Braised Potatoes & Chicken Thighs With Scallion Butter Sauce

 It appears that we got through that atmospheric river with minimal damage. I think we sustained a knocked over trellising pole that is cemented into a 5 gallon bucket and our arch blew over.

We will rebuild.

I did get potatoes planted and I planted out some of my old wooden raised beds with spring greens, radishes and turnips. I planted various types. I am going to stagger planting and I'll seed more stuff in 2 weeks from now...fill in the blanks, so to speak. I do love to practice the art of cramscaping!

In the meantime, I needed to figure out what to make for dinner tonight. I had originally thought about making Chicken Cacciatore but, over the years, I've had that so many times that I'm, quite frankly, rather bored with that recipe. I knew I wanted a braised dish but I didn't want to use canned tomatoes. I can only eat so much citrus because I have a sensitivity to citrus and I've been eating oranges like crazy.

This recipe evolved from there.

I even dug out my cast iron skillet so that I could properly braise in it. I have a small 8-inch skillet and it works perfectly for portion control for the 2 of us. With this recipe, you'll definitely need portion control. It's that friggin' delicious!

I prepped everything ahead of time. There's bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, diced red onion, sliced lemon, lemon juice, butter, garlic and scallion. You'll also need to peel up a large baking potato, as well. You're going to boil the potato until it's barely fork tender. 

The thighs get browned up in a cast iron skillet (use one that can go into the oven). Brown for 5 minutes on one side, turn them over and cook for 5 minutes on the other side. By this time, your potato should be cooked. Just drain it and set aside to cool just a bit.

Don't rush it. Let them brown. You'll thank me later when you taste them. 

Once the chicken is nicely browned, add in the other ingredients and pour in the chicken broth. Don't add the lemon juice or butter yet. Reserve those. 

I covered my skillet with foil and popped it into a preheated 400 degree oven. I set a timer for 35 minutes. The timing made perfectly cooked, tender, fall apart chicken.

Melt the butter in the hot skillet once it comes out of the oven and drizzle with lemon juice. Enjoy!

Braised Potatoes & Chicken Thighs With Scallion Butter Sauce

Serves 2

4 chicken thighs
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large russet baking size potato, peeled and cut into 8 pieces
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 small red onion, diced
French grey salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
1/4 cup chicken broth
Juice of half of a lemon and the other half sliced thinly
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 thinly sliced scallions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Boil potato until barely fork tender. Drain and set aside.
Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet that can also go into the oven. Season chicken on both sides, to taste, with freshly cracked black pepper and French grey salt. Brown chicken, skin side down,  in skillet, for 5 minutes, or until golden brown. Turn over and brown the other side.
Once chicken is golden brown, nestle the potato pieces in with the chicken, sprinkle the onions, garlic and lemon slices over the top. Add 1/4 cup chicken broth. Bring to a simmer, cover skillet and put in preheated oven for 35 minutes or until chicken is 165 degrees on a food thermometer.
Remove skillet from oven. Remove foil cover. Gently lift a piece of chicken up and add the butter and very gently move butter around until it is melted. Drizzle lemon juice over the top and sprinkle with scallions.
Serve.

Chicken-Green Chili Enchiladas

 Since Bob had all of his teeth pulled, it's been a struggle to find foods that he can eat because he has the added problem of having scar tissue in his throat, from the radiation treatments when he had throat cancer. He has to eat softer foods because he can't chew it up and certain things will hang up on that scar tissue and choke him. His medications do that to him all the time.
Anyhow, I digress.

We ordered some Mexican delivery for dinner the other night and Bob decided to give enchiladas a whirl. He ate them. He enjoyed them. I'll make enchiladas for him.

One thing that I think we're going to do more of, simply because it's cheaper for us to do so, is buying rotisserie chickens from the supermarket. There is a supermarket, here in town where the majority of the shoppers wear masks, that I will venture into. They sell their rotisserie chickens for like $6.50 or something. I cannot buy a whole chicken for that price very often. This week is one of those weeks, but I haven't placed my grocery order yet. I sent Bob for a chicken and some corn tortillas. 

