cooking

Arroz Con Pollo

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“Arroz con Pollo“
In my opinion this is one of the most widly and often prepared dishes in the whole world.
“Hans, have you gone nuts?”, you probably think when you read this statement.
But what I am talking about is the actual Concoction, not the dish named “Arroz con Pollo”.
“Arroz con Pollo” simply translates into “Rice with Chicken”. Now, it is my firm believe that anywhere in the world where you have rice, and where you also have chicken, sooner or later folks threw the two, plus another bunch of stuff, together and made it a one dish meal, calling it “Rice and Chicken” or, surprise surprise, “Chicken and Rice”.

I would like to ask my readers to please give us the name of your country’s or region’s dish containing chicken and rice and other stuff 🙂
Also, any other dish containing these ingredients, be it from your own country or region or any other you might be aware of. Descriptions or pictures even more welcome.
I am looking forward to your input in the comment section. Thank’s.
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Arroz Con Pollo

: Arroz Con Pollo

Ingredient’s :

Chicken, preferably dark meat
Rice, rinsed repeatedly to get rid of all excess starch
Chorizo, sliced
Peppers, diced
Chilis, diced, use your preferred heat level
Onions, diced
Garlic, paste
Saffran, or substitute with turmeric (I used both for a brighter color and taste)
Oregano, freeze dried or fresh
White wine, substitute with beer if preferred
Chicken stock, substitute with vegetable stock if preferred
Kosher salt,
Cayenne pepper,
Olive oil, to saute

Method :

Saute chicken until golden, add onions and chorizo, saute until onions are translucent. Add garlic, peppers and chilis and saute until garlic is fragrant. Remove chicken, set aside. Remove 1/4 of the vegetables to use as brightly colored garnish. Add rice and saute until each corn of rice is covered with olive oil. Add wine (or beer, or both) and stock, season with salt and pepper. Return chicken, bake at 385F in center of oven until moisture has been absorbed by rice and rice is done. Sprinkle with reserved vegetables and chopped cilantro.
My meal yesterday had also a nice glass of chilled chardonnay (same as which went into the dish) and what I call “avocado cream” . (mashed avocado, seasoned with lime juice, cayenne pepper, kosher salt, roasted garlic paste and cilantro). Not quite guacamole, but even less prep and equally good 🙂
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Note : Some folks like their arroz con pollo very moist, others less so. If you like it more moist, simply add more liquid while cooking until the rice is done, giving you more of the texture of an “Asopao”.
Note : Some folks like their arroz con pollo more “heavy “, some like it more “light and fluffy”. This will depend on the amount of fat used in the dish.
I usually like my arroz con pollo dry but heavy, so I use less liquid and a bit more fat 🙂
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“Asopao”
Image Source : http://www.cynical-c.com

Buen Provecho ! Life is Good !

My Kind Of ” Finger Food “

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Sunday night and monday evening was very cold here in Miami, so cold in fact I actually had to turn on the central heating system in order to be comfortable in the house. So, in order to help with the comforting process, I prepared two dishes which aided greatly in the warming of soul and belly :

Sunday afternoon :
“Smoked pig’s tail’s”
with fresh horse radish and potatoes fried in rendered duck fat “.

Monday afternoon :
“Spinach, Potato, Sausage & Cheese Casserole”
(I’ll post that in the next few day’s).
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: My kind of ” Finger Food “

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Simmer the smoked pigs’ tails in salted water with kosher salt, lot’s of garlic and cayenne pepper until very tender but not falling apart. Grate the horseradish very fine and mix with salt and lemon juice. Fry the potatoes in rendered duck fat, starting with cold fat and slowly increasing the temperature to 375 F. The potatoes will be creamy on the inside and crispy on the outside. Add the sliced chilis and onions for the last few seconds of frying. Remove to absorbent paper and sprinkle with sea salt.
Enjoy a great , simple meal; “Finger food” at it’s finest 🙂
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Bon Appetit ! Keep Warm And Cozy 🙂

