Korean Fried Chicken Sauce

 Korean Fried Chicken Sauce

Ingredients:

• 3 Tablespoons Gochujang Paste
• 1 Inch Ginger Root, grated
• 2 Tablespoons Honey
• 4 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
• 1/3 Cup Soy Sauce
• 2 Cloves Garlic, minced
• 1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil

Instructions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a small pot, over low heat stir constantly until sauce comes together. 
2. Simmer on low for 5 minutes.
3. To use, heat the sauce until it is more runny, toss over fried chicken. Garnish fried chicken with sliced green onions and toasted sesame seeds.
4. Enjoy!

Korean Style Fried Chicken

 Korean Style Fried Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 Whole chicken, butchered into two breasts, thigh, leg, wing. Butcher each breast half in half again.
• 2 Cups Buttermilk
• 2 Tablespoons Garlic Powder
• 1 1/2 Cup Potato Starch
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Celery Seeds
• 1 Teaspoon Thyme
• 1 Teaspoon Smoked Paprika
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Chilli Flakes (More for extra spicy)
• Vegetable Oil for Frying, either deep fry or shallow fry. But you must fry in oil for best results.

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl stir together the buttermilk and garlic powder. Submerge the chicken pieces in the brine for at least 2 hours, or as long as overnight.
2. When ready to fry, remove chicken pieces from marinade, and let excess drain off.
3. In a medium bowl sift together the potato starch, teaspoon garlic powder, celery seeds, thyme, paprika, baking powder and chilli flakes.
4. Heat oil to roughly 350°F. 
5. When oil is heated, dredge each piece of chicken in the flour blend. Until evenly coated, shaking off excess.
6. Gently lower chicken into oil, and fry for 5-8 minutes in a deep fryer, or 4 minutes on one side before turning for another 3-4 minutes.
7. Use a meat thermometer to ensure chicken is cooked through. Transfer cooked chicken to a wire rack over a sheet tray so excess oil can drain off. Keep cooked chicken warm in a barely warm oven while frying the rest of the chicken.
8. Serve hot and enjoy!

Notes:

Seriously, potato starch is the key to crispy fried coatings. and its GF! 

Pasta e Fagioli

Takes a few ingredients to pull this one together, but it is so worth it

Ingredients:

• 4 Scrubbed Carrots
• 1 Medium Onion
• 3 Celery Stalks
• 6 Good Sized Garlic Cloves
• Olive oil
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 Can Crushed Tomatoes(28oz), without tomato concentrate or puree
• 8 Ounces small or medium dry white beans
• Chicken stock
• 8-10 Ounces Chopped Spinach Leaves
• 8 Ounces small dried pasta shapes
• Parm Rind (optional)
• 2-3 Bay Leaves
• Pork hock
• 2 Slices Bacon, uncooked
• Fresh Parmesan to serve

Instructions:

1. The night before planning to make soup, set the beans to soak in a large bowl. Cover beans with at least one inch of water, set in fridge and soak overnight.
2. To start the soup, scrub the carrots and roughly chop, peel the garlic, roughly chop the Celery and onion. In the bowl of a very large food processor, or in batches, pulse all the vegetables until they are fine chopped but not a puree.
3. Heat a large stock pot over medium low heat, and heat about 1/3 cup olive oil. Add the finely chopped garlic, carrots, onion and Celery, season well with salt and pepper. Slowly cook the veg down, without adding color. If things are cooking too quickly turn down the heat and continue to cook. The goal is to sweat down the veg until they are soft, juicy and reducing in volume without browning yet. Cooking the veggies down should take 20-30 minutes.
4. Once the veg base is looking good, add the ham hock. Roughly chop the raw bacon and also add it to the pot. Continue cooking an additional 10-20 minutes until it seems like the veg has reduced in volume by half.
5. Add the beans and their soaking liquid to the pot along with the crushed tomatoes and at least four cups of chicken stock. Add more stock or water to ensure that the beans are always fully submerged.
6. Bring everything to a boil, add the bay leaves and the Parmesan rind if using. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer and cook for 1-2 hours. Add in the spinach and stir well.
7. Cook pasta in a separate pot of well salted boiling water, 1-3 minutes less than package instructions indicate. The pasta should be slightly toothsome as it will continue to cook a bit in the soup.
8. Pull the pork hock out if the soup and shred any available meat off the bone. Discard skin, bones and fat chunks. Return usable shredded meat to the soup. Fish out the parm rind and bay leaves and discard.
9. Once the pasta is cooked to desired doneness, drain the pasta and stir into the soup.
10. Ladle the soup into bowls, garnish with fresh shredded parm and a drizzle of olive oil. Goes excellent with a bit of crusty toasty bread.

