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Makhani Butter Chicken Wings Closeup

Wings have gotten expensive. $2.59/lb at Publix including a $.20/lb discount is pretty high. These prices seem like nearly double what I was paying a couple of years ago. At that time, I was trying to do wings in the oven which is really good when you don’t want the grease and mess of deep frying.

Tonight’s recipe starts with a packet of Shan’s Butter Chicken mix (if you were inclined to buy online from MyEthnicGrocer). Instead of using the instructions, I took the leftover uncooked wings over their option of bite size pieces of chopped chicken and reworked the recipe a touch.

Ingredients:
1-1.5 lb separated chicken wings
1 box Shan Butter Chicken mix
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter
1 large onion, halved lengthwise and sliced about .25″
2 cups of pureed tomatoes, no skins or seeds, passed through a sieve once more.
Cooking oil (I used olive)

Tools:
Large saute pan with lid or dutch oven with lid
Tongs
Wooden spoon
Knife

1. Marinate the chicken in a large ziploc bag using the entirety of the spice packet, with a tablespoon each of oil and water. Seal the bag and mix until all of the chicken is coated. Marinate overnight in fridge.

2. Brown the chicken wings in between medium-medium high till crispy on each side, probably in two batches.

3. Remove the wings and add the onions, saute momentarily until soft.

4. Add the milk, melted butter and tomato puree and bring to a light boil.

5. Add the wings back in, lower to medium and cover.

6. After 10 minutes, spoon the sauce on top of the wings, cover 15 more minutes.

7. Serve with potatoes or rice and spicy naan.

Makhani Butter Chicken Wings with Potatoes and Spicy Naan

Strap in friends, this is a mini opus

I hope you’ve noticed, but once in a while I mentioned Gordon Ramsay.

Picture it, Sicily, 1933 (n. Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot). The finale for Hell’s Kitchen with Rock vs. Bonnie. Trained, diligent, entirely focused, smart and consistent against the ultimate home/professional cook in waiting just off culinary school and a fire purely for cooking. While I was pulling for Bonnie, I don’t think that winning would have been the prize for her as it is for Rock. I felt a connection to her keeping that brain in wait for a few rounds, feeling that she was a gifted kid, probably out-thinks herself in a lot of cases and for all of her extensive vocab skills still curses up shit so nasty it gets cartoon @%^*! subtitles.

She’s going to have a lot of doors open to her now just from recognition and may have an easier time transitioning that into whatever career it will be than starting in the hotel kitchen. She seems more apt to run her own, smaller restaurant or being a teacher in the long run…just a hunch.

So, Rock turns the handle and shows over. In the credits, the announce for anyone who wants to try out for Hell’s Kitchen to check out the website. Sent in my request for the information and two weeks later, there’s a casting call in Ft. Lauderdale for the show. Fast forward to this past Saturday, I’m up at 8 for the Farmer’s Market, up till 4 am for Panetta’s bachelor party :

Won $45 at the Seminole Casino with $2 Red Stripes. Ate, drank and made fun of Alex at Charley’s Steak House with a Veal Porterhouse and one of those seafood fancifulness plates se incluyo king crab, steamed shrimp, calimari, scampi, boring seared tuna and stone crabs. 2001 in Tampa is strange as it’s no liquor with a 1 drink minimum. On the floor of a La Quinter.

please join me for the home stretch

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this is my official foray into live blogging the televisor. i’ve got a boonaire about this season’s top chef in miami. here goes.

-big surprise, tiffany got fatter and less appealing as a human.

-ilan is channeling 1982, fly ass hipster scene cut into his dome and some horn rim cazal looking joints.

-i want to give elia the business. she looked hot and grizzly with the shaved head, susan powter is in agony.

-dave is insanely close to tears and they only just walked into the set. i think lighting sets him off and he is perpetually hung over and sweaty.

-sam and harold need to challege colbert in a gravitas-off. nothing says gravitas like the 2 day bear growth and sunken eyes.

-there is nothing redeeming about stephen in regard to food. he’s boring and overconfident and likely to be charged with theft of michael irvin’s quadruple windsor knot. i get the same bad taste in my mouth when i see a picture of scott storch.

-marcel is beeeeeaming at his saffron foam. i made something quite similar last night after a trip to o’boys for all you can eat ribs. foamy, airy and with the scent of a castillian colonic.

