medium-sized bowl.

Use a big non-slotted spoon and scoop the stuff in the roasting pan into the strainer. Don’t push the aromatics through the strainer; just let the strainer do its job. If the strainer gets full of stuff that won’t go through it, use the spoon to scoop the stuff out of the strainer and into a separate bowl for disposal later. Get every last drop off stuff out of the roasting pan and strained.

Take the gravy boat out out of the oven and pour the turkey gravy into the boat.

Place the boat on the table and freak out that you made a Turkey Dinner with Stuffing and Homemade Gravy!

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Too Little, Too Late?

• 1 cup of milk
• 1 1/2 Tbsp of Flour
• 1 1/2 Tbsp Butter
• 8 oz of your favorite uncooked macaroni
• 1 cup of shredded cheese
• 1/2 cup of Panko bread crumbs
• And because I think it’ll taste good, some leftover ham cut into chunks

Set the broiler on low and put a rack close to the cooking coils.

Boil water for the pasta, add salt, add the pasta, cook for the desired time and don’t forget to stir the pasta frequently.

In a medium pot on the stove, melt the butter and add the flour.

Stir it up, making a roux.

Add the milk, stir vigorously for one minute.

Keep stirring until the liquid thickens.

Add the shredded cheese to the liquid. I use a four-cheese blend as it melts very smoothly. Pure cheddar will melt and become grainy; I don’t recommend trying it.

Lower the temperature on the cheese sauce and keep stirring while the pasta cooks.

When the pasta is cooked, drain it and pour the pasta into your serving dish. I love my Le Creuset au gratin dish! Straight from the oven to table, doncha know.

I’m adding my ham now, but you can substitute something else or nothing at all.

Pour that cheese! Pour that cheese!

Slap your dish under the broiler and get that cheese slightly burned, approximately six minutes.

Take the dish out of the oven and marvel for a minute.

Spread the Panko bread crumbs on top of the dish, put the dish back into the oven, and leave it there for no more than thirty seconds. Don’t burn the bread crumbs, just toast them nicely.

Oooo! The mac n cheese comes out like this. Gather ’round and drool.

Serve immediately. Eat immediately. Eat seconds as soon as possible.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Mac n Cheese, the $10 Version

From Wikipedia, Clafoutis is a baked French dessert of black cherries arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. Cherries are in season, so let’s crank this out!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of fresh, pitted cherries. If you wanna go “all-French, all the time,” leave the pits in.
• 1 1/2 tbps of cherry brandy. If you wanna go “all-America, all the time,” double this.
• 1/3 cup of sliced almonds
• 1 1/2 tbps unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup of whole milk
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tsp (for sprinkling at the end) of granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 3 large eggs
• 1/8 tsp almond extract
• 1/8 tsp table salt

Preheat the oven to 350F and place a metal baking sheet inside.

Pit the cherries and let them soak in the cherry brandy for 30 minutes. You could stop right here, couldn’t you? Yummy!

When the oven comes to temperature, put the sliced almonds on the hot baking sheet, place the almonds in the oven, and toast them for 2-3 minutes, toss, and toast for another 2-3 minutes. Don’t let them burn! What are ya thinkin’?!

Crank up the oven to 400F.

Grease an 11″ baking dish with the butter.

Combine the milk, sifted flour, sugar, cream, eggs, almond extract, and salt in a mixing bowl.

Mix on medium speed for five minutes to aerate. We want to see some bubbles.

Drain the cherries and save the juice in the mix…

While you place the cherries into the baking dish.

Pour the batter over the top and place the dish in the oven for 15 minutes.

Sprinkle the almonds, sugar, and butter on top. Bake for 40 minutes.

Let the dish rest on a cooling rack for 30 minutes before devouring. For devour you shall…

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Clafoutis

Well get your @ss over to the butcher, have him cut you a New York strip steak, about 8 oz, get an ear of corn on the cob, and flip the fast-food joint the finger.

Here’s my leftover steak from last night. It’s been refrigerated, so it needs to come to room temperature before we cook it. Can you see the price per pound? You can get a great steak for the same price as a crappy hamburger. You just have to cook it properly!

Once the steak has come to temperature, unwrap it and place it on a plate. Notice that it’s wet? Well we want to change that. Use some paper towels to dry the steak.

Now look at our little baby! Isn’t he pretty!

