Yogadad World

No Super Bowl here today. Instead we made an Indian dish with skinless chicken and a yogurt-based marinade. It made for a super platter, if not a super bowl. The recipe is from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer. We loved it. Just the right amount of heat from the chilis. I used 2 serrano and 4 Thai chilis. Any more and it would have been too hot for us. Your taste will vary. If you don't like much heat at all, cut way back on the peppers. And if you like it very hot, add a couple more. One more tip. Don't try to cut a corner and leave the skin on the chicken. You won't like it nearly as much. Removing the skin is a bit of chore but shouldn't take more than a few minutes. The wings are the hardest, legs second hardest and the rest is a piece of cake. Just grap a corner, lift, and it pretty much slides off.

The recipe calls for grinding whole spices. I used a mortar & pestle. I have a cast iron model that we picked up at a garage sale last summer. It's very heavy and did a great job grinding the corriander, cumin, and cardamom. I used ground cloves, not having whole cloves in the cupboard. The fragancy of the freshly ground cloves adds another dimension to the dish. 

A couple of notes. The bread came out of the oven this afternoon. Shannon uses the almost No-Knead bread recipe made famous by Jim Lahey and publicized in the New York Times, Cooks Illustrated and elsewhere. She added garlic, rosemary, and cheese. It was perfect with the chicken.

The yogurt was homemade, too. That came out of the yogurt maker yesterday. Very smooth and tasty.

Marinade Ingredients:
1 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds
6 lengthwise slices fresh ginger (each 1 1/2 in. long, 1 in. wide, 1/4 in. thick
6 large cloves garlic
5 - 7 in. fresh green Thai, cayenne, or serrano chiles, stems removed
1/4 c finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 Tb coriander seeds, ground
2 tsp cumin seeds, ground
2 tsp coarse kosher or sea salt
1/2 tsp cardamon seeds, ground
1/2 tsp whole cloves, ground

Other ingredients
1 chicken (3 1/2 lbs) skin removed, cut-up
4 Tb canola oil
1 medium-sized red onion, cut in half lengthwise & thinly sliced
4 fresh or dried bay leaves
5 oz fresh baby spinach leaves

Combine yogurt, almonds, ginger, garlic & chiles in a blender & puree. Sauce should be smooth, but slightly gritty. Pour into medium bowl and fold in cilantro, coriander, cumin, salt, cardamom, and cloves.

Add the chicken pieces to the bowl & coat well with marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight.

Heat 2 Tb of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion & bay leaves. Cook, stirring, until the onion slices are soft & light brown around the edges, about 3 or 4 minutes. Transfer the onion & bay leaves to a plate

Pour the remaining 2 Tb oil into the same skillet. Remove the chicken from the marinade (it's ok if some of the mariade clings to the chicken) and add it to the skillet, meat side down, in a single layer. Reserve the remaining marinade. Sear the meat until it is lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Turn the pieces ove and sear the other side unti lightly browned, about 3 mins.

Spread the reserve marinade over the chicken, add the cooked onion and 1/4 cup water. Lift the chicken pieces & allow the liquid to flow underneath them; it should deglaze the skillet, releasing any bits of browned chicken & spices. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and braise the chicken, basting it wi the sauce occasionally, until the meat in the thickest parts is no longer pink inside & the juices run clear, 25 - 30 mins. Transfer chicken & onions to a serving patter.

Raise the heat to medium-high & boil the sauce, uncovered, stirring occasionally until it is slightly thickened 5 - 8 mins. Then stir in the spinach, a handful at a time. Cook just until the leaves have wilted, 1 - 2 mins.

Spoon the spinach sauce over the chicken pieces & serve.

Tonight's supper was a soup I made Sunday afternoon and stashed in the refrigerator for later in the week. The recipe was from Sunday Soup by Betty Rosbottom. This wasn't my first soup from the book. Rosbottom's recipes for Russian Vegetable soup and Butternut Squash and Apple soup with Cider Cream were both very good. (I froze the Russian Vegetable and am just now finishing it up. It freezes very well.) I'm not sure what happened with tonight's soup, Cold Weather Potato Chowder with Caraway Cheese. I have a couple theories. But first the recipe.

