Chicken kebabs

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Makes 10 skewers.

Ingredients

CHICKEN KEBABS

  • 3 chicken fillets, cut in 1-inch cubes
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 yellow bell pepper
  • 1 red onion, quartered
  • 1 flat Baby Bella mushroom

CHICKEN KEBAB MARINADE

  • 1⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil,
  • Juice of 2 lemon,
  • 6 clove of garlic, chopped
  • 4 tsp paprika
  • 4 tsp thyme
  • 6 tsp oregano
  • 6 tsp salt
  • 4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Combine marinade ingredients and divide between two ziplock bags. Add chicken to one bag, and vegetables to the other. Marinate at least 30 minutes, up to 4 hours.Arrange vegetables and chicken on skewers, and grill over medium flame, about 425°F, for about 20 minutes, turning twice.

Asian Noodle salad #1

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Ingredients

  • 12 ounces thin Asian vermicelli noodles, prepared
  • 1 carrot, shredded
  • 4 pickling cucumbers, shredded
  • 3 scallion or 1 bunch chives, chopped
  • 1½ cups fresh bean sprouts (optional)
  • ⅓ cup fresh, chopped cilantro or lemon basil
  • ⅓ cup fish sauce
  • ⅓ cup seasoned rice vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 2 cloves garlic, grated or minced, and toasted
  • ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
  • ⅛ teaspoon white pepper
  • Juice of 1 lime (or 1 tbsp)

Instructions

Prepare noodles per directions on the package, then chill in an ice bath or store refrigerated overnight.

Combine ingredients in a bowl and toss until well combined.

Serve as a base for Asian dishes, or as a side.

Neapolitan pizza dough #1

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Derived ratios from several recipes:

  • 600g Type “00” flour
  • 400mL water
  • 12g salt
  • 8.5g (1 sachet) yeast

This wants a long rest and a long rise. Prepare days in advance. Make four 12″ crusts.

Combine ingredients and mix by hand until incorporated. Allow to rise up 10-10 hours. Turn out and divide evenly by 4. Seal in quart size containers and refrigerate 2-4 days until risen.

Warm to room temp at least 2 hours prior to working.

See also, Garlic Knots recipe.

Adapted from Basic Neapolitan Pizza Dough Recipe

Garlic knots

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Makes 24 knots, about a half sheet.

Ingredients

  • 500g bread flour
  • 300mL warm water
  • 15mL olive oil
  • 15mL half & half
  • 10g granulated sugar
  • 1 sachet active dry yeast
  • ¼ cup unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 tbsp oregano
  • 1 tbsp basil
  • 1 tbsp granulated garlic
  • 1 tsp parsely
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • ½ tsp ground black pepper
  • ½ tsp crushed red pepper

Flaky, biscuit like Chicago style garlic knots.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°F.Combine warm water (about 100°F), milk, sugar and yeast, whisking gently to dissolve sugar. Rest 10 to 20 minutes until mixture is lightly foaming.Combine flour, oil and yeast mix in the bowl a stand mixer with paddle attachment, or in a food processor with metal blades.

Stand mixer

Set mixer on low speed until the ingredients are well combined, about 2 minutes. Cover and rest 10 minutes, then affix dough hook and knead on medium speed for up to 5 minutes.

Food processor

Use dough setting or low speed until dough comes together, about 30 seconds. Be careful not to overwork the dough. Turn out dough onto oiled work surface and knead 3 to 4 tines until dough is well combined. Cover and rest 10 minutes, then knead by hand up to 5 minutes.Form dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.Turn out dough onto floured work surface and divide into 24 even pieces. Roll pieces into rope about 6″ long and ½ inch thick. Tie ropes loosely in an overhand knot, leaving less than an inch overhanging and tucking in ends. Arrange knots on a greased pan and allow to rest 10 minutes.Melt butter in a small saucepan, then add parmesan, garlic salt, spices and herbs. Brush half of the mixture over the knots.Bake knots at 400°F for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with remaining butter.

