2013: A Year in Shakes

I don't know about you, but every now and then, I have to have a good milk shake.  Supposedly, my mom consumed her fair share of  milkshakes while I was in the womb, so it's not surprising that I'm still a big fan of the delicious, slurpable ice cream treats.  Going to school in North Carolina, I was spoiled by having a Cook-Out just off campus.  They stayed open until 3am, and they could make any combination of flavors you could imagine for just a couple bucks.  It was perfect for my college wallet.

Fortunately, Justin loves milkshakes as much as I do, so it wasn't hard to convince him to indulge in a milkshake with our burgers and fries once a month.  With Good Stuff Eatery within walking distance to our old apartments, it was easy to head over there once a month to sample each month's special shake.  It was hard work, let me tell ya, but somebody had to do it!  So here's our assessment of the year's shakes, in order of preference:

The overall favorite was Samoa.  Yep, just like the Girl Scout Cookie!  But bananas foster was a close second, with caramel macchiato rounding out the top three.  The great thing about the shake of the month is that it features a seasonal ingredient as well, and while pumpkin and cranberries were natural picks for the fall, a nod goes to the creativity in picking a girl scout cookie for a less obvious month such as March.  Now, the other shakes weren't bad, but the fruitier shakes tended to be a bit too cloyingly sweet for our taste buds.

Also of note is the birthday cake shake.  If you visit Good Stuff on your birthday, they give you a free birthday cake shake.  I'm not a huge fan of cake batter-flavored things, so this wasn't my favorite shake, but if you like that sort of thing, I'd definitely recommend it.  This is all in addition to their regular shake offerings, which are pretty awesome in their own right.  Prior to the shake-of-the-month, the Milky Way Malt was my go-to shake, though the Vietnamese coffee shake is also high on my list.

There you have it...we risked sugar-highs and brain-freezes to let our loyal readers know what was shakin' in 2013.

It's Not A Tumer[ic]

When we got a whole cornish hen in our recent share, we wanted to do something more with it than just roasting it in the oven, or making beer can chicken again.  We turned to Eat With Your Hands for some inspiration, and found a recipe for tumeric chicken and celery mostarda, and we just had to try it out.

We started off by rinsing our hen.  After we were done making her dance around and flap her wings, we patted her dry and set her aside while we prepared her butter rub.

For the butter spice rub, we combined a jalepeno, turmeric, a couple cloves of garlic, kosher salt, and some fenugreek (our own tweak to the recipe), and smashed it into a paste with my mortar & pestle.  It takes a little elbow grease, but your'll end up with a nice paste.

Add your paste to some softened butter until it's well combined.  Then you're ready to massage it into your bird.  Make sure you get in all the nooks and crannies, as well as under the skin.  You should be able to separate the skin from the meat just enough to slide some of your spiced butter in there.

You're supposed to let your chicken marinate overnight, but we didn't read the recipe in advance.  So don't fret.  It still turns out tasty and delicious!  Now with your lemongrass, give the stalks a few good whacks with your knife.  This will let the lemongrass essence come out when it's in the oven.  Place the stalks in the bottom of your pan, and place your bird on top of them.  This prevents the bottom of your bird from cooking too fast, and imparts some nice flavor.

Pop her in the oven for about 20 minutes, then add some coconut milk and a bit of lime juice to your pan, and put her back in the oven.  You'll want to baste her periodically for the last 20 minutes as well.

While your bird is roasting, you can start on your celery mostarda.  Mostarda is a traditional Italian condiment of candied fruits made with mustard oil.  But Pelaccio puts an Asian spin on it by adding some heat, and fish sauce to the mix.  Start by slicing your celery into pieces, and toss with some salt.

In a separate bowl, combine a couple dried chilies, fish sauce, honey, star anise, cloves and some water.  Make sure you toast your chilies prior to adding them to your liquid, and be careful not to inhale over the toasted chilies.  We made the mistake, despite the warnings in the cookbook.  Let's just say, it's not pleasant.

Melt some butter in a small saucepan, and add your celery.  After about a minute, add your liquid mixture, and let it cook until the celery is tender.

Pull your cooked celery out of the pot, and let your pickling liquid continue to reduce until it is the consistency of maple syrup.  We didn't have any mustard oil on hand, so we had to improvise a bit.  We toasted up some mustard seeds, and then ground them in the mortar & pestle with a bit of sesame oil.  Once your liquid has thickened, whisk in your mustard oil, and then pour it over the celery.  You'll want to be sure to remove the chilies, star anise and cloves first.  You can also can your mostarda, like you would pickles.  If you do that, you can keep the aromatics in the liquid.  But since we were going to eat ours right away, we made sure to remove them, so we didn't accidentally bite into a clove or star anise pod, and ruin our pallets.

By the time your celery is done, your chicken should be done too.  Pull her out of the oven, and make sure to let her rest before you carve her up.

Our cornish hen was super moist, and had a very subtle coconutty flavor that mellowed out the spice rub.  It came out pretty tender with crisp skin and cooking it on the lemongrass imparted a citrusy taste without an acidic bite.  As good as the meat was, the real hero was the celery mostarda.  Taking cues from Malaysian cuisine, it had spicy, sweet, and sour flavors that awaken your taste buds.  The celery was a perfect blank canvas for all that flavor, and the texture was really nice as well.