delvious

Sometimes I’ll come across a recipe that I just can’t get out of my head.  After reading a rave review from The Kitchn, Jaime Oliver’s recipe for Chicken in Milk became one of them for several reasons:

• Undertaking the daunting challenge of cooking a whole chicken for the first time ever to hopefully achieve a deliciously moist result;
• Putting my still-sort-of-new and beautiful Le Creuset dutch oven to good use; and
• (most importantly) Using curdled milk for sauce.

Delvious?  I had to find out.   Oliver tells us to trust him on this one, but it sort of sounds like he had gone off his rocker when he came up with the recipe.  All of us know that you’re not supposed to add both lemon and milk to your tea if you want to avoid the unappetizing curdling reaction your beverage.  Who wants their chicken covered in curds and whey?

Recipe

As it turns out, I do!  This chicken dish was aromatic and complexly flavored.  You must first brown the chicken in butter to get those all-important flavorful caramelized bits stuck on the bottom of the pot.  From there, you add the unique array of sauce components: fresh sage, whole garlic cloves, lemon zest…a pint of milk…and a cinnamon stick.  It looked beautiful although I remained skeptical.


After your chicken has disappeared into the oven , you will start to smell tantalizing things.  I basted the meat every half hour; it got harder and harder to refrain from sampling the sauce.  An hour and a half later, you have a company-worthy, one pot main course.  The meat was wonderfully moist and the sauce…oh the sauce.  The curds became a bit chewy like melted cheese, and the now translucent liquid portion of the milk was infused with the other spices.  Serve this chicken with wilted spinach and mashed potatoes like I did, and you’ll be everyone’s favorite cook.

Chicken in Milk

Adapted from Jaime Oliver

Prep time + Cook time: 15 minutes + 1 1/2 hours

Serves 4

Printable recipe

Ingredients

1 3.5 lb whole chicken, cleaned

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 c (1/2 stick) butter

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cinnamon stick

Generous handful of fresh sage leaves

Zest of 2 lemons

15 cloves of whole garlic, unpeeled (I figured you can’t go wrong with extra garlic.)

1 pint (2 cups) whole milk

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 375F.

2.  Season the chicken with plenty of salt and pepper.  In a dutch oven, melt the butter and add olive oil over medium high heat.   Fry the chicken until golden brown on all sides.

3.  Remove the chicken from the pot, and discard the extra fat.  Add the chicken back to the pot, along with the cinnamon stick, sage leaves, lemon zest, garlic cloves and milk.

4.  Bake in oven for 1 1/2 hours, basting every 30 minutes.  I followed The Kitchn’s recommendation and left the pot covered for one hour, and uncovered for a half hour.

Some Kitchen Chemistry

As it happens, there is another instance where you want to mix lemon juice and milk.  Say you wake up on a Saturday morning, craving some fluffy, homemade buttermilk pancakes.  You’ve got your pantry staples on hand…but who keeps buttermilk lying around?  Since buttermilk’s tartness comes from acidity, you can mimic that with some acidic lemon action in regular milk.

Quick Buttermilk Substitute

1.  Mix one tablespoon of lemon juice into one cup of milk.  (A tablespoon of white vinegar would work as well).

2.  Let sit for 10-15 minutes.  Stir and voila!, you’ve got buttermilk.

4 Comments | In: Chicken, Roasted | tags: cinnamon, dutch oven, garlic, lemon, milk, sage. | #

I was very skeptical the first time I encountered black sesame in an Asian dessert.  Sesame seeds belong on my bagels and possibly sprinkled on some orange chicken.  But black sesame filled glutinous rice balls floating in a warm, almond-scented soup?  For dessert?


My oh my, YES, for dessert.  After tasting the toasty semi-sweet flavor oozing out of those rice balls, I was hooked on this truly delvious substance that is somewhat reminiscent of peanut butter.  A few months later I went to get a crepe in San Francisco’s Japantown, only to learn that black sesame also comes in ice cream form.  Replicating the glutinous rice balls myself seemed too daunting, but I felt like the ice cream could be attempted at home.

Recipe

The Internet provided me with only a handful of black sesame ice cream recipes to choose from.  Some called for canned black sesame paste, others required toasting and grinding the seeds.  Unable to find the pre-made paste, I conceded that freshly toasted seeds would taste better anyway.  I decided to add extra seeds to my adaptation since I love the concentrated, intense flavor in the centers of those little rice balls.





