Tag: thyme

I obviously don't want to take up much kitchen space at EU Zero, so I prepared the lamb smear (which the lamb will be dipped in before the panko roll) here at home.

So far, the ingredients look something like this:

• 3 Tbl Olive Oil (oregano flavored)
• 3 Tbl Tahini
• 1/2 container spreadable goat cheese
• 1 tsp fresh thyme
• 1 stripped twig rosemary
• Onion powder (to replace 1/4 onion)
• Garlic powder
• Black pepper
• Paprika (just a dash)
• Soy sauce (just a dash)
• 1 tsp fresh dill
• Lemon juice

So far, it tastes rather strongly of tahini... but a lot of the flavors that come after come in notes. The goal, of course, is to augment lamb and maybe obscure the slight mutton taste, not to become the flavor of the dish. So the lamb won't be very thickly covered.

The thin coating is the reason I decided to experiment so much with this dish. I haven't seen any recipes online that suggest coating lamb with either tahini or goat cheese, so I may be well on my way to a tremendous flop.

Stay tuned.

Chicken Pot Pie.

Think about that steam curling up from the crust.

Chicken Freaking Pot Pie.

The Pennsylvania Dutch enslaved an entire nation with this rustic dish, which is one of the few meat pies enjoyed this side of the Atlantic (I KNOW YOU'RE THERE, NATCHITOCHES MEAT PIE. I will find the filthy, forbidden love that is deep fried meat pie some day).

The PD's (like they call them back in the hood) also brought us pretzels, apple butter, and funnel cakes, because they are sheer butter-encrusted evil. Their plan is to fatten all of humanity and use their disgusting man-fat to grease the largest slip-n-slide in history. But, you're not cleared for that information.

Her Tartness did the crust for this one, so I'll let her add that one.

1. I cut up two chicken breasts (p.s. - they liked it) and half a white onion (small cubes for the chicken, finely chopped for the onion). Utterly confused by what I was going to do to make these chunks into some sort of pie, I sweated the onion in a stick of butter.

WHAT? Butter comes by the stick. It's how I measure. We are a very skinny family. Bite me.

1. The chicken went in after the onion was clear, along with some soy sauce, pepper, paprika, finely chopped celery (2 sticks) and garlic powder.

2. Double barrel action after the chicken was thoroughly cooked as I unceremoniously plopped one can of cream of chicken and one can of cream of mushroom into the skillet. It sat there, jellied, like some disgusting panna cotta. I stirred it all in anyways.

3. Once it was less... upright, I threw in some mixed vegetables (frozen). What goes with mushroom and chicken? The T herbs! In went some fresh thyme (man, what I would have given for a marijuana smoker to break down those two twigs) and dried tarragon. When things thinned out a bit too much I added a tablespoon of cornstarch and stirred it in.

4. Tasting... what do I need? More soy sauce. A dab of worcestershire. Meanwhile, Tart-on was making some kind of dough as I simmered everything on low.

Magically, all those ingredients with the crust fit perfectly in a circular 9-inch baker. Turned oven to 400. Docked the crust with a fork and brushed it with one beaten egg. Put into the oven. WAITED A HORRIBLY LONG FORTY FIVE MINUTES.

1. Littleroq asked for chicken pot pie for BREAKFAST the next day. Take that, Marie Callender. I have evaded your charms.

Note: Why do I add soy sauce to so many things? Because the MSG in soy sauce makes everything taste like store-bought.

Tonight, I'm doing lamb chops and tzatziki sauce. In fact, it's broiling while I type.

I started the tzatziki last night, draining some plain yogurt, grating a cucumber into it, and mixing in some dill, grated garlic, red wine vinegar, and pepper. It has been sitting in the fridge for a full day, but not without several inquisitive spoonfuls being borrowed...

Tonight, I mixed a stick of melted butter, some fresh thyme and mint, a couple squirts of dijon mustard, a quarter of an onion (chopped), some cayenne, and some black pepper and dill into a mess, then dipped the lamb chops in it and rolled them into breadcrumbs (pouring the rest of the mess in between them).

