Tag: pepper

Sous Vide Chicken Gremolata

We finally broke down and added a Joule Sous Vide immersion circulator to our kitchen equipment. Penny did the reading and checked in with some of her more modernist cooking connections to be sure this one was the right one for a beginner at the method.

You can see the juice seeping from this boneless chicken breast that was vacuum sealed and cooked for 55 minutes in a 149-degree water bath.

Gremolata Flavor Component

Penny made a batch of gremolata by chopping together lemon zest, garlic, and parsley until finely minced. (If you would like a real recipe, try this one from Epicurious.)

The chicken breasts were patted dry, rubbed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, then sprinkled with the gremolata and vacuum sealed. After their bags had spent the prescribed time in the sous vide bath, the breasts were patted dry again and quickly seared in a blazing hot cast iron skillet to add some color and caramelized flavor.

Since the garlic was still in an almost raw state after the low-temperature cooking, it didn't burn during the very quick searing process.

Simple chicken breasts were the first thing we tried after our new Joule arrived. They just had olive oil, salt and pepper. We seared one to have for supper and used the unseared, white meat for a great, moist chicken salad the next day.

With simple cooking methods, you want to showcase the product, so for the first batch Penny bought Bell & Evens chicken. We both agreed it was one of the best "poached style" chicken breasts we had ever made. The batch shown above was made with Halal chicken.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2016 Penny & Ed Cherubino

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December 14, 2016
American Chop Suey, a New England Tradition

This is a traditional time of year, so why not make a big pot of this area's American Chop Suey. I like to have old fashioned, comfort food around when life gets busy. This is also a great dish to feed a crowd or to bring to a pot luck.

If you follow the tips you've learned from watching food shows, you can add a note of refinement – a je ne sais quoi – to your version of this hearty dish.

For example, I started this batch with this recipe from Saveur Magazine. I love their addition of crushed, red pepper flakes and cinnamon. Neither one of those was in my family's version.

I used red pepper instead of green. And, after I browned the beef, I used some white wine to deglaze the pan and capture all that lovely caramelization. For macaroni, I did use elbows but I selected the elbows with ridges and a bit of a twist because they seem to hold on to the sauce and meat better than smooth ones.

When we have a stock of something like this in our refrigerator, we are most likely to pop some into a bowl and microwave individual portions. This is a great option if you have a bunch of different schedules to accomodate or some big appetites home for the holidays. A meal for some of us can be a between meal snack for others.

But, if you're feeding holiday guests and want a different look for this dish on day two, put a twist on tradition. Bake this pasta under a blanket of cheese and breadcrumbs and present it with a golden, cripsy top and a melty, cheesy layer.

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

Related articles

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December 3, 2012
American Chop Suey, a New England Tradition

This is a traditional time of year, so why not make a big pot of this area's American Chop Suey. I like to have old fashioned, comfort food around when life gets busy. This is also a great dish to feed a crowd or to bring to a pot luck.

If you follow the tips you've learned from watching food shows, you can add a note of refinement – a je ne sais quoi – to your version of this hearty dish.

For example, I started this batch with this recipe from Saveur Magazine. I love their addition of crushed, red pepper flakes and cinnamon. Neither one of those was in my family's version.

I used red pepper instead of green. And, after I browned the beef, I used some white wine to deglaze the pan and capture all that lovely caramelization. For macaroni, I did use elbows but I selected the elbows with ridges and a bit of a twist because they seem to hold on to the sauce and meat better than smooth ones.

When we have a stock of something like this in our refrigerator, we are most likely to pop some into a bowl and microwave individual portions. This is a great option if you have a bunch of different schedules to accomodate or some big appetites home for the holidays. A meal for some of us can be a between meal snack for others.

But, if you're feeding holiday guests and want a different look for this dish on day two, put a twist on tradition. Bake this pasta under a blanket of cheese and breadcrumbs and present it with a golden, cripsy top and a melty, cheesy layer.

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

Related articles

Scared of Celeriac?

Focaccia Croutons Are Tops

Fartootempting Baked Beans From Breakwind Farm

December 3, 2012
American Chop Suey, a New England Tradition

This is a traditional time of year, so why not make a big pot of this area's American Chop Suey. I like to have old fashioned, comfort food around when life gets busy. This is also a great dish to feed a crowd or to bring to a pot luck.

If you follow the tips you've learned from watching food shows, you can add a note of refinement – a je ne sais quoi – to your version of this hearty dish.

For example, I started this batch with this recipe from Saveur Magazine. I love their addition of crushed, red pepper flakes and cinnamon. Neither one of those was in my family's version.

I used red pepper instead of green. And, after I browned the beef, I used some white wine to deglaze the pan and capture all that lovely caramelization. For macaroni, I did use elbows but I selected the elbows with ridges and a bit of a twist because they seem to hold on to the sauce and meat better than smooth ones.

