Ever since an ex-boyfriend introduced me to Peruvian Chicken a few years ago, I've been in love. Not with the guy, obviously, but with the chicken. I've always loved rotisserie chicken, but the Peruvian version is a thousand times more flavorful. I even make a bastardized version myself on the grill, using boneless thighs. It's good (good enough that I usually pick leftovers out of my salad mid-morning because I can't bring myself to wait for lunch), but a totally different animal. So when I saw that America's Test Kitchen featured a recipe for Peruvian chicken, I had to try it out stat. Since not everyone has a rotisserie, they used a vertical roasting technique. In my case, that meant a beer can on Kenny's grill (mine's not big enough for that kind of operation). Test Kitchen also gave a recipe for spicy mayonnaise, which was good but not as flavorful as I wanted it to be. Still, the technique was sound - sound enough that I used it at my parents' house last weekend when I was making egg salad and found that there was no mayonnaise in the house.
This chicken was good. Really good. But not perfect. Next time I'd double the garlic and lime (and even the hot pepper, maybe), and cut the mint in half. It was a little overpowering. The other minor issue: whole chickens take a long time to roast, even on a grill that gets above 500 degrees. By the time it was finished, I was too sleepy to take more than a few bites, and this was definitely better fresh than as leftovers.
Oh yeah, we didn't just eat chicken. I used some tilapia I had laying around from the South Pacific Adventure to make ceviche (Kenny said good, but the lime flavor was too strong; I was too tired to eat any) and a quinoa salad with grilled asparagus and fresh mozzarella (also good, even as leftovers).
Showing posts with label seafood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seafood. Show all posts
Friday, June 17, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
The South Pacific: Cheating a little?
When I was in high school, we all had to draw a developing country out of a hat at the end of junior year and write our senior paper on it. Apparently my teachers hadn't done their research, because the first one I drew was Nauru. I'd never heard of Nauru, but I gamely went to the CIA Factbook and checked it out. It turned out Nauru was approximately the size of a postage stamp in the middle of the Pacific. It had no written language (problematic since part of the paper was to be literary analysis), and its economy was based on bird crap (ok, phosphates) that was supposed to run out within ten years. After I brought these findings to my teachers, they let me pick again and I ended up with Algeria.
But Nauru stayed with me. I later learned that the South Pacific has a number of inhabited postage stamps that are members of the United Nations. I looked for recipes from each, but Samoa was the only one for which I had any luck. Consequently, for this post I've combined Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
The islands are relatively diverse ethnically, but as their climates are much the same, so too is their cuisine (as far as I can tell - if you have different information, please share it in the comments!). They're very tropical, and fruit and vegetables are common, particularly yams, breadfruit, cassava, taro, bananas, coconut, mango, papaya, and greens. Pork and fish seem to be the most common proteins, although I've also seen some chicken recipes. I found a great resource in The Pacific Islands Cookbook, available online here.
I decided to make banana rice, yam fritters, and a coconut tuna ceviche called poisson cru, or oka i'a in Samoa. The oka'i was only supposed to marinate in the lime juice for 10-20 minutes, so I thought it was important to use sushi-grade tuna. Kenny was my hero with regard to the tuna. After questing all day Saturday, I finally gave up and bought some tilapia on Sunday morning (the nice lady at Harris Teeter promised me I was unlikely to die from eating it raw), only to get a call from Kenny saying that he had found sushi grade tuna at Eastern Market and would bring it over for me. The oka i'a was delicious, so I'm pretty sure he saved the meal!
I was joined for dinner by James of Jimbaux's Journal, who wanted a cooking lesson. I put him to work chopping and grating and mixing, explaining everything I was doing and why. It was a great time, and he seemed to think everything was delicious! All photos are courtesy of him.
But Nauru stayed with me. I later learned that the South Pacific has a number of inhabited postage stamps that are members of the United Nations. I looked for recipes from each, but Samoa was the only one for which I had any luck. Consequently, for this post I've combined Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
The islands are relatively diverse ethnically, but as their climates are much the same, so too is their cuisine (as far as I can tell - if you have different information, please share it in the comments!). They're very tropical, and fruit and vegetables are common, particularly yams, breadfruit, cassava, taro, bananas, coconut, mango, papaya, and greens. Pork and fish seem to be the most common proteins, although I've also seen some chicken recipes. I found a great resource in The Pacific Islands Cookbook, available online here.
