Homemade Chorizo

I first tasted chorizo at a restaurant in San Diego when I was on vacation.  Well, actually it was "soyrizo", but it was pretty good.  A few of the Mexican restaurants in central Ohio offer chorizo as a taco filling, or use it to amp the flavor, but I haven't been able to find a Mexican style-chorizo in the stores that isn't bland or incredibly fatty. I did find the following recipe for spicing chorizo while googling, so I've been making my own.

For 1 lb of ground pork or ground turkey (85% or 93% lean) add

2 T chili powder (I use Penzey's Regular Chili Powder)
1 T sweet paprika
1 t ground cumin
1 t table salt
1 t garlic powder
1/2 t ground coriander
1/2 t dried oregano, crushed
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1/8 t ground cloves
1/8 t ground black pepper
1/4 c. cider vinegar

Mix everything together, and refrigerate overnight to let the flavors blend.
When you fry this, the meat will fall apart into tiny crumbles.  I think that's the action of the vinegar -- and the secret behind the finely crumbled ground beef in Mexican restaurants.
I usually vacuum seal 4 oz. packages, which are perfect for making breakfast for 2 people.
A whole pound can be used to make great stuffed peppers.  This morning I cooked 5 pounds for a Super Bowl party I'm attending.  I'm going to reheat it in a small crock pot for a nacho bar.

Chicken ala Waffles

I had been planning to make multigrain waffles for a couple of weeks, and I had some cooked chicken legs in the  freezer.  "Chicken and waffles!"
I know, I know -- the chicken is deep fried and the waffles are sort of a side when you get chicken and waffles in a restaurant.  But Chicken ala King is served over toast points...and my waffle iron makes round waffles that break apart into quarters.  So Chicken ala Waffles it is.

To me, Chicken ala King is sort of an deconstructed pot pie, with chicken and veggies in gravy, poured over puff pastry or a biscuit.  I was surprised to discover that the classic dish is mushrooms and sherry.  No peas & carrots?  The most intriguing thing that turned up was finishing the sauce with one or two egg yolks, tempered and stirred into the chicken gravy.  That sounded worth trying, and it was fabulous.

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 c. chopped onions
1 1/2 c. carrots, peeled and chopped
8 oz of mushrooms, stems removed and sliced thinly

2 Tbsp butter
1/2 t. paprika
1/2 t. white pepper (optional)
3 t. sweet rice flour
2 c. chicken stock
3/4 c. half and half
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 1/2 c. frozen peas
2 c. cooked chicken (I used all dark meat)
2-3 dashes of tabasco (optional)
dash of habenro salt (optional)

Heat the olive oil in a 12" non-stick skillet over medium heat, and add the onions.  Cook, stirring occasionally, while you peel and chop the carrots.  Add the carrots and stir.  Rinse and slice the mushrooms, and add to the skillet.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the onions and the mushrooms are both soft.  Add the butter and wait for it to melt.

Sprinkle paprika, pepper, and sweet rice flour over the skillet, and stir well to coat all the ingredients.  Cook 2-3 minutes so you won't have a raw flour taste.  Pour in about half of the chicken stock and stir to dissolve the flour and fat from the veggies.   Add the rest of the stock, stir, and continue to cook over medium heat until the gravy begins to bubble and thicken.

Stir in the half-and-half, and heat until you see steam coming off the gravy.   Scoop a 1/2 c. of the sauce over the egg yolks, and beat.  (Don't worry if a mushroom or carrot gets in there.)  Add another 1/2 c. of the warm gravy, stir it in and the scrape the egg mixture back into the skillet.  Stir well, and add the chicken and peas.  Reduce the heat to medium low, and cook until everything is heated through and the sauce is thick and silky.  I waited until the mixture was steaming again, and then turned the heat to low.

Taste, and adjust seasonings.  I added 3 shakes of Tabasco and a touch of habenero salt because we like a little heat.

I served about 1 c. of the mixture over two quarters of a waffle, with the other 2 quarters set on the edge of the plate for dipping or gravy mopping.

I made the waffles in advance, so I only had to break them into quarters and reheat in the toaster oven when the chicken was ready.