Paleo chicken tenders

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Always wanted to play with almond flour. This deep fry recipe needs an oil with a high smoke point to toast the almonds, e.g., peanut oil, lard or avacado oil.

Serves 6.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 lb prepackaged chicken tenders (2 packages)
  • 1½ cup almond flour
  • ½ cup yellow corn meal
  • 1 tbsp granulated garlic
  • 1 tbsp granulated onion
  • 1 tbsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tbsp dried parsley
  • 1 tbsp dried oregano
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp chili pepper powder
  • 1 tsp ground oregano
  • ½ tsp cayenne powder
  • ½ tsp white pepper
  • ½ tsp ground allspice
  • ⅛ tsp ground mace
  • 4 large eggs, beaten
  • 1 pinch salt, reserved
  • 1½ quart peanut oil, avocado oil or canola oil

Instructions

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

Beat 4 eggs in a small bowl with a pinch of salt until smooth.

Heat oil in a 2 quart cast iron pot or deep 10″ cast iron skillet over medium-high heat to 350°F.

Working one by one, coat tenders in egg wash, then toss in dry ingredients until well coated. Using tongs, place coated tender in hot oil and fry until browned, turning once. Add tenders to oil one by one, maintaining oil heat over medium-high flame, about 45 seconds apart. Maintain 350°F, rotating in fresh tenders as cooked tenders are removed.

Remove cooked tenders after about 3 minutes, turned once, to cooling rack over a drip tray.

Drain and cool on a rack over drip tray. Serve with honey mustard or Barbecue sauce, as preferred.

On Salt & Vinegar (and kettle chips)

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Hardly a mad science experiment, but more of a gateway process to unhealthy amounts of sodium in my future diet: Salt & Vinegar seasoning for Salt & Vinegar potato chips.

In the theme of science for science’s sake, let’s talk a minute about vinegar. Typical distilled white vinegar you buy at the local grocer is a solution of about 5% acetic acid (CH3COOH), otherwise known as ethanoic acid. Being an acid, its difficult to apply to starchy foods and vegetables without essentially dissolving or denaturing the intended target. It’s challenging to convert into a powder form. One of the more common industrial methods is to spray a fine mist of acetic acid over a fine bed of maltodextrin– a slightly sweet, neutral carbohydrate that absorbs the acetic acid solution. When dried it’s applied with salt to your favorite kettle chips as a souring agent to give that tangy, vinegar bite.

I don’t exactly eschew industrial methods oi my own home kitchen. I mean, I like junk food, I just don’t like paying for it if I can produce it in a small scale at home. If I can steal a bit of industrial methodology to help cut out the middleman, well, I’m not a purist is what I guess I’m saying. Still, sourcing maltodextrin powder, and then figuring out the proper spray ratio, drying times, processing steps, and all that? Nah. There’s an easier way and, while it’s a little more time consuming, it lends an equivalent product for a fraction of the perceived time I’d spend figuring the whole thing out end-to-end, experimenting, dialing it in and then executing it. The easy way uses common, off-the-shelf ingredients, some grade-school science and a little patience. All you need is vinegar and baking soda.

I’m not going to get into the particulars of the redox reaction that happens, but when you take a 5% solution of acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate (ye Olde Vinegar and Baking Soda), you get a solution of sodium acetate, which is one of the souring agents in a number of brands of Salt & Vinegar potato chips.

In ratio, slowly combine 1.2 liters of distilled white vinegar (acetic acid, 5%) with 42g of baking soda (Na2CO3) to get about a 5% solution of sodium acetate (C2H3NaO2). Then you reduce this solution to a supersaturated volume (about 200ml, if using the full volume) and allow it to crystalize. Dry the crystals and pulverize them into a fine powder which, when rehydrated, produces a vinegar flavor on the tongue.

Having performed this experiment at about half scale (750ml of vinegar with a healthy spoolful of baking soda), I note that I got about 2 oz of sodium acetate powder out of the effort, and it did not knock my socks off. It tasted mildly of vinegar and baking soda, but I was not careful with my ratios.

