Bake Sale Betty's Fried Chicken Sandwiches with Jalapeno Slaw, and, Welcome to California!

(adapted from www.food.com) 

Phew, talk about a hiatus! We're back, folks! To remind myself how long it's been since I've posted, and therefore, how long it's been since I've cooked anything (new, at least, but pretty much just anything), this recipe is from MAY. Specifically, from Joef's graduation from the Yale School of Management (watch me burst with pride!). Since then, we've moved out of New Haven, CT, driven to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Madison, and Minneapolis; camped in the Boundary Waters; driven back to Chicago and St. Louis; flown to San Francisco; driven back to Minneapolis, back to St. Louis; and then driven all the way from St. Louis to Berkeley, CA, where we now reside (hooray!).

This first-recipe-back is appropriate, then - Joef requested it for his graduation because he'd gotten to know and love Bakesale Betty's, an Oakland favorite, during his internship last summer. And now, internship has turned into full-time position, and here we are, living in the East Bay. And I'm finally posting this recipe. It's like a welcome to the neighborhood. And WOW, is it beautiful here. The local grocery store has more (low-price!) fruits and vegetables than I could count, about half of which I've never even heard of before. But I digress...

What really makes these sandwiches (besides the delicious, delicious grease!) is the jalapeno coleslaw. That's right. It's wonderfully tangy and hot, and cuts the grease of the fried chicken just right. I borrowed the recipe from Food.com, and it was a crowd pleaser.

By the way, this makes a TON of coleslaw. Way more than you need. So you could halve that portion of the recipe, if you so chose.

CHICKEN
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or however many sandwiches you want to serve - my memory is failing me, but I may have fileted the breasts in half, but that's up to you)
Salt
1 quart buttermilk

VINAIGRETTE
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp kosher salt
 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

SLAW
1 small red onion, very thinly sliced
1 cup red wine vinegar
2-4 jalapenos, seeded, cut in half and sliced crosswise
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1/2 green cabbage, core and outer leaves removed, and very thinly sliced
Salt

BREADING
1 lb all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon salt (or more to taste)
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh ground pepper

AND
2 quarts vegetable oil for frying
4 rolls (or however many sandwiches you want to make)

Season chicken breasts with salt. Let sit at least 5 minutes. Fill a wide, shallow nonreactive bowl or casserole dish with buttermilk. Add the chicken and soak in the refrigerator for 1 hour. 

In the meantime, start on the vinaigrette: combine mustard, vinegar and salt in a bowl. Slowly whisk in olive oil until well blended.

Then, start on the slaw. Macerate onions in the cup of red wine vinegar, and let sit at least 20 minutes. (I had to look up what "macerate" means. It's the process of softening something by soaking it in liquid.) Remove onions and discard vinegar. Toss onions with jalapeno, parsley, cabbage and salt. Toss with vinaigrette until evenly coated. 

Ready to fry the chicken? Prep the breading by mixing flour, cayenne, salt and pepper in a wide, shallow bowl. Pour vegetable oil into a large stockpot. Do not fill up more than halfway, or the oil could splatter. Bring oil up to 365°, using a digital thermometer/candy thermometer to monitor the heat. Pull a chicken breast out of the buttermilk one at a time, letting excess drip off, and dredge completely in flour. Do not drain or shake off excess buttermilk or flour during the breading process. That's the yummy part!

When the oil is at 365°, carefully place chicken pieces into oil one by one. Let each cook for a minute before moving the piece, then help it “swim” in the oil with tongs, until it is evenly cooked, about 5-7 minutes. Remove chicken from oil and drain on paper towels. Season immediately with salt.

To pull it all together, place fried chicken breast on bottom of torpedo roll and top generously with coleslaw. DEVOUR!

Rick Bayless Mexican Feast, Part 1: Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa

(from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen)

Back in college, our friend Joseph treated us to a Mexican feast inspired by chef Rick Bayless. Over five years later, I still remember that meal. It was delicious, different, and I left fantastically stuffed.

Since then, I've made a couple things from the Mexican Kitchen cookbook - specifically, the Chipotle Shrimp and the Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa. But I hadn't really done much more than that - every recipe in the book looks amazing, but I will say that they're not exactly the kind of recipes that you just pick up and decide to make after work. So when we had our friends Steve and Johnna over for dinner last night, I decided to test out a few more.

The meal was great - even if we ended up eating the final course after 10:30pm. We started with the tried-and-true salsa and shrimp, and then...hours later...had Classic Red Tomato Rice (which uses the same salsa) and Red-Chile Braised Chicken with Potatoes and Greens.

I'll do this post in four installments, one for each dish. Note that if you were making this salsa and the tomato rice, you'd just double the salsa recipe and use half (2 cups) for the rice. Also, if you were making all the dishes at once, you could roast five tomatoes and about 20 cloves of unpeeled garlic, to save time (which I clearly did not).

So, for starters: Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa! (2 cups)

2 medium-large round tomatoes
2 large fresh jalapeno chiles
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 small white onion, very finely chopped and rinsed/drained
1/3 cup loosely packed cilantro, chopped
1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar (optional)

You start by roasting the tomatoes, jalapenos, and unpeeled garlic. Place the tomatoes on a baking sheet right below a very hot oven broiler. Roast until the skins begin to blacken, then flip and roast until the other side does the same. In the meantime, place the jalapenos and the garlic on a frying pan or skillet over medium. Turn them occasionally until both are blackened in spots.

In the meantime, place the chopped onion, cilantro, and cider vinegar in a bowl.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven and let cool with the jalapenos and the garlic, then remove the skin from the tomatoes, the peels from the garlic, and the stems from the jalapenos.

Combine the jalapenos and garlic in a food processor and 1/4 tsp of the salt until they make a coarse paste. Transfer into a blender and add the tomatoes. (You could do it all in the blender, but the garlic and jalapenos get broken down better in the smaller food processor, at least mine.)

Pour the tomato mixture into your bowl with the onion, stir, and add the remaining 1/4 tsp salt. Let it sit and cool for awhile (you can put it in the fridge), then serve with tortilla chips!