Arroz con Pollo

Arroz con Pollo w/Peruano Beans

I know it's been over a month since my last post.  Thank you everybody that reads my blog for their patience & support :o)  I really do enjoy blogging, but sometimes it does feel like a chore, so I decided to take some time off from it and just post my food photos on Facebook. I still have tons of fun taking pictures of food, both my own and sometimes at restaurants.  Please "friend" me if you want to be my friend! I give kudos to my blogger friends that keep up with their daily to several times a week posts!  I'm also sorry that I haven't kept up with reading all the fabulous blogs out there too :o(

I just wanted to make sure that blogging stays fun for me and remember that the posts and photos don't need to be perfect, just entertaining.  It's so aggravating to get rejected by Foodgawker & Tastespotting, but I have to remember that just because they didn't accept me, it doesn't mean that my photo is bad...lol  Hubby has always said that I have ADD and have a hard time sticking with something for a long time, so it's a surprise that I have stuck with my blog for over 6 months.  I just know that once I do finish a post and publish it, it is an accomplishment and a great feeling :o)

I hope that everybody had a wonderful time with their friends and family over Thanksgiving.  Can you believe that Christmas/Hanukkah Season is coming on us so quickly!  Hubby & I had a lovely time visiting with his parents over Thanksgiving in the St. Louis area.  It was just the 4 of us this time, so we went out for our Thanksgiving meal, it's always fantastic spending time with his parents.  If you go to my Facebook page you can see the feasting we did while we were out there including Cracker Barrel ;o)

On to the food of this post...I love Arroz con Pollo, but it seems that every time I cook it, it turns out differently.  This is one way I like to do it, whole pieces cooked with the rice in the oven then served with whole pieces of chicken.  One of my favorite Mexican restaurants, Lares in Santa Monica, CA, serves it very brothy.  I think that they cook the chicken separately like a brothy stew and then just serves it over their regular rice.  I love it their way too, the broth is super flavorful!

Marinating...

I marinated cut-up chicken pieces in Olive Oil, Mexican Seasonings, Mex Oregano, Garlic, Paprika, Red Chile Powder, Salt, Pepper & Lime for a couple of hours.  

Browning Chicken, Skin Side Down to start...

except for some reason, the far left piece is skin side up ;o) 

Flipped Over...

I'm sure that you can use boneless/skinless chicken for this, but the bones & skins add so much flavor!  After the chicken was almost cooked through, I plated it and then sauteed onions, carrots, celery, cilantro, Mex Seasonings, Mex Oregano, Salt, Pepper & garlic in the flavored oil.

Sauteed Veggies,  Chicken Broth & Tomato Sauce

3 1/2 Cups Broth

1/2 Cup Tomato Sauce

2 Cups Long Grain Rice

Chicken Added Back in..

I also added a couple of bay leafs then cooked the chicken for about 20 mins on Med Heat partially covered.

Sauteeing Long Grain Rice

I cover the bottom of the sauce pan w/Rice Bran Oil, any oil will do....then add 2 cups of rice.

Until it's a Nice Toasty Color :o)

When the rice gets to be a nicely toasted color I add it to the chicken/broth mixture, cover it, then put it in a 350 degree oven.

After About 10 mins in Oven...

350 degree oven

Stir Every 10 mins

Another 10 mins in oven...

Add water if necessary.

Last 10 mins in oven...

Ready to serve, but cook to the doneness that you like :o)

Served w/Peruano Refried Beans & Simple Salad

This time I served the chicken in whole pieces, but sometimes I shred it and mix it with the rice :o)

Kah Tequila

I love these mini Kah Tequila bottles that Hubby found :o)  They have several types and also have big skulls too.

Burritos made w/the Leftovers the Next Day :o)

Dinner the Other Night...Roast Chicken Stuffed w/Ketchup Fried Rice :o)

Simple Roast Chicken

Who doesn't like Roast Chicken, right?  It's one of my Hubby's favorite meals.  He says that he could eat it everyday! I don't do anything fancy to it, I don't even truss the legs and stuff and I usually don't stuff it ;o)  My mother rarely made it for us when I was growing up, but when she did, it was such a treat!  She turned it a little Japanese by stuffing it with Ketchup Fried Rice...lol  I know that sounds a little odd and gross, but it is very tasty!  It seems that most of my favorite meals are comfort foods from my childhood.

