Pretzel-Fried Chicken

Have you ever craved something you've never had? Somehow, I got it in my head that I was craving chicken strips rolled in crushed pretzels and then fried. Suddenly, I just had to make it.

Yes, the worst of the worst - boneless skinless chicken breasts

Cut into strips, put into zip-lock, and add buttermilk, olive oil, S&P

Seal the bag, slosh it all around, and refrigerate overnight

Peel some sweet 'taters, then cut into sticks

Toss fries in peanut oil, S&P

Coating dish

Pound the pretzels

Leave some larger pieces and pour into dish

Add an egg to the soaked chicken

Heat up frying oil

Fry in 325-350°F oil until golden

Remove to paper-towel-lined plate

Drizzle sauce over chicken

Chicken

Boneless skinless chicken breasts are not the ideal choice for much of anything, but for fried chicken strips, I need no bones or skin, and the work is already done. Had I come across a package of just tenderloins, I would have gotten that. I paid the premium for some butcher somewhere to do what I'm too lazy to do, and sometimes, that's fine.

Start by cutting the breasts into strips. Put the strips into a zipper bag and pour over buttermilk, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and some salt & pepper. Close the bag tightly and massage the chicken and liquid such that it's well mixed and all the strips are covered. Let the chicken soak in the refrigerator at least overnight.

When you're ready to cook, crush up several handfuls of hard pretzels (I used a strong freezer bag and small pot, though in hindsight I think a rolling pin would have been better). Let the pretzel crumbs be inconsistent - you want some floury stuff and some chunks for texture. Pour the crumbs into a shallow dish for dredging.

Heat up about an inch of oil (I prefer peanut) to 325-350°F. In order to get the pretzels to stick better to the chicken strips, crack an egg into the bag of chicken, and mix well. Pull a chicken strip or three out of the buttermilk mixture and let it drip for a second before dredging it in the pretzel crumbs. Then, carefully lay the strips in the hot oil and let them brown for a minute or so before flipping with a pair of tongs. Only fry 3 or 4 strips at a time to keep the oil hot, and let it heat back up to temperature before frying the next batch. Don't dredge the strips until you're just about to fry them, or the pretzels will soak up the liquid and fall off the chicken. When the strips are deep brown all over and firm when pushed on with the tongs, remove them to some paper towels.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Peel sweet potatoes and cut into batons. Toss the batons in vegetable oil (I like peanut) and salt & pepper, then arrange in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. The easiest way to do that is to toss the batons in oil and seasoning on the baking sheet itself. Bake at 450°F for 20-30 minutes to desired crispness. I happen to like them with burnt ends.

Honey Mustard Sauce

Since I'm a big dork and forgot to make the sauce before starting to fry the chicken, I directed my husband to do it and don't have any photos. Here's what I told him to do: get a small bowl, squeeze a couple of tablespoons of raw honey into it, add about a teaspoon of whole-grain mustard and as much yellow mustard as he wanted, then mix in about 1/3 cup of mayo. It was delicious!


Bonus: Leftovers!

Keep the leftover fried chicken strips in a dry container in the refrigerator (line the container with a paper towel if the strips are still warm or moist to the touch). 

I have a guilty (and rather pedestrian) pleasure: fried chicken salad. Use whatever you've got in the fridge and whatever you happen to like in salads. As for dressing, that's up to you as well. I like ranch-type dressing on my fried chicken salad, so I made a buttermilk dressing from scratch, as I find most bottled ranch dressings repulsive.

Cut up into bite-sized pieces

Make buttermilk dressing

Add a little sauce for fun

Salad
Cut the cold fried chicken strips into bite-sized pieces and lay them over a bed of greens. I shredded some carrot and Tillamook medium cheddar (my go-to all-purpose cheese in "baby loaf" form from Costco), and added some chopped chive and cilantro.

Dressing
Mix a few tablespoons of buttermilk with some chopped fresh herbs (I used chives and cilantro again) and salt & pepper. Pour over salad and drizzle some leftover honey mustard. YUM!

403 Fruit

I made this collage a while back. I needed an artistic outlet for my fruit obsession. May I suggest tasting all of these fruits before you perish?

Oh how I love fruit

L to R
Hachiya persimmon, white peach, date, papaya, starfruit, blackberry, black cherry, green apple, plantain, red Bartlett pear, blood orange, pluot, mango, ackee, pomegranate, pineapple, rose apple, avocado, fig, blueberry, kiwi, black currant, soursop, dragonfruit

I really should add the elusive Buddha's hand:

http://veganascent.blogspot.com/2010/12/buddha-hand-citron.html

The flavor and fragrance of this fruit is absolutely mesmerizing. I can't wait to get my hands on one this summer so I can candy the peel... And then just sniff it all day long. I imagine it's what the afterlife smells like if you were a good person.

Pizza Redux... This Time with Bacon!

OMG I love pizza so much. A couple of days ago, I made some dough following these instructions, but using this recipe (I don't have sourdough starter... yet... and maybe next time I'll try it with a poolish). I split the dough in three, refrigerated one ball and froze the other two.

One of our favorite pizza topping combinations is pepperoni, bacon, and jalapeno. Since I found some amazing-looking bacon at Whole Foods the other day, I thought I'd do something similar - bacon and pickled Fresno peppers. I made the pickled peppers by slicing fresh peppers from my mother-in-law's neighbors' garden and simmering them in white vinegar, sugar, and salt for about 5 minutes, then letting them sit in the brine in the fridge for several hours.

Peppers after simmering in brine

Black Forest bacon, whole milk mozzarella, pickled peppers, tomato paste, dough

Cut bacon into pieces and cook

The sauce will be tomato paste with dried basil & oregano, S&P, olive oil

But then I remembered some roasted grape tomatoes I had puréed

Sauce 

Cut the cheese after a stint in the freezer

To shred fast, use the processor with the shredder attachment

Components assembled

Press out the dough with your hands

We like it saucy

Ready for the oven

After about 6 minutes on broil

Nice bottom!

