Savory

Kentucky Caviar

I first came across this magical creation a few years ago when a friend made it for a dinner party and Amanda and I couldn’t get enough! We found ourselves grabbing for more and more chips to dip into this again and again until we were out of chips! Thankfully that friend gave us the rest to take home along with the recipe to make it for ourselves. This whole thing takes approximately 10 minutes to throw together, but you do have to let it sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before enjoying after you complete the mix, but trust me it’s worth it.

I love the freshness you get from the pepper and tomato and while the original recipe doesn’t call for corn, I added it this time and really enjoyed the addition so I’m adding it to the recipe I was given! You really have to make this either just to snack on or to bring to a party with a bag of chips and I promise you’ll have people asking about how to make it! Enjoy!

Kentucky Caviar 

Ingredients:

2 14 oz cans of black eyed peas
1 14 oz can of corn 
1 bunch of scallions
1/2 green bell pepper
1 medium tomato 
1/2 bunch cilantro 
2 tsp sugar 
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano 
1/4 tsp cayenne
2 cloves of garlic minced 
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil 

Steps: 

1. Drain black eyed peas and rinse them well before drying them off 
2. Trim and dice scallions, mince garlic, dice tomato, chop cilantro and add it to big bowl with peas
3. In small bowl, put sugar, salt, cumin, oregano, cayenne and garlic together
4. Add the liquids to the spices and whisk to combine thoroughly
5. Pour liquid over bowl with peas and mix well to combine
6. Let chill and set for 30 minutes in the fridge minimum. 
7. Enjoy with chips or whatever you’d like
   
   

Garlic Parmesan Pretzels

It’s a game day tradition of mine to make garlic parmesan pretzels and today was no different! I’ve always loved pretzels (and I still do), and it was one of the first things that I learned how to make! My technique has gotten a lot better over time and it felt good to throw these together after not having made them for a while.

These pretzels have a great flavor on their own and adding the garlic and parmesan cheese to the dough just adds another dimension to them that’s so delicious! Since I was just making these for me I cut the recipe in half to make 5 (~125g per pretzel) but below is the recipe to make for yourself and I HIGHLY recommend, especially for football weekends! These are perfect with a spicy mustard or a horseradish mustard like I dipped them into this time! Enjoy!

Ingredients (makes 10):

• 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces (2 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons Italian Seasoning
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
• Vegetable oil, for pan
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt

Steps: 

1. Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour, butter, italian seasoning, garlic and parmesan and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
2. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside. Meanwhile, bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.
3. In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled work surface and divide into 10 equal pieces. Applying even pressure, roll out each piece of dough into an 18- to 20-inch rope. Fold each rope in half, twisting the two pieces around one another and pressing the ends together. Twist the bottom end around the top, feeding it through the top hole and pressing to secure. Return the twists to the cookie sheet. Place onto 2 parchment-lined and sprayed half sheet pan. (if you have one, a silpat sheet works best as there’s no possible chance for sticking)
4. Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan, brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Sourdough Discard Cheezits!

This months sourdough collab theme was flat breads and crackers so naturally I had to give Julia’s (breadandbasil) recipe a try! Cheezits are my favorite snack and so I was very excited to try these! The whole recipe came together in less than 2 hours and was a breeze!

I used medium cheddar cheese and grated it super fine to help incorporate it into the mix evenly, sprinkled the crackers with maldon salt, and I baked the crackers about 5 minutes longer than was suggested just to make sure that it was extra toasty. I highly recommend you try these yourself and when you do, make sure to separate the crackers from each other half way through the bake when you rotate the pans to help for even baking and toasty edges!

Venison Ragu!

Venison ragu with homemade semolina rigatoni! I had this amazing lamb ragout dish at Khora for my birthday last month and ever since then I couldn’t get it out of my head to try! One of the unique components to the dish was this brown cheese that I couldn’t believe was so creamy and savory and had the slightest bit of tang that balanced the rich flavors of the ragout. I finally found out that it was a caramelized goat cheese called Ski Queen Gjetost and wow is it incredible! On it’s own, it’s great on a slice of bread, but when I grated it and added it to my dish, it took me all the way back to Khora!