Here’s what we need to make a pan-seared steak:

• Kosher salt
• Fresh ground pepper
• Onion powder
• Garlic powder
• Olive oil

That’s it! Nothing exotic at all.

To start, nicely salt your steak.

You’re not building a salt-lick, but you’ve got to not be scared to use the salt. Next, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder get sprinkled on.

Use tongs to turn the steak over and SPOG the other side as well. Let this mixture sink in while you preheat the over to 350F, and put your cast iron pan on the stove.
Crank the heat on the pan as high as you can without smoking your house out. This is a combination of how good a vent hood you own, if your A/C can recycle air quickly, etc. On my stove, I can put the dial… here:

Any higher than that, and my crappy vent hood gives up and my house fills with smoke.

Once your oven and pan come to temp, put a little olive oil on one side of your steak.

Do not put oil in the pan! You’re not sauteing or braising your steak, you’re just putting a little oil down so that it’ll be seared into the juices and spices. Again, you’re not oiling your steak, you’re just adding a little oil for flavor.
Slap that steak down in the pan and watch the magic start.

Let that bad-boy sear untouched. No touchie da steakie-poo! After two minutes, put a little oil on the unseared side…

Then use your tongs to turn the steak with love.

You may drool, even if you’ve just eaten. Doesn’t that look amazing?! Two more minutes of searing, then chunk the entire pan into the heated oven.

Depending upon the thickness of the steak and how well-done you like your steak, leave the meat in the oven until desired internal color/temp. For this 5/8″ thick steak, I left it in for 3 minutes for a medium done-ness. Bam!

Put the pan on the stove on an unused burner, which of course is off and cold. Let the steak sit and rest while we make the corn on the cob.

Here’s our corn, husked. Take the two pieces of paper towel, soak them thoroughly in cold water, wring out so the towels don’t drip, then wrap the corn up in the wet paper towels, like so.

Slap the corn in the microwave for two minutes on high. Can you boil water and cook the corn that way? Of course. But a two minute microwave in wet paper towels is much easier, trust me.

When the microwave is done, take the corn out, unwrap it, slap corn holders on it, and place on your plate. Take your steak, place it on the plate as well.

Serve with a cold beer and butter and salt for the corn.

For the price of crappy fast-food, you can have an amazing steak and corn dinner. One could make an amazing jus from the pan juices, but it’s not necessary if what you truly love is the taste of a perfectly seasoned and cooked cut of prime beef. The point here was to show that basic cooking skills are all that’s necessary to make an amazing feast.

And if you make a second plate, I’m pretty certain you’ll find someone special who’ll love to eat with you.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Never Eat BK/McD/Crap Again

So knowing the propensity for baking accidents to cause world-altering events, let’s try making some cobbler!

Preheat the oven to 375F, then assemble the following ingredients:

There, don’t tell me I forgot to tell you to get the butter.

Next, defrost the frozen peaches, completely drain the water, and pour into the 9″ baking dish.

Add 1/3 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp of flour.
Stir the peaches and the dry ingredients thoroughly.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, add baking powder and salt.

Add the zest of one lemon. You own a lemon-zester, doncha? Well it makes a great present if you don’t. Find someone who owes you big-time and delicately tell them that you need a zester or you’ll do something unmentionable.

Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1/4 cup of sugar.

Cut your 6 tbsp of softened butter into chunks.

Add the butter to the dry mixture and mash it all up with your hands until the butter-chunks are eliminated.

Add 3/4 cup and 2 tbps of heavy cream. Do NOT forget the extra 2 tbsp. This is critical!

Use your hands once more and mix until you get a dough. You can taste the dough if you like; there’s no raw eggs in it. Not saying its the best idea ever in the history of the known universe, but the option is there.

Take a golfball-sized chunk of dough…

Roll it into a ball…

Press it flat…

And place it on the peaches! Repeat six times.

With the remaining dough, make some smaller balls, flatten ‘em, and put them in the holes where the peaches are peeking through.

The prep is done! Do your best impersonation of the Ministry of Silly Walks to carry the dish to the oven.

Place das cobbler in da ovenink.

Set the timer for 40 minutes.

When the oven bings that it’s done…

Open the over door and inhale. Then take your cobbler and put it on a cooling rack for thirty minutes.

And finally, serve your Peach Cobbler with a drizzle of the heavy cream. Bonus points if you own an Udder Creamer.

