Onion Marmalade for the Masses

Oh joy…something to do with all those onions you get from the CSA: made this last week and have been living off of this ever since. Super easy to make, just turn the onions on low in 2T of butter for 45 minutes during the next episode of Westworld, and at the end of the episode, finish the dish. Easy as pie…onion pie with marmalade.

From Wine Spectator magazine’s “Cheese” issue. So use nice wine. I used Columbia Crest Merlot. Quite good with d’Affinois brie, on paninis, and with roasted chicken. The article/recipe says to use it with epoisses cheese which I believe is particularly stinky, but I thought it worked with both Camembert and brie. Yummm…

Ingredients

2 medium yellow onions finely sliced (although I used white and yellow combined)

½ c red wine

¼ c red wine vinegar

¼ c sugar (you’ll need all of it, and probably a tablespoon or so more)

1 t soy sauce (!)

1 t salt

1 t fresh thyme leaves (I used ¼-½ t dried)

Cracked black pepper

Instructions

Melt the butter in cast iron pan, add onions, cook for 45 minutes. Stir every once in a while to brown the onions on all sides and then toss to pick up the fond in the pan.

In a separate small pot, set over medium head all the other ingredient together, then add the onions, stirring often until reduced and syrupy. About 5 minutes.

Voila!

Keeps in the fridge for at least a week or more. 

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Tyler Florence's Wings

With the Superbowl safely behind us...it's time for...

Ah hell, screw it...it's time for more SUPERBOWL FOOD!

Today I bring you Koko’s Perfectly Terrific Wings, courtesy of the culinary flair of Tyler Florence.  Tyler was introduced to me by our mutual friend JPB.  JPB has something of the thing for Florence’s Tyler’s Ultimate. I’ll bring you several more dishes from this book, because I too have been hooked by the Florencian pizzazz.

Bag o' Marinading Chicken

At any rate, this is Koko’s work, so let’s take a short journey back to Baltimore where the home team is the Ravens, and just a few years ago, they were competitive in the run up to the Superbowl. 

While the Ravens may have little to do with the Superbowl this year, the excitement of this year’s Superbowl doesn’t quit. How could it after Sunday's game? 

I hope you are all asking yourselves, "Now why would he say that?" Because for me, this is a great excuse for the annual American party of parties to make something excellent and portal for lunch the next day! Imagine, appetizers for your Monday lunch at work!

After all that cooking for Koko’s Playoff Parties, let me assure you, it pays to plan ahead for this weekend’s big game.

Here’s Koko’s essential cooking tips:
Get those wings purchased and the wing tips torn off the night before.  But don’t over-marinate these babies.

• Definitely do not marinade them overnight. The recipe recommends at least four hours. For Koko’s palette, he says, “Just marinade them for at most four hours.  The soy gets intense.
• 
  
• When you bake them, the soy sauce makes them pretty salty and the sugar will make them  sticky.
• 
  
• “Also, I would add some honey to the marinade at the start. Then add more honey as a glaze on top of each wing as they bake, towards the end of the cooking.”
• 
  
• These take a full 30-45 minutes to bake, so give yourself plenty of time.
• 
  

Sticky Honey-Soy Chicken Wings

Ingredients

2 lbs. chicken wings

1 c low sodium soy sauce

1 T grated fresh ginger

2 T chopped fresh cilantro leaves

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 lemon, juiced

2 T  olive oil

2 T  butter

1/2 c honey

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Sesame seeds, for garnish

Directions

Rinse  chicken wings and pat dry. Remove tip and discard; separate each wing at the joint into 2 pieces. Place wings in a shallow dish and pour over the soy sauce, ginger, cilantro, garlic, and lemon juice. Toss well to coat; marinate, refrigerated, for 2 hours.

Tyler's Marinade

Remove wings from marinade and pat dry; season with salt and pepper. In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, melt the butter in the olive oil. When the butter stops foaming, add the honey and chicken wings and fry until browned on each side, about 5 minutes. 

Continue cooking the wings, turning them over often to coat them as the glaze reduces. Cook until the wings are sticky and cooked through. Garnish with sesame seeds and serve.

Tyler’s sweet, tangy wings are just terrific. No more difficult to make than any wings you might cook for any affair, and doesn’t require deep frying! But the gods’ honest truth is that they certainly are as tasty as any “Bourbon” chicken you’ve ever sucked down at the mall.  Perfect for the SuperBowl.  Maybe its all those wing tip bones you snap before…!

Tyler's Wings Ready for the Oven

I hope you didn't miss last Sunday's wing recipe, but if you did, just click on this hyperlink.

Koko's Superbowl Table

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Emeril's Superbowl Wings

Wings Fit For the Superbowl Spread

Superbowl season is upon us, and wings are in the air. 
Chicken wings, that is. 