Normally, venison can be a tougher meat since it is so incredibly lean making it very easy to overcook and become tough and stringy. For this dish, I seared it in the pan to get a nice browning with some herbs and spices and then I went about like I would normally make a ragu! I ended up cooking this whole thing down for 5 hours and at the end, I was able to take the pieces of venison apart with my fingers!! It was so delicious and rich and flavorful, I’m glad it made enough for me to enjoy all week!

Hope you all have had a great week so far and finish it out strong!

Semolina Pasta

Ever since my birthday when Amanda got me the pasta extruder attachment, I’ve been looking for an excuse to break it out and give it a shot! I’ve loved making pasta for a while now and have been looking to try an extruder just to get new shapes and to see how I like making another style of pasta. I was a bit anxious having read many reviews and talking to some friends who had experience with using it (shoutout Omy aka Le Goûter Bread) since apparently it can be challenging to make the right dough consistency so that it doesn’t get clogged up in the machine!

Because of them, I made sure that I incorporated semolina flour into my pasta dough with many many less eggs than normal and the result was amazing! I didn’t have any clogging issues and while I did have to clean it out when I was done, you always have to do that! I hope anyone with this machine that might be anxious to try it again after having issues or is anxious to try it for the first time might take a look at my recipe and give it a shot! I absolutely loved this process and look forward to using it again in the near future (really wanna use the bucatini mold)!

Recipe:
175g semolina flour
175g all purpose flour
4 whole eggs room temp
salt to taste
2 tbsp approx olive oil

Make a mountain and then a well with the flour before putting the eggs and olive oil in the middle. Whisk them together with a fork and slowly incorporate the flour from the edge of the well until it’s solid enough to knead with your hands. Knead the dough as it comes together either adding a pinch of flour or tsp of water a time to keep it from getting too sticky or too dry (I have a tutorial in my instagram story) for approximately 7-8 minutes. Cover for 30 minutes to let it rest before breaking it into walnut sized pieces and putting through the extruder. Either let it dry out and refrigerate for a couple days or freeze for a couple weeks if you’re not going to use it right away or drop it into some boiling salted water and cook until al dente approximately 1:30-2 minutes.

Enjoy!!!

Calzone!!!

National Pizza Day just happens to fall on my birthday and so I knew I was going to post a pizza this year! Instead of making the usual pizza, I decided to try making a calzone for the first time! I wasn’t quite sure how baking time would differ or how thick the dough should be so this was a bit of an experiment but it was a delicious one!!!

I used some spicy meatballs I had made and diced them up adding in some red pepper, banana pepper, roasted garlic, and red chili flakes! It was quite the flavor punch but wow was it delicious!! I think next time I make it, I’ll make sure there is less dough, as it was quite a bit of bread with some of it being just ever so slightly under baked but it was still incredibly delicious and was a solid 2 meals for me!

Hope you all have some pizza today to celebrate!

Korean Style Fried Chicken
with Spicy BBQ Mustard Sauce

So we all know it’s winter right now and while January wasn’t really that cold, February is coming in with the low temps and fresh snow. When this happens, we all basically turn to comfort food that can warm us up right?!?! Well I definitely do and last weekend I decided to try Korean style fried chicken! I absolutely would never claim anything about these being authentic to the style since I did not do due diligence in research about this food and its history/culture, however one of the things I’ve loved about Korean fried chicken is the light fry that has a bit of crispiness to it before it’s tossed in a spicy tomato/bbq sauce!

I took a look around my pantry and realized I had what I needed so I started throwing things together to make the sauce! I had a few people ask me what was in the sauce and while I didn’t measure out the ingredients as I added them this is what it was to the best of my knowledge:

2 cups of tomato sauce
1/3 cup gochujang
1/4 cup sriracha
2 tbsp sesame oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1-2 tbsp whole grain mustard
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 cloves minced garlic
1/2″ nub of ginger grated
2 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar

You add all of those ingredients together in a small pot and stir to cook on medium heat until it starts to bubble, and you continue to let it bubble on medium/low for 8 minutes or until it thickens up slightly. Then turn off the heat or keep on low while you fry the wings.

To fry the wings instead of just doing flour and then breadcrumbs which will give you more of the classic American style fried chicken, you simply dunk them in a 50:50 mix of cornstarch (or potato starch) and flour (plus whatever salt and pepper or spice you want to season with), then into egg, then back into the dry mix before frying in oil (I chose canola because it has a higher smoke point of 400F) at 350F for ~6 minutes depending on the size of the bites or until a very light golden brown (see picture below) has been achieved. Once fried, take it out of the oil with a slotted spoon or spider and place on cooling rack, tossing in salt immediately after taking it out (you must salt right away or they won’t be seasoned!). Finally, when you’ve finished the batch or while the second or third batch is frying, toss the wings in your spicy bbq sauce to finish them! Below is a picture of the wing with the sauce and then next to it before the sauce to show just how far I fried mine.