Glory be to the highest! We been done baking!

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Baking!

Ingredients!

• A chicken. You can use your favorite pre-cut parts, but for the money and variety of pieces, I like to use a whole chicken, cut up. Takes a little longer but I think it’s fun.
• Olive oil
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• 1 cup of chicken broth
• Fresh ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• kosher salt
• two large heads of garlic, or three medium heads

Let’s get started!

Doing carrots? Preheat the oven to 425F, peel the carrots, slice ‘em, put ‘em in a metal pan, very lightly coat them with olive oil and a heavy dusting of kosher salt.

But to the garlic we go!

To de-husk the garlic, the most fun way is to beat it all down with a rolling pin. Bash away, with aplomb and care. You’re not Barry Bonds here, but “dainty” isn’t opportune either.

And we’ve freed the Garlic Political Prisoners from their flaky prison. Viva la revolution!

Don’t remove their husks; just dump ‘em into a bowl and set them aside.

Now we’re going to separate our chicken into chicken-parts. Notice the tools: a high-quality paring knife, two plates, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, and an Aranciata to drink, because it’s nummy-nummy.

Blamo! I took the skin off but you can leave it on. We’re going to be braising this, so the skin won’t get crispy, so why bother. YMMV. Salt and pepper both sides of all pieces.

Dutch oven on medium high, olive oil to coat the bottom, wait for the oil to shimmer, which means it’s hot enough to sear.

Inputten das chicken in der pot. Sear the first side for three minutes.

Flip and sear the other side for three minutes. Isn’t it pretty?

Take the first batch of chicken out and set on a side-plate. Add a little oil to the pot if necessary, let that oil come up to temperature before adding more chicken, though. Three minutes per side again, then take it all out.

Into the chicken residued-pot we dump our garlic! Saute that stuff for two minutes. It’ll look like…

This! Yeeha! The garlic will begin to waft and tempt your guests to elbow you out of the way. Fight back with gusto; this is Your Dinner.

Add the wine. This is another scent-bomb as the alcohol mixes with the garlic in a plume of awesomesauce. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pot and get all the Flavor Country residue up.

Awesomesauce! Ha!

Pour in the chicken stock. Now…

Add the thyme and let the sauce come to a boil.

Place the chicken in the pot, add the dark meat first, breasts last in case they have to be on top of the dark meat pieces. Bring the sauce to a boil and…

Put the lid on the pot! Dun dun Duuun! Turn the heat down to medium low and let the pot-action work it’s mojo for forty minutes. If you’re doing carrots like I did…

Now is when you chunk them into the preheated oven. (There’s a parsnip in there, because I had one left from a previous meal. Don’t be a hater.)

The rice takes 25 minutes to make, so time it so that the rice is ready when the chicken is done.

These are the tools for extracting every last garlicy morsel from our sauce. A metal bowl, a metal strainer, and a mashin’ spoon. I like a ladle as it serves two purposes, but pick your own weapon.

Minutes before the bing, put your plates in the oven. Never serve hot food on cold plates, or I’ll just spit.

Bing!

Our chicken is done, foshizzle! Take the chicken out…

And place them on a preheated plate. Don’t eat it yet!

Wrap the chicken in aluminum foil. It’s going to be a couple of minutes before we’re ready for them.

Start ladling the garlic into your strainer. Remember that everything is hot, capice?

Use the ladle to push garlic through the strainer, but don’t break your strainer. I mean, really.
This is the braised remnants of our husked garlic. Throw it away. Don’t eat it. Don’t taste it. Are we clear?
But this… THIS is what we want. BUWAHAHA! Garlic sauce! Praise jeebuz, pour it all back into the pot.
Stir dat pot, taste the sauce, season if necessary. This pot needed nothing.
Rice down, chicken next, gently and slowly ladle sauce onto the chicken and allow the rice to absorb as much as it can handle. Carrots placed akimbo, serve with the white wine you used for the sauce.

Demand seconds. Maybe even thirds.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Forty Garlic Chicken

I was the lucky recipient of T.K.’s “Ad Hoc at Home” this Christmas and the first recipe I tried was his roast chicken, page 22.

I killed three people with the flavor, it was so intense.

So of course I had to do it again, but better! This post is about that second cooking session.

