Jazzed Up Grilled Chicken

The Charlotte sun is shining, the frost is gone, and the covers are coming off the grills.

Want to really impress your friends at the first BBQ of the season? Try out this delicious chicken recipe!

Menu:

Grilled half chicken with grilled romaine salad and roasted potatoes.


Shopping list:

• 2 whole chickens ( I bought ours on sale at Harris Teeter for .40 a lb)
• Sweet peppers
• Yellow onion
• On the vine tomatoes
• Romaine lettuce
• Garlic
• Parsley
• Rosemary
• Basil
• 1 lemon
• Olive oil
• Red wine vinager
• Russet potatoes
• Butter

*just a warning, this can get a little graphic...

De-boning the Chicken:

Place a cutting board on top of a wet towel (this helps the board stay in place as well and helps in absorbing blood from the chicken). Working close to a sink is also helpful in keeping the kitchen tidy when cleaning a chicken.

Remove the chicken from the bag in the sink, it is usually pretty full, and remove neck, gizzards and any other parts stored inside the chicken and rinse off the bird. Save the innards in a bowl to make your stock.

Place the rinsed and dried chicken breast side up on the cutting board

Cut slightly between the breast, and the meat will pull away so you can see breast plate better.

Kitchen shears work great here as well.

Pressing hard, cut through the breast and open the bird up.

The spine will be facing you. Cut both sides away from the spine; this should cut easily with a little pressure. If it seems too hard, you are most likely cutting too far from the spine.

You will be left with two equal sides and a spine.

Toss the spine in with the stock. 

Fill stock with enough cold water to cover all bones and bring to a boil.

Skimming the top of the stock as it boils helps remove fat and and cloudiness from the bones as they cook resulting in a clear stock.

Flip each side over to expose the flesh, skin side down.

Facing you will be the ribs, we want to remove these (not absolutely necessary but will lead to a bigger WOW factor during presentation, not to mention easier eating). With a sharp paring knife, follow the ribs pushing the meat away.

This will take a few tries but the more you do it the less meat you will remove in the process.

Once removed, the only bones remaining should be the leg, thigh and wing bone. These bones help to keep structure and they are easier to eat around then the rib bones.

Now for the last bit of pizzazz: Frenching the leg bone.
Half an inch away from the knuckle, cut around the bone, as you would to open a wine bottle. This will take a bit of pressure to cut through the nerves. 

Careful: watch your fingers! Slide the knife between the meat and bone toward the knuckle and pull the meat over the top. The shape of the knuckle will help guide the knife.

Ta-da! Your first Frenched bone.

Now for the marinade:

• In a blender, food processor, or hand blender  (my favorite), mix herbs, lemon juice, garlic and salt/pepper. Slowly add in oil to incorporate. 
• Use 2/3 of mixture on the chicken and save rest for vegetables.

Season chicken with salt and pepper and the pour marinade on top. Allow 1/2 hour to marinate.

After it has marinated:

With a CLEAN grill on medium high, place the chickens skin-side down first (you always want to cook your presentation side first. Once the grill or pan has been cooked on, it's not going to sear the bottom side quite as nicely). Once seared turn the grill to medium and cook each side for 20 minutes.

Cold Grilled Salad:

On a clean cutting board cut vegetables (onions, peppers and tomatoes). I like leaving the stems of the sweet peppers on for presentation.

In saute pan, toss in cut veggies (sans lettuce) with remaining marinade and grill, careful not to over cook the tomatoes or they will loss their shape.

Lastly, place fresh romaine leaves on the grill just to wilt a little (10 seconds tops).

Place vegetables in the fridge to cool down.

Potatoes:

Large dice the washed russet potatoes and saute in minced garlic and oil. Once they have started to brown and your chicken stock, about a cup at a time and allow stock to reduce. Repeat until potatoes are soft.

Once soft, add 1 tablespoon of butter and toss in oven at 350 for 10 minutes.

Remove chicken from grill and allow resting time, 5 or so minutes (this allows moisture to go back in to the meat).

Presentation of salad:
Place grilled peppers around plate and mound tomatoes and onions in the middle, add chopped romaine

and drizzle with vinegar and olive oil and fresh cracked pepper

Remove potatoes from the oven and serve with the salad family style (so everyone can see the presentation, of course)

Each person gets 1/2 a bird. Drizzle stock for presentation and yumminess.

 Beautiful, right?!

Enjoy!!!

Sunday Brunch

Bacon hash with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce

Love Sunday brunch but hate waiting an hour or more for a table? 