These wings were fairly spicy (and I would like to say I can handle moderately spicy food) and the sauce definitely gets stronger after a day in the fridge if you fry half your chicken the first day and half the second day like I did. So if you’re not that into spicy foods you can always lower the amount of gochujang and sriracha, or if you like your mouth to be on fire feel free to add more! Either way these wings were INCREDIBLY delicious and mouthwatering and I hope you try these out!!

Fresh Pasta with Cured Egg Yolk!

I LOVE making fresh pasta. It’s so therapeutic for me and just the process of working everything by hand makes me slow down and just enjoy it that much more. I had seen a while ago when Brad Leone from Bon Appetit made cured egg yolks and it was something that I wanted to do but was a little apprehensive.

Well, a couple weekends back I had some extra egg yolks after making a chocolate soufflé so I figured why not give it a shot. I watched the video above a couple times to make sure it was as easy as it looked, and yeah, it was! I let the eggs sit in the salt and sugar for 6 days before taking them out and then finishing the dehydration process in a 175F oven for ~45-50 minutes. To my pleasure, they were perfect when I took them out! The knife slid right through and showed a completely set interior and I couldn’t wait to use it the next day. I threw together the pasta you see above and below and then also added a little bit of mild italian sausage, some toasted sourdough breadcrumbs from my previous loaf, and some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Finally I was ready to microplane the egg yolk on top and it was so smooth! I used a half of a chicken egg yolk on each dish for my wife and I and I didn’t really think it would do much to the flavor but I was wrong!! It added just a different silky, umami flavor that I wasn’t expecting! It may take a bit of time to make these (although very low effort), but if you’re able to plan ahead, I highly recommend!

Sourdough Pizza!!

Sourdough pizza. One of the tastiest things I make that I don’t make nearly often enough. Making pizza from scratch is delicious enough by itself but once I found a video from Bon Appetit last year, I switched my pizza from being with commercial yeast only to a combination which is sourdough starter predominantly.

There is less rise that you get overall from the crust (which I prefer), but the taste is so much more complex and it really complements the pizza toppings that I usually use. My favorite pizza (pictured above) starts with a pesto base, topped with proscuitto and feta cheese, which I finish with some fresh parmesan and a balsamic glaze to give just a little more acid to cut through the fattiness of the cheese. This is by far one of my most balanced pizzas, and every time I make pizza, this is what I choose to make.

A key thing to remember when preparing your own pizza, is to have semolina flour on your cutting board (I couldn’t find mine last night so I used course cornmeal), so that your dough doesn’t stick to the board while you’re preparing your toppings. Then I layered a nice pesto base on the stretched out dough and covered everywhere I wanted there to be toppings since this won’t spread in the oven.

I then put down the prosciutto in ribbons from all four “sides” of the pizza and then scattered the feta around. From here I pop it into the oven on my pizza stone as hot as my oven will go and bake for ~12 minutes since my oven only goes to about 480.

Here’s what it looked like fresh out of the oven!!! I’m going to post the ingredients and steps below and I hope you try it out for yoursefl!!!

Ingredients:

500g white flour
100g whole wheat 
390g warm water
120g mature sourdough starter
14g olive oil
12g salt 
1 tsp active dry yeast 

Feed starter ~8-9 hours before using it in the dough mix (just need it to be active and fermented well from the feeding to use in dough). 

Mix the flours, water, starter, olive oil, salt, and active dry yeast in stand mixer with dough hook and run on lowest speed until the dough completely comes together and doesn’t stick to the side of the bowl. 

Flour a bench top and then knead the dough adding sparse amounts of flour until a smooth ball is formed (~1-2 minutes)

Oil a bowl and then dab some oil on the top of the dough ball before placing it in the bowl and covering with a towel to rise in a warm place for 2-3 hours. 

Place cling wrap over the bowl tightly and place in fridge to finish first rise for ~24 hours. Then take dough out of the fridge and divide into 2-4 dough balls. 

