Ichi the Killer Chicken Fingers

If you haven't been following fried chicken closely these days you might be surprised at what you find. It's the Asians you see. First they take our jobs. Then they take...other stuff, like...rice noodles. Yea. Then they take our rice noodles. But this! THIS! This is the last draw. They have taken our fried chicken (!!!) AND made it taste...better? Damn. They make rice noodles and cars better too. We are screwed America. If we can't beat the world in fried chicken, let's just call it quits and enroll our sons and daughters in Mandarin lessons.

Anyway, I think it started with momofuku and things just haven't been the same since. Korean chicken joints are popping up all over the place. At least momofuku stills pays homage to southern style chicken. Anyway, I was having a hankering for some chicken and thought I would play around with some stuff. It's no momofuku, but I like the recipe I made up. Momofuku's recipe is also much more complicated, so you are probably more likely to make this one. Perhaps over winter break I will try the real deal.

In the meantime, try these Asian style chicken tender I made. They are super easy, and you can make a yummy dipping sauce with only 3 ingredients!

Alright here's the recipe. I call it:

"Ichi the Killer Chicken Fingers"

or for short

"Asian Style Chicken Fingers"

Ingredients:

1 lb. boneless skin chicken breast. pounded and cut into chicken strip size pieces
Veggie Oil
1 box panko bread crumbs (find in the Asian cuisine aisle of your local grocer)
2 tbps sesame seeds
1 tbps Chinese 5 spice
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. curry powder
cayenne pepper to taste (I used about 1 tsp.)
black pepper and salt to taste!
have good taste!

For dippin sauce:

2 tbps Plum Sauce
1 teaspoon chili paste
1 teaspoon soy sauce

Directions:

*Pour veggie oil about 4 fingers tall in your pot. How much you use depends on how large a pot you use. You don't need a huge pot though as you can cook these in batches. Turn on the heat, and put in a your thermometer. You want to heat the oil to 350ºF.

*Combine these in a bowl:
2 tbps sesame seeds
1 tbps Chinese 5 spice
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. curry powder
cayenne pepper to taste (I used about 1 tsp.)
black pepper and salt to taste!

* Combine these in another bowl:
1 box panko bread crumbs
2 tbps sesame seeds

*In another bowl whisk the eggs.

* Put the flour in another bowl (You use a lot of bowls in this one.)

*Lay out the chicken and season on both sides with the spice mixture.

* Dip the chicken flour, then in the egg, then in the panko crumbs. Make sure you coat each piece fully in each step, but knock off the excess.

*After coat each piece you are ready for frying. Keep in mind that whenever you add cold chicken to hot oil you are going to decrease the temp. You want to try to keep it as close to 350 as you can. That will ensure you don't burn the panko, and that the chicken gets fully cooked.

*So. Add the chicken like the pic below in batches. Cook for two minutes, flipping the pieces halfway through.



Set the cooked pieces on a baking sheet lined with paper towels. Cook all the pieces this way. Just make sure as you are cooking you adjust the temperature to try and stay as close as possible to 350.

While you are giving the chicken fingers a minute to rest, make the sauce.

All you need to do is take all 3 ingredient and whisk them together. Garnish with a sprig of parsley or better yet some diced green onion. I only had parsley.


Alright. Next time I'll work on momofuku's recipe. In the meantime these are easy and delicious. Oh! One last quick tip. You can save the oil and reuse it a few more times (maybe 2?). Wait for the oil to cool completely. Then strain it into a tupperware container. Put the tupperware container in the freezer. Next time you need to deep fry something, just pop the frozen oil out. Freezing it will keep it from going rancid and get you more for your $.

Best,

Will

Coleslaw With a License to Kill

Hey there,

This evening I put my taste buds in the hands of an old friend, Mr. Jamie Oliver, aka the Nude Chef, the Foe of Fat and the Londoner of Lore. Mr. Oliver's favorite nickname of mine for him is the second.

Tonight I made coleslaw a la Jamie, and now I really want a damn pulled pork sandwich. Poor planning on my part. Anyway, this blog can't always be about my feelings–my needs. Sometimes it has to be about your needs o' reader. Let this be a lesson to you. Before you make this recipe get some pulled pork barbecue.

