Chicken Paprikash

True story:  I spent days eating this and then spent a full fifteen minutes this morning wondering why I gained four pounds.

I had forgotten all about chicken paprikash (can you believe that?) until my friend MK reminded me. THANKS MK. Thanks, MK, for the four pounds and reminding me of another use for sour cream. 

My grandmother made a version of chicken paprikash, with a lot less spice.  And much more cream. I don't know if that was a preference, a reflection of the availability of cream, the expense of spice or a regional quirk. It was made with an eggy spaetzel (called nokedli in Magyar).

I liked this recipe very much from A Full Measure of Happiness. It felt closer to my version of authentic, without strange peppers and whatnot. 

Chicken Paprikash (serves 6-8 people)

• 2 lbs chicken (traditionally, you would use drumsticks and thighs. I used drumsticks and a big, fat, chicken breast to health it up a little)
• 1 large or two small onions
• 2-3 T paprika
• salt and pepper
• 6 C water or chicken stock -- or a combination
• 1/4 C flour
• Sour cream

For the nokedli

• 6 eggs
• 2 C flour
• 1 t salt
• 1 t baking powder

1.  Cover chicken parts with paprika.  Brown in a big sturdy dutch oven.

2.   Toss in diced onions, brown slightly.

3.  I added chicken stock.  Simmer, simmer, simmer for a couple hours til the meat falls off the bone.

4.  Now, this is where I differed from Full Measure of Happiness. I separated the meat/bone from the liquid, picked off the meat to return to the pot AND poured all the liquid through a fat separator. Not to save calories -- but reducing the amount of fat will increase the flavor intensity of the sauce.

5.  Simmer, simmer, simmer.  Thicken with flour/water  OR potato starch and water.

6.  For the nokedli,  combine all the ingredients  and drop by the spoonful into a pot of boiling water until the noodles float.  Remove with a slotted spoon. You may need a few rounds.

7.  Serve this lovely chicken stew over a big scoop of nokedli with a dollop of sour cream. I used to mix the sour cream in -- until I was informed that not everyone likes sour cream. I know, a day without sour cream is like a day without sunshine. I don't understand it either. 

 

And, man, did this get me like a punch straight to the heart. One million memories. I think it's absolutely wonderful.  My husband described it as a "Big Bowl of Awesome."  But me, I wasn't quite sure if I was tasting the food or the nostalgia.  

I don't know if this is authentic, but it's authentic to me. 

Red Eye Gravy

The food of rural Texas (AKA my childhood) is all about making do with what you have. Long before all this "reduce, reuse, recycle" stuff, using up or going without has been bred into us native Texans for generations. If your family helped settle this land, you have genes that are resourceful and dare I say, "frugal" would be the nice word.

Chances are your grandpappy and mammy were at some point snowed in, surrounded by injuns (in the case of my paternal great-great-great-great Uncle Tapley, Santa Anna's men down to the Alamo) or otherwise cut off from outside resources. Or just flat broke. So they used what they had. And every bit of it.

In the spirit of using whatever you have handy to your best advantage, I present Red Eye Gravy. As simple a recipe as you can get, Red Eye Gravy is what I could call an acquired taste. It was my father who always made it, and my brother who waited anxiously by the stove. I'm not a huge fan, but there's no doubt that its origins lie south of the Mason-Dixon and it's "use it up" qualities make it a Texas staple.

Red Eye Gravy is so named because of its deep red color, although its consistency makes it more of a sauce than a gravy. It's very thin and contains no thickening agents, so don't expect creamy. Serve it over biscuits and pieces of pan seared ham. Some people like to add a fried egg or two.

Start with a ham. Please do not substitute bacon just because it's pork. Bacon will yield a greasy mess and likely injure you in the process. I used a ham steak because good Lord, what would I do with an entire ham?

If you have a ham, cut off pieces about 1/8" thick--this is not the time to go deli thin--and 4" squareish. If you have a ham steak, you might want to slice it into two thinner pieces once you have the thing cut up into the 4" chunks. I'd use about 1-1 1/2 pounds.


The technical term for the caramelized bits is "drippings."

Heat a skillet (I used non-stick, but really, it's better if you don't, and I wish I hadn't) and cook the ham pieces over low heat a few minutes on each side until you get a most delightful red. It's important not to add any grease or oil and just as important not to cook the ham too quickly. You're not so much frying as you are coaxing the juice from the ham and hoping that little caramelized bits of fat and juice cling to the pan. See?

Transfer your cooked ham to a plate and get about 1/4 of a cup of coffee. The coffee can be freshly made, hot or cold, but here is where the Old Timers used what they had. Back in the day, people did not pay $5 for a cup of coffee, did not buy coffee in any flavor but STRONG, did not brew fresh every day and sometimes even reheated and drank coffee left over from the previous day. In my 1970's childhood, you made coffee  in a percolator, and you made a lot of it because it was a PITA to assemble the contraption and the stupid thing took so long to make a pot.

