My Favorite Comfort Food: September 2014

Anna's Hungarian Chicken

(makes 4-6 servings) requires an immersion blender, or other blender / food processor.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 red pepper, seeded and chopped (optional)
6 tomatoes, large on-the-vine preferred, cored and chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tablespoons paprika
2 bay leaves (must be removed prior to puree)
5-6 chicken thighs, or a whole chicken parted out, prefer skin on during cooking
1 tablespoons all-purpose flour
8 ounces sour cream

Directions

In a stew pot or dutch oven with lid, coat the bottom with olive oil.
Wash and chop veggies, and place in oiled stew pot with salt, pepper, paprika, and bay leaves.
Place chicken atop the chopped veggies. Washing optional, whatever's safe.
Cover and cook over medium heat for about 30-35 minutes. Do not open lid during cooking. Some yummy carmelization may occur, but shouldn't burn if using medium heat.
Check chicken for doneness, continue another few minutes if needed.
Remove from heat and allow to cool uncovered while preparing chicken.
Remove chicken and fillet, discarding skin, bones, fat, & cartilage. Bite-sized pieces of chicken are preferred. Cover and save.
Remove and discard bay leaves. VERY important!
Sprinkle 1 tbs flour over veggies for thickening.
With a standard blender/processor or immersion blender, puree the veggies until gravy-like.
Stir in 8oz of sour cream.
Add the chicken pieces back to the pan and coat with sauce.
Salt to taste, usually another 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon is needed.
Serve over white rice or egg noodles, topped with a little fresh parsley. Green peas are a perfect side dish.

Almost Bunyan's Hot Slaw copycat

Spicy Cole Slaw is a flavorful spicy-mustardy-vinegar-twang to accompany BBQ. I love it most as a topping for pulled pork sandwiches, but also enjoy it as a condiment with all kinds of BBQ, slaw dog / hot dogs, and whatever else you might put BBQ sauce on. Most people would not consider it a standalone side-dish like regular cole slaws.

This is the best copycat of Bunyan's BBQ hot slaw, but not quite the same. If I lived anywhere near Florence, Alabama, I'd still make the drive! Around 1979-80 I bagged groceries next door to Bunyan's BBQ at Wilson's Food Store, and became obsessed with their hot slaw. My first (awful) copycat attempts were in the mid-1990's, uploaded to my mindspring.com home page over the years. Most of the current recipe was in place in the mid-2000's, with only minor tweaks since.

Ingredients:

Slaw mix
2-3 cups - Grated green cabbage
2-3 Tbs - Grated or shoestring carrot

Sauce

1-2 Jalapeno pepper - grated or minced (pureed ok, but color turns green) no seeds, partial membrane
1/4 tsp - Paprika
1 tsp - Red cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp - Salt (prefer sea salt or kosher, not iodized)

1 Tsp - Hot sauce (optional) - Crystal/TexasPete preferred

1/4 cup - Sugar
1/4 cup - Ketchup
1/2 cup - Prepared yellow mustard (like French's)
1/4 cup - White vinegar (add last, stir-in)
1/4 cup - Apple cider vinegar (add last, stir-in)

1/4 cup - Water (add last, stir-in)

Directions:

1. Add sauce ingredients to a medium sized pot and mix well, stir in vinegar last to avoid clumping. Feel free to adjust the amount of spicy ingredients to a level of heat that you prefer. The jalapeno can also be swapped out for green pepper if you'd like a mild version. Go wild with hotter peppers, or maybe just include the jalapeno's seeds and membrane.
2. Heat up to just short of boiling while stirring occasionally. This will blend and bring out the flavor of the spices and jalapeno. Remove from heat and let cool a little while you grate the slaw mix.

3. Grate the cabbage and carrot, and save in a pint-size container, with a lid that can seal.
4. Pour warm sauce over the veggies and stir well. It may seem like there's not enough sauce for all the veggies, but once stirred well it should cover everything.

5. Cover and refrigerate a minimum of 24 hours, allowing time for the flavors to blend, soften and pickle the veggies, and generally thicken up. Even better to let it go for a few days.

Anna's Oyster Dressing

This recipe calls for cornbread, which is usually made in advance using the plain recipe from the side of the corn meal box.

The "loaf bread" mentioned is 1 cup of any regular sliced bread, definitely not a whole loaf of bread lol.

Cooking instructions: mix everything, bake for an hour at 350 degrees.

NOTE: This recipe is awesome without the oysters too (that's how I prefer it ;)

Audrey's Quick Pickled Cucumbers

These quick homemade pickles are easy, quick, and no boiling required. The biggest tricks are to get smaller "salad cucumbers", and peeling off just one or two thin strips of skin to allow cold vinegar to better penetrate the cukes. The more skin removed, the softer and more fully pickled the results. Mix and match spices, sweetness, whatever you prefer. Only takes about 5 minutes to throw together.

Ingredients:

6 small cucumbers (sometimes sold as "salad cucumbers")

10oz white vinegar

2oz water

1/2cup sugar

2tbs agave sweetener

1/4tsp salt

1/4tsp coriander seeds, slightly crushed

1/8tsp peppercorns

1/8tsp allspice

1/8tsp celery seed

2 whole cloves

4-5 crushed cardamom pods

Directions:

In a leftover 32oz pickle jar or similar, combine all ingredients except the cucumbers, cover and shake well to dissolve sugar and blend. The jar should be just under half full.

Wash cucumbers, and peel one or two thin strips of skin length-wise, before slicing the cucumber into chips. Cut thick chips, as they will soften up and shrink a bit. The thicker cut, and only removing a thin strip of peel, both help keep the pickles crunchier.

Stuff the jar with cucumber chips. If there's not enough room, a bit of brine might be lost, but a full-to-the-top jar is preferred. Put in the fridge overnite to fully pickle. They are good and snackable after just a couple of hours. For a while, the brine is still strong enough to add more cucumbers as you eat & make room in the jar.

Variations & Additions:

Mix and match spices

Sugar - more or less

Garlic

Peppers, pearl onions, other veggies

Habañero pepper slices for spicy pickles

BUTTERNUT SHRIMP BISQUE

Frank Brigtsen - Brigtsen's Restaurant

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients:

NOTE: To make shrimp stock, place shrimp heads and shells into a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain.3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups diced yellow onion
1 bay leaf
4 cups butternut squash (peeled, de-seeded, and diced into ½ - inch cubes)
2 cups peeled fresh shrimp
2 ¼ teaspoons salt
3/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper
½ cup shrimp stock (see NOTE)
6 cups heavy whipping cream

Directions:

Heat the butter in a heavy-duty saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and bay leaf and cook, stirring constantly, until the onions become soft and clear, 3-4 minutes.
Reduce heat to medium and add the butternut squash. Cook this mixture, stirring occasionally, until the squash begins to soften, 6-8 minutes.
Reduce heat to low and add the shrimp, salt, cayenne, and white pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp turn pink, 2-3 minutes.
Add the shrimp stock and cook, stirring occasionally, for 6-8 minutes. If the mixture begins to stick to the pan, scrape it with a spoon and continue cooking. This will intensify the flavor of the bisque.
Remove bay leaf and discard. Transfer the squash/shrimp mixture to a food processor and puree. Return the puree to a saucepan and add the cream. Whisk until thoroughly blended. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2-3 minutes.