Need a Refresh

Blog overhaul coming soon. Stay tuned.

MacGyvered Chicken Curry

Dear God, it’s been a while.

I have a confession – I hate understatements. Anytime someone says something that clearly does not adequately describe a given situation, I’m the one in the background muttering, “that’s the understatement of the century”. I have this perpetual need to capture fully whatever is happening in some sort of verbose, overly obnoxious, borderline-rambunctious manner in any circumstance where someone says something that I perceive to be insufficient. Call it OCD, but whatever it may be, it’s certainly caused my ocular muscles to grow stronger, because I swear I’m rolling my eyes every other minute of the day.

This is the precise reason I refuse to describe how ridiculously long it’s been since I’ve updated this at all. My life has changed so much since this blog began; girlfriend, job, car, major life revelations, etc. have all occurred since I started writing this thing. Hell, I’ve even contemplated changing the purpose of this. At first, this all started out as a means to air out my frustrations with my cooking limitations, and documenting my progress. I’ve realized the minute I decide to change course and try to make a career out of this, it’ll become something I stress about. I don’t want that. If something happens because of this (HIGHLY unlikely), then so be it. But I’m not going to let that remote possibility cause me to prematurely bald.

So where did we leave off? Looking back, the last entry was in May. Life was so different back then. Now I have a great girlfriend and a job that stresses me out far too much. I live in a much better neighborhood, and own my first car, a 2010 Ford Focus. So suffice it to say, life is stable for the first time in a while. I miss my friends, and freakin’ Lauren Palmer is in Charleston now (with the true peanut recipe, nonetheless), but life is good. Could always be more, but I’m eeking by.

But enough about me – time to get to the food. Every time I’m home, the lady who lives on the floor above us manages to make me a beautiful chicken keema curry (keema in Hindi/Urdu means “minced meat”) that always has me hungering for more. So naturally, every time I come back to Philly, I mourn the fact that I have none left (except for the times where I’m sent back home with some to freeze). So naturally, I figured I’d give it a try (plus, I needed to feed my girlfriend, Nicole).

So, the ingredients:

Ground chicken, obviously. Indian cooking pretty much demands that onions with some sort of combination of ginger, garlic, green chilies, and other dried spices are stir fried in the beginning before any protein is thrown into the mix; this ensures that the dried spices are cooked through and don’t taste raw, and that the produce is softened and all flavor is extracted from them. So, as we see here, I used onion, ginger, tomato, and green chili. The spice mix included red chili powder, garam masala (in essence, a mix of Indian spices with a cumin as a predominant ingredient), coriander powder, and turmeric (for the beautiful color and to add a bit of tartness to the dish).

Now, I made a mistake here, because initially I added the chicken first before the spices. Won’t do that again, as I did taste some of the dried spices after the fact. Lesson learned.

Now, I call this “MacGyvered” chicken curry for one reason – I absolutely had to come up with a solution for the fact that I had no tomato sauce to serve as the base for the curry. My diced tomatoes weren’t good enough, and I had no tomato paste to dilute with water. So what did I use? Ketchup.

You know, I was nervous at first because I thought the sweetness of the ketchup would completely destroy the flavors I was going for. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that my fears were stupid; the powerful combination of the spices, along with added water, was enough to overcome the sweetness. I’d even like to think it added an extra dimension, but hell, what do I know?

After that, I added fresh cilantro, and served over rice I had boiled with a dash of white truffle oil (big thank you to Lauren Palmer).

Voila.

Till next time. Seriously, though.

Italian Balsamic Chicken Burger on Homemade Garlic Bread

I’ve been wanting to make some sort of burger/sandwich out of ground chicken for quite some time. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been eating a lot of salad with balsamic vinegar, shallots, and other herbs largely found in Italian cooking (damn you, healthy eating!). Which, in turn, got me thinking … I should start moving away from my Asian-centric cuisine and try something else. I cooked rigatoni bolognese earlier (to great success), but the pictures … well, suck.

If there is something I almost ALWAYS have in my freezer, it’s ground chicken. Quick to cook, healthy, largely lean, and much better than ground beef. But I was sick of stir-frying it, or making noodles/fried rice; I needed inspiration! So, I turned to my salads, of all things, and voila, I thought of something. Balsamic chicken burger, on homemade garlic bread. I just needed to go grocery shopping.

I used shallots, dried red pepper flakes, parsley, garlic paste (I’m too lazy/inadequately skilled to chop cloves, but we’ve established that already), dried oregano, salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and seasoned bread crumbs in order to keep the mixture from being too wet, which was critical in mixing this -

Into this -

It doesn’t look so pretty after it’s mashed to hell. But in any case, after the mixture was mixed, one patty was formed (even though I had enough for two, I’d like to think I’m not that much of a fatass).

So the plan was to sear it, and then bake it through; I wanted a good, crisp texture while maintaining the juice and flavor of the meat and ingredients.