But freshly brewed is okay. However, please do not use flavored coffee. Do not use fancy coffee of any kind. I'm talking you should straight up get some Folger's. Trust me on this, even the non-fanciest coffee you already have in your pantry is not right for this recipe. It will taste FUNKY.

Your heat should be low from cooking the ham, but now turn it up to low-medium. Take your plain old I-wouldn't-actually-drink-this coffee and add it to the pan. The pan will bubble and look mildly like a science experiment for a few glorious moments, but never fear, because there is so little grease in the pan, it will not explode or even splatter. Another reason why bacon is verboten here.

Take a spatula and stir to remove the drippings from the pan. When I first mentioned Red Eye Gravy to my friend, Jersey, she was startled by the use of coffee to "deglaze" the pan. Deglaze? It never occurred to me that that this process was deglazing. You're just getting the drippings.

Come on, it's going to get cold.

Anyhoo, stir and scrape and add up to 1/4 cup of water if it seems too dark and let it cook for about two more minutes. It will not thicken. I find the taste a little strong, so you can add a tablespoon of brown or white sugar if you like.

Assemble your plate. You will need biscuits--and again, it matters not if they are fresh or hot or cold. In fact, this is an Old Timer's trick to use up day (or several day) old biscuits. Arrange your ham and biscuits on a plate and pour on your gravy.

Enjoy and rest assured that Uncle Tapley likely ate his fair share of Red Eye Gravy before giving his life for the Republic.

Falafel, or, More Round Fried Things My Children Will Eat

Falafel has a long history in New York City.  Having worked downtown, I grew fond of the carts in Zuccotti Park.  9/11 wiped them out and then, Occupy Wall Street.  Politics aside, please step away from my prole $5 falafel habit.

I don't know how they are made around the world and I confess, I never had them in Paris.  I've read that most falafel is made with fava beans but it seems the ones around here are mostly the chickpea variety.

We are lucky enough to live near this place (Salah Edin, please get a website. Also make more kibbeh and eggplant salad, you guys never make enough). 

Falafel also works surprisingly well around this house.  It's super cheap (!) and for the kiddies it's round AND deep fried.  It's also really easy to make fresh.

I generally riff when I make falafel.  The recipe I use the most for proportions is Mark Bittman's from The New York Times.  I really like his the best because of the baking soda -- it makes everything just a little bit lighter and the texture works well.   Also the spices: coriander and cumin are key (for me, at least) for falafel.

Second Pulse.  See the final texture?

For falafel, I will go ahead and soak the whole bag of Goya beans chickpeas. Since I don't have a giant food processor, I'll pulse the beans once, pulse the onions and the garlic separately, and process everything together with the spice and alternating tablespoons of water and lemon juice until the consistency is right.


You can fry right away or put in the fridge for awhile.

I like yogurt-tahini sauce.  Mine's pretty simple:  couple garlic cloves mashed up with salt, 1 part tahini, 2 parts plain yogurt and thin with lemon juice.  You can add cumin if you like.

I fry my falafel in a FryDaddy electric fry bucket.  I know, you're all jealous of this glamorous $17 kitchen appliance.  I mold them to around golf ball size.

And here we are.  We had only 5 left after dinner!  It's a very kid approved meal, served with pita and carrot sticks (and cucumber salad for the grownups.)

Red Sauce

When I was a kid, red sauce was everywhere. Every holiday:  Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving.  Every Sunday. Every funeral, communion and baptism was celebrated at a red sauce joint with flocked wallpaper and some smelly old man playing "Volare" on an accordion. The grownups would drink bad chianti and my cousins and I would make sculptures out of butter packets.
 
In fact, our red sauce joint was so authentic, the parking lot even landed a role in a famous movie:

Is "Layla" playing in your mind?

There is a long history to Italian American red sauce with meat. It really is its own thing, invented by immigrants who wanted to show off and be as generous and lush as possible.  There are regionalisms throughout the states and individual traditions. It's a standard story that people going back to the Old Country for the first time are taken aback that red sauce isn't red sauce "over there." 

People will tell you that red sauce is bolognese. IT IS NOT. This is bolognese:

See? It's dry and carroty with a lot of wine. Or, rather, this is bolognese:

 

This is red sauce:

 

 

Here's the thing. Your kids don't want to hang out with a prickly, self-absorbed director with existential angst. Your kids want to take a ride with Uncle Paulie, knock over a 7-11 and go to AC for the weekend. Uncle Paulie has his merits. 