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Satay’s Meet Rib’s

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I wanted to prepare some chicken satay’s for some time now, but I just never got around to it. So on friday I bought chicken and other ingredients to finally get my satay fix. However, I also bought some pork rib’s, which got me thinking……. Peanut and pork is alway’s a great combination, so why not going that route. No reason not to ! So here we go, Pork ribs with an asian inspired peanut glace and peanut dipping sauce. Great success ! This will be one of my new standby’s for an informal dinner party 🙂
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Satay’s Meet Rib’s

: Satay’s Meet Rib’s

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Ingredient’s :

Pork rib’s,
Peanut butter,
Hoi sin sauce,
Oyster sauce,
Soy sauce,
Scotch bonnet sauce,
Ginger powder,
Garlic, granulated,
Coriander powder,
Turmeric,
Sour orange juice,
Lemon grass, dried, chopped
Brown sugar,

Method :

Heat peanut butter with all ingredients except ribs. Add water and whisk until you have a smooth, thick sauce. Simmer for a few minutes. Set aside most of it to marinade ribs for at least two days. Add some more water to the rest of the sauce to use as dipping sauce. Set aside. After two day’s, bake ribs on a water filled roasting tray, lightly covered with aluminum foil, at 180F for nine hours. Remove cover during the last hour to get a golden color.
(Best to put the rib’s in the oven in the morning, happily thinking about a great dinner to come during the whole day 🙂
The collagen will turn into gelatin, leaving the ribs tender and succulent. Add the juices from the roasting tray to the dipping sauce, simmer until the desired texture is reached. Strain. Serve with the dipping sauce, slices of raw onion, cucumber and tomato.
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Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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Pasta. Basta !

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Pasta !
Sometimes, in our quest to create ever more complicated, fancy, elaborate, inventive, trendsetting dishes, we tend to forget why we fell in love with a food item in the first place. In most cases because in it’s true form and simplicity, it is perfect and can’t be much improved. It can be altered, changed, made more fancy, more colorful, spicier, fattier, more unrecognizable, deconstructed, more expensive (yep) or whatever, but in its original form, texture, and flavor it will alway’s be the star it has originally been. Without a doubt pasta is one of these food items. If properly prepared, it needs little or no embellishment to satisfy most senses. “Pasta Aglio E Olio” or, my personal favorite, Pasta Aglio E Burro” are the most basic dishes which, when prepared with love and knowledge, will produce the most satisfying meal or separate course in a meal. Here we have another basic, “Bucatini Pomodoro”

Cook pasta about 3/4 to doneness, drain, reserve some of the cooking water. Saute roasted garlic paste in butter or olive oil, add chopped peeled tomatoes, add a few sprigs of basil, simmer until tomatoes break down. Remove basil sprigs, blend tomatoes with a stick blender. Season with kosher salt and cayenne pepper. Add pasta, some of the cooking water, butter and finely grated pecorino and simmer until pasta is al dente. Add more water during the simmering if needed. To serve, sprinkle with more cheese.

Buon Appetito ! Life is Good !
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Pasta Pommodoro

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Parmesan Encrusted Pork Cutlet, Sauteed Potatoes & Chili Butter

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Merry X-mas Everybody 🙂

After I jumped out of bed at 3.30am, thinking I’ll be late for work and realizing only after a quick shower and an even quicker breakfast (one banana and one cup of tea) that it is sunday and x-mas to boost, I took a long walk with Bella while pondering what to have for lunch. I was so hungry by mid morning that I had an early lunch (late second breakfast ?, or as we call it in southern Germany, “Vesper”)
Wonderful tasty breaded pork cutlet with spicy sauted potatoes and Scotch Bonnet & Garlic Compound Butter.
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Ingredient’s :

Pork cutlet, seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper, roasted garlic paste and lime juice
AP flour,
Whole egg, whisked
Bread crumbs, mixed 50/50 with grated parmesan cheese
Peanut oil, to saute
Butter whole, to saute

Potatoes, sliced, blanched
Red peppers, diced
Scallions, sliced
Kosher salt,
Cayenne pepper,
Peanut oil, to saute
Butter whole, to saute

Method :

Season pork cutlet, dust with flour, dip into egg wash and bread with bread crumb / parmesan mixture. Saute in oil until almost done and golden brown. Replace oil with butter and saute until pork chop reaches 162 0n the bone. Remove absorbent paper.
Saute potatoes in oil until light golden and crisp. Add diced peppers, salt and cayenne. Drain oil and replace with whole butter. Saute until butter starts to foam and slightly changes color. To serve, sprinkle potatoes with scallion and top chop with chili butter.

