Alton Brown's Sugar Cookies

Everyone has heroes. People they look up to. Mimic themselves after. Try to emulate. When I'm in the kitchen, my heroes are who you'd guess. My mom, my sister...and of course Alton Brown.

Growing up, my Mom always made cooking dinner look easy. It wasn't always fancy, but it was nutritious, balanced and on the table piping hot by Seven. Now that I breadwin, I have a true appreciation for what she did and how hard it was. We had for dinner every night what most people had for dinner only on weekends when time permitted. She taught me to always plan ahead, to keep a well stocked pantry, and roll with the punches when you screw up.

I think my sister had a similar revelation shortly after college when she moved to Kentucky. Being two thousand miles away from a home cooked meal in the cultural wasteland that is Kentucky, she had no choice but to do it herself. And like anything that my sister does, she did it better than anyone else around her. Her style differed vastly from my mothers. It was more daring and more experimental. Where my mother specialized in comfort food, my sister explored flavors and recipes. She was not being dissuaded for an instant by a recipe that took more than a day to make. She taught me how to blend flavors, to complement consistencies and to think big.

And then there's Alton Brown. I think I've watched his entire Good Eats series seventeen times. What I loved about those shows he that he explains how things work. He provides a ground level understanding of Kitchen basics in terms of physics, chemistry, and math. You wouldn't think that that level of understanding is essential, but it helped turn my light bulb on.

I owe a lot to my heroes. Most notably, my growing Buddha belly and addiction to combined sweet AND savory flavors. By mostly, in learning from them, I was able to discover my own style of cooking. I understand the concept of how to prepare food. I understand how flavors work together. And I have the courage to try to make it happen, regardless of the possible outcome.

The lone exception is when baking. You can't screw around with chemical reactions and expect to get perfect sugar cookies. And that's the other reason I heart Alton Brown.

Inspiration: Holiday Open House Cookie Backing
Time: 20 minutes prep, 9 minutes bake time
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Stand Mixer
Servings: 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon milk
• Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill. Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.

Recipe found on http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sugar-cookies-recipe/index.html

Soy GInger Dressing

Even though I have been horrible about blogging (reasons include work, Frisbee, dog, work, etc.), it doesn't mean I haven't been keeping up with the new years resolution of trying new food outside of the standard repit...repat...menu of food I make all the time.

This past week I made soy ginger dressing for an oriental salad, Greek honeyed apricots to go with a Greek marinated pork loin and then the soy ginger dressing again for dinner tonight. Moral of the story, when you find something good...add it to the your repit...repat...menu of food you make all the time.

Inspiration: Left over chicken, curried cashews, Mandarin oranges and oriental salad fixins
Time: 10 minutes prep
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment:
Servings: 1 large salad

Ingredients
4 cloves garlic
1/2 square inch ginger, grated super fine
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic chili paste
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. sesame oil
3 drips of fish sauce (optional)

1. Mash to a paste garlic and salt. Mix in ginger and garlic chili paste.

2. Whisk in remaining ingredients. Let sit for at least 5 minutes.

3. Toss with salad fixins, roasted veggies or noodles.

Note: In theory, this would also be a good marinade for chicken or pork...but I haven't tried that yet.

Scheuzwan Chicken

It appears that my son has forgotten the vast resource for Chinese recipes that resides in his mother's and sister's hands: Snookie's cookbooks! Next time you are at either house, you should peruse what is out there! In the meantime, here is one of the recipe's out of her "little black book".

1 pound raw chicken breast, cut into 1 " pieces
1 1/2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs cornstarch
1 tbs water
4 garlic cloves
2 green onions, cut 1" pieces
1 green pepper, cut in 1" pieces
10 pieces dried red pepper, seeded and cut into 1" pieces

Sauce:
1 tsp grated ginger
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 tbs soyu sauce
1 1/2 tbs vinegar
2 tbs chicken broth
1 tbs sherry
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp sesame oil

4 tbs peanut oil

Make the sauce by mixing all the ingredients & set aside.

Mix the chicken with soy, cornstarch and water. Marinate for 30 minutes or longer. Heat oil in wok. Add chicken, saute 1 minute. Set aside. Drain oil & save.

Add back 1 tbs oil to wok. Saute vegetables 1 minute on high heat. Set aside w/ chicken.

