If Aunt Jemima & Col. Sanders Went On a Date...

...they'd probably eat chicken and waffles.  What better combination of salty and sweet could you ask for?  We drew inspiration from Edward Lee's recipe for adobo chicken and waffles in his latest cookbook, Smoke & Pickles.  We took a few shortcuts from his version because it was a chilly night in the Capitol and we wanted some comfort food in a hurry.  I wanted something green to accompany our chicken and waffles, so we braised some mustard greens, making a homey, southern comfort dinner.

We had some chicken breasts on hand, so we trimmed the fat, and pounded them into slightly thinner cutlets.  This helped reduce the cook time, and keep them moist.  Lee's recipe calls for an adobo marinade, but since we didn't really plan ahead, we just let the chicken soak in some buttermilk while we got the rest of the meal started.

While the chicken soaked, we got to work on the greens.  Originally, we wanted to cook up some collard greens, but our grocery store didn't have them, so we settled for the mustard greens.  For the greens, we used Lee's recipe for kimchi collards as our guide.  We started by crisping up some bacon.  To that, we added a sliced shallot, and a big clove of garlic.

Once the shallot and garlic had some time cook down, we added in our mustard greens.  We got this huge bunch for less than $1.  You can't beat that!

I gave them a quick spin in the salad spinner to get any grit off of them, and then gave them a rough chop.  Then just toss them into your dutch oven with the bacon, shallots, and garlic.  As they started to wilt down, we added in a pat of butter, chicken stock, a splash of soy sauce, and a splash of apple cider vinegar.  Since we didn't have any kimchi on hand, we added in a bit of sriracha sauce for spice.  Give everything a good toss, so all the liquids combine, your butter melts, and the greens are tossed in the liquid.  Then we just put a lid on it, and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.

Now back to the chicken.  For the breading, we used a combination of flour and panko, and added some adobo spice to replace the adobo marinade that we didn't use, paprika, salt, pepper, and a bit of our homemade bbq rub.  Once your chickens are breaded, just drop them into the oil to fry up.

While Justin took care of frying the chickens, I handled the waffles.  You can use any waffle batter recipe you like.  Ours used buttermilk, for some tang, as well as some paprika and black pepper, to make them a little more savory.

As our waffles and chickens finished up, we placed them on a wire rack and popped them into the oven to keep them warm and crispy.  If you put them directly onto the baking sheet, the bottoms will get soggy.  Putting them on the rack allows the air to circulate around them, keeping all sides crispy.  Plus, putting the chicken on the rack allows the excess oil to drip off.

Once all of your waffles are made and chickens are fried, it's time to eat!  We topped ours with some maple syrup.  We also had some leftover chipotle yogurt sauce, so we used that as a dipping sauce, to add a little smokiness and balance out the sweet syrup.

While we took a few shortcuts and used breast meat, the end result held up in the taste department.  The chicken was perfectly seasoned, and tender on the inside while nice and crispy on the outside.  The waffles had a perfect balance of flavor from the buttermilk and spice, and came out crisp with a light and soft interior.  This was some definite southern comfort with an Asian twist that was perfect for a cold night.

To Brine, or Not to Brine?

I grew up always having a smoked turkey for Thanksgiving, which was easy to do when we lived in California.  After moving back east, colder weather came into play, and usually put a damper on our smoking plans, which is exactly what happened this year.  With about a week to go until the big day and a projected temperature of only 38 degrees, smoking the turkey just wasn't in the cards, and we resorted to oven roasting the bird.

Many people will recommend brining the turkey, to help retain moisture, particularly in the breast meat.  Wet brines are fine and good, but they require a lot of space in your fridge, and can leave your meat with a slightly mushy texture.  Instead, we tried a dry brine, which we found here.  One perk to dry brining is that you can apply the brine while your turkey is still frozen!  This was a huge time saver for us, since it took about 3.5 days for our turkey to completely defrost.

