Week 4: Pan Frying - Cod in Brown Butter, with Zuchinni and Spaghetti Squash

I have a confession to make. I made this dinner on Tuesday. I have had the pictures on the camera since then. Why, you may ask, did it take so long to post? Well, I have developed a bit of an addiction to a video game. My wife has been content to cruise the internet while I while away hours, or days (who's to say) playing Skyrim. Hopefully, I will break this nasty addiction without suffering too much withdrawal.

This weeks challenge is pan frying, which is perfect for getting food on the table quickly. Usually prepping your mise en place take longer than the actually cooking. This week I decided to make fish.

spaghetti squash prepped for trip in the microwave

Spaghetti squash was my favorite food find of 2011. I think that the people who have eaten spaghetti squash don't tell anybody else about it, so they can have it all to themselves. Cooking it is extremely easy. Put it in a microwave safe bowl. Season with a little salt, pepper, and olive oil and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave it for 9 minutes on high. Shred it with a fork to make it spaghetti-looking.

Simple side dish ready to go

My wife loves scallops, so this was a special treat for her

 Don't overcook the scallops. Two minutes per side. No Longer. I did this in a dry pan, with no oil.

Cod cooking in brown butter

The pan was already hot from the scallops, so the butter browned almost instantly. The thing with fish is not to overcook. It makes me a little uncomfortable with cooking fish, but this cod was great. Two and a half minutes per side. I seasoned it with some salt and set it in the refrigerator for twenty minutes or so. This helps to dry the meat out so that it isn't wet when you add it to the pan, which will prevent browning.

Spaghetti squash is aptly named

Take the microwaved squash, and saute it with some melted butter and scallions. After it gets a little toasty, I mixed in some grated asiago and gruyere. It was like having spaghetti and cheese. Love this dish.

Have you noticed? Everything is pan fried!

I just sauteed some red onions in olive oil, then added in the zucchini and summer squash ( I believe they are called courgettes across the pond). It doesn't take long, only three or four minutes. Once it is done, take it out of the pan. It will keep cooking and get squishy.

What a fantastic dinner!

Week 3: Soup (Championship Weekend Bonus)

It's the Conference Finals for the American football professional league, the NFL. As a proud NY Giants fan, I have to post an extra entry for soup week. My team is playing for a chance to be in the SUPER BOWL, which US marketing has convinced me that the entire world watches!

You should have some of this, and that, seriously both!

We'll be eating this, and I bet you wish you were too!

Support the NY GIANTS! GO BIG BLUE!!!!

 This recipe is from Cooks Illustrated. They are cock-knockers when it come to sharing their recipes on the interwebs. We have a subscription to the magazine, but they STILL charge us for web access. In that spirit, here is the recipe, as written in The Best Light Recipes cookbook, published by Americas Test Kitchen in 2006.

White Chicken Chili


Serves 8

3lbs bone-in skin-on chicken breasts
1 tsp vegetable oil
3 poblano peppers, stemmed, seeded, and chopped medium
3 Anaheim chiles, stemmed, seeded, and chopped medium
1 medium Jalapeno, plus 1 small Jalapeno chile, seeds and ribs removed, flesh minced
2 medium onions, minced
6 medium garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp ground cumin
2tspn dried oregano
8 c chicken stock/broth
2 (15 oz) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 c juice of lime (2-3 limes)
1/4 minced cilantro
4 scallions, sliced thin

1. Season the chicken breast with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium high heat until just smoking. Sear the chicken skin, side down, until browned, out 4 min. Flip the chicken and sear on the second side until browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate, and remove and dscard the skin.

2. Add all of the chiles, except the small jalapeno, onions, garlic, cumin, oregano, and 1 tsp salt in a large dutch oven. Cover and cook over medium low heat, stirring often until the vegatables are soften, 12-15 min. Transfer half of the chile mixture to a clean plate and set aside.

3. Stir in the broth, chicken, and beans. Bring to a boil over medium high heat; reduce heat to medium low, stiring occasionallly until the chicken is fully cooked, about 20 min. Using tongs, transfer chicken to large plate. Continue to simmer the chile uncovered until it has thickened 35-40 min.

4. When the chicken is cool, shred to bite-siz oieces, discarding the bones. Stir the shredded chicken, reserved chile mixture, lime juice, cilantro, scallions, and small jalapeno into the chile. Seaso with salt and pepper to taste. If the chile is too thick, stir in additional water to thin.

Week 3: Soup

Winter Squash Soup with Gruyere Croutons

Wintertime is a great time to make soup at least once a week. My wife and I have been doing soup about that often this year. This week I chose to make a winter squash soup from smittenkitchen.com.

Now, I am a recovering squash-aversionist. Ever since my mother served me zucchini boats when I was 6, I have held the line against all things squash-like. I began to change my mind when my wife said she liked zucchini and wanted me to cook it. Since then I have become a convert to spaghetti squash. But acorn squash has still been an absolute enemy. I can now say, if I make it, it isn't bad.

Best thing about soups is that they are soooo easy.

Taking a hot bath.

