Cod Mappas & A Bonus Tikka Curry Paste Recipe

 We're getting yet another atmospheric river. We ran into the laundromat to get that weekly chore done and out of the way and I stopped by the store on the way home. It was sunny when we walked in and raining when we walked out. We weren't in there very long, either. Anyhow, it's supposed to be rainy and windy for the next few days, at least. I figured it would be a good day for a lighter fish dinner. I had a nice filet of cod and this recipe just fit the bill nicely.

This dish gets served over Basmati rice. You could do this with halibut, too. It would be delicious!

First, before you do anything, make the Tikka Curry Paste. This is super simple and it blitzes up in a few seconds in a food processor.

Tikka Curry Paste

2 cloves garlic
1 red chili pepper with seeds removed
2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon avocado oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons roughly chopped cilantro
Pinch of sea salt

Process all in food processor until everything is smooth and no big pieces remain.

You'll want to set this aside until the recipe calls for it.

You'll want to baby the onions along until they get some really great golden color on them. This part, you can't rush it. It takes time.

It really starts to turn into something special once you add in the Tikka Masala Paste.

Then it gets hit with coconut milk. I let it simmer for a bit. 

Once it simmers for a few minutes, I added in the cod chunks. These simmer for about 5 minutes or so, until they are cooked through.

This is what it looks like before you garnish with some chopped fresh cilantro. 

Cod Mappas
Serves 2

1 tablespoon avocado oil
2 small red onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound (2 large) roma tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoon Tikka Masala Sauce (see recipe above)
1 (15 ounce) can coconut milk
1 pound cod, cut into bite-sized chunks
Chopped cilantro

In a skillet, over low heat, cook onions in avocado oil, until very soft and golden brown. This will take quite a while. Add garlic and tomatoes. Cook about 5 minutes. Add Tikka Curry Paste and cook for 4-5 more minutes. Add coconut milk, bring to a boil.
Add fish and gently simmer for 5-8 minutes or until  fish is  cooked through. Sprinkle with cilantro. Serve over Basmati rice.

Hawaiian Shoyu Chicken

 Bob has an upcoming medical procedure that I won't go into on a cooking blog. Anyhow, tonight is the last night he can eat a regular diet. After this, for a few days, he goes on a low fiber diet and then a straight liquid diet. Anyhow, he shoveled a yard and a half of soil for me today and filled several raised beds. He deserves a tasty dinner on his last night of normal food for a while.

I ordered the shoyu sauce from Amazon. Here is what I ordered. It's not the cheapest stuff on the planet, but I don't think you could really make Shoyu Chicken without it.

 

This recipe is made using skin-on, bone-in chicken pieces. You'll want roughly 2 pounds. What pieces you use is entirely up to you. I chose thighs. I'd make this recipe using wings, too.
You want to brown them in a tablespoon of oil. I use canola as it is a heart healthy neutral flavored oil. Again, in your kitchen, use what you want. I probably wouldn't use olive oil, though. Thoroughly brown the chicken on both sides.

While the chicken is browning, mix up the sauce (see recipe below) and prep the ginger and the garlic. 

Definitely make sure the chicken is browned. It will make a difference later on. Be patient. Don't rush it.

After the chicken is uniformly golden color, add the sauce, ginger and garlic. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to low, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn each piece over, cover, simmer another 10 minutes. 

After 20 minutes, the chicken will be a dark brown color. This is when you remove the lid and turn up the heat a bit and start cooking down the sauce. 

As the sauce reduces, it coats the chicken pieces and turns them mahogany. Keep boiling until you have a sauce that is the consistency of syrup.

This is just damn delicious, no matter how you want to look at it.

I served this with some coconut rice and some Hawaiian Mac Salad.

Aloha!

Hawaiian Shoyu Chicken

2 pounds chicken pieces
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 cup shoyu soy sauce
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoon rice vinegar
4 cloves garlic, smashed
2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

Brown chicken in a skillet, over medium heat, in a tablespoon of oil. In the meantime, in a medium bowl, whisk together shoyu sauce, water and sugar. Set aside.
When chicken is golden brown, add the sauce mixture along with the garlic and ginger. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn chicken over and repeat.
When chicken has simmered for 20 minutes, remove lid and turn heat to medium-high and reduce sauce until it is the consistency of syrup, continually basting and turning the chicken pieces to coat.
Serve with rice.

Pork Brauhaus Goulash

For dinner, last night, we needed some good ol' fashioned comfort food. I'm not really into the stuff that quite a few Americans think of as being comfort food. To me, comfort embodies European peasant food. It's filling. It's hearty. It utilizes few ingredients while maximizing on flavor. This goulash recipe checks off all of the boxes.

I used a pork tenderloin to make this dish. It was tender. It was succulent. Bob was, easily, able to eat it.

