Recipe: Chunky Chicken Salad

One of the food things I remember not liking from my childhood were ham salad and chicken salad sandwiches. They were always soggy and pasty affairs seemingly spread with a putty knife in to small rolls. Bland or too salty they were the bane of holiday dinner tables. Even today I can take them or leave them. It is always hit or miss. My parents make good ones, but every time I grab one at a party or from a buffet, I know I am engaging in the equivalent of a gustatory crapshoot. Just like at a real gaming table, the odds are always stacked against me.

It always struck me as odd because seafood salad and ground chourico (which you are going to hear a lot about on this blog) rolls always seem to be good. It's not because I don't like chicken or ham either, I do. So, like all things food, when I hit a road block, I start trying to find a solution around it. The chicken salad recipe below is my latest solution.

Chunky, fresh, crisp, creamy and cool it makes a great sandwich. It also comes with the lofty endorsement of both my wife and my mother-in-law whom I believe are chicken salad experts. It's really easy to make and in no time you can have a great party offering or lunches for a week.

Chunky Chicken Salad

3 to 4 lbs. boneless chicken breasts or tenders
1 quart homemade or prepared chicken broth
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup of Miracle Whip Salad Dressing
1/2 cup celery (chopped)
4 TBS onions (chopped)
4 tsp turbinado sugar
2 TBS olive oil
A little less than 1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp sea salt
Salt and pepper to taste

Divide and trim the fat from the chicken breasts. Place the breasts and the chicken broth in a large pan and set over high heat. Bring to a boil and then back down to a simmer and simmer for about 7 to 10 minutes. At the end of that time, remove from heat, cover and allow to sit until cool enough to touch. Reserve 1/4 cup of the chicken broth. (Save and refrigerate the rest of the chicken stock for future use in soup, sauces or maybe even a more chickeny chicken salad.)

Take the chicken and shred it into chunks. Make the chunks as big or small as you like. Just avoid making a chicken paste from them! Place them in a large mixing bowl.

Add all other ingredients including the 1/4 cup of chicken broth and mix through thoroughly.

When you're done mixing, mix some more because you probably weren't thorough enough.

Taste and season to preference, cover and refrigerate for several hours to allow flavors to intensify. Garnish with some fresh minced parsley for that upper-middle-class effect.

Serve to happy guests or enjoy for lunch.
Recipe: Chunky Chicken Salad Krauzyk, from Chop Onions, Boil Water

Recipe: German Potato Salad

Every year I throw an Oktoberfest party. I'm not German and I'm not particularly fond of a lot of German food, but I love Autumn and I can appreciate getting together with friends, eating all kinds of sausage and tipping back big draft beers from a nice stein. Which leads me right to Hawaii 1986.

I was staying at my popular Brady Bunch refuge the Sheraton Waikiki. In front of the hotel lies the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Mall. It's a pretty nice mall. Its first level stores are occupied by overpriced outlets and the kind of jewelry stores that advertise quality and tradition, but really just sell status. Well, if status could be bought, but I'm getting too political. The second and third levels over the years have seen a number of shops and restaurants come and go. In 1986 there was a German restaurant on the 3rd level. I do not remember the name of the place, I do not remember the interior, I do not remember anything of what I ate except for the potato salad.

I am not even really qualified to judge potato salad as I'm not an especially big fan of it. In fact the first time I ever had a warm potato salad was that night. The recipe below isn't even for the potato salad I had that night. I did ask for it though. Yeah, I've got big balls. The server excused himself and went in the kitchen and returned to the kitchen door with the chef a few moments later. They kind of looked me over for a moment and disappeared back into the kitchen. A short time later my server returned to say "I am sorry but the chef doesn't want to give it to you."

I often wonder why I didn't get the recipe. I mean the chef must have considered it. He came to have a look at me to size me up and perhaps my motives. Did I not get it because I look like some kind of spy in the German restaurant world? I don't know. Maybe he didn't want to give up the recipe because it was remarkable. Maybe I instinctively knew what he knew all the time, that this was the best damn German potato salad in the world! Or not.

