Entries Tagged 'spicy' ↓

So I like the flavor of pozole, but the hominy, well, not so much. So this is what I came up with. It’s perfect for my oh too big 6-quart slow cooker crock pot thing, but I’m sure it can be slow-baked in one of those fancy enamel coated cast iron dutch ovens too. Don’t let the fact that it contains 5 jalapenos slow ya down either, after 8 hours they mellow into a flavorful sauce that won’t send you grasping frantically for your beer. I don’t measure when I cook so the amounts are approximate, just make it look & taste good to you.

Sweet Potato Stew

4 Pork Shoulder Steaks
Salt & Pepper
Oil
2 Onions, sliced thin
3 Jalapeno chilis, seeded & minced
1 Tbsp Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Meat Magic
6 Cloves Garlic, pressed
1 28oz can diced tomatoes in juice
2 Oranges (Peel a strip of zest with a potato peeler, about 12″ or so, then juice the oranges)
2 Chipotle Chilis in Adobo sauce, minced
1 Tsp dried oregano leaves
2 largish Sweet Potatoes, washed & chopped about 1/2″ cubes
Chicken Broth
corn starch
1/2 bunch Cilantro, remove the big stems & chopped

Salt & pepper then brown steaks one at a time in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. You won’t need oil, there should be enough fat on the steaks. Stack them up in the middle of your slow cooker.

Add some oil if there isn’t juices in the pan from the meat. Add the onions, jalapenos & meat magic to the pan. Cook until the onions are softened & the rendered juices have cooked out. Add the garlic & just warm it on top, don’t brown the garlic. Add the tomatoes, using the juices to scrape up all the goodness stuck on the bottom of the pan. Bring to a simmer, then add it the slow cooker.

Distribute the onions & peppers between the steaks, but keep them stacked in the center of the slow cooker. Add the orange juice, chipotles and oregano to the slow cooker & stir. Nestle the sweet potatoes & orange zest strip around the edges. Add the chicken broth until the meat & potatoes are covered.

My cooker has a low 8 hour setting. Cook for 8 hours, go to work, go to bed, whatever, just don’t stir or mess with it. If you are using the oven, cover tightly, 300° for 4 hours or so, until potatoes are soft & the meat is starting to fall apart.

Turn off slow cooker & pull the meat out & set aside to cool. Pull the potatoes out & set aside. Discard the orange zest strip. Let the juices settle & skim off the fat. Mix some corn starch with water. Add to the juices & turn slow cooker on to high to thicken sauce. Add potatoes back in & the cilantro. When the meat is cool enough to handle, pull the bones, gristle & fat bits out & toss the meat chunks back into the pot.

Spoon into bowls & serve with a daub of sour cream & some tortillas, a spritz of fresh lime, & the beer of course! Mmmm

This freezes well too.

Happy New Year
Its been too long since I have posted and I did miss some stellar opportunities with holiday foods I pretty much invented. Then today, we needed lunch and didn’t want to spoil our appetites for our special new year’s dinner, so I did the combine leftovers thing - lentil soup and pumpkin (not the same can as the previous post!). Rummaging in the cupboard I came up with the additions of paprika and hot sauce this soup proves that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I might do this again on purpose since the pumpkin made it creamy and smooth and the paprika added both color and sparkle. Anyone have another example of this to share? Here’s to a great new year of making things up as we go along.

Due to circumstances beyond my control we ended up with most of a large can of pumpkin and half of a rotisserie chicken in the fridge. I knew there must be some way of combining these items and using them both up before they were forcibly migrated to the back and forgotten until they evolved to something capable of self-directed movement. I started thinking about a local Thai restaurant’s awesome Asian pumpkin curry and an experiment was born.

As I often do I started looking through recipes for somewhere to start. Hard rains were taking down the internet at the time so I was limited to what I have at hand and not much insight turned up as to what exactly might be added (note to self - need more cookbooks containing curries). So armed only with my general accumulated knowledge of what spices pumpkin usually has as friends and that its pretty hard to mess up chicken - this is what I came up with:

In a large soup pot heat up -
1 Tbsp of olive oil
2 cloves crushed garlic
about 1 Tbsp shredded fresh ginger (I keep it in the freezer)

Add the shredded meat of about one half of a cooked rotisserie chicken to brown while adding a quarter of red onion sliced fine and some cumin, coriander and about 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro (mine was frozen). Once the onions have done their thing (become translucent) I added in the pumpkin (about a cup and a half I think - big can minus a bit) and about 8 oz of chicken stock. The stock was actually made on the spot with a Tbsp of “better than bouillon” with 8 oz of boiling water added, so I think this made it extra salty.

Once that is well mixed and over medium heat or a bit lower I added more spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and a bit of chili powder. At this point I started to get a little nervous because it was getting thick and I was on the fence about adding canned tomatoes. I know they go in some curries but all I had were ones with Italian herbs so I opted to look for something else instead - in the end I think it was a good call.

Being somewhat quick on my feet, a bit fearless and generally not too bright I decided to stir in about a quarter cup of yogurt. This was a good call as it turned out because not only did nothing bad happen but the texture became something new and interesting - somewhat along the lines of a good sag paneer - creamy, light and fluffy. I added some more chopped cilantro and running out of that about a quarter cup of chopped parsley. Taste tests proved - there was still something missing so…

I turned to my usual all purpose back up ingredient - hot sauce. I was pretty careful and end up not using too much. On a whim I also through in a couple of tablespoons of Avjar (hungarian red pepper sauce/spread) which really perked things up and pretty much finished things off.

A quick simmer to meld things together yielded something pretty wonderful and we couldn’t stop eating it. I still think there might be one more ingredient missing but can’t put my finger on it - anyone have any ideas on what to add next time? Because I am pretty sure there will be a next time even if fate doesn’t arrange for me to have a can of pumpkin and a rotisserie chicken sitting next to each other in the refrigerator.

You might have noticed by now that here at Made Up Food we are not afraid of pre-packaged items. But they have to be good - at least as good as the “real thing”.

One that I am a huge fan of is Trader Joe’s frozen rice - both the Jasmine and Brown varieties are (almost) better than I can make from scratch and zap in the nuke-o-matic in 3 easy minutes. Sounds too good to be true, but so far its been great every time.

Stock up when its in the store cuz its so popular they can’t seem to keep it in stock.

Here’s a recipe I want to try from over at Table for Two: Chicken and Brown Rice Casserole that also happens to use one of my favorite condiments, Sriracha.

* Careful you don’t burn your fingers opening that hot package the way some people have.

It was unexpectedly bloody hot and humid today - a day filled with numerous technical snafus and stress. But I was hungry anyhow and this is what I threw together. All I can say is that it was tasty enough to inspire this blog.

Cold Spicy Somen Noodle Salad
here’s what’s in it:

1 packet somen noodles (1 serving)
8 mint leaves finely sliced
hot and sweet asian chile sauce
soy sauce
rice wine vinegar

I added what i had left of pickled herring and onions in wine sauce - about 1/2 cup rinsed thoroughly and drained

Toss the seasonings and herring/onions in a bowl while the noodles are cooking. Rinse the noodles under really cold water and stir in.

total time - about 10 min.

I’m thinking I could do this with canned tuna or a nicer protein if I wanted to serve it to others…