Buffalo Broccoli Done My Way

               It's hard not to want to chomp into a dozen or more small chicken wings; with soft meat inside covered by a hard crusty skin that's soaked in hot sauce. The only setback are these things are killers in the calories department and the amount of fats present in the skin and dripping grease inside the meat is too much to bear. With the NFL playoffs underway there's even more so reason to want to tear into some wings, so I got to thinking if there could be healthier alternative to put some spice in your mouth and fill your belly without taking years off the lifespan.

              The great thing about broccoli is that its very inexpensive, so if the "boys" are coming over and you gotta make a tray of wings, or even if you have to cater out - you're looking at anywhere from a sixty to a hundred dollar hit in the wallet, to be conservative. To feed the same amount of people using the broccoli, its only at a fraction of the cost, in the neighborhood of ten bucks. Most places serve buffalo wings with celery, carrots, and blue cheese(which is gross), to provide the illusion that somehow two sticks of celery is going to magically erase all the fat and calories from the wings. It's ridiculous, the way some people thing drinking a diet soda with a double-cheeseburger is going to lessen the fact that a double-cheeseburger had just been consumed. There are no shortcuts around buffalo wings, so the only solution is hard work through buffalo broccoli. The way a good singer needs instruments and accompaniment to make good music, broccoli needs some friends to make the dish more lively. In this case its going to be onions and fresh garlic cloves. In addition, you need sweet chili sauce(like the Chinese places use), salt, black pepper, and of course the hot sauce which gives that zingy "buffalo" taste.

               Speaking of Chinese, its best to cook this in a wok, if available, if not a flat frying pan will certainly do the job as well. Stir-frying broccoli isn't exactly the best way to get the most vitamins and nutrients out of them, compared to steaming for example, but steaming is a far cry from the absence of chicken meat, so stir-fry is the most reasonable middle ground. Even with frying it up broccoli contains essential cholesterol-lowering agents as well the fiber to help with the digestive tract. Also broccoli has been linked to reducing inflammation inside the body, which lessens cell damage, and naturally boosts out body's detoxification system that comes into play if beer is being consumed while watching the game. It's probably quite safe to say that traditional buffalo wings do the exact opposite of all that. Plus, if you're eating a wing with a cut on your finger or on your mouth, the burning sensation afterwards is sometimes quite painful. Eating food should be enjoyable, not painstaking. The only pain involved with buffalo broccoli is if someone accidentally cuts their finger while chopping up the vegetables. Only the bushy top part of the entire broccoli stem is needed, the rest of the trunk could be discarded. Some people use those leftover trunks for soup stock, but that's a different recipe for a different time.

              Once the broccoli, onions, and garlic are all chopped, sliced, and ready to go; heat up the wok and place a few small drips of oil and a few good tablespoons of the sweet chili sauce. Leo was watching to make sure I put in the right amount. The sauce contains the pepper flakes which will help provide some punch along with the hot sauce later on. When the sauce and oil start popping from the heat, then its time to dump in the onions and garlic. At this point do not put in the broccoli quite yet - only the onions and garlic! Putting in the broccoli too early will cause them to get mushy as well as it robs the body of those essential nutrients discussed earlier with each extra minute its in that wok(or pan). The garlic on the other hand needs to liquefy as much as possible and mix in with the chili sauce, while the onions have to cook down and act as a respectable co-pilot to the broccoli. After about eight minutes when the onions are browned and most of the garlic slices have disappeared, then its the proper time to bring the broccoli into the equation. Ease the broccoli in by lowering the fire to the minimum to prevent burning it. Sprinkle in some salt and black pepper to add flavor, and mix the broccoli around with the chili sauce while introducing them to their new friends - onions and garlic. Give it a good five minutes of mixing it around and letting it cook a little before adding that final ingredient. The broccoli needs to heat up and open those pores on the surface.

               Some other "chefs" like to put a crust on their "buffalo broccoli", which is another example of ridiculousness. The whole point of buffalo broccoli is to avoid the "skins", "crusts", "layers", etc. In that case might as well deep-fry them in batter and serve it at the local state fair. The much more sensible, and healthier, approach is simply pouring the hot sauce all over the broccoli and letting it cook in with all the other flavors. In fact, at the flower head part of the broccoli piece the hot sauce will stick along the bushy surface and provide the same spicy kick a crusted-head would contain, which again, is another reason why the crust is not necessary and is nothing more than an empty excuse to add calories. After a good sauce dousing, let the broccoli cook for another five to seven minutes, and keep stirring it until the reddish hot sauce isn't visible anymore. When those next seven minutes are up, or if you notice the broccoli getting too mushy or burnt, then its time to turn off the fire. The smooth curvy texture of the wok will allow you to plate the dish without leaving that valuable sauce behind. The next thing you know everyone will be asking to come over to your place for the big game.

               And not one cut finger or lip will be burned.....
      

 

Mango Chicken Leg Stew Done My Way

             Towards the beginning of the month I was at the meat department in a Key Food store in search of a new challenge to cook. Key Food maintains the widest varieties of meats at the lowest prices compared to other supermarkets. There was a package of chicken legs under three dollars which was too cheap to pass up. Plus, since I never cooked chicken legs on my own without adult supervision, this was the exact type of mountain I was looking to climb. I didn't have an actual plan of attack; I simply bought the package and tossed it in my freezer once I got home from the supermarket. A couple of weeks later I defrosted the chicken legs and left them in the refrigerator. For a various number of reasons I wasn't able to do any of the cooking I was hoping to accomplish. Unsure if I was going to use these legs in the near future or not, I contemplated placing them back into the freezer, but I really didn't like the idea of freezing and unfreezing them yet again. I looked around my kitchen and brainstormed what I could do with these legs, then I saw my answer laying in a fruit basket. I had also bought two mangoes that day at the Key Food - which were finally ripe. The first mango was consumed in the morning and I had the taste for more. That's when it struck a chord in my mind that I should incorporate the last mango with these chicken legs.