Try this delicious LowCountry-style breakfast sure to please your friends and family.

Let's get shopping:

• dozen eggs
• russet potatoes
• celery
• onion
• garlic
• roma tomato
• lemon
• fresh or dried rosemary and oregano
• cheddar cheese
• salsa
• butter
• apple cider vinegar
• bacon 

Ok, let's get cooking:

For poached eggs:

In a straight-sided (preferably shallow/3-4in deep) pot add water (fill up halfway) and 1 cup apple cider vinegar and simmer on low heat. Keep simmering and come back to this later. 

For potato-bacon hash:

Medium dice potatoes and blanch in salted water. Blanching is a method used in cooking to partly or fully cook starches and vegetables, it helps speed up cooking process and bring out brighter colors in vegetables. Cook the potatoes until almost fork tender and remove from boiling water and place in an ice bath to completely stop cooking.

Small dice bacon (slightly freezing the bacon beforehand allows for easier cutting), celery, onions. Mince garlic.

Add bacon to cold pan and begin cooking

Once bacon begins to become crispy add vegetables, herbs, salt and pepper.

Add blanched potatoes

Last add diced roma tomatoes and place in oven at 350 degrees

Now it's time to make your hollandaise sauce.
Once you learn to make this you will never need to leave you house for brunch again and your friends will just so happen to stop by Sunday after Sunday around 10:30am or so.

Seperate 3 egg yolk and set aside. Mix together 1 tablespoon cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon tabasco, half a lemon squeezed, salt and white pepper. Today hollandaise is rosemary infused, so add a pinch of rosemary to mixture.

Melt 1 stick of butter and skim fat off (fat will be white and rise to the top).

Melted butter with fat

Butter with fat removed, ie. clarified.

Whisk together egg yolks and vinegar mixture over a double boiler (you can make your own double boiler by putting egg mixture in a stainless steel bowl and place over a pot of boiling water. Make sure the gap between the water and bowl is great enough so that the water in not touching the bowl, you just want the steam).

Vigorously whisk until mixture begins to thicken.

Remove from heat and add butter in a slow continuous stream while still whisking.

Adjust seasoning (salt and pepper) and set aside.

Finished hollandaise sauce

Back to eggs:

In the pot with the water and vinegar, crack 2 eggs per person. Don't over crowd pot though; water will cool down too much and eggs will overlap.  For today's breakfast, I maxed out at 8 eggs in the pot at a time.

Cook until whites are set (slightly firm, not clear), remove and place on plate on top of potato mixture. Top with cheese, salsa and sour cream. Finish with hollandaise sauce.

Breakfast is served!
Mimosa anyone??!?

Pork tostada anyone???

Braised pork tostadas

Here is another great opportunity you use the braising method I discussed in an earlier post. The best thing about using the technique is that once the prep is done it frees you to leave the kitchen and take care of the house, or in my case take Ellie and the pups for a walk.

Let's get the prep done.

Ingredients:

Pork:

• 6 boneless pork chops
• 1 onion
• 1/2 can of ancho chilies in adobo sauce
• 1 can crushed tomatoes
• Light beer (todays choice PBR)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• Salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin
• Corn tortillas
• Sour cream
• Cheese
• Ice-burg lettuce
• Roma tomatoes

Sides

• 1 1/2 cup long grain rice
• 1 can red beans
• 1 green pepper
• 1 onion

Getting started:

Leave the fat on keeps moisture in the pork

Cube the pork just larger then bite-size pieces. Use half the can of ancho chilies (the whole can for those who like it extra spicy). Rough chop the chiles and toss in a bowl to coat the pork. Allow pork at least 20 minutes to marinate.

Large-dice onions while heating pan. Now would also be a good time to preheat oven to 325. Once pan is hot, add oil, allow to heat, and pork sear on all sides. Add onions.

Everything is starting to look really good!

Once your onions have started sweating (looking more translucent), you can add the crushed tomatoes. Mix well and add a tbl spoon of cumin and tbl spoon of chili powder.

Add tomatoes and beer on high heat. Reduce the beer by half.

Once the beer has reduced you can add the chicken stock. Cover pot (lid or foil, both work fine) and place in oven for 2 1/2 hours. This is when I always try and get the kitchen cleaned; there is nothing worse then enjoying a great dinner but knowing the mess that is waiting for you in the kitchen. Plus by this point I am most likely already holding Ellie and the dogs are staring at the front door hoping a walk is in the near future. So once again, braising equals more time not spent in the kitchen.

