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Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts

Friday, November 27, 2020

Chris and Bennie's Trans-Atlantic Pecan Pie!

 Last week my good friend Bennie, a physician in Belgium, shared on Facebook a photo of a pecan pie she had made.  It looked magnificent!  I asked her for the recipe for it and she sent it along.  Turned out that it's from a French-language cookbook of American recipes.  Well whatever: I'm still counting it as a recipe from a foreign language book :-P

It looked so decadent that I had to make it, even though I've never baked anything more than brownies before.  And after some cross-oceanic consultation about things like proper temperature (at one time I thought it was going to bake at 800 Fahrenheit... which didn't sound right...) and some finagling with extra ingredients like corn syrup, I think it's safe to say that in light of what friends were raving yesterday at Thanksgiving dinner, we have concocted a masterpiece!

So here is the recipe for Chris and Bennie's Trans-Atlantic Pecan Pie:

Ingredients:

1 9-inch pie crust

3 eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt

1 cup corn syrup (I use good ol' reliable Karo brand, dark)

1 cup pecans


Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (or 150 Celsius for our friends in Europe and abroad).  Whisk together all the ingredients, except the nuts.  Pour into pie crust.  Cover with pecans cut in two lengthwise (Bennie also suggests crushing the pecans).  Bake for 70 minutes.  Let cool at room temperature before placing in refrigerator for setting.  Wait 1 hour before serving (or wrapping in plastic wrap for transport to dinner elsewhere).



Friday, June 12, 2020

Fried chicken... in an air fryer!

A few weeks ago Amazon delivered a Ninja Foodi air fryer/pressure cooker into my grubby little paws.  Since then I have had a fistful of fun cooking just about everything in it!  Hot dogs come out exactly like baseball park wieners, and I'm getting the hang of baby back ribs.  This past week a friend told me that you can cook steak in it.  I didn't believe it at first but I put a rib-eye into it a few nights ago.  The steak was cooked perfectly medium throughout, with a spot-on warm pink center.

Okay well that's all good... but what about making chicken in the air fryer?

My first attempt, had I posted photos of it to social media, would have gotten me banned from Facebook on grounds of violating community standards.  It was the worst culinary exercise that I have ever tried.  The meat itself was juicy and edible but that was only after you got past the... crud... that was supposed to have been the crispy skin.

But never let it be said that I am deterred.  Part of the fun of cooking is that you get to experiment.  And hey, even my first ever deep fried turkey came out of the pot more than a little burned.

So a few nights ago I gave it a second try.  Had a pack of eight drumsticks and that made for three experimental batches in the fryer.  I played around with technique and on the third batch... the chicken came out exquisite.  Cooked beautifully, crispy outside... and the taste was pure Southern delectable.

Batch #3 - the best product - is the two pieces on the upper right of the plate


With everything else going on right now, I thought it was time to post something more upbeat and educational and fun.  So if you've got an air fryer, here is how I made air-fried chicken:

INGREDIENTS:
Chicken (I used legs but you could do this with breast or whatever)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons black pepper
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon salt

Before doing anything else, open up the fryer and spray the basket with a thorough amount of cooking spray or oil (vegetable, canola, olive, etc.)  THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!  I discovered that this keeps the chicken crust from sticking to the basket.

Mix the flour, black pepper, paprika, and salt thoroughly in a bowl.

In another bowl mix the buttermilk and eggs (making sure you've cracked the eggs and poured the inside yolk into the bowl... just making sure you're paying attention ;-)  

Wash each chicken piece thoroughly.  Pat dry.  Then drench the piece in the bowl with the buttermilk mixture.  When thoroughly covered place piece into bowl with flour mixture, rolling it around until it's completely covered.  Place chicken piece on sheet of foil or cooking sheet.  When enough pieces have been covered in flour mixture, spray cooking spray/oil on the pieces.  Place pieces with sprayed-side down into the basket.  Close fryer and turn on 350 degreees at 16 minutes.  Halfway through cooking time open the fryer, spray chicken, and turn over.  Cook for the remainder of the time.  Remove from fryer... and enjoy!

EDIT 3:06 PM EST:  Just for the heck of it, here's a pic of the air-fried steak from the other night:

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Recipe for Chocolate Fondue

It's been way too many moons since I posted a recipe on this blog. Here's one for a chocolate fondue that I made last night for my girlfriend Kristen: a notorious choco-holic! It passed with flying colors with her so I'm gonna assume it's safe for public dissemination :-)

Chocolate Fondue

- 1 and 1/4 cups whole milk
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 4 ounces Ghiradelli 70% Cacao Extra Bittersweet Chocolate baking bar (broken up into pieces)
- 4 ounces Ghiradelli Milk Chocolate Baking Bar (also broken up into pieces)

Pour the milk, vanilla extract and butter into a saucepan. Heat the saucepan on medium and mix well. When it has begun to slightly boil from the heat, remove from the burner and pour in the bittersweet and milk chocolate bar pieces. Keep stirring until the bars are completely melted and the fondue is uniformly brown and smooth (the saucepan can be brought back to heat to facilitate this). Pour the fondue from the saucepan into a fondue pot and keep it warm, not hot (an electrical fondue pot with precise temperature control is excellent for this).

Serve with marshmallows, strawberries, slices of banana, or whatever else strikes your fancy!

Serves 2-4 people.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Recipe for chili

Look, I'll admit: I'm not the best cook by a long shot. Ever since that tragic night at the National Boy Scout Jamboree in 1989, I've been very timid about turning myself loose in the kitchen again. But along with deep-frying turkey and bagna cauda (something I haven't made in quite awhile) this is one dish that I've become rather good at, and other people seem to enjoy it a lot. So I thought that it might be fun to post my chili recipe here.

Credit goes to my aunt, Glendora Roberts, for coming up with this. So it's not really "my" recipe at all. It's just my preferred way of making chili. My only real contribution is the Tabasco sauce and, if you like, the Dave's Ultimate Insanity sauce.

Aunt Glendora's chili (Chris Knight variant)

- 1 pound of ground chuck
- 1 cup of water
- 3-4 tablespoons of chili powder
- Bottle of ketchup
- Bottle of original Tabasco brand Pepper Sauce
- Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- Bottle of Dave's Ultimate Insanity hot sauce (OPTIONAL)

Chop up the ground chuck very finely in a pot. Add water. Turn on the stove to low-medium and brown the chuck. Add chili powder and 2-3 good squirts of ketchup. Pour in 3-5 generous dollops of Tabasco sauce. Pour it a pinch of salt. Mix well. Turn the stove down and let chili simmer very low for an hour until thick. Stir occasionally. Add sugar toward the end.

OPTIONAL: For extra-spicy chili, pour in one drop of Dave's Ultimate Insanity hot sauce while simmering. Mix this very well! Do not use Dave's Ultimate Insanity sauce if you are also cooking dinner for your wife and you do not wish to be threatened with divorce.

Enjoy! :-)