Linguini Portuguese

 

This is a recipe I've made for years in one incarnation or another. It is based on a dish originally prepared when I first left home way back in 20th century. At that time it was an informal concoction and all about speed and convenience. Basically I added cooked ground chourico to prepared spaghetti sauce and served it over pasta. I'm certain there was no innovation in that plenty of people have done it.

In the preparation below, you'll make your own sauce from canned tomatoes and you'll add both pimenta salgada (recipe) and banana peppers. The peppers offer some great flavor and and textural contrast. The pimento salgada also mean you don't have to add any additional salt to this dish. You can substitute other peppers for this dish, but try to stay in the same neighborhood as the ones specified.
If you're a fan of chourico, you're going to love this Portuguese-Italian fusion dish. If you're not a fan of chourico... ...WHY?

Linguini Portuguese

2-3 Tbs olive oil
1 medium onion (chopped)
2 lbs. of chourico (ground)
3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
28 oz. can of ground tomatoes
12 oz. can of tomato sauce
2 medium bay leaves
Black pepper to taste
1 medium pimenta salgada (de-stemmed split in half and deseeded and placed in a bowl of cold water)
4 Tbs chopped parsley
Pickled sweet banana peppers (de-seeded, and sliced in rings)

In a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add the olive oil. When the oil begins to shimmer add the onions and cook stirring often until they begin to turn translucent.

Add the ground chourico and cook stirring frequently until it breaks up.

Add the garlic and cook stirring frequently for about 2-3 minutes. Be careful not to burn garlic.

Add both cans of tomatoes and the bay leaves and stir until everything is well mixed. Bring the mixture to a simmer and then reduce to a slow simmer for about 20 minutes stirring occasionally. Test, add black pepper to taste (no salt), cover and simmer on low for an additional 20 minutes.

While the sauce simmers, boil water and prepare the pasta in the normal way.

While the pasta water is boiling, remove the pimenta salgada from the water and discard the water. Rince the pimenta salgada off a little and then slice in thin strips about 1-1/2" long.

Add the pimenta salgada strips to the sauce during the last ten minutes of simmering.

Finish cooking the pasta and drain.

Add the parsley to the sauce and stir in quickly.

Plate the pasta and top with a generous portion of the sauce. Add about 1/4 cup of the sliced banana peppers on top. Serve immediately.

Recipe: João Grande (Chourico and Chip Sandwiches)

All cultures have fast food. Here in the USA we have more than our share. The selections are endless and the icons of the industry are omnipresent. Names like the "Big Mac" and "The Whopper" are synonymous with fast food around the world let alone just here in the states. That got me to thinking what our local Portuguese equivalents might be.

We have a decent variety of Portuguese fast foods, Principally among them are Portuguese-style steak sandwiches and chourico sandwiches. Having covered Portuguese steak sandwiches in previous posts I figured it was time to focus my attention on another local favorite: The chourico sandwich.

Chourico sandwiches come in many incarnations. There are ground chourico sandwiches, chourico and pepper sandwiches, chourico and sauce sandwiches, chourico and egg sandwiches, chourico hot dogs, chourico burgers, chourico EVERYTHING! Chourico is a ubiquitous part of our local food culture. Chourico is food religion in Southern New England. Why? Because EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH CHOURICO!

What I write three times is law:

EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH CHOURICO!
EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH CHOURICO!
EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH CHOURICO!

One of my favorite types of chourico sandwiches comes from a great little hole-in-the-wall bar called "Billy's Cafe" in Fall River, Massachusetts. Billy's is one of those funky little places that doesn't change with the times, instead it just drags its time along with it. It is unpretentious and unrepentant. I ordered a glass of red wine there one night and I was asked if I wanted a small or a large! I can get behind that! Billy's is food and drinks their way, and their way is good.

They do a "chourico and chips" sandwich there that's great. Just good bread stuffed with fried chourico and french fries. It's just simple Portuguese fast food goodness. A couple of shots of Tabasco sauce on that and a LARGE wine or a cold beer and I'm in heaven. Check out Billy's if you're ever in the Riv. It's not for everyone, but it is certainly for ME!

I've made a few changes in my version of the chourico and chip sandwich. I butter and grill the bread a bit and I add some pimenta salgada and hot pepper rings to add a little more texture and a wider range of flavors. In keeping with the fast food motif, I've also named my version of the chourico and chip sandwich the "João Grande" (The Big John). I do that in honor of my Azorean great-grandfather: João de Lima da Ponte. As far as my Azorean Portuguese ancestors go, he was first to set foot on these shores and that at least merits naming a great Portuguese sandwich after him! It was also his daughter that introduced me to many Portuguese foods!

The "Big Mac" and "The Whopper" cannot compare to The João Grande!

João Grande (The Big John)

1-2 Tbs olive oil
1 package of chourico (cut into 1/4" disks)
Frozen french fries (enough to fill the desired number of rolls and some extra for sides).
2-3 soft torpedo sandwich rolls (sliced like hot dog buns)
2 Tbs sweet butter
1 pimenta salgada (rinsed well and cut into slices)
Hot pepper rings
Tabasco or Piri-piri sauce (optional)

There aren't many recipes this easy. If there is one trick to preparing a João Grande perfectly, it's timing! Try to have everything ready at relatively the same time. Keep that in mind when you're preparing the components!

Ready your fries for cooking. If you fry them (better-tasting) have your frying rig ready and hot. If you're baking them (healthier), preheat your oven. Time your fries to be ready just after the chourico and rolls are done.

Place two large skillets over medium heat. In skillet number one, add your olive oil. When the oil begins to shimmer add the chourico and cook, stirring occasionally.

While the chourico is cooking. Butter the inside surfaces of the rolls and place them one at a time (buttered side down) on the second skillet grill until they are well toasted. You may want to use a small plate to push them down a bit on the hot skillet surface.

Continue cooking the chourico stirring occasionally until the edges of the chourico begin to brown or even blacken a little. Remove from heat, immediately add the french fries, pimenta salgada and hot pepper rings (to taste) and toss together well.

Overfill the buttered and toasted rolls with the chourico, french fries and pepper mixture and serve plated with the extra french fries. Offer the Tabasco Sauce or the Piri-piri as condiments.

Couple these with giant mugs of extra-cold beer and make some friends!

Michelle's Thai Red Curry-Peanut Butter Chicken

This is one of my favorite recipes at the moment. It is one of my wife Michelle's dishes, who is, as of late, flexing more and more culinary muscle in the kitchen. She is becoming a great cook and hasn't served up a clunker yet. I do of course appreciate it. Some evenings I'm just not up for cooking and she comes through like a champ. She started off using Chop Onions, Boil Water to prepare some of our favorites and is now improvising and vamping her way to original recipes. She's cool like that. She's an angel and a saint. Just ask anyone who knows me.

All her burgeoning prowess in the kitchen however will not change a fundamental agreement in our marriage quasi-contract: I do the cooking and she does the dishes. So, while her cooking skills and endeavors are increasing, I am making no such inroads with my dish washing skills. In fact you could say my dish washing skills have even declined since my marriage. While I support and appreciate Michelle's cooking adventures, I'm not going to dare and upset the delicate balance that is our marriage by messing around and doing the dishes. No matter how much I don't want to anyway (do you get that?).

So, Michelle's Thai Red Curry-Peanut Butter Chicken, what can I tell you? I'll tell you that I love peanut butter and peanut butter flavored things. More often than not however, many promised peanut butter dishes tend to disappoint. They're never peanut-buttery flavored enough for me. At worse they often exhibit the unpleasant aspects of peanut butter food: grainy, dry, etc. Not so with Michelle's recipe! The peanut butter is there! In fact you could say it is slap-you-in-the-face peanut buttery and that is a good thing.

That's not to say that this is a one note dish. It isn't! There's also some Thai red curry or Thai chili-garlic paste, ginger, coconut, lime juice and all those other things that make Thai food spicy and wonderfully complex. It all works and it is all good!

Two things of importance regarding this dish:

1.) It contains a lot of peanuts, if you're allergic to peanuts you may want to not eat too much or pass on it altogether.

2.) I'm not going to wash the dishes.

Michelle's Thai Red Curry-Peanut Butter Chicken

Chicken and Marinade

1-2 lbs. boneless chicken breast (trimmed and pounded slightly)
1/2 cup chicken stock
1-1/2 Tbs soy sauce
1 clove garlic (chopped)
1-1/2 tsp Thai fish sauce
1 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp fresh lime juice (there is no substitute)
1 Tbs fresh ginger (chopped)

Mix all the ingredients except the chicken in a large bowl. Add the chicken, cover the bowl and place it in the fridge. Allow it to marinate for 1 to 2 hours stirring occasionally to evenly distribute the marinade.

