Kitten And Grilled Chicken Sandwich

So, I've been a really bad blogger lately. I've been taking pictures sporadically but I haven't had the motivation to get on here and write about it. No worries, I have been cooking as much as usual just not translating to the web.

Also, I have been having a war of sorts with my bread making. My bread recipe has changed slightly because I have been making buns with a new recipe. When I tried to make it into bread (because I love the recipe so much) it didn't work. I have reverted to my old bread recipe that I love. The bread turned out great but STUCK in the pan GRRR!!! So much frustration! The only thing that I have found that will release my wonderful bread is to use liberal amounts of butter. Real deal butter. This is fine because I use butter in my bun recipe so I have it on hand. That's not the point. The point is that suddenly my stupid bread won't come out of the pans and it's *&%ing me off. Anyway...

I have wanted to get a recipe for hamburger buns but haven't been happy with previous attempts. While they have been nice bun recipes they weren't soft enough, they were really crumbly, or they turned out really dense. I think I have finally perfected the bun recipe. I basically make this hoagie recipe that I get from here. BUT, this time I added an egg for softness. They were PERFECT! So good. I grilled burgers to go with these wonderful buns and it was heaven!

Now I have these heavenly buns to eat, what do I do? Make a hot sandwich I guess. 

Let's take a moment to talk about our new kitten though shall we?

Her name is Skittles and we rescued her from the Mississauga Animal Services. She was 8 weeks old when we got her. We figured her birthday out to be around the time of my son's birthday. We don't know her exact birthday so we just say it is the same as Phoenix's for simplicity. She is so cute, sweet, cuddly, and CRAZY. 

You know that moment when you trip over a kitten, your foot is in the air, you have forward momentum and you now don't know where to put your feet to avoid stepping on the kitten freaking out underneath you now because you tripped on her?? No? Well you probably do if you have ever been around cats because they have this stupid habit of walking RIGHT in front of your feet while you walk. Kick the kitten, cue kitten scramble, cue fear of squashing scared kitten. Ugh! Luckily, it didn't happen on the stairs yet.

She LOVES to sleep on our shoulders or just lie across our shoulders. It will be a sad day when she is too big for her favourite spots. And by sad I mean painful because she will probably try, fall, and scratch us as she tries to catch herself. Much like she does now when she makes bad decisions and gravity corrects her.

Anyway, back to the food. I was going for a cornmeal sprinkle on these buns. It was a bit of a fail since I didn't wet the dough in anyway so they barely stuck on and just fall off ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE. They are messy but I digress.

So first things first, toast the bun. I used my grill, some butter, and HIGH heat until I had evenly toasty buns. Add your veg and sauce. I used just mayo and lettuce at first but added some steak sauce after. So good.

Caramelize some thinly sliced onions. I used salt, pepper, and a touch of sugar. I cheated because I didn't want to wait 20 minutes for my sandwich. Sue me. They tasted great. 

Get some regular shaved chicken lunch meat. Brown it slightly and warm it all the way through.

Stack the onions on the chicken.

Stack that on the lettuce. Tomato would be totally wonderful on this too but I didn't have any big ones, just little cherry ones.

The finished product. It was so good!! 

I highly recommend taking the time to a) toast the bun and b) grill some onions. It totally took this sandwich beyond regular cold cuts to a warm loving embrace.... what? You know what I mean. Enjoy!

Tangy Slow Cooker Pork

I must say up front that this was not my favourite recipe. It had all the components of recipes I like. It was easy, it built up flavour, and it had familiar ingredients. In the end, it was missing something for me. I would make this again but I would change it up and add more spices. I pulled this recipe out of a random cookbook on my shelf as part of my desire to cook from the books I already. I would say this was a 6/10 for me. My family liked it, however, so maybe it was just me.

Start with a seasoned flour coating for your pork roast. This was just salt, pepper, and paprika.

Heat up a bit of oil in a pan. This is to build the crust.

