AH-HA! Now I’m Cooking With Broadband

The first time I ever saw nitamago was at a ramen shop in south Denver.  Nitamago is a hard boiled egg that is marinated in a mixture of soy sauce and mirin (sweet sake).  The recipe is simple but I found it to be too salty and not sweet enough.  My friends agree with me but they ate them anyway so the recipe can’t be all that bad.

This I blatantly stole from E-how. Sorry. However, everyone should know how to do it.

1. Select a heat source. Peppers are best roasted over a live fire, such as a gas burner or a charcoal or gas grill. Lacking those, you can use a broiler.
2. Turn the heat to High (or turn on the broiler).
3. If using a broiler, cut the pepper in half and remove the stem, veins, and seeds. Place the pepper, skin-side up, on a broiler pan.
4. Coat the pepper lightly with oil.
5. Broil for 5 to 7 minutes, or, using metal tongs, place the flesh of the pepper directly in the flame of the burner or as close to the heat source as possible.
6. Rotate the pepper as the flesh closest to the heat blackens and blisters.
7. Remove the pepper when it has blackened completely.
8. Place it in a bowl and cover to allow it to steam (or put the peppers in a paper bag and close it).
9. After 15 to 20 minutes, scrape off and discard the blackened skin.
10. Remove and discard the seed pod, stem and inner ribs before using.

First of all, if this recipe were a paper for school, it’d be considered plagiarism. I “stole” it from Umbria In, because it’s a traditional Umbrian dish, modified Elly-style. Because of my lack of modern conveniences, I’ll put up how I did it, with notations on how it probably should be done.

This recipe should be delicious even to those who are not fans of peppers. I’m not exactly sure why, but it ends up tasting quite meaty.

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Okay…christening this board now. Thanks, Joe! Maybe now that I’m using it, you’ll start using it too

Okay, so I’ve been living in Italy for the past 4 months, sans microwaves, measuring cups, and potato-masher. It’s been an adventure, and by no means a bad thing…it has taught me to be free-flowing and creative while cooking, and in my flowy creation, here is one thing I have invented. No one has ever thought of it before, ever. I say it, so you know it’s true. I used miele di castagno: it’s a certain kind of honey that, here in Italy, is cheaper than what we americans would think of, quite simply, as “honey.” I found it to be particularly appropriate because it’s got a much more musky flavor, with more of a bite, than traditional honey. However, I’m not sure it’s available in the States, so you may have to use normal honey. How sad. Anyway, here it is.

• 1 whole chicken, or various parts of chicken, as desired.
• 3-4 large spoonfuls of miele di castagno.
• Rosmarino (powdered rosemary)–enough to make an opaque layer on top of the honey.
• Several tablespoons pineapple juice.

Put the honey in a bowl, add the rosemary. Then, add enough pineapple juice to dilute the mixture and add its flavour, but not enough to make the solution too liquidy. Put the chicken upside-down in a pan and drizzle with half of the mixture; flip it and drizzle with the rest. Cover with aluminum foil and put in an oven preheated to ~350°F for about 45 mins to an hour or so (keep your eye on it, though…just cook it till it’s done). For the last 5 minutes or so, uncover. It’s so delicious I can’t even tell you. Anyway…enjoy!

This post is filling a special request for Elly. Mulled wine is simply heated wine mixed with spices. For my recipe I use sugar, orange zest, nutmeg, cinnamon, corriander, black pepper, cloves and orange liquor or brandy. To start with use a red wine, not too dry, maybe a Merlot or a Reisling just avoid anything aged in oak - the flavors don’t work well together. Also avoid using a very expensive wine (heating ruins the flavor) or too cheap of a wine (heating makes it worse).
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There’s a recipe I like probably way more that I should. I got it off the back of a can of tamales (Ellis’s?). It’s called straw hat casserole, I’ve seen the name applied to a lot of dishes acually but I’m dubbing this recipe authoritative (because I can). If you like American style Mexican food you’ll probably like this. Take a greased cake pan crumble torilla chips in the bottom top with a layer of tamales, chili, more chips, onions, and cheese. Cover and bake at 350 for about 45 min or until warm. It’s not much of a recipe but it’s a ton of food for a few dollars, it keeps well and taste good reheated. My roommate and I used to make this a lot when we were low on cash. Some time I want to make a better version of it using my own chili and my own tamales. But I think it would be pretty hard to beat the recipe as it stands. A note for anyone who attempts this - use double the chili at least and you really should double the tamales.

I love bread pudding and I’ve always liked recipes that do something with leftovers. I really don’t like leftovers so I would much rather make something new out of them. I had about half of a pound cake sitting on the shelf that was starting to go stale (it wasn’t great to begin with, got it at King Soopers on discount as a midnight snack, and its been sitting on the shelf for quite a while) . So I decided to try a little experiment.
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Over the last few days I have been working on perfecting my chili recipe, perfection may never happen but I’m starting by making my own chili powder and using that in the most basic chili recipe I have to see the difference it makes. For those of you interested in just the recipe skip to the bottom. Chili powder is made from dried ground chiles and other spices. After looking around at some other recipes I settled on Ancho chiles, New Mexico Chiles, Pequin Chiles, Chipotle Chiles, Hot Hungarian Paprika, Garlic Powder, Cumin, Mexican Oregano and for a unique, smoky, taste: Lapsang Souchong Tea. The addition of dried tea leaves is unusual as far I I know but Lapsang Souchong is a unique tea. It’s made by smoking black tea leaves over a pine fire. If you have ever been camping and smelled your clothes after you get back then you know the smoky odor of Lapsang Souchong. It has a very pungent smell and a unique taste. Honestly I wasn’t overly fond of drinking it and it has been sitting in a cabinet for a while now. But when I wanted to add a smoky taste to my chili powder I figured it would work perfectly. (more…)