In the end it was all moot. They were out of business by the next year and I forgot about him until my 2003 Oktoberfest party. Along with all the sausages and beer I wanted to have a nice warm German potato salad to offer my guests. I found one on line and monkeyed with it and produced the recipe to the right. I really like it and so do my guests.

I wish that bastard would have come across with his recipe though.

German Potato Salad

3 lbs of potatoes cut into 1" cubes
1/2 cup of chopped onion
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 olive oil
1/2 cup of cider vinegar
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs dried parsley
Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the cubed potatoes and cook until tender while still firm.

Drain the potatoes and then place them in a large bowl. Carefully mix in the onions until well blended.

In another bowl add the mayonnaise, oil, vinegar, sugar, parsley flakes, salt and pepper. Mix these ingredients together until well blended.

Carefully fold the liquid mixture into the potatoes and onions.

Let set for 1-2 hours before serving.

Adjust seasoning to your taste.

German Potato Salad by Henry Krauzyk, Chop Onions, Boil Water

Recipe: Turkey Tips with Chipotle Ketchup

Have you ever heard someone from England, Australia or New Zealand pronounce a foreign word that they have a need to use? Well, to an American ear it is friggin' downright funny. Not that Americans don't err themselves. I cringe every time I hear a well-meaning countryman pronounce "filet" with a hard "t". Yikes! I'm not writing this to make fun of Americans though.

Back to the people who make our language sound funny. Over the course of my life I have been fortunate enough to make many friends in the aforementioned countries that print money with the queen on it. Among the many benefits of having such friends is the abject pleasure I take in listening to them speak. I like the accents. They are interesting and often very, very amusing.

My very informal personal research has revealed that it is the preference of the inhabitants of these odd and strange commonwealth lands to Anglicize the foreign words they need to adopt for various reasons. This as opposed to the American method of adopting them as close to the language of origin as possible. A trait which I find respectful.

I'm sure it doesn't seem like much of a thing until you hear your Kiwi editor pronounce things like "risotto" (rihz-OTTO), "basil" (Beh-ZILL) or "Parmesan" (oh I can't even write it). Better yet, nothing, NOTHING beats hearing her pronounce "chipotle" (well except maybe my friend Sally from Northern England pronouncing "Feng Shui" (FEHNG-SHOOEY). Back to my rant: When pronounced in its native Mexican language "chipotle" seems the perfect sound to describe these smoked jalapenos, especially if they're packed in adobo sauce. However, when a Kiwi pronounces it, the sound is reminiscent of what you hear when you drop an empty metal canteen on concrete. Instead of that perfectly suitable "Chee-pote-lay" you get "CHEE-POT-UHL!"

CHEE-POT-UHL!

It also sounds like the call of a very large, flightless, messy and unpleasant bird!

CHEE-POT-UHL! CHEE-POT-UHL!

If you ever happen upon one of these pleasant and patronizingly polite foreigners I encourage you to offer them an Italian or Mexican menu. You'll have hours of fun listening to them! I did it with a Portuguese menu once and I still laugh every time I go back to that restaurant! Funny foreign chatter aside, this is a quick and easy recipe. Season the turkey to your personal taste and adapt the spicy ketchup to your comfort level. Personally, I make a large quantity of the chipotle ketchup and keep it handy in the fridge just like regular ketchup.

Turkey Tips with Chipotle Ketchup

1-2 lbs. Fresh turkey tenderloin or breast (cut into 1" cubes)
Montreal Steak Seasoning
1-2 Tbs olive oil
1-2 Tbs butter
1 can of Embasa Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce
1 cup of ketchup.

In a large bowl, toss the cubes of raw turkey with your desired amount of Montreal Steak Seasoning (I think I'm somewhere around a tablespoon per pound of turkey, maybe a little less). Cover and set aside while you prepare the chipotle ketchup.

In a blender or food processor combine 2 Tbs of the adobo sauce (from the can of chipotle peppers), the cup of ketchup, and 1 of the chipotle peppers (stem and seeds removed)* blend until smooth.

