Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

Ed gave me a year subscription to Cook's Illustrated for Christmas and it's a game changer.  My goal is to make something new each weekend, so I'm getting good use out of the magazine.  This weekend was chicken and sausage gumbo.  I've never made gumbo before and I'm not even sure I've really had gumbo before, but ya'll...ya need to make this recipe.  I'm telling you...it was so so good.

It takes some time, about 90 minutes, but that's not all active time by any means.  It uses pretty common ingredients.  In fact, we subbed some things because I didn't feel like searching for andouille sausage on this island.  We struck out at Whole Paycheck and decided not to look any further.  Here are the substitutions I made...

chicken thighs - chicken breasts (probably would be even better with thighs though)
andouille sausage - Italian sausage (again, probably awesome with andouille)
fresh thyme - dried thyme
white vinegar - rice vinegar (what the heck, how do I not have white vinegar on hand?)

Despite my lame substitutions, it was great because the secret, I believe, is in the sauce.  It's all about toasting the flour to create a dry roux.  You throw the flour in a cast iron skillet and put it in the oven for about an hour, until it's the color of cinnamon.  That's where all your flavor comes from and holy cow, is it good.  I can't imagine that subbing a gluten free flour would have a negative impact on the final product.  I will say that the gumbo had a velvety texture so it's possible a GF flour would effect that, but I don't know enough about GF to say.

Anyway, here's the recipe.  Give it a shot, I doubt you'll be disappointed.  Oh, one more thing, if you're sensitive to spice, go easy on the cayenne.  I'm pretty sure I measured the cayenne and the final product had some kick to it.  Might be better to go easy and then add more if you need.  Oh and we both thought the addition of hot sauce after serving was awesome.

Ingredients
1 C flour
1 T vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped fine
1 green pepper, chopped fine
2 celery ribs, chopped fine
1 T minced fresh thyme (I used about 3/4 t of dried)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 t paprika
2 bay leaves
1/2 t cayenne
salt and pepper
4 C chicken broth, room temp
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed
8 oz andouille sausage, halved and sliced 1/4 inch thick
6 scallions, sliced thin
1 t distilled white vinegar
hot sauce, to taste for serving

Method

1. Heat oven to 425, adjust rack to middle.  Place flour in 12 inch skillet and bake, stirring occasionally until it's the color of ground cinnamon (approximately 40-55 minutes).  Towards the end it needs to be stirred more frequently.  Transfer to a bowl and let cool.
2. Heat oil in a dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering.  Add onion, pepper, and celery and cook until softened, about 5-7 minutes.  Stir in thyme, garlic, paprika, bay leaves, cayenne, 1/4 t salt, and 1/4 t pepper and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Stir in 2 cups of broth.  Add chicken in a single layer (it won't be completely submerged).  Bring to simmer, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until chicken is fork tender, about 15-17 minutes.  Transfer chicken to plate.
3. Slowly whisk remaining 2 cups of broth into flour until thick, smooth, batter-like paste forms.  Increase heat to medium and incorporate paste into gumbo, making sure each addition is fully incorporated before adding the next.  Stir in sausage.  Simmer, uncovered, until gumbo thickens slightly, about 20-25 minutes.
4. Shred chicken and put in gumbo with scallions.  Remove pot from heat and stir in vinegar and season with salt to taste (I didn't add any more salt).  Remove bay leaves.  Serve over rice with hot sauce.

It's stick-to-your-ribs good!

Enjoy,

Molly

Spam Musubi

Well, ya' go to Hawaii and what do you have to try?  Spam Musubi, of course.  Ya' come home from Hawaii and what do you have to do?  Buy a Musubi press and try it yourself!

Japanese Style Pickles

If you Google "Japanese Pickle Recipes" there are a number which use rice vinegar, salt, and sugar - seems to form the basis of Japanese pickle making and I look forward to a lot more exploration.  But for now, I started with a recipe for soy/ginger pickled cucumber spears.  That's nor what I made, of course but it is where I started.

The recipe called for pickling cucumber spears and fresh ginger slices in a marinade of rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, and toasted sesame oil.  I used a sliced seedless cucumber rather than spears and used some pickled ginger strips which we had picked up at the Asian market in Philly.  These are definitely ginger but not really very tasty, useful for adding to other things but not something you would want to eat by itself.  I substituted apple cider vinegar for rice vinegar because that's what I had and honey for sugar because I prefer it.

The pickling brine consists of
1/3 c. vinegar
1/3 c. soy sauce (I used Kikkomen's)
2 T. sugar (I used honey)
1/4 t. Toasted Sesame Oil



Slice the cuc's and ginger as you want them,

1. Put soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar and toasted sesame oil in a bowl and stir until sugar has dissolved.
2. Put cucumber and ginger in a ziploc bag and pour vinegar mix on top. Removed air before sealing the bag. Once sealed, lightly massage the cucumber and ginger, making sure the pickling liquid evenly coats all the vegetables.
3. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and for no more than 12. Drain pickling vinegar and keep the cucumber and ginger pickles in the fridge.

