Great Ideas Ripped Off From Schmancy Cookbooks, a.k.a Support Whirled (Wasabi) Peas
These are much better than Shake n Bake on chicken sections
After four days of not-very-solid food, I had a major hankering for Real Grown-Up Food again. However, I was still very groggy from post-pull meds, and didn't want to spend too much time preparing something. Also, I spent my convalesence reading a lot of "easy to loook at" books that I hadn't picked up in a while. One was from a set of artsy design-coffee-tableish books that I had received as a gift--a massive, egg-carton packaged collage-art book filled with almost impossibly fanciful recipes that was done by a set of artists who wanted a "concept cookbook."
One of the recipes was a multi-step fish concoction involving several different sauces, layers, and other things that would make it unsuitable for anything except a Very Important Date or Entertaining the In-Laws. However, one component got me thinking--the fish had been breaded not in bread crumbs or panko flakes before frying, but wasabi-coated roasted green peas, a very popular Japanese snack.
Now, one of my dietary standbys is roasted chicken parts--usually a pack of drumsticks and thighs, or just thighs. So, instead of using my usual breadcrumbs, sesame seed blend, or Gilly's toasted or raw spice rubs (you know, the ones I ran out of the he promised me he'd make me more of? HMMMMM????) I picked up a pack of wasabi peas. I also picked up some broccoli-rabe and set up some brown rice to soak--I don't think I'd eaten anything with fiber in it since the Big Pull.
So, as I warmed up the oven, I poked a few holes in the pea bag with a fork so that it wouldn't burst, and started in on it with a can of salmon. When this dented the can, I used my Cooking Brick (picked it up at a demolition site in Dumbo--a beauty from the DePew Brick Works; got it out of a demolition dumpster). I stopped when every pea was at least cracked, but left lots of different size pieces. I made a simple breading dip of one egg loosened up with milk, and made sure that I buttered the glass pan that I was using to bake the chicken in. One 8-oz bag of peas was plenty to coat a 6-pack of chicken thighs. My favorite method is to dump the breading item in a plastic bag, and do a sort of home-made Shake n Bake setup.
The results were wonderful--the pea bits did NOT turn to buckshot, but actually softened up a bit from the juices of the chicken (about 40 minutes at around 350 degrees F, uncovered). Note that the original fancy recipe called for pulverizing the peas in a blender, but I didn't want to get another appliance dirty, and the results were just fine.
I will repeat the experiment with fried fish and oven-baked fillets as well.
So, has anyone else here been inspired by a too-fancy recipe or restaurant idea, and been able to sucessfully downscale it for a Real Life Recipe? Tell us, and help continue the tradition of Random Food Posts on Gilly's Blog.
Oh yeah, and Gil, I have the empties from your two spice rubs cleaned and dried here--they're ready for a refill anytime. *grin*
posted by Jenonymous @ 12:30:00 AM