Bon Appetit ! Live is Good !
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Am I Obsolete ?

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I love food.

I love food for the sake of food.
Does that make me obsolete? Out of touch? Old fashioned?
Removed? Aged? Antiquated? Archaic,? Bygone? A fossil?
Moth-eaten? Out-of-date? Outmoded? Primeval? A relic?
Or just plain stupid ?

Why do I ask this question ?
Well, most of my post’s are getting very positive, kind,
approving comments, which makes me happy , appreciated and
assured that traditional, simple, real food still has a stronghold
in the culinary universe. Most of my followers are food professionals
of a certain age, the “riper” age usually, and a wide variety of
older, younger, middle aged, more or less experienced home
cooks, culinary students and food enthusiasts of all sort’s.
Great ! Who would complain? I certainly don’t !
But I really wonder why I don’t attract more so called FOODIES.
Isn’t the whole point of calling oneself a foodie the point to indicate
a strong love of all types of food, in any way, shape and form ?
Yet it seems to me that some (most?) foodies are more interested in
creations that look like architectural creations, less like FOOD that is
nourishing, tastes great and is beautiful to look at. When I look at the
Internet lately and see some of the dishes out there, I ask myself if
there really is a huge part of the population which think’s that a 30 course
tasting menu made of lot’s of unidentifiable stuff that takes 4 hours
or more to consume and cost as much as a used car is the new way to eat daily ?

While I am the first person to enjoy some of these foods and I can
appreciate the time, craft, effort and artistry that has gone into that kind of food,
by extremely passionate, highly professional chef geniuses who are truly amazing and
are bestowed with rare culinary gifts, insight and energy, I will never assume
that this is the way people will eat regularly in the future, breakfast, lunch and
dinner. I rather think meals like that should be appreciated
for what they are supposed to represent : Special rare, highly anticipated occasions
which are extraordinary for their cost, beauty, and rarity.

Besides, a lot of these so called modern interpretations of food
are nothing but weird, ridiculous crap, produced by people who call themselves
chefs and innovators who don’t have the slightest idea about good FOOD,
I am highly amazed of the large amount of guest’s in some of these “temples of modern cuisine”
who are gullible enough to fall for some of the idiotic concoctions presented as innovations.

Again, I want to highly stress that I am a strong believer and admirer of innovation, artistry,
extraordinary new way’s to prepare and present old and proven dishes and explore
new way’s to prepare and improve long forgotten and under-appreciated ingredients
and find new food items and combinations nobody thought of before or which were
just ahead of their time .
But, Food is food. Crap is crap. Period.

So, I beseech all food lovers out there, old and young, experienced or not,
professional or not, to please don’t let the cuisine of our culinary tradition disappear.

Let’s continue to cook and eat them with the respect, love and passion they deserve.
Please continue to explore new stuff, experiment, develop, evolve and improve our
beloved culinary heritage.

I look at myself in the mirror and see an old man, but I
don’t think that should be a reason to dispose of me.

Same with our food. Old can mean ripe, proven, always reliable, satisfying,
reassuring and a great addition to new and exciting way’s and thing’s.

In conclusion, I believe there is a time for everything:

A ) A time for expensive, highly elevated food, presented in the most outrageously beautiful amazing fashion 🙂
B) A time for excellent, beautiful, nourishing, economic, simple food, presented nice, clean and appetizing 🙂

C) There should NEVER be a time for pretentious crap 😦

Bon Appetit !
Good Is Good. Crap Is Crap !
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” Collard Greens & Smoked Neck Bones “

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We southerner’s sure love our greens .
(Southern Germany in my case, that’s why the
roast potatoes instead of the corn bread) 🙂

I cooked a great amount of pork so at the end there
was a good amount of potlikker left which I froze.
Next time I’ll go to the store I will buy kale to make
a great Caldo Verde with the leftover potlikker.

