September 17 – September 23, 2023

Sunday:                     Pork Chop Schnitzel, Stewed Tomatoes, Polenta

“Dahntahn Pittsburgh – view from Billy’s phone at the Pirate game

Monday:                   Sweet and Spicy Grilled Vegetables with Burrata

Tuesday:                   Miso Chicken with Quinoa-Orange Salad

Barbara and I amidst the flowers and albino giraffes at Nemacolin

Wednesday:            Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese

Thursday:                 Shabu-Shabu Noodle Soup

Friday:                       Roast Cod with Chorizo Crisp

Murph and companions setting off to explore the Alleghenies

Saturday:                  Driftwood Oven Pizza

 

Housekeeping note:  You may have noticed that there has been no blog for some time.

If you haven’t noticed, please don’t tell me – and please recheck your priorities.

What happened was that someone forget to send the annual fee to WordPress.

Thank heavens for son Andrew without whom, I could not watch television, answer my phone, e-mails or texts, set the clock in my car or – as you have read – continued WhatWeCookedLastWeek.

 

The Mystery of Miso

I did not know what quinoa and miso were for at least the first thirty years of my life.   I would have guessed that quinoa was the name of a South American ruminant and that miso was pidgin for “I’m very.”  But that last sentence is, as George W. Bush might have said, ‘disrelevant.’

What I’m really driving at is how much the landscape of our vegetables and grains and cooking ingredients in general has changed over my lifetime.  Arugula, endive and celeriac, along with bottarga, and ghee played no part at all in my mother’s cooking.  I’m not saying that this was a good or a bad thing – it just was.  But I certainly count it as a good thing that I know about and/or eat all of these things either regularly or from time to time today.*

*Other relatively late additions to my pantry or culinary experience:  Fish sauce, kimchi, preserved lemon, naan, gochujang, Aleppo pepper (where has this been all of my life?), Calabrian chili peppers (ditto).

What a great and bountiful time we live in.  We should all be grateful and we should all cook with as many of these ingredients as we can sensibly lay hands on.  I would be wary of those items you’re going to use rarely but have to buy in large quantities at Kim’s Warehouse or Mohammed’s Discount Hallal.  If you find any ingredient going bad before you use it a second time, eliminate it from your repertoire or change your repertoire.

But all of this is by way of seeking some acceptance from my meat and potatoes friends for the dish I’m going to share with you this week.  The dish comes originally from Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Magazine, but I read about it in Gretchen McKay’s My Table column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  However, when I tried to access the recipe and had to log in to the PPG, someone had changed the password and the paper wouldn’t send me a link to change it back and so, the recipe below was accessed from the Texarkana Gazette.   It was attributed to Gretchen McKay of the Post-Gazette (falsely) and hey, Post-Gazette, it was free.

Can someone explain why, in the age of AI we have to deal with passwords? 

Miso-Garlic Slashed Chicken with Quinoa-Orange Salad

Timing:                                                1-2 hours marinating

                                                             30 minutes cooking

Ingredients:                                               Serves 3-4

   For the Chicken:

¼ cup white miso

¼  cup soy sauce

¼ cup unseasoned rice vinegar (seasoned will work)

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

4 medium garlic cloves, finely minced – we used 2

3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs or quarters (we used quarters – the drumstick with thigh attached).  Take a moment to trim any excess fat or the excess skin that sometimes drapes from the thigh part.

   For the Quinoa-Orange Salad:

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

3 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon dried oregano

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

2 oranges

1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced

1/2 cup pitted olives

1 cup quinoa, cooked according to package directions

4 cups baby arugula or baby spinach

Prep:

Marinate the chicken – In large bowl, whisk together miso, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, ginger and garlic. Using a sharp knife, cut parallel slashes 1 inch apart in skin side of each chicken piece, cutting all the way to the bone. Add chicken to bowl, and rub marinade onto the chicken and into the slashes. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 2 hours.

Heat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, with rack in middle position. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and set rack in the baking sheet. Mist rack with cooking spray.

Arrange chicken skin side up on the prepared rack and roast until well browned and the thickest part of the thigh registers 175 degrees, 20-25 minutes.

Cook and Make the Quinoa-Orange Salad:

While chicken is cooking, prepare salad. In large bowl, whisk together vinegar, oil, oregano and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper; set aside.

Using a sharp knife, slice a half-inch off the top and bottom of each orange. One at a time, stand oranges on cut end and cut from top to bottom following the curve of the fruit to remove peel and white pith. Cut oranges lengthwise into quarters, then thinly slice crosswise, reserving all juices.

Add orange slices and juices to dressing, along with onion and olives. Toss to combine, then add cooked quinoa and arugula and toss again. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

When the chicken is done, transfer to a platter and let rest for 10 minutes, then serve with the salad.