I’m not going to recreate page 22 of the cookbook, but I’ll write what I did based upon the contents of my local Public grocery store, those turnip-absent bastards.

Starting from the blade of the knife and going clockwise:

• Five springs of Thyme
• Six peeled garlic cloves, which get smashed
• One 4lb chicken, whole and on-sale
• Four carrots, peeled, sliced so they were all even lengthwise, then in half, then into 1/2″ sections
• Two parsnips, peeled, sliced like the carrots, (Mr. Keller says the more identical your cut your vegetables, the more identically they’ll cook)
• Two leeks, washed and sliced into circles
• One rutabaga, the rind (rind?) removed, then cut in twain, then quartered, then eighth-ed, then into little pie-shaped wedges, cause it’s a rutabaga and I don’t know how else to cut up the thing
• One onion, peeled, quartered at the root, and the root left attached
• Eight little red potatoes, whole

Not shown: kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, five tablespoons of unsalted butter, one cup of chicken stock, canola oil, (Mr. Keller said no olive oil, so we moon-walked into the canola), and some butcher’s twine.

Interesting story: I searched that Publix for three days and couldn’t find butcher’s twine. So I ran my shopping cart into the double-doors that led into the back of the meat department, stood up in the kid’s seat — yes my tiny seat belt was used — pelted the bald guy with the hair net with potatoes to get his attention, and demanded to know where in this great garden of dead animal carcasses was the (expletive deleted) (twice) butcher’s twine. He lumbered over to his stainless table, opened a little tub, ripped out five feet of twine, stuffed it in my mouth, and spittle-shrieked, “Thank you for shopping at Publix!” then kicked my @ss out of his kingdom backwards, my noggin smacking the exit sign with not a little force.

But I got my twine.

Preheat the oven to 475. No kiddin’; crank that monster up high.

Smash three of the garlic cloves and take them and all the vegetables and slap them into a bowl.

Add 1/4 cup of canola oil, one of the sprigs of Thyme, then salt and pepper the beejezus out of it.

Take the chicken out of its plastic sarcophagus, remove the little plastic bag of organs from the cavity, rinse the entire chicken in cold water, pat pat pat it dry, slap it on a plate of its own, and bring it to your prep station.

Smash the other three garlic cloves, grab em along with the other four sprigs of Thyme, put them all inside the chicken’s chest cavity, and rub rub rub the inside of the bird thoroughly. Then rub salt and pepper inside the bird as well.

Rub a little canola oil over the outside of the entire bird, then carpet bomb with salt and pepper.

Now Mr. Keller has a wonderful picture-series of how to truss a chicken, and I don’t want to cut/paste it here. But basically you put the chicken with the legs toward you and the breast up, and tuck the wings under the bird. Then put the twine under the neck, bring it along the sides of the breast, then tie a little knot under the breast. This will elevate the breast meat. Then take the rest of the twine, come under the leg tips, over the legs, and tie the string off, discarding any extra twine. Like this…

And this.

And notice I didn’t put my raw chicken on my beautiful new Christmas cutting board. Wash your hands frequently, too. And call your mother.

Take your biggest cast iron pan and spread all your vegetables out in it, leaving a crater in the middle of the stuff so your chicken has a resting place of honor. In my picture you can see the bottom of the pan through the vegetables.

Note that if you place your onions so they contact the metal, you won’t regret it.

Take your trussed bird and slam-dunk it in the middle of the vegetables, foshizzle!

With delicacy and care, place four 1tbsp pats of unsalted butter on the chicken breasts. Then heave the whole 4000lb creation into your oven.

Leave the temp at 475 for 25 minutes. Then lower the temp to 400 for another 45 minutes.

BING!

Take the thing out…

PRAISE BE TO CHICKEN! GLORY TO CLUCK-ALMIGHTY IN THE HIGHEST!

Take the holy chicken out and place on a cutting board with a trough at least three feet deep to catch all the juices. I actually set mine in another cast iron pan, one that has raised ridges for searing steaks. Tent the chicken with aluminum foil and let it set for 20 minutes.

Put your plates in the oven now! Hot plates hot plates hot plates!

The rest of this recipe I totally made up. If it’s wrong, don’t blame Mr. Keller, but I wanted more broth than was in the bottom of my pan, and I wanted to get rid of the excess fat.