Red Curry-Peanut Sauce

2 Tbs peanut oil
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts (chopped)
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup coconut milk
1/2  cup water
3 Tbs fresh lime juice (there is no substitute)
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs fish sauce
2 Tbs Thai chili garlic paste or Thai red curry paste (You want it spicier? Add more.)
1 Tbs fresh ginger (minced)
3 cloves garlic (chopped)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro (chopped)
1 Tbs palm sugar

Place a skillet over medium heat, add the peanut oil.

When the oil begins to shimmer add the ginger and garlic and sauté for a few minutes. Be careful not to burn it.

Reduce heat to low and stir in all other ingredients except the cilantro. Bring to a medium simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

While the sauce is simmering, spray a grill pan with oil and preheat the pan over medium-high heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade and discard the marinade.

Grill the chicken about 5 minutes per side or until just done. Remove the chicken from the pan and allow it to rest for a few minutes.

Cut the chicken into 1" strips and add it to the sauce mixture to coat well.

Add about half of the cilantro to the sauce just before serving and then use the rest as garnish on the plates.

Michelle says to "Serve it hot over Jasmine rice or your favorite pasta and enjoy! The kids like it on ramen noodles."

Recipe: The World's Best Favas

Favas be big beans-BIG BEANS! It's a dish that seems to be an acquired taste. Which basically means that cowards or the uninitiated don't care for it. I like it however. I like it quite a lot and the recipe below is responsible for more than a few converts to the dish. Most recently, my beautiful wife who LOVED them. It's one of those meals that can be had in as many variations as the number of families that make it. This is my version of course and I am telling you that these are the World's Best Favas. THE WORLD'S BEST FAVAS!

One little Portuguese cooking trick that I use in this dish may seem like it wouldn't make a big difference, but it really does help to create THE WORLD'S BEST FAVAS. That trick is sweating the onions and garlic instead of sauteing them. You'll notice how profound that difference is when you pop the cover off the pan at the end of that 20 minutes. The aroma is HEAVEN! HEAVEN PEOPLE! Which incidentally is where they probably serve a lot of these favas because if I haven't mentioned it yet: THESE ARE THE WORLD'S BEST FAVAS!

What else can I say about this recipe?

How about this: IT'S GOT CHOURICO IN IT!

Chourico, as in EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH CHOURICO. Including these favas which happen to be THE WORLD'S BEST FAVAS!

Pay attention to the details at the end, the bread, sweet butter and chilled Dao are MANDATORY!

'Nuff said on my part.

The World's Best Favas

1lb. of dry favas beans (soaked then simmered or pressure cooked to tenderness)
2 Tbs Portuguese olive oil
4 onions (halved and then thinly sliced)
8 cloves of garlic (minced)
3 sticks (about 20+ ozs.) of chourico (sliced in 1/4" disks)
1 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes
3 tsp hot crushed red pepper (the wet stuff)
4 Tbs fresh parsley (chopped)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat a large saucepan over low heat.

Add olive oil and spread it around the pan. Add the onions and garlic and sweat them covered in the pan for 20 minutes. Don't open that cover. Keep the flame on low and don't burn it!

Add the chourico and mix in well. Raise the heat a little and continue cooking for 10 to 15 minutes.

Add the crushed tomatoes and crushed red pepper and continue at a good medium simmer for about 45 minutes.

Add the fava beans and continue cooking for 30 more minutes or until the beans are tender and creamy inside.

Add all but 1 tablespoon of the parsley to the favas and mix throughout. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with the last tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley and serve with a good crusty peasant bread, sweet butter and some chilled red Dao wine (that's right I used "chilled" and "red wine" in the same sentence! DO IT!).

It's even better the second day!

Recipe: Porco com Ameijoas a Alentejana (Pork and Clams Alentejana-style)

Pork is the meat used in this recipe and a lot of other Portuguese cuisine. The pig is very important in Portuguese culture, and pork is the culinary center point of most of the feasts on the Portuguese mainland, her islands and many of the places where the Portuguese have settled. The slaughter of the pig is an important ritual in the local community. Also, in a fashion very reminiscent of the Native Americans and their relationship to the buffalo, the Portuguese make use of virtually every part of the animal.

They have mastered its preparation and dishes abound with pork as the main ingredient including many that appear here on Chop Onions, Boil Water. Among those I have included is this recipe for Porco com Ameijoas a Alentejana or "AH-lehn-jah-nah" as we call it on the South Coast of New England.

Along with Portuguese style steak, Alentejana is probably one of most popular dishes to be had in the local Azorean-Portuguese restaurants where I live. It is named for the region in Portugal where it was first created; there, it consists mainly of pork, spices and the hard-shelled clams known locally as "little necks". Here in the USA, I notice they add potatoes to it which doesn't harm it at all. I was first introduced to this dish as a teenager in the early 1980s. It is certainly one of my favorite Portuguese dishes and I have enjoyed it at many of the local restaurants. I've found that there is a little variation in the basic recipe and people seem to favor one establishment over another based on their personal preferences regarding the flavor and amount of sauce or the tenderness of the pork.

The real secret to good Alentejana is in the marinade and in the preparation of the pork and potatoes. If one pays attention to detail, it's not a difficult dish to master and prepared correctly it'll garner you nothing but smiles, oohs, ahs and respect in my neck of the woods. The local restaurants have even begun introducing a chicken version for people with restrictive diets which is equally delicious.

Locally, we use a special copper, two-sided, hinged pan called a "cataplana" that opens similarly to a clam to prepare this dish in. Being able to flip the pan over completely makes stirring unnecessary and aids in the perfect cooking of this dish. It's a nice addition to your kitchen but expensive and not necessary.

Porco com Ameijoas a Alentejana

2-1/2 lbs. of boneless pork loin (trimmed of most fat and cut into 1" cubes)
4 Tbs massa de pimentao   (can be purchased in Portuguese markets or use the recipe below)
2 cups of dry white wine
2 bay leaves (well crushed)
2 lbs. white potatoes (peeled and cut into 1" cubes)
2 Tbs Portuguese olive oil
2 Tbs lard
1 large onion (chopped)
6 cloves garlic (chopped)
2 Tbs tomato paste
2-5 tsp hot crushed pepper
20 littleneck clams or manilla clams (well scrubbed)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
Pickled garden vegetables (cauliflower, carrots, pepper, etc.)


Day one:

Take the masa de pimento and rub it all over the pork cubes. Coat them well. Place them in a large bowl, add the wine and the crushed bay leaves. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Place the cubed potatoes in a large bowl, cover with cold water and refrigerate overnight.

Day two:

Separate the pork from the marinade being sure to save the marinade.

Drain the water from the potatoes.

Place a large deep pan over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot add the oil and lard. When the oil is hot and just beginning to smoke, brown the pork cubes in several batches. As they finish transfer them to a bowl until needed.

When you are finished browning the pork, lower the heat and add the onions. Sauté until translucent being sure not to brown them.

Add the garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes. DO NOT BURN THE GARLIC it will get bitter.

Set the burner to low, cover the pan and continue sweating the onions and garlic for 15 to 20 minutes. This is a common Portuguese cooking technique and it really makes a difference. Again, be careful not to burn them.

Add the tomato sauce, the reserved pork marinade, hot crushed pepper (if desired) and reintroduce the pork. Adjust the heat so that the mix barely bubbles. Cover and continue cooking for one hour being sure the mixture never breaks even a low simmer. It must just barely bubble.

While the pork and sauce cook you have two options in preparing the potatoes (be sure to prepare the potatoes so they finish at around the same time as the pork and clams are ready to serve):

1. Deep fry the potatoes until cooked through and crispy on the outside. Strain, season with salt and pepper and set them aside.

or

2. Roast the potatoes in your oven until lightly browned and done. Season with salt and pepper and set them aside.

When the pork and sauce reach the hour mark, add the salt and pepper and stir well. Test for seasoning, adjust as necessary.

Raise the heat until the mixture comes to a gentle boil. Lay the clams evenly on the top of the pork mixture and cover for an additional 30 minutes until the clams open.

Discard any clams that do not open, add the parsley, then stir the mix to blend the ingredients.

To serve, place some potatoes in a shallow bowl and generously ladle the pork, clams and sauce mixture over the potatoes.

Garnish with some fresh chopped parsley and a decent amount of pickled vegetables. Serve with a good crusty bread.


Massa de Pimentao (Portuguese Red Pepper Paste)

Prepare a good quantity of pimenta salgada several days before you need it. You are going to need about 3 cups of them for this recipe.
2 large garlic cloves (minced fine)
1/3 cup of olive oil

Rinse the pimenta salgada several times in cold water to remove some the excess salt. Blot dry.