After broiling on both sides for five minutes apiece, I put a baguette from a local bakery on the bottom rack and turned the oven onto three-fifty. Give me a second to check on it...

Alright. The lamb is going to come out pretty soon; pictures (hopefully) at eleven.

...

Update: Rare is definitely the way to do lamb; it got barely any oven time after its broiling and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

The tzatziki had a little too much red wine vinegar; I'd suggest tasting it regularly and adding the vinegar (especially) at a slower pace. Remember that the tzatziki is going to be a bunch of separate flavors before it goes to the fridge, and taste accordingly.

Lamb is an interesting ingredient. It plays better with those obscure herbs in your spice rack than the standard American meats do; lamb with a little tzatziki is certainly a complex and wonderful experience.

Just a note: before tonight, I've had lamb three times and hated it each time.

We have this big bag of chicken breasts in the freezer. Not the good, boneless, dinner-in-ten-minutes kind, but the genetically enhanced, buffalo-breast, bone-in stewing kind. Tonight, I figured I'd try the bake-and-broil method to cook it.

I started by sweating some onions and garlic over medium-low heat, then increasing the heat to medium and dumping in:

1. A glazing liquid. (I used half soy sauce and half molasses; you could use honey, or heck, even mango syrup). About 1/2 cup.

2. One green herb. I used a little mexican oregano; thyme and/or rosemary might have been better, but I didn't have any.

3. One egg yolk. Just to make it more glaze-y.

4. Some small additions. For me- pepper, a spritz of lime juice, one crushed dried red pepper, and a little salt (not much- soy sauce, remember?)

After all this, I had a thick brown liquid that smelled like pureed awesome. I folded a long piece of aluminum foil into thirds, dumped in one breast, made a pouch, and slathered it with sauce. (Two breasts total, so I split it among both).

Next, the bake-then-broil. While the pouches of aluminum foil are closed, bake on 350 degrees for about half an hour- then, open the tops and broil on full blast for three-five minutes until the onions start to caramelize.

It was wonderful. The foil kept the chicken from drying out, and the glaze, once broiled in, was enough to make this dish a repeat customer.

Believe it or not, we at EU have a life similar to that of normal people. We learn, we laugh, we love, and we have thanksgiving dinner. As such, I have duly been appointed by the gods of thanksgiving cookery (hereafter known as injuns) to make sweet potatoes. I know what you bastards are all thinking, you're all thinking about how Teleolurian would look in a mini skirt. I mean, you're all thinking that potatoes are easy, you just boil, mash and marshmellow. Alas, this is the lazy american way of cooking. We practice the Zao Zo Zi Ha Ping Wong or the study of the eternal sunshine of the majestic yam.

First, young potatowan, we must select the right potatoes. The right potato has bright orange flesh with reddish skin. If you're not sure what color the flesh is by the look of the potato, go ahead and take a bite. No one will notice. I promise. If it is indeed orange. Congratulations! Place sweet potatoes into a vegetable bag (about 2 pounds worth). Some grocery stores have scales as to weigh the potatoes. The way these work is you sit on top of one, wait for a grocer to come around and scorn you, slap grocer with bag of potatoes and gauge his injuries. If he's still yelling at you (but slightly pissed off) then you do not in fact have enough potatoes. If he is unconscious, then you most likely have around 2 pounds. If he is dead, you probably want to take a few of the potatoes out, as you have too much. Also, you may want to stuff his lifeless corpse in the corn bin, otherwise by the time you get out of prison your potatoes will have gone bad and thanksgiving will have long been deemed an ancient tradition saluting the once proud indian tribes of North America. The next couple of things you'll need are Heavy whipping cream, bourbon, light brown sugar, sweet sassy molassy, and salt. For the whipping cream, you can visit your local farm and smack around a cow that weighs more than 500 pounds. Then milk. Also, you may want to pasteurize the milk. I'm not quite sure how to do that, but I'm sure it has something to do with Louis Pasteur III and some fairies. Everyone knows that you get Bourbon out of your loco hobos pocket, or your Uncle Henrys hand after he's long since passed out watching badminton. Or maybe it was football. Light brown sugar, well, I can't stop laughing about the whereabouts I was going to put here, so lets just say, you get it at the store. Sweet sassin molassin is a product of the sasquatch and is typically found around or near their dens. If you can't find a sasquatch den, you'll most likely have to omit this ingredient. (Edit: I've just learned you can buy this at the store too, ambiguously named "Molasses"). Oh, don't forget the salt. Since you're probably a homosapien you produce this wonderful seasoning.