What did knock my socks off was what happened when I combined the sodium acetate with citric acid and table salt. It turns out that some brands of potato chips use citric acid as a souring agent, and sodium acetate for vinegar flavor. Your tongue is fooled into thinking you’re tasting a pungent vinegar powder, but I now know that to be a lie. A tasty, salty lie. I exposed that lie by combining 1 part cittic acid (1 tbsp) with 2 parts (2 tbsp) sodium acetate and 2 parts (2 tbsp) table salt. To taste it straight from the shaker, it’s a little more sour and rather saltier than straight sodium acetate, but to shake it over fresh kettle chips is to introduce a delightful sour/vinegar and salt taste to the chips. You want to go heavier from the shaker than you might think you want if it was straight salt, and then toss it well. Let the flavors meld a bit (if you can keep the “just a taste” crowd away…) and then serve. Should keep up to 3 or 5 days in a paper bag, assuming they stick around that long.

Now for the chips, this was a pretty typical kettle chip recipe. Eastern potatoes sliced ⅛” thick on a mandolin and soaked in a weak brine to draw out some starch. Then deep-fried in handfuls until lightly golden, cooled and re-fried again until golden brown. Finally, the whole batch gets tossed in this citric acid/sodium acetate/table salt mix and served.

I’ve also tried this salt mix on popcorn, roasted Brussels Sprouts and scrambled eggs. It’s always a treat.

Sodium Acetate instructions

  • (In ratio) 1.2 L distilled white vinegar
  • (in ratio) 42g baking soda

Slowly pour vinegar over baking soda in a non-reactive steel or glass vessel, stirring vigorously until the solution stops foaming and bubbling when agitated

Reduce solution to about 1 tenth of the original volume by microwaving in segments, over an alcohol flame, or in an evaporating pan in a warm oven. Do not overcook if heating. Should reduce to a transparent gel that forms crystals when blown. Allow to cool and form crystals. Remove crystals and dry on a clean coffee filter. Use additional coffee filters until fully dry. Pulverize into a fine powder. Should yield 4 oz.

Vinegar Salt instructions

  • 2 oz table salt
  • 2 oz sodium acetate
  • 1 oz citric acid

Citric acid is available in the canning aisle at most grocery stores.

Combine well and store in an airtight shaker.

Homemade mayonnaise

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Ingredients

  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Dash white pepper
  • 1 cup olive oil

Directions

In a double boiler or metal bowl over simmering water, constantly whisk the egg yolks, water and lemon juice until mixture reaches 160° or is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. While stirring, quickly place the bottom of the pan in a bowl of ice water; continue stirring for 2 minutes or until cooled.

Transfer to a blender. Add salt and pepper. While processing, gradually add oil in a steady stream. Transfer to a small bowl. Cover and refrigerate for up to 7 days.

Makes 1-1/4 cups.

Adapted from Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe | Taste of Home

Pizza dough #1

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Ingredients

  • 500g “Tipo 00” extra-fine flour
  • 15g sea salt
  • 20g olive oil
  • 300mL warm water (105-115°F)
  • 1g sugar
  • 1 sachet (8.5g) dry active yeast

Instructions

Combine warm water, sugar and yeast in a bowl and whisk to dissolve yeast. Proof yeast 5-10 minutes, until foaming.

Combine flour and salt in bowl of a stand mixer and combine with paddle attachment. With mixer on low speed, add water mixture by halves until a soft dough forms., about 2 minutes.

Rest dough 10 minutes.

Swap to a dough hook attachment and run mixer on low to medium speed, kneading dough 8-10 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Add pinches of flour if dough remains too sticky, being careful not to add too much flour. A slightly sticky dough will yield a crispier, fluffier crust.

Turn out dough into an oiled bowl, and coat on all sides. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in size and dough does not bounce back when poked, about 2½ hours.

Punch down dough and divide into two balls. Place balls on an oiled sheet and rest at least 10 minutes. Dough balls may also be wrapped in pinch paper and frozen for later use. If using immediately, coat a work surface lightly in bench flour or corn meal Shape dough into 12″ rounds for pizza.