Place the pimenta salgada, minced garlic and half the olive oil in a food processor and blend well for 30 seconds.

Scrape down the sides of the food processor and blend for another 30 seconds.

Now with the food processor running, slowly add the rest of the oil in a slow trickle until the mix is really smooth (about 60 seconds).

Keep refrigerated in an appropriately-sized glass jar, removing only what you need and allowing it to reach room temperature before use.

Recipe: Portuguese Chourico-Style Chicken and Chip Sandwiches

Back in a place called the 1980's I used to live in a quasi-housing project. A good friend of mine who shall remain nameless for his own dignity was living-in-sin with his then not-yet-wife in an adjacent building in the same housing area. Often on the weekends, he, his not-yet-wife, my not-yet-ex-wife and I would get together for dinners and the other absurdities that bored twenty-somethings do when they are low of funds because they are products of growing up in economically depressed circumstances. Some of these things the same people might find embarrassing today. Not me though, but I'm empathetic so I blur lines.

Anyway, round about near this quasi-housing project was a small Portuguese market that served as our corner store. Milk, bread the occasional box of cereal that kind of thing. They also sold some great Portuguese food including chourico rolls, malasadas and sweetbread. One of our favorite things to get there were seasoned pork cutlets called "chourico meat". This was pork that was marinated as if it was going to be ground and made into chourico, but instead, you pan fried it, topped it with cheese parked it in a pao secos and ate it as a sandwich. Good stuff under the worse circumstances, you add a few beers and some company and you've got a party!

I haven't had those sandwiches in about 30 years! So, recently, I've been making my own chourico and a few evenings ago I decided to make "chourico meat" using some chicken breasts that I had in the fridge. The result of course was delicious! Why else would you be reading about it at this moment, right? Now, I make these things pretty spicy because that's the way I like them. You can vary the ingredients less or more so as you desire.

Just promise you won't eat a few of these, drink too much beer and switch to tequila okay? Because my buddy did that, then I ended up saving his life by stopping him from falling into a newly excavated hole for the foundation for a building that "wasn't there yesterday" if you know what I mean? Also, don't bet two crazy women that you'll French kiss another guy for sixty bucks, because chicks never pay on bets!

On to this fabulously easy yet great recipe!

Portuguese Chourico-Style Chicken and Chip Sandwiches

3 lbs of boneless chicken breasts (sliced in half horizontally into cutlets)
1 cup of red wine
1 Tbs. colorau (or regular paprika)
1 Tbs. smoked sweet paprika (or regular paprika because you are obviously paprika deficient!)
1 Tbs. coarse sea salt
6 cloves of garlic (chopped)
3 Tbs. hot crushed pepper
2 cups of white wine or chicken broth
1/4 to a 1/2 cup of chopped parsley
Homemade, frozen or restaurant-bought french fries
Your favorite sandwich rolls (sliced)

In a large bowl add the chicken, wine, colorau, smoked sweet paprika, salt, garlic and hot crushed pepper and blend together well. Cover the bowl and place in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 hours. Take out and redistribute the mix once or twice during that time.

Have your french fries ready.

Place a large pan over medium high heat. Add the olive oil. When the oil begins to shimmer add the chicken 2-3 cutlets at a time and cook turning once until just done. Remove and place in a covered bowl to keep warm while cooking the rest of the cutlets.

Continue cooking all the cutlets in the same manner, placing them in the covered bowl until they are done.

Raise the heat and take any remaining marinade and pour it into the pan with the white wine or chicken broth and deglaze the pan.

Reduce the resulting sauce until thick.

Lower the heat and add all the chicken and parsley to the pan with the sauce. Coat well until warm enough for serving.

Remove from heat. Make sandwiches by filling the sliced rolls with the chicken and a good amount of the french fries.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Recipe: Barbecued Smoked Chicken Pizza

When I order pizza, either dining out or ordering in to my home, it is often Barbecue Chicken Pizza. I've had it from a lot of different pizzerias in a lot of different places and well, as far as I'm concerned, I'm a discerning expert. I will tell you that the two best places I've ever had it were from "Not Your Average Joe's" and "Bertucci's" - both chain restaurants. You can still get it from "Not Your Average Joe's" but it is not as good as it used to be because they've changed some ingredients to save money (tsk, tsk). Bertucci's no longer offer theirs because they are trying to be a different kind of restaurant than the one that everyone fell in love with (tsk, tsk).

Without dissecting each and every barbecued chicken pizza I've ever had, allow me to give you the basics of a great one. It's not rocket science, and like all good things, it's simple. You're going to need good ingredients. I've always loved smoked chicken, it is flavorful and holds its juices well, even when frozen, so it was a no brainer that it was my choice for this pizza. Secondly, you're going to want a good barbecue sauce. You can make your own or use your favorite. I like Sweet Baby Ray's Original so that's what I use. Another important ingredient is onions. I've had it with red onions, white onions and green onions in a various states of doneness. They are all good, but in the end I chose caramelized onions. Sure, they take longer, but nothing compares to them on barbecue chicken pizza. Like all pizza, the cheese is important so I've outlined a blend below. It's all pretty simple but after twelve minutes in the oven, it's a slice of heaven! (sorry Mystic Pizza!)

Before we get to the brass tacks of the Barbecued Smoked Chicken Pizza recipe below, allow me to address four primary ingredients that all but guarantees you can make pizza at home that is as good or better than the average local shop. Get used to seeing these important "ingredients" because I am going to add them to every pizza recipe I write on Chop Onions, Boil Water. They are critical to your success.

Cornmeal: Cornmeal's tiny grains act like little ball bearings between flat surfaces. Spread cornmeal on the surface of what you build your pizza on and you'll be able to slide your masterpiece right off it and into your oven. Speaking of what you stretch your dough on, go get yourself a...

Pizza peel: Buy one, construct your pizza on it, use it to put your pizza in the oven, use it to take your pizza out of the oven. Seems like a small thing right? Try it! By the way, when you're using your peel to slide your pizza into your oven make sure your oven contains a...

Pizza Stone: Nothing is going to make your home pizza match or exceed the quality of the store bought stuff more than a pizza stone. Get a thick one and get a big one. I park mine right on the lowest rack of my oven and that is where it stays. It makes all the difference in the world and in no time you'll be pulling pizzas out of your oven that will make the thought of a store-bought pie a less-than-ideal option. The pizza stone is not going to work optimally though unless you...

Preheat your oven: Flat out, no joke, crank her up to 500°F and do that a full 45 minutes before you plan to sprinkle that peel with cornmeal, stretch that dough and then slide that pie onto that stone.

Now onto a truly easy and delicious pizza that you can make at home!

Barbecued Smoked Chicken Pizza

3/4 to 1 lb. of smoked chicken (shredded) or as a substitute you can use cooked and shredded chicken seasoned with a little Liquid Smoke.
2 medium onions (sliced thinly and slow caramelized and allowed to cool)
Enough pizza dough for one 16" to 18" pizza.
Olive oil (some for prepping the dough, some for drizzling after the pizza is done.
Your favorite barbecue sauce
1/2 cup of basil (julienned/chopped)
1/4 cup parmigiano-reggiano cheese (grated)

A good pizza cheese blend (shredded, be sure it at least contains mozzarella, cheddar and asiago).

Preheat oven to 500°F for 45 minutes to one hour before you plan on cooking the pizza.

Stretch a dough ball to a 16" to 18" disc and place it on your cornmealed peel. I'm not going to go into dough stretching here because it is a learned thing and there are a variety of methods each with its proponents, each for good reason. Do a little research and practice a bit. Don't plan on a perfectly round pizza all the time!

Brush a thin layer of olive oil over the surface of the stretched dough.

Spread a thin layer OR make a spiral of barbecue sauce over the stretched dough.

Sprinkle some of the basil evenly over the pizza (reserve most of the basil for when the pizza comes out of the oven).

Distribute the caramelized onions over the pizza.

Sprinkle the parmigiano-reggiano over the the pizza.

Distribute the shredded, smoked chicken over the pizza.

Distribute the shredded cheese blend over the pizza. When doing this it is important to remember to keep most of the cheese out of the middle of the pizza. As it melts it will tend to gather toward the middle anyway.

Place the pizza in the oven until the bottom is slightly browned and the cheese is bubbly (8 to 12 minutes). Remove, add additional basil to taste, drizzle with some olive oil, allow to cool for about 5 minutes, slice and and serve.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, mmmmmmmmmmm good, this is one of the reasons my wife still keeps me around!