I cut the pork tenderloin into bite sized pieces. It gets browned in a few tablespoons of butter. While that is going on, you'll want to...

grate up a large carrot (or 2 small ones), dice up an onion and mince a clove or two of garlic. Just put it onto a plate and set it aside for a few minutes until you need it. 

Do you see that liquid in the bottom of the pan? You want to cook the pork until that all disappears. 

It will look like this once that happens. This is when you add the vegetables and garlic, mustard, tomato paste,  along with the salt, pepper and smoked paprika. 

Cook that all for around 3-4 minutes. Then add...

a cup of German beer. I used a nice German stout. If you don't have a German beer available to you, try a Black Butte Porter or a Guinness would work really well, too.  Don't use a domestic American beer. That would not taste good at all. It actually wouldn't taste.
Cook until the beer evaporates.

It will go from this to...

this. What you are doing is concentrating the beer flavor. That's why I do not recommend using an domestic American beer. They do not taste good and they wouldn't have enough flavor to hold up to this recipe. You really need to use a stout.

After the beer cooks down, you add in vegetable broth and bring it all to a boil. Cover, put on low heat and simmer for an hour.
Five minutes before it's done, add...

the sour cream. Combine thoroughly. If you need to thicken it up, use a cornstarch slurry. That's simple to make. Mix 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with a few tablespoons of cold water. Pour it in, stir until it's as thick as you'd like it to be. 

Serve over mashed potatoes and enjoy!

Pork Brauhaus Goulash

1 pork tenderloin, between 1.25-1.5 pounds, cut into bite sized cubes
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 large carrot, grated
1 cup stout beer
3 cups vegetable broth
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
Salt & pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon sour cream

Brown pork in butter, in large skillet, over medium heat. Cook until all the liquid that is released from the pork has evaporated. Add onion, garlic, carrots, mustard, tomato paste, salt, pepper and paprika. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add beer. Cook until beer has evaporated from pan. Add broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hour. At the 55 minute mark, stir in the sour cream until combined. At that time, if you feel it's necessary, thicken with a cornstarch slurry (1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons water). Serve over mashed potatoes.

Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

 Our temperatures here have been fluctuating. We had beautiful sunny days, up in the 60's. We had some very cold nights. Now, we're under yet another atmospheric river and we're getting dumped on with rain. Last night, there were some wicked wind gusts. I'm glad I didn't insist that my 12-foot long portable (probably flimsy) plastic greenhouse be set up. It wouldn't have made it through. 

We finished up watching 1883 on Paramount+ this morning. I won't post any spoilers but I will say that the show was one of the best shows I've ever seen. I can't wait for more! 

I need to get my tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds going here in the next week or so. We planted a small asparagus bed, with 6 crowns for now. I do have asparagus seeds, so I'll be adding to it. We also planted 10 red raspberry bushes, 2 gold raspberries and 2 blue blueberry bushes. I'm going to be taking cuttings from my Pink Lemonade blueberries and I'm trading those for quite a few things to expand my berry garden: mulberries, 3 colors of currants: red, white and black, purple raspberries, black raspberries, (just need white to have all the colors), 2 types of figs, gooseberries and Concord grapes. I didn't realize how much these pink blueberries are sought after! Who knew??!! So, I'll be using my greenhouse for berry/fruit cuttings to get established as well as other things.

I put up another 5 pound batch of sauerkraut and will post a blog about that in a few weeks after it gets sufficiently sour for us.

Today, however, I'd like to talk about a recipe that I created this morning after looking at a Lemon Sour Cream Pie recipe. I have lemons, for sure, but I also bought some really nice looking blueberries (speaking of which, in the next few years, I plan on NOT buying blueberries again from anywhere). I wasn't exactly sure what we were going to do with the blueberries, but a quart was only $3.50, so it was one of those deals that was just too good to pass up but it was an impulse purchase. I know that Bob was talking about wanting a slice of pie the other night, so this sounded like the ticket. Anyhow, looking at sour cream lemon pies turned to perusing single crust blueberry pie recipes and this recipe is a result of that.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

It starts out as you would think with a bit of flour, a pinch of salt, some sugar and an egg.

I also used a cup of sour cream. This recipe is very helpful when you have a container of sour cream that is nearing the expiration date and you can only eat just so many baked potatoes. 

I only use the best vanilla extract. By "the best" I mean vanilla extract that I made myself, using a fifth of locally made craft vodka with around 20 to 25 vanilla beans soaking in that sucker. There's no better vanilla extract on the planet, as far as I'm concerned.

Everything is whisked together until nice and smooth.

I like that this only uses a single crust. I had some pre-made crusts hanging out in the freezer and taking up space that could be used by more important things. I'll use the other crust to make a Buttermilk pie. When I do that, I'll post about it.

The blueberries get gently mixed into the sour cream mixture. Make sure to fully coat them all.