I got this chicken from the Butcherettes that I've been raving about, Lindy & Grundy.  They are seriously the nicest ladies that you can ever meet!  This was only my second time at their store and they remembered me!  They even said they'd give me a tour of the meat locker next time I come in.  I know it doesn't sound that exciting, but I love getting tours of the kitchens at restaurants and I've never been in a butcher's meat locker and there,  I may get to see half of a steer!  The closest I've come was going inside the dry aging chamber of a steak place near us called Wolfgang's:o) Oh, I've also been in the meat locker at Lawry's restaurant too!  It's customer service like that that will keep me coming back!  It just makes you feel special when store owners and restaurant people remember that you've been there before.  It's sad, but such a rarity nowadays.

http://lindyandgrundy.com/

The chicken was only about 2 1/2 lbs, what chickens are supposed to be!!  Why is it that at the grocery store you can't find a chicken that is under 4 lbs??  Some are even 5 lbs, and they are frying chickens not roasters.  The taste of this was much nicer than a normal chicken too.  

Chicken w/Feet & Neck...

I was so happy to see that the feet were still attached when I got it home! I would have been ecstatic if the head was still attached too...lol  But I was happy with just the neck.  I love adding feet and neck when I make stock, it adds extra unctuousness to it!  The stock is even better when I use all the roasted bones too. I'm going to have a separate bag of bones in the freezer from L&G chickens...  I chopped up the other chicken and froze it.

Feet & Necks...

There's a place in Chinatown where they have live chickens and they slaughter them right there at their store.  Those chickens have both their feet & head!  When you take the chicken home, it's still body temperature warm;o)  It's just a little bit of a pain to drive down there for me, so I'm glad that L&G is only 15 mins away from me!

Seasoned...

I don't usually brine my chickens in salt water anymore, it's much easier to "dry brine" it.  There's a restaurant called the Hitching Post II about an hour away from Santa Barbara that was featured in the movie SIDEWAYS, I actually talked about it in my very first food post on my blog.  I love their seasoning called "Magic Dust" and always have some on hand.  I buy their product, but add some more of my own seasonings  to it and use it on just about everything I make.  I gave some to my sister-in-law in Japan and now she can't live without it too...lol...it's that good;o)  

The chicken has the "Magic Dust", salt, fresh ground pepper, ajishio, & olive oil.  I try to season it at least a few hours ahead of time.

http://myhomecookedmeals.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-first-food-post.html

https://hitchingpost2.com/giftsS.html

Ketchup Fried Rice

I know that this sounds very odd, but it's so good!  It's something that kids in Japan grow up with.  It's usually in a dish called "Omu Raisu"...Omelette Rice.  It's the fried rice that's covered in a thin egg omelette and served with ketchup on top.  The ketchup is "cooked", so the rice doesn't taste ketchupy. If you ever saw the Japanese movie TAMPOPO, they had the OmuRice in that.  It was the scene where the homeless man sneaks into a restaurant kitchen with a little boy to make him something to eat.

I'm not sure why they started using ketchup like that in Japan, but they also have another dish called Spaghetti Napolitan.  The simple version is spaghetti sauted w/ham or even sliced hot dogs with ketchup...lol  It's really a child's dish, but I still crave it sometimes;o)  It's just not the same if you use real spaghetti sauce!

To make the fried rice I sauted onions & garlic w/salt, pepper, dashi powder, & ajishio.  After the onions softened, I added the rice and mixed that up then added just a little ketchup and stir-fried that then finished it off with soy sauce. I let this all cool down to room temp before stuffing it in the chicken.  I didn't want us to get salmonella poisoning or something;o)

Peeled Celery

I like to peel celery to get the stringy fibers off of it.

Tip for Celery...

I read this tip in Cook's Illustrated years ago to make celery last.  I wash and trim the celery (I don't peel until I'm going to use it) then place a paper towel on top of foil then wrap all the celery up in that and then put it into a large baggie and refrigerate it.  The celery can last up to two weeks this way!

Veggies!

I roasted celery, zucchini & carrots with the chicken.  It's seasoned with the same stuff as the chicken including the olive oil.  Since the chicken was so small it took less than 1 hour to make it.  I go by the color of the skin to see if it's done, but I do also use a temp probe;o)  

Roasted Veggies...

I added the veggies the last 30 mins of cooking, so it wouldn't be mushy.

Roast Chicken!

After the rice is cooked inside the chicken it gets the nice flavor of the chicken juices and doesn't look so orange;o) After stuffing it, I did use a prong to seal it up, so the rice wouldn't fall out while it was cooking.  I'll confess to my most favorite part of the chicken..the tail, it's called Bonbochi in Japanese and I think that American's sometimes call it the Pope's Nose;o)  What's your fav part??

Breakfast Today...Fried Duck Eggs :o)

Duck Egg Breakfast

I went back to the awesome Butcherettes' store near me, Lindy & Grundy, and this time they had Duck Eggs!  I've only had them at restaurants before, so was so excited to find that they sold them. I know some Farmer's Markets around here sell it, but have never seen them.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, I just knew that I wanted it :o)  

I stocked up on other stuff from L&G too...2 whole chickens (the type that are under 3 lbs, not the monster 5 lbrs that you find at the grocery), 6 legs/thighs, 2 huge pork chops & a flank steak.  Yes, I will be freezing most of the stuff.  I know it's better fresh, but I get uncomfortable when my freezer gets too empty...lol

http://lindyandgrundy.com/

Raw!

