sauces

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9
Sep 09

I Thought it was Cocktail Sauce

Sometimes, you think you’re making one thing, and you actually end up making quite another. Mistakes are responsible for classic foods like chocolate chip cookies, cheese, and potato chips. And that’s kind of what happened with this sauce. See, I love, love, love shrimp cocktail. And when I saw a variation for a Caribbean-style cocktail sauce in the Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook, I knew I’d found something special.


And it turns out, I had found something special. And it even passes for a cocktail sauce, kind of (but if I’m being honest, not really). But this baby’s real strength is as a dip for chips. It’s not as substantial as salsa or guacamole. But it packs such a flavor punch that even a little bit goes a long way.

Brown sugar tames the spice of jalapeno, and the bright, sour-yet-sweet flavor of freshly juiced limes shines through. Garlic and ginger are at their finest, playing backup among other strong flavors, rounding out the sauce, bringing it all together.

This sauce would also be great served over chicken or freshly grilled meat, or mixed into rice. It would add a fresh and unique kick to tacos if you drizzled it over the top. And it is great with shrimp (especially if you put a shrimp on a tortilla chip and dip the whole thing). It’s not shrimp cocktail, but whatever it is, it’s a great recipe for that.

Recipe after the jump

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13
Aug 09

The Dipping Debate

People tend to divide into two camps when it comes to dipping sauces. Those who oppose dipping wonder why anyone would bother eating something if they are only going to use an overpowering sauce to completely mask its flavor. Those in favor love the fact that dipping sauce adds excitement to even the simplest of dishes. I fall squarely in the second camp, with a couple of caveats:

  1. I always make sure to eat some bites with sauce and some without. I want to taste my food, but I like the variety that the sauce provides.
  2. I never smother my food in sauce. Dipping sauces are strong, and a little goes a long way. Besides, the best things to dip are crispy, and overdoing it on the sauce just totally kills the crunch.

With nearly a quart of buttermilk leftover from making homemade blue cheese dressing, I decided to test out the whole brining chicken in buttermilk thing that supposedly makes southern fried chicken so juicy. In order to do this, you just stick chicken in buttermilk and let it sit in the fridge for a day or so. It’s so easy that I successfully completed this step in an intensely mindless state, after working 13 hours straight starting at 3am. All you have to do the next day is take the chicken out and cook it however you like. The theory is that the buttermilk makes the meat juicy and tender when it’s cooked. It actually works quite well.


I opted to just make oven baked chicken fingers (coat the brined chicken tenders in panko bread crumbs, spray them with olive oil and bake at 375-400 until cooked), which are an otherwise boring meal, no matter how interesting buttermilk may be. I recruited the help of 4 easy dipping sauces that take almost no work to make and bring plain chicken to new heights. For a bit of a smoky flavor, I made a mexican style dip with store bought fajita seasoning. Then, I made my own honey mustard (which is literally just honey and mustard, but beats the store bought stuff by a mile). After that, I tried an amazingly simple apricot sauce, and lastly an Indian curry dip with red onions. These sauces are all about contrast: two are creamy and spicy, two are sweet and tangy. None of them took more than 2 minutes to throw together.



Recipes after the jump…

sauces — 1 Comment
24
Jul 09

Chimichurri

I recently purchased a food processor, and I’ve been itching to use it. True, it takes some serious time to clean, but there’s a magical joy in watching the blades go around and realizing “hey, I’m not working one bit to do all this chopping.” If you don’t have a food processor, you can do the chopping for this recipe by hand, and honestly, it’s not that much more work.

According to the font of all knowledge, the name chimichurri is a bastardization of the name of either Jimmy McCurry the Irishman, Jimmy Curry the Englishman, or James C. Hurray the Scot. Either way, it’s an especially fun-sounding name that perfectly describes this vibrant, zesty sauce composed primarily of parsley, garlic, and olive oil.

Look at this beautiful green bowl of deliciousness.  It’s so green!  So fresh! You’re probably wondering what you can do with it. I’m glad you asked. It can be a sauce for chicken, meat, or fish. You can use it as a marinade for meat. You can use it instead of the usual toppings on a baked potato. Wherever you add it, you’ll get a bright, satisfying zip that will have you thanking Argentina for their culinary contributions.

Recipe after the jump…