Recipe: Academica/Caravela-Style Portuguese Steak Sandwiches 2010

Way back in November of 2008, I posted the first recipe for Portuguese-style steak sandwiches on Chop Onions, Boil Water. In that entry I recounted my first experiences with that type of sandwich at a Fall River, Massachusetts restaurant called "The Academica". I went on to explain how my friend Dave Leboeuf had, observed how the locally-famous (now internationally famous, right Kiwis?) sandwiches were made, and how he tinkered in his home kitchen until he came up with a good version. I took his version and tuned it to my personal tastes (admittedly, not much tuning needed thanks to Dave's work) and created my own recipe. This all took place a year or two before I ever posted the recipe online. If you're interested in that Portuguese steak sandwich recipe, just click here.

Since that time, the Portuguese steak sandwich situation in Fall River, Massachusetts has gotten a little "complex". It seems that a while back the cooks at the Academica restaurant decided to open their own place and did so, right on the side of the Academica! They named their new restaurant "The Caravela Family Restaurant" and proceeded to create the same sandwiches and other dishes that they did at the Academica. Today, each place has its adherents and I'm sure they have good personal reasons for which restaurant they patronize. I have my favorite and that's where I take my out-of-town guests and they love it too. Hell, I've even heard there may have been a split at the Caravela and there could be a third contender for the best Portuguese-style steak sandwich in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Why a new recipe you ask? Because, as good as the original one was, it was never perfect. Something about it was always just a little less than authentic and that sent me to thinking about it.

Now, Dave had seen the whole process, he'd seen the ingredients, so why couldn't we absolutely nail it in our home kitchens? I talked to him about it a couple of times and we came to the conclusion that it must have something to do with the repeated cooking. The Academica and the Caravela produce hundreds of steak sandwiches everyday. We figured that the remnants of each steak: the juices, garlic and seasonings are allowed to collect and simmer on that grill over the course of the day, and that somehow effects the final flavor of the steak. In the end this ended up being easy to test because Dave is the president of a social organization and he often cooks some of their large dinners. For a few of those dinners, he decided to create his version of Academica sandwiches and he confirmed that the steaks that came off the stove later in the night tasted more authentic than the ones that were prepared earlier.

After some thought about Dave's experiences I created a work around to avoid having to prepare hundreds of steaks for hours to get the right flavor. I discovered that if you slowly cook some of the ingredients in a separate pan before you cook your steak you be able to recreate what happens on the stoves of these restaurants. It takes a little time, but it is easy and makes a huge difference in the flavor.

Another thing I noticed about the Academica and the Caravela's steak sandwiches were the peppers that came inside each one. They were denser, saltier and not nearly as juicy as the ordinary pickled peppers available in the market. I searched the local markets for similar peppers and tried a variety of them and while the resulting sandwiches were always good, the peppers were never really right. Finally, I asked my Azorean friend Sandy to call her mom and describe the peppers that were in the Portuguese sandwiches. Her mother recognized the description and informed us that they were called "Pimenta Salgada" (salted peppers), she also directed me to the local markets where I could find them. I did find them, and PRESTO they were the real deal. Props to her mom as well because she also gave me a generous amount of them after I had inquired.

The resulting steak sandwiches were, and still are the best that have come out of my home. My wife, who is as big a fan of Portuguese-style steak sandwiches as anyone has pronounced them as better than either restaurant. Yeah, I know... my mom says I'm very handsome as well.

Academica/Caravela-Style Portuguese Steak Sandwiches 2010

2 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs butter
1 head of garlic (all cloves picked off, peeled and lightly crushed)
Frank's Hot Sauce® or Texas Pete's Hot Sauce®
Steak, not too thick, cubed steak works well. It should be 1/4" to 3/8" thick.
1 cup of dry white wine or beef broth
Stick-style sandwich bread
Pimenta Salgada (Portuguese salted peppers)*
Salt to taste

In a small saucepan or skillet, add 1 Tbs olive oil, butter and a splash of the hot sauce. Place it over a low flame, when the butter is done foaming add all the garlic and allow it to cook SLOWLY until the garlic darkens, softens and just begins to caramelize. Be sure not to burn the mix. I usually start this part of the recipe an hour before I begin cooking the steak. Go LOW with the heat and SLOW with the cooking and you'll be fine.

Season each steak and then tenderize the meat using grid side of a tenderizing hammer. Just a quick going over, don't mash it into goo!

When you notice the oil, butter and garlic mixture close to finishing, preheat a large, deep skillet over a medium-high flame.

Add the remaining olive oil, when it begins to shimmer, add the steaks one to two at a time to the pan.

Brush on a little hot sauce to the top of steaks while cooking.

When steaks are nicely browned on one side, turn them over, brush on a little more hot sauce and cook until browned on both sides.

As each steak finishes cooking, remove it to a covered plate to keep it warm while you continue cooking the others.

When all the steaks are done cooling, raise the heat to high. When pan is hot, add the wine/beef broth and deglaze the pan by scraping it with a wooden spoon while the wine or broth simmers.

Add the garlic, oil, butter mixture to the simmering sauce and continue simmering until sauce becomes thick.

Remove from heat, add the steaks and any drippings to the sauce being sure that each steak is well-coated. Cover the pan to keep steaks and sauce warm while you prepare the sandwiches.

Slice the bread, add the sauce soaked steak, be sure to get some garlic in there. Top with a slice or two of pimenta salgada and serve with french fries.

*Pimenta salgada can be purchased at Portuguese grocery and specialty shops. They are very salty, you may want to rinse them in fresh water or soak them in water during the cooking time to cut the saltiness. If you don't have them in your area don't worry, I'll be posting a recipe for making your own in the next few days.

Recipe: Chicken and Corn Stew

I have eaten some pretty strange things in my life. From my dad's side of the family there was morcella (pig's blood sausage) and all manner of odd things from the ocean including lapas (pronounced "lah-pizsh") which are small limpet-like creatures that adhere to rocks and themselves all over the world. These my father taught me to eat raw, first pulling them off the rock and then digging the animal from its shell with my finger and eating it live and raw. He also taught me how to get and eat mussels, clams, razor clams, periwinkles and conchs. I'm not complaining, they are all pretty tasty, raw or otherwise. So thanks dad those are good, but no thanks for making me eat a dollop of Vick's Vapor Rub when I was 7. What the hell were you thinking? I was only 7 but I could clearly see "for external use only" on the damn jar!

From my mom's side of the family I learned to eat the strangest things. My mom's father was part Native American and grew up on a New England farm during the depression. He was a bar room-brawling, tough-as-nails maniac. In the course of his life out of necessity, he learned to eat anything and he was lucky enough to have married a woman who could cook it all very well.

When I was a child it didn't take me or my cousins long to figure out one thing: DO NOT ASK WHAT YOU ARE EATING UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW! Now your yuck level is directly related to the place you grew up and the means available to you. So for some of you, when I mention that rabbit stew and squirrel pies were staples, you're going to say yuck or yum. It depends on whether or not you were ever exposed to these two DELICIOUS dishes. So the hunters out there say, "what's the big deal?" The city folk say "Eeeeeeeeew!"

The stuff I ate at my grandparents ran the entire scale of the yuck factor. For instance one day I was presented with something that appeared to be turkey dinner. Except that the turkey was a deep reddish brown, kind of, but not exactly like beef. I had to know, so I had to ask. "Hey Pep, what is this?" "Go look in the oven" was his answer. I did, and what I saw looked like a red turkey with 4 drumsticks. Pep recognized the confusion on my face and replied "It's the raccoon your cousin Rocky shot yesterday." It was pretty good too as I remember it. Think of roast beef with a texture somewhere near turkey.

I ate a lot of things in that house. I can say with certainty that I DID eat: deer, goat, pig, sheep, rabbit, quail, duck, pheasant, and a host of other common acceptable food items. The more uncommon things that I know I ate there included: bear, woodchucks, squirrels, snapping turtle and raccoons. I THINK I ate possum and maybe muskrat there, but I am not sure. I'd LIKE to think I never ate skunk but again, I am not sure. Let me make one thing clear, it was all delicious. Both my grandmothers were incredible cooks (aren't everyone's?), and I wish I had some of their recipes.

You may be asking yourself what the relevancy to the recipe is? Just memories. This dish reminds me of the stuff my mom's mom used to make. Good, hearty, stick-to-your-ribs-I keep-my-family-healthy-old-school-Yankee-cooking. The perfect dish after a day of skiing or hunting, or shoveling the damn snow from the driveway for the 15th time in 4 days!

Recipe: Chicken & Corn Stew

3 lbs boneless chicken breast (cut into 1/2" chunks)
4 Tbs unsalted butter
1 Tbs olive oil
1-1/2 cup chopped onions
1-1/2 cup chopped carrots
1-1/2 cup chopped celery
2 lbs boiling potatoes (peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes)
1 clove of garlic (minced)
2 tsp fresh thyme (chopped)
2 Tbs flour
4 cups chicken broth (I use bouillon)
2-4 cups of water
2 cups super-sweet corn kernels
1 cup of heavy cream
4 green onions cut in 1/8" rings
3/4 to 1 cup of chopped cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste

Season chicken with salt and pepper.

