Pleased to Meat you

So. Pop quiz: Did you guys try making the hunter's chicken yet? Those that did, you get an A. Those slackers who think I'm doing this for my health, you fail. That's what I call tough love. I'm doing this for you, the masses who needed a guru to guide them on their culinary adventures to an epicurean nirvana. Yeah, I know I'm blowing smoke, but you love it.

©Raj Rao

Anyway, this time I am back with a collaboration dish with my best buddy Jimmy, a.k.a Culinary Maestro. So we are chilling, watching the Cooking Channel (check your local listings) and in a moment of impulse and inspiration we pretty much talked ourselves into rushing to Central Market (a culinary Mecca) to get the ingredients to recreate and put our own personal stamp on steak and veggies. Oh yeah, we're doing it big this time. It was either that or PBJ sandwiches for dinner and these playas don't play.

Now before I enlighten you as to the how, you gotta let me jump ahead to the end a little. This dish is simple gourmet done right and any man would be proud to take credit for this. I'm talking ribeye steak rubbed to seasoned perfection and cooked till it is melt-in-your-mouth-backhand-your-mamma good. Oh yes, that good. It's quick, it's simple and it's gourmet. What more can I do for you? Seriously. 

Ok now the how.

Ingredients:

Boneless rib eye steak (1-1 ½ inch thickness) – 4 pieces

Asparagus – 1 lb

Heirloom carrots – ½ lb

Herb Butter – 1 stick

Lemon – 1

Shallots –

Eggs – 4

Garlic – 6 cloves

Tabasco Sauce – 1 table spoon

Salt and pepper to taste

Oil

Maestro's Dry Rub for the steak:

Cumin – 2 table spoon

Paprika – 1 table spoon

Celery Salt – 1 table spoon

Cracked black pepper – 2 table spoons

Salt – 1 table spoon

Chili powder – 1 table spoon

Red chili flakes – ½ table spoon

Steak:

Combine the entire dry rub in a bowl and coat the steaks liberally with it. Be generous in the coating and you will be rewarded in the end. Let the steaks sit for a few minutes before searing. A-ha, catch phrase number one – SEARING. This means cooking on extreme heat. This is to ensure that an outer crust is formed which seals the flavor inside the steak.

Add oil in a cast iron skillet and put it on high heat. If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, go get one. If you can’t afford it, borrow from someone. If you can’t find someone who has it look for a local garage sale and get one. No exceptions.

Once the oil is extremely hot, put the steaks in the skillet. Do not crowd the skillet. Leave the steaks to cook on each side for at least 2 minutes. Do not move, poke, jiggle or touch the steak. Just look at your stop watch. Once the two minutes is up flip the steaks and cook for another 2 minutes. While this is happening make sure your oven is set at 400 degrees.

After the final 2 minutes place the entire skillet with the steaks in the oven and let it cook for approximately 5 to 7 minutes until medium rare. If you don’t like it medium rare then cook it for an extra 5 minutes and you will get your desired leather.

After 5 minutes take the skillet out and let the steaks sit on a covered platter. Let them rest for AT LEAST 15 minutes. Do not cut into it because all your hard work and valuable flavors will pretty much be lost.

Right before serving, place about one table spoon of the herb butter on each steak to elevate the taste to greatness. 

Heirloom Carrots: 

Introducing... the world famous Culinary Maestro in the building!

Also known as White Satin carrots. There are a few schools of thought on what is considered an Heirloom plant.  Many gardeners consider 1951 to be the latest year a plant could have originated and still be an heirloom.  Heirloom plants will have a decisive look to them because they have adapted to the climate and soil they are grown in. 

Cut the Heirloom carrots in half lengthwise, which will decrease cooking time and allow the carrots to soak up the seasoning. Place the carrots on a sheet pan. You will need to space out the carrots so that they can crisp up during the baking process.  Sprinkle black pepper, Fleur De Sel, (French Salt, aka the best of the best), the juice of 1/2 a Meyer lemon, ½ a diced shallot, 3 cloves of chopped garlic and a generous amount of olive oil to coat the carrots. The olive oil will enable the carrot to crisp up quicker.