Since I read that the shells were a little harder than chicken ones, I cracked it into a bowl first.  The yolk is such a gorgeous yellow!

Fried Egg

I didn't want to make the egg over-easy because I was afraid that I might break the yolk.  I cooked it in a cast iron skillet with butter at med-hi heat and just seasoned it with salt, pepper & aji-shio then added a little water then covered it, turned off the heat and cooked until it was done.

With Toast for Hubby...

Look how tall the egg yolk is!  I love it!!  I should have picked up bacon at L&G too, but I wasn't planning on making breakfast :o(  I just had deli ham, so fried that up...  I also was low on bread, so hubby had two types of bread...lol  One Japanese & One American.

With Rice for Me...

My favorite way to eat fried egg is with rice & soy sauce!  I cut it up and then mix it all together...yum!

Runny Yolk...

Look how much yolk there is in just one egg!  I know, I'm a pig, I ate 2 eggs...lol  The duck egg yolk had a much richer taste than a chicken egg and the white is also firmer.

Dinner Last Night - Gumbo!

Gumbo w/Chicken, Andouille, Okra & Shrimp

I know it's not really gumbo weather, but I can eat gumbo anytime!  I love gumbo!!  I'm so excited that we will be going to New Orleans again in July.  I love everything about New Orleans, especially the food!  There really isn't any good place to get gumbo here in LA, so the next best thing is making it at home.  I'm slowly getting better at making it too;o)  The first time I made it several years back I couldn't get the roux to get dark.  I read in one recipe that you need to cook it on low heat for about an hour and make sure to stir it all the time.  I cooked it for about 1 1/2 hours and the roux stayed a blondish color.  I called it my "White Gumbo" and it tasted pretty good, but just didn't have that nice rich flavor to it.  When I told someone that lives in LA, but was from NOLA about my gumbo they rolled their eyes and looked at me like I was an idiot...lol  I am much better at making gumbo now!   I still don't make it the traditional way, so I don't want anybody out there that is from New Orleans to roll their eyes at my gumbo because it's not authentic, I know it's not;o)

The Trinity...Celery, Onion & Bell Peppers

Fresh Okra

I usually just get frozen okra, but I couldn't find it at the store.  They had fresh okra instead!  What a nice surprise.  A lot of times when I find fresh okra it's too big and too woody and is the reason I get frozen.  This batch was the perfect size and texture!

Sauteing Trinity in Chicken Fat...

I started by seasoning the chicken parts from a whole chicken and then browned it.  For some reason all the chicken skin stuck to the bottom of the dutch oven.  I'm not sure what I did wrong because I do this all the time and usually don't have this problem.  I started with oil and then browned it.  The problem may have been that I didn't wait for the pan to get hot, but the second batch stuck too:o(  After taking the chicken out I added the trinity to it and that got all the nice flavors from the chicken and skin off the bottom! After everything was softened I set it aside.  It's seasoned with salt, pepper & some Creole Seasoning.  I just use the packaged Tony Chachere's seasoning. 

Sauteing Okra...

I like to saute the veggies first, so it gets the nice fond from the chicken parts.  I sauted the okra until it was softened and also set that aside.  I cleaned the dutch oven after that, so I'd have a nice clean pan for the roux.

After about 2 mins...

In Paul Prudhome's recipe he says to make the roux on high heat and be careful not to burn it or yourself because it's like liquid napalm.  I make mine on med-high heat now and make sure to constantly stir it.

After 6 mins...

Cooking it on med-high gets it cooking fast!  Nothing like that 1 1/2 hours I spent the first time I tried to make roux...lol

Done at 12 mins...

I always wonder how people come up with certain recipes. Who would think to add equal parts flour & oil and then keep cooking it until it looks like it's burning...lol  

Roux w/Trinity...

After the roux reaches the color I like, I turn off the heat and then add the veggies to it.  You need to be very careful at this stage because the roux starts bubbling and it also gets darker.  It's like you are deep frying the veggies!  I made sure to add just a little bit at a time and was careful about not adding any liquid in the beginning.

Roux, Chicken,  & Crab Stock

Even though I don't make a "seafood" gumbo I like to use seafood stock...lol  I like the flavor that the crab stock and chicken make.  I had frozen crab stock on hand from the last time I made crab.  The only problem is that I always forget that the stock is a little salty since I salt the water to cook the crab in.  I just end up adding more water at the end of cooking to make it less salty. This time I didn't even put crab meat in the gumbo;o)

After the trinity cooked in the roux I slowly added the warm stock and put the heat back on.  I then add all the chicken parts and a bay leaf and let it cook for about 45 mins.  I then take out the breasts & thighs and leave the rest to flavor the gumbo and cook for another hour or so.  I took the breasts & thighs off the bone and put the bones back into the gumbo.  I add the okra the last 30 mins.