Place butter and oil into a preheated pan set on a medium flame. Cook stirring lightly, until the foam from the butter disappears.

In small batches, brown the chicken well on all sides. Remove chicken to a waiting bowl as it browns, set aside and keep warm.

When all the chicken is removed, add onion, carrots and celery. Sauté until the onions are translucent.

Add the garlic and half the thyme. Continue to sauté stirring occasionally for a few minutes (be sure not to burn the garlic).

Add flour and stir in well, while cooking for 1 minute.

Pour in broth and water, being sure to blend or whisk it in well. Bring mixture to a boil.

Add the potatoes and return to boil. Cover, reduce heat and let simmer, stirring occasionally. Cook this way until the potatoes begin to get tender.

Add the sweet corn kernels, chicken (with any resulting juices) and cream, simmer uncovered until the stock begins to reduce.

Salt and pepper to taste, add the rest of the thyme, green onions and the cilantro.

Serve in deep bowls with a wedge of lime and biscuits on the side.

Recipe: Sweet Corn Cakes/Fritters

Sweet Corn cakes (or "fritters" as they are more commonly known outside of New England) taught me a valuable lesson about people and cooking. You can go out of your way and create an entire dinner, all the food can be great but one small thing can become a standout. Such was the dinner on the front porch of my old apartment one summer evening. I prepared all manner of Mexican specialties for my guests including smoky refried black beans, chicken fajitas, homemade salsa, etc. It was a basket of warm corn cakes drizzled with honey, prepared as an afterthought that was the hit of the party though.

Cakes/fritters are popular all over the United States, from the New England clam cake to the hush puppies of our Southern states. They are served as additions to other meals or popular stand alone snacks. They're not difficult to make and prepared mixes abound, but what's Zen about dumping a box of ingredients bolstered with chemical preservatives, compared to working with a nice recipe of wholesome ingredients? NOTHING!

I'll offer you a little advice in the way of quantity. Correctly made these things disappear faster than your cheap friends when it's round buying time at the bar, so make more than you think you'll need. I serve them drizzled with mesquite honey, but any flavor will probably do. They are also very good served as a side for chili or corn chowder.

Corn Cakes/Fritters are really versatile and you can steer them between savory or sweet as you like. You'll notice below that I keep the sugar kind of low. That's because this recipe should get most of its sweetness from good sweet corn. Also, you may be drizzling honey over them before serving them which will add additional sweetness. Another variation of this recipe that I prepare includes diced red bell pepper. To prepare that use 1-1/2 cups of sweet corn and 1/2 cup of diced red bell pepper instead of the 2 cups of sweet corn below.

Sweet Corn Cakes/Fritters

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white sugar
2 cups whole kernel sweet corn
1 egg lightly beaten
1 TBS peanut oil
1/2 cup milk
3 cups vegetable oil

In a mixing bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

Stir the sweet corn kernels into this dry mixture.

In another mixing bowl beat the egg, peanut oil and milk together.

Pour the wet and dry mixtures together, stir until just blended.

Heat the 3 cups of oil in a heavy pot to 350°F.

Drop tablespoons of the batter into the hot oil and cook, turning occasionally until golden brown.

Drain on paper towels and serve warm, brushed with butter, drizzled with honey or sprinkled with salt.

Recipe: Slow Cooked Pot Roast

At the risk of sounding like one of the Beverly Hillbillies I'm going to confess that this dish kind of reminds me of something my grandmother used to make when I was a kid - roast raccoon. That's no lie, it's not even an exaggeration. We ate a lot of strange things at my grandparents house. For the record, it was all good. They were country people and products of the depression. My grandfather was a hunter and fisherman and my grandmother was a hell of a farm wife. She once saved me from a blood-thirsty and crazed fighting rooster. That story is elsewhere on this blog, something tells me it's probably got to do with a chicken recipe.

If my memory serves me well (and it usually does) roasted raccoon looked like roasted turkey only reddish brown with four drumsticks. There were of course, potatoes and carrots. I imagine a dinner like that will freak some people out, but it was good. Everything the woman cooked was good.

Okay, my freaky memory aside, this recipe is a great rainy Autumn Sunday dinner. Which coincidentally is just the kind of day I prepared it on when I finalized, prepared and photographed it for the blog. It is rich, hearty and delicious and of major importance: SIMPLE! You basically just do a little prep, chuck everything into a crock pot or dutch oven* and slow cook it and not touch or look at it for ten hours. It cooks while you do vastly more important things like watch television, play with the kids, do your yoga, read poetry or run around all day and do errands. Start it at 8:30 AM, do what you want all day and an amazing dinner is ready at 6:30 PM. Pretty sweet huh?

My only recommendation is that you don't over-pack your crock pot or dutch oven. The meat and vegetables will give off a lot of moisture during the cooking process and you don't want the liquid rising over the top. If you have a small crock pot or dutch oven, adjust the recipe as needed.

*My home range has a slow-cook feature so I prepare dishes like this in a covered dutch oven. Of course it works equally well in a crock pot.

Slow Cooked Pot Roast

3 lbs. Boneless bottom roast
1 TBS Dijon mustard
1 TBS brown sugar
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cup of red wine
Sea Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 medium onions chopped
3-4 small onions peeled
4 carrots cut into 3-4" pieces
1-1/2 to 2 pounds small red and white potatoes (golf ball to egg-sized)
Your favorite homemade or store-bought biscuits
2-4 tsp cornstarch
1/2 cup water

Put the chopped onion in the bottom of your cooking vessel.

Mix the sea salt, black pepper, onion and garlic powders together and coat the roast evenly on all sides. Place it on the onions in your preferred cooking vessel - fat side down.

Take the potatoes, carrots and whole onions and arrange them around the roast. Be sure that you'll be able to close the crock pot/dutch oven completely when ready.

In a mixing bowl whisk together the Dijon mustard, brown sugar and red wine until the Dijon mustard and the brown sugar are completely blended in. Pour all the mixture equally over the roast and the vegetables.

Cover the cooking vessel, set it on low and let it cook for ten hours (If you're using a dutch oven, cover it, place it in the oven and use your range's slow cook feature and instructions).

When the time is up remove the roast and vegetables to a large serving bowl. cover it with a plate and towels to keep it warm while you prepare the gravy.

In a small bowl, whisk together the corn starch and water.

Pour all the liquid from the roast into a suitable pan and place it over high heat until it begins to boil (if you're using a dutch oven prepare your gravy in that). Lower it to a high simmer and slowly add 1/2 the water and cornstarch mixture while stirring constantly. You'll need to use your judgement here to get your gravy to the desired thickness. It is better to add it SLOWLY as you PROBABLY WILL NOT NEED IT ALL. If you add it all quickly, I hope you enjoy extremely thick gravy!

Slice or chunk the roast, plate it with the vegetables and a biscuit, dress it with the gravy as you like.


beef, recipe, meat, roast, pot roast, bottom round, roast beef, recipe, henry krauzyk, cuisine, new england, crock pot, slow cook, dutch oven, potatoes, carrots

Recipe: New England Clam and Scallop Chowder

Annually there's a big clam chowder festival a short drive from my house in Newport, Rhode Island. For a stretch there I attended every year. It was a lot of fun and it was interesting to see how different restaurants and organizations approached making what they considered a good chowder. There were New England, Manhattan, Bahamian and Seafood styles as well as a few others including a pretty good quahog chili one year.

They offered different categories to compete in, and in the seafood chowder contest one restaurant reigned supreme and that happened to be the restaurant I hung around at and eventually met my wife at. They made a great chowder, no, they made a phenomenal chowder! It was so good and they won this contest so often that eventually they were politely asked to retire from competition to give other establishments a fair shot at the prize.

Ah, what a great restaurant and chowder, but things change. That is why I am going to offer you a short lesson here on economics. The restaurant of which I speak is doing rather poorly these days and I don't think it will be around for long. I'd like to explain why.
You see each restaurant has a geographical location that it serves. This means that on the average you can count on a certain number of people coming into it from a given distance. They call this your "customer base". If the restaurant is doing well and you decide that you want to open another one, you have to open the new one outside the territory of the first. Two good restaurants owned by one entity in one area don't double the custom base, they divide it. Now a restaurant that used to pull in $30,000 on a Friday night divides that lucrative customer base in half (more or less). So in effect you have doubled your cost but not your profits.