 Here is another note for anyone with s registry ahead of them. I never thought that a blender was necessary to own.  I refuse to drink frozen alcoholic beverages so what's the point? Instead we registered for, what I call, a "motorboat." My wife and the rest of the world call it an immersion blender. I used it to make a bathtub of squash into a soup. (It also makes it easy to make your own mayo or other emulsions, like toasted sesame vinaigrette).

These are gonna be fantastic!

 I hate that my oven has a dedicated broiler. Almost all recipes are written as if your broiler is the top-most part of your oven. I wish it were so.

Winter Squash Soup with Gruyere Croutons, served with Ribeye and Spinach Salad.  Not a bad Thursday dinner.

This soup was delicious. I will definitely make it again.

Recipe available from source.

Week 2: Chinese (addendum)  - Potstickers (cooked)

As an added bonus, I present the completed, cooked, and yummy potsticker photos. For those that missed it, I made moo goo gai pan and potstickers for week 2, but didn't get a chance to cook the potstickers until Monday. Here they are:

I'm going to be embarrassed when you all see my crappy dumpling making skills.

I am not embarrassed by how awesome these were.

For the dipping sauce I just mixed some soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar together. If you have black vinegar laying around, use that. If you have ginger laying around, grate some in there too.

Recipe available from source.

Week 2: Chinese

I was excited when I found out that this week's assignment was Chinese food. Each time I make a "Chinese" dish from a cookbook or online recipe, I often question how authentic the food I am making is compared to what is actually eaten in China. I had two goals with this week. First was to make homemade dumplings; second was to learn to make something that was close to authentic Chinese.

I had some difficulties in finding good food blogs for Chinese food. I ended up finding eggwansfoododyssey and redcook, from which I took my receipes this week. I decided to make Moo Goo Gai Pan and potsticker dumplings. 

With all my ambition lined up, I was faced with reality. Making dumplings, potstickers in this case, was going to be a time consuming process and I wouldn't be able to fit it in on a week night. (I have a hungry wife, so having dinner at nine at night is really not an option.) Unfortunately the chips fell in such a way that we ended up with dinner plans with friends and family each and every night this weekend, including Monday night, which is a holiday in the States.

I ended up making the Moo Goo Gai Pan for dinner Friday night. Afterwards, my lovely wife and I made the potsticker dumplings, but we didn't cook them. They are now sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be fried and steamed. I will post the final pics when they are cooked.

So here is the moo goo gai pan.

Cutting the chicken

 Moo Goo Gai Pan uses a wet stir fry method, which requires the chicken to be coated in corn starch and egg and then fried in a large amount of oil.  I had no idea how much of a difference this would make. The chicken was extremely tender, juicy, and tasty.

The rest of the ingredients

Everyone in the pan

Yum!

I am very jealous of all of the rest of you. You have pretty colored dishes. If I had nice black square plates, you might be able to see the rice better. My kitchen was not set up to be a photo studio; that is for sure!

I ordered moo goo gai pan from a Chinese restaurant only once in my life. It came with chewy chicken and a menagerie of vegetables ( none of them mushrooms) in a heavy white sauce, that could only have been described as "Chinese" alfredo. It was so bad I never ordered it again. I learned from the redcook recipe that my experience was not uncommon, and that this is NOT moo goo gai pan. Once I read this post, I looked forward to making something that was actually Chinese. 

While I do not have a finished product to show you, here are the pics from making the potstickers. (also the camera ran out of batteries before we were done, hence no finished product.)

The pork just before grinding. I didn't like this picture on the camera, but once I saw the reflections in the metal bowls, I had to put it in. Take note, if you are getting married, ask for the Kitchen Aid appliances. You will be surprised what you take home!

There is no picture of me making the dough, because my wife was too busy laughing at my inability to deal with dough. Unless the directions are very exact, I always end up wanting to throw it across the room.  In this case, I wouldn't have been able to as it was literally glue on my hands.

Making the dumplings

Some turned out good, some not so good.

I will post the final results when we get to making them, maybe for lunch tomorrow.

Week 1: Eggs

Welcome to Idling in the Fast Lane!

Over the next year, I will be participating in reddit.com's Official 52 Weeks of Cooking Challenge! Each week, a new ingredient, ethnic cuisine, dish type, or cooking method will be selected by the moderators as the theme of the week. Each challenger can interpret the theme as they wish, and once done with their dish submit a photo to the subreddit.


The first week's theme is EGGS.

I was going to do a souffle when I first read the theme, because I have never tried to make a souffle and the talking food heads on the the television make it sound pretty awesome. But I realized that I have never tried to make a souffle because I don't have a souffle dish and I didn't feel like getting one. So I went to a recipe that I had tried before, Baked Eggs in Spinach and Mushrooms.

Mise en Place

Hot out of the oven

Dish it over some toasted french baguette and enjoy a nice dinner!

This recipe is adapted from the Smitten Kitchen blog.

As you can see from the the picture, I used a lot more onion and garlic than her recipe called for. I also used half and half instead of whole cream, with nothing lost other than the calories. I cooked mine in a cast iron skillet, even though instructed not to. There weren't any tomatoes in the recipe so I wasn't sure why they would say not to use a cast iron skillet. (I use mine for EVERYTHING, even making tomato pasta sauces.)