Cooking, eating and cocktails. The life

This creamy delicate dish is filled with the aromas of wine, cognac, thyme, onion and garlic. Succulent sauce and fall-off-the-bone flavorful chicken it’s a dish best served anytime! The cognac infused wine sauce has silk like almost gravy like texture and smoothness that really makes you feel like a French cook. The carrots give the dish its sweet side, while the parsley adds in bitter and polishing the dish as a whole. Every spoon full and every bit made me want more and more. My mouth is watering right now,  I hope you enjoy!

Extra’s:

This recipe is great over thick pasta noodles, egg noodles, risotto, orzo,  potatoes, and even rice.

I really hope your enjoy. And would like to mention that I ate the whole stew with my family before I could take a picture, so I’m using an older photo.

 Ingredients:

4 Cups of Red Wine: Pinot Noir, Chianti or Burgndy

¼ cup of Cognac: ¼ = 1 shot full

One 3-4lb Chicken: cut into 8 pieces

1 bouquet Garni (12 sprigs fresh thyme, 5 springs parsley, and 1-3 bay leaves tied together)

10oz of Pearl Onions (24-30 onions): peeled

8-12oz of White Button Mushrooms: cleaned and either quartered or roughly sliced

2-3 medium Carrots: chopped

3-5 Garlic Cloves: either smashed, chopped, diced, or left whole.

10oz of Lardon or Bacon: diced up (Due to diet restriction Turkey bacon can be used)

3tbls Unsalted butter

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

3tbls flour

2 cups chicken stock

OPTIONAL Flambé!

A Long lighter or match

Wet/moist towel just in case

1. Prep the pearl onions (peal skin), garlic (peal skin and smash, dice or leave whole), bacon (cut into small pieces, diced), carrots(roughly chopped, diced or sliced sideways), and chicken (into 8 pieces).
2.  Easiest way to prep the pearl onion is to get a pot with 2-3cups of water to a boil. Place the pearl onions in the boiling pot for 1min, drain and rinse with cold water/ice to stop them from cooking. Once cooled the skin should be easy to take off. Note: I bought bone in Chicken leg and thighs. Made things a bit easier, and I like darker meats anyway. Totally a personal preference.  
3. Sprinkle the Chicken on all sides with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4. Sauté Bacon pieces in a large skillet over medium low heat until fat is rendered. Remove bacon from the skillet and set aside. Increase heat to medium.
5. Place Chicken in skillet and cook in bacon grease until both sides are nice and golden brown. :::NOTE::: As you can see; there is no added butter or oil. All the oil needed for now is from the bacon fat. The chicken fat also will begin to sweat out into the pan giving even more oil to cook with.
6. Carefully pour the shot of Cognac into the pot, let it start to bubble/foam, and then, if desired ignite the sauce with a long lighter or match. Let it flame for a minute, tilting the pan by its handle and swirling the sauce to burn off alcohol. To extinguish the flames, simply cover the pan with its lid. Cooke for an extra few minutes then, Remove chicken.
7. Add and sauté the Pearl Onions until you begin to see some caramelization, then the carrots. Keep on sautéing until onions are golden. Add the thyme, bay leaf  in the same pan. (Cook in a little wine if desired.) Add Chicken back into pan once the herbs are placed. Stir, cover and cook/simmer gently for 10 minutes, turning chicken occasionally.
8. Uncover pot, sprinkle the flour over everything (3tbls). Cover and cook, turning once or twice for 3 to 4 minutes more.
9. Add the Bacon, Garlic and Tomato Paste to the pot. Stir/swirl in the wine and enough stock to almost cover the chicken.  Cover, get it to a boil and then turn down the heat to a gentle simmer for 25 to 30 minutes.
10. In a separate skillet, sauté mushrooms in 2 tablespoons butter until golden, about 3 minutes. Set aside.::::Its called, Champignons Sautés Au Buerre [Sautéed Mushrooms]::::

• Get a skillet, 2tbls Butter, 1tbls Oil, Sliced Mushrooms, Salt and pepper, and optional garnish.
•  Heat the oil and butter together on high heat. Once the butter starts foaming, in about 4-5 minutes, introduce the mushrooms to the pan and toss. Sauté until the mushrooms are browned to your desired taste and remove from heat. Season to taste.