Enjoy!

Notes:

Holy goodness, this soup was so tasty! The veg base that we start with is called a sofritto and that is the ticket to flavor town in this recipe.

This soup is amazingly rich, hearty and so comforting on a cold winters night. Plus since it is so veg heavy, with beans it'll fill up hungry tummies so well and keep them full!

* update, froze some, added some extra chicken stock as the pasta had taken in more liquid while cooking and it was just as delicious reheated after being frozen, still had lots of flavor.

No Knead Peasant Bread

Peasant Bread

Been seeing this recipe kicking around on Buzzfeed and some other cooking blogs, people do seem to swear by their simple no knead bread recipes, so thought I would also give one a try.

Original Recipe:

http://www.alexandracooks.com/2012/11/07/my-mothers-peasant-bread-the-best-easiest-bread-you-will-ever-make/

Followed the recipe to the letter, except I only made a half loaf this time because I am a little short on flour at the moment.

Ingredients: (Small 6 inch loaf)

• 2 Cups Flour
• 1 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
• 2 Teaspoons Dry Active Yeast
• 2 Teaspoons Sugar
• 1 Cup Warm Water
• Butter

Instructions:

1. Dissolve the sugar into the warm water and sprinkle the yeast over the top. Allow the yeast to proof for 10 minutes until foamy and bubbly, if the yeast doesn't foam then it is dead, try again or else you wont get any rise in the bread.
2. Sift together the flour and the salt, once the yeast has proofed add the flour to the yeast and stir with a fork until the dough pulls into a small ball and away from the edges of the bowl. Cover with a clean, damp tea towel and allow to rise for about 1 hour.
3. After one hour, preheat oven to 425°F.
4. Stab the center of the dough ball with a fork, and then turn and lift all around the dough, trying to basically turn it over on itself. 
5. Butter a six inch round bake-able bowl or casserole dish, or line a pizza stone with parchment paper to make a real peasant loaf. Peasant didn't have spare bowls or baking dishes so bread was baked on flat stones or in a wood oven. Baking the bread on a pizza stone makes it very similar to the bread I had when I went to visit a "Living" Historical fort back in Cape Breaton. 
6. Turn the risen dough into the baking dish or transfer it onto the pizza stone. Cover with the damp tea towel and allow to rise another 20-30 minutes.
7. Bake the twice risen dough in preheated oven for 15 minutes.  Reduce heat to 375°F. Continue baking for an additional 15-20 minutes, until top of dough is golden-toasted and the dough sounds hollow when tapped.
8. Turn the bread out onto a cooling rack for 10 minutes before slicing.
9. Serve warm with butter for best results.

Enjoy!

Notes:

Made this last night for dinner with my friends and they literally ate the entire loaf in one sitting. I would say that makes this a keeper.

Other Places:

Other bread recipes:

White Bread

Grandma's Bread

S'mores Cheesecake

Original Recipe from Yummly, from a blog called Cookies and Cups. It's pretty adorable.

However this recipe was not so adorable.

Followed it perfectly and had several problems. First the instructions say to prepare the crust and press it into the pan and arrange some marshmallows and chocolate sauce in the bottom. Then to prepare the filling/cheese cake base and fold in some more marshmallows. Not sure why but all my marshmallows floated to the top of the cheesecake batter. . . None were folded into the batter they all floated. Plus when I went to pour the cheesecake into the springform pan all the marshmallows and chocolate sauce I arranged nicely also floated to the top of everything! ARRG!

