Mushroom Stock and Chicken Curry

Alright so I know I've been promising to post the mushroom stock.  Well, the good news...I made it tonight...the bad news...I forgot to take pictures.  I know.  I'm a horrible person, and I made a mistake.  But you see, tonight I was also put in charge of making Indian food for 10 people, and that made me forget about the process of documenting everything.  I ended up making a chicken curry with rice, pretty basic but it fed everyone, and they seemed to enjoy it.  I would have liked to have gone a little more elaborate with it - I was hoping to do something with lamb, and maybe make some naan bread - but with work and an expectantly busy week, it just didn't happen.  So we made due with chicken curry (recipe follows).

Keep note this is for 10-12 people.  You would probably want to half it.

• 4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cooking oil
• 3 cups chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
• 2 tablespoons curry powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 (15 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
• 2 cups plain yogurt
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup water
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1. Sprinkle the chicken breasts with salt. 
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat; partially cook the chicken in the hot oil in batches until completely browned. Transfer the browned chicken breasts to a plate and set aside.
3. Reduce the heat under the skillet to medium-high; add the onion, garlic, and ginger to the oil remaining in the skillet and cook and stir until the onion turns translucent, about 8 minutes. Stir the curry powder, cumin, turmeric, coriander, cayenne, and 2 tablespoons of water into the onion mixture; allow to heat together for about 1 minute while stirring. Mix the tomatoes, yogurt, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, and 2 teaspoons salt into the mixture. Return the chicken breast to the skillet along with any juices on the plate. Pour 1 cup water into the mixture; bring to a boil, turning the chicken to coat with the sauce. Sprinkle the garam masala and 2 tablespoons cilantro over the chicken.
4. Cover the skillet and simmer until the chicken breasts are no longer pink in the center and the juices run clear, about 20 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C). Sprinkle with lemon juice to serve.

 (Recipe found here.)

Everyone seemed to enjoy it, so I guess I can't complain.  My roommate Mitchell managed to snap a few shots as I was cooking it.

That was alot of chicken.

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So on to the mushroom stock.  The recipe calls for 1lb of mushrooms (any type), carrots, leeks, onions, parsley, and thyme.  It is made very similarly to the vegetable stock.  All the vegetables are cut up, put in a food processor, then to a stock pot where they are softened with a little oil.  Then simmered in water for about 45 minutes.

What's different about this stock is that after the first simmer, the solids are drained as before, and the stock is set aside.  Then the solids are returned to the pot and simmered again in new water.  After that is strained, both of the stocks are combined, boiled, and reduced down to only 3 cups.  It seems like alot of work for so little, but hopefully it will be worth it.

So sorry about the lack of details and pictures in this post.  I'll try to do better in the future.  And if you need a new meal to try, cook the curry recipe, it is pretty good.

Coming up soon...gnocchi!

Vegetable Stock and a Quick Dinner

Many of the recipes within The French Laundry, Bouchon, and Ad Hoc all feature several different types of stocks: vegetable stock, mushroom stock, chicken stock, veal stock, etc.  Most of these stocks take quite a while to make, so it's a good idea to make quite a bit and store it.  Stock keeps for a long time in the freezer.

Tonight I started off with vegetable stock, and tomorrow I will be making the mushroom stock.  The veal stock will hopefully follow, assuming I can find 10 lbs. of veal bones and buy a 16 quart stock pot (I used an 8 quart for the vegetable stock).

So before I started on the vegetable stock, I made a quick dinner.  I hate cooking on an empty stomach, and usually am eating on something whenever I am in the process of working on a big meal or time consuming dish.  I find I make less errors by rushing to get things done if I already have food in my stomach.

I made a quick pasta with mushrooms and herbs, nothing too elaborate.

I started with mushrooms, onions, thyme, and parsley.

I sauteed the onions and mushrooms for a little while in butter, then added some red wine and reduced that for a bit with the herbs, and came out pretty good.  This is a simple, easy meal that takes no more than 15-20 minutes to prepare.

Not too crazy or anything, just a simple meal.

On to the stock.  Keller uses leeks, fennel bulb, onions, carrots, thyme, parsley, and bay leaves in his vegetable stock recipe.

First you coarsely chop up the vegetables.  The cuts on these don't have to be precise because they are going into a food processor in a minute.

I do like to have bowls handy for my ingredients when I can.  It just makes things alot easier.

After chopping them up in a food processor, they go into the stock pot with a little oil to soften them up.

After they are softened, the herbs and bay leaves are added, along with several quarts of water.

This is brought to a simmer, and then simmered for about 45 minutes. When you are working with this much liquid, it can take a while to bring it up to a simmer.  Don't lose patience.  It took me about a half hour to get it to a simmer.

Afterwards, the stock is strained through a chinois strainer (not to be confused with a China cap strainer, which is conical shaped), and frozen.