All about Collard Greens
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Ingredient’s :

Collard greens, each leaf washed individually,
– stem removed, cut into 2″ strips
Smoked pork neck bones,
Onions, sliced
Garlic, paste
Rendered pork fat, (schmalz)
– substitute with chicken or duck fat if you prefer
Kosher salt,
Black pepper, freshly ground
Maggi seasoning,
Scotch bonnet, for a little kick

Method :

Simmer smoked pork in lightly salted water until almost tender.
Meanwhile, saute onions and garlic in your fat of choice until
onions are translucent and garlic fragrant. Add to the simmering
pork. When pork is almost tender, add the greens and seasoning
and cook until greens are tender. Depending on the season, this
can take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours.
(I cooked those greens for two more hours and the pork and greens
were just perfect. Adjust the seasoning before you serve.
As I mentioned, traditionally in the american south you
would serve this with corn bread. However, around the world
different customs call for different sidings, from potatoes to rice
to just a hearty slice of bread to soak up the potlikker. You might
also want to try to sprinkle some parmigiano reggiano over the top,
which I did with my re-heated left overs. Another knock-out 🙂

Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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” Rigatoni Rustica “

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Last night’s dinner was a perfect example of tasty comfort food,
simple, tasty, pretty, easy, and satisfying.
(Sounds like a wish list for a spouse 🙂
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Ingredient’s :

Chicken, cut into one inch pieces
Rigatoni, cooked al dente, strained, reserve some of the cooking water
Bok choy, cut into one inch pieces
Onions, julienned
Kernel corn,
Grape tomatoes, whole
Chilies, sliced
Garlic, paste
Ginger, grated
Kosher salt, to taste
Cayenne, to taste
Butter, to saute
Red wine, to deglaze

Method :

Season chicken and saute until golden brown and cooked through.
Remove and reserve. Saute onions, corn, garlic, ginger, bok choy and chili,
deglaze with red wine and a small amount of the cooking water from the pasta,
add pasta and tomatoes, season with salt and cayenne.

Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !

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” Tilapia Meuniere & Sauteed Asparagus

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If prepared with love and passion,
what a wonderful fish Tilapia can be 🙂
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Heat a sauté pan over medium heat for a minute, then add a couple of tablespoons of clarified butter.
Season the fish fillet to taste with kosher salt and cayenne pepper.
Dredge the fish in flour and shake off any excess.
Sauté fish for 2 to 3 minutes or until there’s a nice golden-brown color, then carefully flip it over.
Cook for another couple of minutes or until this side is golden-brown, too.
Remove fish from pan and place it on a warm plate.
Add a chunk of whole butter to the pan and cook until it turns slightly brown.
Now top the fish with few tablespoons of lemon juice and some chopped parsley , pour the hot butter onto the fish and serve right away.
Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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” What Does It Take To Earn One, Two, And Three Michelin Stars? “

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What does it take to earn one, two, and three michelin stars?
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Image Source: BlogHer

Well, when I read this story by Julien Vaché on HUFFPOST, I thought of an article I wrote a few months back about “passion“.
After dealing with thousand’s of young cooks and culinary students, as well as with young “chef’s” and many so-called “culinary educator’s”, all of which proclaim a deep passion for the culinary profession, it did not take me long to realize that the word “passion” is too often confused with the word “like” .
While real passion exist’s among all the groups mentioned, sadly it is rare and hard to find.
Real passion often requires tremendous sacrifice. The story about L’Auberge du Vieux Puits and it’s chef Gilles Goujon is a perfect example how one man and his family have achieved their ultimate dream through sacrifice, hard work and perseverance.

My deepest respect to a true culinary hero !

Bon Appetit !
Life is Good ! (Eventually, sometimes, for most of us, anyway 🙂

Read the story HERE
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