First, you'll want to get your brine ready.  As the recipe suggests, you want about 1 tbsp. of salt for every 5lbs. of turkey.  We had a 16.6lb. turkey, so we used a little more than 3 tbsp. salt.  Because we still wanted to try and get a smokey flavor, we used 2 tbsp. of applewood smoked salt, and 1 tbsp. kosher salt.  In addition to the salt, we added in some smoked paprika, again for some smokiness, along with some chopped thyme, rosemary, sage, and juniper berries, which we crushed in our mortar and pestle.

Now it's time to rub it all over your turkey!  Since our turkey still had to defrost, we placed him in a brining bag.  That way it would collect the water, and it'd be easy to dispose once Thanksgiving day came.  Before rubbing your salt mixture on the bird, be sure to pat him dry with paper towel to get rid of any excess moisture.  Also make sure that any gizzards and organs have been removed from the cavity.  Sprinkle a bit of your salt & spice mixture in the cavity too.  Then you'll want to use about 1 tbsp on the breasts, and 1 tbsp on each leg/wing/thigh.  If your turkey is defrosted already, be sure to get in all the crevices.

Once you've rubbed him down, you can seal up the bag.  Try to get as much air out of the bag as possible.  It can be a little tough, so it's best to have an extra set of hands to help you do this.

Now you can just pop your bird into the refrigerator, breast side up, for 3 days, and let the salt work its magic.  If you remember, give your turkey a little massage each day.  We massaged ours through the bag, just to keep our hands clean.

After the 3rd day, you'll want to remove him from the bag, and refrigerate him for at least 8 hours, uncovered.  We first put the brine on our turkey on Monday, so Wedensday night, before we went to bed, we took him out of the bag, gave him one last massage, and let him sit overnight, uncovered, in the fridge.

At least 1 hour before you're ready to cook your bird, be sure to take him out of the fridge, and let him start to warm up.  We also gave him an additional dusting of my Grandpa's secret rub, the one he'd use on his smoked turkeys.  As when roasting a chicken, we prepared some aromatics to put in the cavity to add a bit of flavor, and also keep the breast moist.  We stuck to traditional ingredients here, roughly chopping up some carrots, onion, celery, and lemon, and making a bundle of rosemary, sage and thyme.


We stuffed what we could into the cavity, and the rest went into the bottom of the roasting pan, so we'd get some added flavor to the pan drippings, in case we wanted to make gravy later.  Also make sure to tie the legs together, closing up the cavity as much as you can.  This will also help prevent the meat from drying out.

Now you're ready to roast!  Heat up your oven to 425 degrees, and place your bird, breast side down, on your roasting rack.  I know this is atypical, but trust us, it works!  We also brushed some softened butter onto the skin of the turkey to help it brown.  When you're oven comes to temperature, throw your bird in for 30 minutes.  This will help get the bottom nice and brown.

After 30 minutes, pull your bird out of the oven and flip him over.  Remember that the pan and bird are extremely hot.  Be sure to have oven mitts or dish towels handy to help you flip the bird without burning yourself.  While you're trying to flip the bird, you'll also want to lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees.  Give him another coat of butter, and pop him back in the oven until a thermometer, stuck into the thickest part of the thigh, reads 160 degrees.

For us, it took about 2.5hrs. more.  Most will say that poultry needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees, but we knew that if we pulled him out when he reached 160 degrees, the carry-over cooking would bring him up to 165.

Be sure to let him rest for at least 30 minutes before you start carving into him.  While he's resting, you can give him a foil tent to keep him warm, and you can now use the oven to cook your side dishes, like our green bean casserole.

The dry brining method was a success!  The breast stayed nice and moist, and the smoked salt we used added a subtle smokiness to the meat.  It was a great alternative to actually smoking the turkey.

Beer Can Chicken

Ah the infamous beer can chicken, AKA redneck duck confit.  Legend has it that at a BBQ competition some guy was waiting for brisket to cook overnight. He grew hungry while drinking some brews, and decided to cook himself up a chicken to snack on.  In his drunken state he accidentally set the chicken on his beer, and the beer can chicken was born.  Contrary to popular belief, the reason the chicken is so moist and delicious isn't from alcohol vapors or anything like that.  Sitting upright lets all that tasty skin fat render down the breast meat making it all tender and delicious!

