recipe Archives • Page 4 of 4 • Deep Fried Kudzu

November 2, 2005January 6, 2020

Supper : Another Arnaud’s Dish – Pompano en Papillote, Stuffed Bell Peppers

Tonight’s supper was really nice – I made three different recipes from three different sources, all for the first time.

The first recipe I started on was for the stuffed bell peppers. This recipe came from the magazine Olive, which is published by BBC in England and is available at the larger bookstores like Barnes & Noble. (The overseas magazines I get each month, like Olive and Good Food from England, and delicious and Donna Hay from Australia are actually less expensive buying them from the bookstore than by getting a subscription.)

My version of the recipe, from the August 2005 issue of Olive for ‘stuffed summer vegetables’ for two people is:

1/2 c. rice, cooked
2 anchovie fillets, chopped pretty finely
4 tbsp pesto
3/4 shallot, chopped
1 roma tomato, chopped
2 bell peppers, tops removed, seeds and ribs removed
olive oil
(the recipe also calls out to add parmesan cheese, sultanas, and to use round courgettes also, but I omitted those items)
Preheat the oven to 400*. Toss a little olive oil in each of the bell peppers and cook them for 10 minutes, then take them out of the oven.

In the meanwhile, mix the cooked rice, anchovies, pesto, shallots, tomato in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. When the bell peppers come out of the oven, fill them with the rice mixture. Return to the oven for another 15 minutes or so.

—

Tonight’s entree was the recipe for Pompano en Papillote from the Arnaud’s cookbook. I went to the Fish Market earlier today and had a whole pompano cut to make fillets. Here’s my version of the recipe to serve two portions:

1/4 stick of butter (softened, to rub on the parchment paper)
1/4 cup green part only of scallions (green onions)
1/4 stalk celery, cut into little matchstick shapes
4 tsp finely chopped fresh dill
1 tsp finely chopped fresh tarragon (tarragon has a distinct licorice flavor)
2 fillets of pompano
salt and pepper
splash of dry white wine
squeeze of fresh lemon
also need: parchment paper, kitchen scissors

Preheat oven to 375*. Cut two pieces of parchment paper into heart shapes, and rub one side of each heart with the softened butter.

Put 1/4 the amount you have of the scallions, celery, dill, and tarragon on the left side of each heart. Put a fillet on top, then cover with the other 1/4 vegetables. Do the same with the other fillet. Splash the white wine and lemon atop the fish, then fold the right side of each heart over and fold to make an air-tight (as possible) seal.

Place each pouch on a baking sheet and bake for 12-16 minutes. The parchment will begin to turn brown, and that’s a sign that it’s cooked enough. Place one pouch onto each supper plate (when you sit down to eat, you’ll just open the pouch and voila! It smells terrific).

October 23, 2005August 15, 2017

Making Pralines

Each year, Av’s parents host a sukkah party at their home. I bring the pralines!

Ingredients:
1-1/2 c. white sugar
1-1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c. evaporated milk
1/3 c. butter
1-1/2 c. pecans (you can use more or less)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
(also: use a bigger pot than you think you’ll need for this, use a candy thermometer, and have buttered parchment or wax paper ready to spoon the pralines on)

Directions:

Step one: put both sugars and the evaporated milk in the pot, and heat until the candy thermometer registers 228*. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon during the cooking process. At 228*, add the butter.

The mixture will bubble and pop, so be careful.

Step two: keep cooking until the mixture reaches 236* (236* is sufficient, but I always cook it to 238*. The thing is, the pralines won’t set unless you’re sure to reach this higher temperature – at least 236*. You don’t want it to go too far over, though, because then the candy will be brittle and grainy and not as good.) Once you reach the higher number, take the pot off the stove and add the pecans and vanilla. Beat the mixture with your wooden spoon until it just starts looking less shiny and more dull. This should take two or three minutes.

Step three: spoon the pralines onto your buttered parchment or wax paper. (Argh! You can see that I forgot I was out of parchment paper! Thankfully I had tin foil, so I just spooned the pralines onto that. It worked just fine.)

…and here they are all set (depending on the weather, they can set in anywhere from one or two hours to a few hours – I always make these the night before I need them so I don’t have to worry about how long they’re taking). Delicious!

August 23, 2005August 12, 2017

Country Captain Chicken

Country Captain Chicken is one of my and Av’s favorite dishes to make at home. I make mine in my Le Creuset tagine but you could use any deep pan with a lid. The recipe below is my variation on it.

Country Captain Chicken may have originated when British colonials brought the recipe here (specifically perhaps to Savannah, GA) from India. John Egerton writes in “Southern Food, At Home, On the Road, In History” that Mrs. W.L. Bullard of Warm Springs, Georgia served the dish to FDR and General Patton, who loved it.

Here’s my recipe for Country Captain Chicken (serves 4):

Ingredients4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts – cut into bite-size pieces
Flour for breading (I always use White Lily)
Salt
Black Pepper
Paprika
Olive oil for frying
One large Vidalia onion, cut into nice-size medium-large pieces
Two green bell peppers, cut into medium-large pieces
Two stalks of celery (optional)
Three cloves garlic
Curry powder
Cumin
Large can stewed tomatoes, with liquid
Small can tomato paste
Two cups white rice, cooked
Give guests option of covering their dish with: peanuts, raisins, or almonds

Directions:
Take cut pieces of chicken and put them in a ziploc bag of flour, salt, and pepper. Shake to coat thoroughly.

