Category: Main Dish

Posted on » by Dino » Theme:

Caribbean Chicken

Taken from Food52, adapted from Chef Ginette Richards who along with her husband charters boats in the British Virgin Islands.

Ingredients

  • 2 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
  • 2 large onions, roughly chopped
  • 6 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 teaspoons dried thyme
  • 4 pounds chicken thighs and/or drumsticks
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1/2 cup organic ketchup

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine tomatoes, onions, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, cilantro, salt, pepper, and thyme.
  2. Add chicken, making sure to completely coat it in marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.
  3. Heat olive oil in a large dutch oven. Add sugar, stirring well so sugar melts. Turn heat up to high and stir until sugar starts to brown. Be careful not to burn it. No seriously, molten sugar will smoke your entire kitchen out and it’s awful.
  4. Transfer chicken from marinade into dutch oven and brown on all sides. Use a very long set of tongs. Hot oil is one thing, but getting splashed with molten bits of sugar is not fun. You may need to do this in batches. Once browned, transfer to a plate.
  5. Add remaining marinade from bowl into dutch oven. Add water and ketchup and stir well. Transfer chicken back into pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes, remove lid and stir, turning chicken if needed, and continue to cook for an additional 20 minutes until sauce has thickened and chicken is falling apart.
  6. Apparently save some cilantro for garnishing. I didn’t see the food image until the day after I made this. 🙂

 

Posted on » by Michael » Theme:

Pasta with Tomato and Almond Pesto (Pesto Alla Trapanese)

 Ingredients

  1. ¼ cup slivered almonds
  2. 12 ounces cherry or grape tomatoes (about 2 1/2 cups)
  3. ½ cup packed fresh basil leaves
  4. 1 medium garlic clove, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 teaspoon)
  5. 1 small pepperoncini (hot peppers in vinegar), stemmed, seeded, and minced (about 1/2 teaspoon) (see note)
  6. Table salt
  7. pinch red pepper flakes (optional)
  8. ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
  9. 1 pound pasta, preferably linguine or spaghetti
  10. 1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated (about 1/2 cup), plus extra for serving

Instructions

Serves 4 to 6

A half teaspoon of red wine vinegar and ¼ teaspoon of red pepper flakes can be substituted for the pepperoncini. If you don’t have a food processor, a blender may be substituted. In step 2, pulse ingredients until roughly chopped, then proceed with the recipe, reducing processing times by half.

1. Toast almonds in small skillet over medium heat, stirring frequently, until pale golden and fragrant, 2 to 4 minutes. Cool almonds to room temperature.

2. Process cooled almonds, tomatoes, basil, garlic, pepperoncini, 1 teaspoon salt, and red pepper flakes (if using) in food processor until smooth, about 1 minute. Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula. With machine running, slowly drizzle in oil, about 30 seconds.

3. Meanwhile, bring 4 quarts water to boil in large pot. Add pasta and 1 tablespoon salt and cook until al dente. Reserve ½ cup cooking water; drain pasta and transfer back to cooking pot.

4. Add pesto and ½ cup Parmesan to cooked pasta, adjusting consistency with reserved pasta cooking water so that pesto coats pasta. Serve immediately, passing Parmesan separately.

Posted on » by Michael » Theme:

Pulled Pork with Pomegranate Salad

Ingredients

  • 2.5kg (5.512 lbs)pork shoulder, bone in
  • 200ml (6.763 oz) cider vinegar
    80g (2.822 oz) dark brown sugar
    1 tbsp Szuechan pepper (I used almost 2 TB whole black peppers which was not a good idea. I would grind them up next time, I also added coriander and Loren dropped in 2 crushed cardamom seeds in error.)
    5 cinnamon sticks
    1 tbsp red chilli flakes 
    2¼ tsp soy sauce
    2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
    1 tbsp tomato paste
    Salt

For the pomegranate salad:
1 small red onion, peeled and sliced very thinly into pinwheels
100g pomegranate seeds (ie, the seeds of 1 medium pomegranate)
20g parsley, picked and roughly chopped
1 tbsp red-wine vinegar
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses (I used a bit more  – see recipe below)
2 tbsp olive oil
90g rocket (I used baby spinach)

Method

Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Put a ridged griddle pan on a high heat. When smoking hot, lay the pork on top and cook for about eight minutes, turning as you go. For the last two minutes’ griddling, cover the pork in a large sheet of foil, so that the resulting smoke infuses the meat. Remove and set aside.

Place a large, heavy-based pot for which you have a lid on a medium heat; the pan has to be big enough to hold the pork snugly. Add the vinegar, sugar, Szechuan pepper, cinnamon, chilli, soy, molasses and tomato paste, plus one and a quarter teaspoons of salt, and heat gently, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves. Remove four tablespoons of the sauce to a bowl or ramekin and set aside.

Add the pork to the pot and spoon the pan juices all over it. Cover, cook in the oven for an hour, turning the meat in the sauce from time to time. Turn down the temperature to 130C/260F/gas mark ½ and cook for two hours more, again turning the meat regularly in the sticky juices. Turn down the heat again, this time to 120C/250F/gas mark ¼, and cook for five to six hours more, turning the joint from time to time, until the meat can easily be pulled off the bone. Remove and set aside.

When cool enough to handle, pull off and discard the bones and fatty skin, then shred the meat into bite-size pieces back into the pot. Add the reserved sauce, stir and keep warm.

For the salad, put all the ingredients in a bowl, add a quarter-teaspoon of salt and toss. Stuff the pulled pork into the baguette halves; put the salad in the bread, too, or serve on the side

Pomegranate Molasses

  • Prep 5 m
  • Ready In 1 h 5 m
  • 4 cups pomegranate juice
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice (alton brown recipe has 1 TB)

Directions

For Molasses: Place the pomegranate juice, sugar and lemon juice in a 4-quart saucepan set over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has completely dissolved. Once the sugar has dissolved, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the mixture has reduced to 1 cup, approximately 70 minutes. It should be the consistency of thick syrup. Remove from the heat and allow to cool in the saucepan for 30 minutes. Transfer to a glass jar and allow to cool completely before covering and storing in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.

To scale for recipe above: (I used the Alton proportions)

  • ½ cup pomegranate juice
  • 1 TB sugar
  • 1 TB lemon juice (for alton brown it would be 3/8 tsp)