Recipe: Cajun Asian Chicken stir-fry

This is an oft-requested, semi-weird variation on a basic chicken stir-fry, using our old favorite Louisiana Hot Sauce as a major ingredient. (Yes, that’s the same brand-name stuff you’ll remember from other postings.) Since you can stir-fry anything, creating any kind of flavor you wish, this is just a starting point. And, truth is, I don’t think I’ve ever done this exactly the same way twice. So have fun! Add, subtract, alter, adjust, and then eat very, very well . . .

here's what you'll need . . .
boneless skinless chicken breast, about 1 per person (2 big ones will serve three people, 3 big ones for four or five people . . . )
‘cheap’ peanut oil to cook with
sesame oil
soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Maggi seasoning sauce
fish sauce (Tiparos is great)
black bean paste (if you’ve got any)
Louisiana Hot Sauce
½ of a fresh lemon and/or lime
white wine
fresh coarse ground black pepper (Tellicherry, of course)
1 or 2 peeled garlic cloves
cornstarch
veggies et. al. (any combination of at least 5; 10 is even better).
We like carrots, yellow onions or green onions or vidalia onions or even red Spanish onions, red bell peppers, green bell peppers, yellow bell peppers, hot peppers of any ilk, snow peas, sweet peas, green beans, wax beans, zucchini, summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower, black olives, ordinary tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, plum tomatoes, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, ordinary mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, straw mushrooms, bok choy, cabbage, lettuce, previously cooked potatoes, and/or anything else you have hanging around that you’d like to get rid of . . . !

Here's how you do it.

The first secret of a successful stir-fry lies in the contrast and combination of the various ingredients in terms of color, flavor and texture. The meat or fish part of the meal is but an accent; artistry lives in the rest of the choices. I’m not sure where I heard it, but somebody once said a classic Chinese stir fry had to include at least 5 colors. Certainly sounds like a good idea to me . . .

The second secret is to chop, slice, and dice all the ingredients so they are bite sized. I’ve been told that in Chinese households, it is considered a great insult to serve food that cannot be picked up with chopsticks and eaten without any further cutting.

But there’s a practical side to the size of the whacked up tidbits too; cooking time can be controlled.

I happen to be a proponent of the ‘layered flavors’ approach to cooking most everything. I like to add one ingredient, then ‘layer on’ the flavor of the next and so on. But if circumstance (or just plain curiosity) requires, you can toss everything in at once – as long as you’ve sized your bits appropriately. Cut them up so the longer cooking items are the smaller pieces and the quicker cooking items are the larger pieces, and everything will finish in the same amount of time.

To prepare this meal my way, you need to have all the veggies cut up and distributed on a variety of plates (by cooking time) before you start. The chicken needs to sit in its marinade for at least 20 minutes (up to an hour or so is even better) before you cook it. And rice takes 30 minutes (after the water boils) to achieve perfection. If you’re cooking for two and you’re Zorro’s cousin with a blade, you can start the rice, cut the chicken, get the marinade built, cut all the veggies and be ready to cook before the rice is done. If you’re cooking for a crowd or you’re a little hesitant about whirling Chinese knife blades, take the slow road; do the marinade first, then chop the veggies, then start the rice.



The marinade is very simple. Whack up the chicken and distribute it, one layer deep only, on as many plates as required.



Pour a Tbsp. or so (per chicken breast or two) of sesame oil on the chicken and massage it in so that all sides of every piece get well coated (your hands are going to stay messy throughout this procedure, so remember to uncap all the bottles before you start!) You’ll have to adjust the quantity of oil so that all the chicken gets a coating without leaving (much of) a puddle in the bottom of the plate.

Then sluice the coated chicken with the soy. Once again, massage it in. Then spritz the chicken with the Worcestershire suace and massage it in. If you’re going to add some citrus, squirt it on now and stir everything around. Same with the black bean paste – now’s the time. I like about ½ a lemon or lime and about ½ tsp. of bean paste.

Next, douse the plate with Louisiana Hot Sauce. For the first blast, coat the entire top surface of the chicken until it’s red. Massage it in. Then put another coat of hot sauce on, and just leave it sitting on the surface. Finally, grind some fresh black pepper on top and let the chicken stand - up to an hour at room temperature. If you want to prepare the chicken and marinade far in advance, let the chicken sit in the marinade for 30 minutes at room temperature, then refrigerate. Take it out and let it warm up to room temperature when you start the rice (about 30 minutes before cooking time).



For this meal, it’s generally better to cook the veggies first, then the chicken. The chicken marinade tends to burn and over-flavor the veggies if you do the chicken first. Depending on the quantity, it takes 5-15 minutes to cook the veggies; about the same for the chicken; and another 3 - 5 minutes to complete and thicken up the sauce.

Before you start wokking things, uncork the white wine (you’ll need it for the final sauce) and stir 1 tsp. of cornstarch into 3 or 4 ounces of cold water.