 With two bowls, one perforated, pour everything out of pan. some of the pork may have fallen apart on its own. If not, no big deal: using two forks, pull in opposite directions to shred pork.

Pour the strained liquid back in to braising pan and reduce on medium heat. Once reduced by 1/3, add pork back and check seasoning and turn heat down to low. Remember that when you reduce a sauce your are intensifying it as well, sweet might get sweeter and salty will definitely get saltier. 

For your rice, its a 2:1 ratio of water to rice. Bring water to a boil, I like to add a tbl spoon of butter, add salt and rice, give one quick stir and cover. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.

Small-dice onion and pepper and saute until translucent, season, and add red beans. Rinse beans first!!!

Call everyone in for dinner! This one is hands-on for everyone, like tacos, so you get to build your own.

Shepard's Pie

This dish is my wife's favorite dish!!!

Tonight I am going to revamp this classic dish, so lets head out to the store:

• We are using a 2.5 lb ribeye (it was on special at $2.99 a pound). Ground beef works as well.
• Bacon
• Carrots
• Onions
• Peas
• 1 can crushed tomatoes
• Green onions
• Butter
• Flour
• Russet potatoes
• Heavy cream
• Sour cream
• Cheddar cheese
• Beef stock
• Fresh thyme 

If you are going to ground your own beef, you will want to get a piece that has a good amount of fat.

Cube beef and 5 strips of bacon. Place in freezer for 45 minutes (slightly frozen meat goes through the grinder more easily) and then push through grinder.

Brown beef, strain and set aside. If you are using already ground beef but still want the bacon flavor, cut the bacon and cook over medium heat and reserve the fat to cook the vegetables in. This will give your dish a nice smokey flavor.

Peel 6 potatoes and cut into medium dice size pieces. Place in cold, salted water and bring to a boil.

An easy way to know when potatoes are done is by sticking a skewer or knife into a potato and if it slides off easily, potato is done.

Strain, and return to hot pan on medium heat, this well help all the water to evaporate.

With a mixer, beat potatoes with 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 stick of butter, and 1/4 cup heavy cream, until smooth. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Small dice onions and carrots, and saute them in a pot that can also go in the oven, You will want to use the same pot you brown the beef in. The pan already has nice flavor and it will be less to clean later!

Add thyme, and make a roux in pan (equal parts butter and flour).

Cook on low heat so you do not burn the flour.

Add crushed tomatoes, 1 cup of beef stock, and cooked ground beef.

Adjust seasoning, and simmer until nice and thick. Add peas. Stirring frequently will not allow mixture to stick to pan and burn.

Top with mashed potatoes

Cover meat mixture completely, and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake in oven at 350 for 20 minutes.

I love cooking one pot meals that are finished in the oven because it allows me the time to clean before dinner.

With the leftover beef stock and thyme, you can make a nice gravy.

Bring beef stock to a boil, make another roux. Add the roux to the boiling beef stock season and add fresh thyme.

Enjoy!!!

Super Bowl Wings

These have been said to be the best wings ever!!! Super Bowl fans enjoyed these last weekend and they were loved by all. I know it's a bit late (champs have already been crowned), but there's never a bad time to make wings. They're delish all year round whether football is involved or not!

And now I will pass on my secret recipe...

The grocery list:

• Wings (drummettes attached)
• Flour (all purpose)
• Butter (unsalted)
• Texas Pete
• Salt and pepper
• Granulated garlic
• Italian season
• Garlic chili (for an extra kick)

You have no idea how happy you are about to make the wing-lovers in your family!!!

A raw wing with the wing and drummette attached.

Separate the drummette from the wing and snip the extra tip off. In a large bowl toss wing with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and granulated garlic. Heat a saute pan and add 1 tablespoon of oil (vegetable oil). Sear all wings and place in a bowl of seasoned flour, just salt and pepper this time. 

In the meantime, heat enough oil in a deep-enough pot to submerge wings completely.

Shake off excess flour from wing and place in hot oil. 

If you have a thermometer, 350 is a good temperature to fry wings. If not, Medium heat is where you want to be. Sprinkle a tiny bit of flour over oil; if it sizzles, you are ready.

Fry wings for 8 min, they will float when they are done, but to be extra sure pick the biggest wing and cut it open.

Remove cooked wings from fryer and place on a paper towel and soak up extra oil.

