chicken broth: the building block of life

in order to make any soup more succulent, we believe that a homemade chicken broth base is vital for success. making chicken broth, in its basic form, involves boiling a chicken in water for around an hour and a half. however, the things you put in there (vegetables, etc) give the broth flavor and subtle nuances that can make or break the broth. huitzl has deemed his chicken broth recipe "top secret", alas, so i won't be sharing that with you. just know that when you get that perfect blend, keep it! it will reap you tasty rewards!

chicken tortilla soup

after figuring out why my camera was giving yellowish tints to all my previous pictures, i decided to become adventurous and present to you a MOVIE rather than pictures of the chicken tortilla soup. the recipe is simple enough:

• boiled shredded chicken
• chicken stock
• diced tomatoes
• onions
• garlic
• jalapeno pepper
  
• garnishes

the secret to success in this dish is making your own chicken stock in advance. that, my friends, is why the chicken tortilla soup is as delicious as it is.

now for the movie...my apologies for the random movements and comments, i haven't yet learned how to keep the camera steady and i have a habit of saying whatever pops into my brain first...

meuniere sauce a la h

so remember that post that huitzl did about the meuniere sauce? well, we recreated it superbly the other day, and here's an example of how we used it in our dish. let me try to describe it to max out it's potential...

pan seared salmon topped with brown butter sauce with notes of cilantro and lemon, accompanied with asparagus steamed in a salt bath and whole-wheat angelhair pasta delicately tossed with butter.

yum...

shrimp scampi with mushrooms

what a lovely dish i created on the fly. i got a pound of frozen peeled shrimp and thawed them. i sauteed garlic in olive oil, and then added the shrimp and cooked them for 2-3 minutes (until they just got pink) and then removed them from the pan. then i added about 1/2 stick of butter (that is a lot for my cooking style, but you could use more), chopped green onion, and mushrooms. i sauteed the mushrooms until they were yummy, and then added worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, pepper, cayenne pepper, salt, and BEER! (i used amber bock tonight.) i simmered all of that for 4-5 minutes, and then added the shrimp back in and made sure they were well covered in the sauce. then i served it over wheat penne pasta and BAM! wonderful goodness!

eggplant dip

many people are fascinated with eggplant because of references to it in the novel don quijote, because of its position as trickster in one thousand and one nights, and because of the impressiveness of its dark purple in a summertime garden patch.

its strange culinary properties only escalate (augment, if you will) its mystique. there are seemingly billions of recipes for preparing eggplant, each different.

i have breaded and fried, sauteed, boiled and baked, and baked eggplant but havent found that one way of preparing it that i would not tire of. my latest method:

cubed the eggplant, boiled the cubes in salted water for 10 minutes, drained, sauteed in olive oil, then blended in a blender with the same ingredients as i would for hummus (sub eggplant for chick peas). the result was a really nice dip but from an entire, albeit small, eggplant, the yield was maybe just under 2 cups of dip. and i basically ate it all in a half hour.

the moral of the story is: maybe this isnt the best way to do eggplant since i think a lot of the eggplant got boiled away into the water. back to the old drawing board.

meuniere sauce (for salmon and angel hair pasta)

for 2 people{
combine in pan{
2 T butter, 1/2 T worchestire, lemon juice,
chopped green onion, chopped cilantro, minced garlic,
1/4 t salt, 1/8 t cayenne pepper
}
heat this til melted
keep warm til the fish is ready
}

asian-y chicken and pasta

being from a somewhat asian heritage, it comes to no surprise that when i just "feel like cooking up a little something", it leans towards oriental flavors. one day last week when left to my own devices, i decided to cook up some chicken and also try and use some penne pasta with it, since i hadn't eaten any in a while.

the items i had at my disposal were:

• garlic
• ginger
• celery (2)
• carrot (1)
• one chicken breast, cubed
• sesame oil
• soy sauce
• schezuan sauce
• penne pasta

i minced the garlic and ginger, and sauteed those in a non stick pan (because i was going to make a "sauce" and didn't want to have to scrape up nasty bits) with sesame oil. i then put the celery and carrot that i had cut up into small pieces, and sauteed those as well. finally i put in the chicken, let it brown slightly, then gave it a good dousing of soy sauce. i then put the pasta on to boil, figuring that the chicken and pasta would be done at the same time. i then put a spoonful of the schezuan sauce in the chicken, stirred it up well, then cooked it on low heat, covered, until the pasta was done cooking. then after everything was done, i drained the pasta, put it in a bowl, and then put the entire contents of the pan on top.

it was quite delicious, nice and spicy, with enough sauce to coat all the pasta. the celery and carrot still had some crunch to it, and the chicken was nice and moist. not bad for just throwing something together on the fly...