Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Sparky got me Vivian Howard's cookbook for Christmas. (If you don't know who Vivian is, then look her up you lazy uninformed bastards.) And I decided to make one of her restaurant's most popular dishes, pimento cheese grits with salsa.

Confession #1 first though, when I moved south in 1974 I tried grits and I hated them  They tasted like paste mixed with sand. But later I found out that the problem was all the grits I tried back then were crap.  Don't ever eat Quaker Oats brand grits, especially the instant ones, they're fucking awful.  These days I love love love grits, especially Lakeside brand, they're made from yellow corn so they're nice and yellowy.  The best dishes begin with the best ingredients. 

I began by cooking my grits.  I cooked enough for the two of us, which is a half a cup of grits stirred into two cups boiling water.  You stir them until the grits absorb all the water and if you have to, mash out all the lumps. 

 Once my grits were done, I greased a cast iron skillet with butter.

Then I poured my grits into the skillet and let them cool completely.  

After I made the rest of the meal, I put my grits into the oven to bake.  I baked them at 375 F for about 15 minutes. Then I put the pimento cheese on of them and I baked them for 10 more minutes. 

After they finished baking I took them out and I spread some of my homemade canned salsa on them and I cut them into pizza like slices. 

I served them with fried chicken legs and some turnip greens.  

The verdict: DELICIOUS. The grits were fantastic and the pimento cheese and salsa complimented each other like crazy.  I am definitely making this dish again.

Confession #2: I didn't follow Vivian's recipe exactly, I used it as a template rather than something to exactly slavishly follow.  Mine turned out fine, even if they were a little less crispy looking then hers looked in her cookbook.

Sidenote, once I finish reading her cookbook I will review it here, so stay tuned.

Hot in the kitchen

I don't give a crap about molecular gastronomy.  I couldn't care less if some asshole figured out a way to spend six hours in a sweaty kitchen turning beets into something that's supposed to taste like chocolate pig testicles.  The fact that you can cook perfect soft boiled eggs every time in some kind of machine doesn't do a thing for me.  I hate all that crap, in fact go ahead and put it in a plastic bag, shove it in a boiler, and sous vide it up your classically trained French chef butt.

Also, Anthony Bourdain? What a insufferable asshole.  Braying, misogynist, overrated, lousy writing asshole.  He's the Guy Fieri of the gourmet food set.

In fact, most all TV food personalities make me stabby.  They make me ever so glad I cut off our cable years ago.  I can't stand most any of them except for one:

Vivian Howard.

How do I love thee Vivian?  Let me count that ways...

I love her because she's not pretentious.  She's not running around pretending to be something she's not.  I love her because she's no longer part of that uber awful New York city food world.  She's real, she's in North Carolina, and she's honest.

And she doesn't cook that pretentious crap that's been anointed as the next big thing out of New York that we're all supposed to fawn over, that's going to make us jizz in our pants, and make us whole once again.  She cooks great looking food that's been grown in her region of the country.  She takes the best of what's around her and she turns it into great looking edible food.  What she does, from what I can tell from her TV show, is art.  It's not rocket science, it's not pretension dressed up as supper, it's good looking edible food that doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

I also love her because she's in my part of the country.  I've been by the city she works and lives in.  I've been to some of the places she goes to buy food.  I've been to the beach towns she's been to.  And one day, I'm going to go to her restaurants and I'm going to eat her food.  I'm not ever going to those places that awful Bourdain raves about.  I'm not going to Emeril's restaurants so he can sweat and grimace over my food.  And no, I'm not going to go to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant because I don't want him berating anyone who's made my supper.  But Vivian's The Chef and the Farmer is within driving distance and one day I'm going to go in her place and she's going to make me something good to eat, something honest, something grown and raised near her.  And I'm going to eat it and be happy.

Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: firecracker chicken.

A Facebook friend posted this recipe and it looked good so I decided to try it.

I started by making the firecracker sauce first.  It consists of one third cup of hot sauce, I used Choulua chilli and garlic hot sauce, one tablespoon of water, two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, one half teaspoon of salt, red chili flakes, and one cup of brown sugar.  I added a dash of Sriracha hot sauce to give it a little more bite.

Next I preheated my oven to 325 F.

Then I chopped one and a half full chicken breasts into bite sized chunks, which I then coated in corn starch and dipped in egg.

I then browned all my chicken pieces in my big ol' non stick frying pan.  After they were browned a bit I put them in a greased 13 x 9 Pyrex baking pan.

