Recipe: More On Batali’s Babysitter’s Green Sauce

Posted on 18 September 2007 under Food Blogs, Recipes | 5 Comments

In the past few days I’ve posted more than once about Chef Mario Batali’s babysitter’s Chicken with Green Sauce, how easy it is to make, how wonderful it tastes, and yesterday, how versatile it can be. But I have a confession to make. There’s a reason the sauce never looked quite green enough in the photos I’ve posted: The tomatillos Briahna and I had picked up were probably on their last legs. Kinda yellowish, actually, and more wrinkles than a California raisin. To be sure, tomatillos aren’t grown too many places here in Michigan. The ones we get up here … well, we’re lucky to get fresh ones, if we can get them at all. Mary had never heard of tomatillos until this past Saturday, and as I’ve found out, neither had a lot of folks. I’d seen them and had been curious, but had never done anything with them until Saturday.

So imagine my pleasant surprise this morning, while I was at the Kroger down in Point Place, Ohio, when I found the produce guy with a new box of tomatillos. Where he’d gotten them, I have no clue. The box was labeled “Old El Paso Chili Peppers”, so that didn’t help. But as you can see, the husks aren’t too brown, and inside, the tomatillo fruits are a wonderful shade of green.

These tomatillos sure look like apples, don’t they? They’re almost the same shade of green as the serrano chiles the recipe also calls for. A few of the tomatillos had some shallow wrinkles, but until you husk them, there’s no way of knowing this. Three pounds of tomatillos, with only a few being slightly wrinkled … yeah, I’d call that good.

If you haven’t handled tomatillos before, when you husk them you’ll find the outside of those not yet fully ripened a bit on the sticky side. That’s alright, don’t worry about it. Just give them a quick rinse to get any dirt off.

All this sauce needed was a quick fly-through with a Fritos Scoop, which happened to be on its way to my mouth.

A few thoughts on this recipe:

  • The yield is between six and seven cups of sauce. However, that’s after blending. My residential blender only has an eight cup pitcher. I had to add as much blanched veggies as I could and still close the blender’s lid, knock it down a bit with the ”Pulse” function, then add the rest of the veggies before finishing in the blender.
  • No, nothing’s seeded, not the tomatillos nor the chiles. I simply cut the tops off the chiles and added them to the boiling water with the rest.
  • I can see countless possibilities for this sauce, from the sauté liquid for the chicken as it was used originally, to the sauce for the pork from yesterday, to the basis for a salsa verdé, even as the topper on a seriously-interesting Latina-style omelet.

All these reasons were good enough to drive me to make more of this stuff. Dorothy, Ms. Squires … if you want some, come and get it! But of course, bring your own jars …

Recipe: Mario’s Babysitter’s Chicken with Green Sauce

Posted on 15 September 2007 under Food Blogs, Recipes | 3 Comments

On Thursday, Chef Mario Batali posted his Acapulco-born babysitter’s recipe for Chicken with Green Sauce over on Serious Eats. I made the recipe this evening, and everyone was ecstatic about it! I ran into a couple problems … first one being I was feeding my four kids, a local ABC News reporter, Mary and myself. That meant two pounds of chicken wouldn’t be near enough. But at the same time, I could only find the three pounds of tomatillos called for in the recipe. So, I made the sauce exactly as written, but with five pounds of chicken. The excess juices from the extra chicken thinned out the sauce, and as a result it was milder in flavor than expected. But it was still a great dish! We saved the extra sauce, which I may thicken with corn starch tomorrow and cook with a nice pork tenderloin.

In case Mario’s recipes vanishes into the Serious Eats archives, here’s that portion of Mario’s post. Try this sometime … it’s really good!

She takes 2 pounds of chicken drumsticks and thighs and removes the skin and sets them aside. Then she takes 3 pounds of husked tomatillos, 6 cloves garlic, and 2 serrano chiles and places them in boiling water for 2 minutes and then drains them. Still warm, she places them into the blender with the juice and zest of 3 limes and 1 bunch of cilantro and blends until just smooth. She seasons it with salt (a lot) and then puts the sauce in a pan with the raw chicken, bringing it to a boil and then simmering it for 25 minutes. After that, she finishes it with the juice of another lime and a handful of chopped scallions … Wowsers! … The boys eat it with warm tortillas and Frank’s Hot Sauce. I even like it cold with a good splash of chipotle Tabasco for breakfast—if there’s any left that is.

A Nauseating Story

Posted on 29 August 2007 under Food Blogs | 5 Comments

Since first being published September of 2006, one particular food story continually pops up in the “most emailed” category of the BBC News web site.

If exotic foods made of the wrong parts of an animal turn your stomach in any manner, don’t click here.

If you clicked, and don’t like what you saw, I tried to warn you …

Blog Roundup, with Food

Posted on 29 August 2007 under Food Blogs | No Comments

Here are some blog entries you may have missed:

That last one doesn’t look good at all …

Steamy Kitchen and her Szechuan Peppercorns

Posted on 24 July 2007 under Food Blogs, Ingredients | 2 Comments

Back on the 4th of July, this particular 4-year-old face let me know he’d picked me as the winner of some authentic Szechuan Peppercorns from his mommy, Jaden of Steamy Kitchen, born in Hong Kong, now a food writer and cooking instructor in Sarasota, Florida. I received these four bags a few days later, but waited until I found a decent peppermill to use them in prior to opening any of the packages.

One of Jaden’s things was to insist, more than once, that I pop a couple of the whole peppercorns in my mouth outside the peppermill and just chew them up.

Ok. Sure, I’m game for that. These things have a great smell right through the bag.