Worse yet, suppose you're not clever enough to catch on before the slump begins to show? What do you think you do? Well I guess you open a third and then a fourth restaurant in the same geographical area as the first popular one, because that is what they did. Guess what? The customer base that didn't double when you opened the second restaurant doesn't multiply again. So now you've divided your customer base by four! Your biggest competition becomes YOU and even the areas that don't overlap between the restaurants cannot generate enough new customers or income to cover that kind of expense! Never mind the other new restaurants that are opening around you that you don't own!

This is what happened to my beloved bar and restaurant. It wasn't long after all this that it took on the desperate feel and vibe of one of those places we've all been to: The "Doomed Eatery". They try anything, changing the menu, coupons, anything! They're cutting corners and missing details to save money but it's all moot, the slide has started and they're on their way out.

Some day soon, if a couple of friends can keep a promise, I am going to have that award winning seafood recipe and I'll put it in this cookbook for you. By then I think that restaurant will sadly be gone. That recipe could have saved it, if the owner had put his money and efforts into packing and marketing that seafood chowder to the masses out beyond his regular customer base. Instead they spent all that money and time to do nothing but compete against themselves.

Bummahs huh?

New England Clam & Scallop Chowder

24 ozs Clam juice
1 lb. of potatoes (Russet or Yukon Gold) cubed small
2 Tbs sweet butter
Pork fat back (piece about the size of a pack of gum)
2 cups of finely chopped onions
1-1/4 cups of celery (chopped fine)
2 cloves of garlic (chopped fine)
1 large bay leaf
1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
2.5 lbs of chopped local clams (strain from juice, save juice)
1 lb. bay scallops (strain from juice, save juice)
1-1/4 cups of Half and Half
1 tsp hot sauce
1/2 tsp Saffron threads (mince or crush into a powder after measuring)
Salt and pepper to taste

Add the clam juice and the potatoes to a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until potatoes are just tender. Remove from heat.

In a larger heavy pot, melt the butter and add the fat back and cook until the fat back begins to brown.

Add the onions, celery, garlic and the bay leaf and sauté until the vegetables begin to soften. Slowly add the flour, mixing thoroughly. Things will begin to thicken and paste up. Be careful not to let the flour burn.

Stirring quickly and constantly, slowly add the reserved clam and scallop juice to the vegetable and flour mixture. You're looking for a smooth mix.

Now, add the clam juice and potato mixture. Then add the clams and the scallops, the half and half, hot pepper sauce and the saffron. Simmer chowder for 10-20 minutes to blend flavor. Stir frequently, testing often to adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

Serve hot with clam cake/fritters. Always better the second and third day.

Recipe: Panko Chicken with Red Bell Pepper - Peanut Sauce

I would like to tip my hat to my wife for the inspiration for this recipe. While she is not as passionate about cooking as I am, she does turn out her own really good dishes when she feels inclined. One of the areas of cooking where she surpasses me is with the venerable crock pot. She is a crock pot master and I am just a humble student.

Beyond a stew, I don't think I'd be able to coerce much good from a crock pot. Not so with my wife. She has produced all manner of wonderful things from crock pots. From tasty dishes like the one the recipe below finds its roots in, to delightfully gooey and delicious chocolate desserts. There are no clinkers in her cadre of crock pot cookery creations! So, unlike many homes in which the crock pot either collects dust or is relegated to warming cocktail weenies or beans at parties, our crock pot sees regular use.

Recently, she created a version of a Thai dish she found in one of her crock pot cook books. It was of course delicious and pretty authentic tasting. I loved the rich, satay-like peanut sauce and at some point mid-dinner, after my compliments and comments regarding its various delicious aspects I got the idea to take elements of the recipe in a different direction. My idea was a Japanese and Thai fusion of sorts.

Chicken Katsu is a popular dish in my house. Easy-to-prepare and loved by all. So, I just thought I'd bend my wife's dish a little bit by preparing my version of the sauce from it with katsu-style fried chicken dish along with steamed Jasmine rice (or noodles like my wife's recipe). The resulting dish is rich and delicious and will certainly find its way on our dinner table again.

NOTE: If you are on a low sodium diet, you may want to prepare this recipe using low-sodium options where you can.

Panko Chicken with Red Bell Pepper - Peanut Sauce

4 boneless breast of chicken
2 red bell peppers (one cut in 2" slices, one cut into a 1/4" dice)
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup of smooth peanut butter
4 cloves garlic (chopped)
1-1/2 tsp Thai red curry paste
2-1/2 tsp corn starch dissolved in 1/4 cup of water
Peanut oil for frying
1 cup of flour
2 eggs
1 TBS milk
Panko bread crumbs
3 Green onions (cut into 2" pieces
3/4 cups peanuts (chopped)
3/4 cups cilantro (chopped)


Trim the boneless chicken breast and flatten to 1/2" with the flat side of a meat tenderizer. Season with salt and pepper and set aside while you prepare the other ingredients.

In a sauce pan combine the chicken broth, soy sauce, peanut butter, garlic, red curry paste and sliced red bell pepper. Place over medium heat and bring to a low simmer. Whisk frequently until the peanut butter is dissolved and sauce is smooth. Set to a very low simmer and cover pan while you prepare the other ingredients. Stir occasionally.

Prepare the Jasmine rice the normal way. While it cooks prepare the other ingredients.

Place the peanut oil in a deep frying pan and bring to frying temperature.

Place the flour in a plate, beat the eggs with the milk in a wide shallow bowl and place the panko flakes in a plate. Dredge each chicken breast in flour (removing excess), then dip it in the egg wash (draining excess), then coat well with panko flakes. Fry each breast in the peanut oil until golden brown on each side and cooked through. Place on draining rack.

When done frying the chicken remove the cover from the sauce pan. Raise the heat to a simmer and slowly drizzle in the cornstarch and water mixture while constantly stirring until the sauce thickens well. Add the green onions to the sauce and continue stirring for 1-2 minutes being careful not to scorch the sauce. Remove from heat.

Plate with a bed of rice with the panko chicken breast on top. Cover the rice and chicken with a generous portion of the red bell pepper-peanut sauce and garnish heavily with the chopped peanuts, cilantro and the diced red bell pepper. Serve immediately.

If you'd like it a little spicy, add some sriracha or some chopped red chilis.

Enjoy this recipe with an ice cold Thai beer!

Recipe: Pork Loin Marsala

As I was preparing this dish last night and transcribing the final version of the recipe, I came to a surprising realization: In my house, we go through a lot of alcohol just for cooking purposes.

For instance, this recipe calls for 3 cups of Marsala wine. That is quite a bit of wine (but worth it!), and we tend to keep two big bottles handy. We also keep big bottles of Port wine for a couple of pork recipes we cook frequently. Then of course there's Penne à la vodka which doesn't earn a name like that for nothing! In fact it's the ONLY reason we keep vodka in the house.

This list goes on and on. Bailey's Irish Cream for French toast, Chinese wine for Chinese sauces. Two kinds of sake for teriyaki and tonkatsu sauce. Cognac for steak diane, as well as regular and cherry brandies for a variety of flambés. Portuguese cachaca for Azorean chourico bombeiro and surely more that doesn't readily come to mind. That's just the specialty stuff. I couldn't even calculate how many bottles of white or red wine we go through a year for marinades, deglazing and sauce building!

I wonder what chefs did during prohibition?

This is a great recipe. For the best results you'll want to use fresh pork and pay careful attention to how you build your sauce. The objective is too create a nice silky sauce that clings to the pasta. If it seems watery, simmer on!

Pork Loin Marsala

4 Pork loin cutlets (cut 3/4 to 1" thick)
1/2 cup of flour plus 2 TBS
1/4 cup olive oil
3 TBS sweet butter
8 oz. Portobello mushrooms chopped coarse
3 cups Marsala wine
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
2 medium tomatoes diced (the redder, the riper, the better)
1 lb. dried pasta (your favorite)
Salt and pepper to taste.

Start the water for your choice of pasta. While you are preparing the pork cutlets and sauce, time your pasta to be ready just as your sauce is finishing.

Season the pork cutlets with salt and pepper, dredge/dust the cutlets heavily in flour and set aside.

In a large dutch oven set on medium-high to high heat add the olive oil and butter. When the butter melts sauté the mushrooms until they are half-cooked. Remove the mushrooms from the pan with a slotted spoon. Be sure to save the butter, oil and mushrooms behind in the pan. It's okay to add more olive oil if necessary.

Sear all the cutlets at once in the reserved oil and butter mix. Don't worry about browning them, you just want a good sear on both sides of all the cutlets to lock in the juices and keep the pork moist and tender.