To recap, the base ingredients for this dish are: * 1 3/4 to 2 pounds of sweet potatoes * 1/2 cup heavy cream * 1/4 cup bourbon whiskey * 3 tablespoons light brown sugar * 2 tablespoons molasses * 1/8 teaspoon salt

Now for the oh so wonderous topping of magical tastiness +2.

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper (you can use black, white is just prettier)
• one pinch dried thyme (not a handful. a PINCH)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (not to be confused with peacocks)
• 5 tablespoons butter, chilled and cut into eency weency cubes.

Now for the actual cookery/sorcery.

1. Preheat your oven/kiln/heating box/toaster oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place potatoes on a foil lined bakery sheet. (cookie sheet will do)
3. Bake until tender, and starting to ooze a syrup, also unicorns. This will take around an hour and 15 minutes, unless you live in Zimbabwe, in which case it will take 75 minutes. If you have mammoth potatoes (the ones that took over the earth there for a brief moment in 1992), then it may take a tad longer.
4. Remove from the oven and let sit until you can touch them without burning a whole in your pasty man flesh.
5. Cut a slit down each potato (not your wrist) and scoop the flesh into a large bowl. Be sure to cackle with glee otherwise the recipe will not come out right.
6. Add the cream, bourbon, brown sugar, molasses and salt, and use one of them new fangled mixing machines to beat the mixture until its as smooth as gator slaw in the springtime.
7. Pour into little casserole dish. Cover with foil so it doesnt go cold.

For the topping: 1. Mix all of the ingredients together thoroughly (except the butter!) in a small bowl. 2. Add the butter and work with your hands until a crumbly mass forms and calls you names. 3. spread evenly atop the potatoes, and bake until the top is nice and brown.

Serve! and hopefully people wont die!

(Note: nothing in here could kill anyone, except the sasquatch)

(Note #2: he wont hurt you because hes spending thanksgiving at my house)

(Note #3: I havent actually made this recipe. I just pulled it out of the nether regions of my brain because it sounds tastastic. I'll update with commentary on flavor later (subnote #1: After I stuff my gullet with turkey))

Go ahead. Use Google. Search for fried chicken. You'll find a plethora of articles that all tell you the same basic things. Everybody knows how to fry chicken. It's the next step on the evolutionary ladder above boiling water. The ability to fry chicken is what makes us BETTER than the most common bird on the planet, for goodness sakes. It's part of our genetic cerebral snide superiority- if we can eat it, we're better than it is. That's why people seek out alligator, bear, and shark meat in markets- the ability to eat something that has at some point eaten one of us makes us not only better than the animal, but the poor primate it managed to digest.

But I digress.

I'm not going to tell you how to fry chicken. It's more intuitive than the screwdriver. But there are certain things that should be part of your regular shopping list and they all make our ruthless domestication policies worthwhile.

1. BUY LARD. Or, if you're one of these health-conscious types, BUY SHORTENING. For the sake of the species, buy SOMETHING that is thick, greasy to the touch, white, and melts into a massive pool of chicken frying goodness. Any neighborhood is likely close to an ethnic or just-plain American store that sells pig kidney fat in huge blocks (love the Manteca). If nothing else, invest in a deep fryer (with which you can cook EVERYTHING) and some peanut oil. Culinary adventurers, buy ambergris. Shark fat. Clarified schmaltz for the ultimate one-upsmanship of the chicken. Or take a note from Fight Club (enough said).

