Writing With My Mouth Full

Tandoori Chicken

I was like a kid walking down the aisles of Kalustyan’s, the specialty food store in Curry Hill here in New York City. I found myself subtracting from my cart when it was time to pay for my purchases because I got carried away and bought spices I knew I already had at home.

I buy my oriental spices from Asia Food and Market in Chinatown, but Kalustyan’s carries more of the South Asian and Mediterranean ingredients that are not well-stocked downtown. I picked up some powdered lemongrass and dried curry leaves for my signature dishes, but I also bought new stashes of spice I regularly use like cumin, cinnamon and turmeric. I like buying them whole because I find great pleasure in grinding them by hand using my mortar and pestle and lining them up as I do my mise en place before cooking.

I chose to do tandoori chicken after a good night of eating Bangladeshi food one night last week. We skipped the usual suspects of tandoori and brown curries and opted to try dishes I’ve never seen before that came in all shades of yellow. While eating, we noticed that we were eating the same food that the taxi drivers were enjoying. I wondered out loud why they would even have tandoori chicken on the menu if no one ordered it. I know it’s probably for the diners who want to see something familiar so that the other dishes don’t sound too intimidating. The next day, I thought I’d made my own chicken tandoori just to see if it’s really an easy recipe to do at home. It is and so you might not see me paying for tandoori any time soon.

Ingredients:
4 pieces of chicken legs, 3 pieces of chicken breasts
1 cup whole milk plain yogurt
a pinch of saffron threads, soaked in 2 tbsps hot water
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp hot paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chili powder
1 small knob ginger, peeled, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 lemon
oil, salt, pepper

1. Using a sharp knife, score the chicken flesh, each piece slashed two or three times. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper and transfer to a glass baking dish.
2. Combine all the spices in a bowl with the ginger and garlic. Add the saffron including the hot water and mix everything together. Massage the spice marinade on the chicken, enough to evenly coat every nook and cranny. Using a spatula, spread yogurt all over the spiced chicken pieces. Cover the glass dish and refrigerate for several hours up to overnight.
3. When ready to cook, heat a frying pan with some oil. In the meantime, preheat oven 350º. Remove the chicken pieces from the baking dish and fry them until brown on one side. (I scraped off most of the yogurt and removed the larger ginger and garlic pieces.) Turn and fry until browned on the other side. Transfer to a new baking dish and cook in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Squeeze some lemon juice on them before serving.

Cabbage Soup with White Beans and Sausage

I’ve only seen two episodes of Top Chef Masters on Bravo but I’m already hooked. It’s obvious that the participants are real chefs because they all get along and act professionally under pressure. Their demeanors separate them from the whiney amateurs of Top Chef. During the first episode, chef Michael Schlow sweated his way through the Quickfire Challenge in an airy stainless steel-filled handsome kitchen, but effortlessly turned out a soup of cabbage with white beans in a dorm room. I made note that the next time it rains and I want to eat some soup, I would replicate his dish.

Well, it’s been raining in New York City almost non-stop for the last two weeks. I finally got some alone time to concentrate in the kitchen and cook without anyone bothering me. There weren’t any ham hocks in my Harlem supermarket–I know, right? That’s like running out of ground pork in a Filipino store–so I ended up using the last of the sausages from La Tienda. The pimiento flavor gave the soup a hint of red-orange and made an otherwise white and pale bowl of soup colorful.

Ingredients:
1 cabbage, cut in half then sliced into strips
1 cup of white beans, soaked in water for at least an hour
1 pimento sausage, sliced
1 carrot, chopped
4 stalks of celery, chopped
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 sprigs of thyme
1 small red onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
vegetable broth
oil, salt, pepper

1. Heat some oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add sausage slices and sauté until brown around edges, about 5 minutes. Add cabbage; sauté 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.
2. Add some more oil to same pot. Saué garlic until golden brown and onions until translucent. Add carrots and celery and sauté until soft, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Return the sausage and cabbage mixture. Add herbs, beans and broth and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender, covered, about 1 hour. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Curried Duck Legs with Rhubarb

The duck legs were $10 cheaper in Chinatown than at Whole Foods, but Chinatown doesn’t even sell rhubarb and five long stalks were on sale for $2 at Whole Foods. My wish is to just have one store to go to when I need to buy ingredients for cooking; a place with fresh and hard-to-find, yet affordable, produce. Until then, I’ll have to make long and separate trips all over the city.

This recipe from last week’s New York Times caught my eye because I haven’t cooked with duck in a long time and I’ve really only baked with rhubarb. Not to mention my recent kick with Indian flavors, I just wanted something I can reheat for next week’s lunches. I revised the recipe a little bit to avoid using a food processor for the spices–I was just too lazy to wash another gadget. The end result was duck meat that easily fell off the bone in thick sauce that was a balance of tart and sweet: perfect over warm basmati rice and some sautéed bok choy.