Set a fry pan on medium-high flame. Add the olive oil and when it begins to shimmer add the butter and cook the combination until the butter is no longer foaming. Add the turkey cubes and cook, stirring frequently until just cooked through.

Serve with the chipotle ketchup on the side.

I serve these with fries or tater tots. Yeah!

* Freeze the balance of the chipotles and adobo for future use.

Recipe: Turkey Tips with Chipotle Ketchup, Chop Onions, Boil Water by Henry Krauzyk

Websites I Love: Vah Chef

I do a lot of Indian cooking at home. For me it's an area of constant exploration and discovery that is further rewarded with great food that I prepare in my own kitchen. I started my education of Indian food with several good books. I will certainly review them here in future posts.

Cookbooks are of course indispensible when learning to prepare new foods. A great cookbook will not only teach you how to prepare certain dishes, but will offer photos and even a history of the food and processes involved. Some will even give you a philosophy lesson. Books are not the only route in the age of the internet though and sometimes you can find a great source for recipes, tricks, secrets, alternatives and details there.

I stumbled upon Chef Sanjay Thumma while looking on YouTube for a good way to prepare naan in a conventional oven. Sure enough he had a couple of alternatives for preparing it and they worked out really well. What I like about Chef Thumma is that he presents his video recipes in a friendly, dynamic and easy-to-follow format. His enthusiasm is engaging and his knowledge is extremely helpful.

I had mentioned in an earlier post how I had been chasing and tinkering with a chicken makhani recipe for a long time and that I had finally gotten it to where I liked it. Well, in Chef Thumma's video on chicken makhani he mentioned that Indian restaurants around the world add a little ketchup to their recipes. Sure enough, it was a very important addition to my recipe for chicken makhani and was the missing element I had been searching for! Our recipes for this dish do differ, but I wouldn't love mine if it wasn't for this little gem of knowledge I got from Vah Chef.

His videos are full of similar tidbits and he's very entertaining to watch and listen to. If you're into cooking Indian and you want to augment and polish your skills, I highly recommend Chef Sanjay Thummas website and blog. It is definitely a website I love!

Visit vahrehvah.com to see Chef Sanjay Thumma's instructional videos and recipes!

 


Chop Onions, Boil Water by Henry Krauzyk. Websites I love: Vah Chef

Recipe: Sun-dried Tomato Marinara Sauce

I'm going to make a statement that may upset a lot of people (especially Europeans). As I live my life generally not caring about upsetting a lot of people, I don't care. This is just an advisory note that you should look past your initial feelings of instant resentment and open-mindedly consider what I'm going to write. Beyond that, I'm also saying that if you cannot do that, I just don't care if you're upset. It's how I roll.

Ready?

Here goes...

Without the contributions of the Native Americans, international cuisine as the world now knows it would not exist!

There would be no Italian, Spanish or Portuguese food as we know it. French, Indian and Chinese cuisines would also be greatly diminished. Strangely enough though, British food would remain completely unchanged and uninteresting.

Why do I proclaim this? Because without the contributions of the Americas there would be no dishes that contain potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, peanuts, chocolate, vanilla, sweet potatoes or corn. All of these ingredients in modern cuisine were introduced to the world by Native Americans to the early European settlers.

Think of any of the major cuisines available today without these important ingredients and you'll have to agree. Pasta without tomato sauce? Szechuan, Portuguese or curries without chili peppers? Satay without peanuts? French desserts sans chocolate and vanilla? The Irish without potatoes?

What about the sweet potato? One of the top 15 crops worldwide! The Europeans got their first taste of it in the Caribbean and then proceeded to distribute it worldwide! It helped thwart a Japanese famine in the 1730's and was so integrated by New Zealand's Maori into their mythology as to have eleborate rituals and ceremonies governing its growing and storage methods!

So next time you consider food, consider the contributions of the Americas and the Native Americans! Don't even make me bring up pineapples, cashews, strawberries or medicinal plants!

