Med Chicken

  • 6 boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 1 3/4 pounds)
  • 6 garlic cloves, grated on a Microplane or minced
  • Juice and zest of 2 lemons
  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, more for serving
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley, more for serving
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh mint
  • 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
  • 1 tablespoon minced fresh oregano or marjoram
  • 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, more as needed
  • 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, more for garnish (optional)
  • ¾ teaspoon sumac, more for garnish (optional)
  • cup plain Greek yogurt, preferably whole milk yogurt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  1. Combine chicken with all but 1 teaspoon of the grated garlic (save that teaspoon for the yogurt sauce), the zest and juice of 1 lemon, oil, parsley, mint, thyme, oregano, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and the sesame seeds and sumac, if using. Cover and marinate for 15 to 30 minutes at room temperature; you can refrigerate it for up to 24 hours.
  2. Heat grill or broiler. If grilling, cook chicken over high heat until charred in spots, 4 to 7 minutes. Flip pieces and continue grilling until just cooked through, another 4 to 7 minutes. If broiling, arrange a rack 3 to 4 inches from flame. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and spread chicken out in a single layer. Broil chicken, turning halfway through cooking, until well colored and charred in spots, 4 to 7 minutes per side.
  3. While chicken cooks, place yogurt in a small bowl. Stir in the reserved grated garlic and lemon zest and season to taste with salt. Serve the chicken drizzled with olive oil, remaining lemon juice to taste, black pepper, parsley and sesame seeds and sumac, if using, with the yogurt alongside for dipping.

Sea Bass

epic found on somethingnewfordinner.com

Great for any white fish, but especially an oily bad ass fish like SB

Ingredients

  • ¾ cup white wine
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 1/2 medium shallot, very finely chopped
  • 2 T fresh lemon juice
  • zest of one lemon
  • 3 T unsalted butter
  • 2 T fresh dill, chopped
  • 2 T capers, drained
  • 2 T grape seed oil, or other hot oil
  • 2 pounds Chilean sea bass filets about 1½”
  • Salt
  • Pepper

 

Instructions
  1. Pre heat oven to 450 degrees. Put wine, garlic, shallot, lemon juice and lemon zest in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Continue cooking until liquid is reduced to about ⅓ cup. Reduce heat to low and whisk in 1 tablespoon of butter at a time. Remove from heat and stir in 1 T dill and capers. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
  2. Heat an oven proof skillet on high and add grapeseed oil to the pan. Heat the oil until it starts to shimmer. Dry the sea bass thoroughly and season with salt and pepper. Sear the fillets for about 3 minutes on each side, turning once. The goal is to get a crispy golden crust on each side.
  3. Remove the pan from the stove and transfer to the hot oven. Roast for about 5 minutes in the oven until sea bass is just cooked through.
  4. Plate the fish, drizzle with sauce and sprinkle with remaining 1 T fresh dill.

Chili

First stab at a work in progress.

ingredients:

  • 1.5 lb ground beef
  • 1 giant sierra nevada
  • 2 onions
  • Garlic
  • 3 stalks of celery
  • 1 Red bell pepper
  • 1 fresh japaleno
  • 4 anaheim chilis
  • 1 can kidney beans
  • 1 can black beans
  • 1 27 oz can of whole tomatoes
  • 1 can of tomato sauce
  • Cumin
  • Salt
  • Chili Powder
  • Celery salt
  1. Saute onions for several minutes
  2. Add ground beef and garlic and saute….
  3. Separately saute fresh jalapeno, red bell
  4. Saute until nice… use celery salt to flavor
  5. Combine the two pans
  6. cook a bit longer and spice up with 1/4 cup chili powder and 1 tbsp cumin
  7. Put in crock pot
  8. Add  beans (drained and rinsed) tomato sauce and whole big can of tomatoes crushing them with hands as you add
  9. Roast Anaheims, peel skin… chop and add
  10. Add half of giant beer (or a whole regular beer)
  11. cook for 6 hrs… lets see what happens