Once the cutlets are seared, add two cups of the Marsala wine and tomato sauce to them (don't mix). Bring to a simmer and then lower the heat until the mix is barely bubbling. Cover the pan and braise the cutlets for 20 minutes. FOR OPTIMUM TENDERNESS, BE SURE THE MIX DOESN'T BREAK INTO A SIMMER! You'll have to readjust the heat a few minutes after you cover the pan. Do not lift the lid more than absolutely necessary.

After the 20 minutes is up carefully remove the cutlets and set them aside in a covered bowl to keep them warm.

Add the chopped tomatoes to the Marsala mix and raise the heat to cook down the tomatoes and thicken slightly. Stir frequently. Lower the heat if necessary.

Whisk the 2 TBS of flour into the remaining 1 cup of Marsala wine. Add that mix to the Marsala mix stirring constantly as the sauce thickens.

Once the sauce thickens, reintroduce the mushrooms to the mix. Stir well, letting the mushrooms reheat and cook a little (about 3 minutes).

Taste the sauce and adjust for seasoning.

Reintroduce the pork cutlets. Gently stir in to coat with sauce and warm (about 1 minute).

Plate pasta, top with a pork cutlet and a generous amount of the Marsala mix over the cutlet and pasta.

Recipe: It-Doesn't-Necessarily-Have-To-Be-Sunday, Sunday Gravy

There's no bones about it, I found my cooking passion by making my own Italian food at home. It's not a recent thing either. It started when I was a teenager when I would "dress up" jarred sauces (often with chourcio - NATURALLY!), and it continued right on into my very first "from scratch" dinner recipes and it still goes on today.

I may cook all kinds of authentic world food for my family these days, but there's no world food I feel more comfortable preparing than Italian. It's one of the world cuisines I'm quite comfortable improvising with. Give me anything, as long as you include a few basic Italian ingredients, and I'm going to feel safe cooking something good for you. My cook's confidence is in Italian and to a lesser degree, Thai and Native American cuisine.

Which makes it kind of weird that I didn't have a proper, personal "Sunday Gravy" recipe after all these years. Anyone familiar with Italian cooking or gangster films (real ones not that Hip-Hop nonsense) knows what Sunday Gravy is. For those of you who don't know, allow me to direct you to Italian cookbooks and gangster films to find out. I'm not in a typing mood today.

Anyway, I never found a Sunday Gravy recipe that I really liked all that much. Everyone who is Italian or knows Italians or who cooks Italian is always going to crow about their Sunday Gravy or their friend's Sunday Gravy or their mom's Sunday Gravy or their aunt's or grandmother's Sunday Gravy and how it is the best in the world.

Well, as with most food, they are all right of course. The food you like best is the best in the world - to you! So up until a few days ago, I never had a Sunday Gravy that I could crow to the world about being the best. Then I flipped through the September 2009 issue of Esquire Magazine and I got an inkling.

The picture is what captured my imagination. I saw the photo of all that rich, glistening sauce with all those chunks of meat and well, it got my attention. I sought out the recipe on the following page. There, courtesy of Peter McAndrews (hey! He married an Italian!) I found the recipe and some important words that convinced me to try the recipe. Words like "spare ribs", "bones" and "hours".

That recipe was the basis for my own recipe below. I've made enough significant changes to the original recipe to confidently call this one all mine. (I'm not in the habit of changing recipes just to call them my own. If that were true, you'd see Giada De Laurentiis's Rosemary Roast Pork with Port Wine and Fig sauce in here under a different name! Search recipe out folks because it is FLAWLESS and delicious!).

Anyway, I made changes to suit my taste and preference. The most notable, was starting the whole thing with a onion-hefty mirepoix. Yeah, that's a French word in a classic Italian recipe, but trust me it helps make one hell of a good sauce. I also changed the kinds and amounts of tomatoes, added more garlic and tomato paste, as well as the addition of a pork tenderloin and a little GOOD QUALITY balsamic vinegar. Finally, the fact that your chucking in the World's Best Meatballs doesn't hurt either!

Without further adieu allow me to introduce my NEW, old-family recipe for Sunday Gravy:

It-Doesn't-Necessarily-Have-To-Be-Sunday, Sunday Gravy

1/2 cup olive oil
3 lbs. country-style or southern-style spare ribs
3 lbs. sweet Italian sausage
2 lbs. World's Best Meatballs
1-2 lb. pork tenderloin
3 lbs. large beef bones
4 cups chopped onions
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped celery
10 cloves garlic chopped
3 6 oz. cans of tomato paste
3 28 oz. cans of whole tomatoes (lightly crush the tomatoes with your hands)
3 28 oz. cans of ground tomatoes
3 large bay leaves
1 TBS turbinado or light brown sugar
1 TBS GOOD QUALITY balsamic vinegar (the syrupy type)
Sea salt to taste

Take a LARGE stock pot. A large one. A BIG stock pot. I mean BIG, like a 14 quart stock pot. Pour in the 1/2 cup of olive oil and coat the bottom and the sides of that stock pot really well. Place the stock pot on medium high heat. When the oil comes up to temperature and is hot and shimmering (not smoking), brown and remove all your meat in this order: spare ribs, Italian sausage, meatballs and tenderloin. Place the browned meat in a covered pan or dish and set aside.

If you need more olive oil at this point feel free to add it. Let it come to temperature and then brown your beef bones on all sides.

When the beef bones are browned, add your onions, carrots and celery and continue to saute until tender and starting to brown slightly. If the oil begins to smoke, lower your heat. You want the onions, carrots and celery to sauté evenly.

Add the chopped garlic and sauté along with the bones, onions, carrots and garlic for about 2-3 minutes. Be sure not to burn the garlic or it will turn bitter!

Add the tomato paste and mix it in well so that it coats the mix and bones. Continue to sauté until the tomato paste darkens. Again, be careful not to burn the mix.

Add the hand crushed whole tomatoes with their juice, the ground tomatoes, the bay leaves, sugar and the balsamic vinegar. Stir all together until it is well blended. Bring it slowly to a lively simmer. Special note: When you are cooking a quantity of sauce like this, it is always wiser to bring it up to temperature SLOWLY to avoid burning the sauce in the bottom of the stock pot.

When the sauce reaches a lively simmer and is an even, slightly thick mix, add your spare ribs and pork tenderloin. Reduce to a medium simmer and allow to continue like this for one hour stirring occasionally.

At the end of the first hour, add the Italian sausage and allow to simmer for another hour. Always be sure the simmer is low to medium to avoid any burning. Stir occasionally.

At the end of the second hour, add the meatballs and continue simmering for another hour. Stir occasionally.

At the end of that hour, you will notice a layer of red oil forming at the top of the sauce. If you're health conscious you can skim off some of this with a ladle. It won't reduce the fat all that much, but it'll give you a false sense of responsibility that will get you past the guilt of eating all this pork and beef fat goodness.

Season with the sea salt to your preference. Stir sauce well.

Remove from heat. Remove all the meat and bones to a separate serving platter and serve the sauce over your favorite pasta perhaps with a sprinkle of your favorite cheese (as long as your favorites are parmesan-reggiano or pecorino romano).

This sauce kicks ass and is the World's Best Sunday Gravy - TO ME, FINALLY!

Recipe: Barbecued Pork Ribs

Are you ready? Here comes a diatribe.

Propane should be used for hot air ballooning and forklifts and never for barbecuing.

Propane should be used for hot air ballooning and forklifts and never for barbecuing.

Propane should be used for hot air ballooning and forklifts and never for barbecuing.

Did you get that?

When barbecuing, NOTHING equals a wood or charcoal heat source, NOTHING. Of course there are going to be nay-sayers, pseudo-scientists and pseudo-philosophizers and all manner of malignant thinkers out there who are going to protest and offer numerous reasons why propane is just as good as charcoal or wood. Well guess what? I'm not listening because I know better.

Nothing can impart the flavors on food that wood and charcoal do, especially not a smelly gas like propane. Sure it's cleaner and convenient but so is masturbation compared to the real thing, and I don't know about you, but you can put me in the "real thing" column when asking folks what they prefer.

If you own a propane grill, stop using it, fill it with dirt and grow geraniums in it. Then go out and get yourself a well-made, sturdy barbecue like a Weber or Charbroil. That's what I finally did (well, except for the geranium part), and I have no regrets because the results are remarkable.

If you do take this sound advice and come over to the purist ranks, seriously consider the charcoal and wood you're going to use. You wouldn't put regular fuel in a Maserati and you can't use those uniform futuristic-looking briquettes in a good barbecue. They are processed and covered with chemicals to make them burn uniformly, and well, you might as well use propane if you're going to use them.