Once all the chicken pieces were brown enough and in my Pyrex pan, I poured the sauce over them and sloshed it around to make sure all the pieces got covered.  Then I popped the chicken in the oven for about 45 minutes.  As it cooked, I basted the pieces.

And that's what they looked like after 45 minutes in the oven.  I served the chicken over white rice and we had a side of fresh green beans with it.

The verdict: this is a damn fine chicken dish.  It starts sweet but ends up with a little spicy hot kick.  I'll definitely make this one again,  Although next time I'll add more salt, and ramp up the Sriracha to add even more heat.  The way it turned out this time the spicy heat took a back seat to the brown sugar, and I'd prefer it to be the other way around.  Use any hot sauces you like if you decide to try this one.  A word of warning though, this isn't a good dish for young kids, unless they have adventurous palates.

Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: Cuban style pot roasted chicken.

I started out by mixing up the 'bitter citrus' marinade for the chicken.  The marinade consisted of the juice of one orange and two limes mixed with some cracked black pepper.

After mixing the juice and pepper, I crushed together a whole clove of garlic and two teaspoons of sea salt and I mixed that in my marinade.

Then I cut a whole chicken so it would lay flat in a 9 x 13 baking pan and I poured my marinade over it.  I let it soak in the citrus garlic marinade for a couple of hours in the fridge.  I turned it after about one hour so the marinade got on both sides of the chicken.

After a couple of hours in the marinade I heated up two tablespoons of olive oil in my heavy Dutch oven style pot and I browned the chicken.

While the chicken was browning I cut one large onion into thick slices and one green bell pepper in to thick slices as well.

Once the chicken, which by now I had cut up so it would fit properly in my Dutch oven, had browned sufficiently, I began cooking the onions and pepper in my pot.

After the vegetables had softened and the onions began turning a little golden, I put the chicken, the rest of the marinade, and one cup of dry white wine in the pot and let it simmer for about an hour.  I took the lid off after half an hour so some of the liquid would cook off.

After an hour I took out the chicken and poured the liquid and the veggies in my food processor.  I pulsed them together and poured that mixture back in pot and I put the cut up cooked chicken back in the pot as well.

I let it simmer in lowish heat for another 30 minutes to let some more of the liquid cook off and to let the sauce thicken up a bit.  Once it was done I served it over Basmati rice and we had tomato slices and flat bread on the side.

The verdict:  tasty but kind of disappointingly bland.

Would I cook it again?  Since there are so many other good chicken recipes out there, probably not but if I did I'd do the following differently:

• I'd add more spices to the dish, like more salt, more pepper, some cumin, and cayenne pepper.
• I'd use already cut up chicken instead of a whole chicken that I had to cut up along the way.  
• I'd use less liquid in the cooking process because in the end the chicken didn't seem pot roasted, it seemed like it had been stewed.
• I'd add different kinds of more flavorful peppers, like pablano, serrano, and jalapeno. 
• I'd scoop the garlic out of the marinade and brown it before I added it to the chicken and veggies.  

I like Cuban food, I find it to be flavorful and quite delicious but this dish which I found in the Gran Cocina Latina cookbook to be a disappointment.  

Cooking with Dr. Monkey (mid-century recipe edition)

Today's episode: Golden shrimp puff.

Some friends of ours held a Mid Century Potluck the other night and I made a dish from a recipe I found in the 1967 edition of the Betty Crocker Hostess Cookbook.  I chose this dish because it looked easy to make and I thought it might taste good, but mainly because it looked easy to make.

I started out by boiling, then cleaning, then chopping up my shrimp.  I boiled it in Old Bay seasoned water to give it a little flavor because the rest of the recipe was light on the herbs and spices.

Next I cut off the crusts from ten slices of white bread, then I cubed up the slices, and laid them to rest in my rectangular Pyrex baking dish.

Then in my giant measure cup, I cracked six eggs and whisked them together.

To the eggs I added three cups of milk, 3/4 tablespoon of dried mustard, 1/2 tsp of salt, and two tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley and I mixed it all together.

Then I dumped in two cups of reduced fat cheddar, the recipe called for 'processed American cheese,' but I sacrificed that bit of authenticity.  I dumped my shrimp in and then I poured the mixture over my bead cubes:

It went in to the oven next and I baked it at 325 for about 50 minutes.

When it came out of the oven it was indeed puffy.  It puffed up to twice it's original size and had I followed the recipe, I should have served it right then, but I didn't.  I let it sit and cool some and then we took it to the party about an hour later and it deflated and became kind of rubbery.

