Using Brines

I love using brines, especially for poultry and pork. Thanksgiving turkey always gets put in a salt/brown sugar brine the night before. It's easy to adapt from there, too: add some black peppercorns, or pickling spices, soy sauce, fresh herbs, or one of my favorites if I'm grilling pork - dry Jamaican jerk seasoning. Most brine recipes I've seen call for one cup of kosher salt per gallon of water. Some use equal sugar, some half as much sugar as kosher salt. I usually use half as much sugar and probably tablespoons of other flavorings. I also like to hold back on the full amount of water, put everything together in a pot, bring to a simmer to get everything dissolved/blended, then take the pot off the heat and add ice cubes to cool it down to a usable temperature. Large items get brined over night, smaller ones for four hours or so. Always rinse off your brined item and let it dry before preceding with the cooking.

OK, now to my point. I read and article last year on a restaurant in Brooklyn that brines chicken in pickle juice before cooking. Sounded interesting, so I saved a jar of pickle juice after the pickles were finished, brined the chicken in it, and did my own adaptation of the recipe pan-searing and then roasting the chicken pieces. It was fantastic. And, it got me thinking - what other items did I have in my refrigerator that I could use the leftover liquid to brine with? I always have a variety of jarred olives and so I tried that -- great also. And pepperoncinis -- that juice as a brine gives nice kick. And as a side benefit, I am much more careful of reviewing ingredient lists when purchasing an item that I might want to save for a second life as a brine.

Right now, I have a pork tenderloin brining in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator with the juice from a jar of pimento-stuffed green olives and I can guarantee you - it's going to make a great dinner!

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Comfort Food for a Head Cold

Woke up with a head cold, but did my 8 to 5 work shift (for those of you who are connected with me through Facebook or Twitter, you know I still came through with great Chili and Chicken Gumbo!) and wanted some good comfort food for dinner when I got home. Problem was, I wanted lots of taste to battle the cold, but did not want to waste more fancy food to the same cold.

Solution: some boneless, skinless chicken breast (usually not one of my first choices), rubbed with a little olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Italian-seasoned Panko bread crumbs moistened with a little more olive oil and mixed with chopped, feta-cheese-stuffed olives were then pressed down on the chicken breast, it was put on a rack in a roasting tin, a little white wine was added to the roasting tin, and it was cooked in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Crunchy, savory, and lots of flavor. A mixed-green salad with sliced plum tomato and a honey-balsamic vinaigrette dressing on the side, and a great dinner was had. Lots of variations could be made to this one. How would you adapt it?

Fun Food Trivia

Below is a link to "The Straight Dope" - one of my favorite random-useless-information sites - and a little bit of fun food trivia. Hope you enjoy it!
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/683/how-come-they-call-it-ketchup-sometimes-and-catsup-other-times

Dinner Party / Key Lime Pie

Friends over for dinner last night. Stuffed mussels to start, then a super lamb stew with olive oil mashed potatoes and a couple bottles of Pinot Noir to complement, and then a spinach salad. Dessert was Key Lime pie with a twist: I added a cup of red raspberries to the bottom of the pie shell before pouring in the key lime mix and baking. They added a nice zing and it made a big hit.

1 cup lime juice (I like to use Santa Cruz organic lime juice -- best stuff around!)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks
few drops of green food dye (optional)
1 cup red raspberries (fresh or frozen)
1 9" honey graham cracker pie shell (I like to make my own)
350 degree oven with a sheet tray heating up in it

Mix first three ingredients in a bowl til blended, add dye if using and mix again. Disburse raspberries evenly in bottom of pie shell, gently pour over the pie mix (if you pour too quickly, the berries have a tendency to pop up to the top of the surface). Place pie in oven on preheated sheet (this helps to give a crisper crust), bake 35 to 45 minutes til surface looks like it is firming up. Remove from oven, let cool on a rack about 1/2 an hour, then chill in refrigerator for one hour. Decorate with whipped cream and enjoy!

A nice variation on this is to use lemon juice instead of lime, and blueberries in place of raspberries.

Super Bowl Menu / Wing Marinade

What's on your menu for the Super Bowl? Or, if you're reading this afterwards, what was your favorite Super Bowl dish? I'm doing chicken wings in a just-made-up marinade, Chinese-style ribs and BBQ ribs, and cole slaw. Here's the wing marinade -- I think it's going to be a good one!

Juice of one lime. Equal amount of olive oil. About 2 tblspns of honey. Maybe 1 tblspn soy sauce. And let's say 2 tspns each of garlic paste and chipotle powder. Shook it up, poured it over 2 lbs of wings, tossed them to mix, and now they're in the fridge for 3 or so hours, til they get roasted in a hot oven with occasional bastings of the marinade.

Enjoy the game and enjoy your eats!