Now if you’re really paying attention, you may be wondering, “But what about that Maggi stuff and the Tiparos?” Good catch. Now why an Italian product, Maggi sauce, has become a staple in Asian cooking is beyond my ken. But it has. And the flavor is wonderful. But it is salty, just like the Tiparos is salty. So adding even more salt to the already salty (soy sauce) marinade doesn’t seem like the best idea.

Instead, I like to put about ½ tsp. of the Maggi sauce in the rice water. And I like to squirt the Tiparos all over the tomatoes on the veggies plate. And as long as we’re spritzing things, how about a blast of sesame oil on top of the mushrooms! There. Now we’re ready . . .

Here’s our routine. About 15 minutes into the rice cook time, put the wok over high heat. Count to 37.5 and pour 1-2 Tbsp. cheap peanut oil into the bottom of the wok and swirl it around. Toss in one peeled garlic clove and wok it around with your cooking spatula for about 60 seconds and then remove it (if it starts to burn, take it out sooner - all you want to do is flavor the oil.) Start tossing in veggies. If you use carrots, begin with them. Wok them around till they’re half done, and toss in the next veggies.



My usual sequence is carrots, onions, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, water chestnuts, squash & zucchini, bean sprouts, tomatoes & black olives (I think I’ve got 5 colors in there . . .) When the veggies are done, scoop them out to a serving bowl and keep warm in a 150 - 200° F oven.



Replenish the cheap peanut oil in the wok; toss in another garlic clove and do the same thing to it that you did to the last one. As soon as you get the garlic clove out, start putting chicken in the hot oil (yes, your hands will get messy again!) Stir the chicken around as you slide each load in, and try to get it all into the wok within about 30-60 seconds (if you have three hands, the whole process works more smoothly; if you have only two hands, don’t worry about it, just do the best you can.)



Wok the chicken around until it’s done. We like our chicken pretty well done, so we keep wokking it until it begins to get ‘grainy’ (when you can see striations like wood grain on the surface of the cubes).



When the chicken is nearly done, scrape the rest of the marinade liquid into the wok, pour in a good sploosh of the white wine, wok it around for 30 seconds or so until you can smell the white wine and then start adding the cornstarch/water mixture.



Start small! 1 or 2 tsp. at a time. The idea is to get a nice shiny glaze to the chicken and the sauce, not to turn the sauce into dumplings. Wok the sauce around for at least 30 seconds between each addition of the cornstarch/water mixture, to see how thick it’s going to get. (If it starts getting too thick, thin it down with some more white wine or plain water or even more Hot Sauce.) When the sauce reaches your preferred thickness, turn the heat under the wok off; serve the rice; stir the sauce once more; scoop it all out into another serving bowl; get everything to the table as fast as you can. And eat. Very, very well.

Recipe: Chicken Cacciatore

An Italian classic, Chicken Cacciatore is great for weekends when you can devote the time to cooking it slowly and gently. But if the urge strikes for a Tuesday, what the heck, crank up the temperature and eat in about 90 minutes.

As you may note if you continue reading this site, we always have a good supply of Italian gravy in the refrigerator, but this is a dish that needs to create its own sauce. We've tried a couple of times to make it with the gravy ("It'll be quicker that way!"), but you end up with a tasty 'chicken legs in tomato sauce' dish, not with cacciatore. To make dinner for two . . .

here's what you'll need . . .
2 or 3 chicken leg and thigh pieces (often called leg quarters)
2 28 oz. (or 3 16 oz.) cans tomatoes (the Italian plum type works best, and Pastene are the best of the best!)
1 carrot (thinly sliced)
1 stalk celery (if Cathy isn't looking) chopped (1/8” pieces)
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
fresh mushrooms (anywhere from 8 to a pound, depending on taste)
8 - 16 ripe olives, thickly sliced (about 3 slices per olive)
1/3 cup each diced red and green peppers
1 or 2 (or 12 . . .) garlic cloves, minced
1 or 2 Tsp. dried oregano (if you have fresh, chop it coarsely and use 2 tsp.)
½ tsp. basil
(optional pinch thyme)
(optional pinch rosemary)
(optional 1/8 tsp. marjoram)
1/8 tsp. ground cayenne
1 or 2 bay leaves
freshly ground (big chunks) black pepper (Tellicherry, of course)
pinch of coarse (kosher) salt
white wine
olive oil
maybe some dried cilantro to garnish (fresh, if you’ve got it!)


(Okay, okay, so I hadn't sliced the mushrooms yet . . .)

Here's how you do it.

Wash the chicken legs and rip off all the excess fat. Heat a large skillet over high heat. (If you cram them in, you may be able to get 3 or even 4 leg quarters into a 12" pan; if you need to cook more than that, you'll need two skillets.)

When the pan is hot, pour in 1 Tbsp. per leg of olive oil, swirl, and toss in the legs, skin side down. Now slap a spatter shield over that sucker. Swirl, jiggle and otherwise agitate the pan until things calm down a bit. Turn the heat down to medium, or maybe even lower, and cook the chicken until the skin turns a rich golden brown (about 10 minutes?). Turn the chicken over and give it another 5 - 7 minutes. (If the pan smokes, turn down the heat! You want to crisp up the outside of the chicken to seal in the juices if you can, but not to let any of it burn or blacken.)



