Chicharrones (nee Pork Rinds)

Americans, it seems, are eating a dangerously small amount of pork rinds.* Damn shame.

Most of us would eat pillow stuffing if it was covered in bacon, then politely demand more. Seconds with bacon on top is the American way. But the very same patriots just won't eat pork rinds**. Probably because pork rinds are exactly what the name suggests they are.

fries

it's hot. let's fry some shit.

Nothing says every day in the life of an American quite like fries. Except maybe exploiting poor people. But I don't have a recipe for that, other than to say if you find yourself in the proximity of a poor person, see what you can get out of him.

Why would you spend time & make a mess frying something at home that you can buy at nearly every sit down restaurant or bar & with processed reliability at every fast food chain, you ask*. 

I don't have a good answer for that.

tex benedict

I never make time for breakfast.

Breakfast.

The one between brunch & last night's dinner. It lasts until 10:30. I mean, I eat breakfast (a little parfait here, a little granola there, waffles in the toaster, breakfast tacos in my mouth...). But I don't have a real one often enough. 

It's not that I don't have time. I have a shitload of time. Are you kidding? Machines and gadgets do almost everything for me, so I don't have to do any real work; it's ideal. *

And the stuff that the machines refuse to help with, I just have my servants do.** Like driving me around & typing this blog entry (asshole). I saw that. You're fired. Turn in your tuxedo and get the hell out of here.

But despite my abundance of convenience based spare time, I rarely have a proper sit-down breakfast.

When I do, it's exciting. And this was a good one. And filling. A take on eggs benedict, at least in the sense of stacking starch/meat/white sauce/poached egg. Represented here as tostada, breakfast hash, poblano cream, poached egg. A way-the-fuck out there re-imagining of eggs benedict, I guess.

I licked the plate, smashed it on the ground in approval, had the staff pick up after me, tuck me into bed & then a solid 7 hour nap before polo in the evening. On youtube.

Note: I made this with a grilled corn relish in between the egg and hash. It was tasty, sweet from the corn & colorful. Also completely superfluous. I made it for something else and needed to get rid of it. It's an ear of grilled corn, a couple tbsp picante sauce and about a tbsp of cotija cheese.

Tex Benedict

(1)

for the tostada:

2 tostadas from fiesta (which you have to re-heat in the oven) or 2 fried tortillas (fry a tortilla in 1/2 inch of oil until crispy, drain on paper towel, repeat)

the hash:

1/4 lb breakfast sausage, crumbled

1 small potato

1 piece of bacon, cut into small pieces

about 1/8 of an onion. You heard me right, 1/8.

Tbsp bacon grease that you should be keeping in your fridge

spices: chili powder, cumin, mexican oregano

poblano cream (adapted from Steven Pyles Ancho Cream:

grilled or roasted poblano

couple tbsp milk

1/3 - 1/2 cup mexican sour cream or regular sour cream.

In a skillet, cook the all of the hash ingredients on medium-ish until brown and cooked through. 15 minutes or so. Try not to flip it so much, so it'll get a nice crust. Also, bacon cooks s,lower, so nuking the pieces for 30 seconds, to give it a head start, is a good idea.

Blend the milk & poblano in a food processor*** until smooth. It takes a couple of minutes.

Press poblano-milk mixture through a fine strainer or sieve into the cream. 

Fold the milk & poblano mixture into the cream. The cream is runny & you want it to kinda stay that way-- mix it together gently, so you don't add more air to the mixture.

When this is done and you have warmed tostadas, poach your egg.

Layer thusly: tostada, hash, poblano cream, tostada, hash, poblano cream, poached egg. Garnish as if it was your last day on earth. Go to town.

*They even keep me entertained 100% of the time I'm awake. Me bored -- the stimulus my mind gets when I'm bored as shit -- would have been the most exciting day in someone's life in the 1700's. I do not envy you, forefather.

**that's right: servants. It's like downton fuckin' abbey in my apartment.

***I have one of these, which changed my life.

comfort food (or food to listen to appetite for destruction to)

i hope you like fried chicken and guns n' roses. read on.

