A couple of nights ago I made this recipe for braised bbq spareribs. I thought it was OK – Mike really liked it.
I was happy to find the recipe because it’s winter and I don’t want to have to BBQ outside – most recipes for ribs require a grill. IT was also extremely simple to make.
I cooked them for a little over 1 1/2 hours, they probably needed more time. They weren’t as tender as I would have liked and they were still a little pink. I coated them with E&J’s BBQ sauce which, IMHO, is the most delicious BBQ sauce out there.
In all, I may try to make them again, but I might also look for another recipe.
Year: 2008 (Page 18 of 19)
I’ve made this recipe for chicken marsala 3 or 4 times now, and I still can’t believe how incredibly delicious it is. It’s probably the best thing I’ve made. I have the link to the recipe at epicurious in another posting, but I’ve decided to post it here as well and link it from my favorite recipes page.
Today I forgot to salt the chicken – but the sauce was so rich in flavor that it didn’t really need it. I also accidentally added a half a cup of white wine, but that only meant I had to boil it a bit longer. I used dried sage, which I hadn’t used before, and I think it probably made it even better.
Here is the recipe as I made it:
1 small shallot, finely chopped
5 Tbsp. unsalted butter
8 oz sliced mushrooms
a dash of dried sage
a dash of black pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
flour
2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken thighs or breasts
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3/4 cup of water
1 3/4 tsp. Better than Bullion chicken base
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. Marsala wine
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. lemon juice
Melt 3 Tbsp. butter in a large skillet and add shallot. Cook over moderate heat until golden, about 1 minute. Add sliced mushrooms, salt and pepper. Cook until mushrooms are golden and the liquid has evaporated, 6-8 minutes. Remove from heat.
Turn oven to 200F
Put flour in a shallow bowl. Put chicken between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and pound until about 1/4″ thick. Dredge in flour. Set aside.
Heat 1 Tbsp. butter and 1 Tbsp. oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Sautee first batch of chicken on both sides until golden and cooked through, about 3 minutes per side for chicken thighs. Place the chicken in a shallow pan in the oven. Dry the skillet with paper towels and add another Tbsp. of oil and butter. Melt and sautee the rest of the chicken. Put it in the oven.
Deglace the pan with the white wine. Add marsala wine, bring to a boil and cook for 30 seconds. Add water, chicken base, cream and mushrooms – boil, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is slightly thickened, around 10 minutes. Add lemon juice, 2 Tbsp. wine and a sprinkle of dried sage.
Serve sauce over chicken.
I made this recipe for braised lamb shanks today – a dish very similar to oso bucco. It was pretty good, the shanks were succulent and fall-of-the-bone (even though I cooked them under 2 hours, rather than the 2 1/2-3 the recipe called for). The sauce was pretty nice, but nothing outstanding. I’d probably look for a new recipe next time.
I served it with whole wheat couscous and steamed broccoli.
A few months ago, I started getting together with a group of friends for meals at each other’s houses. We met once at Paz’s, where she gave us a wonderful lesson on Lebanese food. Later it was Victoria’s turn, and Indian was her theme. For our third dining adventure, we focused on fondue and I volunteered to cook the cheese fondues (we also had chocolate – it was sooooo yummy!).
I made a traditional cheese fondue and a cheddar one. We all liked the cheese fondue much better. I used a pretty standard recipe, but I did skip the kirsch – not only is it hard to find, but it made little sense to buy a whole bottle when the fondue only uses a shot.
Traditional Cheese Fondue
-1/2 lb Havarti
-1/2 lb Gruyere
-1/2 lb Emmental
-2 tbsp. cornstarch
-2 cloves garlic, cut in two
-1 glass white wine
-3 tbsp. cognac
Shred the cheeses, put in a bowl, add the cornstarch and mix together. Set aside.
Rub the garlic on the interior of the fondue pot and leave in. Add wine and heat until boiling. Add the cheese, a handful
at the time, stirring until it melts. Add the cognac.
Serve with bread, apple slices, pear slices, broccoli, cauliflower
I used this recipe for the cheddar cheese fondue.
A couple of weeks ago, I got together with my usual dinner group and we went to Phnom Penh II. For dessert we headed to Adagia, on the recommendation of a friend of Parker’s. I’d been there before with Mike, but I couldn’t remember at all how the desserts were.
Well, I’m here to tell you that their chocolate bread pudding is out of this world. Rich and yet light, very chocolaty and sultry in texture. I think three of us got it and we all enjoyed it.