Look for the good chunky and irregular (naturally) shaped stuff that comes in big bags. You'll find these burn hotter and impart a better flavor on the food you prepare with them. Do a little research on the subject and you'll see what I mean. It also doesn't hurt to investigate the best barbecue and ribs joints and see how they're cooking. If they're the best, I know what's burning in their kitchens!

This is one of my first original barbecue recipes. I hunted around for a good ribs recipe, but came up short. No single recipe looked like something I wanted to try. So I just combined what I thought were the best ingredients in each one. Most recipes recommend simmering the ribs for 20 to 30 minutes and then letting them marinate overnight in the sauce. I don't, I go from pot right to the grill and slow cook them until I can't stand waiting to eat them any longer. These things are a smash hit at my house.

Barbecued Pork Ribs

2 full racks of pork ribs (St. Louis style or babyback)
1 litre of Coca-Cola®
1 large onion (frenched or sliced)
1 Tbs of ginger powder
1 4 oz. can of tomato sauce
4 cloves of garlic (crushed)
Salt and pepper to taste
Sweet Baby Ray's® barbecue sauce (or your favorite which should be Sweet Baby Ray's®)

In a large pan, place the ribs, Coca-Cola®, ginger, onion, garlic and tomato sauce, salt and pepper and add enough water to just cover the ribs.

Set on high heat and bring to a boil.

When it reaches a boil, lower heat and continue at a low simmer for 30-40 minutes. (Important note! You can simmer these longer or leave them in the warm liquid longer. The ribs will become more and more tender. They can get too tender and begin falling off the bone on the grill. It's your choice. I generally simmer them for 30 to 40 minutes and then let them sit in the warm broth for up to 4 hours for perfectly tender ribs.)

Remove from heat and remove the ribs. Slather them with the Sweet Baby Ray's® and place them on a preheated grill.

Slow cook them over medium heat being careful not to burn them. Turn them occasionally and slather with the barbecue sauce each time.

When they have been cooking for at least an hour and looking like the sexiest ribs you've ever wanted to eat, remove them from the grill, re-slather with barbecue sauce and cut into individual ribs.

Serve with cole slaw, roasted corn-on-the-cob, corn biscuits, beer and bbq'd beans.

Apologize to your heart and dig in!

Recipe: Rice with Brazilian Sausage, Red Peppers and Chickpeas

One of my favorite kinds of restaurants to eat at is a Brazilian steak house or "Churrascaria". Typically the service is "rodizio" style. Basically, you're seated and cocktails are offered Shortly thereafter the feast begins. "Passadors" or "meat waiters" come by your table with knives and skewers full of a variety of meats slowly cooked in special rotisserie ovens. Among my favorite meats are sirloin, tenderloin, pork loin and pork tenderloin. Though, I can't complain about the lamb, chicken, fish or duck, though I usually pass on the chicken hearts or chicken livers.

One of my friends' and my own favorites is the roasted Brazilian sausage. I can remember one night in particular at a churrascaria in Montreal known as Le Misla where the sausage was incredible. In fact I think many of the guys at my table that night would have said it rivaled the beef tenderloin!

While it was in churrascarias that I was introduced to Brazilian sausages, it's in my own home and from my own grill that I tend to eat it the most. Luckily, I live near an Portuguese/Brazilian/Spanish market and a dependable supply is always available.

While it is easily great served solo right from the grill, I have managed to use it in a couple of rainy day recipes, when the grill is not available. The recipe below represents my current favorite.

I f you can't find Brazilian sausage where you are, don't fret. This recipe will also do well with a variety of sausages like Italian, chorizo, chourico, andouille and others. Never be afraid to experiment!

Rice with Brazilian Sausage, Red Peppers and Chickpeas

2 TBS. Olive oil
2 lbs. of Brazilian Sausage
4 plum tomatoes (diced)
2 medium onions (diced)
4 cloves of garlic (chopped)
2 tsp. smoked sweet paprika
1 bay leaf
2 cups of red bell pepper (diced)
1 15 oz. can of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
1 cup of white wine
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups of water
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh chopped parsley (to garnish)

Put the sausages in a deep pan and just cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil and simmer the sausages until the water almost runs out.

Set the sausages aside. When cool, slice into 1/4" disks.

Set another deep pan or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. When the oil begins to shimmer add the onions and simmer until they begin to brown.

Add the tomatoes and cook stirring often until they give up their juice.

Add the red pepper, garlic, paprika, bay leaf, and chickpeas and continue to cook stirring occasionally.

Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.

Raise the heat a little. When the mixture almost loses all its moisture add the white wine and deglaze.

Add the rice and sausage and mix them in thoroughly. Cook it for a few moments to allow the rice to soak up some of the juices and flavor.

Add the chicken broth and water. Stir to mix in well and bring to a boil. Then lower to a low simmer and allow to cook uncovered until the rice is tender and absorbs most of the liquid. Add more liquid during cooking if necessary.

Remove from heat and allow to sit for 5 minutes. Top with chopped parsley and serve immediately.

Recipe: Tasty, Dreamy, Light and Creamy Hummus

Way back yonder in a place we commonly refer to as the 1960's and 1970's we didn't see a lot of chickpeas in my family and social circle. We other things either, not broccoli, not asparagus, not mushrooms or anything else that didn't fall into our socio-economic reality. I've got no grudges, we ate well. Having a father who hunted and a grandfather who hunted and owned a farm, we ate a lot of things other people didn't eat, like rabbits, pheasant, quail and the occasional raccoon, woodchuck or other animal that wasn't quick or smart enough to evade the hunters. Jethro Bodine has got nothing on me and Granny Clampett could have learned a few things about cooking vittles from my Grandmother!

Like I said, no chickpeas. I think my first chickpea experience may have been in the early 1980's at one of those horrible, corporate all-you-can-eat salad bars. You know the places: heavy on the atmosphere but also heavy on the overly salted reheated frozen entrees? YUCK! That's a rant left for another post in the future. Anyway, my chickpea experience then was pretty unimpressive. It was a cold, waxy marble that turned into a grainy mush in my mouth. Boy have things changed.

We keep a pretty good supply of chickpeas in my house. Both dry and canned varieties for a variety of reasons. I suppose it was Indian food that swung it for me and certainly my wife. Things like Aloo Chole and Chana Masala can make a chickpea lover out of many people. One of the things we prepare regularly is hummus. Boy, do I love hummus. I can remember the first time I ever tried it, it was at my sister Carolyn's wedding, (She's still married, amongst me and my siblings, well that's just AMAZING!). I've loved hummus ever since.

That's not to say I've never had bad hummus, I have. Sometimes it's too garlicky, other times there's not enough garlic. Other times it's like school paste or just filled with a lot of pseudo-food-ingredients or chemicals that you just don't need in your body. Like many things though, I've solved those quality control issues by preparing the stuff at home and creating something I love.

The basis of this recipe comes from two sources. One is a local Lebanese market that makes great hummus, the other is a great television program and publication called "America's Test Kitchen". The market gave me a target for great hummus and the America's Kitchen recipe was a perfect starting point. I spent some time tweaking (and eating a lot of homemade hummus) to get it to a great recipe for me, my family and friends.

The thing about hummus is that it is easy to prepare. So you can kind of take it where you desire when you make it yourself. You want it thicker? Cut the water. More garlicky? Add garlic! You want it ungodly hot? Add lots of cayenne. It's weird that I've had as much bad hummus as I have, it seems so simple and easy to prepare well, what were all theses people and companies doing wrong? : )

Recipe: Tasty, Dreamy, Light and Creamy Hummus

3 TBS Lemon juice (fresh squeezed, THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE!)
1/3 cup of cold spring water
6 TBS tahini (stirred well)
3 TBS blend oil (recipe below)
1 14 oz. can of chickpeas (drained and rinsed, I use Goya)
1 tsp garlic (minced well and gently packed into spoon)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp cumin (fresh ground, NO SUBSTITUTE)
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

To prepare the blend oil mix 1/2 TBS olive oil with 3 TBS peanut oil, blend well.

Mix the lemon juice and the cold spring water together.

In a separate bowl mix the blend oil and the tahini together.

In a food processor add the chickpeas, garlic, cumin, salt and cayenne pepper. Chop until all the ingredients are well blended and the chickpeas are almost ground.

Scrape the side of the food processor. Then with the food processor running, add the water/lemon juice mixture in a steady stream allow to blend for about 1 minute.

Scrape down the side of the food processor again. Then with the food processor running, add the tahini/blend oil mixture in a slow and steady stream. Continue processing until the hummus is smooth and creamy (about 15 seconds).

Put the hummus in a covered container and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

Serve with pita chips or any other way you like.

Enjoy!

Tasty, Dreamy, Light and Creamy Hummus from Chop Onions, Boil Water - World Food at Home by Henry Krauzyk http://www.choponionsboilwater.com