Butter Chicken and Naan

Some friends were getting together for an Indian themed party the other night. They asked if I would make butter chicken and naan. Figured what the hell and went for it (although I much much much prefer vindaloo!). This is based off a recipe by Julie Sahini in Classic Indian Cooking, it is changed a fair bit, I just had to pull out the grill! Anyways.... Butter Chicken Sauce 3 Cups strained tomatoes 4 Jalapenos Tablespoon ginger 10 Tablespoons Butter 4 Teaspoons Cumin 1 Tablespoon Paprika 2 Teaspoons Kosher Salt 1.5 Cups Heavy Cream 2 Teaspoons Garam Masala 0.25 Cups Cilantro Garam Masala 4 Teaspoons Fennel Seeds 2.5 Teaspoons Cinnamon 2.5 Teaspoons Caraway Seeds 0.5 Teaspoons Black Pepper 0.5 Teaspoons Cloves 0.5 Teaspoons Green Cardamom Seeds First make the garam masala ingredients and grind them up for use later Start by melting 8 tablespoons of butter, let it go until the foam subsides While the butter is going make your chile paste. Take 4 jalapenos and the ginger and puree to a paste (you may need to add a few of the strained tomatoes to puree properly)

The paste should look like this

Mix the chile paste with the strained tomatoes

Add the cumin and the paprika to the butter (I should have let the butter go a little further until more of the foam was gone, I was in a bit of a hurry).

Stir it around for a few seconds and it should look like this

Add the tomato and chile mixture and let it cook for about 10 minutes at a simmer

Now mix in the cream and the salt and let simmer 10 more minutes

Time to stir in the garam marsalla and the rest of the butter. Take off the heat and let sit half an hour

Now I grilled 21 chicken thighs, removed the skin and used for something else, then pulled off all the meat

Mixed in the cilantro and the chicken

The Naan bread was ripped off from Peter Reinharts book Crust and Crumb

Start by making a poolish - mix 1.35 Cups bread flour, 1.35 Cups cool water and .25 teaspoon of yeast. Let it sit at room temp for 4 hours until foamy and bubbly, then place in the fridge over night

For the rest of the naan you need:

3.5 Cups Bread Flour

2 Teaspoons Salt

1 Teaspoon Instant Yeast

4 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil

0.5 Cup Yogurt (full fat)

Poolish

Water as needed

0.5 Cups Butter and Kosher Salt for topping

Combine the flour, salt, yeast, oil, yogurt, and poolish and knead until a gluten window forms about 10 - 15 minutes. The dough should be soft and sticky but not stick too much to the counter, add flour or water as needed. Place the dough in an oiled covered bowl and let rise and hour. Divide it into 8 balls, cover and fridge for an hour.

Pre heat the oven to 550 with a baking stone for an hour. Shape the dough like you would a pizza stretching as far as you can without breaking and bake for 4 minutes on the stone. Coat with melted butter and kosher salt out of the oven.

For serving the butter chicken we sauteed zuchinni, mushrooms, onions, and juliened orange peppers and stirred them in to the sauce. All served over rice.

Fresh Mozza Pasta

When most think of bbq and grilling they think of meat. Not always the case In this example we are going to make a homemade pasta, with homemade cheese, topped with grilled cherry tomatoes and green onions along with a little basalmic and olive oil. A wicked meal! It can also be a really good and quick meal if you buy fresh mozza and dried pasta from the grocery store, it's still darn good that way....honest! We start by making the cheese, in this case we made mozza. All you need to get this done is Milk (we use 2%) citric acid, liquid rennet, and a little cheese salt. Start by putting a gallon of milk into a pot. Stir in 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid dissolved in 1/2 cup of cool water into the milk at 55 degrees farenheit stirring as you go. Heat it to 90 degrees while stirring , remove from the heat and add 1/4 teaspoon of rennet in 1/4 cup of cool water, cover the pot with a lid and let it sit five minutes. Cut the curd with a knife into a checker board, it will look a little like this, now put it back on the heat to 105 farenheit, remove from the heat and stir for four minutes.

Scoop out the curds with a slotted spoon, pressing to squeeze out the whey

Microwave 3 times the first time for one minute and the next two times for 35 seconds, removing the excess whey and folding the cheese over itself between each microwave session

Add the salt now and knead it till it all comes together and looks like mozza!

Now it's time to cut it up, toss it with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and the cheese is ready for the dish.

Now on to the vegetable side of this puppy. Take a small package of grape tomatoes and cut them in half.

Now take a bunch of green onions and chop them up

Mix in some extra virgin olive oil and savory with the tomatoes and green onions.

Now toss it on the grill over direct heat until the vegetables are really cooked down, the green onions are really good if they have a good amount of char on them.