**Side note: white carrots are great for soaking up the lemon juice and olive oil, and in our opinion are more desirable than their orange counterparts.  The carrots will take approximately 10 minutes to cook and then they are ready to be served.

Asparagus:

©Raj Rao

Boil some water in a pot and add salt. When the water is boiling, drop the asparagus in it and let them hang out there for about 2 minutes. Then remove the asparagus and immediately drop them in an ice bath. This is not something you bathe in after watching Kim Kardashian jog on a beach, an ice bath is a bowl that has ice and water and is used to stop the cooking of anything you drop in it. You are pretty much shocking the food. This technique is called blanching, catch phrase number two. 

Dice half a shallot and 3 cloves of garlic. Add some olive oil in a skillet. Sauté the garlic and shallots in it. After a few minutes add the blanched asparagus and cook them for about 2 minutes. Add some salt and pepper to taste and remove the asparagus.

Hollandaise Sauce:

Separate 4 egg yolks and put them in a mixing bowl. Place the mixing bowl over a double boiler, catch phrase number 3. A double boiler or bain marie is a method to cook sauces without boiling or burning them. You are pretty much cooking the sauce in steam. The way to set it up is to bring a pot of water to boil. Then place a mixing bowl on it and make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the boiling water. Whisk the egg on the double boiler until it has doubled in volume and changed to a lighter pale colour. This is where all the hours you spent pumping iron in the gym will come into play. Once the colour has changed, you add the juice of half a lemon and keep whisking like your life depends on it. Add salt and Tabasco© sauce and butter and whisk for another few minutes. The sauce will look creamy and glossy.

Serve the hollandaise sauce alongside the sautéed asparagus.

The best part:

©Raj Rao

Being patient and letting the steaks sit for at least 15 minutes before eating pays off.  All the juices and flavor spread all over the steak which results in a perfectly cooked steak.  The dry rub gives the steak an extra depth of flavor and a moist, tender texture on the inside while the outside had a deep flavorful crust.   Mmmnn... just like buttuh baby.

Serve this steak with a good glass of Pinot Noir.

The asparagus are fresh, crisp and mild tasting which complements the bold taste of the steak very well and adding the hollandaise sauce over them gives it that extra punch of taste that was needed.

The carrots... I mean.. it's a beautiful thing ETF Nation. They have a rich brown color to them and the sides of the carrots come out crisp while the center stays tender and soaks up all the flavors from the lemon, oil, salt and pepper like a sponge. The natural sweetness of the carrots combines well with the tartness from the lemon.

©Raj Rao

So get off that couch, chair or tree you are living on and make this dish and call me a liar when I say you will backhand your mamma AND your aunt, its so good. Share your thoughts with us. It’s very simple to make and you can do it in no time. 

Thank you for tuning in to the world's greatest..... this has been a Guru-Maestro collabo production. And once you make this pimp dish... why don't you go and brush your shoulders off...

Doing it Hunter-Style

After a brief hiatus from Food Guru-ing..... I am back and better than ever. Thank you for all the support Food Guru Nation, it was much appreciated.

So let's get into this.

©Raj Rao

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was running away from the hunter. Barump-pum. Anyone? Anyone? No? Ok, bad joke. What you want from me, it's a "Why did the chicken cross the road" joke. The comedic bar was already set low.

From a culinary standpoint though, I am talking about a dish called Chicken Cacciatore or Hunter’s chicken, hence the bad joke.