Making ice cream at home will test your patience but is highly rewarding.  Here are some tips:

• Temper the eggs carefully with the warmed cream before very slowly adding the tempered eggs into the saucepan.  If you’re too hasty, you’ll get little bits of cooked egg.
• Strain the ice cream base no matter how careful you were. No one’s perfect, so chances are that some scrambled egg will show up regardless.
• Plan ahead so you can refrigerate the ice cream base overnight. The flavor will develop and a well-chilled base will result in more even freezing.  Don’t forget to cover the liquid’s surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from developing and tampering with your otherwise perfectly textured ice cream.
• Toast the seeds to bring out their depth of flavor.

Black Sesame Ice Cream

Adapted from Tiny Urban Kitchen

Estimated time: 35 minutes, overnight prep required

Makes about 1.5 quarts

Printable recipe

Ingredients

1 pint (2 cups) heavy whipping cream

1 pint (2 cups) half & half

3/4 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp black sesame seeds

Directions

1.  Combine cream, half & half  and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium low heat.  Stir often to prevent any scalding until mixture is warm, about 5 minutes.

2.  Whisk egg yolks in a small bowl.  Slowly add a ladle of the warm cream mixture to the egg to temper them.  Repeat with one or two more ladles of cream.

3.  Stirring continuously, slowly pour the tempered eggs into the saucepan with the rest of the cream.  Increase the heat to medium.  Continue stirring the mixture frequently until it has thickened and coats the back of the spoon (10-12 minutes).

4.  Pour the ice cream base into airtight containers and cover the surface of the cream with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate overnight.

5.  The next day, pour the ice cream base into your ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer instructions.  As the ice cream is churning, toast the black sesame seeds in a medium skillet over medium heat for 10-15 minutes until very fragrant, stirring often to prevent  burning.

6.  Reserve two tablespoons of the toasted seeds (to add texture), and process the rest in a food processor or spice grinder until it forms a paste.

7.  Once the ice cream is nearly frozen, add the sesame paste and whole seeds.  Continue churning until evenly incorporated.

8.  The ice cream will be soft, so transfer into airtight containers and freeze until desired texture is reached.

A cooking mistake may not be the end of the world

I have a confession to make: I didn’t read the recipe very carefully and added 4 WHOLE eggs as opposed to 4 egg YOLKS.  Oops.  However, I did not realize this until I was typing up the recipe – I would have told you the ice cream came out perfectly.  There are some cases where a mistake may be not be salvageable, but keep in mind that being flexible when you’re cooking might actually lead to something that is even more delicious than the original recipe.  I will have to re-make this recipe with just yolks to see how it affects the texture and flavor.


Whether you use whole eggs or yolks, you MUST make this. With just five ingredients, it’s quite simple and deceivingly flavorful.

7 Comments | In: Dessert, Ice cream | tags: Asian dessert, black sesame, sesame seed. | #

I am a victim of seasonal cravings.  It was particularly bad in 2009:

• Last summer, I was only interested in peach cobbler and plum kuchens.
• Fall arrived, and I forgot about the summer stone fruits to focus on pumpkin loaves and apple cakes.
• This winter, the gingerbread cravings hit me hard.

Thoughts of gingerbread guinness cakes, gingerbread pancakes and adorable gingerbread men panini distracted me.  Finally, I came across a recipe for gingerbread butterscotch cookies.  I had never considered gingerbread paired with butterscotch, but I do have a theory about butterscotch morsels:  they make anything infinitely more delectable.

Recipe

These cookies uphold The Butterscotch Morsel Theory.  The gingerbread was almost too spicy, really; but luckily the butterscotch morsels step in to balance out the cookies with super intense sweetness.  This recipe may not be delvious in a peanut-butter-sauerkraut kind of way, but they are a unique (and delicious) cookie for wintertime.

Gingerbread Butterscotch Cookies

Adapted from Baked Perfection

Printable recipe

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 large egg

1/3 cup light molasses

1 (11 ounce) package Butterscotch Flavored Morsels

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.  Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt in small bowl.  In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, egg and molasses until creamy.

4.  Gradually beat in flour mixture until well blended. Stir in morsels.

5.  Drop by rounded tablespoon onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

A few thoughts on cloves

I have been anti-cloves for awhile.  I have long blamed cloves for pumpkin pies that I didn’t like and have refused to buy a tiny jar of them in whole or ground form.  My assumed dislike of its flavor and its perpetual absence from my spice rack has encouraged me to omit this spice from any recipe I’ve made recently, including this one.


But, I’m planning to re-embrace cloves for 2010.  Did you know cloves are the dried flower of an evergreen tree native to India and Indonesia?  I didn’t.  Did you know it is a key spice in chai tea?  I didn’t, and I really like chai tea.  It’s time to give in, go to the grocery, and seek out a clove-y recipe in an attempt to accept this spice.  What do you think of them?

4 Comments | In: Cookies, Dessert | tags: butterscotch, gingerbread. | #