Years back, I drove the loooooooong distance to Catonsville from D.C. and (I know, I know tiniest violin in the world...) soak up the Superbowl with KoKo and his tribe. But memories and blogs being what they are, we can relive the excitement of these wings with a simple repost. No driving, no cooking for me involved.

Since I wouldn’t dream of telling you to forego the buffalo wings and only provide you TYLER’S FLORENCE’S STICKY HONEY-SOY CHICKEN WINGS, that recipe will appear this coming Monday. 

However, I have no great pics of those wings. However, I give you Koko’s adaptation of Mr. Lagasse's dynamite (kinda literally dynamite hot and explosive) wings. The following recipe for them is courtesy of “Mr. Bam!” himself. So we began to eat Mr. Lagasse’s buffalo chicken wings that Koko had so lovingly prepared, and Poi's son said it best when he blurted out:

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!”

They're hot wings. Here's how you make 'em:

Yack! These Wings are HOT!!!

CHICKEN WINGS A LAGASSE

Prep: 50 minutes

Cook: 10 minutes

Serves 6–8

Ingredients

4 lbs. chicken wings, rinsed and patted dry with paper towels

½ c Srirachi chili sauce

¼ c Crystal Hot Sauce

8 T butter, melted

½ lemon, juiced

1 T hot pepper sauce

Vegetable oil, for deep-frying

Directions

In a deep fryer or large saucepan heat vegetable oil until a thermometer registers 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Fry chicken wings in batches until golden brown and wings float in the oil, about 6–8 minutes. Drain well on paper towels.

In a large bowl combine Srirachi sauce, Crystal Hot Sauce, melted butter, lemon juice, and hot pepper sauce. Whisk well to combine and pour over fried chicken wings. Allow to sit a few minutes before serving with blue cheese and celery crudité.

BLUE CHEESE AND CELERY CRUDITE

8 oz. blue cheese

4 oz. cream cheese

½ lemon, juiced

8 ribs celery, cut on the bias into dipping-sized batons

Directions

In the bowl of a food processor combine blue cheese, cream cheese, and lemon juice. Process until smooth and well-combined. Serve with celery batons and spicy chicken wings.

Lots of iced tea or beer to chill down the heat on your lips, tongue, and other mucus membranes that come in contact with these wings.

Comments

"These wings tasted just like ones you would get from your local Wings 'n' Things but somehow better because you made them yourself. The down side of making them at home is the sheer quantity of vegetable oil required to fry them about 3/4 to 1 gallon of oil. I would only use pure vegetable, corn or other neutral, high flash point oil, definitely not peanut or olive oil to fry these wings. You can save the oil to fry at most two more “batches” of wings but man it’s not saving any corn."

—Koko

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Yotam's Sweet Potato Cakes

Just about any recipe with the word “pancakes” in the title "grabs" my attention.  I remember graduating from high school and my friend Katriona bought me a book that was about 50 pages long with various pancake recipes. I recall salivating through the entire book.

This weekend with @makesascene and @ELB29, we scarfed down "johnnycakes" which will be provided to you in a future blog post. I was sitting there watching all the other tables getting their dishes while we waited and waited, and I realized how the very notion of pancakes makes me impatient. I'm Pavlov's dog when it comes to these quick fried devils.

Plenty Cookbook Cover

So it should come as little surprise when @ELB29 told me that she had made a dinner for her mom, dad, and a very picky brother out of one giant jewel sweet potato, some green onions, and a side salad.

It sounded far-fetched, but the pictures from YOTAM OTTOLENGHI’S PLENTY were compelling. I had to give it a go. While it's delicious as a dish, I have to say I think most guests would find this to not be a dinner. For me, as a former vegan, this is very much a dinner. The sum total is quite heavy.

Thinking aloud, I do not see why you couldn't make these into tiny fingerfood bites and serve as an appetizer. So go on, show Yotam what you can do to adapt his recipes...

Sweet Potato Fritters

Ingredients

For the Potato Cakes

2 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks

2 t soy sauce

3/4 c flour

1 t salt

½ t sugar

3 T spring onion, chopped

½ t fresh chilli, finely chopped (or more, to taste)

olive oil, for frying

For the sauce

6 T Greek yogurt

2 t olive oil

1 T lemon juice

1 T fresh coriander, chopped

Freshly ground salt and pepper

Frying in the Pan, Awaiting the Plate

Instructions

Bake the sweet potato at 350 degrees in about 1/2″ of water in a non-stick flat pan until soft for about two hours or until soft. Meanwhile, whisk the sauce ingredients until smooth and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, work all the fritter ingredients by hand–it should be sticky, so if it’s a little runny, add flour as needed. I found you need all 3/4 of a cup. Do not over-mix.

