Tag Archives: asian

Country Captain

4 Aug

If you’ve never heard of this, it’s probably because you don’t live in the South. This is completely, 100% Southern. What’s funny is– I have no idea why that’s so. I don’t really associate curry and cilantro with the South–but hey, I didn’t make this up. It’s usually got some bacon in it and served over rice, but for budget and time’s sake, I didn’t use bacon– I did, however, saute the chicken in bacon renderings. My favorite.  As you can see from the picture, we used drumsticks. I strongly advise you to follow the recipe below and use boneless chicken thighs (skinless, if you want) because drumsticks, as cheap as they may be, take forever + a lifetime to brown and cook through.

Country Captain

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. boneless chicken thighs, skinless will work too
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 t garam masala
  • 1 t curry powder
  • 1/2 c raisins
  • 2 t fresh ginger, minced
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 1 lime, juiced

Method

In a skillet, melt some fat over medium-high heat. Salt and pepper the chicken thighs. Sear them on both sides until browned and cooked through. Remove from the pan and place on your serving platter.

Add the diced onion, garam masala, curry powder and ginger to the saute pan. Saute until the onions are tender. Add the coconut milk, raisins and lime juice. Simmer for a few minutes. Spoon the sauce over the chicken thighs.

Top with fresh cilantro and sliced almonds.

Also

You will probably have leftover sauce. Here’s an idea to use it up…

To the remainder of the sauce, add 2 cups of chicken stock. Ta-da, you’ve made a coconut curry soup. Add leftover pulled chicken thighs or roughly dice up a pound of chicken breasts and add to the soup. Let the soup simmer on medium heat until the chicken is cooked through.

  • Share/Bookmark

Curried Chicken Salad

25 Jul

Alright, alright, I know, you’ve probably made this before. BUT…here’s our twist, we have found the PERFECT oil for homemade mayo, mixed it with a pile of easy to find ingredients and you’ve got an easy, fast, refreshing and flavorful meal.

Per a request, I’ve finally integrated a ‘Print This’ printer-friendly button. I’ll be updating all the old recipes soon! If you have any suggestions or recipe ideas, please email us. We love to hear from you!

Curried Chicken Salad

Ingredients

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 c avocado mayo*

2 t yellow curry powder

1 t garam masala**

1 1/2 c raisins

2 T mango chutney***

1 1/c c slivered almonds, toasted

handful of cilantro, roughly chopped

S&P

Method

Place the chicken on a baking sheet and bake until cooked through, about 25 minutes on 350ºF.

While the chicken is baking, take out a large bowl and  mix together the rest of the ingredients. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, chop it into bite sized pieces and place into the large bowl. Mix to incorporate.

Serve cold.

*So here it is, drum roll please….

Avocado oil makes the perfect mayonnaise.

With most oils we’ve tried to make mayo with, the flavor is quite bitter or very, “POW! in your mouth.” Bacon mayo, tastes like bacon and coconut oil mayo tastes like coconut. Think about this way, I wouldn’t want coconut oil mayonnaise in my egg salad. The avocado mayo flavor isn’t bitter, but creamy and rich–quite buttery, really. The flavor is ideal to mix with almost anything. For the chicken salad, take this recipe and double it. We sourced the oil on Amazon.com. Please notice, you get 2 large bottles.

**Garam masala is an mixture cinnamon, ginger, cumin, coriander, nutmeg, etc. You can find it at at most grocery stores.

***Mango chutney, also sometimes called Major Grey’s Chutney, is a like a sweet and spicy mango jam. You can find it at most grocery stores, on the ethnic aisle.

  • Share/Bookmark

Sesame Kale Salad

29 Jun

The grocery store I most frequent, 14 Carrot in Lexington, SC (for those of you local readers), makes a few salads and what-nots for the ready-made deli case. They’re really those wacky kind of foods like tofu, wheat grass quiche and mock chicken veganaise salad. Bleh! They never, ever look appetizing.  I took a look at the ingredients of their Kale salad, cringed, and then decided I’d try to riff it. The result: literally 10 minutes from prep to mouth, made and served in one bowl, and tastes like the seaweed salad we order (and pay $4/serving for) when we go out for sushi. It’s a refreshing, cold, crunchy bowl of happiness.

Sesame Kale Salad

Ingredients

  • 2 bunches kale, torn into bite size pieces, no stems (something the kiddies can do)
  • a little bit of water
  • 1/4 c sesame oil
  • 2 T wheat free soy sauce or coconut aminos (my newest acquisition, pretty cool, ya?)
  • 2 T sesame seeds

Method

Place about 1/4 c of  of water in a large, microwave safe bowl. Add the torn kale and seal the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Place in the microwave for 1 minute increments, peeking into the bowl during each cycle. What you’re doing is creating steam from the little puddle of water and a light, semi-permeable plastic wrap seal. It’s done when the  kale has steamed and wilted, this should take around 3 minutes.

Unwrap the bowl and be careful not to steam-burn yourself. Once the kale is cool enough to handle, pour out the water and squeeze the kale until most of the water is gone.

Add the rest of ingredients and mix to combine. Serve at room temperature or cold.

  • Share/Bookmark

Pork Fried Rice

15 Apr

A buddy of ours at our CrossFit box asked us if we had a Paleo style Fried Rice recipe. We had never tried, so we immediately set to work. The rice is replaced with cauliflower we pulverized in the food processor. This recipe messes up a few more dishes than I like to clean, but it was completely worth it…and it made 4 giant servings, hello leftovers! Feel free to add peas, carrots, zukes, whatever you’ve got–clean out that fridge!