There is the star. This is a very lean cut of pork, as you can see, and but it takes flavour really well. It is pretty much a blank slate to be built upon.

Cover your roast completely in the seasoned flour.

And start browning. The heat should be high enough that you get a nice golden colour but don't let it burn. Make sure to get some colour all over.

Prepare your veggies. They just get a fine dice and set aside for now.

Keep turning your roast.

Nearly there!

Now for the sauce. Move the roast to the slow cooker and add the veggies to the hot pan. Soften the veggies and add a can of tomato sauce. Slow cook for 5 hours.

After 5 hours, the sauce comes out thick like a gravy.

The meat is very tender.

I served this with mashed potatoes. My secret weapon for mashed potatoes now is to use buttermilk. Do it, you will LOVE the extra zip and creaminess.

I think in the future I would add sugar to the sauce as I found the tomato flavour to be a bit on the bitter side. It was good but not exactly what I was expecting.

Veggie Pancakes?

When I was staying with John and Chrystal last year, John's mom came to visit. She cooked some really great food. This dish was my attempt to recreate one of her dishes. I didn't even come close but this still tasted pretty good. I will get the real recipe and try again some day but these satisfied my itch for them for now. 

Scrumptious. Salty, savoury, soft and chewy, crispy, and fresh. This dish is a sensory overload.

When this dish was made for me it was done with shrimp.  It was so good but alas, no shrimp in my house at the moment so I went straight up vegetarian.  I'm sure you could put anything in these and they would be tasty but I wanted to keep it kind of simple.  I only used mushrooms, green onions, zucchini and bean sprouts.

Now, this is where I went awry. I could not remember what was in the batter except cornstarch so I basically altered my crepe recipe. One egg, milk, and flour.  I wanted a really loose batter so it would be thin and cook quickly.

Cornstarch gives a really good crisp crunch in batters so it was the star here. I ended up using about two Tbsp because that is what pouffed out of the container and into my bowl. It worked for me.

If I remember correctly these were served with fish sauce and soya sauce. I like heat so I set out chili flakes so I would remember to add them. The fish sauce portion of this dish might have been mixed with something else. I am really not sure. My memory is my weakness.

To test my batter I fried a bit in some hot oil. It was sure crispy. I thought it would do.

Time to get cracking. Add oil to your very hot wok, throw in your veggies. Cook stirring constantly until they start to soften.

Pour your batter right on top. Shake and tilt the wok so all the 'raw' batter from the middle goes to the edges to be cooked. It will form a big crepe looking pancake thing. Very technical.

Now the hard part, flip that whole thing before it burns without it falling apart. Cook the other side for a minute or so, checking often to be sure the bottom is not burning. Partially remove from the heat if your pancake is cooking too quickly.

Turn it out onto a plate and eat immediately. This was really fun to cook because I stopped to eat every one while it was hot. While it is still hot, splash soya sauce, fish sauce, and chilis on top then eat and enjoy. Add more sauce as required.

Because I was eating every pancake as I was cooking it, I experimented a bit to see if I could improve my technique. I tried batter in first and batter on top. Batter on top was definitely best. Plus, the veggies developed more flavour getting to cook a bit on their own first.

John's mom also made this really wicked curry soup and I still need to get the recipe. I love trying new foods, especially when they are this yummy!

Bang Bang Chicken ~ You Will Thank Me If You Make These

I can't remember now exactly how I found her but I have been gobbling up Jennifer Reese's book "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter".  Like, obsessively, reading this book every second I have to sit and read.  I carry it with me everywhere.  I was reading between weekend baking recipes, while cooking supper... while eating supper.  It has replaced social media, iPad games, tv shows... real people conversation.  It has been just Jennifer and I since Friday when the book came in the mail from Amazon.

I'm 2/3 of the way through and having 'end-of-book' anxiety.  I know she has a blog The Tipsy Baker and this has helped me to deal somewhat.  I LOVE the idea of this book and it has quickly become my go to for everything.  I plan to make many of the recipes in this book.  I have already made her recipe for corn tortillas just to turn them into quesadillas for lunch.  A little work, slightly time consuming, and delicious.