I saved the brine and used it for another batch.

This is about as easy as it gets and the pickles were awesome!

Pretty Good Zucchini Fritters

Did I sell it to you?  Pretty good.

If I'm being honest, I don't use a lot of fancy ingredients anymore, mostly because it's too expensive.  And since the exhaustion of pregnancy and having a newborn hit, I tend to cook pretty darned simply.  It was a miracle that I tried a new recipe last night at all.

That said, these fritters were good and healthy, though nothing fancy.  I made a half recipe and we ate them up.  I recommend the accompanying yogurt sauce.  I made it as written, except I left out the mint because I didn't have any.  Also I wouldn't say that I necessarily measured as much as estimated.

Instead of posting the recipe, I'll just post a link to the blog where I found it.

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2015/08/17/zucchini-fritters-with-garlic-herb-yogurt-sauce/

Molly

Fish Quesadilla

I don't think we've had a discussion of quesadillas on the blog yet.  We've taken to making these as a great way to use up small bits of leftovers, especially things like spicy beans.  Or sometimes we will start from scratch with chicken strips and mixed vegetables or some such. 

The other night we got a reasonably good piece of cod fish from the store and ate it broiled with salt, pepper, and lemon juice with baked potato slices and steamed broccoli - very good in a straight up, traditional way.  Last night I sauteed up the left over fish, some left over rice, and fresh asparagus from the  garden with salt, pepper, a little horseradish, and some fresh lemon zest and used it for quesadilla filling.  We use shredded orange cheddar for the cheese cause that's what we tend to have, not too much, don't what to overpower the flavor of the fish.  Served it up with just a little bit of salsa (again, don't overpower) along with a big plate of lightly steamed fresh asparagus (you know what season we're in).  This was a winner.  The lemon zest provided a brilliant  high, light overtone.

Perfect Brownies

I recently developed a brownie recipe that I think yields something that can legitimately be called the perfect brownie.  I've had three independent groups proclaim these to be pretty much the best, so I feel somewhat justified in my claim.  This yields a straight-up chocolate brownie, moist and somewhat fudgy, definitely not dry, but just cakey enough to be different from flourless chocolate cake.

I adapted the recipe from one I found on Epicurious.com (originally published in Gourmet in Oct, 2003), and I applied some principles I learned from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook to get a deep, rich chocolate flavor.

2 sticks (1 c) unsalted butter
8 oz bittersweet chocolate (I use Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips)

1 c white sugar
1/3 c brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 t vanilla
1/2 t instant coffee dissolved in 3/4 t water

7/8 c all purpose flour (1 cup minus 2 T) = 3.94 oz
3/8 c cocoa (1/4 c + 2 T) (I use a mix of dutched and non-dutched cocoa)
1 t baking powder
1/2 salt
1/2 t cinnamon

Melt butter and chocolate over low heat, then remove from heat and whisk in sugar.  Allow to cool briefly, then add eggs one at a time, whisking after each egg until batter is smooth.  Whisk in the remaining wet ingredients.  Stir together the dry ingredients, then add to the chocolate mixture, whisking just until all the dries are incorporated.

Bake in a buttered 8X8" or 10X6" or so baking dish.  I usually line mine with parchment paper and then butter that to make it easy to remove the brownies from the pan.  Bake at 325 degrees for 35-40 min or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out "mostly" clean without any raw batter on it.

Lentils

I had a very Keck moment last night when it came to dinner.  Tom was working late and I wanted to make something that I could make quickly and easily but could be left on the stove for awhile.  One of the food blogs I search had a recipe for lentils and I was inspired.  I really felt like a Keck as I made lentils and rice for dinner.  Even more so when we both loved it.

Anyway, each time we eat lentils, which is somewhat rarely, we always enjoy it and say we should eat more of them.  That's good considering how big of a pot I made last night.  What I made was nothing new or different, but I'm wondering if you all have any standbys that you go to when you need something quick, easy, and healthy (and cheap!).

Here's what I did last night...

Threw some chopped onion, carrot, and potato in a pot with olive oil.  Stirred it around a bit and eventually added some garlic.  Once they were softened, I added turmeric, cumin, coriander, a bit of cinnamon, and cayenne.  Then I added my lentils, chicken broth (could do water), and a can of diced tomatoes.  Once it was almost done, I added some kale to wilt.  Oh and obviously some salt and pepper as you go.

We served that up with some rice (Tom added Sriracha) and really enjoyed our meal.

Anyone else have any lentil recipes?  Or something similar?

Molly