Milks Stroganoff

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound filet mignon or mignon tips (cut into 2 inch long and 1/4 inch wide)
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 pound mushrooms, caps only thinly sliced
  • 3/4 cup beef broth
  • 1 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 3/4+ cup sour cream
  • 2+ teaspoons flour (eyeball it)
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh dill
  • 2 tablespoons minced parsley
  • Salt and freshly grounded black pepper
  • A couple shots of Sherry or dry vermouth
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 8 -10 ounces medium egg noodles, cooked al dente
  1. Heat large non-stick skillet over high heat and sear meat on all sides, for about a minute. Work in small batches so meat does not give off liquid. Do not use oil etc. Remove to a plate.
  2. Cool the meat skillet slightly and deglaze it w a couple shots of sherry or dry vermouth to bring up all the love.
  3. Add butter to meat love skillet, stir it up. Add onions and sauté, after a bit add mushrooms and garlic and sauté until deep golden, about 15 minutes or longer.
  4. While this is all going on blend broth, mustard, heavy whipping cream and sour cream in a separate saucepan and bring to simmer.
  5. Lower heat, add flour and cook stirring for a minute to thicken
  6. Whisk the gravy and any meat juices slowly into the veggie pan, simmer, without boiling until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes.
  7. Add meat to sauce and heat, without boiling until meat is warmed through. Season to taste with salt and pepper; stir in dill and parsley and spoon over noodles.

Do’s: make extra sauce

Don’ts: overcook meat

The Duncan

 

This is a different take on the Boardwalk Martini, an evolution if you will. A major shout out to the lovely and talented Liz for taking it to the next level in a feat of cataclysmic creativity.

Ingredients for two Martini’s:

  • Boyd and Blair Potato Vodka. A small batch “craft” vodka.
  • Dry Vermouth in a mister (no mister, no deal)
  • Lemon
  • Crushed Ice
  • Regular Ice
  • Frosted Martini Glasses….(another deal breaker if they aren’t frosted)
  • Toothpicks
  • Citrus Stripper
  1. Fill bottom half of martini shaker with regular ice cubes.
  2. Add 5 ounces Boyd and Blair to your shaker.
  3. Remove frosted Martini glasses from ice box.
  4. Spray the frozen glasses inside and out with light vermouth spray (it sticks to the frozen glass)
  5. Use the stripper to get lemon peel into glass. Ideally you will do the stripping near the glass so you get the lemon zest on the inside of the glass
  6. Drop lemon peel in glass
  7. Shake the shaker 5-7 times, don’t over shake, you will water down the spirit.
  8. Add crushed ice to the shaker….don’t shake…huge upside, it gives you shards…
  9. Pour into the two glasses over the lemon peel
  10. LET IT SIT. for 5-10 minutes, yes LET IT SIT
  11. Congratulate yourself on what a pompous ass you are for making such a perfect duncan
  12. Enjoy.

 

Snapper

Grilled Red Snapper and Mango with Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette

6 tablespoons olive oil (1/2 lime oil and 1/2 reg)

5 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 1/2 teaspoons grated lime peel

4 5- to 6-ounce red snapper fillets

1 large mango, peeled, cut into thick wedges

3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds

8 large buttercup lettuce leaves

Prepare barbecue (medium heat). Whisk oil, 4 tablespoons cilantro, lime juice, and lime peel in small bowl. Season vinaigrette with salt and pepper. Brush all sides of fish and mango with some of vinaigrette. Reserve remaining vinaigrette. Sprinkle fish and mango with salt, pepper, and cumin seeds. Grill fish without turning until fish is just opaque in center and mango is soft and beginning to brown, about 6 minutes.

Top lettuce cups with fish and mango. Drizzle with remaining vinaigrette. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro.

Tamales (WIP/Phase I)

This breaks out in 6 very distinct phases.

  1. Meat preparation
  2. Chile preparation
  3. Husk preparation
  4. Masa preparation
  5. Production
  6. Cooking

Brisket:

Ingredients:

  1. 4 heads of garlic
  2. Large crab pot
  3. 22 lbs of Brisket w fat remaining
  4. Ladle of salt

Brisket Prep:

  1. Cut the brisket into baseball size chunks
  2. Add brisket and garlic to crab pot in garage or outside
  3. Add cold water to the crab pot to 3/4 full
  4. Bring to a boil and add salt
  5. Once boiling, skim the yukkiness repeatedly as it comes to the surface, this will go on for 10-15 minutes until the foam becomes less murky
  6. Boil on high for 15 minutes
  7. Reduce heat and boil for another hour and 45
  8. Take out of water and shred by hand while still hot (forks)
  9. Set aside

Chile prep:

Ingredients

  1. 1 lb new mexico dried chile peppers
  2. 20% of broth from the brisket (u will use the other 80% for the masa)
  3. Lard
  4. Flour

Process (epic)

  1. While someone is hand shredding the beef, clean the chile peppers by rinsing and taking the tops off. Keep the seeds etc inside.
  2. Remove about 80% of the broth from the large crab pot.
  3. Bring broth in crab pot to a boil again (it was off)
  4. Once broth is boiling, stir all of the whole cleaned chile’s into the crab pot broth.
  5. Cover
  6. Boil on high covered for 5+ minutes
  7. Turn off and let sit in covered hot crab pot for 15 minutes
  8. Ladle the cooked chili out into a separate large pot.
  9. Using a blender, blend the chile and some of the broth to the consistency of canned tomato sauce. Blend it all and set aside.
  10. Now to fry the chile sauce. Put a large ladle of lard in a very large pan, (we used electric roaster oven) add a half ladle of flour… yeah are you fukin kidding me. It keeps getting better.
  11. Separately heat the spicy broth (see pic for amt)
  12. Once the lard and flour are combined and hot, add chile sauce and fry. (we are frying the chile sauce so that it binds better with the brisket)
  13. Add the spicy broth into the chile sauce you are frying to make it into a consistency between whole milk and half n half.
  14. At ideal consistency, bring to a slight simmer and start to add the brisket. Add broth and chile as necessary based on volume so that its all coated perfectly.
  15. Simmer for a while to bring the flavors into the meat, 10-15 while stirring
  16. Side note: fresh chile doesnt make your tamales (or anything) too red
  17. Set aside overnight for tomorrow we make the tamales.

Prepping the husks:

Choose high quality husks that are not too dry.

  1. Separate the larger usable husks from the chaffe.
  2. Clean the husks and separate into piles. Bad, good small and good large. Good large is what you want to use. The good small pile is for doubling up for a single tamale.
  3. Soak the husks for 20-30 minutes in warm or hot water. This softens them
  4. Drip dry them, they will not be totally dry.. on purpose.

Simple Grilled Sea Bass

A simple way to season and serve grilled sea bass. We used the leaner local stuff, not the super oily chilean stuff.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • lemon pepper to taste
  • sea salt to taste
  • 1.5 – 2 pounds sea bass
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 2 large cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 tablespoon finely chopped Italian flat leaf parsley

Process:

  1. Mix the spices in a bowl and spread evenly over towel dried sea bass
  2. Grill the sea bass on a very hot, well oiled grill for approx 6 mins each side.
  3. While grilling, melt the butter in w the chopped parsley and garlic over very low heat
    1. When butter is finished, hit it w a little kosher salt.
  4. Spoon butter over seabass on served plates.

Do’s: WIP..not sure yet

Dont’s: WIP..not sure yet

Classic Top Shelf Margarita

The simplest of drinks that is the victim of too much cuteness at most bars. The key as always is to keep it to the simple ingredients and to use quality tequila.  Never add agave syrup, which is just simple syrup. Most bars, even good ones default to using it. It kills the drink. Order a skinny if you have to, a skinny is just a margarita. 

Ingredients:

  • Don Julio 70
  • Naranja Orange Liqueur
  • Limes
  • Large flake Margarita Salt or Tajin mixed with salt
  • Ice
  • Rocks glass
  1. Cut a lime half wise and then put a slit in it. Use the slit to run across the entire rim.
  2. Dip the wet rim in Margarita (large flake) salt
  3. Fill rocks glass w ice above rim. The glass is important, this recipe size fits perfectly
  4. Squeeze 1/2 to 1 lime on ice. Depending on juiciness, usually it’s not a whole.
  5. Add 1.5 oz of Tequila (maybe a touch more)
  6. Add .25 oz of Naranja
  7. Stir, this will drop the ice level, refill with ice to over the top
  8. On the beach, the ice starts melting by the time the drink gets to you. You can recreate this by adding one or two ounces of room temp water.
  9. CRITICAL: always customize for your guests. You do this once for each and you know their tastes. Naranja is quite hardy so every little bit counts.

Do:

  • Overfill w ice and stir the ice when done. This salts the drink and gives it a touch of water from the melting ice, creating a refreshing, not tart drink.
  • Use good cocktail ice, the cracked stuff if you can find it.

Do not:

  • Use bad tequila, treat it like a Martini. 
  • Use triple sec.