After patiently waiting 3 whole days for our chicken to defrost, we were FINALLY able to cook it.  And with the weather warming up, we've been using the grill a lot more lately, so we decided to try out some beer can chicken.  This isn't a quick meal, like our last few have been, but it's totally worth the wait.

Start by procuring a can of beer.  We used Oskar Blues Ten Fidy Imperial Stout, since we had it on hand, but you can use whatever you want.  Reserve about 1/4 of the can for your rub, drink about 1/4, and leave the other half in the can.  Then we chopped up some garlic, rosemary, and oregano, and added that to the can with a bit of your dry rub ingredients.

For the rub, we used that 1/4 can of beer we reserved, some grapeseed oil (or whatever oil you have on hand), paprika, cayenne, cumin, dried sage, dried thyme, salt, pepper, and some secret hobo spices (we can't tell you ALL of our secrets!).  Before mixing the wet and dry ingredients, we put some of the spice mixture into the beer can (mentioned above), and saved some to sprinkle on the bird before we put him on the grill.  Then just get your hands dirty and rub your mixture all over the chicken, making sure to get into all the nooks and crannies.

Then you'll want to carefully insert the beer can into the cavity of the chicken, and stand him upright in a foil roasting pan.  You'll want to pull his legs forward and tuck his wings forward.  This will help him balance and sit upright.  Just like roasting a chicken in the oven, filling the cavity will help keep the breast meat moist and juicy, and having the metal can inside helps cook the bird from the inside out.

The most important part of the process is to use indirect heat, cooking him low, and slow.  For our grill, we only turned on the outer burners, and placed our chicken in the middle.  The other tray you see in the picture is filled with some water to help evenly distribute the heat.  If you own a fancy grill with a built-in thermometer, you'll want it to heat up to 225-245 degrees.  If your grill doesn't have a thermometer like ours, you can just wing it! (pun intended).

While the bird was cooking, we sat back, relaxed, and patiently waited.  We were starting to get anxious so we made our side dishes.  We made some sweet potato fries, and butter braised radishes.  Both sides were extremely simple.

For the radishes, cut off the ends, and quarter them.  And you can slice up your sorrel.

Then melt some butter in a pan with some stock.  We used all the stock we had for our risotto, so we just used some water.  Once it's melted, toss in your radishes, season with salt and pepper, and just let them cook.

Once the butter sauce thickens, you can take them off the heat.  This took about 15 minutes.  Then just toss them with the sorrel.   I never would have thought about eating warm, cooked radishes, but they were surprisingly tasty.  Obviously the butter helped in the taste department, but warming them also took some of the spicy bite out of them.  They were still on the crunchy side, which I liked, and the sorrel gave it back some of the freshness that the cooking process removed.

It ended up taking about 2 hours to cook our bird.  But it was well worth the wait.  The skin came out nice and crispy, the meat and juicy and tender, and there were plenty of drippings to make a delicious pan sauce.

We poured the drippings from the pan, and whatever beer was left in the can into a little skillet, added some cream, and whipped up a tasty little gravy.

Our beer can chicken dinner wouldn't be complete without a beer to drink, so we cracked open a bottle of Taster's Choice, a collaboration brew between DC Brau (our local brewery) and Ska Brewing, from CO.  They teamed up the ska band, The Pietasters, to make a coffee doppleback brew.  It was a delicious pairing to our chicken.


Overall, the meal came out delicious, it was a hearty and rustic meal, that packed a flavorful punch.  This is a great meal for summer get togethers because it starts with cracking open a beer and the grill does all the work while you continue the drinking and merriment with your friends.

Easter Feast

We spent Easter weekend down in NC with Justin's parents, taking in some sun, catching a glimpse of the ocean, and just relaxing.  It was a nice little getaway.  But we didn't stay out of the kitchen for too long.  Since we had to drive back to DC on Sunday, we decided to do Easter dinner on Saturday night.  After an impromptu happy hour on the balcony, we got cookin'.

