Sunday, February 8, 2009

Mesquite honey chicken

Ingredients:
boneless chicken
mesquite seasoning
honey


This works with any boneless chicken, but I prefer thigh meat. Set raw chicken in an untreated tephlon frying pan and liberally spoon mesquite seasoning onto it, and rub it in. Drizzle honey over the chicken. You want it in a very thin layer laying over the seasoning. Go away and do something else for five minutes.

Return to your chicken, and add a small puddle of water to the pan, which will help distribute the heat evenly and turn the seasonings gradually into a sauce, then a glaze. Turn the heat on low and rip the chicken into bite-sized pieces as it warms up. Now you can ignore it, returning now and then to poke at it and flip pieces over.

Plating:
Fluff rinsed leaf lettuce into a shallow bowl. Dump the chicken, and any excess glaze, over the lettuce. Serve with tooth-picks at a tapas party for no-cleanup genius.

This was a huge hit. I did the exact same with pork and that also worked well. This is a derivative of a bbq technique for pork. It's my favorite. Leave the pork coated in seasoning and honey for at least an hour, then bbq with pinapple rings. Absolute gold.

I'm using crappy costco mesquite rub seasoning from a large tub I got for cheap a year ago. I really want to learn to harvest and prep my own mesquite so I can forgo the other bs. Suggestions?

Tapas!

Ingredients:
anaheim peppers
goat cheese
queso fresco
tortillas
butter


Yesterday I hosted about a dozen friends for a tapas party, in honor of my dog's birthday. Sadly my camera is still broken, so no photos. This plate worked really well:

Quesadillas and Stuffed Peppers

Quesadillas:
Set a small thin corn tortilla on an ungreased tephlon frying pan and crumble a thin collection of Queso Fresco onto it. When the cheese begins to change shape, press another tortilla on top.
Wait a minute for them to merge, then flip. When it's all done - the cheese is binding the two together and is soft throughout, then rub a little butter onto each side of the quesadilla and let it brown up just for like 10 seconds.

Stuffed Peppers:
Cut the top off a long green anaheim pepper and remove the inner seed stuff. Use a chop stick to stuff cheese into the pepper. The best result was about half Queso Fresco and half goat cheese. They have very different melting behaviors. Put a little foil on the rack of a toaster oven, and lay the pepper directly on the rack, but with the unsealed tops laying over the foil. Toast for about 10 minutes, then wait five minutes before pulling them out.

Plating:
Cut the quesadillas into tiny wedges, and slice the peppers, leaving basically rings of pepper around blobs of cheese. Add some slices of avocado, and serve with toothpicks.

These were a huge hit, and my favorite part was that there were no utensils to wash.

Goat Cheese Predicament

While walking through the Silverlake farmers' market savoring an over-priced cup of ethical java, I glanced down at a table to see a photo of a baby goat. Make that, a ruthlessly adorable baby goat. All black, spindly little legs, defiant, clueless expression. I staunchly avoid these booths, offering $6.00 quail's eggs or hyper-ethical clams, but I adore the idea that people can make a living in southern California by tending animals responsibly.

I stopped walking and said aloud, "That's a really cute goat." I looked up at the vendor, a tall, blue-eyed guy with a little blond stubble and a movie-star grin. Not my type. I looked down at the cheeses; little plastic tubs with a dabble of soft flavored creamy goat's cheese, and firmer varieties in wedges.

We talked for a while about the goats and the farm and the cheeses. Soledad Ranch? Farm? Whatever. The vendor said some friends of his own the place - up in Mojave - but of course he lives down here. At last I shelled out $15 bucks for a huge wedge of smoked firm cheese, and a tiny tub with a spoon-full of fresh stuff, with a blank flavor and that unmistakable texture.

I bought the cheese for a party, so I'll share the ideas that worked. But now I have a lot of expensive left-over goat cheese that I don't know how to use. Suggestions?