Skip to main content

Playing around with green

I've been watching so many cooking and plating videos lately that my head is spinning with weird-ass ideas, so I decided to try some of those tonight. 
It seems like everyone is still all gaga over squeeze bottles, purees, and oils, so I busted out my food processor and squeeze bottle for some fun.
I started off by putting a handful of parsley, a couple cloves of garlic, and some extra virgin olive oil into the food processor. I thought that seemed like a good mixture. I started the blades a'spinnin, and quickly realized that I needed a lot more olive oil, so I kept adding a little at a time until the mixture finally started reaching the consistency I was looking for.
I did have to scrape the sides down a few times with a spoon, but that wasn't too terribly difficult, plus it made me feel like I was actually doing something, so that was nice.
When it was finally finished, I poured it all into a strainer and pressed down with a spoon to squeeze the liquid into a funnel into my squeeze bottle. After all of that parsley and squeezing, I ended up with a few tablespoons of liquid. I'm gonna keep that in mind for quantities later, but, for now, it's more than enough.
After I finished playing with the oil, it was time to start prepping my actual dinner. I sliced the zucchini and mushrooms and diced the yellow bell pepper then put all of those three in one bowl together. I also minced some red onion and very thinly sliced four cloves of garlic crossways (the smallest clove ended up in 20 slices, so they were pretty fucking thin for me).
Once the veggies were cut up, I seasoned a chicken breast with salt, pepper, and some cayenne, then seared it on both sides in some butter and olive oil. Once the chicken was seared (not cooked all the way through), I pulled it out of the pan and got started with my veggies.
I lowered the heat a bit, then dumped in my onion and garlic and let that sweat and sizzle for a few minutes. That gave me time for experiment number two: covering the top of the chicken breast in the leftover squeezed-out parsley/garlic mix. Once I got a layer on the chicken, I stuck it in my oven, which was preheated to 400 degrees. Once the chicken was baking, I also started my pot of rice that was chilling on a cold burner on the back of the stove.
When the onion and garlic was soft and browning, I dumped in the rest of my veggies and seasoned them with a little salt while they got cooking. Once they were getting pretty soft, I poured in a little bit of white wine for them to caramelize in, then let them sit there and cook gently until the chicken and rice were done.
As far as the rice was concerned, as soon as it finished, I poured in a little extra virgin olive oil, then dumped in the veggies from my pan and mixed it all together. Mixing shit in rice is one of my newer favorite things to do, by the way, so I'm probably gonna just keep on doing it until I get bored with it.
After fifteen minutes, my chicken was done, so I pulled it out of the oven and sliced it up. Unfortunately, I learned that this kind of preparation on chicken works better if you've removed the skin, as, while I cut the meat, the skin would stretch, pull, and squirm, breaking up that neato look. It made me sad, but it wasn't the end of the world.
I had a little bit of fun with the plating. I drew a little zigzag with my squeeze bottle of parsley oil. As you can probably tell, my motion was not in any way certain, but I think it still worked out okay.
Next, I used my PVC to stack a cylinder of rice in the center of the plate, the downside being that I kind of smeared around the oil. Still not the worst thing to ever happy, but now I know not to fuck with the oil once it's down.
After that, it was just a matter of stacking a few slices of chicken on either side of the rice, then grabbing a fork and engorging myself.
Flavorwise, this shit was fucking great, but I am a big fan of parsley; if you don't like parsley, you won't like this, and, also, I feel bad for you. Parsley's awesome. I've still got a bit of the parsley oil left, so I'll probably play with that some more later this week, too. Hope you like green!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I don't understand food

Part 1 the morning after, while eating a sausage, egg, and cheese everything bagel from Bergen Bagels Last night, I had the pleasure, privilege, and audacity to eat at a Brooklyn restaurant named Aska . I know it's cliche to refer to a fancy restaurant meal as a life-changing experience, but this was straight up paradigm-shattering. I've written before about food being a medium of communication, about how I strive to reduce food waste as much as I can, about sharing our cultures and stories with each other through the meals we create, but seeing how Chef Fredrik Berselius is able to do this at such an intricate, elegant, and elevated level is both humbling and inspiring. The experience started before the first bite. I walked into the 10 table restaurant, and they knew me by name. I was shown to my table (right in the middle of the place, looking directly into the open kitchen), and they even pulled my chair out for me and pushed it up under me. I was a little uncomfortable with...

Restaurant week: My new Mexican restaurant

 As I mentioned the other day, my Mexican restaurant closed down. Luckily, they opened up in a new space a couple of months later. Great new look, new name ("Lopez Grill"), they've got a bar, staff is expanded, and the place is always packed. Business seems to be going great. Now, this isn't just a rehash of my post about the 'Dolo. While the menu is largely the same, there have been a few changes, plus I'm going to share a few things I've learned eating there. On my first visit to the new location (which was opening day, right when the doors opened; yes, I was standing in line outside with the other faithful), Señor Lopez brought me a bowl of their new salsa. He called it "guacamole salsa," but it's a jalapeño-based sauce. It's got an almost creamy texture, but is dairy-free (I asked for my vegan friend). Being a jalapeño salsa, it's got some heat, but not nearly as overbearing as some capsaicin-phobes may fear. It is perfectly bala...

Trying a new idea

I decided to try out a new concept: plain seasoning on my food with a bold sauce to kick it up a few notches. I was thinking that a pretty boring salmon fillet with a super flavorful sauce would be a fun way to put food on the plate. Sort of a "oh, this isn't that great, but wait! There's more!" kind of deal. I just salted the salmon and poached it in olive oil. Meanwhile, I also made some mashed potatoes with some sautéed green onion and orange bell pepper mixed in. A little butter, a little cream, yada yada. The potatoes were great. The salmon was boring. So how about that sauce? I made myself a roux (butter mixed with flour), then added in some white wine, and I let that simmer while I cooked the fish and potatoes. Unfortunately, it thickened up a bit much, so I added some more wine. With the extra wine, it was too watery, so I dropped in some creme fraiche, all while repeating my Randy Marsh impersonation of saying, "creme fraiche!" That gave it a great ...