The verdict:  It tasted kind of odd and it severely lacked spices and flavoring.  The egginess of it was almost overpowering.  It tasted like baked eggs that let other shit get in it's way.  Would I make it again?  Probably not but it was fun to try it.

The other food at the party was actually very good, aside from the fact that most of it consisted of various incarnations of Spam and Jell-O based creations.  My dish was an also ran in a tight field of surprisingly tasty dishes from the past.

Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: chicken tikka masala.

I stared by mixing my yogurt based marinade.  I used one cup of plain Greek Yogurt, to which I added about a quarter cup of water, a tablespoon of lemon juice, heaping tablespoons of cumin, Cayenne pepper, cinnamon, a teaspoon of ground ginger, and a couple teaspoons each of cracked black pepper an sea salt.  I then put my boneless skinless chicken thighs in it and sloshed them all around so they got evenly coated.  I then put the chicken in the fridge to marinate for an hour.

After the chicken had been marinating for an hour I started the sauce by melting a tablespoon of margarine in my frying pan.  To that I added one clove of minced garlic and one seeded and ribbed Serrano pepper.  Then I added two tspns of cumin, paprika, and sea salt.  I then added one cup of my hone canned tomatoes that I had liquefied in my food processor.  As that heated up I stirred in one cup of heavy cream.  I let that simmer.

I cooked my chicken over a medium heat while the sauce was simmering.

I chopped up some cauliflower and about a third of a zucchini and I added it to my simmering sauce.   When the chicken got done I cut it into bite sized bits and add it to my simmering sauce.  I also tossed in about a half a cup of frozen peas.

After about 10 minutes more of simmering I served my tikka masala over some rice.

The verdict: Holy hell what a delicious dish.  It's fragrant, flavorful, and filling.  I used about a pound and a half of chicken thighs because of I like their flavor and the fact they have a bit of fat on them.  The fat adds to the flavor.  I didn't grill my chicken like most recipes call for because it's cold as fuck out and I didn't want to go through that extra step.  I actually cut back on the spices in this dish, the recipe called for double what I put in the marinade, but it was still flavorful and not spicy hot at all.  Next time I'll cut back a little on the salt and use chunkier tomatoes and more of them.  I also serve it with some kind of flat bread to soak up the tikka masla sauce.

This recipe wasn't at all hard or complicated and it's much tastier than any factory made canned tikka masala sauce I ever had. I'll definitely make this again, maybe even for company.

Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: chachouka with polenta sticks.

I started by making the polenta first, since it has to cool completely before one can slice it and make crispy polenta sticks out of it.

I began by chopping up some rosemary, three cloves of garlic, and three small dried red chili peppers.  Then I sauteed all that for a couple of minutes to draw out the flavors.

 Next, I made polenta according to the directions on the bag and when it was done I mixed in the garlic, rosemary, chili peppers, and about a half a cup of shredded cheddar cheese.  Then I poured it out on a cookie sheet to cool and firm up.

I let it cool off for a few hours and it looked like this:

To make the chachouka, which is an African stew made with onions, peppers, tomatoes, and eggs, I began by peeling and slicing up a large white onion.  I sauteed it in some canola oil, a tea spoon of cumin powder, some sea salt, and crushed black pepper:

 As the onion cooked, I sliced up a sweet banana pepper, two thirds of a red bell pepper and two thirds of a yellow bell pepper.  Then I added them in the pan with the onions.  I also added four big sliced button mushrooms.

Then I got my tomatoes ready to be peeled.  I put some water on to boil and I sliced sliced off the top of the tomatoes where the stem comes out.  The I cut a cross into the bottom of each tomato.  When my water boiled I gently slid my tomatoes in, let them boil for less than a minutes, took them out, ran cold water over them, and I peeled them.  Then I dropped them in my mini food processor and turned them into liquid, which I added to the simmering veggies.  I also added a teaspoon of paprika and a dash of turmeric.

 Simmer down now...

When my mixture had cooked down slightly, I took the pan off the heat and I put four eggs on top of the stew and I baked it in the oven for about 18 minutes at 350 degrees.

While my eggs baked on my stew I tried to make polenta sicks but when I put my polenta slices in the pan they crumbled up.  So I dished out the polenta crumbles in some shallow bowls.

I took my stew out of the oven when it looked right and I served it over the polenta.  I actually left it in the oven a little too long because the yolks got hard, they're supposed to be runny, but it didn't matter and the dish tasted great.  The sweet peppers and the sweetness of the tomatoes helped temper the heat of the polenta.

