Sichuan Mouthwatering Chicken

I’ve been craving Sichuan since my favorite Sichuan Restaurant closed. The people there were nice and all the food tasted great. It was just like eating in a foreign land to me. The people eating there spoke a different language and all the food was nothing like I had anywhere else. The Sichuan dishes that they offered were made with Sichuan Peppercorns that do have an additive quality. Although those peppercorns are not hot they do numb the mouth so you can enjoy and tolerate more heat in your food. You enjoy spicy more and you crave spicy more.

I don’t know how to cook Sichuan so I look to others for their recipes.

The Hirshon Sichuan Mouthwatering Chicken by The Generalissimo I came across (www.TheFoodDictator.com) sounded like a really great one so I decided to try it. I had all the ingredients for it except the essential Sichuan Green Pepper Oil. I figured the dish has enough going on in it so for I felt I could leave the small amount of that one ingredient out. I also didn’t use the optional suggested garnish thousand year oil eggs after all it was OPTIONAL and I honestly don’t think I’d enjoy thousand year old duck eggs. I know what they are.

This recipe is special and uses many special ingredients and I thought was too much work for working with two pounds of chicken so I doubled the recipe and used four pounds. I didn’t want to serve it with non-crispy skin on the bone like it normally is served so I removed the meat from the bone and the skin. The chicken comes out with a unique silken texture and leaves a delicious chicken broth that you can use in many ways. This is a full flavored dish but I didn’t find it so fiery with heat as Sichuan Dishes normally are possibly due to leaving out the essential Sichuan Green Pepper Oil. (Sorry Food Dictator I know that was a slight fail on my part) Or possibly due to the dried peppers not being as fresh as I want them to be. I also note I never ordered Sichuan Mouth Watering Chicken before so this dish also may not be meant to be as spicy as other Sichuan Dishes I tried before. I advise to prepare the recipe as written and if you desire more heat keep a blend of red chili flakes mixed with crushed heated Sichuan Peppercorns on the side and sprinkle  on to your liking.

This recipe makes about seven servings.

First you need to make the Sichuan Chili Oil (You need all but 6 tablespoons for the sauce that you make latter)

1 cup oil

2 bay leaves

6 dried chili pods

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 star anise

2 slices ginger

Heat all this up in a sauce pan. I brought it to a boil and then reduced to simer and let it go about 10 minutes and let it sit till it cooled. Pick out the spices and add……

2 Tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon 5 spice powder (that I made fresh 2 teaspoons heated Szechun peppercorns (you need to heat them till they smell fragrant or turn a slightly darker color), 8 star anise 1/2 teaspoon cloves, 1 Tablespoon cinnamon, 1 Tablespoon fennel seeds – this all gets ground up)

1 1/2 teaspoons ground Sichuan pepper

1 Tablespoon sesame seeds

Mix well and put a side

Now for the Chicken

4 lbs chicken on the bone with skin either breast or whole legs

2 Tablespoons shaoxing wine or dry sherry

4 scallions cut up

4 Tablespoons grated ginger

2 teaspoons kosher salt

Directions

Place your chicken in a pot and add water till the chicken is covered. Add the seasonings. Heat up your pot to a medium boil and boil the chicken for eight minutes.

Then turn off the heat, cover the pot and let it sit twenty minutes. Start gathering lots of ice because you need to make a really big ice and water bath to chill the chicken and after about 15 minutes of chilling you will need to replace most of the melted ice with new ice. Picture below shows lots of ice that melted quickly. The Food Dictator states that the chicken must soak in the water and ice bath for at least an hour.

Now you prepare the sauce

10 Tablespoons Sichuan Chili Oil that you made

2 Tablespoons Sichuan pepper oil (green oil)

4 Tablespoons black zhenjiang vinegar

2 Tablespoons sesame oil (Kadoyo Brand is suggested)

4 Tablespoons shaoxing rice wine

1 teaspoon sugar

2 pinch salt

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

4 garlic cloves smashed

1 Tablespoon green onions minced

Finish with

3 thousand year old duck eggs chopped (optional)

Fresh Cilantro

toasted peanuts

toasted sesame seeds

Sichuan Mouthwatering Chicken

The end result is very tasty. The next time I might prepare this kind of chicken in a Sous Vide to get the same result a little easier. It will be easier in a Sous Vide because it will be easier to pull the meat off a Sous Vide Chicken than from water bath chilled Chicken.

I also saved the broth from the chicken and used it to cook rice.  I also had enough left for soup.

This is a Great Recipe to try and that’s The Forking Truth

Spiced Chickpea Cucumber Radish and Apple Salad

This recipe is adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. Spiced Chickpea and Vegetable Salad ….well sort of.  I changed it so much I’m not sure……The short story is that I kept the seasons for the chickpeas from their recipe.

The long story is…….

