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

Coming Soon COBW 2.0

Hey folks, I know it has been a little while since I last posted a recipe or review. I just wanted to let everyone know that I've been busy working on Chop Onions, Boil Water Ver. 2.0

The new site is going to be a multichannel outlet for cooking world food at home. The basic blog will still be there as always and I'll add new recipes as I create or perfect them (my definition), but there will also be exciting new food areas, regional and specialty forums and channels and feeds from other great food resources out there.

I'm also want to offer folks the opportunity to register if they'd like to post their own recipes and create their own profiles within COBW. Maybe we can even start a little "World Food at Home" community.

So, I apologize for the delay of new posts, but promise that there is much more coming in the near future. Thank you for your interest and input and I look forward to trying some of your recipes in the future!