While the wings are cooking is the perfect time to make the sauce:
Heat half a cup of Texas Pete and Garlic chili sauce until it begins to bubble. Remove from heat and add half a stick of butter (cutting the butter into smaller pieces helps it melt faster) and wisk together.

Pour sauce into a bowl and toss wings to coat evenly.

Ranch and/or blue cheese and you are ready to dig in!!!

Who Wants Asian Food???

Asian cooking is all about using fresh ingredients. This is the time to visit your local asian market (that you have always driven past, but never been to). The ingredients I find at Eang Hong (off Central Ave)  are cheaper here then they would be at a Harris Teeter. I still get my proteins at the other grocers.

Other than the fresh ingredients, another reason to cook Asian cuisine at home is how fast it is. Prepping the food is where all the time is, cooking is literally just minutes.

Tonight's Menu:

 Ginger Beef with carrots & broccoli

with steamed rice

So let's go shopping:

• Beef (something lean, the dish not going to cook long enough to melt the fat)
• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Onion
• Fresh ginger
• Scallions (green onion)
• Soy sauce
• Hosin
• White wine
• Jasmine rice

So you ventured out to the asian market:

How was it? Lots of things that you have never seen before?
You are going to be hooked; I go to the Asian market once a week usually.

Now on to cutting the vegetables...
 Julienne onions, cut broccoli off stem. Peel the ginger, using a paring knife or a spoon (I am not crazy: the spoon will work, and you won't lose too much ginger by cutting it with the knife), and julienne ginger. Peel and thinly slice carrots and blanch. Blanching vegetables is a common technique to make vegetable brighter and have a snap in their bite. 

Slice the beef 1/4 inch thick.

Steam rice. Rinse twice (to get it really clean and be sure there are no imperfections in the rice) and add to water (2/1 water to rice), cover and bring to a boil. Once at a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until water is absorbed and rice is soft, but not mushy. 

Mix soy sauce and hosin (2/1 soy to hosin), add a tablespoon of sugar, and simmer until sugar is dissolved.

Ok, that was the hard part. Have someone set the table...you are almost there.

If you have a wok, great. If not, no big deal- a nonstick pan will work.

 Heat pan and add oil. Just before it starts smoking, add ginger.

Add beef

Add onion once beef has started to brown

Add carrots and deglaze with white wine, half a cup

Once reduced, add soy mixture.

Add broccoli, taste with the soy sauce. It should be salty enough, but now is the the time to add
 if need be. Add black pepper.

Asian food to me is best enjoyed family style.

Enjoy!!!

First Catering of 2011

Thomas Martin Catering had its first catering of the year Saturday night. It was a surprise birthday party for a client/fellow Midwood neighbor, Carlo's, 40th birthday and 40-50 of his friends came to help him celebrate.

Hosting a party can be stressful, no doubt about it, and that is when hiring a caterer can be very helpful. Unlike ordering from a restaurant where you can only pick from a set menu, a caterer is able to design a menu that is just right for you.

Themed parties are easy: Mexican Fiesta = mexican food.  Luau = Hawaiian food. Get it?
The real fun comes when there really is no theme. When a client just wants good food, this is what get my creative juices flowing. It's like giving an artist a blank piece of paper and saying, "Here. Draw me a cool picture."

And this is how Amy and I designed her menu.

I gave Amy a list of 20 or so items and told her to pick her favorites:

Her favorites on the chalkboard, day-of party

Menu:

• Tuna tacos
• Shrimp ceviche
• Grilled tenderloin w/ shaved manchago and arugala salad
• Grilled pork crustini w/ berry compote and caramelized onions
• Tomato basil mozzarella skewers
• Sweet potato gnocchi
• Roasted pepper hummus
• Bacon infused sliders
• Potato cheddar croquettes
• Chocolate peanut butter cake
• Carrot cake

My prep guys: Mike & John

Mike did a great job cleaning shrimp and grinding the burger meat. John rekindled his love of rolling snakes out of dough, and helped with the sweet potato gnocchi.

Cakes are baked. Always allow to fully cool before cutting and adding icing.

Finished product

Top: Tuna tacos with avocado cream sauce

Bottom: Shrimp ceviche

Beef tenderloin and pork tenderloin crustini

Tomato mozzarella basil skewers

Roasted pepper hummus

Potato croquettes (it's once again proven that things are better when fried, even mashed potatoes)

Bacon infused burgers. These were so good, no one used the ketchup or mustard.

Done and done.

A great party, Amy.  Happy Birthday, Carlo!