 

I didn't eat red sauce for years. Couldn't take it, couldn't stand the sight of it. Then I started itching for it, now and again. It does have its purpose. It's cheap as hell, freezes great, always dependable and always ready for action.

 

Now, there are as many variants as there are stars in the sky. Written recipes usually specify San Marzano tomatoes hand-nutured by the Blind Sisters of Saint Fiammentina and oregano dried by the Adriatic breezes. Great. We're going with whatever's 5/$5 this week at the supermarket. I usually buy a selection of whole tomatoes and crushed.  Because the tomatoes, my friends, are not the key ingredients.

 

These are:

 

 

Yup, pork neck bones. I've read that the faint of heart will use pork chops.  C'mon now.  Don't waste a decent piece of meat when all you need are bones and crap. 

The sauce has three layers: top, middle, foundation. The top flavor is going to be the tomatoes and the spice, the middle is going to be the ground meat and the wine, and the foundation is neck bones. It doesn't taste the same without it, it has no depth, it's weak, it's not substantial.

(ETA:  Ms. Texas reports that pork neck bones are not readily available in her nabe. Pork knuckles are an authentic alternate, I should've mentioned that before. Knuckles are used in some houses, I grew up with neck bones.  It's a house-to-house variant). 

Now, I add another ingredient to my base. You thought the neck bones were bad? Ha ha ha ha ha.

Oh, yes, chicken livers. I am sparing you the interior view.  A couple, diced, is going to make that foundation really strong.  Add a smokey wonderfulness. Just another shade. It's worth it. Yeah, I eat foie gras too when I can get it. Liver is magic. It's just going to melt away in the sauce.

So this is how we start.  All the neck bones, a couple diced livers and a couple pounds or so of ground meat (sometimes I buy the pork/veal/beef blend -- sometimes I add extra ground beef, whatever you're feeling) go into a giant pot to be browned.
  

Diced onions, celery, pulverized carrots and about 5-6 diced cloves garlic go in after.  A few bay leaves. A few teaspoons of oregano. Then a cup to a cup and a half of white wine.  When all that cooks out, you add your 5 cans of tomatoes and tomato variants. 

This is a mid-simmer shot.
 

If you want sausage, you can add that too.  I would advise from past experience not going too nuts on the hot sausage. This is going to be simmering for hours and the hot will make the whole sauce substantially spicier. 

Finalmente!

This is an all-day sauce.  You know you have sauce when it's brick red and the meat is falling of the bones. 

Red Sauce

5 cans of tomatoes, a mix of whole and crushed
4 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
4-5 sticks celery, diced
5-6 carrots, pulverized
6-8 garlic cloves diced
1 package of pork neck bones
2-3 chicken livers (optional, but do it!)
1 lb ground beef
1 lb beef/pork/veal mix
Bay leaves
3 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes
1 cup white wine, or red, you know, if it's opened

1.  Add all meat to a giant pot.  Brown well.

2.  Reduce to low-medium heat and add diced celery, onions, carrots, garlic and olive oil.  Mix, and then add  4-5 bay leaves and the oregano. Add the red pepper flakes. Stir for a few minutes and add wine.  Let all the wine cook out.

3.  Add tomatoes. Whole can be put through a food mill, a food processor or smashed at random with a potato masher in the sauce.  Your choice.

4.  Keep on a low flame for the whole day. Stir and taste often. Contemplate life. Read a poem. Take out the trash.

5.  After 5-8 hours, the melange will become Sauce.  It will be brick red and the meat will be falling off the neck bones. Taste, add salt and additional oregano as you like.

6.  The sauce is shockingly dependable frozen, I remove the bones for easier storage.

Chicken Croquettes, Buttermilk, Biscuits and Narcolepsy

With chicken croquettes and buttermilk gravy on my mind, I had planned to write a long post about making and using roux. But then I decided to add Texas’s Sunday Morning Biscuits and frankly, you need to make them NOW. They are life-changing. I’ve made a lot of biscuit recipes, and most of them sucked, requiring self-rising flours and fridge time.

My wayward Yankee heart has seen the light and will go forth to sin no more.

But onto chicken croquettes. My children have a wide and varied palate, as long as whatever it is you are cooking is rolled into a ball and deep fried. I tried making chicken croquettes because I can sneak in a SPOT of vegetable – celery, carrot, onion – and they gobble them up. I usually start with a grocery store roasted breast for a few bucks. You can poach your own chicken if you want. First I obliterate my vegetables with the food processor and the chicken right after until it’s pasty and smooth.

Then I make my roux. In case you’ve never made one before, roux is butter (or another fat, but we’ll talk about that later) and a few tablespoons of flour mixed over low heat (And never browning and NEVER burning). When it’s crumbly and together, you add a cup or so of HOT (not burnt, but def hot) milk and whisk the hell out of it over low heat. You keep going until it’s looking like vanilla pudding or mayonnaise.