There are entries in our culinary lexicon, like foodie and comfort food that make me want to punch a baby penguin*. Foodie (cringe)? Really, you like food huh? Cool. I'm really big into breathing air. That's my thing: air. A need isn't a hobby. That's just being lazy (also not a hobby). And comfort food? Comfortable how? Comfortable like farting in front of your significant other? Comfortable like wade boggs settling in for a cross country flight? I don't need my food adjectives to evoke belucosity or the ballplayers of my youth tying one on**. Nevermind that comfort food is actually the gateway to discomfort (who doesn't overdo it?), it just sounds weird to me. Like calling food "fun". Why would you need to eat fun? You don't go to a picture show because you're hungry. And your stomach doesn't go "look, I'm really empty here and everything, but could you play that shake your ass song by Mystikal? I'm just looking for a good time." Dumb.

Whatever. That said, comfort food totally rules.

Yes, the term is a little twee***. It's also evocative & I get it. I'm thinking warm, filling, not-too-challenging to the palate stuff. Kids' stuff. Stuff that takes you back. Like Appetite for Destruction or whatever album you grew up on. Yes indeed, Appetite is the comfort food of sounds (honorable mention) & not a certain later GnR offering.****

In fact, where are you Weird Al? Appetite lays the perfect framework for a concept food parody album (appetite for consumption?):

maybe it's just the knife, but i'm comforted

Welcome to the Jungle-- Welcome to My Mouth Hole

Out to Get Me-- Out to Get Beef

Mr Brownstone-- Mr Brown..fuck...uhhh... pone… I don't know. Work in progress.

Think About You--Think About Food

Rocket Queen-- Refried Bean
(here's a haaaaam/and you're a refried bean/ooooh yeeeaaah…)

This stuff practically writes itself. Anyway, here's some food so comfortable you'll swear there's a Barcalounger in your mouth.

Notes: this is a bit of a rerun, as I already covered fried chicken. Ignore the old recipe. This is far far superior & I will always do it this way from now on. The combination of the buttermilk marinade & spiking the flour mixture with a bit of corn starch (thank you korean fried chicken for giving me that idea) gives the chicken a perfect, crispy, slightly crunchy crust. Plus pan frying in the cast iron is simple. Lastly, I had steamed broccoli and mac 'n' cheese with this. I can't do MnC better than the stuff from the box, so no recipe there. And the broccoli... steam it for 10 minutes. chop it up. end of recipe.



Pan fried chicken
(so comforting I ate it all. It's the equivalent of 10 chicken wings)

5 chicken wings (not the "wing" and drumette, the full-on wingage)*****
1 cup flour
1/4 cup corn starch
Oil for frying

for marinade:
1/2 pint buttermilk
seasoning (I used cumin, paprika, garlic powder)
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp hot sauce or to taste


mix together the marinade ingredients. pour marinade in a freezer bag with the chicken and toss to coat the chicken. refrigerate several hours.

stare vacuously at the ground.

mix the corn starch and flour in a bowl. take the chicken pieces out of the marinade, shaking excess off, & drop them in the bowl. toss to coat.

let the chicken stay out until it gets kind of a gluey sticky exterior. this is the buttermilk bonding with the flour & starch & is what's going to give you that great crust.

pour oil about half way up in a cast iron skillet & heat it to about medium, maybe a little less. do it slowly. If you get cast iron too hot, you'll have smoking oil and a pan that wants to stay too hot.

fry the pieces for about 20 minutes, flipping and rotating once, midway through. they should be brown and basically cooked through.

turn the heat to med-hi. fry 3-5 more minutes, flipping the pieces. This is just to get them super crispy. they'll look browner after being out of the oil a few minutes, so don't overdo it.

drain on paper towels, dust with salt, let the pieces rest a few minutes & enjoy.


 *not really. I usually think seafaring birds are bullshit (Because they are. What are you doing? Ever heard "it's for the birds"? They're not talking about swimming.), but come on…. look at these little bastards! I might even smuggle one home from a a zoo, only to realize later that raising a penguin is harder, less sitcom-ish than I thought & then abandon it in a field where it will be free.
**but I do like wade boggs getting hammered memes. also, Boggsy is purported to have eaten fried chicken before every game. No wonder he's in the Hall of Fame!
***kinda like the term "twee". I had to do the right thing and punch myself in the stomach after I wrote that.
****it's sure as fuck not Chinese Democracy. You took it too far Axl, especially when you ate Van Morrison and took to wearing his skin as a raincoat.
*****keeping the wing whole allows you to have sort of a chicken wing kebab. The chicken's wing provides the familiar drumette & "wing" you get with buffalo wings. This simply keeps it in tact, plus the wing tip acts as a little fried handle.