Andouille Sausage

I don't like the Andouille to overcook, so I brown it separately and then add it right before serving.  I also do the same with the shrimp.

Shredded Chicken

I add the chicken & okra at the same time...about the last 30 mins of cooking...  At that time I fish out the wings, drumsticks & bones from thigh and throw them out.

Gumbo...Yum!!

I just used frozen shrimp for this.  I make sure to get the type that still has the shell on and is uncooked!

Gumbo served with Long Grain Rice & topped with chopped green onions and I love Jalapenos with everything!  

My favorite Jalapeno!

I used to be able to get these at the grocery store around here, but not anymore for some reason.  Trappey's used to be based in Louisiana, but I think they had troubles after Katrina, so they may have sold the company to B&G.  I also love Trappey's Hot Sauce.  The story is that he used to work for Tabasco and stole some of the chile pepper plants and then started his own company.  

I mail order the jalapenos by the case now from My Brands.  I think I pay more for shipping than for the actual jalapenos, but so worth it for me!  They have a nice crunch to them where most pickled jalapenos are too mushy.

http://mybrands.com/Product.aspx?pid=321

Tonight's Dinner - NY Steak made into another Japanese Dish....Gyu Don

Sometimes it's challenging to come up with a new type of way to use up leftovers, but it can be fun too, like a game.  It seems like there are only so many things that you can do with steak.  Also, when it's a good cut of NY Steak, you don't want to cook it long like in a chili or stew or something like that. It's typical to make the steak into a salad or sandwich, but I wanted something else. I was able to come up with Gyu Don, a Japanese way of cooking beef and putting it on top of rice.  I changed it up a bit, so it's not quite the same as Yoshinoya Beef Bowl...lol  To try to keep the meal healthy, I served it with Hiyayakko (cold tofu w/green onions, ginger, bonito flakes & soy sauce) and a salad.

Another steak from Dan Tana's...

When I bring home a doggie bag I realize how much food that restaurants serve!  I ate about 1/3 of the steak and had enough to make this dish and I still have some left for lunch!  Well, I did have a small portion of another steak too;o)  

Eringi Mushrooms (Trumpet Mushrooms)

I really like these mushrooms because they are very meaty.  It has a much lighter taste than a Portabella Mushroom, another meaty mushroom.

Onions & Eringi Mushrooms

Ginger for the Tofu

This is an old fashioned type of grater for the ginger.  I usually use a rasp, but most of the ginger gets stuck on it and I don't get much ginger out of it.  I thought I'd try my old grater and it worked a lot better ;o)

Green Onion & Ginger

I put the large pieces of the onion in the beef while it was cooking and used the smaller chopped pieces to top the finished dish.  The ginger was for the tofu, but since there was extra, I threw it into the beef mixture.

Daikon Grater

This is another old fashioned cooking tool.  I saw it being used at a restaurant called Asanebo in Studio City  and loved the texture of the daikon radish.  I couldn't find one out here, so my sister-in-law found one for me in Japan a couple of years ago.  She even had a hard time finding one over there! But now, it's become popular in Japan too, they've been demonstrating it on morning news shows and other media.  With this tool, you really need to  be extra careful not to grate your skin.  Even though it's all made out of wood, it's very sharp.  It seems that older daikon is harder to grate because they are firmer than young daikon.

The daikon is coarse when grated with this old fashioned tool, it has a nice crunch to it when you eat it.  The daikon is even good just eating it by itself with a little bit of soy sauce.  It's a pallet cleanser and helps with your digestion.

This is my other grater. It grates the daikon much finer...

The salad had lettuce, radish, carrot, celery leaves, & red onions with Japanese Onion Dressing.  Hubby likes salad, so I try to serve it with most every meal :o)

Beef ready to be served...

I sauteed the brown onions & mushrooms and while they were cooking I mixed together about a cup of water with dashi powder, sake, mirin, sugar & soy sauce.  When the onions were starting to carmelize I added the dashi mix and cooked it down until it became a thicker sauce.  At the end I threw in the ginger, sliced green onions and the beef and cooked just until the beef was warmed through...the end :o)

Some people cook it with egg in it, but I don't really like it like that.

Gyu Don

Gyu means beef and Don is short for Donburi which means bowl.  Most Donburi dishes have rice in them.  For instance, Ten Don is Tempura over rice, Tekka Don is Maguro (Raw Tuna) over rice, Katsu Don is some kind of cutlet such as Tonkatsu over rice.

I finished off the Gyu Don with the grated daikon, chopped green onion and a little bit of sauce.