Shape these dough into balls and place on a pan or in separate bowls and cover with cling wrap again to prove in the fridge for up to 24 more hours. 

Take dough out of the fridge and allow to come to room temperature and finish proving at room temperature for 30 minutes before using to make pizza. 

Enjoy!!!

Honey Garlic Glazed Pork Chops

Pork chops are not something usually on many people’s weeknight dinner rotations. It’s not the first thing I think of when I’m thinking about making a trip to the store, and even when I see them, I don’t immediately think of recipes or things I’d like to cook with them. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but when I saw these pork chops at Trader Joe’s, I knew they were calling me (not really but they looked good). I picked them up without any thought of how I would cook them but I figured that was a problem for later Paul.

After googling some recipes at the end of work last week I came across this recipe that called for honey garlic glazed pork chops. Now this is right up my alley and perfect since I don’t have an electric grill that I can quickly turn on to throw some pork chops on. The recipe claimed to be start to finish 20 minutes long and what more do you need for a weeknight meal?

So armed with a plan and the proper ingredients which are all pantry staples, I went home and cranked this dish out! It did take a surprisingly short amount of time and it was incredibly delicious it took all my patience to take the photos without sticking a knife directly in it from the pan! I highly recommend you give pork chops another chance and if you do, try it with a honey garlic pan glaze and you won’t regret it!

Shakshuka Meets Eggs in Purgatory Meets Pantry Leftovers

One of my foodie friends @thedancers_pantry recently brought attention towards food insecurity and food deserts – a global issue familiar to many. She started @feed_for_10 in order to help bring some awareness and help share ways we can all try to fight food insecurity.

I decided to not really have a purposeful intention behind the creation of this dish because often times, the most helpful recipes are just utilizing what’s leftover in the kitchen/fridge when you’ve already made most of the meals that you had prepared for. This was how this dish came about. I like to think it’s a riff on eggs in purgatory and shakshuka (both amazing dishes), but was born from what I had left in my pantry and in my fridge to cook up on a Sunday night.

Cherry tomatoes, red chili flakes, tomato sauce, garlic, eggs, and some dried pasta with a piece of toasted bread bring this flavor-packed dish together. While it’s simple in ingredients, the flavor is undeniably warm and is exactly what you want as the weather starts to turn a bit colder. The whole recipe (which you will be able to find on the @feed_for_10 page) cost less than $6 to feed 2 people. I know that the issues of food insecurity and food deserts can’t be solved by simply creating recipes that are cost-effective, but doing what we can for who we can is all that we can ask for. So I encourage you to look at ways that you can help those around you live happier and healthier lives.

Agnolotti with Pea/Mascarpone Filling and a Lemon Cream Butter Sauce

Pasta. Even just typing this word out gets me a bit excited and intrigued. I’ve loved pasta my entire life. Once I started cooking enough to where I wanted to make my own pasta, a whole new world opened up for me. I realized just how silky and smooth and versatile pasta is! Whether you go for an enriched dough (like this one) that incorporates eggs and egg yolks or whether you make a pasta dough that is primarily semolina flour and water, the possibilities of what you can do with these shapes is seemingly endless.

I have been working on expanding my pasta making skills for a few weeks now (shoutout @pastasocialclub for the inspiration) and this shape was an entirely new, and delicious experience for me. I love watching great chefs work at what they do best and I watched a video of Thomas Keller (a culinary master and true food genius of the French Laundry) make these pea and mascarpone agnolotti and I knew that I had to try this shape. I watched the video a couple times to get the idea of the technique down and realized it really wasn’t too complicated and thankfully didn’t involve any complex folding patterns.

One of the things I’m coming to realize about this process is just how much I like taking photos of process shots. Especially for these agnolotti, I absolutely had some fun pausing throughout the process a couple times to get some close ups.

You can see already in this picture the pillow shape that starts to develop through the separation and formation of individual agnolotti from the continuous rope. The next part went quickly as I used my pasta tool just to separate and create the final sealing edge for each piece of stuffed pasta resulting in some very plump, but very appetizing looking agnolotti.

Once these pasta were shaped and ready to boil, I started to get my quick sauce together just by throwing some butter, cream, lemon zest, salt and pepper, and finally pasta water (post cooking the pasta to get all the starchy goodness) to bring it all together. The ending result was completely delicious and while it took some time, it was absolutely worth it and I know I’ll keep this recipe for future use!