Also, you might be wondering about the name of today's entry. Apparently my Father has applied for gun carry permit. Now, I would by no means say I am anti-gun. In fact, I fully support the shooting and sausage making of animals, so long as I am given some of the sausage. However, guns make me nervous, and my Father is not getting a license to carry so he can kill deer and mail me backstraps on ice from Tennessee. He has a different quarry in mind: the crackheads that hang out behind his office.

Kidding. He isn't hunting crackheads. That would be wrong, and this blog does not support that. However, there are crackheads behind his office, and they freak me out too. Apparently, he says having a gun makes him feel more safe from the crackheads. Well, ok. Not my cup of tea, but I guess it works for him.

Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I think he has a different motive in mind. I think he just wants a new hobby. He has a 357 sitting around from his Army days, and he got bored and wanted to shoot the gun. This got me thinking. My hobbies are pretty...pretty...pretty tame in comparison. I run, and I make coleslaw. That's about it. None of my hobbies involve doing something overtly manly and dangerous. I don't tackle quarterbacks or throw logs. I don't wrestle alligators or blow anything up. What, dear reader, is wrong with me?

I have decided that sometime soon I am going to do a feature only on dishes that might kill or harm me, i.e. fugu pufferfish or perhaps the mushrooms I found in the alley behind Poolside. So in honor of my new decision to cook and eat highly deadly foods, I renamed Jamie's rather innocuous recipe.

Coleslaw With a License to Kill.

Recipes as follows:

Ingredients:
• 2 carrots, different colours if you can find them, peeled
• 1 bulb fennel, trimmed
Use at least 2 of the following:
• 3-4 radishes
• 1 light-coloured beetroot, peeled
• ½ a small celeriac, peeled
• 400g red and white cabbage, outer leaves removed (14 oz)
• ½ red onion, peeled
• 1 shallot, peeled
• 1 lemon
• Extra virgin olive oil ( 2 tbs)
• A handful of fresh soft herbs (use mint, fennel, dill, parsley and chervil), leaves picked and chopped
• 250ml yoghurt (8.5 oz, but just approximate it. I think I used 12 oz actually.)
• 2 tablespoons mustard
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


Instructions:

Shred the carrots, fennel, and your choice of radishes, beetroot, turnip or celeriac on a mandoline, or use the julienne slicer in your food processor. Put the veg into a mixing bowl. Slice the cabbage, onion and shallot as finely as you can and add to the bowl. In a separate bowl, mix half the lemon juice, a glug of extra virgin olive oil, the chopped herbs, yoghurt and mustard. Pour this dressing over the veg and mix well to coat everything. Season to taste with salt and pepper and the rest of the lemon juice if you like.

Serve with pulled pork sandwiches. Mail a sandwich to William also.

For my version I used everything but the celeriac and the beet. If I had to do it again I would definitely add some beet. The flavor would have gone very well with the fennel. For the "soft herbs" I used fennel and flat leaf parsley. I think dill would have been nice, but the grocery was out. Also, if you don't have a mandoline or food processor with julienne slicer you can of course cut it by hand. Just takes a few minutes longer.

Here is Jamie's Pic:


Here's mine (His is prettier than mine. Jerk.):


Alright. Enjoy. It's quite a good recipe. Also, please check out my future posts this week on Shepard's pie and my new pizza stone (pizza probably included)!

-Will

Currywurst of yore

Hi!

I have some interesting old food pics from Europe that I never shared on here. Maybe they will give me some ideas. Maybe they will give you some ideas. What's for certain is that as long as I am typing on my blog I don't have to write my client memo. Yes! Anyway, I just put up a few that I thought were particularly tasty or funny or pretty. Enjoy!



Currywurst!



La Boqueria!

Meats and Eggs and Squid oh my!



Jamon



As a side note, has anyone noticed that Egg salespeople are usually a little weird. The guy who sold me eggs in DC was a little strange. This lady was even more strange. She sold ostrich eggs. Those are the big ones in the picture.



Squid! This is from a bar I would go to a lot in the market. The only way to stomach Spanish beer is to eat Spanish food.