How does it all relate to the attached recipe? TOMATOES YO!

Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara Sauce

2 28oz cans of ground tomatoes
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes (diced)
1/4-1/2 cup of olive oil
2-3 Tbs of fat back or equivalent (optional)
3-5 Tbs red onion (chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (minced)
2 Tbs dried basil
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 healthy pinch of dried oregano
Salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

In a deep saucepan add olive oil and place on medium heat until the oil begins to shimmer. Add fat back (if using) and cook until it is rendered. Remove the solids.

Add onions and stir often, cook until translucent.

Add garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes.

Carefully add the ground tomatoes and the sun-dried tomatoes. Blend in well, simmer for five minutes then add the basil, oregano, salt and pepper, stir in well..

Bring mixture to a boil then lower to a low simmer and cook for 45 minutes stirring occasionally.

If sauce is too thin, continue cooking uncovered until desired consistency is achieved. If sauce is too thick, slowly add pasta water to desired consistency.

Serve over pasta topped with Parmigiano-reggiano cheese, or use as an excellent base for meatballs.


Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara Sauce from Chop Onions, Boil Water by Henry Krauzyk

Recipe: Braised Chicken Breast Portuguese

Chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken. I love chicken and cook a ton of it. I've named this dish "Braised Chicken Breasts Portuguese" although I don't know if it is a traditional Portuguese recipe. It's simple enough and with the right ingredients so that you'd think it was traditional, but I've never come upon it in my travels nor at dinner in the homes of my Portuguese friends. It's a hearty and flavorful dish that is best laid out on a pile of rice with the extra gravy poured all over everything.

The real story is about the search for tenderness. In the "I-knew-even-less-then-than-I-know-now" days of cooking I used to try and try and try to cook chicken breasts that were tender and moist, usually with limited results. I even tried marinating the breasts in buttermilk because I had heard some chain restaurants do that to make up for the inadequacies of their chefs in the heat vs. timing departments. It didn't work.

Then I hit upon braising. A little dredging in flour, a quick fry in shallow oil to seal the breasts and then a slow and low simmer in your desired sauce. Et voila! You get chicken so moist and tender that you get a little suspicious as to whether there may be something abnormally wrong with it (at least I was).

Of course any method used to cook something can go too far and eventually dry it out or make it tough, but if you stick with the basics of braising you're going to get good results. While this recipe is Portuguese, you'll see the basic technique in there and I urge you to try your own variations with your favorite sauces and styles. In fact I also do a Mexican variation of this recipe using molé roja and it is equally tender and moist.

Only, my wife doesn't like molé which means I don't get to make it often. I'd like to, but I don't. Do you know why? Well it's because I'm a diplomat and a nice guy. I'm also flexible, easy going and generally tired of getting remarried.

For now.

: )


Braised Chicken Breast Portuguese

1-2 lbs boneless chicken breast
1-1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1-2 cups of white wine
1 medium onion (chopped fine)
1 tomato (cubed)
Portuguese olive oil
1 clove of garlic (minced)
2-3 bay leaves
1 Tbs paprika
1 Tbs parsley (chopped)
Salt and pepper to taste

If the chicken breasts are attached split apart. Rinse in water and pat dry.

Place some of the Portuguese olive oil in a small high sided pan to a depth of about 1/4". Set on high heat.

When the oil comes up to frying temperature, dredge each chicken breast in flour and coat well. Fry the breasts in the oil until well browned on both sides. Remove and set aside.

In another large high sided pan add 2 Tbs Portuguese olive oil, set on medium-high heat. When oil begins to shimmer add the onion and sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the minced garlic, chopped tomatoes, bay leaves and paprika and continue stirring.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

When the tomatoes begin to soften, raise the heat to high and add the wine and bring to a high simmer.

Reduce the heat to low and add the chicken breasts. Cover and maintain a very LOW simmer for 30 minutes turning the chicken once (carefully so as not to remove the crust). The gravy should just about be simmering.

