Food

Following in my usual habit of making simple chicken for both meals and leftovers, I decided to try roasting chicken breasts in a pan directly on top of vegetables instead of using a roasting rack. This makes a simple one-pan dish, and a lot of flavor soaked into the veggies. The chicken itself probably needs a marinade for additional flavor, though the dish itself does result in some sauce (more like a broth -- maybe trying to thicken it up into a sauce after cooking would be good). The combination of black pepper, jalapeno seeds, and fennel turned out to be a perfect fit to the chicken and the vegetables I used.

Ingredients
2 bone-in skin-on chicken breasts
1 large carrot, sliced
1 large celery stalk, sliced
1/4 head of cauliflower, sliced
1/2 red onion, diced coarsely
olive oil, soy sauce, red wine, salt, ground black pepper, ground fennel seeds, ground jalapeno seeds/pith

Directions
lay the vegetables in the bottom of an 11x7 baking dish; vegetables should make about one layer on bottom of pan. toss with olive oil and salt. add some soy sauce and wine until about half covered. sprinkle generously with a coarsely-ground mix of the pepper, jalapeno seeds, and fennel. lay the chicken on top, meat up. sprinkle the chicken generously with the remaining spice mix. bake in the oven at 400 until done, around 30-40 min depending on size.

Verdict
the vegetables were nicely roasted, dark and flavorful from the chicken, wine, and spices. The chicken skin was nicely crusted, though of course no particular flavor soaked into the meat. I'd do this again except marinating the chicken first. I'd probably also drop the soy sauce and stick with wine or vinegar, and add garlic (whole or halved cloves). Parsnips or sweet potatoes would be good. A more asian combination of flavors would probably be good too.

Posted by Mike Perkowitz at 03:15 PM | Permalink

E took me to Marazul for my birthday last night. It's a sort of asian-latino fusion, which can be a great combination. The menu is big on small plates and combos of trying different things. we opted for several small plates and one entree. The small plates were all good, with interesting sauces and flavor combinations. The entree, beef short ribs, was a bit heavy and not that interestingly flavored; we should have gone for the skirt steak, pork, or something else. The truffle cake was, for a dense block of bittersweet chocolate, uninspiring. Still, I'd go back, though it doesn't make the top of the list. You could at least sit by the windows, drinking rum and eating tapas.

We had:
- rum cocktails (dark & stormy for E, something sweet and girly for me)
- ahi tuna ceviche (with "watermelon, yuzu miso sauce")
- thai ginger beef satay (with "three chilli lassi sauce")
- chicharron de calamari (with "sriracha aioli")
- jerk pork pot stickers (with "guava plum dipping sauce")
- beef short ribs (with "spiced orange sauce, cassava, boniato mash")
- chocolate truffle cake

Posted by Mike Perkowitz at 05:21 PM | Permalink

and PS, after writing my review of pegasus pizza, I actually looked up deep dish pizza on wikipedia just to see, technically, what that thick-fluffy-crust stuff is what deep dish is supposed to be. seemingly not, though perhaps it's "pan" pizza, as defined there. regardless, what I like is thickish dense crust, like you find at atlantic street (found I should say; it seems to be gone after the owner died) or, sort of, at Stacia's if you choose the whole wheat crust.

Posted by Mike Perkowitz at 10:48 AM | Permalink

Recovering from a dinner party extravaganza and a day of pajamas and football, E and I decided to get pizza at west seattle's much-praised Pegasus Pizza. If I hadn't known it was well-regarded, I would have been worried when we walked in, since the place exuded every cliche of the cheezy/crappy pizza place, down to the walls, like, painted to resemble the crumbling walls of ancient roman ruins. maybe it's ironic, I thought. the style there is "deep dish" whatever that really means; in this case, it means that sort of thick but fluffy (i.e. not dense) crust, which I'm not really crazy about. Maybe if you like that, you'd like their crust. But crust aside, I thought the sauce was anemic and the whole thing was drowned in cheese. You could barely find the sauce in all that cheese. The sausage we had was pretty good, but the mushrooms were sort of.. well I don't want to use the word "slimy" but they were unusually moist. And to cap it all off, the menu doesn't let you just choose your own toppings, but you have to choose from 20-30 standard combos (sausage and mushroom! sausage and pepperoni and mushroom! but eg no sausage and onion). does that, like, really save them any time or money? whatever. oh and ps, pizza this thick in cheese really does not fare well the next day; and I consider next-day pizza one of the hidden perks of getting a good pizza.

Imagine my surprise to find that this place has five stars on citysearch. it seemed so improbable I figured they'd written their own reviews, but no, they look real. No wonder seattle doesn't have better pizza -- people don't know it when they see it.

Posted by Mike Perkowitz at 10:34 AM | Permalink

I wanted to make a simple soup using corn for the main flavor and sweet potatoes for support and consistency. I like blended soups, so I took the usual approach of sauteeing, then simmering for a while, then blending everything. A little curry paste to add some interest and heat. Unfortunately, it didn't really work. The consistency was wrong and the flavor uninteresting. Oh well.

Ingredients
3 ears sweet white corn
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
4 cloves garlic, diced
2 red jalapeno peppers, diced
1 anaheim pepper, diced
6 c water
1 tsp green curry paste
olive oil, salt, white pepper

Directions
slice the corn off the cobs. simmer the cobs in the water (the longer the better). dice and chop the other stuff (or just run the garlic and peppers through a food processor). heat the oil to medium-high in a large pot. saute the garlic and peppers for a few minutes, then add the water, cobs, corn, sweet potato, curry paste, and salt and pepper to taste. bring to a boil on high, then turn to low, cover, and simmer (the longer the better, pretty much). take the pot off the heat, remove the cobs, and let cool for a few minutes. blend to desired smoothness (or, take out half of the soup, blend it, then mix it back with the original). put the pot back on the heat and simmer on medium until the soup thickens to desired consistency. stir periodically; make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom.