To top it off I followed all the baking instructions and had a lot of butter melt out of the bottom of the dessert while it melted. Bad enough to make a mess in my oven but to also waste butter? Dear goodness that is a travesty in my books.

Finally the damn thing never baked all the way through, never set even after chilling for two days.

Complete failure on ability to replicate this recipe, and to make me feel even worse, I re-read the whole blog post and turns out the bloggers husband made the perfect cake. . . I think he might have kept a few things secret because I sure as heck did not succeed with this one.

At least I have delightful friends who were kind enough to quickly eat the evidence of my failure and hide it forever. It tasted good, and the slightly under-set cheesecake filling did kind of enhance the melty-gooey-ness of a s'mores.


So let us play Bob the Builder, can we fix this? YES WE CAN.

S'mores Cheese Cake

Ingredients:

• Roughly 2 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs
• 3-5 Tablespoons Melted Butter
• 2 (8 Ounce) Packs of cream cheese
• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• 2 Large Eggs
• 2 Tablespoons Flour
• 1/2 Cup Sour Cream
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract
• 2 Cups Mini Marshmallows (divided into 1/3 and 2/3 portions)
• 1/4 Cup Warm Chocolate Sauce
• 1/3 Cup Chocolate Chips
• More Chocolate Sauce as Garnish
• Optional Garnish:
• Chocolate Shavings 
• Caramel Sauce
• Cookie Crumbs
• Whipped Cream

Special Tools:

10 inch Spring Form Pan

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Allow cheesecake, sour cream, and eggs to come to room temperature, about 30 minutes on the counter should do it.
2. Combine Graham crumbs and about 3 Tablespoons of butter together, mix until fine and evenly blended. If mixture is too dry add more melted butter 1 tablespoon at a time
3. Grease the spring form pan. 
4. Press the crumbs into the bottom and up the sides of the pan create a nice smooth even crust for the cheese cake.
5. Bake in preheated oven for about 10 minutes.
6. While the crusts are lightly baking, Prepare the cheese cake filling.
7. Cream the cream cheese with an electric mixer or stand mixer, until smooth. Add the sugar and cream well. Add the eggs one at a time and mix after each one. Add the flour and vanilla and blend. Slowly add the sour cream and blend together until smooth.
8. Once crusts have finished baking, raise oven temperature to 450°F.
9. Allow the crusts to cool for a few minutes before adding the filling. This also gives our oven a chance to preheat for round two.
10. Pour about 1/3 Cup of mini marshmallows into the bottom of the baked crust. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over top, and then drizzle about 1/4 Cup of chocolate sauce over everything on the bottom.
11. Fold about 2/3 cup mini marshmallows into the cheese cake filling.
12. Pour the filling into the crust slowly and carefully.
13. Bake the cheese cakes at 450°F for about 10 minutes. Then reduce oven temperature to 250°F, do not open the oven and continue to bake for about 1 hour or until the filling has set. Which means it doesn't jiggle when you touch the middle. Be gentle, you don't want to leave a mark in the top.
14. If your cheese cake is slightly under after an hour heat oven to 200°F, and bake in 10 minute intervals until done.
15. If top gets too dark during extra cooking time, cover with foil to protect it from excess heat.
16. Allow cake to chill in fridge over night.
17. Garnish top of cake with chocolate sauce and other toppings as desired.

Enjoy!

Notes:

Cheese cakes are my mother's specialty. . . It is really depressing when one doesn't turn out for me but I think the blogger just forgot a few ingredients in her cheese cake filling, I think it needed a little more starch to set properly.

Other Places:

Cookie Cheese Cake

Recipe Test - One Ingredient Caramel

Technically not real caramel, this is a recipe for dulce de leche, which tastes similar and can be used in the exact same way as store bought caramel sauce. But this one you can make at home with only one ingredient.

Seriously, just one ingredient.

Ingredient:

• One can sweetened condensed milk, not evaporated milk. There is a slight difference.