I removed the vegetables from the pan and put them in a separate bowl. I took the remaining broth and dumped it into a fat separator. I added chicken broth to it until I had 1 1/2 cups of liquid, then let the fat rise to the top.

I poured the fat-separated broth back into the cast-iron pan on the stove, and turned the heat on medium high. I used a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any stuck-on bits. When the broth was simmering, I added one more tbsp of unsalted butter and stirred until it melted.

The vegetables went back into the cast-iron pan, turned the heat to low, and basted those veggies occasionally while the chicken rested.Then I taste-tested the broth to see if it needed seasoning. It didn’t. In fact, it was so good I went past Happy and Delirious all the way ’round to Angry.

“TASTE THIS! IT’S TOO D@MN GOOD!” And it was.

Take your plates out of the oven, carve the bird, place a heaping of vegetables on a plate, top with chicken, and then spoon some broth from the pan over everything. And then spoon some more.

Serve and die happy.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Thomas Keller’s Roast Chicken

• 4lb pork shoulder, duh
• one head of garlic, pealed and sliced (not diced or minced)
• one bay leaf
• two leeks and one fennel bulb, sliced thin (in the same bowl here)
• one apple, peeled, cored, and sliced thin
• one onion, sliced thin (not diced or minced)
• three cups of chicken broth
• one cup of Marsala wine
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp of canola oil
• kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Put you dutch oven on a burner, pretty high heat. Not high heat, but not medium either. We’re using canola oil instead of olive oil because we want to put a mean sear on this piggie, and it’s huge. We need the heat! Now then, let’s start with…

Salt and pepper that pig. Don’t be stingy. Every side gets the rub treatment. Once your pig is seasoned, add canola oil to the dutch oven. Remember that this is not olive oil so it’s not going to smoke as easily. Hot oil is key, but we’re not frying so don’t put to much oil in there. So in plunken der mit das piggie!

If there is a fattier side, put that down first and let the fat render. Five minutes per side should bring out a beautiful color, and don’t forget to do the ends as well. Some people love an end piece just for the extra sear, so don’t deprive them. Turn that pig, but don’t poke it. Use tongs or wooden spoons, but no forks. We want to
maintain as much structural integrity as possible so we get slices of pork, not pulled pork.

Turn it nicely…

And that’s one side done. Turn, turn, turn, and we get this…

All sides seared, take Mr. Pig out of the pot and place him with reverence on a side plate.

(The above pic isn’t the best, but below, look to the right of the pot to see a much better color spectrum of a fully-seared pork shoulder.)

Into the pot now goes the leeks, fennel, onion, and garlic!

Let the vegetables soak up the juices in the pot for a minute, then add 1/2 cup of the Marsala wine.

Nice! Let the smells waft for another five minutes, letting the Marsala cook off a little bit and the vegetables soften. It’s time for Mr. Pig to make his reappearance. Make a space in the bottom of the pot for our pork and nestle that boy down in there with love.

Grab the other 1/2 cup of Marsala wine, chicken stock, apple cider vinegar and pour ‘em on in. Stir gently, then slap down the apple slices like Pringles into the sauce.

Bring the sauce to a gentle simmer, then slam your lid on, punt the enchilada into the oven, and sit back and relax for three hours. Or clean the kitchen, whatever.

BING!

Take out the bay leaf!

Make sure your carving knife is as sharp as a light saber so that you can serve slices of the most tender pork you’ve ever tasted without everything falling apart. Serve a slice of pork in a crater of mashed potatoes, with the fennel, leeks, onions and apples on top of the pork.

And don’t forget to heat your plates before you plate your food!

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

It’s Big Pig Time!

Ingredients:

• kosher salt
• fresh ground pepper
• one onion, chopped
• one clove of garlic, finely chopped
• one can of diced tomatoes
• 10 oz sliced mushrooms
• 1/2 cup of red wine
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1/2 tsp dried sage

And chicken. My favorite is skinless, bone-in chicken thighs, but tonight I’m using skinless chicken breasts. Dry them, sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Put the dutch oven, (you bought one now, yes?) on the stove top, medium-high heat. Add olive oil to coat the bottom of the pot, wait for the oil to shimmer, then add the chicken. Let the chicken sear for six minutes, then flip the chicken. The seared-side will be nicely brown.

If you have to sear your chicken in batches, that’s fine; we’re going to braise the chicken later. Finish the other side of the chicken in the pot, take the chicken out, and place on a side-plate.