Then pour it all into a the pie shell. It's not going to look like it's enough filling. It's supposed to look that way. You'll understand later on. I promise. Spread the blueberries out evenly throughout the crust. Pop this in the oven and set a timer for 30 minutes. 

In the meantime, make the topping for the pie. This is the standard flour, sugar, butter streusel mixture that we're all familiar with. It's pretty straight forward. 

This is what you're pie will look like when you pull it out 30 minutes later. See? I told you that there was plenty of filling in there. 

Sprinkle the streusel mixture evenly over the top of the pie and put it back into the oven for 15 or so minutes. I have a little RV propane oven, so mine took an additional 25 minutes. Just check after 15 minutes to see how it's starting to brown up. 

I don't let my streusel topping brown up too much because Bob wouldn't be able to eat it. It makes a stunning looking pie. 

No matter how you look at it, it looks scrumptious!

Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

1 pie shell for a deep dish pie, either pre-made or make your own

Filling:
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup sour cream
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 quart fresh blueberries, rinsed and well drained

Streusel Topping:
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1-1/2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix all the filling ingredients, except blueberries, in a large mixing bowl, with a whisk, until completely smooth and all ingredients are well incorporated. Gently fold in blueberries, coating them all, taking care to not smash any.

Bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, make the streusel topping by cutting the cold butter into the flour and sugar until all the dry ingredients have been combined. I use a fork for this. Set aside.

After 30 minutes, remove pie from oven, sprinkle streusel mixture evenly over the top of the pie. Put back into the oven between 15-25 minutes or until the struesel has browned up to your liking.

Remove from oven. Let cool thoroughly before slicing. Refrigerate leftovers.

Enjoy!

Belgian Fried Chicken

 We're all moved! We moved exactly a month ago. A lot has happened. We went through a pretty bad flood just before we moved. Bob's car got flooded. Our insurance totaled it. Ten days later, we were fully moved out of the RV park. Good riddance to the drama and other nonsense. It's so peaceful up here and we're thoroughly enjoying it.
Here are some of the flood photos. We are sitting up on a bluff, 260 feet above a creek. I don't ever have to worry about going through a flood, like this, again. 

The water came up and receded all within an 18 hour time frame. I have never went through anything like that before and I hope I never go through anything like that again.

 
I'm not going to miss this at all. Nope. Never again.

Now, without further adieu, coming to you from Kelpie Kapers Farm, I bring you one of our most favorite chicken recipes called Belgian Fried Chicken.
First off, this is not a diet friendly recipe. If you're looking for something healthy, you'll want to cruise on past. We don't eat this all that often, maybe 2 or 3 times per year. If you can use decadent to describe a chicken dish, this one would fit the bill. 

First off, there's not really any measurements for this recipe. The only thing I really measure, and it's haphazard at that, is the butter. I just use 1/2 a stick of unsalted butter and it doesn't matter how many pieces of chicken I plan on making. Just know that you're going to be frying chicken, over a low heat, for a long time, in butter.
Do I have your attention yet?

You simply salt and pepper your chicken pieces generously. Then you shake in plain ol' flour. Don't add anything to it, just leave it plain.
You won't believe how tasty this is with such minimal seasoning. There's no herbs or spices in this besides salt and pepper. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

This is why I call this "Belgian" fried chicken. This is a sliced up Belgian endive. If you don't want to use an endive, you could slice up some mushrooms or whatever vegetable you like. I've done this with just onions and parsley and it was delicious.

After the chicken browns, slowly, over low heat, for 15 minutes on each side (a total of 30 minutes), covered, you scatter the endive around the pan, put the lid on and let it go for another 15 minutes. So, yes, 45 minutes being fried in butter. 

The endive cooks way down and the chicken gets really brown. This is when it gets hit with the zest and juice of 1 lemon. So, now, it's being fried in lemon butter. Let that cook for just a few minutes. And pour in roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of heavy cream, depending on how many chicken pieces you're making. 

Delicious!

Belgian Fried Chicken
*serves 2

4 pieces of bone-in, skin-on chicken
1/2 cup flour
Salt & pepper, to taste
1/4 cup unsalted butter
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 Belgian endive sliced
1/4 cup heavy cream

Salt and pepper the chicken pieces generously. Coat each piece in plain white flour.
Melt butter in a heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Fry the chicken, in the butter, for 15 minutes, covered. Turn the chicken over, cover, and fry another 15 minutes. Add endive, cover, fry for another 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and zest and cook for 3-5 minutes more. Add heavy cream and flip the chicken pieces around so that they are coated in the sauce and the heavy cream mixes in.

I turned these into bowls with rice and boiled asparagus. Bob really enjoyed these. He gets his final set of impressions tomorrow, so, hopefully, I can make something crunchy for dinner soon. Korean Honey Butter Chicken is on the top of my list!
Anyhow, if you need some comfort food, this Belgian Fried Chicken will fit that ticket, for sure.
Enjoy!