Verdict
I could probably have just done the recipe with less water; six cups was really too much, so I boiled some of it off at the end to get the soup thicker. also, you can't really make a blended soup with corn (I tried blending it all the way), because the skins of the kernels just don't blend. also, I'm not really sure how much the cob-water added; I need to experiment with it more. overall, not a success. the consistency was just not good; because the corn didn't blend all the way, it was annoyingly not-smooth, but not chunky enough to be pleasing. in terms of flavor, it wasn't really that good. inoffensive, but not that interesting. I wanted a more intense corn flavor, and it could have used a bit more complexity to keep it interesting (bacon, probably).

Posted by Mike Perkowitz at 10:49 AM | Permalink

I've pretty much got the fried chicken wings down by now (I use the little wing drumettes, coat them in a mix of corn starch and spices, heat the oil to 6 on my stove, and fry for 12 minutes), but I wanted to experiment with more flavor. In the past I've put spices into the corn starch mix, but it usually doesn't come through very strongly. This time I ground up a fair amount of salt, pepper, cardamom, and coriander and actually combined that mixture about 3:2 with corn starch. The chicken was definitely more flavorful, and looked good as well, with dark flecks of pepper and cardamom visible in the coating.

I figured as long as I had some left over corn starch mix and the oil sitting there, why not try frying other things? So next I sliced up some tofu and tossed it in the corn starch. Then I sliced up some cheese (asiago and fresh mozzarella) and tossed that as well. I dropped both into the oil, figuring on giving them 6-8 minutes. Well I don't know how they make those fried mozzarella sticks at crap restaurants like Chili's or whatever, but mine was an utter fiasco. The cheese, non-surprisingly, melted and got all in the oil and stuff. I managed to scoop the tofu and globs of the cheese out. The tofu was actually pretty good -- the coating had formed a fairly distinct skin, and the tofu inside was kind of soft, almost a fried cheese stick effect (probably because I ended up having to pull the tofu out before it'd been in the oil very long). The cheese, of course, was a lost cause. So, tofu good, fried cheese needs some study.

Posted by Mike Perkowitz at 11:58 PM | Permalink

Kroot experiments continue. This one uses sweet potatoes for the bulk of the filling, with some mushrooms for a little extra interest. For a little interesting contrast, I added a bit of fresh peach and some mango chutney. As usual, the kroot concept makes for a nice-looking plate.

Ingredients
half a large sweet potato, quartered and sliced medium-thick
4-6 crimini mushrooms, stemmed, halved, and sliced
half a peach, diced large, with two slices reserved (for garnish)
mango chutney
1 slice mountain flatbread
olive oil, salt, pepper

Directions
stir fry the sweet potato and mushrooms in olive oil until the potatoes are soft. add salt and pepper to taste. when it's almost done, add the diced peach for a minute or two. lay the bread flat and spoon the potato/mushroom mix into the center. fold the corners over and stick them together with some water dabbed on. drop that into the heated oil, folded side down and leave it for a couple of minutes. flip (folded side should be golden brown and all sealed together now) and give it another minute. serve on a plate with folded side up, topped with a couple slices of peach and some mango chutney.

Verdict
The peach was a last-minute idea which I think worked fairly well -- the peach flavor in the kroot was a pleasant surprise, and the extra slices made a nice presentation. The one drawback was the flavor overall wasn't that interesting. The consistency was good though, so I think I'd do this again, exploring flavors more. I like curry flavors with squash or sweet potatoes, so bringing in some red curry paste might be nice (maybe not with the peach though).

Posted by Mike Perkowitz at 11:48 PM | Permalink

I've been wanting to cook more with sweet potatoes (good tasting and good for you!), and with today containing a definite hint of fall on its way, I thought I'd try some soup. I just followed one of the basic soup procedures: cook some vegetables in some broth, blend, add some spices. I thought the curry paste would make a nice flavoring, but I added a bit much (a teaspoon at the beginning and a teaspoon with the milk; I reduced it in the recipe I wrote up here, and maybe it should be even less). It probably would have benefited from whole milk or half and half (or third and third and third), but I tend to have skim in the house. It's good with the fried skins and a hunk of dark sweet bread (and an episode of Deadwood).

Sweet Potato Soup
Ingredients
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 large onion, diced
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
4 c vegetable broth
2 c water
1 c milk
1 tsp red curry paste
black pepper, cardamom, salt

Directions
Put broth, water, sweet potatoes, carrots, and onion in a large pot and bring to boil on high. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 25 minutes. Blend until smooth. Dissolve the curry paste in the milk and mix into the soup. Add salt, ground pepper, and ground cardamom to taste. Serve with bread, a sprinkling of pepper, some ground nuts, whatever.

Fried Sweet Potato Skins
Ingredients
Peels of two large sweet potatoes
Safflower oil, salt, pepper, curry powder

Directions
Peel the sweet potatoes with a vegetable peeler, and put the peels aside. Heat oil about 1/4"-1/2" deep in a saute pan on medium high. Add the skins and fry until slightly crispy. Remove to a paper towel, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and curry powder (or whatever you like) and eat.

Posted by Mike Perkowitz at 09:47 PM | Permalink