While I’m in China, I’ll have a series of guest posters and backlogged posts going up.
Hi all! Jessie’s subconscious here. While Jessie sleeps in China, I’m freed up to do a post about the kind of food I really like. You’ll read many post about tasty vegetables and so forth, like Beans and Cauliflower and Greenola? Noticeably absent has been a post about fried food. Until now. Now’s the chance for me to break out and make some of that delicious fried food I’ve been pining for ever since January 2009.
Fried Food!
Today I will be making a complete fried meal. One of the first fried foods that springs to mind is chicken, an item that will be featured prominently in this post. Chicken takes awhile to prepare, so we’ve got to start on that early. Begin by making a tasty brine. Brining is a great way to keep chicken moist and impart some extra flavor. A brine is built off the basic ingredients of water, salt, and something sweet. In this case I added thyme, bay leaves, lemon, and used honey as the sweetener. If you’ve got some nice non-clover honey, feel free to use that.
Each one tastes different!
Incidentally, Jessie took the camera with her and hid it, so I had to dig up the old one that takes crappy indoor pictures. Thanks, Jessie.
After brining the chicken for several hours, it’s ready for a coating and some frying. I used a potent double-dip combo of flour, paprika, rosemary, oregano, salt, pepper, and garlic, onion, and chile powders with coconut-flavored half-and-half in between.
Crappy camera.
Fry for 11 minutes at 320 degrees in peanut oil if you have it. Jessie doesn’t stock peanut oil, probably because of subsidies to the peanut industry or something. After 11 minutes, you should have something delicious-looking like this:
Even the garnish is fried. Notice Jessie's subconscious's drink of choice.
If any oil spills during the process, rely on the dog to clean up.
Maadba
But wait! What dinner is complete, with just the meat! (Poetry) You need your bread, fruit, vegetable, and sweet! (More poetry) (Milk takes care of the dairy, or have some fried ice cream). Good thing I thought of all of that ahead of time. Behold!
From left to right, polenta, tomato, banana, and Clif Kids bar. The bar got lost in the oil.
How can you turn down a dinner like this? Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to wait until next January to have it again.
And that’s it! My guess is that Jessie will lock down her subconscious for future posts, so enjoy while you can!
What’s your favorite fried food? Eggs don’t count!
Remember how Peter and I celebrated the end of my final exams last week with a Cuban Feast? This morning, Peter finished his LAST law school final exam ever! :D He peeled through his last final exam faster than these hanging overripe bananas peeled away from their skins.
(Picture preceded by a “thunk, THUNK” in the sink below.)
We celebrated with a Jessie-cooked meal of chicken and artichokes, specifically:
Balsamic Chicken with Sauteed Pears and Blue Cheese
Ingredients:
1 lb. chicken tenders or chicken breast
2 tsp canola oil
2 ripe Bosc pears, cores removed and pears sliced into wedges
1/2 chicken or veggie broth
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese (optional)
Cook the chicken tenders by your favorite method. I simmered the tenders in water to keep them moist, but you can also bake them or cook them in a pan. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and saute the pears until soft, about 3 minutes.
Combine broth, balsamic vinegar, and cornstarch and mix thoroughly. Add to pears and cook until sauce is thickened.
Arrange chicken and pears on plate and pour sauce over all. Add blue cheese if desired (I didn’t have any, but adding cheese would taste gooood).
Fruit and balsamic vinegar make such a delicious combination! Adding blue cheese would taste even better … if you like blue cheese, of course. If not, well, I don’t know you. :P
I also made Christina‘s Stuffed Artichokes, a recipe I bookmarked a while back and that I’ve been itching to try. Usually, I just boil artichokes and serve them with a mayo-mustard sauce for Peter (boooooooring), but this recipe had me salivating and saying mmm-MMM!
I’ve never cut the tips off the artichoke leaves before – I always thought it was a time consuming frivolity that fancy restaurants did to impress their patrons, but it was actually really easy! And look how gorgeous they be:
Who knew artichokes were so beautiful??
Look how much stuff I pulled out of the artichoke centers:
Artichokes are definitely not a thrifty vegetable.
Full of stuffing:
After baking:
Great recipe, Christina! Peter is usually devoted to his mayo-mustard dip, but he loved this recipe :)
I’ve been working on a backlog of posts to go up periodically while I’m in China. I also have a number of guest posts in the queue by some wonderful bloggers that I’m very excited about! I’ll also have a guest post by my sister (haha, you can’t get out of it now, C!!). In any case, there should be some THIH action going on over the next month and a half.
Stay tuned for a fun post on Sunday! On Saturday, I’ll be getting another “credential” after my name. What “credential”, you ask? Hehehehe ;)
Q: Do you like artichokes? How do you like to prepare/eat them?