I decided to make banana rice, yam fritters, and a coconut tuna ceviche called poisson cru, or oka i'a in Samoa. The oka'i was only supposed to marinate in the lime juice for 10-20 minutes, so I thought it was important to use sushi-grade tuna. Kenny was my hero with regard to the tuna. After questing all day Saturday, I finally gave up and bought some tilapia on Sunday morning (the nice lady at Harris Teeter promised me I was unlikely to die from eating it raw), only to get a call from Kenny saying that he had found sushi grade tuna at Eastern Market and would bring it over for me. The oka i'a was delicious, so I'm pretty sure he saved the meal!
I was joined for dinner by James of Jimbaux's Journal, who wanted a cooking lesson. I put him to work chopping and grating and mixing, explaining everything I was doing and why. It was a great time, and he seemed to think everything was delicious! All photos are courtesy of him.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Belgium
Belgian cuisine is heavily influenced by French and German cuisine depending on the area. Staples include meat, potatoes, and beer. Endives are a particularly popular, and mussels and french fries (moules-frites) are a common fast food near the border with France.
Until about 6 months ago, I refused to eat cooked seafood of any kind. Then I went to Granville Moore's in Washington, DC, one of the moules-frites joints that are becoming more common in the area. The fries were amazing, of course, and the mussels were served in a delicious garlic and white wine broth. Turns out there was nothing not to love, so I decided to make my own. I learned that the secret to Belgian fries is frying them twice, but since I was cooking on a Monday night after a long day I totally wimped out and bought extra-crispy frozen french fries that only needed to be fried once. I'm not proud of it, but they were delicious. The mussels were far more complicated. Not the cooking, that part was pretty simple. But I've never cooked any kind of seafood before, so I was a little neurotic about getting sick from bad shellfish. I got a bag of mussels from H Mart and the first thing to do was pick out the ones that were open. But you can also see if they close. So I was pretty sure the ones I took out were not going to close. Then I scrubbed off the remaining ones and removed as much of the "beards" as I could and threw them in the pan with the broth, then put the lid on. After a few minutes, most seemed to be open, so I dumped the whole thing into a bowl. The next thing to freak out about was that while most had opened considerably and a few hadn't opened at all, a few had only opened a little. I decided they were ok, but I was nervous until I realized I definitely had not gotten food poisoning.
The last part of the meal was endives braised in butter and lemon. They were good, and not as bitter as raw endives, but probably not something I'd make again.
Until about 6 months ago, I refused to eat cooked seafood of any kind. Then I went to Granville Moore's in Washington, DC, one of the moules-frites joints that are becoming more common in the area. The fries were amazing, of course, and the mussels were served in a delicious garlic and white wine broth. Turns out there was nothing not to love, so I decided to make my own. I learned that the secret to Belgian fries is frying them twice, but since I was cooking on a Monday night after a long day I totally wimped out and bought extra-crispy frozen french fries that only needed to be fried once. I'm not proud of it, but they were delicious. The mussels were far more complicated. Not the cooking, that part was pretty simple. But I've never cooked any kind of seafood before, so I was a little neurotic about getting sick from bad shellfish. I got a bag of mussels from H Mart and the first thing to do was pick out the ones that were open. But you can also see if they close. So I was pretty sure the ones I took out were not going to close. Then I scrubbed off the remaining ones and removed as much of the "beards" as I could and threw them in the pan with the broth, then put the lid on. After a few minutes, most seemed to be open, so I dumped the whole thing into a bowl. The next thing to freak out about was that while most had opened considerably and a few hadn't opened at all, a few had only opened a little. I decided they were ok, but I was nervous until I realized I definitely had not gotten food poisoning.
The last part of the meal was endives braised in butter and lemon. They were good, and not as bitter as raw endives, but probably not something I'd make again.
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