The Seafood Dinner with Turnips

So, yeah, I've been eating too much bacon since I gave up keeping kosher. Something like three times a week worth of bacon. When I wandered into the Thrifty Sifter's C-Town Grocery Store and discovered that they have an excellent fish selection (even grouper!) I decided to make an all-fish dinner.

Appetizer - Spicy Garlic Shrimp
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 dried chilis, but in half lengthwise and seeded
- 12 to 16 jumbo shrimp or large prawns
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil

At the outset, I'm going to recommend leaving some of the seeds in as we could barely taste the spicy. Also, I know I made a no-no below with the garlic as it wasn't all the same size. I keep forgetting to bring my whet stone over to the Thrifty Sifter's house to sharpen up her cutlery.

At any rate, pre-heat your pan, then add the oil. When it's shimmering, add the chilis and garlic. Cook until just before the garlic starts to turn brown.

Add the shrimp or prawns. Stir-fry for 8 - 10 minutes.

Serve and eat! We ate this while I was cooking up the swordfish.

This swordfish. I bought all the main ingredients without consulting a recipe, so we had to figure them out on the fly. Having worked in a fish restaurant for nearly five years, I can cook most any seafood without a recipe, but prefer to try new things. Here we hit up Epicurious for pan-roasted swordfish steaks with mixed peppercorn butter. The Thrifty Sifter made up that butter for me while I was making the shrimp. She's a great chef de partie.

Cooking them up top of the stove in hot oil for three minutes.

And after they come out of the oven, they are fantastic! Wouldn't change a thing about these.

The side here is braised turnips with poppy seed bread crumbs. I would cut the lemon juice in half here as I found them to be too lemony. The Thrifty Sifter felt they were just right. 

Your soundtrack for this entry: Judas Priest - Breaking the Law. 

The Glorious Chicken

I've been crowing up and down about this dish since I made it last night. So, yes, that's not a long time, but I did incredibly well with it. It was made off-the-cuff with mostly ingredients for which I had a hankering.

The Glorious Chicken
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsps ground coriander
1 tbsp fresh sage, chopped
1 tsp salt
4 dried, red chilies, crushed
cider vinegar to coat breasts for marinating (about a cup)

The Glorious Poblano Sautee
1 poblano pepper (diced)
5 - 6 baby portabella muschrooms (sliced stemwise)
2 pearl onions (sliced)
1 tbsp olive oil

Place chicken breasts in a deep dish or tupperware container. Coat the chicken in all of the ingredients and mix. Place in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. Flip once.

Heat a large pan or iron skillet on medium-high (if using a pan add 2 tbsps olive oil). Spoon some of the marinade mixture, especially the fresh sage, over the breasts. Cook for fifteen minutes. Then flip and cook for another 7 minutes.

Mmm...pre-sautee. You'll want to pre-heat a pan, the add the olive oil. Start with the onions until slightly translucent. Then add the poblano for a minute. Finish off with the mushrooms. Should take no more than four minutes total.

Alongside this dish I served an inexpensive Chilean carménère from Natura. It was an excellent wine and only lost me $9.

The final product was fantastic, with a wonderful interplay of coriander and red chili. Tender chicken with plenty of juiciness served with a complementary spicy side of a different flavour. Damn I did good. 

Your soundtrack for this entry: Agalloch - The Black Lake Nidstang

The Chicken Chili

Let's get one thing straight: I love chili. For the last 16 years I've also kept kosher. For those who know, that essentially means I can't eat many variations on chili since I can't mix meat and dairy. Personally, though, I never included poultry under the meat category for this. Birds don't have mammary glands and are descended from dinosaurs, so I'm not worried about "cooking the calf in the mother's milk" when it comes to chicken breasts and cheese.

For this recipe I got together:
- a pair of chicken breasts (boneless)
- two cups of chicken stock
- two cans of sliced, pickled jalapenos
- one 28 ounce can of stewed tomatoes
- one 12 ounce can of red kidney beans
- two medium yellow onions
- two poblano peppers
- 10 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 cup of molasses

I also added one of the dried peppers from The Dried Peppers. Not the Ghost ones, but their cousins. Good choice on my part. Added some tartness and, of course, a plethora of heat.

Dice the chicken into half-inche pieces.

Season with some chili powder, coriander, salt, and fresh-ground pepper.

Slice the poblanos into thin strips. Ensure that you seed these as the added dried pepper will certainly add to the heat enough.

Pop into the stewing ingredients.

Add the pickled jalapeno slices.

Stew for an hour.

I'll admit to being a little lazy on this one. I didn't really record my recipe and as this is several days after making it I'm winging the recipe. Clearly you add the tomatoes and beans after stewing the other ingredients for a while and, honestly, I expect you to figure out the right mix of this recipe for you.

Chili is like choosing a sex partner; it's very individual for the discriminating palate.

Your soundtrack for this entry: Masque of Death - Abeyance