Now as far as the garlic bread goes, I ran into a bit of a problem. The bread I bought from Trader Joe’s was hard as hell, so cutting through it was an absolute nightmare. Eating tough bread is not exactly pleasurable. But, fear not; here’s a little tip. I wet a piece of paper towel and covered the pieces of bread with it, and placed it in the microwave for about 35 seconds. This immediately softened the bread, and made it easier to chew.

Once that was done, it was time to make the mixture that would lend the bread it’s distinct garlic-y flavor. I mixed light mayonnaise, extra virgin olive oil, oregano, parsley, garlic paste, and garlic powder together and spread it along the bread.

Once that was done, I pulled the chicken out of the oven. It was in there for about 10 minutes, at about 375 degrees. I took the chicken out, and pressed each piece of bread, mixture-side down into the heated pan. This was the result -

Once the bread was done, and the chicken was cooked, I just added sun-dried tomatoes, escarole, and radicchio to the burger, and indulged.

I need to make more burgers.

– H

Seared Bay Scallops w/ White Wine & Lemon Butter Sauce over Aromatic Rice

Ok, so I’m well aware that I’ve been woefully behind on updating this with anything of relevance. My last two posts have been more meandering thoughts than actual posts regarding what this blog is (supposed to be) about. Granted, I realistically should be studying for GMATs, or figuring out how to realistically move furniture into a new apartment that has no elevator (I’m banking on movers bringing all my crap up to the top floor, and then onto the second floor of the apartment itself, but convincing Jen is not going to be fun). But, you know what, oh well.

In any case, about a month ago, I was graced with the lovely presence of Ms. Ashna Ali in Philadelphia, as she came to see me humiliate myself as I played the role of Oberon in Drexel University’s adaption of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (which I must say, was a rousing success). Knowing that she’d be fine with whatever I chose to cook, I decided to do something I previously had no experience cooking – scallops. I’ve always wanted to cook them, but since they’re ridiculously expensive, I was always hesitant. Then, I discovered the glory of frozen scallops and, despite knowing they weren’t the freshest, I had to give them a whirl. I had come up with a recipe earlier, but I was a little hesitant to use it, but I couldn’t resist.

I dredged the bay scallops in white flour, oregano, white pepper, and garlic powder. The white flour would give the scallops some good caramelization, enhanced by the flavors of the seasonings.

The scallops were sauteed in butter, lemon juice, parsley, and white wine (the base of the sauce). Scallops cook fairly quickly.

I wanted to serve this with rice, but not just boring plain white basmati rice. I wanted to add flavors and aromas. Therefore, I boiled the rice in cilantro, ginger, and saffron. Not to be immodest, but it was fantastic.

Finally, garnished the dish with chives, and served it with a glass of Chardonnay.

Perfect.

Until next time,

H.

Below The Heavens

“Every man has his own heaven..

The difference is the way that he envisions it
So if you make your heaven picture less
By the time you die
You’ll be driftin’ in an imageless field
So build your heaven full of blessed thoughts

That’s real, you can stress it or just let it walk.
I got a question -  if a man can make his own heaven
Can he make his path to get to it too?
I only spit through a truth
And I spit it for the listeners
So I’m spittin’ to you
You say it’s hell
I say it’s bullshit we getting through.

Just think about it, every man has his own heaven
But shit you gotta’ go through hell to be a man first
And understand first
Hell is what you choose to call the present
That’s why you’re going through it
I just choose to call it stressin’
To tell you fools the truth
I don’t feel that’s why I’m destined.

So you can call it hell but bro..
I’ll just say I’m below the heavens”

“dark have been my dreams of late”

I hate that bad experiences with people have made me like this. I don’t want to be like my dad. I refuse to be, especially after seeing the way he operates nowadays at home. I am better than this, and I know I can be better.

I will be better.

Shredded Beef Lo Mein

Ok, so my father has very sensitive teeth. So sensitive, in fact, that it makes it difficult for him to chew things that aren’t particularly soft. Every time I come home and cook for the family I have to keep this in mind, or my father will find passive-aggressive ways to get back at me for making food he can’t enjoy.

So, when making noodles for the family, I had to make sure the noodles were soggy, and the beef was shredded. Not ideal for retaining maximum flavor, but it’s either that, or stressing about the food for the entirety of the meal. So we start with our mixed vegetables: snow peas, Chinese cabbage, bean sprouts, shredded carrots, and red bell peppers.

Set this aside, and in a bowl I mixed soy sauce, a tiny bit of fish sauce, chili oil, sesame oil, and black sweetened vinegar (on a side note, I really wish I had hoisin and oyster sauce for this meal to cook with…).

My mom shredded the beef (citing my absolute lack of any sort of knife skills), and I seasoned it with white pepper and salt).

So I began cooking the beef with ginger. This is where the hoisin and oyster sauce would’ve come in handy, as hoisin is like an Asian barbecue sauce, and oyster contributes good, sweet flavor. But in any case, I cooked the beef first, and then added the vegetables along with the mixture of sauces. From there, the noodles were placed in the pot to soak up all the flavors, with some of the stock from the boiling water, to make them soft. Garnished with sliced spring onion and cilantro, and voila:

Till next time,

H