Prog Chefs Unite!!!

I am all in favor of braising!

Tonight I'm making a standing rib roast - crusted with salt, black pepper, garlic, cumin, fresh rosemary, and thyme, with a mashed red potato pie and creamed spinach...

Where shall I put my blood oranges?

Put them (bananas, oranges, or whatever) anywhere your feel like, as long as it's not in this thread.

Anyone ever tried spicy chicken Cajun style, with glaced sweet patatoes? Made that yesterday, and the kids had no time to quarrel over diner.

I'll put it up later this week Raff - it's a bit longish.

Ok - here we go.

Ingredients
Multiply or divide weights and numbers as you see fit - we had somewhat small dinner for 2 adults and 2
children on this amount - and some of the sauce was left over and re-used for a delicious pasta sauce with additional tomatoes the next day.
Note: with bell pepper I mean the sweet kind, which we call paprika over here.

for the chicken itself
500 grams of chicken breast (i.e. 2 large ones)
100 grams of flower
1 table spoon of cajun spices (mixture of garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, paprika powder, cayenne pepper)
30 grams of butter
a bit of olive oil

for the sauce on the chicken
1 small red chili - finely chopped and without the grains
1 or 2 garlic cloves - finely chopped
cajun veggies (1 green bell pepper, one onion, 2 stalks of celery - all chopped up)
half a red bell peper, chopped up
1 can of tomatoe sauce (passato), about 400 ml
250 ml of water (or chicken stock, but I personally think it adds one flavour to many to this dish)
50 grams of butter

for the patatoes
500 grams of sweet patatoes, peeld and cut in 1.5cm thick slices
80 grams of brown sugar (the sweet stuff, not the kind the Rolling Stones sang about)
120 ml of orange juice (this time I used the juice of 2 tangerines because I ran out of orange juice)
1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon of lemon zest
1 cinnamon stick
50 grams of melted butter

Preparation

of the patatoes
Preheat oven at 180C
Stack the patatoes in a souflé pan (or an oven tray with a lid - use foil instead of lid if you have none)
Cover with the melted butter, add the juices the sugar and the cinammon stick
Cover the pan and put in the over for about 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove the lid, stir everything, remove the cinnamon, sprinkle lemon zest on top and put back in the over for 15 minutes, this time without covering - hopefully to create a bit of crunch on top. I failed on that part this time, because I put in to much of the juices by accident, which gave great taste but left too much fluid in the pan at the same time.

the chicken
Mix the cajun spices into the flower. Cover the chicken breasts in the spiced flower on all sides and shake of the excess.. Do this by putting the flower on the chick rather than putting the chicken in the flower, because you need some of the flower for the sauce later on.
Heat oil and butter in a frying pan until it starts to brown. Add the chicken and fry on all sites until brown, crunchy and cooked.
I normally prepare the chicken before starting on the sauce and then fry it while the sauce is in it's final stage (with the water and flower added).

the sauce
Melt the butter in a sauce pan and sauteh the cajun vegetables and red bell pepper for about 10 minutes
Add chili pepper and passato and let reduce on medium heat for about 25 minutes. Add 1-2 tablespoons of the spiced flower (depending on how thick you want the sauce) and the water to the sauce. You can add salt and pepper to taste, but I normally leave it out, because this sauce is so rich of flavours already.

serving
Put the chick on a serving dish, and put a bit of the steaming hot sauce over it. Serve the rest of the sauce in a bowl for people to help themselves further. The patatoes are best put on the table in the souflé pan, so people can take at will.
Apparently, the cajun cuisine serves this with fresh, warm corn bread, but I never tried that. Sometimes I serve it with a nice turkish loaf but not this time.

Bon appetit, mes amis....


Edited by Angelo - January 05 2009 at 17:36

Hmmm. Can I join you for diner?

I`ve got a superb recipe for Condor Stew.

Edited by Vibrationbaby - January 07 2009 at 10:53

another steak tonight, Mexican style marinated in olive oil, cumin, chipotle, garlic, paprika and lemon juice and then skillet-fried.. and a delicious sauce made from the pan drippings, some sherry, a bit of Worcestershire and reduced with a big knob of butter, served over rice with fried onions on the side
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I haven't eaten beef in decades, but that steak sounds great. I would assume if you are cooking your steak Mexican style, that means very well done, almost blackened on the outside.

I can remember long ago going in a small working class Mexican cafe in Texas. After a quick glance around the small room I noticed most everyone having steak and black coffee so I had the same, yum. To complete the meal I topped it off with a ciggerette, yum yum.

So there are three things I don't consume anymore, steak, coffee and ciggerettes, oh well.

Raff wrote: Ah, Angelo, thanks a lot for the recipe... Looks a bit labour-intensive, but I can try my hand at it when I feel like spending a long time in the kitchen.

It's not that bad - it takes about an hour, if nobody stands in your way. You can do the chicken and sauce while the patatoes are in the oven to save time.

Simple beef stew in the slow cooker for today.  My in-laws came over this morning so I didn't have time to jazz it up the way I really would have wanted to.  Still, smells amazing in the house, and I might break open a bottle of Chianti for this one.