Instructions:

1. Take the unopened can of condensed milk, peel off the label if there is one and place the can on it's side and cover with water in a sauce pan large enough to allow the can to be completely under water.
2. Heat over medium high heat to boil, reduce heat to medium and continue to boil for two to two and a half hours.
3. Add more water as needed to keep the can under water the entire cooking time.
4. If the pot boils dry the can could explode and it will be awful.
5. Remove can from water and cool to about room temperature.
6. Open the can and pour contents into a small bowl. Whisk with a fork or proper whisk to smooth the sauce out.
7. Serve over desserts, ice cream, or whatever you usually use caramel sauce for.
8. Can be reheated briefly in a microwave to make it more willing to pour.

Enjoy!

Notes:

Goes Excellent with:

Ice Cream

Recipe Test - Chef John's Chicken Kiev

Recipe Test - Chef John's Chicken Kiev

What Chef John Says:

"I'm not going to say this chicken Kiev is ‘easy to make.' It's really not. So, why try? Because, if and when you pull this off, you'll be enjoying one of the greatest chicken experiences of your life. It's also one of the greatest garlic experiences of your life, as well as one of the greatest butter experiences of your life."

Original Recipe Here

I have moved into a lovely new home, with a big kitchen with lovely windows to look out of and best of all a dishwasher! So to test out this new kitchen I thought I should test my kitchen skills with something I hadn't tried before. Stuffed chicken breast of some kind. . . 

I have tried to stuff other things before and most of the time it has been a pretty dire mess or disaster. But Chef John says I can do this!

What is Chicken Kiev?

A chicken fillet stuffed with herb and garlic butter, lightly fried and roasted to perfection. The goal of course being to keep all the butter inside the chicken until it is served and then the person enjoying the dish gets a lovely ooze of melted butter onto their plate upon cutting in.

The tricky part? Keeping butter inside the chicken until that moment.

Changes Made:

He describes rolling the chicken into a ball shape. Mine ended up looking more like chicken cigars. . . But other than that I followed this recipe to the letter.

Results:

I made it!

Chef John sure knows his stuff! Chicken was perfectly cooked when I followed his cooking times, and when I sliced in, the melted butter oozed onto the plate which was perfect to dip the mashed potato and chicken alike in. Wont and can't lie though, while this was excellent and delicious and did follow through on the promises of the recipe it seriously took me forever and a day it felt like to get this chicken dish together. 

Might be worth it on a day off but this isn't a recipe to try and throw together after work or anything. But I enjoy a challenge and this was a good challenge for this week. 

Other Places:

Something easier:

Asian Dumpling Sauce

Recipe Test - Sushi

Recipe Test - Sushi

Game plan:

-  Seasoned sticky rice, tuna, avocado and sesame seeds, with spicy mayo garnish and small bowl of soy sauce with a pea sized ball of wasabi paste.

 It's my favorite restaurant sushi to order and pretty sure I could live on it.

Original Recipe Link Here

So I've tried to make Sushi and rice balls and other finicky things like that before, but never with any real success. Most of the attempts tasted alright, but ended up as a sticky ball of rice mess. So as a perfectionist I knew I just had to keep trying until I mastered it. Or at least made one pretty plate of sushi, because  I accept that I will never truly be a sushi master.

I am pretty positive that the only reason my sushi attempts failed before was because I didn't bother getting a bamboo rolling mat and thought I could get by without it and that it would be expensive when I did get it and in my small kitchen I don't have time for one-use only kitchen tools.

Let me tell you, you certainly can not get by without one, I've tried. Also, they are pretty cheap at Chinese Markets, I literally paid $1.77 for the one I ended up getting.  It's my new favorite one-purpose-only cooking tool. Plus I am moving soon to a better home and nicer kitchen (with a dishwasher!!) so it's alright that I have one more tool to try and hide away.

Tuna Sushi

Original Recipe Ingredients:

• 40g tuna
• 20g avocado
• 100g sushi rice, cooked
• ½ sheet nori
• 10g sesame seeds
• ½ cup rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 banana leaf

Changes I made:

I had about 250g of Tuna, used 1/2 whole avocado and I cooked 1 cup dry sushi rice. I ended up with enough ingredients to make three full rolls, and one half roll. Also pretty positive there are no banana leaves on the island of Newfoundland so I just didn't even bother looking for it. Pretty sure it's only there as a serving garnish to make the plate look all fancy and what not.