We weren’t as fond of the spiced semolina cake. It was still good, but I think it may have been better had it not been spiced. The tea creme brulee was a little bit disconcerting, a new flavor. I’m not sure that one that I’d go back for, but it did enjoy it. I’m not one for fruit desserts, but the port poached pears were delicious.
Service was impecable, we went late and they didn’t kick us out 🙂 In all, a great place to go for dessert (and get that bread pudding).
I finished my “A” cuisines several years ago, only to later find out that I had neglected to cook any Azorean food (the Azores are little islands that belong to Portugal). There is a whole website online dedicated to Azorean recipes, but I wasn’t really inspired by them. I did find a very good recipe for chicken with wine, which was all I cooked for my Azorean menu.
Country style pork ribs are almost always on sale, but I never buy them because I never know what to make with them (other than carnitas). This time I figured I’d look for a recipe before I went to the supermarket. This recipe for saucy country-style oven ribs from epicurious got great reviews and seemed relatively easy to make. It was, but the results weren’t really my cup of tea.
Like some of the reviewers suggested I only boiled the ribs for 15 minutes, and they were pretty tender (though not forked tender) when they were done. I also cooked them in my braising pan, rather than a baking pan, I’m not sure how much of a difference that would have made.
My problem, however, was with the sauce, not the ribs. It was just too tangy for my taste. It wasn’t too overwhelmingly tangy, but I just prefer less tangy flavors. Mike, on the other hand, liked it. But as I’m the one cooking, I wouldn’t make it again.
Update: This restaurant closed and re-opened several times.
Last week our friends Arthur and Eddie suggested that we go out to dinner at Tequila Grill before the kids headed to a show at the library. I’m always in the mood for not cooking (well, that’s not really true, but I thought it sounded cute), so I thought it was a splendid idea. Well, perhaps not splendid as I haven’t been impressed with Tequila Grill in the past, but it’s nice to get out. And alas, it’s good I have that attitude because Tequila Grill failed to impress me yet again.
I had the milanesa sandwich, and the milanesa was nice and tender but not very flavorful. There was also too little meat to bread ratio. The fries it came with were perfectly fine.
I also ordered some guacamole and I did like it a lot, it was fresh and well balanced. Alas – there were no chips to eat it with (I did ask for them, they just never came). I found out that french fries with guacamole sort of work.
Mike had the flautas and he thought they were just OK.
I didn’t ask Arthur and Eddie what they thought of their dishes, but Elektra – who’d come with us along with her kids Orestes and Aegea, didn’t seem very impressed with whatever she ordered. Orestes’ actually found his burrito nauseating, though he couldn’t quite figure out why.
The younger kids seemed fine with their quesadillas (I didn’t try them).
So no, I won’t be rushing back to Tequila Grill, though I imagine I’ll end up there again some time.
Tequila Grill
1350 E. 14th St.
San Leandro
(510) 895-5351
I was at home with the girls with no plans to go out, and I wanted to make something cool for them. I never have that many ingredients at home – no chocolate chips for cookies, nothing for a pie, no patience for ice cream – but I had just bought a bunch of eggs, so I thought I’d make this simple recipe for flan, that I’d very successfully made before. I’d double it so there would be plenty for everyone. Or that was the plan.
It wasn’t until I’d beaten the eggs that I realized that I only had one can of condensed milk. The second can had expired in 2004 – and I’m not that adventurous. Yes, I could have just divided the eggs in two, but what would the fun of that have been? Instead I decided to substitute the can of sweetened condensed milk with an equal amount of dulce de leche. The results were just plain weird.
When I took the “flans” (and I do mean the quotation marks) off the oven, they had risen as if they were souffles! They fell as they cooled down. Even weirder was the consistency. I can’t quite describe it. It was denser and nowhere as smooth as a flan – it lacked its bubbles for instance. And yet it was too smooth to be considered chalky or caky or even brownishy. Somewhere in between, I guess. The taste was sweet, not at all like flan and only a bit like dulce de leche. It wasn’t bad, but I felt it was flat.
All in all, it wasn’t an experiment worth repeating.
I made this recipe for honey and vinegar-braised short ribs a few days ago (sorry, no pictures). I really love short ribs and I’m hoping to find the definitive braised short ribs recipe some time soon. Unfortunately this was not it. The sauce was very good – and there was a lot of it, even though I had decreased the recipe by 1/3rd, but it wasn’t out of this world. It also didn’t really infuse the ribs with enough flavor. All in all, I liked it – but not as much as other recipes. I probably won’t make it again – and will continue my search for the best braised short rib recipe ever. If you think you have one, LET ME KNOW!.
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