When we have a stock of something like this in our refrigerator, we are most likely to pop some into a bowl and microwave individual portions. This is a great option if you have a bunch of different schedules to accomodate or some big appetites home for the holidays. A meal for some of us can be a between meal snack for others.

But, if you're feeding holiday guests and want a different look for this dish on day two, put a twist on tradition. Bake this pasta under a blanket of cheese and breadcrumbs and present it with a golden, cripsy top and a melty, cheesy layer.

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

Related articles

Scared of Celeriac?

Focaccia Croutons Are Tops

Fartootempting Baked Beans From Breakwind Farm

December 3, 2012
Vella Dry Jack Cheese: an American Treasure

We are students of cheese and admit to having a mental list of cheese we want to try. Vella Dry Jack has been on that list since we saw it on Steve Jenkins list, "American Treasures: the best American Cheeses" in his book Cheese Primer.

It is not widely available in this area. So when Penny saw it at Whole Foods on Cambridge Street, she grabbed a wedge.

This cheese has a wonderful history and others have told the story well, so we'll just link to those reports.

First, there is the family's own history on the Vella Cheese website. And, Janet Fletcher wrote about it in the San Francisco Chronicle: Vella Dry Jack's dark brown coat makes an instant impression.

The process that created that brown rind you see above is one of the interesting notes mentioned by most people writing about Vella Dry Jack. To protect and preserve the wheels, cheesemakers rub them with a mixture of oil, pepper, and unsweetened cocoa during the aging process.

This is a hard cheese with nutty, sweet, caramel tones. You can pick up a scent of chocolate, but not the flavor.

Dry Jack was originally sold during World War I as a substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano. With the recent destruction of so much of the supply of Parmigiano by the earthquakes in Italy, we could find ourselves looking to California cheesemakers to create more of this rarer, dry version of Jack Cheese.

Related Posts:

One of our all time favorite cheeses was created by a cheesemaker from the Vella Family.

Rogue River Blue

Rogue River Blue, Amercian Cheese Society Winner

And, here are other items from our Cheese Tray!

What's on your Cheese shopping list? Here are some great books about cheese. These make wonderful gifts for a cheese lover. And, when you shop Amazon from here, they put some coins in our tip jar.

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

July 26, 2012
Vella Dry Jack Cheese: an American Treasure

We are students of cheese and admit to having a mental list of cheese we want to try. Vella Dry Jack has been on that list since we saw it on Steve Jenkins list, "American Treasures: the best American Cheeses" in his book Cheese Primer.

It is not widely available in this area. So when Penny saw it at Whole Foods on Cambridge Street, she grabbed a wedge.

This cheese has a wonderful history and others have told the story well, so we'll just link to those reports.

First, there is the family's own history on the Vella Cheese website. And, Janet Fletcher wrote about it in the San Francisco Chronicle: Vella Dry Jack's dark brown coat makes an instant impression.

The process that created that brown rind you see above is one of the interesting notes mentioned by most people writing about Vella Dry Jack. To protect and preserve the wheels, cheesemakers rub them with a mixture of oil, pepper, and unsweetened cocoa during the aging process.

This is a hard cheese with nutty, sweet, caramel tones. You can pick up a scent of chocolate, but not the flavor.

Dry Jack was originally sold during World War I as a substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano. With the recent destruction of so much of the supply of Parmigiano by the earthquakes in Italy, we could find ourselves looking to California cheesemakers to create more of this rarer, dry version of Jack Cheese.

Related Posts:

One of our all time favorite cheeses was created by a cheesemaker from the Vella Family.

Rogue River Blue

Rogue River Blue, Amercian Cheese Society Winner

And, here are other items from our Cheese Tray!

What's on your Cheese shopping list? Here are some great books about cheese. These make wonderful gifts for a cheese lover. And, when you shop Amazon from here, they put some coins in our tip jar.

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

July 26, 2012
How do you eat Pomelos?

Once you've done the work of peeling a pomelo and have a beautiful bowl of juicy segments, how do you eat it? What do you add?

After we posted our recent alert that pomelos were in local markets, Ed went wandering around the web to learn more about this lovely citrus. As I was breaking one into segments to serve as an afternoon snack, he was telling me about cultures where they put salt rather than sugar on pomelo. And, he even mentioned a combination of salt, sugar, and chili.

They all sounded like fun to me so I served up our fruit surrounded by a variety of dipping possiblities.

You know that this household of Aleppo-pepper-addicts had to try that and, of course, we loved it.

Here's a piece with a sugar, salt, and chili mix.

So, what do you have on your pomelos? And, do you have any favorite salads or drinks that you make with this giant citrus?

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: © 2012 Penny Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often those comments add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you.

January 18, 2012