Heat olive oil in skillet to medium-high, add breaded chicken.

Cook chicken to a nice color, but don’t overcook – because the chicken will be added back to the pot simmering another twenty or so minutes at the end.

Remove cooked chicken to paper towel-covered plate to rest.

Turn heat down, let oil cool to medium heat. Add onions first – let them cook two-three minutes, then add garlic, bell pepper, and celery (optional) and cook that five or six minutes.

Add tomatoes and tomato paste to the onion/garlic/bell pepper/celery mixture. Cook another ten minutes.

Add chicken back to skillet and spice to your taste….lots of curry, then a little cumin, then some salt, back to the curry, etc. until it’s perfect.

Cover and simmer twenty or so minutes (pot in back is cooking rice, to the left of that is our Red Diamond – soon to be iced – tea brewing).

Serve over cooked rice. Offer guests peanuts, almonds, or raisins to top theirs with. Delicious!

June 12, 2005March 17, 2021

Peanut Butter Pie

Shavuot begins tonight, so for the *something dairy*, I made this great peanut butter pie. It’s very similar to other peanut butter pies I’ve made in the past, but the crust is different and better. This isn’t a completely ‘from-scratch’ recipe like I usually like to do, but it was yummy and quick. Nobody always needs or wants or should be a food snob. And who doesn’t like Nutter Butters, right? This is summer…let’s take it easy.

I based this recipe from one called “Nutter Butter Frozen Peanut Butter Pie“.

For the crust:
Take 24 Nutter Butter cookies and place them in a freezer bag. Hit the freezer bag with a rolling pin (or whatever) to make the cookies into crumbles. Pour the crumbled NB’s into a good-size bowl and add 5-6 tbsp of melted butter. Mix well. Place this mixture into either a pie dish or other suitable-size dish. Once filled and even on the bottom, place in the refrigerator.

For the filling:
Cream together one 8-oz package cream cheese, one cup of peanut butter, 3/4 cup of sugar. The original recipe called for a splash of vanilla, but I didn’t think that was necessary. Once that’s all incorporated, stir in 8-oz Cool Whip or freshly whipped cream.

Finish:
Take the crust back out of the refrigerator, and spoon the filling over. Level it out on top. For a little something extra, you can melt a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips with a tablespoon of peanut butter, then drizzle that on top. Place in the freezer for a few hours or overnight.

Yummy!

June 12, 2005December 23, 2019

Jerry Brown Pottery and Turbodog Chicken

Turbodog Chicken

About two years ago, Av and I drove to Hamilton (AL) and stopped at Jerry Brown’s pottery shop. Jerry Brown is a well-known Alabama potter who uses a mule-powered mill to help him pull clay up out of the ground, and he was also the recipient in 1992 of a National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship Award. There is a film about his pottery here.

At the shop, we bought a pot to cook chicken with. As you can see in the picture above, the pot has a cylinder shape in the middle. The idea is that you fill the cylinder shape up with orange juice or beer, or whatever you think might flavor the meat right for the dish you’re going to be serving.

What’s pictured above is my Jerry Brown chicken pot, a chicken that I’ve prepared with a coating of olive oil (to make the skin crisp) and a variety of herbs (I have one of those wonderful filled spice racks from Dean and Deluca that looks like a test tube rack, and for this dish I used the tube labeled ‘herbs for meat’ since it really does have a nice combination of herbs that flavor chicken and beef well), and a bottle of Turbodog to fill the cylinder about 3/4 full with.

Once the chicken is prepared for cooking, you just set him in the chicken pot with the cylinder up inside where you would otherwise put a stuffing.

Whee! I’m ready to be cooked!

I preheated the oven to 450* and cooked him about 1-1/2 hours. I put the rack on the lowest part of the oven to make room for the dish since it’s pretty tall.

I have to say, this is the best whole chicken I’ve made! The beer makes the breast meat especially juicy and delicious. No part of the chicken was dry – at all. Yum!

Cooling off a bit from the oven. Yummy!

I should also mention that you can cook chicken this way on the grill. Just take a can of beer, put it up inside the chicken, and let it cook that way. I’ll post pics of doing it that way later this summer.

March 29, 2005August 9, 2017

New Hot Fudge Pie Recipe

Each year, we make around 25 pies each Thanksgiving and Easter (as long as it doesn’t fall during Passover) for a local church that feeds the hungry in its neighborhood. This year, I made buttermilk coconut pies, key lime pies, pumpkin pies (okay, I just like pumpkin, even when it’s not Thanksgiving~!), and hot fudge pies.

Hot Fudge Pie:
1 stick butter
1 cup self-rising flour (I always use White Lily)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1-1/4 cup sugar
dash of vanilla
1 egg
sweet milk as needed
1 pie crust

Preheat the oven to 350*. Melt the butter in the microwave but let it sit out so that it cools to almost room temperature. Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the butter and the egg into the dry ingredients. Add a dash of vanilla. Add whole milk as needed to make a mixture that is easily able to be stirred – meaning that it’s not thin, but it doesn’t easily ‘glop’ together. Pour into pie shell and bake for 45-50 minutes. I wouldn’t advise baking it until it’s incredibly firm, just cooked through until it maintains a good consistency, which you ought to get at 45-50 minutes. It is wonderful hot, and really good at room temperature.