Pretty only is as pretty does. . .

To season Sticky Rice:

• 1/3 Cup Rice Vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon Mirin
• 2 Teaspoons Salt

I added all ingredients to a small bowl and stirred to dissolve the salt and mix in the mirin.

I also made a Spicy Mayo:

• 1 Tablespoon Mayo
• 1-3 Teaspoons Sriracha Sauce

Place in a small bowl and mix well to blend. Transfer to a pastry bag with a fine tip. Drizzle over top of cut sushi for a spicy kick. Or serve in a small serving bowl to dip the sushi in if you prefer.

Instructions:

1. Cook the sticky rice according to package directions. 
2. Once cooked transfer to a wood or stainless steel bowl. Let cool for about 5 minutes.
3.  Add the seasoning mixture to the rice and stir gently to coat. 
4. Trying not to over stir as that will make the rice gluey.
5. To prepare sushi, Slice the tuna fillet into 1cm X 1cm square finger sections. So that you have long small tuna "finger" fillets. Keep sliced ready to use tuna in a bowl which is in a ice bath to keep the tuna cold as you work. 
6. Thinly slice the avocado, or chop into small pieces.
7. Place bamboo mat on clean work surface. 
8. Lay a slightly larger piece of plastic wrap over the bamboo mat. 
9. Place nori sheet on top of plastic wrap. 
10. Carefully spread some sticky rice over almost half of the sheet of nori, only leaving 5 centimeter  band at the top of the sheet to be used to seal the roll together.
11. Sprinkle some sesame seeds over top of the rice. If desired you can lightly toast the sesame seeds in a skillet. But I just didn't bother. . .
12. Arrange 3-4 tuna slices along the bottom edge of the rice. Layer slices of avocado along side the tuna.
13. Working carefully begin to tightly roll the sushi,  using the bamboo mat. Once tightly rolled, use your fingers dipped in a water bowl to dampen the bare exposed nori at the top of the roll, and press the roll closed and seal.
14. Wrap the rolls in the plastic wrap and place in the fridge until ready to serve. 
15. When time to serve, unwrap from plastic and slice with a very sharp knife into pieces that are about 1 inch wide. Drizzle with spicy mayo and serve with wasabi and soy sauce.

YUMMY! I actually made this!

Can't lie, pretty pleased about this one.

Enjoy!

PS, June 2014, made it again! Added some panko bread crumbs to the center of the rolls, as well as lightly toasting the sesame seeds in a dry skillet until just browning. Oh golly they were even better on the second attempt.

Notes:

Also do you know how to tell for certain how ripe or usable your avocado is? 'Cause I live on a island in the north Atlantic ocean so I know my avocados are always going to be frozen first, then shipped and then thawed when they get to me. Meaning sometimes the gentle squeeze test can be very misleading. I find the best way is to check the navel/stem spot on the fruit. Pluck out the little nub if there is one and have a look in the navel. It should look fresh and not browned or dried out. Fresh navel means fresh avocado. Just don't pop the navels out of every avocado or else someone is sure to shoot you an evil eye stare. If you honestly can't find a decent one after 3 or 4, you probably wont find a fresh one at that store/in the pile.

Other Places:

Something baked?

White Bread

Recipe Test - Italian Wonder Pot

Time for another recipe test! This one just seemed like it was too easy and good to be true. . . 

Original Recipe from a Buzzfeed article: Affordable Wonder Pot

Which was apparently based on a recipe from Martha Stewart, but I didn't see that one.

Recipe claims:

 Throw the magical list of ingredients into a pot, cover, bring to a boil, uncover and simmer for 15-20 minutes. . . and that's it, dinner is ready. Garnish with some crumbled feta cheese on top.

I don't know about you but I like the idea of a recipe I can literally throw everything  into a pot and have dinner ready in about 30 minutes. Also one pot anything is pretty awesome in my books (Who actually likes washing dishes anyways?).