Ingredients:
4 duck legs
5 stalks rhubarb, chopped
1 small can coconut milk
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 small knob of ginger, peeled, sliced
1 red onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp hot paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric
oil, salt, pepper

1. Toss salt with duck legs before cooking. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over high heat. Brown duck legs, about 7 minutes per side. Turn and brown other side. Transfer to a bowl.
2. While duck browns, mash half of the onion with the ginger and garlic using a mortar and pestle. Transfer to a bowl and combine with all the spices. Season with salt.
3. When duck is done, spoon out all but about 2 tbsps of fat from skillet. Add remaining onions and a large pinch of salt. Sauté until soft, 5 minutes. Add seasoned ginger-garlic paste and cook until most of the liquid evaporates, about 2 minutes.
4. Add coconut milk and 2 cups water, and bring to a simmer. Add rhubarb, brown sugar and duck legs. Bring to a boil. Cover and turn heat to low, and simmer gently for 1 hour, turning duck pieces halfway through. Uncover pan, turn duck again, and let simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.

Watermelon Granita

For our first barbecue, I wanted to serve a simple summer dessert that everyone would enjoy after eating all the pork belly and chicken. I donâ€™t know how heavy watermelons are in your area, but in Harlem, a quarter of a melon is good enough for this recipe–it fed five people with second servings. And at 69 cents a pound, itâ€™s also the least expensive dessert I can think of with minimal effort. The watermelon juice that didnâ€™t fit in the glass dish went into three tall glasses spiked with Grey Goose.

Ingredients:
watermelon flesh, chopped in manageable pieces
1/4 cup sugar
juice from 1 lemon
mint leaves

1. Put all watermelon pieces in a large glass bowl and sprinkle all over with sugar. Let stand for an hour in room temperature. In the meantime, put a square baking glass dish in the freezer.
2. Using a blender, purée the sugared watermelon and their juices with 1/2 cup of water and a squirt of the lemon juice. Taste and add more lemon juice if necessary. There should be a perfect balance of light sweetness and some tart.
3. Remove the glass dish from the freezer and pour in blended watermelon juice. Return to the freezer and freeze.
4. After 30 minutes, the watermelon should begin to freeze. Scrape off frozen bits from the side of the glass dish and move them to the center. Return to the freezer. Repeat three more times before serving with mint leaves.

Related post/s:
I forgot I made celery granita before

Unctuous Pork Belly

Could there be a better word to describe pork belly other than unctuous? I’ve loved that word ever since I experienced the cooking of Chef Fergus Henderson in London back in 2005. Seeing that word in the New York Times a few weeks ago when they featured Adam Perry Lang’s Serious Barbecue recipe brought back good food memories. I saved the barbecue article and it came in handy when it was time to inaugurate the Dr.’s backyard with a small get-together.

We started the marinating process a day early and braised the meat for five hours the day of. It was a lot of time, but the result was definitely worth it. Note that during Step 4, you might need an extra hand transferring the pork from the baking dish to the grilling basket to keep it in one piece. The meat will fall apart with the gentlest poke and it will even be softer after grilling. Also, the original recipe called for bourbon, but whisky worked just fine for us.

I transferred the sieved braising juice to a Tupperware and stored it in the freezer: imagine the fried eggs we can cook with all that belly fat…

Ingredients:
1 4-pound piece of pork belly, skin-on
1/4 cup whisky
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsps unsalted butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 sprigs of parsley, roughly chopped
a splash of cider vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
red pepper flakes
salt, pepper

For the marinade:
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 sprigs of rosemary
3 sprigs of thyme
1 serrano pepper, sliced
10 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
salt, pepper

1. Put the pork belly in a large freezer bag with all the marinade ingredients plus 1 cup of water. Squeeze to remove air, then seal and refrigerate overnight.
2. When ready to cook, heat oven to 275º. Place pork in a 13-by-9-inch baking dish with marinade, butter and enough water to cover. Cover with heavy-duty foil, crimping edges tightly. Braise in oven 5 hours; let rest in pan, covered with the same foil, 2 hours.
3. Meanwhile, simmer whisky in a small pan over medium heat until alcohol aroma fades. Stir in sugar, parsley, vinegar and pepper flakes. Cover and set aside.
4. Heat a grill. Carefully remove pork from pan and place in a grilling basket. Grill skin-side down over medium-low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until skin is crisp and golden. Remove from heat and brush skin side with 1/4 of the whisky glaze, then return to heat, skin-side up, for another 5 minutes. Remove pork from heat once more and brush meat side with 1/4 of the glaze, then return to heat, meat-side up, for another 5 minutes. Repeat with remaining glaze on both sides.
5. Place pork skin side up on cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes before taking apart and eating.