Chicken vindaloo, a Portu-Indian favorite. Mine is slightly untraditional, but generally easier to make if you don’t have an Indo-Asian food store to buy some of the more traditional ingredients in. This recipe has been refined over about 12 years, and is one of my oldest loves.

3 lbs chicken (I prefer boneless, skinless breasts)
1 onion (chopped fine)
2 tomatoes (chopped well)
8-10 new potatoes (a rough pound)
1/4 cup vinegar
2 tbsp molasses
2 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp mustard seed (ground, or dry mustard powder)
2 large cloves garlic (chopped fine)
4 jalapeno or green chili peppers (seeded for less heat, chopped fine regardless)
1/2 tsp crushed chili pepper
2 tbsp canola oil
Fresh cilantro

In a Pyrex dish (or other glass, I suppose) combine molasses, vinegar, turmeric, coriander, cumin, ground mustard seed, peppers (not the crushed) and garlic- mix thouroughly. Mix in chicken to coat well. Cover and allow to marinate in fridge 8-24 hours.

Get the potatoes cooking in a pot. In Wok or chef skillet (or pot, if you must), cook the onions and crushed pepper in canola oil, stirring frequently until onion begins to brown before adding tomatoes. Cook about 5 minutes to soften then add chicken soup from fridge. Cook on high heat, uncovered stirring well occasionaly for about 10 minutes. Cover, reduce to simmer for about 15 minutes. Halve the potatoes and add them, continuing to simmer another 15 minutes. Add cilantro just before serving.

Serves 6. Prep time about 30 minutes, 1 day marinade, ~1 hour cook time.

Roughly translated means: “you’ll cry like a baby grilled steak”. If you’re afraid of flavor fear not – all of the heat is in the dipping sauce which you can moderate at meal time. Try it, please. This does require some non-trivial prep and marinate time, but it’s one of my favorite Thai refinements. Steak can be cooked over a wood fire, charcoal grill, gas grill or on a stove top as desired. Goes great with rice, rice noodle or cous-cous (culinary faux paux, I know).

Sauce:

1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar (raw preferred)
3 tbsp kao kua
3-4 small green onions (minced)
1/4 cup crushed chili peppers

Steak:

2 lbs lean steak (thinner is better, but whatever)
2 tbsp sugar (raw preferred)
1/2 Cup soy sauce or Kikkoman Less Sodium Teriyaki Sauce

Steak prep: In a large bowl dissolve the sugar in soy sauce (stir). Add steak, cover and let marinate for at least one hour (overnight is great too), tossing about 3/4 of the way through. Go make the sauce while you’re waiting.  When ready to cook, get your heat hot: if cooking on a stove, an iron grill plate or skillet is suggested as opposed to non-stick cookware. Until it sizzles a drip of water, it’s not hot enough. Add the beef using tongs (bamboo preferred) quickly and sear meat, cooking to desired doneness. Generally best to get a medium to medium-well, ~5-10 minutes. Cooking it fast and hot is the key to keeping the flavor locked in.  Skip down to serve.

Sauce prep: In a bowl, dissolve the sugar in the lime juice and soy sauce (stir). Stir in onions, kao kua and crushed chile.

Serve: Meat should be plated immediately, and cut into thin slices or bite-sized pieces. Sauce should be divided into small bowls or mini-cups for dipping. There might not seem like “enough”, but a little nahm jeem goes a long way.

Serves 6-8. Prep time is an active 20-30 minutes in the midst of a 1 hour marinade, and about 10 minutes to cook.

Ever wanted to not rely on a plastic tin for your crushed pepper? I enjoy making things, so through trial-and-error, here’s my favorite way to make crushed pepper. I generally serve it fresh or add it to a complex meal, but you can also store the left-over for quite a while.

Any number of small, dried chili peppers (10 is a good number)

In an iron (non-stick not recommended) skillet, fry the peppers dry over lowish heat until they break easily when prodded with a tong (bamboo preferred). Toss them regularly and don’t let them burn, or you might as well toss them, as it’ll taste horrible. Trust me. After they’re done, let them cool unless you have no feeling in your fingers (or don’t want any) then cut off the stem, cut them into 2-4 pieces and crush them with a mortar and pestle (or a freezer bag and a heavy thing, like a rolling pin, or hammer, or bowling ball). Remember, we’re not looking for a powder here- you want pieces and seeds, not powder.

So stop grinding.

Now.

I mean it.

Seriously, put down the hammer.

C’mon, this isn’t funny.

…

help

Kao kua is a normal base additive to Thai sauces. Also called “rice powder” or “jasmine powder”, it’s essentially pulverized dry-fried rice.

Basically put 3x (three times) as much rice grains (I prefer jasmine)  as you need powder in a fry pan with no water or oil or anything, cook them over medium-high heat, tossing frequently, until browned (but before smoke detectors go off). Let cool a little, grind into nothingness with a mortar and pestle (or freezer bag and heavy thing like rolling pin).

Total cook time ~3-5 minutes.

Serves no one. It’s an additive.

This was a weird inspiration for me, as I detest broccoli. Pretty much any green veggie could be used. I don’t know what I was thinking really, but it was really good.

1 largish head of broccoli (or “crown”, some people call them *shrug*)
1/2 Cup cashews (crushed, but not pulverized. I recommend a mortar and pestle, but a freezer bag and a rolling pin or hammer (or any other heavy flattish thing) would work too)
1 can sweet corn
1 Cup brown rice
2 Cups orange cheddar (shredded)
2ish tbsp celery salt
2 tbsp ground cayenne pepper

In Wok, chef skillet or other largish frying pan, boil 2 1/2 cups water with celery salt. Add rice. When there is about 5 minutes left, in a separate pot combine corn, cashews and broccoli with 1 cup water. Cook until broccoli is done (~5 minutes), tossing occasionally. Drain. Add cheese and pepper to rice and stir in vegetable medley.

Serves 2-3. Prep time … nothing. Total time around 20 minutes.

This fusion of traditional Japanese cuisine and Adirondack style, with a healthy dose of heat is one of my favorites, and has yet to dissappoint. Even a fussy two-year-old recently proclaimed: “This good chickens, Mashue”.

2 lbs boneless chicken breasts (or whatever) cut into bite size pieces
1 Cup Kikkoman Less Sodium Teriyaki Sauce
1/2 to 1 Cup Maple Syrup (1 Cup recommended)
2-6 various smallish hot peppers quartered (remove seeds to remove heat, but not recommended)
2 Cups Jasmine Rice
2 Hand-fulls Snow peas or fresh green beans

Start water boiling for rice (generally 3 Cups) in appropriately-sized pot. In Wok or large chef skillet over medium-high heat add chicken, Teriyaki sauce, maple syrup, and peppers. Cover, flipping/tossing/messing up occasionally until chicken well-cooked (7-15 minutes depending on heat, altitude, chicken size, and solar flare activity). If chicken is ready before rice simmer on low. When rice is ready add snow peas or green beans (or both!) to chicken mix and toss well.

Serve in large rice bowls: rice on bottom, chicken/peppers/peas/beans on top using tongs (bamboo preferred). Reserve sauce should be available for diners to add flavor to their rice, but not forced upon them as not everyone likes to saturate their rice, and that’s okay.

Serves 4 usually pretty well. Prep time is 5-10 minutes to clean and cut chicken and cut peppers. Cook time is variable based on rice, but usually around 20 minutes total for gas ranges.

For whatever reason I’ve never posted recipes on-line. Which is weird, because I handwrite them on $^#$@%$ index cards for people. So I’ve created a new category for recipes and hope to update it soonish and on-going.