Sticky Chicken and Cabbage Soup

1 quart unsalted chicken stock
1 15 oz. can chick peas, drained and rinsed well
2 T olive oil *or* 2 T chicken fat saved from Sticky Chicken
1 c. chopped yellow onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 a medium cabbage, core removed, cut into 4 wedges and thinly sliced crosswise
10-14 oz cooked chicken, skin and bones removed and chopped (2 leg quarters)
Drippings saved from the bottom of the sticky chicken crock pot
11.5 oz. can of low-sodium V-8
Tabasco sauce, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste

Place the chick peas and chicken stock in a blender.  Blend until the chick peas are liquefied.
Place a Dutch oven over medium heat.  When the pot is hot add the oil or chicken fat.
When the fat is heated, add the onions and cook until translucent and tender.
Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.
Add the cabbage and cook until it's tender and starting to brown.
Remove any extra fat from the drippings and add the rest to the pot.Don't worry about any spices that settled to the bottom -- they'll add great flavor to the soup.
Stir in the chopped chicken, blended broth mixture and V-8.  Bring to a simmer, and reduce heat.  Cook for 30 minutes to blend the flavors.
Taste the broth, and season with salt, pepper and Tabasco.

Ceci Pie Recipe

Filling

9 c. ceci beans* (aka chickpeas or garbanzo beans)

1 3/4 c. honey

1 t. freshly ground nutmeg

1 t. ground allspice

1 t. cinnamon
3 t. vanilla 

1 1/2 t dried orange zest mixed with 1 1/2 t water

1/4 c. frozen orange juice concentrate

1 t. salt*
2 T lemon juice (optional)

* One of the recipes we started with noted that it was best to buy dry and soak.  We put 2 lbs of dried chickpeas into a 6 quart slow cooker with lots of water, and cooked them on high for about 5 hours, until they were tender, and then measured out 9 cups.  Because there was no salt in the ceci beans, the filling tasted a little flat until we added some salt.

Place all of the filling ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth.  You may have to do this in batches, depending on the size of your blender.

Making 4 inch pies, we had almost 6 cups leftover.  In the future we'll be halving the filling recipe, making larger pies (with more filling per pie) or making 2 batches of dough.

Dough

8 c. flour

1 c. milk

4 eggs

3/4 c. oil

3/4 c. sugar

1 T. baking powder

1 t salt

Additional flour, for rolling
Additional milk, for sealing

Peanut oil or a blend of vegetable oil and shortening for deep frying

Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Measure milk into container, and break the eggs into the milk.  Beat the eggs into the milk and stir the oil into the milk mixture.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until a soft, crumbly dough forms.  Add more milk or flour if necessary to get a good dough consistency. Knead the dough in bowl a few times to help it come together in a ball.  Some loose flour and crumbs are OK.  Divide the dough into quarters.  Place one quarter on a floured work surface, cover the remaining dough with plastic wrap to keep it from drying out while you work.

Roll the dough out to 1/8" thickness, turning and adding flour as necessary to keep it from sticking.

Cut 4" circles of dough.    Dip a finger in milk and run it halfway along the edge of a circle.

Place a heaping tablespoon of batter on one side of the circle. Fold the dry dough over and pinch the edge.  Set the pie down on the table and press along the edge with a fork to seal.  Turn the pie over and crimp the edge with a fork a second time.

Filling the pies takes a lot of time, so it's good to have a second person to run the deep fryer. Once you have a few pies filled, heat the deep frying oil in a fryer or a deep pan until it reaches 365 - 370 F.  Slip 2 or 3 pies into the oil at a time.  

Fry, turning once,  until golden brown on both sides.  Set the fried pies on metal cooling racks set over paper towels to catch drips.  If you want to sprinkle the pies with powdered sugar, do it while they're still warm.

Obviously my crimping needs some work -- but the filling doesn't leak out into the oil.  It's starchy enough to form a crust against the hot oil.

I don't have much deep frying experience.  A friend taught me to use a mixture of half solid vegetable shortening and half vegetable oil for frying.  The pies pictured above were fried in peanut oil.  The shortening blend darkened a lot.   The peanut oil stood up to frying a big batch of pies better -- it could have been filtered and re-used. The crust tasted better when fried in the shortening blend. (Trans fats taste yummy, I guess.) I think next time I'm going to buy one of the creamy frying blends that I've seen at commercial kitchen supply stores, to see if I can find a balance of stability and flavor.

Like the world needs another food blog. . .

Whenever I'm face with a new recipe, I usually like to read a few variations.  When my boyfriend asked if I knew how to make braciole, I read a dozen recipes, bought a flank steak, and gave it a try.
So when he told me about the pies his grandmother made with ceci beans I googled, and googled and googled.
Cici pie?  Chickpea pie? Garbanzo pie?  Nothing?
  A family recipe so obscure that nothing pops up deserves to be posted somewhere.  And I'm the sort of person who occasionally takes photos of her cooking. . .so I guess I'm the person to do it.