Thanks to this book, I have randomly been overcome by the urge to do the things that Jennifer talks about in her books.  I have been known to randomly start talking about getting chickens to which I got puzzled looks from Chris.  I have gotten the sudden desire to making cheese which I shared with Chris.  This sparked an argument when it was implied (in my mind) that I was not knowledgeable enough to make cheese - this was really just the start of how this book has impacted my conversations with Chris.  I would laugh out loud and have to try to explain to him what was so funny.  He wasn't properly prepared for the hilarity because you can't just explain why something is funny and get the same reaction.  This took away from the humour and made me question if it was really funny or if I'm just weird.  I think it really was funny.

Ok, moving on.  To be honest, it was the name that caught my eye for this recipe.  I find recipes I love and make them once or twice and forget about them by moving on to the next big thing.  Not so with this recipe.  I made them for the first time in Germany as best as I could with my smuggled hot sauce, questionable sweet chili sauce, and Italian bread crumbs, I think I bought, from the local Rewe.  In hindsight, I'm surprised this recipe turned out to be a favourite when ingredients are so important to the outcome of a recipe.

I found this recipe on a recipe collection app but it comes from Damn Delicious, find the recipe here.  I have since made Bang Bang Chicken for my Mom, my sister and her husband, and again recently for my own family.  I have made this properly with Panko, real mayo, real (in my mind) sweet chili sauce, and even with tofu for my vegetarian sister.  It, honestly, only improved in my mind.  The panko has a crunch that I have never experienced before.  Regular bread crumb just doesn't quite do it.  This dish is always worth the work and the mess.

I highly recommend cooking with chop sticks for this as they seem to be the least messy.  Unless, of course, you are even more lousy at chop sticks than I am, then use something else.  Dropping food into hot oil off chop sticks is not advised.  I have accidentally "thrown" battered chicken pieces as they have flung themselves to the will of gravity into the pan of hot oil.  A fire hazard waiting to happen.  For the dipping, however, I feel they have the least amount of surface to become goopy.  You decide.  You will need three pairs of chop sticks and a heat safe strainer spoon if you decide to go this route.  I use the strainer spoon to quickly get as many done pieces out the oil like now.  It is also helpful to remove the bits of crumb that collect in the oil.

Get ready, you will love this!

First up, make the dipping sauce.  You will completely forget about this if you wait until the end.  Plus, the more time these lovely products have to get to know each other the better.  Substitute where you must, I won't judge.

This looks like a party in the bowl, it is, it makes this dish.  Don't skip this sauce, really just don't.  Put this in the fridge until you are ready to eat but don't forget it!

Now, the star.  This recipe is 10 times better with real panko.  Go get it.  If you can't, for some reason, use bread crumbs.  You owe it to your crunch-loving side to make this again with panko.  You will thank me, your mouth will thank you.

Pour one cup at a time into a bowl.  You will use more than that but this gets a bit messy as batter drops off into the crumb.  Pick those bits out and discard to help with easier coating.  Also, you don't want to waste any crumb.  You, obviously, can't reuse this once you put chicken in it so just add more as you go.  The recipe calls for one cup but I use at least two for two large chicken breasts.

Last, make the batter.  I have used milk when I didn't have buttermilk and it was good but not the same.  I highly recommend buying buttermilk even if you just use it for this recipe.  Also, you can just use up the rest in mashed potatoes and buttermilk pancakes.

Mix up everything.  It will make a thick batter, thicker than pancake batter.  That is what you want.

Set up your dipping station.

I set some rice going at this point to serve with my bang bang chicken.  Bring to a boil, turn to minimum, forget about it until your chicken is cooked.  Alternately, use a rice cooker.  You will be BUSY making the chicken so don't have anything that needs your attention going along side.