Just for funzies here are a few more from the market.



Strawberries




Candy

Here are some oranges in Majorca. I thought they looked pretty, so I took a picture. I was feeling homesick, and then I drank the oranges' succulent juice. Then I realized I didn't want to go home. Ever. But I did.



Last, but certainly not least, is a pic from my fish monger in Barce. This place was about four or five doors down from my apartment. For a boy raised in landlocked Tennessee, where the closest thing you could get to fresh fish was popcorn shrimp at Shoney's, this was the most amazing discovery in the world. It was absolutely tiny inside, but they had the most bizarre types of fish and shellfish. Once, I tried to purchase these huge bright pink prawns, like fuchsia colored prawns. The lady rang me up. I kept trying to pay her, but she wouldn't give me the shrimp or take my money! Apparently, I had misheard 8 euros a kilo and it was 88 euros a kilo. And by misheard I mostly mean that my Spanish is terrible.

Anyway! Every night when I would walk home after drinking at the bars I would walk past this sign and know I was home. All fish mongers should have such a sign. I demand it. Also, I want to look like that when I am and old man/sea captain.



Ciao,

W

Ratemaking and Green Beans

Energy law devolved into beers with the Prof and the Guest Speaker. Not a bad way to end the class though. Anyway, little time for dinner tonight because I'm crazy busy, but fortunately I had dinner cut washed and marinating over night.

Dinner was pan seared Italian chicken and green beans w/ balsamic and shallots

I wish I wrote down the marinade for the chicken. It was boss. Would have been even better grilled. Basically I made my own Italian dressing to marinade the chicken in. Except it was very spicy. And better. I'll try to remember what I did and tell you one of these days.

G-Beans were a recipe I got from a friend. They were good, but I would make some changes if I did it again.

Here is the recipe she gave me:

Green Beans (trimmed)
Olive Oil (just a drizzle)
Shallots (thinly sliced)
Balsamic Vinegar (however much you want; I add a whole lot)
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 400°

In a large mixing bowl add beans and drizzle olive oil, stir to coat.
Add shallots, balsamic, pinch of salt, and a few turns of fresh ground
pepper. Pour everything onto a baking sheet and spread out. Bake for
about 20 minutes.

The only difference I made was to marinate everything over night. I think this was a very good idea as I think it really intensified the flavors. I think used a 1 lb. of g-beans before trimming and I used one large shallot very thinly sliced. Good chance to practice knife skills. Also, don't skimp on the oil or else your shallots will BURN! I used more than a drizzle.

I think the beans started to look a little pale after that long with that heat. If I did it again I would parboil the beans, cool them down, marinate like I did, and then heat the same way but for like 10 minutes at the most. I will try this recipe again with the necessary changes and get back to you.

Alright. I have a client memo to do. Holla at ya boy.

-w

Ahoy! I'm back and with brussel sprouts in tow.

Friends,

I'm sorry it's been so long. Life has distracted me from what's important: blogging about food and alcohol. It'll probably happen again, but maybe I can make it up to you.

Eat this for dinner:

Brussels Sprouts, Pancetta, and Oregano

Ingredients:

6 oz pancetta. thick sliced, cut into one inch long pieces
1lb. brussel sprouts, rinsed and halved
1 and 1/2 tbs. fresh oregano (yes dry is fine just use less)
1/2 tsp salt
1 and 1.2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp aleppo pepper* or black pepper

You can buy aleppo pepper online from dean and deluca and other fine spice purveyors. It is spicer than black pepper and has some other cool flavors going on. If you can find it great. If not, your dinner will still be tasty. In full disclosure you should know this recipe originally came from a union square cafe cookbook, but I have changed it.

Preheat oven to 425.

On the stove top, cook pancetta in ye ole cast iron pan. 5 to 6 minutes to render the fat.

Toss in the sprouts, oregano and salt.

Give er a stir.

Put in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Stir a few times during that process.

Remove from oven. Stir in lemon juice and pepper.

Serve!

I made this Saturday, but alas, I forgot to take pictures. Next recipe will have pictures. I think next posting will be balsamic green beans. A recipe sent to me by a friend. It's hella easy.

-W