I started making roux many years ago when I got it into my head that I had to know how to make a soufflé. And believe me, I fucked it up many many times. The hot milk thing is a Julia Child trick, I’ve rarely seen it mentioned anywhere else. But the roux pulls together much quicker. A roux is the basis for a million things. Once you master this it’s only a few steps to a soufflé, or béchamel, or mac and cheese – anything, really.

This is the finalized roux, with the addition of nutmeg and salt/pepper.

Then the pulverized chicken and my roux (I folded in some egg yolks into it as well) is folded together. I threw in some bread crumbs (too many frankly) and put in the fridge until go time. I decided to roll these in egg and more breadcrumbs anyway. Anything to get the kids to eat.

When I was speaking to Ms. Texas about my project, she suggested using the oil I used to fry for the basis of a buttermilk gravy. Which sounded fine – but I use canola for the safety/higher flashpoint – and canola doesn’t have a lot going for it tastewise. I decided to use a little bacon grease for my second roux for the gravy. This was my first time making a roux without butter (just the bacon grease and a little of my canola) and it took a lot longer to pull together, even with the addition of hot buttermilk. Since my band is not as fond of milk and cream as I, I decided to add a little chicken broth to mix. Probably added too much, didn’t cook down as quickly as I would have liked.

But the biscuits, did I mention the biscuits? HEAVEN. No lie. Amazing. And here was our dinner. The children were thrilled and my eldest actually remarked that “the food was good.”

OMG, what did you say? Oh, right, I guess I should’ve made a vegetable. Oh well.

My croquette recipe is adapted from something on the internet. I'll try to find it and post.

The evening ended with us all quiet on the couch, each playing "Temple Run" on our respective mobile devices, incapable of thought or conversation.  Carb/dairy/fat trifecta achieved.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

 

In my ongoing experiment cooking Southern food that I have never actually eaten, hummingbird cake always sounded appealing.  Pineapple, coconut and banana.  Most have nuts added (which I don’t like to cook with, too many little kids too allergic), but this recipe from Annie’s Eats (who in turn, took it from Martha Stewart)  has it as an option only.  Looked perfect to me.

There were problems, of course. I had the pineapple (big frozen bag from Trader Joe’s), but came up short on the bananas (about 1 less than the 1 1/3 cp required) and my coconut was looking a little sad. But there was that big jar of coconut oil I had just purchased. Threw in 2 tablespoons or so (and then left everything to drain. I always drain and press fruit for my recipes well, it's hard to control the additional liquid).

Made everything else according to the recipe, with only a FEW tweaks:

1  Room temperature. Lots of recipes call for room temperature butter. I am going to tell you to get your eggs room temperature too. Better rise. Let them sit out a little, or put them in a glass of lukewarm water. Don't use them icy from the fridge. 

2.  You can beat your eggs and butter and sugar into Kitchen Aid oblivion, but once you add flour the party is over.  Flour + liquid + force = chewy.  Which is great for bread, but lousy for anything sweet.  And I don't trust the mixer anymore on low because my phone rings, or something explodes, and then...it's gone.

 

 

There, that's the color.  Decent rise.  Could have gotten a higher yield if I had that extra banana, but no matter....

We have frosting to make.

Here's that room temperature thing again.  I cut things into little pieces and leave them out.  They get to the right temp pretty quick.  DO NOT microwave anything, DO NOT let it get melty in the sun.  I can't tell you why that doesn't work, but it certainly does not work. You will have lumps of confectioner's sugar in an oily pool.

The website recipe seems fine for cream cheese frosting.  I've made frosting so many times, I just eyeball it.  One block CC, one stick butter, tsp vanilla, about a 1 lb of powdered sugar -- beat that until it's frosting and add a tbsp of milk at a time until it's pipeable.

Since this cake is so fruity, I thought I'd add a little extra something to the frosting....

 

If you are lucky enough to live near a Middle Eastern food importer, get right over there and you pick up marvelous things like this for a couple bucks.  This is orange blossom water, pomegranate molasses, orange oil and rose water.  I decided to go with the orange water.  I mean, you can go to Williams Sonoma but they will charge you $50 and be total jerks about the whole thing. 

 

 

 

And here we are. I liked the cake very much, the pineapple really came through and tastes springy and fresh. Didn't really taste the coconut oil but I will assume that made up for the moistness of our missing banana. I think the next time I will sub out half the white sugar for Demarra Cane sugar (again, at Williams Sonoma for $50 or your local Guyanese grocer for $4, who is waiting for you with open arms) and increase the cinammon to 1 tsp.