Next time we may try baking on the grill, since we can get it past 550°F. I'd really like to get that crispy, charred crust. It was very delicious pizza, even so.

Whoopie Pie Redux

Turned out I had all this frosting left over from the last batch of whoopie pies (don't fret, in that post, I gave measurements for 1/2 of what I actually made). So I thought I'd give it another go, since the red velvet pies were very popular around here. This time, I got a box of devil's food cake mix and different shortening. I also followed the recipe (gasp!) and used the correct mixer attachment, with good results.

Generic cake mix is the best; I fell for the butter-flavor shortening, but it's a fancy health-food brand, so it must be okay

This is dough, not batter like last time

Dry dough easily comes out of the spoon

I rolled it into balls... because I like balls

So the parchment trick wasn't too good this time since these needed to cool before they really set

Done

My Best Batch of Chili Yet

No, I will not tell you my secret ingredient! It's a SECRET!

The main difference between this batch of chili and previous ones is that I roasted fresh Roma tomatoes rather than using canned tomatoes. I think it made a huge difference.

Halved tomatoes with stem ends removed

Coat with olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper

Post-roast

Prevent juice escape!

White and green onion, red and green bell pepper, and garlic 

Sauté the onions and peppers until soft, then add minced garlic

Brown ground beef with chili powder, cayenne pepper, ground coriander, smoked paprika, and S&P

Remove beef to crock-pot

Purée the roasted tomatoes and grab a big can of beans (because beans are good, dammit!)

Mix everything up in the crock-pot, then before adding a bunch of spicy stuff, set aside a few cups for your mother-in-law (unless you don't like her)

Make a slit in a habanero pepper

Chop up some roasted mystery peppers

Stir it all up and set the crock on low for several hours

Roast tomatoes
Get a bunch of tomatoes. Like, I don't know, 5 pounds or something - enough to fill a sheet pan with halves. Choose whatever variety looks reddest or is organic or whatever. I chose organic Roma tomatoes. Cut them in half and remove the stem ends. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lay the halves cut-side up. Lightly coat the tomato halves with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast at 375°F for about 30 minutes or until the 'maters are soft with dark brown juices seeping out. Be sure to collect all the juices by bringing up the side of the foil. Dump it all into a food processor and purée the shit out of it.

Chili
Dice about 1/2 cup of scallions, 1/2 a medium yellow onion, 1/2 each of a red and green bell pepper. Sauté the onions and peppers in some kind of fat (I happened to use bacon grease since I had just made bacon, and because of that, I didn't add salt). Once those are soft, add a few cloves of minced garlic. Cook that all for another minute, but don't let the garlic brown, much less burn. Remove the vegetables.

In the same skillet, brown 2 pounds of ground beef with a couple of tablespoons of chili powder, a good sprinkling of ground coriander, some cayenne pepper, and a dash of smoked paprika. Salt and pepper it, of course. I used grass-fed beef, part ground chuck and part ground sirloin, and there was very little fat. If there is more than a tablespoon of beef fat, I recommend removing the cooked beef with a slotted spoon so as not to have super-greasy chili.

Mix the vegetables, beef, tomato purée, beans, and more spices if required (I required more chili powder and salt) in a crock-pot or large stew pot and cook on low for several hours. If you want more spice, add a whole habanero with a slit in the side, or some chopped jalapeno or Serrano. If you want deadly chili, chop up a habanero or two. Since I had left over roasted peppers from the pizza I made a few days ago, I chopped up some of them and threw them in. Please be careful with the chili peppers - either wear rubber gloves, coat your hands in oil, or wash your hands really well immediately after handling the peppers, and do not touch your eyes or other sensitive parts!

Serve
When you're about ready to eat the chili, stir in the secret ingredient. I'll give you a hint: it's fresh, green, tart, fragrant, and sweet. Serve with chopped scallion, cilantro, shredded cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips, and/or whatever you want.

I swear there's chili under there

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

What to do with a box of red velvet cake mix? Make a cake? LOL no; too easy. Cookies? I don't know, kind of boring. Whoopie pies? YES!

I found a recipe online calling for only cake mix, shortening, and eggs. The cookies looked nicer (more like Oreo Cakester cookies) than other recipes calling for a more cakey batter. I decided to add some cocoa powder since I like super-cocoa flavor.

I mixed together 1 box of red velvet cake mix, 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder, 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of shortening, and 2 eggs. The batter was rather thick and I happened to have buttermilk in the fridge, so I mixed a couple of tablespoons into the batter. Note: the little white dots are bits of my fancy non-hydrogenated shortening...

Scoop by tablespoon and attempt to drop onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. My batter wouldn't drop on its own, so I had to help it. Thus, they came out a little ugly. Perhaps an oiled tablespoon would correct that.

What I did here was drop the batter onto a sheet of parchment while I had one batch in the oven to at 375°F for 9 minutes, then I just changed out the parchment.

Now for the filling. What's better with red velvet cake than cream cheese frosting? White chocolate cream cheese frosting! Melt 3 oz of white chocolate and allow to cool a bit. Beat on high 4 oz of cream cheese, 2 tablespoons of butter, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Add in the white chocolate and beat some more before slowly beating in 1 cup of confectioner's sugar.

I forgot to picture the vanilla.

Put the frosting in a piping bag, or in my case, a ziplock with a corner cut off, and pipe the frosting onto the bottom of one cookie, then top with another. Thanks to the white chocolate, the frosting stiffens up with time, so even though they are really messy to eat right away, after a few hours they're totally manageable.

They were perfect. Perfect, I tell you!