11. After 30 minutes the chicken should be cooked to perfection. However if the Onions are not tender or the liquid is to watery/runny, take out the chicken, and continue to cook the stew on med-high too high heat to concentrate the flavors. We want it to look like a glaze on our chicken, a little less thick then gravy. You can do this for a few minutes and then add the chicken in again and continue until you have your desired texture.

There’s no excuse to tardiness, but I haven’t been posting. I know. From going to vacation to starting a new job that pays for my lunch and dinner; I haven’t had a lot of time to spend in the kitchen.

SO New RULE!

I will post at least 2 new recipes or more a month, every other Monday.  

This Marinade recipe is sure to make any Lamb hater into a believer. It’s one of my most favorite recipes that I have done numerous times. Its elegant, not too many ingredients, and relatively easy. I’d like to say though that its delicious with chicken, beef, and/or vegetables.  

Ingredients:

1 Large White Onion

1 Whole bulb of Garlic

2+ tablespoons Orange peels

1 Cup Fresh lime juice

2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Black Pepper

2 tbls Olive Oil

1 cup Plain Yogurt

1/2 Tsp ground Saffron, dissolved in 2 tbls hot water

Minimum 2lbs of Lamb: The kind of cut is totally dependent on your taste. I personally choose the best cut for the price at the time. However the best cut for the job is Lamb rib chops. This recipe can do more then 20 rib chops.

Honestly also one can use chicken and even fish with this marinade. I know many people dont like cross contaminating meats, but I do with this marinade. I dont like wasting this amazingness. 

Directions

Get a large bowl to combine the ingredients. And a mortar pestle or some kind of instrument to crush the saffron.

1) Set water to boil (just a cup or so of water). While its boiling; thinly slice the onion, and dice up the whole bulb of garlic. Place it in the bowl. Then, put the orange peels, lime juice, salt, pepper, olive oil, yogurt and lastly the saffron water(combine 2tbls of the hot boiling water to the crushed saffron). Stir it. 

To quickly de-skin the garlic place it on the cutting board and with the flat of your knife or a flat object slight smash the garlic so that the skin get loose, but dont pulverize  the garlic. Take of the skin and chop it up roughly. You might think the smell will never come off your hands but just rub a piece of steel as though its soap, that’ll solve your problem.

The marinade is over! That’s it! It smells similar to a saffron infused, limeade with garlic, and onion. Its very powerful, and flavorful which is exactly what you need in a marinade. 

2) Now you’ll need to prep the Lamb. Personally, I take off as much fat as possible. I find it easier to eat when I prep the lamb, and also easier to cook (less flame).

But, you can keep the fat on that’s fine.

3) Place the lamb in the marinade bowl, mix it so the lamb is covered and marinate for 8-24 hours in the frig. Or 4-5 hours on a counter-top at room temperature. 

4) The next day grill it on gas or coal! A great website to check for grilling times for  various meats is, 

http://www.bigdaddyskitchen.com/bbq&grilling/Grilling%20Times.htm#Grilling Beef

That site doesn’t show lamb timings, so:

http://allrecipes.com/howto/grilling-times-for-lamb/ 

Hello everyone, my name is Nathan. I live in northern California, some would say central Cali, literally in the Bay Area. I have finally decided to start a Food Blog today after years of nagging myself to do so. I’ve been thinking about it for some time now and have finally fessed up the courage to start one out today, right now, right here!

So the mission is to upload at least 1 new recipe a week, have fun, enjoy and learn a thing or two (maybe 3 or 4…). I want everyone to enjoy the beauty of cooking, to feel the love it gives me, and the joy on the faces of those eating it. I will add tips, tricks, hints, and variations to each dish as well as some history if time allows it. Also I will try my hardest to describe to you how it taste.

I hope you enjoy, please comment, Follow and/or email me any comments, recipes and suggestions. This is my first blog so any help will be awesome!

Enjoy!