This recipe yielded about 3 quarts of stock, after the loss of liquid due to evaporation and skimming.

And speaking of skimming, it's always a good idea to skim stocks.  Keller is pretty adamant about it, and says to skim often.  And this is why:

That's about 2 cups work of nastiness I skimmed off the top.  It's nearly opaque.  And keep in mind, that's all from vegetables.  I can't wait to see the fun stuff I'll get to skim off the veal stock.

So that's it for today.  Coming up next....mushroom stock, and beyond...

A question for anyone reading this..

Due to the nature of the recipes contained within The French Laundry and Bouchon, I will most likely be limited to one per week, at least until I can get most of the stocks and supporting recipes done.  Therefore, if anyone is interested, I can start posting during the week with other recipes, some out of different cookbooks, and some of my own.  I can try to be detailed with the process of cooking these so that others can learn the techniques and try new recipes.


Feel free to comment and let me know what you think, as I would love to have feedback regarding this.


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Look for my next post either later today or tomorrow, in which I will make the vegetable and mushroom stocks from The French Laundry.  Later this week I will do the gnocchi recipe, and following that, possibly early next week, will be the first full dish out of the French Laundry, Red Mullet with a Pallete d'Ail Doux and Garlic Chips.  I might also fit in the blueberry cobbler recipe from Ad Hoc sometime in between.

It begins...Simple Roast Chicken

I love food.  Not just eating it, but the process of turning raw ingredients into something that can be enjoyed.  It's a sense of accomplishment to create something that can be enjoyed not only by yourself, but by others.  It's just an added bonus that it can taste great as well.

I've been cooking since I was rather young.  I still remember the first thing I cooked (with my mom's help) when I was roughly 5-6 years old.  I made "Mexican pizzas" out of Mexican cookbook my mom had (they were actually tostadas).  I remember at that time being so happy to be able to serve the rest of the family those tostadas.

Since then I have been in and out of the kitchen over the years, sometimes going through periods where I spent alot of time trying out new recipes and working to develop my own, and others just sitting back and consuming rather than creating, which seemed to be most of my high school years.

Once in college, without my mom around to prepare meals for me, I ended up back in the kitchen.  I became tired of the cafeteria food that was served on campus, and in the interest of both saving money by not eating out, and being able eat food that had some semblance to the meals I was used to eating back home, I took to the kitchen once more.  The food I created during that time was whatever I could cook in my spare time that reminded me of home, while also delving into more ethnic cuisines.

Since that time, I have really grown to love the whole process of cooking, and to appreciate the ingredients that go into a quality meal.  This is what led me to The French Laundry and Bouchon cookbooks.  Both books are based upon restaurants owned by Thomas Keller, who has become one of the top chefs in America.  His restaurants are constantly winning awards, and The French Laundry has been ranked #1 in the world for several years.

My goal is to bring my cooking skills up to a new level by attempting to cook my way through both of these books, while at the same time, using the techniques taught within them in my own recipes.  I expect some of these recipes to be pretty difficult, so I might have to try them a few times to get them right.  I hope that by following me through this that you will be inspired to try new recipes and bring your own cooking up to the next level.  Don't be afraid to try something new.  It's just food.

Also, for those who might be wondering.... sel gris is French gray salt, which Keller uses in quite a few recipes.  I thought it might be a decent name for the blog.


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Simple Roast Chicken

I'm starting off by cooking the very first recipe in Bouchon, entitled "My Favorite Simple Roast Chicken".  Keller is a big fan of roast chicken, and has a number of roast chicken recipes in his books.

The recipe calls for a 2-3 pound chicken, which I had a hard time locating in the grocery stores around here.  Luckily, I was able to get a 2.84 pound bird from a butcher, which is what I will be using in this recipe.

The simple roast chicken is exactly that...very, very simple.  The chicken is rinsed, dried, seasoned with kosher salt and black pepper, trussed, and roasted in the oven for just under an hour.  Afterwards, it is basted in its own juices and some fresh thyme, which I luckily had quite a bit of.

Here's the bird before going in the oven.  Please ignore the trussing, my trussing skills aren't really up to par.  Not that it's difficult to begin with, I just don't do it enough.

The bird had a bit of a lean to it that I didn't notice when I bought it, so it looks a little weird when trussed.

And here it is fresh out of the oven after I added thyme to the juices and then basted it and let it sit.

And here being enjoyed by Mike, my roommate/taste tester. 

Notice there's not much meat left on there.  It was very good, and cooked up nice, juicy and tender.

I also want to note: total cost for this recipe, not including the fresh thyme I had in my fridge: $3.75.  Just shows that you CAN eat well, and cheap.

So that's it for my first post.  If you have any comments/suggestions, feel free to let me know.

One recipe down...many more to go.  Stay tuned.