2. Get something to bread chicken in. I use tupperware. Grandma used paper lunch bags. Dump in flour, breadcrumbs, and whatever you want- last night I used basil, thyme, cayenne, pepper, garlic salt, and anything else I could grab from the spice cabinet. Don't get the expensive spice jars full of old, tasteless stuff- buy the cheap little sacks on the sidekick-display at the end of the produce aisle. 99 cent cayenne goes in everything. Even a little cayenne and paprika will make it taste better without appreciably increasing the hotness factor (capsaicin pansy).

3. Have chicken on hand. I've been stalled from frying chicken several times just by not having it around. During Hobo Week, I buy the huge bags of frozen, genetically-engineered Elephant Whale Buffalo chicken breasts. Boneless and skinless = easy cutting. This is an economy based upon ease of attainment and use, people. Get your nearest livejournal self-inflicted injury specialist and a razor blade to cut the meat into strips if all else fails.

4. Insert chicken in choppy chunks into your mixed and shaken flour-crumb-goodness mixture. Raise temperature to medium (for shortening, which otherwise has a slight tendency to EXPLODE) or medium-high (for good old god-given lard) and let it boil into a puddle of clear, fatty goodness. Have a skillet lid, or at least another skillet. Burning fat hurts, which is why they used to dump it from crenellations onto erstwhile castle invaders.

5. Since not everybody appreciates spice like I do, I don't put crushed red pepper into the crumb mixture. Instead, I buy the bag of whole dried peppers and crush them in my fist into the heated lard. I am therefore genetically superior to the red pepper. Don't let the pinks crush the peppers for you- nothing says loving like the horrible imagined screams of chiles while you pulverize them in your opposable-thumb having fist (people without thumbs: you're still superior to them. The chiles aren't going to squeeze YOU into boiling lard).

At first, I was just pouring in the seeds; however, since I know that the heat actually comes from the chile's placenta (which coats the seeds), I just toss the whole mangled pepper corpse in.

And yes, I talk about corpses often while cooking. And eating.

Cook until meat stops being pink, then cover and jack that heat up to high (take THAT, shortening can warnings) so you get a mild scorch on your crumbs. Then reduce heat, flip chicken, and scorch it AGAIN.

Covering the skillet makes for juicier chicken. Minor scorch action makes for crispier outsides. You can do what you want to it- you're BETTER than chicken.

If we weren't meant to eat them, they wouldn't be made of meat.

Pasta, in general, can be found in decent quantity for tremendously cheap prices; exactly what you'd expect for something that is essentially one step removed from bread. I suppose the original idea was to combine angel hair with Immensely Chunky Mushroom pre-made sauce; however, using my plus three diplomatic skills, I was able to make an argument against it (angel hair has a pretty delicate texture. Why destroy it with a thick sauce?)

My approach was simple. After cooking to desired tenderness (at least removing all traces of al dente), I added some butter, milk, pepper, and garlic. Exact quantities? About half a stick of butter and a quarter cup of milk to half a package of pasta. I'm a bit overboard on things like garlic, pepper, and garlic pepper, so feel free to experiment. After draining and adding these ingredients, I put it back over medium heat and moved it. Like a washing machine. Those noodles weren't going to scorch on my watch. When the butter had disappeared, I proclaimed it done. Loudly.

The sauce was perfectly thin and absolutely divine. My only regret was that I only had half a stick of butter; if I could double the quantity of butter and milk I might have generated a bit more sauce. As it was, it was just perfect enough. That's what you get for spending time around italian friends.

I abhor recipes; they teach you to follow rote instructions and not to experiment. Here, however, is something Tele-approved and much more flexible. Allow me to present the UNRecipe (thanks, minipulator) for what I generated:

• X packages angel hair pasta
• X sticks butter
• X/2 cups milk
• Spice Combo In my case, garlic and pepper. Try basil/thyme (tiny amounts), white wine/bouillon powder, or garlic with 2X tablespoons of olive oil replacing X/2 sticks butter.

Mix over medium heat until awesome. Serves {2,4}X.