Now we make the pasta. For this we just made a semolina and water pasta. No measurements, just take the semolina flour and mix with water only until it comes together (less water than you would think!) and put it through a pasta extruder, we use and atlas.

Boil the pasta up

Mix the pasta with basalmic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil at about a 2 to one ratio with olive oil on the higher end and basalmic on the lower end.

Mix in the tomatoes and green onions Time to add the mozza

Plate it up and enjoy!

Jambalaya

For the UFC fights the other night we had to feed a crowd. Not a much easier way to do that than good old Jambalaya. One nice easy dish, all made on the Weber Kettle with basically no dishes when the hungover goes away the next day! Not much more you can ask for! This one is inspired by John Besh and his cook book My New Orleans (We did change a fair bit of it so don't take this as the same recipe completly, oh and by the book it's awesome!). Really really tasty stuff, went over really well with all the folks who stopped by!

You'll need:
Pound of bacon
1.5 Pounds of chorizo
1 Pound fresh pork sausage
1/4 Cup lard (see the lard post we have on here under pork for how to make your own...)
1 Whole chicken
3 Large Onions
2 Red Peppers
5 Stalks Celery
1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder
3 Cups Rice
1 Teaspoon Thyme
1 Bay Leaf
3 Tablespoons Hot Sauce
1 Teaspoon Cayenne
1 Tablespoon Celery Seed
3 Cups Strained Tomatoes
2 Liters Chicken Stock
1.5 Pounds Shrimp
1 Pound Scallops
1 Bunch of green onions

We started by frying up some of the cardamom bacon that we cured and smoked last week. The smell in the kitchen was ridiculously amazing. In the mean time we tossed an unseasoned chicken (no need to season it since the skin and carcus will be used for stock while the meat will be pulled and added to the plenty flavorful broth). Along with some basic breakfast sausage and hot italian sausage that we made a while ago on to the grill at about 425 (Chorizo is better than the Italian for this but we ran out of ours a while ago).
The sausage and bacon is all done and chopped up to be used soon.....

The chicken joins the sausage and the bacon for a little rest before being pulled. Notice the bowls in the background prepped for latter, one is the onions, red peppers, and celery, the other is the prawns, scallops, and green onions, there is a third one not in the picture with the rice and the spices. It is worth the 10 minutes to prep all this to make it a super relaxing cook.
Time for the wok, replaced the grill with it.....tossed a little lard in it and then the peppers, celery, and onions
Once the vegetables are pretty much done toss in the sausages and bacon

Now time for the rice, hot sauce (we used a homemade hot red chile sauce), celery seed, garlic, and bay leaves, we fried it for a couple of minutes before adding in the liquids.

Now for the liquids, strained tomatoes and chicken stock. Let it go on a slow boil until most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender but still has a bit of a bite to it. Just taste it from time to time to see when it is done, you can add more stock if you need.

Now it's time to stir in the prawns, shrimp and green onions (diced fairly small). Only let this cook for a minute or so and then let it all rest off heat for about 5 or 10 minutes and the seafood will be cooked perfectly (leave it on the heat much longer and the seafood will over cook really fast)And we're all done!
We served this with a nice light spinach salad with grapefruit and avocado topped with a red wine and basalmic vinagerette.

Red Wine Mushroom Tarts

We needed a few snacks to watch the NCAA tourney games on the weekend. Came up with these guys.....Highly recomend them, they dissapeared damn quick!

First start out by making the pastry dough and form it into a log. Put it into the fridge for a few hours before using it.

For the dough you need:
8 Ounces of Cream Cheese
1/2 Cup Butter
1.5 Cups Flour

Beat together the cream cheese with the butter until fairly light and fluffy. Then fold in the flour.

Once the dough is nice and chilled pull out a muffin tin and shape into the tins

Now for the filling you need:
Mushrooms (not sure exactly how many, I grabbed a full bag from the grocery store, see pic below)

4 Small Onions

8 Cloves Garlic

Tablespoon Thyme

3 Cups of Red Wine

1/4 Cup of Flour

Salt and Pepper

Habenero and Monterey Jack Cheese

Start by heating up the onions in a little butter Dice up all the mushrooms and toss them on top, the pan will be over flowing until they cook down
Once the mushrooms have cooked down a little and released some of there juices stir in the garlic and thyme Once most of the mushroom cooking liquid is gone stir in the 3 cups of red wine
Once most of the red wine has cooked out and the mushrooms are getting drier again stir in the flour
It should like something like this
Now fill the pastry cups you made earlier Top each tart with a piece of cheese with hot peppers in it, we used Habanero Monterey Jack
Cook at 400 for half an hour or so