Now, this rotisserie chicken is going to make 4 meals for us, 2 meals of enchiladas and 2 meals of what I'm going to make a blog post about tomorrow...5 if you count the chicken stock that I'll cook down, but I'm using that for meals 3 and 4, so I'm not counting it. We'll have enchiladas again on Sunday.
I pulled the meat off half of the chicken and cut it all super small for Bob. Next, it's as easy as opening a can of enchilada sauce, a can of green chilis and opening up a package of shredded Mexican blend cheese. 

Now before anyone goes off about these not being "from scratch", let me just say that I realize that. I'm working with a food budget and I try to stretch my dollars so that I can get a bit more of food put up so that we can enjoy the summer flavors this winter. My thinking is that the more economical I can make our dinners, the more of my budget I can spend on fruits and veggies to can up. I am tossing all of my previously canned up goods. Our shed had gotten rats in it and with those boxes of jars stacked on each other, I don't feel safe consuming any of it.

But I did feel entirely safe consuming these! Bob bought the street taco sized tortillas. At first, I thought that they would be WAY too small, but they were perfect sized. I made us each 3 enchiladas. I have enough filling, cheese and tortillas for another batch on Sunday and all we need to purchase is a 15-ounce can of enchilada sauce.

So, this may not be all from scratch, but it is delicious and it's economical and, all together, it will make 4 servings of 3 enchiladas each. 

Chicken-Green Chili Enchiladas
Makes 4 servings

1/2 of rotisserie chicken, chopped
2 tablespoons minced sweet onion
1 4-oz. can mild green chilis, drained
1 15-oz. can red enchilada sauce, use 1/4 cup on a deep plate to dip tortillas in, use 1/3 cup in the chicken mixture and use the rest add a thin layer of sauce to the bottom of the baking dish and to pour over the top of the enchiladas
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese (or cheddar)
2 green onions, chopped
12 street taco size corn tortillas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Shred chicken, put in a bowl and mix with onion, chilis, sour cream and 1/3 cup enchilada sauce.
Pour 1/4 cup enchilada sauce into a deep plate or pie dish. Dip each tortilla into the sauce, coating both sides, sprinkle a small pinch of cheese down the center of the tortilla, add a few spoonfuls of the chicken-green chili filling, top with another pinch of cheese, roll up and put in a baking dish that has a thin layer of enchilada sauce in the bottom. Place seam-side down.  Repeat for all the tortillas.
Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the enchiladas in the baking dish. Top with remaining cheese and green onions.
Bake 30 minutes, uncovered.
Remove from oven, let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

*You can assemble these and freeze. Use within 3 months. The leftover filling will last for 3 days in the refrigerator.
*I wore disposable gloves while I assembled this dish.

Asian Chili Oil...As Promised

I promised everyone on Facebook that if they would help me get this blog up to 20 followers, I'd cut loose with my chili garlic oil recipe. This recipe is something that I keep in my fridge at all times because I drizzle it on everything. I do not buy chili oil from the store. Making my own tastes so much better. I start out by toasting some sesame seeds over low heat until they start to turn brown and get a nutty flavor. As a matter of fact, since it's raining out, today would be a good day to simply toast up a batch of sesame seeds to just have on hand.

Here are the aromatics that will get infused into the oil. It is not simply chilis, oil and garlic. Nope. There's much more flavor in there. Let's talk about some of these aromatics.
First, there are Szechuan peppercorns. What these do is give your tongue a numbing sensation. I use them quite often when cooking spicy Asian dishes and they are something that I always have on hand.
I also use green cardamom pods. These are optional, as are the whole cloves. You don't have to add them, but since I have them on hand, why not? The rest of the must have aromatics are star anise, a stick of cinnamon and a couple of bay leaves.

This was the ingredient that I was waiting on. I order it from Amazon because there are no supermarkets, in my area, that carry gochugaru. Gochugaru is Korean red pepper flakes. These are delicious.

You use any neutral flavored oil. I chose to use avocado oil.

