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.

2013 Christmas Recap

As promised, we've got a recap of our culinary adventures over this past Christmas.  Like most trips back to southern California, we hit up some of our favorite spots; El Burrito Jr., In-n-Out, and P.V. Palace Seafood for dim sum.  We also headed to Santa Monica to check out Josie.

In addition to all the meals we ate out, we also enjoyed some delicious home cooked meals, including some dishes we prepared during the cook off.  Justin and I faced off against my cousin, Lauren, and her husband, Gregor.  We were given 6 mystery ingredients and had to create an appetizer and a side dish.  We had access to everything in my aunt & uncle's pantry, and if we needed to go to the grocery store, we could only spend $25.

The mystery ingredients were sweet potatoes, mangoes, head-on prawns, bacon, kimchi, and turnips.  As soon as we saw kimchi and bacon, it took us a split second to decide on our kimchi brussels sprouts for our side dish.  Since turnips were a mystery ingredient, we just used those as the garnish in place of carrots.  That left us with mangoes, prawns and sweet potatoes.  We kept things light and went with a grilled prawn over mango salsa with a sweet potato chip.  Lauren and Gregor whipped up a delicious salad of apples, turnips, bacon, egg, and a mango kimchi  dressing to start.  For their side, they poached their shrimp in butter and lime with sweet potato shoestring fries.

It was a close competition, but we came out on top by 1 vote!  Both teams rose to the occasion and produced some delicious food. It was as close as possible, but we had a slight edge.  It was a huge hit with the whole family, and I think this will become an annual throwdown!

The day after Christmas, we gathered in Grandma's kitchen again to make joong ( 粽子) again.  It was a long day, but we ended up wrapping over 200 joong, and we now have a few bags in our freezer.  They're the perfect, cold-weather comfort food, full of delicious pork.

We also spent some time checking out the craft breweries around Torrance.  We ended up visiting Strand Brewing Co., Smog City Brewing Company, and Monkish Brewing Company.  All three offered delicious beers in a variety of styles.  Smog City was our overall favorite, and reminded us of some of the local breweries here in DC.

Overall, it was another wonderful trip to California.  Lots of food, lots of beer, and lots of family.  What more could you ask for over the holidays?

Everybody Loves Ramen!

We've had some cold weather around these parts, and a freezer full of turkey meat and turkey stock. So to kill two birds with one stone and use up our turkey, and warm our bellies, we decided to try our hand at making our own ramen.  We transformed this American fall classic into a Japanese-influenced cold weather delight.

To our basic stock, we added some mirin, garlic, soy sauce, and some white pepper.  Since our stock was pretty thick, we also added some water to give it the right consistency.  Let it simmer and reduce to about half.  We also threw in some of the shredded turkey we had on hand.

Once your broth has reduced, throw in your noodles.

Once they started to soften, we added in our chopped baby bok choy and some sliced scallions.  We wanted to keep some crunch to the bok choy, so we added them at the end.  If you want them to soften more, you can add them earlier.

Once the noodles are al dente, you're ready to serve!  We topped our ramen with some strips of nori for some added umami punch.

It was a nice and hearty bowl of soup, perfect for a cold winter's day!  It was a great change of pace from other turkey leftovers, and the flavor was comparable to the real thing.  Look for us to try a more traditional tonkotsu ramen in the future.

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.

Christmas: Unwrapped!

I hope everyone had an awesome holiday with friends and family.  Justin & I traveled out to California once again, to spend Christmas with my family.  And just like last year, there were many culinary adventures, including a cooking competition, and several cooking-related gifts under the tree.  So here's a quick round-up of all the new toys we'll be putting to use in the near future:

1. Nom Nom Paleo:  Though we aren't strictly following the Paleo diet, this is still an awesome cookbook to have in your arsenal.  Not only are there cartoons, and butt jokes, but she's got a ton of great tips alongside the recipes.  Plus, she's got a recipe for homemade sriracha!  And with the recent shutdown of the sriracha factory in CA, it'll really come in handy.

2. Pok Pok:  While we haven't been to the restaurant, we are huuuge fans of Thai food, and trying to recreate those distinctive flavors.  Not to mention, this cookbook was on just about every single "Top Cookbooks of 2013"-type list.

3. Vacuum Sealer:  Gone are the days of trying to suck the air out of a ziplock bag with a straw, and not inhale raw meat juices!  This should make our confit/sous vide efforts much, much easier!

4. Immersion Circulator: This was the perfect accompaniment to the vacuum sealer.  We no longer need to guess how hot our water is, and much like our immersion blender, we can use this guy in any pot we have.

5. Mini Food Processor: We were really in need of a new food processor.  Justin had a regular size processor, but it stopped working.  I had a mini one, but it had seen better days and the bowl would leak every time we used it.  So this was a perfect gift for us.  It's great for whipping up small batches of aioli, pesto, tzatziki, or any other kind of sauce you could imagine.

6. Garlic Press: We're huge fans of garlic, so you can never have too many garlic presses.  It sure beats chopping it by hand!

7. Mandoline: This versatile little tool is great for slicing veggies super thin.  Whether you want to make a slaw, pretty veggie ribbons, or chips, the mandoline is the tool for the job.  The one we got comes with 3 different blades, depending on how you want to slice your foods.  Just be sure to save your fingers and use the little guard.

8. Potato Ricer: On a recent trip to Ikea, while wandering around the kitchen section, Justin convinced me that we needed a ricer.  Since it was just a couple bucks, I agreed to the purchase.  We do make a decent amount of gnocchi, so I figured it'd come in handy.  But then came Thanksgiving, and while pressing some sweet potatoes through it, the arm totally bent, and placed the ricer out of commission.  Fortunately, we were able to salvage the gnocchi, and we now have a new food mill when we're ready to make gnocchi again.

9. Produce bags:  As you know, we get quite a bit of produce in every share.  These bags will help us sort and transport the produce we pick up.  They'll also be useful when we have to run downstairs to grab a few items from the grocery store.  That way, we are doing our part to be green and we won't have to spend the nickel to use those plastic bags in the store.

10. Bottle Opener:  Because you can never have too many bottle openers.
11. Ice Scream Spade:  Since Justin gave me an ice cream maker for my birthday, we've been making our fair share of fro-yos, gelato, and creams, so this will come in quite handy.
12. Real Snacks:  If left to my own devices, I could certainly snack all day long, so it will be fun to try out these recipes and see just how close we can come to making our favorite snacks and treats.
13. The Complete Joy of  Homebrewing:  As you may know, Justin and I are both big fans of craft beer.  We haven't tried home brewing yet, but this book gives us the perfect excuse to try it out.
14. Silicone Oven Mitts:  These bad boys slip on and cover almost your entire forearm, so you'll have no worries reaching deep into the oven. This gift was inspired by our guests who were holding their breath   when we flipped our dry-brined Thanksgiving bird.