We tried to keep the menu pretty simple and with spring in mind.  We started the meal with a pea soup.  It's supposed to be a chilled soup, but we ate it at about room temperature, and it was perfect.  The sweetness of the peas was balanced out by the mint, which gave it a refreshing punch.  We couldn't find morel mushrooms, so we used chanterelles instead, and they were delicious!

For the main course, we went with lamb chops (of course!), with a curry cream.  Shout out to my aunt for the recipe!  The lamb gets marinated in some white wine and whole grain mustard.  The curry cream is really where it's at!  It's a simple mixture of whipping cream, paprika, tumeric, cayenne, fenugreek leaves, garlic and lemon juice.  Fenugreek can also be called kasuri methi, and is a common ingredient in Indian food.  Because the rest of our menu was more spring like, we did add a bit of mint to the sauce, to help tie everything together.

For side dishes, we went with asparagus wrapped in pancetta, and the kale/farro/sunchoke hash that we've made a couple times before.

The saltiness of the pancetta was balanced out by the citrus sauce that was drizzled over the top.  And although the kale-sunchoke hash was a bit of the hearty side, relatively, it really helped round out the meal.

We had good intentions to make a dessert of coconut macarons and ice cream, but we all fell into food comas following dinner.  Dessert will have to wait until next time.

Voyage to India

That's right...2 posts in 1 day!  So grab your passport and join us as we chow down on some Indian grub!  Now, don't be intimidated by the thought of cooking Indian food.  The techniques aren't anything new, but there are probably a few spices that aren't currently in your pantry.  For the lamb biryani and the chana masala we needed quite a variety of spices, but we actually had most of them on hand already.

We found recipes online for both the lamb biryani and the chana masala, and kept pretty close to the recipes.  So let's start with the lamb.

Start with some plain yogurt, garlic, cayenne, cumin, salt & pepper.  Once mixed together, drop in your lamb and make sure they're nice and coated in the yogurt mixture.  While the lamb is getting all cozy with the yogurt and spices, you can saute some sliced onions in butter with cardamom, turmeric, cloves, and cinnamon.

This recipe wanted you to cook the rice in the sauce with the lamb, but we opted to cook the rice separately.  That way we'd have plain rice to mix with the various sauces.


Once everything was mixed, we added the lamb and yogurt to the pan, along with some water and the golden raisins.  The recipe calls for regular raisins, but I prefer golden raisins, so we used those.  If you're not cooking the rice in the pan with the lamb, you can add less water than the recipe calls for.  You just want enough to make a sauce.

This was an oversight on our part, so we had to use a bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce, and added more spices to bring back the flavor.  It was an easy save.  When you're ready to serve, toss in your toasted cashews.  You don't want to add them too early, otherwise they'll lose a bit of their crunch.

Now, onto the chana masala.  This was another easy dish to pull together.  You start with some onion, garlic, ginger, and a hot green chili.  All I could at the store was a jalepeno, but it worked out just fine.  Once those cook down, add in your spices: coriander, cumin, cayenne, turmeric, paprika, garam masala (I had to use some curry since the grocery store was out of garam masala), and the juice from half of a lemon.

Once everything has been cooking for a few minutes, add your tomatoes and their juices.  This is when you can deglaze the pan and scrape up all the tasty bits at the bottom.  Once you've scraped up all the bits, you can add the chickpeas, water, and the juice from the rest of the lemon, and just let it simmer so all the flavors can come together, and the tomatoes can cook down.

We also had a third dish, some dal makhani, which is a dish of lentils and kidney beans.  We kind of cheated on this one, just heating it through and adding it to the plate.  But overall, it was a quick, and easy meal to put together.  We may have had to buy some additional spices, but that just adds to our arsenal.  Don't be intimidated by cooking ethnic food at home.  When you break it down, it's really just using different spices an flavor combinations, using techniques you're already familiar with.