Using a tablespoon, form a rounded bit of batter and drop into some hot oil that only lightly coats the bottom of the pan. Flatten with the top of a spatula after you flip. Brown both sides. Make them about 1/4″ thick. Six minutes per side is ideal. Place between plenty of papertowel to soak up the excess oil.

Serve hot or warm, with the sauce on the side, and a crisp green salad.

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Alice Water, Meet Thomas Keller: Little Gems Salad

Out of THOMAS KELLER’S AD HOC COOK BOOK comes his terrific Little Gem salad which he dresses like a rarefied iceberg wedge salad with lardon (a French-go-to, thick-cut bacon), homemade croutons, oven roasted tomatoes, and the very best buttermilk ranch dressing I’ve ever had. I’ve made this so many times now, I’m a pro. But it takes getting used to. 

For the dressing, I make the mayonnaise and then prepare the rest of the dressing by finely chopping the mint and parsley. It’s not super easy to do, but setting it up in little containers before I leave for work, it ships well to work and sits on the plate in the kitchen at the office like a grand feast. And it’s only a salad!

Here’s how I do it.

First I make the croutons:

Making Alice Waters' Croutons for Tommy Boy's Salad

Alice Waters’ Croutons

HER CROUTONS COME FROM HER THE ART OF SIMPLE FOOD. This book is really a reader, not a cookbook. I feel that like Julia Child, you learn from her here as if she is telling a story, not making recipes. I love her style here. Read this book, and get a sense of how to purchase food, how to have a pantry that is full of useful treats, and how to prevent food in your fridge from becoming rotten before you get around to it.

Salad Building Blocks

One of the things that you can salvage is French bread. I’m not a huge bread eater. Two pieces in the morning is sufficient, although fresh bread I could eat all day. Once it’s no longer fresh, just shear off the crusts and then cut into your favorite crouton dice.

Alice prefers torn pieces that she then tosses in oil. As she tries to make sound easy, “Fry little cubed croutons in butter to strew atop a delicate pureed soup.” Well, when it comes to these croutons, just toast them after you toss with olive oil. No need to be extra virgin, you just want them to brown with some oil and dried herbs never hurt
(1/2-1 t dill weed or try combining 1/2 t basil and 1/2 t tarragon), roll the croutons in the oil, place on a cookie tray, toast in a hot oven, flip, and brown. Keep an eye on these, then pull out. If you are only in possession of a toaster oven, you can do these easily in a small toaster over pan. In fact, it’s easier than in the big oven.

At any rate, the oven roasted tomatoes can be subbed out by purchasing them at Whole Foods. But if it’s end of season in October, you can roast your own. As Keller says so blithely, 12 plum tomatoes, 1/2 c extra virgin olive oil, 3 sprigs of thyme, kosher salt and pepper. At 200 degree, slow roast them in a baking sheet lined with foil for six hours or until they are shrunk and dried. Cut the tomatoes in half, place cut side up on the lined baking sheet, drizzle with oil, scatter with the thyme leaves and season with salt and pepper. These are handy afterwards, because when you chop them for the salad, you may find you have left overs. The leftovers work in other recipes of his, so you can create entirely new meals as you finish this step.

Ranch Dressing Drops

Makes about 2 cups of dressing

Buttermilk Dressing

1/4 – 1/2 c buttermilk

1/2 c creme fraiche

1 t finely minced onion

1 garlic clove minced

3/4 t lemon juice

1 t finely minced fresh chives

1 t fresh flat leaf parsley

1 t minced fresh mint (or, I’ve found you can use fresh dill in place of)

1 c mayo (Homemade is so surprisingly easy; according to Julia Child, it’s two egg yolks at room temperature, with a pinch of salt, quickly processed in the food processor; then when sticky, add in 2T lemon juice and 1/4 t Dijon or powdered mustard. Process for another 10-30 seconds; then drizzle in through the mayo hole on the top of the food processor 1-1 1/2 c oil. I use olive oil. It’s more yellow than most mayo, so don’t be surprised if you don’t recognize it!)

• Stir everything together. 
• Done. 
• Love that part. 

If it is too thick, slowly add in more buttermilk, until it’s the consistency you like. You can also make it into blue cheese dressing if you skip the dill and add in 1 1/2 c crumble blue cheese (about 8 ounces worth). I seem to recall that classic American ranch dressing used dill. At least it did when I was a kid. I have tweaked his recipe by using fresh minced onion and fresh garlic. I cannot imagine why these need to be powder as he recommends.

At any rate, arrange the salad on the plate–and again, this works really well with iceberg lettuce, but he recommends the Little Gems–and sprinkle with some STRAIGHT-OUT-OF-THE-FRYING-PAN BACON LARDON.

Thomas Keller's Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

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