That should have told me something. But, I wasn’t listening …

Tonight, I set up the above shot, loaded the peppermill, set the grind, and finished it. After shooting the photo, I grabbed a couple of the peppercorns and popped them into my mouth. Chewing them, I found them to be similar to chewing on a dried flower and just as difficult, so I set them between my front teeth and chomped them to bits.

It’s occured to me now that a civilization 2,000 years old has their own brand of horticulture down pat. Somewhere along the line, one of those Hong Kongians invented the horticultural equivalent of a 15-second-timer. Why? ‘Cuz that’s when the front of my tongue felt as though it had been hit with lemon-flavored dynamite. Kinda like getting a puddle of Lemon Pledge concentrate right there at the tip of my tongue, along with the tips of more than a few bamboo needles.

I tried rubbing the stuff off on the backs of my front teeth. Stoopid thing to do … where exactly had I been chewing the darn peppercorns?? Yeah, ok, off for some ice cold 2% milk to stop the chemical action on my tastebuds, and maybe keep my eyes from watering any further.

Drat. These things are immune to milk. Figures.

Ya’ know, the end of an orange popsicle tastes really odd when mixed with the intense zing of a chewed Szechuan peppercorn. At least the nerve endings are numb now. Could be a chemical burn, who knows.

Note to self: You’ve been readings Jaden’s blog for a while now. When are ya’ gonna learn …

p.s., Hey, Jaden! Just so you know, these things have an amazing flavor! But for me, only when ground and used in smaller amounts!

Anybody seen my eyeballs?

Blog Roundup

Posted on 13 July 2007 under Canning, Food Blogs, Food Destinations, Gardening | No Comments

No, I’m not using Roundup on blogs …

Over on All Things Green, Bob has posted the procedure for, and some wonderful photos of, Harvesting Garlic. Looks as though I need to do a followup, Roasting Garlic.

Over on Home Life, Sarah’s generally talking about some kind of ccoking. This week she took part in a Food Preservation Phone Seminar. Her notes on not using a pressure cooker for home canning contain some compelling arguments.

While not really about cooking, Monroe News Managing Editor Dan Shaw has posted a fun story in News Notes about Gov. Granholm and an elusive doughnut.

And on The Place Where We Live, Sarah is posting details about a Michigan Beer Trip she and Kevin have now begun. “Mmmm … beeeeeer …”

I’m Not Sure, But Do I Know This Person?

Posted on 10 July 2007 under Food Blogs | No Comments

Rutabaga, rutabaga, rutabaga…radish
“Bite it. Food dispatches from Southeast Michigan.”

The writer of this food blog, now linking to mine, happens to be a 28-year-old listing her industry as “Publishing”, is from the Monroe County area, and refers to her other half as “Chefy”.

Hmmm … I wonder …

More Food on BlogsMonroe.com

Posted on 19 June 2007 under Food Blogs, Notes, Restaurant Chit-Chat | No Comments

Besides this blog, there are other blogs on BlogsMonroe.com where food is discussed.

I’ve mentioned previously that Sarah Nash, author of the blog The Place Where We Live, and her husband Kevin, are in the middle of a month-long “Local Food Challenge”, only eating food from within a 100-mile radius.

Back on the 12th on his Hunting with Mike blog, Mike Ansel talked about surprising his wife with a venison meatloaf he’d made.

Over on his Fishing Michigan blog, Chuck Mason has recently discussed making fish pasties (which I’d love to try!), and how to use half-barrel kegs for building outdoor cookers.

And finally, over on the new MonroeTalks.com forum, there’s a discussion thread asking for your favorite place to eat in Monroe County.

There’s definitely more food talk going on around here than just my LunaPierCook blog. If you’re in here reading this, I urge you to look around as I do and find out what else is going on in other online areas. You might get hungry for more!

The “Local Food Challenge”; More Info

Posted on 15 June 2007 under Food Blogs, Food In The News, Michigan Cuisine | 2 Comments

Over on The Place Where We Live, Sarah has been discussing how, since the beginning of this month, she and her husband Kevin have been working through a “Local Food Challenge”:

My husband came across the following story on NPR a week ago about a couple who decided to spend a year eating food produced within 100 miles of their home … We’ve decided to try a variation on this experiment for a shorter period of time, trying to eat foods only locally grown or produced in Michigan as much as we possibly can for about a month … It’s funny … as a kid, I remember laughing at my grandparents who would go from store to store to find the best sale on meat or bread or eggs. I would always think to myself, “Why don’t they just buy all their food from the same store, it’d be so much easier that way.” It’s interesting how your attitude and behavior change when you realize there’s more to life than convenience.

In one of the more interesting shots in the video Mary and I created for “Taste of the Nation: Toledo”, Chef Alan Merhar of Evans Street Station in Tecumseh, Michigan, is describing the food he was serving as he was cooking it. At the end of the shot, when it seems he’s already finished talking, he suddenly points across the table and states, “And a little local cress”. In one of those “It’s a small world” moments, he explained this to me off-camera; the cress he was serving came from the farm owned by John Aylward’s brother. At the time, that info sent chills up my spine, as it was just too weird.

Read the rest of this entry…

Getting Recipes Out There

Posted on 14 June 2007 under Food Blogs, Michigan Cuisine | 1 Comment

MLive.com is the online presence for some of the larger newspapers throughout the state of Michigan, including:

Ann Arbor News
Bay City Times
Flint Journal
Grand Rapids Press
Jackson Citizen Patriot
Saginaw News 

A reader of my blog, Eric Braun, writes the sole food blog for MLive.com itself, which he’s titled “Homegrown Tomatoes”. This morning, Eric has quietly posted an entry pointing all those readers to my recently-posted recipe for Michigan Corndogs.

Thanks, Eric!

Other food blogs available via MLive.com are the Flint Journal’s On The Table, and Kitchen Chick out of Ann Arbor.

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