             My weapon of choice was going to be a crock pot, so I could cook the legs in a hot broth and have the flavor from the mango (as well as other ingredients) soak into the soft meat of the chicken. I skinned and diced the mango into little cube pieces. It's very tempting to consume all the mango pieces on the plate, so you have to limit yourself to stealing just one piece only. Another important item that needs to be skinned, sliced, and diced, is an onion. The bitterness of the onion serves as the perfect contrast to the sweetness of the mango. Once the crock pot is ready, pour in a can of chicken broth, one cup of water, and half a cup and water. Place the drumsticks into the pot and then begin adding the other flavors: two strands of thyme, with sprinklings of oregano, herbs de provence, garlic salt, and regular salt. Lastly, dump in the cubed pieces of mango and sliced onions. Make sure the fire is barely above a whisper and its preferred to use a wooden grandma spoon to initially mix the legs in the broth with the flavors inside. Afterwards, you can place the lid on top to cover the pot. It needs to cook long and methodical, so the fire must remain very low. The cooking time takes about an hour and fifteen minutes in total. While it cooks its never a bad idea to check on it every ten minutes and use the wooden spoon to stir gently for a few seconds. If an hour passes by and there's steam shooting from any possible crevasse in the crock pot, that's usually the telltale sign the legs are ready.

             The mango cubes should still be visible once the drumsticks are ready, but at this point the pieces have been stewing in the broth so long that the sweet taste of the mango will be gone. On the flip side, the sweetness from the mango juice would make its way into the soft meat of the chicken, its a fair trade. If cooked correctly, the meat will be so soft that it should easily slip off the bone once you begin handling the drumstick. The natural side dish in this situation would be rice, but instead I had leftover broccoli from a Chinese take-out place the night before that I wanted to use before they went bad. I heated them up in the microwave and set them on the plate when I knew the legs were just about ready. I took my first bite and was surprised the meat cooked to near-perfection. It's was certainly beginners luck with these chicken legs as usually they don't even come out as soft when you order them from a restaurant. With my flag sticking out from the top of this mountain, I'll need to return to Key Food in search of the next meat to conquer.

             I'm going to need to look somewhere else other than the fruit basket for assistance....

Garlic Steak Done My Way

             Last month I received a grill pan from Macy's as a present, and after some testing with chicken skewers, sausages, and even the old favorite liver, I was ready to put this thing on the front line to battle a couple of steaks. I didn't want to make this just some ordinary steak, I wanted to give it an unusual flavor that's not far out of the realm, but at the same time advertised seldom. After reviewing a number of candidates in my head, garlic struck me as the way to go. Other than garlic fries, rarely is garlic ever mentioned in anything, yet its a key ingredient to an infinite amount of dishes, so garlic steak it was.

              Looking for something that would cook rather quickly, I went with a pair of thin shoulder steaks which came out to a little over four dollars only. Giving olive oil the night off, I went with Mazola Corn Oil to grease up the pan before starting. After gently swaying the pan left and right, its easy to coat the pan's surface with the oil, then pour any excess amount into the sink. Other parts to the machine include an onion, a garlic clove, black pepper, herbs, salt, and garlic powder. Placing the steaks onto a dish, I seasoned the meat on both sides with salt, black pepper, herbs, and most importantly, several dashes of garlic powder. While those flavors seep into the cold meat, I then take the time to slice up an onion and a few bulbs of garlic  into little diced pieces. With a small portion of the cut up onion and garlic (remember to only take a small portion of it!), place some of it in the grill and start the fire. This will help add flavors to the pan, plus after getting hot, the onion and garlic will sweat water to assist the oil to not letting the meat stick to the pan's surface. The benefit of the thinly cut meat is that it will cook fast and after three minutes the bottom half will start turning brown. Once that happens, turn the steaks over, and then pour the remaining pieces of onion and garlic onto it. Now the steaks will have garlic and onion pieces under and over it, soaking in their juices while it cooks on the pan.

             Keeping an eye on the meat so it doesn't burn, it will require a few more flips over, but it no more than in twelve minutes it should be ready to eat. Not wanting to just have meat by itself, while the steak was about halfway done, I heated up a pot of water and dumped in a few handfuls of dry linguini pasta. Typically I would use fresh pasta, especially with an important event such as this, but for some reason Fairway didn't have any in the usual spot I find it in, so I had no choice but to go with the dry version. One of the best aspects of the grill pan is that it removes a large dose of the grease from the steaks and automatically shuffles it off to the side so you can appreciate what's not going inside your stomach. Once everything was cooked and ready, I placed it on a large plate and even gave myself a squirt of ketchup (this cook wouldn't be insulted). It wouldn't take a psychic to predict that with the garlic powder and the fresh garlic dices used, that garlic jumps out as the predominate flavor, so far the mission was accomplished in that regard, but was it too much? That's where the black pepper and onion play pivotal roles in jumping in with enough of their respective flavors to balance out the heavyweight garlic. That with a dip of ketchup, and the grill pan had conquered it first major opponent in the steak world.

               Nothing else inside of Macy's would've fought so gallantly......