I also start heating my oil now.  I like a deep frying pan for this with about an inch or two of oil.  It gives you a lot of surface area and heats (and reheats) quickly.  Also, put a baking sheet in your oven and turn it on to 350F.  You are going to be putting your chicken on it as you cook to keep it warm and also ensure every piece is cooked completely until you get the oil temperature set just right.

Now get your chops stick ready.  Each bowl gets their own set of chops stick and they do not go into anything but their own bowl!  This is very important if you don't want to have battered chop sticks that look like sausages.

Last, I cup up the chicken into bite sized cubes.  I like to use partially frozen chicken because it is easier to cut and it cools the batter as it thaws.  That's more food safe, right??  Truthfully, I usually have just pulled it out of the freezer earlier that day so it is slightly frozen still and just works perfectly.

The first time I made this, I put the chicken in the batter in batches.  It's not necessary.  Just dump all your chicken in the batter.

Using the batter chop sticks, turn the chicken around in the batter until evenly coated.

Once your oil is hot, drop a couple of pieces of battered chicken into the panko crumbs using the batter chop sticks.  Try to shake or scrap off a bit of excess batter (anything that is trying to drip).  The extra just falls off and makes things messy.  I find that 3 - 4 pieces is the most manageable.  If you put too many in they will stick together and make a mess.  Now using the crumb chop sticks toss them and flick crumb over them.

By now your oil should be hot and you can drop your battered chicken pieces into the oil using the crumb chop sticks.  Don't crowd your pan but you can usually get about two maybe three batches of chicken going at the same time.  The crumb chop sticks should be used to ease these pieces slowly into the oil.  The pieces should start bubbling right away but take several minutes to become golden.  If they don't bubble right away, the oil it too cold, if they brown too quickly, it's too hot.  You need to find that perfect temperature that will give you non-oil logged and not raw chicken.

Go back and batter the next batch of bang bang chicken.  If you are slow like me, by this time your first bunch is ready to turn.  Be sure to only use the oil chop sticks in the oil.  You do not want to mix these up.  You will develop the technique of pick up chop sticks, move chicken, drop chop sticks, pick up next chop sticks, move chicken, drop chop sticks... this is important.

 You are aiming for this deep golden brown.  I quickly move the done chicken onto a pan in my oven using the strainer spoon I linked to above.  When the pieces are done you want them out of the oil to keep the crumb from burning.  The strainer spoon is big enough to take out several pieces at once and no chop stick dropped chicken to splash oil.  Get the cooked chicken onto your hot pan in the oven and continue cooking in small batches until you are out of chicken.

I also keep a bowl handy for emergency chicken removal.  Some pieces are trickier than others.  At some point you will probably turn around to find that you need to get the chicken out now!  This bowl is a good pit stop on the way to the oven.  It stops the chicken cooking, clears up room in the pan for the next batch, and is easy to handle to dump the cooked chicken into the hot pan once you have a moment.

This is what you will end up with.  It is like chicken nuggets if they were dropped in wonderful and slathered with awesome.  Don't forget to get your sauce out of the fridge!  We use the sauce as a dip or just slather it on top or bathe in it, whatever, I'm not judging.

Serve with a nice salad - to counter all that grease of the frying - and some rice.  You might resent the space they take up in your stomach that could be better filled with Bang Bang Chicken, in that case just eat the chicken and sauce.  It's ok, it's delicious! 

Now, in the rare case that you have leftovers, they reheat perfectly in the oven.  Be sure to make up more of the sauce if you ran out.  Ketchup will not do these justice.

As I said, I have made these with tofu.  I used extra firm, my sister pressed the extra moisture out.  I made it first to avoid having chicken dipped tofu - that would defeat the purpose I thought.  We all loved the tofu as much as the chicken.  I have also seen Bang Bang Shrimp which I'm certain would also be mind blowing.  I think you could probably dip card board and serve it with this sauce and it would be delicious... well maybe not but I think my point has been made.

ENJOY!!