Pork Fried Rice

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. ground pork
  • 4 oz. mushrooms, sliced
  • 1 shallot or 2 cloves of garlic
  • 2 inch long piece of ginger
  • 4 green onions, sliced
  • 2T + 2T wheat free soy sauce
  • 1T + 1T  chili garlic sauce
  • 1 head of cauliflower
  • 2 eggs

Method

In a saute pan add the pork and break it up into pieces with your spatula. Let me school you real quick in extracting flavor from ground meat–let it cook until it’s brown. That means, don’t stop cooking it until you physically see a brown crust on it, just like if you were searing a steak or chicken.

While the pork is browning, chop the cauliflower head into chunks and throw into your food processor. Pulverize until it’s turned into crumbles, this shouldn’t take but about 2 minutes. Remove the cauliflower and reserve in a bowl. Since the bowl of the processor is already dirty, you might as well let it do some more work for you and pulverize the ginger and shallots.

Once the pork is brown, brown, brown add the mushrooms, 1/2 the green onions, 2 T soy sauce, 1T garlic chili sauce, and the shallots and ginger. Let it come together and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove the mixture from the pan and put into your serving dish.

Add the cauliflower to the saute pan. What you’re trying to do is cook the cauliflower crumbles. Keep your eye on it and stir it around every minute or so. It should be finished in about 8 minutes. Taste it to make sure it’s soft and doesn’t have an over cauliflower-y taste. Add 2 more T of soy sauce and 1 more T of chili garlic sauce. Place the cauliflower into the serving bowl.

In a small bowl, crack 2 eggs and whisk together with a fork. Add the eggs to the saute pan and constantly stir so the eggs scramble into small pieces. They should finish cooking in about 2 minutes. Add the eggs to the serving dish.

Add the other 1/2 of the green onions, toss everything around to coat and serve immediately.

  • Share/Bookmark

Roasted Vegetable Salad with Crispy Tangerine Duck

2 Apr



This sounds hard and daunting and complicated and messy. Looks are deceiving. I really, truly strive to cook dinner as quickly as possible while messing up as few dishes as possible. I really, really hate cleaning dishes. If you can’t find/afford/like duck, a Frenched chicken breast–a bone-in, skin-on chicken breast with the wing attached, would be an equally flavorful and very affordable substitution. We’re submitting this recipe to MarksDailyApple.com for his recipe contest. Wish us luck!

Ingredients for Roasted Veg

  • a few glugs of olive oil
  • 1 bunch asparagus, cut the stalks into 1/4′s
  • 1 lb. various mushrooms, sliced (we used shiitake and plain ole button)
  • S&P

Ingredients for Duck

  • 1 T fat of your choice
  • 1 lb. duck breast
  • liberal amount of salt and pepper

Ingredients for Vinaigrette

  • 4 tangerines, juiced
  • zest of 1 tangerine
  • 2 T wheat free soy sauce
  • 1 T vinegar
  • S&P

Method

Get your oven to 450°F.

Add a few glugs of olive oil on a baking sheet. Add the asparagus, mushrooms and S&P. Drizzle the veg with a bit more oil, toss it around with your hands and put in the oven. Roast until browned and crispy, about 3o minutes.

While the veg is roasting, add 1 T of fat to a saute pan and place on medium heat.

Take a sharp knife and score the skin of the duck at an angle, all the way from the top to the bottom. Turn the duck and score at the opposite angle. You’re just making little diamonds or squares. Why? Because it’s pretty and more importantly, it helps the skin cook faster and the end result is much crispier.

Liberally pat salt and pepper on the duck. Place the duck, skin side down into the saute pan. The goal here is to get the skin to render (get crispy) without overcooking the duck or burning the skin. Make sure your heat is around medium-low to medium. Saute, with the skin side down, for about 20 minutes. Flip the duck onto the other side and saute for approx. 10 minutes. The internal temperature should reach around 150°F for medium rare. Let the breast rest for about 7 minutes and slice as thinly as possible.

Duck releases a ton of fat. SAVE IT! If you think bacon fat is tasty, wait until you use duck fat!

To make the vinaigrette, combine all ingredients into a jar with a screw top lid and shake, shake, shake. Toss the dressing with the roasted veg, reserving some to spoon over the top of the duck.

  • Share/Bookmark

Lettuce Wraps

20 Mar

These take literally less than 30 minutes to make. The leftovers are awesome cold and would be great for lunch. Only drawback, they’re a little messy. Well, Brandon is usually the messy eater and didn’t have a problem, but myself, the neat one, had the sauce dripping down my hands. Nothing I couldn’t lick up though…hehe.

Ingredients

  • 3 T oil of your choice
  • 1 lb. chicken breasts or ground chicken
  • 4 oz. shiitake mushrooms, chopped
  • 1/2 onion diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 green onions, finely chopped
  • handful of cilantro, chopped
  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • 1/4 c wheat free soy sauce
  • 1 t chili garlic sauce
  • 1 t sesame oil
  • iceberg or bibb lettuce
  • 1 avocado, sliced

Method

Heat a saute pan with 2 T oil. Cut the chicken into the smallest pieces possible and add the pan. Don’t worry about overcrowding the pan, the chicken doesn’t need to brown, just cook it until it’s done all the way through.

While the chicken is cooking, add the lemon juice, chili sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, green onions and cilantro into a serving bowl.

Once the chicken is done, add it the bowl.

Add a few more glugs of oil to the saute pan and toss in the mushrooms, onion and garlic. Saute until golden, about 10 minutes. Add to the bowl. Toss everything around to coat.

Remove the stem of your lettuce head with a knife (if you’re using iceberg, slice the head in 1/2, lengthwise). Peel the lettuce into individual “cups” and wash.

Pile the chicken into your lettuce cups and top with avocado.

  • Share/Bookmark