The aromatics, along with a couple of scallions and a couple cloves of smashed garlic get infused into the oil, over super low heat for as long as it takes for the onion and garlic to get quite brown. It can take up to an hour.
After that, you pour the oil through a strainer to strain out all of the aromatics leaving you with just the flavored oil.
Pour the oil very slowly over the gochugaru in a heat proof container (I use a stainless bowl) as it will bubble up. After that, stir in the toasted sesame seeds and sea salt to taste.

Store in the refrigerator. This oil will last up to 6 months when properly stored.

Asian Chili Oil

1-1/2 cups avocado oil (or any other neutral flavored oil, like canola or vegetable)
4 whole star anise
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns
5 green cardamom pods
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
2 scallions, white parts only
2 cloves garlic, smashed
3/4 cup gochugaru
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon French grey salt (or whatever salt you like)

Combine the first 9 ingredients in a heavy bottomed saucepan and cook, over very low heat, until the garlic and scallions are quite brown and fragrant.
In the meantime, add the gochugaru into a heat proof bowl. Measure out the salt and sesame seeds into a small bowl and set aside.
Once the oil has been fully infused and is very fragrant, pour S-L-O-W-L-Y through a fine mesh strainer over the top of the gochugaru. This will bubble up very vigorously. Once you've poured all of the oil in, add in the sesame seeds and salt. Stir well (I use a chopstick for this). Cool to room temperature, pour into a container with a tight-fitting lid and store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months. Use whenever you need a kick of chili flavor.
 

Maangchi's Galbi Grilled Ribs With Green Onion Salad Side Dish

 I'm hoping that Maangchi will like another one of my posts on Twitter. It makes my entire day when she does. I can't help it, though. She has so many great recipes that just appeal to me.

Last night, I made 2 of Maangchi's recipes. Bob was not able to partake of kimchi or the green onion salad, so I eyeballed the onion salad to make enough for just one person. It was spicy and delicious and it completely hit the spot with me. I plan on using the superfluous kimchi in another Maangchi recipe. I haven't made kimchi yet because I have very limited refrigerator space and, living in a fifth wheel, I just really don't want either my indoor, or my outdoor kitchens smelling like it. So, I simply had Bob pick up a jar that was alive with all the good stuff that kimchi has in it. I plan on using the rest of the kimchi to make another Maangchi recipe and then I think I'll move onto a different type of cuisine for a while.
I'm just trying to use stuff up. 

I grow green onions out in my raised beds. I did quite the thinning on them. They are huge! I planted over 300 and I've been able to share with a few of the neighbors, which is cool. I've even shared onions with Ginger (you'll see her commenting every now and then on here...she's my younger sister). Anyhow, you can't have a green onion salad side dish without green onions.
Both recipes have scallions in them.

The Galbi Ribs start out with short ribs. You do not want the flanken style for this, you want the meatiest short ribs you can find. Unfortunately, these were the best that the store had and, at $7.99 per pound, I feel we paid for bones. You can't win them all. Soak these in cold water and pat dry. 

Next, you cut the meat out, so that it makes as long of a strip as you possibly can. These get sprinkled with sesame oil, sugar, salt, scallion and chopped garlic.
Here's where I make a confession. I forgot to add the garlic until just before I cooked these. It happens. You'll want to pat/smack all these ingredients into the meat and then roll them back up...

like this.
Put them in the fridge for a couple of hours to marinate.
In the meantime, make the Green Onion Salad side dish. 

This salad usually gets put into the lettuce/perilla leaf bundles along with the Galbi. Click here and scroll down for the recipe.
I could eat this salad every single day. I'm not thinking that my stomach will thank me, but my taste buds sure would!

These ribs are best cooked over charcoal, but I used my grill pan. You unroll them and start searing. 

Let them get some crispy edges. Just keep turning them back and forth. 

Then use scissors to cut up into bite-sized pieces. Let those cook until there's no longer any pink on the outside of the meat. After this is when you, traditionally, set out a plate of lettuce or perilla (or both) leaves, some ssamjang, slices of raw garlic and some Green Onion Salad.
Bob is going to be starting to get some extensive dental work done, so, hopefully, when that is all over, he will be able to eat one of these bundles. 

So, this is how we enjoyed these delicious Maangchi recipes last night.

Thanks, Maangchi!