The dish itself originated between 1450 and 1600 in central Italy. The actual name for the dish is Pollo Alla Cacciatore which is Italian for hunter-style chicken. Hunter-style means a meal that is usually prepared with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, herbs, bell peppers, and sometimes wine. The dish has many variations from the choice of meat, the choice of wine and the mushrooms used. Traditionally rabbit or pheasant are the primary choice of meat. Remember when you freaked out about goat meat? Yeah, humans have been eating anything they can catch for a while now so get with it. The hunters will usually use the day’s catch for the dish. I am convinced that's why Elmer Fudd was obsessed with stalking Bugs. He wanted some Bunny Caccia-Wabbit for dinner. Eh? Eh? See what I did there? Cacciatore.....Caccia-Wabbit.... Still nothing? Whatever, I don't have to impress you.

I am here to talk food anyway, so here is my recipe for the delectable Chicken Cacciatore

Ingredients:

Whole chicken cut into 8 pieces. Skin on.

Shallot – 1 medium size

Garlic – 6 medium sized cloves (Yes, I love garlic and you should too)

Red pepper flakes – 1 tablespoon

Crushed tomatoes – 3 cups

Tomato paste – ½ cup
Chicken stock – ½ cup

Dry white wine – ½ cup (theory on wine for cooking, only cook with wine that you will drink. And drink while you cook, always makes for a happy dinner.)

Green Bell Pepper – 1

Red Bell Pepper – 1

Orange Bell pepper- 1

Baby bella mushrooms – 2 cups (halved)

All purpose flour – 2 tablespoons

Cayenne pepper – 1 teaspoon

Salt – To taste

Pepper – 1 tablespoon

Olive oil – 2 tablespoons

Bay leaf – 2

Method:



©Raj Rao



Mix the all-purpose flour, cayenne, salt and pepper on a plate. Coat the chicken with the flour mixture and shake off excess flour. Coat a non-stick cooking pot with the olive oil. When the oil is hot, place the chicken in the pot with the skin side down and start browning on all sides. Once all the chicken pieces are browned take them out of the pot and place them on a plate. Don’t freak out if you see the bottom of the pot looking brown or coated with brown chicken bits. That is the good stuff. Place the bay leaf in the pot along with the onion and start sauteing them. After about 2 minutes add the garlic and red pepper flakes. You knew I'd add a little heat to this.



©Raj Rao



Now add the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken stock and white wine. Stir for a few seconds and turn up the heat to high. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium and add the bell peppers and mushrooms. Now add the chicken to the pot. Stir a few times to make sure everything is coated with the sauce. Put the lid on and let it cook on medium for about 25 minutes. Make sure the heat is on medium or else you will have a disaster of a dish.

After 25 minutes, the sauce would have thickened up a bit. Taste the sauce to make sure it has the right amount of salt. If needed, add more to the dish, adding salt is no culinary sin kids. Once you are happy with the taste, remove it from the stove and let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes.

Serving suggestions:

This dish can be served with your choice of pasta, bread or rice. Yes I did say rice and there is nothing wrong with that. Who's the guru here?

Taste:

This is it. Time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

©Raj Rao

Visually this is a stunning dish because you get the vibrant and bright colors from the multi-colored bell peppers and mushrooms. I mean it's truly a work of art in the Italian tradition. The chicken is very tender due to the slow cooking. It absorbed all the tomato and wine sauce. The crushed red pepper gives just the right amount of heat to flirt with your pallet. The sweetness from the tomatoes is balanced by the tartness of the wine. The bell peppers are al dente and give a good crunch to the dish. Mushrooms add another layer of flavor and texture to the dish.

The entire dish was a success. Feel free to add more things to the dish. I have tried adding asparagus and it worked just fine. You can also use red wine instead of white wine if you prefer a bold sauce.

Hopefully I have managed to stir up the inner hunter in you to go catch a chicken and make this dish. Right. I realize that in your case you will just visit your local grocery store and buy one but make it an adventure in the poulty aisle and evoke the hunter inside of you.

Grazie e arrivederci

Food Guru out….

©Raj Rao