spiedies

A while ago I made yummy spiedies, which is basically just an Italian-American kabob.  The meat marinates for... well, as long as you let it.  At least 1 day, but up to 2 weeks.  Mine marinated for 3 days.  And the flavor? It was delicious.

My largest regret is that... I don't have a grill.  It would've been so much tastier with a smoky flavor. . . with the juices oozing out and dribbling down my chin with each bite.... the slightly crispy or blackened outside of the chicken cubes.  Yes.  I want a grill (well, only sometimes, but really it would just mean I had one more piece of "stuff" and I hate "stuff"). 

The recipe suggested it be served with Italian Scali bread, but I didn't know how to make that so I made Greek Flatbread instead.  Unfortunately, I didn't cook it all the way and it was still a little doughy.  It was still good though.

See how juicy it is?  The juices didn't have anywhere to drip to when the meat was cooking... and the outside was soft, not crispy. :(

This was especially annoying... all the juices from the chicken just soaked into the bread and made it soggy.  Yes.  It would've been better with a grill.

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Jesse gave this one either a 4.5 or a 5, I think, but I can't remember for sure.

I would give it a 4.5 or so had it been made with a grill. :P  The vegetables are optional too. . . Jesse liked the onion but he didn't like the green pepper.  I think traditionally it's just the marinated meat that is eaten in Italian bread.

I will definitely make this again someday. . . once I have access to a grill. :P

Kung Pao Chicken

I made Kung Pao Chicken recently.  I can't remember where I found the recipe, but I didn't have all the ingredients, so it turned out a little funky... plus I added too much vinegar which caused me and Jesse to both cough a lot during the consumption of it.  Also, Jesse's mouth caught on fire when he ate one of the red chili peppers.  Hehehe.

I think I would try it again... if I had all the ingredients.  It was fun to make and eat, with all the different textures in it.

Scallions, garlic, bamboo, ginger, chili peppers

garlic, ginger, chili peppers

chicken, snow peas, sauce + above ingredients

ready for consumption

The biggest problem I think I had was that I didn't have rice wine or black vinegar.  So it had a more bitter taste, and I think rice wine has a sweet taste.  Oh well.  Better luck next time. :)

Friand Fail

One of Jesse's favorite restaurants is a little "French" cafe called "La Madeleine."  He especially loves their chicken friand, something I'd only eaten once in my life.

Since he loves it so much, I wanted to make it for him as a special dinner.  After a lengthy search on the internet, I found a recipe.

Here are pictures from the cooking adventure.

Dried mushrooms rehydrating

Green onions

Fresh mushooms

Chopping the chicken

Cooked chicken

The sauce

Mushrooms + chicken

Mushrooms + chicken + cheese

  Puff pastries.

All baked!

Finished product

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The end result?

It was not good.  No, it wasn't horrible.  Jesse ate all of his.  I only ate a half of mine.  The other half plus the extra whole one sat in the fridge for a few days until I finally threw it out.

I think it had potential to be delicious, but it was a fail.

I personally think it just had too much mushroom flavor (I love mushrooms).  I think it was from the dried mushrooms; they had such a strong flavor.  Maybe if I'd gotten a different variety it would've been better, though I think it would've tasted best with only fresh mushrooms and without the mushroom broth... I'd use chicken broth instead.  It was just way rich and heavy with all those mushrooms.

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Maybe I'll try it again someday, but not any time soon... we're still recovering, and I made this mid November.

Soy Sauce Chicken (Chinese Noodle Soup/Vietnamese Pho?)

Yesterday I tried another new recipe that I found on userealbutter.

Soy Sauce Chicken
4-6 chicken drums (organic is preferable) (I used 4)
4-5 stalks green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
8 slices ginger root, peeled
2-3 whole star anise
2/3 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
enough water to cover the chicken
 
1)  Place all ingredients in a pan with a tight lid (or use a crockpot). Bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer so that when you cover the pot, the liquid will not boil over. Simmer for 2 hours.

2)  I like to remove the bone and skin from the chicken and serve the meat with the broth over Chinese noodles with bok choy, napa cabbage, or spinach for a Chinese noodle soup.

I didn't have the ingredients for step 2, so instead... I removed the meat from the bone/skin/fat.  I let the broth cool and the fat congeal and skimmed off the fat and and also removed the chunks of ginger and anise (the anise is a HAVE to - it wouldn't be the same without it.  I found it in the Mexican aisle at Wal-mart.  It was about $1 for 20 or so anise stars)  Then I sauteed the few Chinese-type ingredients I had (celery, snowpeas, mushrooms, and two more green onions) until they were slightly cooked, but still crunchy.  I put the vegetables and meat back in the broth and served with some rice noodles I purchased at the Asian market.

The verdict?  It was delicious.  It actually wasn't salty at all (I thought it would be with all the soy sauce), but I also didn't drink the broth, I just ate what was inside of it.  It had flavor, it was fresh tasting, and the chicken was super tender and not bland like most boiled chicken is.

I will admit though, that it smelled a little gross while it was cooking (you'll understand what I mean if you make it).  I thought I was going to hate it. But... thankfully, its smell and taste were completely different.

On a scale of -5 through 5, Jesse said it was between at 3 and a 4.  I'm guessing that's a 3.5.

If Jesse liked it that much and he doesn't usually like Oriental food, you know it must be good. ;-)

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Oh.  I also made cookies on Monday.  They were scrumptious.