Ingredients
4 slices bacon, cut in 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup diced celery
1 lb red-skin potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1/2 in. dice
1 Tb minced garlic
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups whole milk
1 cup (4 oz) Harvarti cheeese with caraway seed, coarsely grated
1 Tb unsalted butter @ room temp.
1 Tb all-purpose flour
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 Tb chopped fresh chives for garnish

Saute bacon in large heavy pot, medium heat, until browned & crisp. Transfer bacon to paper towel to drain, save 2 Tb bacon grease & discard the rest.

Add onion & celery to the bacon drippings and cook until softened, about 5 mins. Stir frequently. Add diced potatoes & saute for about 2 minutes. Add garlic and saute, stirring, for 1 minute.

Add chicken stock & milk to the pot & bring mixture to a simmer. Cook soup at a simmer until the potatoes are tender, for 10-15 mins. Do not boil soup. (Soup can be prepared to this point 1 day ahead. Cool, cover, & refrigerate. Reheat over low heat & proceed with recipe.)

When ready to serve, add the cheese, a little at a time, stirring until melted after each addition. In a small bow, mist the butter & flour with a fork to make a paste. Whisk into the soup, a little at a time, and cook until completely blended, for 1 to 2 minutes. Salt & pepper to taste.

Ladle into bowls and sprinkle each service chopped chives & bacon.

Sounds great, eh? Mine wasn't. Not even close. It had a bitter, sour taste to it. I think I went wrong when I didn't follow the recipes admonition to add the cheese and the flour paste just before serving. Instead, I shrugged, and added both on Sunday, then stuck the soup into the refrigerator. I think that somehow the cheese & potatoes weren't good together in the fridge. Alternatively, it could have been the cheese. I couldn't find Harvarti with carraway seeds at the store so I picked up some Havarti dill cheese. It's possible that dill was not the right herb to use in this soup. A third possibility is that the milk was just a little bit off. It'd been in the fridge for a while but it smelled ok. Normally, my nose doesn't go wrong. This time it might have.

I think I'll give this recipe another go sometime and correct all those things. Maybe next time, it'll be the tasty treat that it should be.

Right now, I'm heading back to the kitchen to find something a bit more satisfying than this soup.

Tonight's dinner came from The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern cookbook. This was our first recipe from their book and it was a resounding success. We paired the fish with a glass of Sutter Home Gewurtztraminer, which nicely balanced the acid from the lemon. Normally I'm not a big fan of wines made from this grape, but for our meal tonight it worked quite well. The trout were frozen and came from the Lansing City Market. Serves two. From start to finish this took about an hour. The book says 20 minutes, but that's very, very optimistic.

Ingredients:
2 Tbl all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 trout fillets (6-8 oz each)
4 Tbl unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
1 large lemon segmented
2 slices bread, toasted, crusts cut off, cut into fine dice
1/2 mixed fresh herbs such a dill, mint, & parsley
2 Tbl good tasting extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp white vinegar

In a small bow mix flour, salt & pepper. Sprinkle over both sides of the trout fillets.

Melt the butter in a medium saute pan, cast-iron preferred, over medium heat until the froth begins to subside. Place the fillets in the skillet, skin side down and cook until the skin is crispy, about 5 minutes. You'll see the sides of the fillet begin to turn brown when it's done. Turn over and cook for about 3 minutes

While the fish is cooking, toss the lemon segments, diced toast, and herbs in a bowl. Dress with the olive oil & vinegar, and set aside.

When the fillets are completely cooked, place the lemon-herb mixture on each plate, lay a fillet, skin side up, over it and serve immediately.

The fish was very tasty, and we rate this recipe a keeper. We thought we'd need a side dish so cooked up a bunch of jasmine rice, which was unneeded. The bread, lemon, and herb concoction was all we needed to accompany the fish. The rice was schlepped off to the refrigerator, to await another day. We have plans for it later this week.