Rick's Paprika Chicken

Sometime on the proverbial “cold winter’s night” you may want to cook this for your family and/or friends. It’s about as easy as it gets, and no one ever complains.

I have several versions of chicken paprikash, (mushrooms are great in it) but this is the simplest.

 Ingredients:

 2 TBS canola oil

1 TBS unsalted butter

4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs

2 yellow onions, sliced thin

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 TBS good paprika (You know, that good Hungarian kind in the red can. I use mostly sweet with a few dashes of hot. Adjust to your taste.)

1 14 oz. good chopped or diced canned tomatoes

1 cup good chicken stock

½ cup of sour cream

Salt and pepper

 Recipe

Heat your oil and butter in a wide pan (with a lid for later) over medium high heat until it foams. Wipe your chicken pieces with a paper towel so they will brown. Season them generously with salt and pepper. Put them in the pan and brown them on both sides, adjusting your heat so they brown but don’t burn.

When nicely brown remove them to a plate, turn the heat down to medium low and put your onions in the pan, and stir. When they are getting light brown (about 4 minutes) toss in the garlic and stir for a minute or two.

Add the paprika and flour and stir into the onion/garlic mixture until they are well blended. Cook and stir until for a few minutes to get the floury taste out. But don’t burn it!

Add the stock and tomatoes and stir. It should thicken up. If it is too thick add a little more stock. When it is bubbling nicely put the chicken pieces back in the pan, turn the heat down to a gentle simmer, put the lid on it, and time it for 30 minutes, turning the pieces at half-time.

When the timer goes if the sauce is thin (it most likely won’t be) remove the chicken and simmer the sauce down. If it is too thick add some more stock.

Adding the sour cream is a bit tricky because it can curdle, but I know you can do it! Here’s what to do. Put the sour cream in a small bowl, and add some of the hot sauce to it a little bit at a time, and whisk it in. Keep adding small amounts and whisk. Then add it to pan with the sauce and stir. This should keep the sour cream from curdling.

Serve over buttered wide egg noodles, with a salad or the green vegetable of your choice. Add a sturdy (but not austere) red wine with some fruit to it, and you will be in comfort food land. Enjoy!

(Photos by R.L. Floyd. 2016)

Rick's Blackened Red Snapper

The late great Paul Prudhomme, who died last year, brought Cajun cookery to national attention with his 1984 classic Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen. His most iconic recipe was “blackened redfish.” Redfish was a humble fish that suddenly was in high demand. His recipe called for scorching high heat. I made it several times and it was delicious, but set off the fire alarms.

I bought some beautiful Red Snapper today from my friend Mike Mazzeo at Guido’s Marketplace and wondered how to cook it without smoking up the kitchen.

After some research I found a kinder, gentler version of Prudhomme’s recipe on-line from Mario Batali using the Red Snapper, which is a really great fish no matter how you make it.

So I made it tonight with a few of my own tweaks and it came out great, and didn’t set off the fire alarms. I have an ancient 10-inch cast iron skillet, which works like a charm. Once you make the spice mixture, the rest is just keeping an eye on the heat of your pan.

If you don’t like hot and spicy food this one is probably not for you (though if you substitute more Paprika for the Cayenne you can make it less hot.) This recipe is for two, but can be doubled by doing more batches. Add more oil and butter before starting a new batch.

Cajun Seasoning Mixture:

1 Tablespoon Kosher Salt
1 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
1 Teaspoon Ground White Pepper
1 Teaspoon Paprika (I used Smoked Paprika because I love it)
1 Teaspoon Onion Powder
1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
1 Teaspoon Dried Thyme
1 Teaspoon Dried Oregano

2 6-8 ounce fresh Red Snapper fillets about ½ inch to ¾ inch thick.

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil.
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter.

Heat a cast iron pan over medium high heat until it is hot and add the oil and butter. When the butter foams, dredge the fish fillets in the spice mixture and put them in the pan skin side down.

Cook for five minutes. Turn the fish and cook for another minute.

Remove and serve with lemon wedges.

(Photo: R.L. Floyd, 2016)

Grilled Hoisin Sauce/lime juice/Sambal Olek marinated shrimp

We often grill shrimp in the summer for a quick dinner. I have no single recipe, but many of my variations utilize the wonderful fresh flavors of Asia.

Here’s a marinade that people seem to enjoy:

1 TBS Hoisin Sauce

Juice of ½ of a lime

1 TSP hot pepper sauce. I like Sambal Olek or Sriracha sauce, but you can use Tabasco or Franks’s

1 TSP peanut oil

1 TSP sesame oil

1 TSP good soy sauce

Whisk it all together and marinate your cleaned and deveined shrimp for no more than a half an hour.

Thread the shrimp on skewers.

Prepare a hot fire. Cook the shrimp 3 or 4 minutes to a side.

Serve over rice or (as in this photo) lovely cold sesame noodles.

(Photo: R. L. Floyd, 2016)

Rick's Shrimp and Sweet Pea Risotto

Risotto is a nice change from pasta, and it is not hard to make if you are attentive during the half hour or so you need to watch and stir the rice. For special events we make a rich and decadent Risotto ala Milanese with our Osso Bucco.  This recipe is a bit of a lighter tweak on that, without the Parmesan cheese and extra butter. If you use  frozen shrimp and peas  this can be pulled out of the larder, and you can make it in under an hour on a weeknight. And it is very good!

Ingredients

2 TBS unsalted butter

1 medium onion minced

1 cup short-grained rice (such as Arborio)

5 cups water

1 celery stalk, broken in pieces

1 carrot, broken in pieces

2 parsley sprigs

½ cup dry white wine

¾ cup thawed frozen peas at room temperature

12 jumbo or extra large raw shrimp

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

¼ tsp crushed saffron threads

Salt and pepper

Recipe

You start this recipe by making a shrimp stock from the shells. Get your water simmering in a small saucepan, and add the carrots, celery (no need to peel them), parsley, and about a third of the onion, and as you shell (and if necessary) devein the shrimp add the shells to the pot. You want to keep this just bubbling on the back of the stove. Put the shelled shrimp in the fridge.

Go have a glass of wine and listen to jazz for 30 minutes while the stock gets happy. When you begin to smell it come back into the kitchen  and check it. When it seems nicely aromatic strain the stock mixture into another saucepan. Add the paprika and saffron to it and keep the stock at a low simmer near where you are going to cook the rice.

Start melting the butter in (yes another) medium saucepan over medium heat. When it is bubbling add the minced onion and stir for 3-5 minutes until it softens. Add the rice and stir until all of it is coated with butter. Add salt and pepper. Add the wine and stir until it is all evaporated.

Now the fun begins. Start adding the stock to the rice in ½ cup increments (I use a ladle) about every minute or so, and stir, keeping the temperature at medium to medium high. The rice will start absorbing the stock. You don’t have to stir every second, but you better be right there and keep an eye on it, so it doesn’t scorch.

When you have used about half the stock, turn the heat up, take the shrimp out of the fridge and drop them in the  simmering stock to poach them for a minute or two, and then remove them with a slotted spoon to a plate. Don’t neglect your stock-pouring and stirring duties.

You may not have to use all the stock, but as the rice starts to get soft and creamy start tasting and when it is almost al dente add the peas and the shrimp and stir to finish the dish.

Add more salt and pepper to taste if need and serve.

A dry white wine and some crusty bread will round this out. Add a salad if you must. This  is gluten free. Serves four.

(Photo: R. L. Floyd 2016)