Instead of using dried chickpeas like in the recipe I used low sodium Canned Chickpeas because in my area dried beans are often old and an old bean never gets tender (this happens about 50% of the time). I’ve found that the low sodium canned beans don’t have that strong canned taste like regular canned beans so they aren’t the best but they are ok I do note the farmers market dried beans are the best and come out creamy and very sweet but often I miss small rocks that are mixed in and I FORKING HATE small rocks in my beans and that is the reason I am partial to canned low sodium beans.

I had this very sweet tasting purple daikon radish that I thought would be great with the cucumbers I had. I didn’t have the red bell pepper or the tomatoes to make the original recipe so I left them out. I thought the salad needed another element so I added chopped apple for balance and texture.

Other changes I made were that I like to use less oil and increase the lemon juice. I made a home made cheese that came out similar to fresh feta cheese and I thought it embellished the salad well. You might like to garnish yours with a little feta cheese.

Ingredients for 8 servings

2 English cucumbers diced

1 1/2 cup radish diced (I used sweet giant purple daikon)

2 small apples pealed and diced

1/2 sweet onion diced

1/2 cup parsly chopped

15oz can reduced sodium chickpeas drained and rinsed well

1 teaspoon cardamon

1 1/2 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon cumin

2 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1/4 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt

1 lemon zest and juice

3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove minced

1 1/2 Tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions set your oven to 350 degrees F

Combine your cucumber, radish, onion, apple and parsley in a big bowl and set to the side.

In a medium sized bowl toss your chickpeas with 2 Tablespoons of oil, cardamon, allspice, cumin, and the 1/4 teaspoon salt. Get a sheet pan and place chickpea mixture on a baking sheet and toast the chickpeas for about 25 minutes till they get a slight crispness to them. Set to the side.

Either mix up the remaining ingredients in a small bowl and combine everything or keep the chickpeas on the side and garnish like croutons to keep the chickpeas crisper.

Spiced Chickpea Cucumber Radish and Apple Salad

Serve with feta cheese if desired.  I thought the flavors were best after a couple days.

This is tasty and that’s The Forking Truth

Roasted Beef Kofta’s

Everybody does make kofta’s different. Basically a kofta is a meatball or meatloaf. It’s usually but not always beef, pork or lamb or a combination. Kofta’s may also be vegetarian made. The basic seasonings for a Middle Eastern Style kofta are onion, parsley, allspice, black pepper and salt. Just about any cooking method can be used.

If you were eating a kofta right now somewhere in the Middle East most likely it might be made from ground lamb and cooked over live coals on a stick. Lamb and poultry are popular meats in the Middle East as they don’t have the room for raising cows and pork is forbidden to practicing Muslims and Jews so you won’t forking find pig there.

I decided I wanted to make a roasted style kofta because I don’t often cook on charcoal but I note charcoal would be tastier. I didn’t want to use lamb so I used beef because in America beef is popular.

I used kosher beef for a few reasons. #1 kosher beef taste much better and is cleaner.  Only non- diseased animals are used and all meat is inspected unlike randomly inspected regular meat.  #2  kosher beef might be fecal free. I’m not liking about what I read on consumer reports about grocery store purchased ground beef. I know kosher beef is only from the front quarter of the cow and I imagine it is most likely free of fecal mater.

I read contradicting information about Halal beef. According to Wikipedia all parts are used. But I also read on other websites such as www.TheKitchn.com that only the front quarter is used.

These koftas I made are very juicy and flavorful….For this recipe I also added my unique spin to insure a moist juicy kofta. I didn’t add bread or crumbs but did use egg to combine and my trick is adding some water to the mixture. It works every time. The formula is perfect for this recipe. If you change it it’s not my fault if it doesn’t come out. The koftas aren’t mushy and are  juicy, nicely browned and delicious.

I wanted to make a very juicy kofta so the mixture happens to comes  out real soft so I thought it would be best to use a pastry bag to shape them.

Most restaurants serve beef kofta with a simple garlic sauce made from olive oil, lemon, garlic and salt and other restaurants serve beef kofta with hummus. I didn’t bother with sauce because they are flavorful enough and juicy.

Ingredients for four servings set oven to 350 degrees F

1 lb. ground beef (85% kosherAngus)

1 cup sweet onion  grated

2 garlic cloves minced

3/4 cup fresh parsley chopped

1 hot pepper chopped fine or a fresno if you are a wimp

1/3 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 teaspoon allspice

1 XL egg beaten

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/4 cup water

Nonstick cooking spray

Directions

Mix all your ingredients till combined. Spray your baking sheet(s) with nonstick spray. I used a disposable pastry bag, cut the end and rolled back the end and filled about 3/4s with meat mixture.

On two small baking sheets I squirted out 8 1/2 squiggled keftas. In my oven they took only 15 minutes to cook.

I served them with a rice like nutty tasting grain called freekeh that also only takes 15 minutes to cook. The perfect amount of freekeh to use is 1 cup freekeh, 2 1/2 cups water 1 teaspoon salt. I also added one crushed clove of garlic, a shredded carrot, a small chopped tomato and about 1/4 cup of scallions. I also served the dinner with some vegetables.

These are really good and that’s The Forking Truth