Original Recipe Ingredients:

4 Cups Vegetable Broth
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
12 ounces Fettuccine
8 ounces Frozen Chopped Spinach
1 (28 Ounce) can Diced Tomatoes
1 Onion
4 Cloves Garlic
1/2 Tablespoon dried Basil
1/2 Tablespoon dried Oregano
1/2 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
Fresh cracked pepper
2 Ounces Feta Cheese

Changes I made:

• I used half spinach fettuccine and half smart pasta noodles

• My package of frozen spinach was 12 ounces so I used the whole thing

• I increased the basil and oregano to about 1 tablespoon each, and omitted the red pepper flakes

• I also added 3 home made sundried tomato sausages I had on hand, cooked and chopped into small bits.

Instructions:

Prepare all the ingredients, finely mince the onion and garlic, and get everything else together. Break the fettuccine noodles in half to make stirring easier later. Add everything to a large pot, including the juice from the canned tomatoes, only leave out the feta cheese.

Place lid over pot and over medium high heat bring to a full roiling boil. Uncover, reduce heat to medium and simmer 15-20 minutes until noodles are al dente. Stir occasionally to help noodles cook evenly, but be careful not to over stir as the noodles can get gluey I am told.

Ladle into warmed serving bowls, garnish with crumbled feta and serve with bread or salad.

Conclusions:

This recipe is a magical success story! Came together perfectly, was delicious and reheated well the next day for lunch. I seriously loved this recipe and plan to make it again! Though I might half it next time or some other smaller fraction somehow, I made this when it was only me and man-friend at home for supper. I had an awful lot of leftovers. The original recipe said it served six people but I think eight of my people could have eaten that no problem. 

Other Places:

Instead of something healthy how about something deep fried?

Perfect Fries

Recipe Test - Chickpea "Fries"

Recipe Test - Chickpea fries, Better than the real thing?

Recipe Claims:

Replace the difficult task of fresh home cut french fries with this recipe instead. Takes slightly longer in the prep-time but is easier than blanching potatoes to make the perfect crisp fry.

Recipe Source/ Original

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1-2 Teaspoons ground rosemary
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 Cup Chickpea flour (Available at bulk barn)

Instructions:

Basically boil stock, add rest of ingredients and whisk well until it starts to thicken. Transfer batter to a greased brownie pan and let stand in fridge for about 2 hours, or longer until firm. Cut the brick into fry shapes and fry for about 5-6 minutes in 350°F oil, cook in batches if needed. Drain cooked fries on paper towel and serve hot lightly dusted with salt.

Results:

The first fries out were quite tasty, had a nice crunchy shell and soft insides. Didn't quite taste or feel like a fry but was passable. However when an entire serving was put on the plate neither myself nor hubby to be could/wanted to finish them.

So maybe not the best as a french fry substitute, but could maybe work better as a causal party snack between friends. Would definitely be good with a flavored mayo or ailoi as a snack partner for a nice beer in summer time.

First recipe test, not exactly a raging success. But at least I tried something new and out of my comfort zone. Chickpea flour is going back into the cupboard and will be used to thicken up falafel paste that went wrong from now on.

Have you tried this recipe? Or eaten the results someone else made for you? How was it? 

Other Places:

How about a Miss Busy Bee original recipe?

Fairy tale themed pie

Regenerating Green Onions

I don't know about you but I certainly go through an awful lot of green onions and since I do not have a yard to have a garden yet or a house to build a sun room onto I needed to find a better way to get more fresh green onion in my house. It is also stupid simple which is of course always excellent.

Regenerating Green Onions:

After cutting the green part off the green onion to use in a delicious recipe, tie the remaining white stems and roots together into a bundle and place in a glass of water in sunshine. Wait a few days until the roots are growing and the green part of the green onion is growing longer. If you like you can just keep it in the water and let it grow hydroponically or transfer into a pot with soil.

Cut off green sections to use as needed. Mine have been growing for about a week in the picture, as long as you keep some water in the glass with the green onion roots you can keep growing fresh green onion for a pretty long while.

Enjoy!

PS mine lasted for about 4 months before they ran out of steam, pretty decent results!