Remove lid, remove chicken breasts and set aside in a covered dish to keep warm.

Increase heat to a full simmer and reduce sauce, stirring frequently until thick. Add the parsley in the last several minutes. Serve dressed with sauce on steamed rice. Garnish with a little more parsley.


Braised Chicken Breast Portuguese, Chop Onions, Boil Water

Recipe: Yankee Apple Pie

Nothing is more American than baseball, hot dogs and apple pie right? Well sort of. The way I understand it, baseball was actually based on an older British game called rounders. Hot dogs also came from a foreign land-Germany. The Germans do more things with weiners and sausage than my sausage-craving-friend Andy could ever hope to try. Finally, apple pie, that most American self-identified food, alas, the Europeans were making it long before they came here and stole all the land from the natives.

Don't let this bum you out though. Things like this happen all over the world and all through history! Take Italy for instance. What kind of food comes to mind when you think of Italy? Pizza and pasta right? Well, pizza found its way to Italy via the flatbreads of the Moorish invaders. Pasta? That's all Chinese, kiddies! What is pasta without sauce right? Well tomatoes were unknown in Italy and Europe until the Europeans found their way to the New World! Central and South American Indians were making sauces from tomatoes thousands of years before an Italian even knew what pasta was! The same can be said for many cultures dishes, many find their origins in other places and cultures.

So lighten your hearts countrymen and countrywomen! Rounders is lame! It had to be turned into something better! Guess who did that? Americans! We made it so popular with our changes that it is widely played throughout the Americas, the Caribbean and Asia! Similarly the hot dog has transcended its Germanic origins due entirely to its popularity in the United States (I do believe we added the bun!). We do more things with hot dogs alone than some Asian cultures do with rice!

Finally, there's apple pie. Sure it had its beginning in Europe, but those old recipes pale in comparison to the kicked up and spiced up version that American colonial women created when they naturalized and immortalized that dish as one of the New World's premier dessert dishes.

In this day and age with the internet, overnight delivery and an ever-shrinking world, I have friends in South Korea who dream about trying fresh baked American apple pie! Really! If they ever visit, this is the recipe I will use to bake them their first apple pie. I'll serve it to them with big scoops of homemade vanilla ice cream as well! Then I'll pour a big glass of champagne for myself and ask them to pronounce things from a Portuguese restaurant menu.

There are a lot of opinions where apple pie is concerned. Some folks say a blend of tart and sweet apples works best, others will mumble about the amount of spices, etc. For the sake of originality and variation I say experiment. Starting out with Macintosh's or Cortlands doesn't hurt and I've upped and downed the various spices as well. Experiment future pie makers! Experiment!

Yankee Apple Pie

5 lbs of Macintosh or Cortland apples (peeled and sliced into wedges)
1-2/3 cup of sugar
6 TBS all-purpose flour
2-4 TBS brown sugar
3-4 tsp of ground cinnamon (use your own judgement here)
1/2 tsp of ground allspice
1/4 tsp salt
1 TBS of fresh lemon juice
1 large egg (beaten)
Either purchase or prepare enough dough for two pie crusts (tops and bottoms).

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

In a large pan over low heat, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, allspice, salt, and sugars.

When the spice and sugar combination is well combined, add the apple wedges and lemon juice (if using) to the spice mixture and toss to coat. Leave in the pan, tossing frequently until the sugars begin to liquify and glaze the apple wedges. BE CAREFUL NOT TO BURN.

Remove pie filling mixture from heat.

Carefully unfold or roll out the pie dough and place in the bottoms of two pie pans.

Fill each pie with pie mixture. Mixture should heap a little to the center of the pie.

Carefully cover each pie with another piece of dough sealing the seams with a little beaten egg. Press pie edges together firmly. Brush the exposed pie dough with beaten egg.

Cut 3 small vent holes in the top of each pie and place them in the oven at 450°F for about 20 minutes. Then lower the heat to 375°F and continue cooking until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Remove from oven and let cool.

Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.

Apple pie chop onions, boil water