After all your chicken is browned, add the mushroom and let them sweat for five minutes. Don’t try to scrape-up all the brown stuff on the bottom of the pot. We do indeed want the Flavor Country down there, but scraping it up isn’t the way to get ‘er done.

Add the onion and garlic. The onions will release their juice which will dissolve the brown stuff on the bottom of the pot, foshizzle! Cook the onions for three minutes…

And kablooie! See how beautifully the onions turn the color of the seared chicken? And the Flavor Country residue in the pot has been absorbed nicely. Wanna see?

Tada! Can you imagine the chickenie-goodness that’s been absorbed into the onions and mushrooms? It’s phenomenal!

The kitchen is now starting to waft, and your dinner guests are mumbling, “Wow something smells really good.”

Add your tomatoes…

And the wine…

Your rosemary…

And the yummy sage, (which you really don’t want to forget, even though it doesn’t seem like a lot.)

Stir stir stir… and inhale deeply. Grab your metal skewers and use them to fend off the people demanding a taste.

Now add the chicken back into the pot!

Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the temperature to low. Put the lid on the pot, set the timer for 40 minutes. When the timer dings, take the lid off… and marvel.

Put some chicken on a plate, use a big ladle to dump a huge mess of mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes on the chicken. We’re also serving rosemary-roasted potatoes tonight. If you’re really feeling gnarly, put enough juice on the plate so the crispy potatoes get to soak it all up!

And yes, this last picture was taken after a few bites were taken. It smelled so good that I forgot I was taking pictures.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Chicken Cacciatore

My Ingredients:

Hormel® Black Label® Thick Slice Bacon
Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise
Grand Rapids lettuce, (big leaves with the frilly edges)
Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
Chicago Italian bread, unsliced
A big, red tomato, (whatever is in season)
Olive oil
Salted butter

Set your broiler on high, put a rack as high as it will go. This is assuming you have an electric oven and that’s where the heating element is. If you have a gas stove, you can put your bread in the special grilling drawer on the bottom. You probably don’t want to toast right on the flame as we’re going to put some olive oil on the bread.

Speaking of the bread, slice your loaf.. you bought it unsliced, yes? Slice your bread on an angle to make Uber Pieces. Don’t buy baguette bread; we want Big Bread Country. Slice on an angle, make each piece about 3/4″ thick. Two pieces per sandwich, no foolin’!

Slice your tomato, two pieces per sandwich.

Two pieces of lettuce per sandwich. Rinse each leaf then pat them dry.

Grab a big non-stick pan, medium-high heat, slap two slices of bacon per sandwich down, let ‘em get crispy on one side, flip, crisp the other. When your bacon is done, place the pieces on a piece of paper towel on a plate. Let the bacon cool and solidify.

Put your sliced bread on a cookie sheet, drizzle each piece lightly with olive oil, then put close to the direct heat to toast. This won’t take long, so pay attention. Check the bread after one minute, then if not lightly brown and toasted, check every 30 seconds. Burned bread is Fail. Once toasted, take out of the oven and flip each piece over so the toasted-side faces down.

Take one piece of bread, place on your plate. Spread mayo lightly all over the bread, (not the plate!) Then take a pinch of kosher salt and sprinkle it everywhere, including the plate. The salt becomes decorative, but also will allow the sandwich-consumer to dip their eggie-morsel into more salt, should they want to.

And yes, they will want to.

Place your lettuce on the mayo-coated bread, then slap down some tomato, then the bacon. The lettuce protects the bread from soaking up bacon grease, so don’t mess up the stacking-order.

Clean the bacon grease out of the pan and reheat that sucker, medium high again. Put a small pat of butter in the hot pan and let it melt. Crack open an egg and spill it into the butter. Cook that egg, but do NOT break the yolk. Once the egg white edge looks slightly brown, flip the egg and do NOT break the yolk. Cook for 30 seconds more.

Sliiiiide the fried egg onto your sandwich. Top with another leaf of lettuce.

Take a second slice of bread, mayo the thing, sprinkle salt on it, and with love and reverence, place it atop your sandwich.

Cut the sandwich in half at a big angle. When you divide your prize, the egg yolk will break and allow the warm yellow mush to coat the bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Move one half of the sandwich slightly apart from the other and serve.

Much, much better than PBnJ.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, and Fried Egg Sandwich