Add 3 tbs oil back to wok and saute red pepper until dark. Add sauce, stir quickly. Fold in chicken and vegetables. Cook 30 seconds or until heated through.

Serve with white rice.

Note: you can use any combination of vegies with this. Also, I've used precooked chicken, marinating it in the soy/cornstarch/water mix and adding it at the end with the vegetables.

Chicken Stock

Whenever I roast a chicken, or Turkey, the next day I make a stock. This way, when I make soup or curry or risotto out of the left overs, I have a wonderful home made broth to use instead of the store bought stuff. Plus, it has the added benefit of allowing me to use the entire bird. Nothing goes to waste. What's not to love about that.

There are many different methods to make stock. My personal favorite is to take a carcass to my sister's house and...voila...two days later I pick up stock. But if you don't have a sister who is as willing/able to make you stock as mine is, you can easily make it yourself.

Inspiration: Monday's Roasted Chicken
Time: 10 minutes prep and 3-8 hours to cook
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: 12 quart pot, cheese cloth
Servings: 8 cups or so of stock

Ingredients
1 carcass (chicken or turkey) including all the bones from the drumsticks, wings and thighs
5-8 carrots, cut in half
4-8 stalks of celery, cut in half
2 onions, quartered, skins left on (they darken the broth)
3 cloves of garlic - smashed by the side of a chef knife, skins are okay
3-4 sprigs of thyme
3-4 sprigs of rosemary
8-12 pepper corns
1-2 bay leaves
Cold water to fill the pot

1. Trim any meat from the carcass that you still want to eat. But leave meat on the carcass as it helps flavor the stock

2. Dump all ingredients into the pot. Fill with water.

3. Over high heat, bring pot to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to maintain a low, gentle simmer. If you see scum floating to the top, skim it off with a spoon or a fine mesh strainer. Let simmer uncovered for 3-8 hours (the longer the better). Add hot water to the pot to keep the carcass and bones covered.

4. After done simmering, let cool, and then pour through a strainer lined with cheese cloth into a large container with a lid or pot. Discard the carcass and veggies. Cover and refrigerate stock over night. In the morning skim off the solidified fat from the top.

5. Store in refrigerator for 2-3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Five Spice Rubbed Roast Chicken with Orange Sesame Glaze

Jenny and I have been in a food rut lately. I don't know if the busy holiday season, the increasingly shorter and colder nights or what exactly caused the rut. But there it was, all rutty with the same types of food over and over. Thankfully Jenny recognized it for what it was (in all of its ruttiness) and mandated that we branch out. We came up with the idea of trying new cuisines every month culminating in a small dinner party to show off what we learned.

This month is Chinese. I don't know why. I don't really even know that much about traditional Chinese food. But I had a chicken to roast and I figured that was something that could be done in Beijing as well as Portland, so I had at it. I looked up a couple recipes online, but didn't really find what I wanted. Orange Sesame Glazed Roast Chicken. I had to make it up. Turned out all right. But like I said, it's probably not that Chinese. I guess we'll have to settle for Pan American for January and work our way to Chinese by April.

Inspiration: Chicken in the freezer
Time: 20 minutes prep and 2 hours to cook
Difficulty: Easy
Special equipment: Roasting Pan
Servings: Depends on the size of the chicken

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh Orange Juice (or OJ not from concentrate
1 whole star anise
2 cloves garlic
1" cube of fresh ginger
1 teaspoon garlic chili paste
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
1 Whole Fryer Chicken
2 Tablespoons Chinese Five Spice
1 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
1 Tablespoon Kosher Salt
1 Tablespoon Ground Black Pepper


1. Bring OJ to a boil with star anise over medium-high heat and reduce to 1/2 a cup. Discard anise.

2. Mash to past the garlic and ginger with a pinch of salt. Mix in the rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil and reduced OJ. Baste chicken when you reduce your oven temperature to 375 degrees, and every 20 minutes there after. If the skin darkens too much, cover with a sheet of foil.

3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wash and dry chicken. Drizzle a little olive oil over the bottom of the roasting pan.

4. Mix together Five Spice, Cayenne Pepper, Salt and Pepper. Sprinkle over all sides of the chicken. Truss the chicken so that the legs and wings are firmly pressed to the body of the chicken. (If you don't know how, check this video out.) Place the trussed chicken in the roasting pan, breast side up. Place in the center of the oven for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 and cook until a thermometer reaches 155 degrees.