I've decided to take this newsletter in a slightly different direction. I'd like it to be a little more conversational, and not just a bunch of links to recipes. There will still be recipes, of course. I haven't written an issue for two months and I just feel like I want to be weird and chatty. Hope you'll stick with me, dear readers. Onward.
Recipes
Halal Cart-Style Chicken and Rice with White Sauce
In light of my opening statement, I'd like to start with a link to recipe. This is from Kyle F. and I've made it a couple times since he sent it my way. This recipe presented an interesting challenge for me: my daughter is allergic to eggs and seems to be lactose-intolerant, so usually any recipe that involves "white sauce" is out.
I got annoyed with skipping out on delicious sauces, and decided I could tweak this one to work for us. Instead of mayo I used vegan mayo to solve for the egg allergy and unsweetened almond milk yogurt as a sub for the Greek yogurt. Since I didn't make the white sauce as directed, I don't have a true comparison of my version vs the original. Despite that, everyone seemed to enjoy the sauce just fine, and I even tried it out on some unsuspecting friends and received no complaints. Thanks for being my unwitting test group, Lizzy and Richey.
Weav's Biscuit Advice
I recently asked a friend for a recipe for making biscuits because I'd like to try. I don't bake and he knows it, and he went out of his way to give me a wonderfully detailed response. I'm sharing it below in its entirety, edited only to format it for this newsletter:
As always, read full ingredient list and directions before you begin so there are no surprises.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour - quality flour dang it! and cold if you’re bad
- 1 teaspoon sugar - for the ladies
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt - I add more
- 8 tablespoons butter - NO! Leave it in the fridge until you are ready to pull it out and use it and don’t go putting your fingers all over it cutting it up on a cutting board, that’s what a pastry blender is for
- 3/4 cup milk - more or less if needed and don’t you dare pull this out either until you are ready to pour it in
- 1/4 cup salted butter melted
Directions
Always make more dough than you need if filling a cake pan (bunch the biscuits together in a cake pan if you like your biscuits to get some height). I find filling in the last spot with a biscuit made from the scraps a pinch depressing. Not looking for high rise biscuits? Then disregard.
- Preheat oven to 425
- Prep a flat surface with a dusting of flour and create a small pile of flour off to the side for using in the “hand flattening/folding process” - a roller? naw.
- Whisk dry ingredients in large metal bowl.
- Drop in very cold butter and cut butter to bits with pastry blender - use the residue on the wrapper to grease pan.
- Add that milk you just pulled out of the fridge
- Gently combine until most of the flour has joined the party
- Dump mixture on a lightly floured surface.
- Dust your hands with flour and press dough to a thickness of about a half inch
- Fold in half adding flour to flat surface and dough as needed - not as kneaded, you aren’t kneading this dough.
- Fold several times and final press to about an inch or so.
- Use your choice of biscuit cutter and cut with NO TWISTING motion - twisting as you cut punches the dough edge together keeping it from rising to their full potential.
- Huddle biscuits in pan all cozy like and brush tops with melted butter.
- Bake until tops are golden, then pull out and let sit so all bitter in bottom of pan is absorbed by biscuits. Brush tops again with butter.
- Carefully dump biscuits out of pan and place on different pan separate from each other.
- Stick back in oven for 3 minutes - this lightly crisps the edges and finishes off any uncooked dough stuck between biscuits.
Rachel's Pork Tenderloin
My wife got this recipe as part of a recipe exchange email thread, one which I am ashamed to admit I only half-heartedly participated in. I sent someone a recipe but forgot to pass it along or something.
I'm including the recipe as given, which is a slow cooker recipe. Since I'm forgetful, I planned to cook this and forgot to put it in the slow cooker in enough time.
So I had to improvise and ended up roasting the tenderloin. I mixed the other ingredients together and reduced them a bit to thicken the sauce into a glaze, then brushed the glaze onto the tenderloin as it roasted. If you find yourself in a similar predicament, you can get some extra flavor from the tenderloin by searing the tenderloin in a pre-heated cast iron skillet (I will expound on this method in the next issue, this one's long enough). Once you sear the tenderloin, transfer to a rimmed baking sheet fitted with a wire rack (again, a bit of info I'll dive into in another issue, sorry y'all). Then baste the tenderloin regularly as it roasts, and you'll be super happy with the way the glaze crisps up the exterior of the texturally boring cut that is pork tenderloin.
I realize I left out a ton of details. If you want to try this the non-slow-cooker way, just text me or something.
Misc
Cheese Pairings
This is from the website of a super-cool person I got to meet virtually while helping her set up her newsletter using the same service I'm using to send this one. Check out her helpful guide to all sorts of random booze and cheese pairings.
