More late night food fun!
So I was not feeling so hot today. Supposed to go to a show tonight with a friend and decided to bail out... What's the next best thing to going out you ask? Roasting
chicken!!!
I decided to read up on why you would want to brine a chicken. It all makes sense. I used a 3qt brine with a 1/4cup of sea salt per qt. In addition to that I added savory, chili powder, 8 cloves of minced garlic, and some black pepper. I've been pretty happy with how it turned out, the chicken was a bit salty, but not bad.
Next up on the menu was my first Risotto. Again, it turned out very good. Since this was my first try I decided to purchase a mix from Trader Joes and read what they had in it. It was short grain Italian rice, and a seasoning packet that was basiclly salt, dried chicken stock, dried wine, starch and a bit of dried mushrooms. While reading up on Risotto I figured that I'd get the rice started with some shallots, garlic, and olive oil. That is where I learned my first lesson. It's true that when you want to wilt some herbs/garlic/etc that you remove it prior to adding the rice and then re-add it later when you're simmering it. I didn't do this and ended up browning a little bit of my garlic too much.
ANYWAY... Things turned out pretty good, since I planned to use half of the seasoning packet (I was not prepared with white wine and stock .... I would have skipped the packet if I had that) and then decided to simmer 2 cups of water with a 14.5oz can of chicken stock. I just went by the book adding stock until it simmered off until I was getting low on stock. At that point I decided to turn down my heat a little, add some hot stock and cover it for a bit.
While the rice was cooking I chopped up some snow peas, red bell pepper and basil (for garnish). I let the rice simmer on low for about 5 minutes, and I figured that I was simmering it uncovered while slowly adding the hot broth for about 20 minutes. When I removed the top the rice was much closer to being done and I had about a cup of hot broth left. I added the veggies and a ladle of hot broth and covered it again, I figured that I was adding about a cup of cold stuff so I wanted to let it sit up top and warm up, it worked out pretty good. About two minutes later I removed the top and just got back to stirring and adding broth until the rice was tender.
I have to say that I was quite surprised in how well this turned out. Sure am looking forward to doing this again, I'm going to need to stock up on the chicken or veggie stock! I want to try grapes and almonds, or spinach and walnuts... actually any nut and veggie sounds good.
When I plated everything my thought was to put some parmasian on top of the rosotto with a little of basil. It was PERFECT. Oh, yeah, and the chicken was yummy too.
PICTURE TIME!
chicken!!!
I decided to read up on why you would want to brine a chicken. It all makes sense. I used a 3qt brine with a 1/4cup of sea salt per qt. In addition to that I added savory, chili powder, 8 cloves of minced garlic, and some black pepper. I've been pretty happy with how it turned out, the chicken was a bit salty, but not bad.
Next up on the menu was my first Risotto. Again, it turned out very good. Since this was my first try I decided to purchase a mix from Trader Joes and read what they had in it. It was short grain Italian rice, and a seasoning packet that was basiclly salt, dried chicken stock, dried wine, starch and a bit of dried mushrooms. While reading up on Risotto I figured that I'd get the rice started with some shallots, garlic, and olive oil. That is where I learned my first lesson. It's true that when you want to wilt some herbs/garlic/etc that you remove it prior to adding the rice and then re-add it later when you're simmering it. I didn't do this and ended up browning a little bit of my garlic too much.
ANYWAY... Things turned out pretty good, since I planned to use half of the seasoning packet (I was not prepared with white wine and stock .... I would have skipped the packet if I had that) and then decided to simmer 2 cups of water with a 14.5oz can of chicken stock. I just went by the book adding stock until it simmered off until I was getting low on stock. At that point I decided to turn down my heat a little, add some hot stock and cover it for a bit.
While the rice was cooking I chopped up some snow peas, red bell pepper and basil (for garnish). I let the rice simmer on low for about 5 minutes, and I figured that I was simmering it uncovered while slowly adding the hot broth for about 20 minutes. When I removed the top the rice was much closer to being done and I had about a cup of hot broth left. I added the veggies and a ladle of hot broth and covered it again, I figured that I was adding about a cup of cold stuff so I wanted to let it sit up top and warm up, it worked out pretty good. About two minutes later I removed the top and just got back to stirring and adding broth until the rice was tender.
I have to say that I was quite surprised in how well this turned out. Sure am looking forward to doing this again, I'm going to need to stock up on the chicken or veggie stock! I want to try grapes and almonds, or spinach and walnuts... actually any nut and veggie sounds good.
When I plated everything my thought was to put some parmasian on top of the rosotto with a little of basil. It was PERFECT. Oh, yeah, and the chicken was yummy too.
PICTURE TIME!
posted by Vincent at
11:23 PM
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