Chile Chicken with Lime and Coconut Milk

(adapted from Dave DeWitt's 1,001 Best Hot and Spicy Recipes)

Man, I am not doing so well on this whole blogging thing lately, am I? Somehow I've been having trouble coordinating the new recipe lookup with grocery shopping...and now I feel like I'm repeating myself from a previous post...rut, anyone? Well, this one snapped me out of it a bit. The best part is that I think it gave me a hint as to how to prepare one of my favorite restaurant dishes - a coconut curry that I've only been able to find at a Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Grand, in St. Louis (stay tuned for that one).

This was really good and really simple. All the ingredients just get thrown into a pan and left for awhile, and then you eat! It was so good that I actually enjoyed eating it with brown rice. Now that's a testimonial.

I think next time I'd either leave out the limes, or I'd certainly remove them before serving. And if the grocery store hadn't been out of lemongrass, that would've been a great addition. Even with that, it was tasty, satisfying, and a nice change of pace - especially with how little effort it required.

So:
5 chicken drumsticks (or equivalent chicken parts of your choice)
2 cups coconut milk (about 1 can)
1/2 tsp turmeric
4 shallots, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 tsp salt
1 stalk lemongrass (optional, but preferred)
1/4-1/2 lime, slice in rounds
2-4 dried hot chiles (DeWitt calls for Santaka; I used tien tsin), crushed

Combine all of the ingredients in a large pan, spooning the sauce over the chicken. Cook, covered, over medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring now and then, until the chicken is cooked and tender. The sauce will thicken. Remove limes and serve over brown rice.

Pesto-Baked Chicken

(adapted from Saveur magazine)

I'm super-excited right now because I just ordered a subscription to Saveur magazine. I've clearly missed the fact that magazine subscriptions don't make a ton of sense in a world where you can find nearly-identical content online, but hey, why not buck the trend? I picked one up for a flight home, found a coupon for a cheap subscription, and there you go. I mean, the feature was pesto. Pesto, people! Pages and pages of pesto...

Among those pages I found this recipe for pesto-rubbed chicken. The recipe is really intended for the grill (which I do think would kick it up a notch, as they say), and they offered a baked alternative for those of us without a backyard. It's a nice variation, and an easy variation to make - just whip up some pesto, spread it under the chicken's skin, bake, spread a little on top of the chicken, bake a little more, and serve. I omitted the pine nuts, since I am just not a fan.

(The magazine also had a one-page photo and story of the Oak Park Farmers' Market donuts, which is SO awesome, because my mom and I used to ride our bikes there every Saturday morning and eat donuts and fresh raspberries on the curb while listening to the live bluegrass band. Once we even volunteered and helped to sugar the donuts in the basement kitchen!)

Also, this recipe marks Joef's and my official transition to adulthood, as we accompanied this chicken with...wait for it...brown rice. That's right, folks, we've officially made the switch. I sort of love white rice (esp. with a little parmesan cheese), but you know, sometimes you have to move on. Whole grains and all that business. Yes, it's brown rice from here on out for Joef and Julia.

So:

2 cups packed basil

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup grated parmesan

1 clove garlic, quartered

4 chicken thighs

Salt

Pepper

Preheat oven to 475.

Using your fingers, loosen skin from meat on chicken and spread half the pesto in between skin and meat. Transfer chicken to a baking sheet and season generously with salt and pepper.

 

Cook chicken in the oven, skin side up, for 25 minutes; rub with remaining pesto and cook until chicken is cooked/juices no longer run pink.

Serve with brown (!) rice and arugula salad.

Infusions: Fire Oil

Let the Naga Saga continue! Har!

Joef's next creation in this series was Naga-Jolokia-infused oils. We made three types: olive oil, sesame, and peanut. We used slightly different proportions in each one - olive oil was mildest, peanut the hottest. In general, we used two ghost peppers for two cups of oil, and then added a few bird peppers for some more flavor. 

The oils turned out great, and to be honest, not as hot as we expected. For example, I used the infused olive oil to make a white clam sauce (and added shrimp - SO good!), a fairly oil-intensive dish, and it wasn't spicy at all. However, if you use it as a dipping sauce, there's more heat. So, next time we do this, we're going to add more peppers per cup of oil, and we're also going to leave the peppers in the oil for a couple of days before removing them - as we learned from the vodka, it takes a little time for the heat to seep out.

 So, for two cups of oil:

2 ghost peppers, halved

4 or so bird peppers, halved

Heat the oil in a wok. When the oil is hot, drop in the peppers. Let them cook for about 10 minutes, then remove the oil from the heat. Let the oil cool, then pour into glass containers (containers should be boiled before use).

The peppers are very, very, very hot - so take the proper precautions. We probably overdid it a little with the face masks, but the latex gloves were definitely a good plan. And don't touch your face!

Looking forward to using these oils in stir fries and more!

Infusions: Fire Vodka

Joef's dreams came true this past week when our friend Jonathan brought back a bag of Naga Jolokia peppers from India. Apparently, he got past security, who told him it was a biological weapon, by telling them the peppers were for "research". And in a way, they were.

We spent the weekend experimenting with these peppers and another bag of what we think are bird peppers, and Joef was in heaven. We made (spoiler alert!) three types of oil, and this vodka, which eventually we'll use for Bloody Marys.

This pepper was really interesting, because so far it's interacted really differently with the vodka than, say, the habaneros and jalapenos we usually use to make homemade pepper vodka. It's taken more time for the color of the peppers to start to bleed out into the vodka, and it's been flavoring the vodka much more gradually. We take a little sip every other day or so, and it is starting to kick up considerably.

As for the recipe: one handle vodka, four naga jolokia peppers with the tops cut off. Pop 'em in and wait for the fun to start.

New Look!

As you can see, La Piccina Cucina has a new look! This is partially the result of me accidentally deleting/not being able to retrieve the old look, but hey, let's call that an opportunity for an upgrade.