Sweet-and-Sour Chicken

 November 2024

Recipe from Cook's Country, June 2016

I don't remember why I added this recipe to a list of recipes that I might want to try. However, I do like dishes like these, in general, and the photo in the recipe looks good so I gave it a try. If I had read more of the recipe before buying the ingredients I might have given it a second thought as I didn't realize it involved deep frying.

I started by preparing the ingredients for the chicken, including heating 48 ounces (two bottles) of peanut oil in a Dutch oven. A pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast was cut into ½-inch wide strips. To make the batter for the chicken flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pepper were whisked  together in a large bowl. Water and oil were added and whisked until smooth. Red bell peppers and scallions were cut into 1-inch pieces. Half of the chicken pieces were coated with the batter then moved, 1-piece at a time, into 375° oil using tongs. They cooked for just a few minutes until golden then transferred to paper towels to drain. The second half of the chicken was then fried. For the first batch the temperature dropped as los as 290°. For the second batch I turned up the heat the oil temperature only dropped to about 310°, still well below recipe recommendations. The red bell peppers were then fried as were the scallions.

The sauce was made (between preparing and cooking the chicken) by mixing pineapple juice, orange juice, distilled white vinegar, water, sugar, ketchup, pepper flakes (I used half of what the recipe specified) and salt. The mixture was brought to a boil, simmered to reduce its volume, then thickened using a cornstarch slurry.  The chicken and vegetables were combined and one cup of sauce was stirred in. Total time was just under 90 minutes.

After reading the recipe I was expecting preparing this dish would be a project. In terms of time it was not. However in terms of clean up it was. Not only was there a lot of used cooking oil to deal with but there were also a lot of dirty dishes. I was not all sufficiently impressed with the result to want to make it again given the effort. The chicken coating was suitably crispy but the disappointing sauce, which was thin and soaked into the coating, was not very flavorful. The leftovers were okay but there was nothing crispy about the coating.

Drop Meatballs for Two

November 2024

Recipe from Cook's Country, October 2022.  

I have made meatballs a few times using several recipes, but none that I was happy with. It's not that they didn't taste good, but either they created a big mess on the stove with a lot of dirty oil to clean up or the meatballs fell apart. This simple recipe was appealing both because it is labelled as being "for two" and it promised a streamlined process to a delicious result.

I used 90% lean ground beef rather than 85% because that is what the supermarket had on hand. I had no ground fennel so I used a mortar and pestle and ground fennel seeds; ½ teaspoon of seeds provided ½ of ground fennel. As I often do, the quantity of red pepper flakes was reduced by half from that in the recipe.

A panade was made with saltines and milk. This was combined with ground beef, grated Parmesan cheese, salt, granulated garlic, ground oregano, and fennel. Six meatballs were made from this mixture using a #16 portion scoop. The simple sauce was made by cooking crushed garlic in olive oil. Pepper flakes were added and cooked until fragrant followed by a can of crushed tomatoes. The meatballs were nestled in the sauce and cooked for about 25 minutes. Total time was 65 minutes, not counting cooking the pasta.

This recipe "for two" provided three meals for us, served over spaghetti. It provided good, firm meatballs with little fuss and not a lot of time. The meatballs were a little bland, compared to fried meatballs, as I recall them, but without the mess that comes from frying. The blandness in this case may also have arisen from the relatively lean ground beef and it is also possible that they were overcooked. All in all, this is a good recipe to use for meatballs in a simple tomato sauce.

Ultimate Cream of Tomato Soup

October 2024

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, November 1999

I have made tomato soup using several different recipes and have written about some of them here.  Unfortunately it is not practical to compare the several recipes and my memory is not good enough to do a comparison that is not side-by-side. But I can try the recipe and write about the results so I have something to go by the next time I want to make, in this case, tomato soup.

I made just two changes to the ingredients, omitting both the brandy and the cayenne pepper. The key ingredient is two cans of whole tomatoes packed in juice. The tomatoes were drained, retaining the juice, and seeded. They were sprinkled with brown sugar and roasted to bring out their flavor. While the tomatoes roasted and cooled, the remaining ingredients were prepared. Then, diced shallots, tomato paste, and allspice were cooked in a large saucepan. Flour was added and cooked. Chicken stock, reserved tomato juice, and roasted tomatoes were stirred in and simmered to blend flavors. The mixture was strained and the solids were blended with 1 cup of the liquids until smooth. The pureed mixture, strained liquids, and cream were stirred together in a cleaned saucepan and cooked over low heat. Salt was added to finish the dish. Total time was 1 hour, 40 minutes.

We liked the soup and were impressed with its sweet and strong tomato flavor. The texture was just right for tomato soup. Diane commented that it was better than recipes that used bread as a thickener. The recipe made enough soup for 3-4 dinners for two. 

Double-Glazed Salmon

 10 June 2023

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, September 2022, p. 8

I've been wanting to increase the amount of fish that we eat, for various reasons. Over the last few years, Whole Foods has started stocking portioned, frozen fillets of various varieties of fish. (For example, these farm-raised Atlantic salmon.) These are very convenient! They sit in the freezer so they are always available. They are pre-portioned and individually wrapped so there is no waste as we always have an appropriate amount to use for dinner for two.  Coming from Whole Foods I trust that the fish are harvested from a sustainable population. We started with haddock and cod and have slowly added to our selection, primarily salmon with both farm-raised and wild varieties available. A recent Cook's Illustrated recipe for glazed salmon was very timely, providing a quick, easy way to cook salmon. This is really three recipes in one as it includes directions for three different glazes: gingery cider glaze, lemony thyme glaze, and smoky maple glaze. 

The salmon was brined in a solution of salt and sugar for 15 minutes. During this time the glaze was prepared. (These are simple glazes which require little more than combining the ingredients in a small sauce pan on the stove, bringing them to a simmer, and cooking until thickened.) The fillet(s) were patted dry with paper towels then cooked in a small amount of oil in a skillet, flesh side down, until well browned. The fillet was flipped, brushed with glaze, and transferred to a 300° oven, and cooked to an internal temperature of 125°.  The remaining glaze was brushed onto the fish. Total time was about 45 minutes.

We've enjoyed this recipe and all three of the glazes, it is now my go-to way for preparing salmon. The primary challenge is not overcooking these thin pieces of fish. After the browning step the fish is almost done so the time in the oven can be short. The smoky maple glaze is our favorite but more because we always have the ingredients on hand, unlike the other two,  than because we prefer its taste.  We have enjoyed the other two glazes, too.