When you declare the chicken ‘browned,’ do what you can to rearrange the legs so the center area (or some area) of the skillet is open - you'll need the room for all the veggies that are about to come.

Next, toss in the carrots. Swirl, shake, toss and etc. until the carrots begin to turn that lighter, almost translucent color. Then toss in the onions. When they start to turn translucent and pick up some of the carrot color, toss in the celery. Stir, swirl, shake, etc. until the celery just begins to soften, then add the peppers and mushrooms. Again, swirl, stir, toss etc. until the mushrooms begin to darken. The idea is to get all these items started cooking, so you'll need to keep everything moving during this period. You don't want anything to "cook" thoroughly at this point.



As soon as the mushrooms show some color, toss in the garlic. As soon as you can smell the garlic aroma, toss in the olives. Count to about 30 (keeping everything moving as best you can) and pour in a good slug of white wine. The spitting should calm down quickly and the wine should start to bubble and froth.

Now add the tomatoes. And, yes, if you can get them in your area, use Pastene http://www.pastene.com . They are by far the best tasting, most consistently wonderful canned tomatoes available. In fact, check out all their products; I’ve yet to be disappointed in anything I’ve tried. Use the edge of your spatula to chop and dice and slice the tomatoes into chunks and pieces, and mix them up with all the other veggies in the pan.



Now, add all the herbs and spices (except the bay leaves) and mix everything up. Or don’t.



I keep going back and forth with this dish. If you want, try adding just the Tellicherry and the bay leaves. The salt is optional, too. Usually, canned tomatoes bring plenty of salt to any dish. But the Pastene seem pretty restrained, and this is a dish that wants a touch of an edge, so generally, I add a little salt. And sometimes, I put the whole spice rack in. Try it. All ways. It’s good no matter what . . .

OK. Whatever the state of your spicedness, rearrange the pan so the sauce-in-a-state-of-becoming mixture surrounds the chicken. Adjust the heat to a gentle simmer (if you were on medium, go to low or even less until everything settles down - you can always crank it up a bit later if you need to get it bubbling again.)



When you've got a gentle simmer going, spoon the sauce over, atop, and around everything, stick the bay leaves in, and go relax. Every 15 - 20 minutes, spoon fresh sauce over everything and generally stir things up.



Continue to simmer the dish until "done," which could mean anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours from this point. The chicken should be nearly falling off the bone when done. Serve over wide egg noodles with a salad and some bread (and a ton of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, of course).

Recipe: Paprika fried potatoes

Hi again and welcome to 2005. Here's one that was referenced last year, but didn't make it in . . .

These were first created to accompany grilled salmon (back when we thought farm raised salmon was safe to eat!) Now, however, they find their way into many meals, with or without ‘extras,’ cubed small or cut into large chunks as in this version. They are utterly simple and simply delicious.

here's what you'll need . . .
1 potato per person
coarse (Kosher) salt
freshly ground Tellicherry
your favorite paprika(s) (I like to use a mixture of Hungarian half-sharp and ordinary supermarket which tends to be a sweetish paprika)
olive oil
extras – onions, sliced mushrooms, red or green bell peppers, . . .

Here’s how you do it.

Peel the potatoes, if you must. Cathy prefers peeled; I prefer skin on: so we compromise. I peel the potatoes (most of the time). Put a skillet on to heat up. Pick a ‘bite size,’ anything from ½ a potato to a ½” cube, and cut your potatoes. Put 2 – 3 Tbsps. olive oil into the hot pan, swirl to fragrance, and toss in the potatoes.



As with most things skillet, on my stove the pan gets heated with the dial set at about 4 o’clock; when the food goes in the temperature gets turned down to about 8 o’clock. And that’s the way we do the potatoes. It takes about 20 – 30 minutes to cook a skillet-full to tenderness, and to allow the flavors to develop.

When the potatoes first go in, roll them around to make sure every surface gets coating of oil. Then let them sit and sizzle for 5 minutes or so before moving them around again. You don’t want to completely brown one side before turning to the next, but you do want to end up with at least a couple of sides nicely browned when you’re through. So give them a few minutes on each side before you star turning them frequently to ensure that they cook evenly.

If adding ‘extras,’ toss them in after the fist side begins to show some color. Just push the potatoes around the edge, and pile the goodies in the center. Stir them round and turn them over in the center a few times until they start to cook. Then you can mix everything up for the rest of the cooking.



After those first 5 minutes or so, and usually just before the extras go in, give the potatoes a goodly grinding or 12 of Tellicherry, and a very light sprinkle of the coarse salt. When you get ready to turn the potatoes the next time, add a hefty sprinkle of paprika. Then turn, pepper and paprika the next side. (If you’re a saltaholic, go ahead and add a little more – I prefer to finish the salting at the table, but hey . . .) And then just keep turning and cooking until you declare done!



If you want, put a layer of paper towel on a plate and turn the finished potatoes out onto that before you put them in a serving bowl. We like the olive oil, so usually just dump them directly into the serving bowl and head for the table!



Simple and delicious.