Would I make this dish again?  Hell yes.  It's full of flavor and pretty easy to make.  I'm trying to eat less meat at supper so this is a welcome addition to my vegetarian repertoire.  It's hearty and full of flavor.  It's not really a summer time dish, it's more of a fall or winter dish.

I got both of these recipes out of the River Cottage Veg cookbook, which was written by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a British cook, farmer, and food guru.  His food philosophy is to use locally grown, sustainably farmed food as much as possible.  I've made other recipes out of his cookbooks and I've liked all of them. 

Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: Bangers and mash with devil's gravy.

I got this recipe out of the new Rachel Khoo cook book The Little Paris Kitchen.  I modified it slightly.

I started out by finely chopping up one white onion and one stalk of celery.

 Next I chopped up two slices of smoked bacon and I began frying it up.

 Next I added the onion and celery and let it all cook up together.

Once the bacon veggie mix was cooked up, I cooked it until the onions turned a golden brown and I had to add water a few times to prevent it all from sticking to the bottom of the pan, I took it out and set it aside.  Then I added to my hot pan two tablespoons of butter and one quarter cup of flour.  I mixed it together and then I poured in two cups of beef stock and I whisked it all together so the flour butter mix didn't lump up.  I then whisked in one tablespoon of tomato paste and one quarter cup of white wine.  I cooked that mix on medium to low heat while I put my bacon veggie mix in a food processor and pulsed it until it became a paste which I then added to my gravy.  I whisked it all together and let it simmer, it smelled heavenly.

I then mashed my potatoes, don't whip your potatoes, MASH them so that there are still a few lumps here and there in them.  I also fried up, in another pan, three Irish banger sausages.  Once the sausages were cooked about three quarters of the way, I put them in my gravy to finish cooking. 

I let the gravy and sausages simmer for about five minutes on low heat and then I served them up with a heap of mashed potatoes.  Salt and pepper the gravy to your taste.

The verdict: holy hell this gravy is nirvana.  It's rich and got more than a hint of bacon goodness in it.  Ms. Khoo added a carrot and a bouquet garni of thyme, parsley, and bay leaf to her  gravy but since I didn't have all those herbs and I refuse to knowingly eat a cooked carrot, I omitted them from my version of this dish.  Seriously, this gravy is unbelievably good.  And it goes so well with Irish banger sausages, which aren't spiced too heavily so the gravy really stands out.  I had the leftover gravy over bread for the next two days for lunch and it held up super well.

This meal is more of a cold weather, stick to your ribs, kind of meal and I'll definitely be making it again and I'll make that gravy again with other dishes, it will pair well with pork roast and cuts of beef.

Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: Acquacotta Di Santa Fiora (aka Tuscan Bread Soup).

I got this recipe out of the cookbook Flavors of Tuscany by Nancy Harmon Jenkins.

I started off by chopping up two small yellow onions, 2 cloves of garlic, one stalk of celery, and about a half cup of ham.  The recipe calls for pancetta but since I didn't have any I used ham.  I tossed all that in to my cast iron stock pot in which I had previously heated about two tablespoons of olive oil and some sea salt and cracked pepper.  I let it simmer together while I peeled and chopped four medium potatoes.

I added the potatoes to the pot and then I added one cup of my home canned tomatoes.

 Then I tossed in a can of Cannellini beans.

I added three cups of water to the pot, gave everything a stir, and then I brought it all to a boil.  Once it had a slow boil I turned it down to low and let it simmer for 40 minutes.

 Simmer, simmer, simmer.

After it had simmered for 40 minutes I took it off the heat and I added one cup of ricotta cheese and a cup of cut up fresh spinach.  

I added it to the pot, chopped up a dried red chili pepper, tossed it in the pot as well, and gave it a stir.  Next I toasted some of Sparky's homemade bread and I laid the slices in some shallow bowls.  Then I ladled the soup over it.

Houston, we're ready to eat. 

The verdict:  most excellent soup that went down well on a cold night. 

This recipe is pretty simple to prepare and it's loaded with flavor and lots of good things that are good for you.  I'll definitely make it again and next time I'll only add two cups of water but I'll add two cups of tomatoes.  I'll also amp up the spices, especially the pepper.  It's a nice mellow soup that goes down well.  The recipe called for bitter greens and home cooked beans but since I had neither I made substitutions.  Like I said, it was all very good and I'll definitely make this again.