-as someone with the right to criticize because i like to donate straight cash money to the homeless (n. wilmer valderrama), what the fuck is with giving money to charities with tonnes of cash already? boring. let’s donate money to a stem cell foundation to keep Abe Vigoda alive indefinitely.

-dave genuinely appears to be going through the drunk sweats or going through withdrawal. the look on his face is pained.

-no one buys marcel as a team leader, his captaincy will be instantly challenged, especially since he will not be able to resist making a dig at ilan. though the spain cracks are wise.

-Ilan: I’M IN YOUR HEAD MOTHERFUCKERS!

-Steve, you want some wine? Say word? This is Miami beach, get a Kalik or Red Stripe and get real.

-Marcel is the fakest, most insecure person in reality tv history. His arrogance is unreal and Harold should take away the nunchucks you know he brought. Steve and Marcie should just get it over with and fuck.

-Tiffany can’t stay the fuck away from the parmesan and you can tell. She looks like the kind of chick that has very lactic farts and gives you a dirty look when ya notice.

-Whatever the opposite of Viagra was, Tom just dropped it into Steve’s wine. What a look of shock.

-Ilan was not as we say sorry sorry for dropping that mango brunois and I tihnk it’s gonna fuuuuck Marcie. He won’t get over that ever.

-dave is the love child of one of my best friends thomas and his man mark. it’s eerie in both look and personality) he appears to be consistently passing kidney stones.

-sniggity snap, the season three folk! this could be catty.

-first dish = dav3. light smoked seafood is terribly underrated. heavily smoked canned oysters are, too.

-second dish = marcel. simplicity reigns supreme between iffy dishes, though the lobster jizz wasn’t a landmark in consistency.

-brian is a genius. did he watch last season? we all knew they hate.

-third dish = harold. ilan’s was a mess and the look of a kid that turned in a project they’ve just finished before class.

-fourth dish = tiffany has to sweat copiously. her stink would be good enough for a private label bottling. sold to eskimos too poor to sweat on their own. she also talks shit, not in the derogatory sense, but pure unfiiltered shit pours from her mouth like post game interviews with monosyllabic athletes chock full of cliche.

-can i pay to lick padma’s scar? go salman rushdie!

-it’s almost disgusting to watch these guys turn into children before the judges.

-what I hate the most about any judges on Bravo competitions is that they treat failure in a dish as a personality flaw. attacking someone’s personality in light of their dish sucks and is weak minded.

-ted is astoundingly boring and looks to be sporting the makings of a junior comb-over. long hair don’t care when it starts on the other side of your dome. way to keep it old school miami beach, finish the look with some black socks and shorts on teh beach.

-tom wants to fuck elia. you can tell because he can’t keep the grin on his face when describing her. no blame in his game.

commercial break for weed carrier thoughts:
-marcel would be the dude just holding the pipe like it was alien technology. he’d either inhale the ash, suck up bong water or juice the dutch till it looked like a backwoods.
-steve would hold the spliff as a cup of tea with his pinky out
-sam, elia, ilan can all roll their own. elia might be able to go one handed.
-harold doesn’t smoke and gives people a look when they do.
-tiffany stinks up the room with a virginia slim or camel red in the box. no one wants to share with her, anyway. hopefully she goes to the kitchen and gets things right for snacky time.

-sam genuinely hates bullshit praise and bloggers. oh shit.

-what a boring conclusion. let’s get to next wed already.

yay for gordon ramsay! one of the few chefs on tv whom is able to restrain themselves in not cooking for the camera. every single show, every recipe is generally about the same thing (besides his oft-losing desserts on the f-word) which means a high quality main ingredient, complimentary flavors, cooked simply and most importantly, cooked correctly.

he is a minimalist in the best sense of the word. never going for deconstruction, always shooting for a clarification of what food can be if it’s natural qualities are are accentuated. it’s why he is consistently cooking with seafood (scallops being the shiznittlebites) that still looks like itself on the plate and roasting/grilling meats and fowl. trust that you can pick up most of his recipes, watch the accompanying videos, and fully understand what he’s trying to get at.

tonight, the third season of Hell’s Kitchen began with a 12 person brigade of 6 men and 6 women on opposing teams, all aiming to outlast the mental beat downs of a chef that knows exactly what he wants and will never flinch first. my early favorites are julia, melissa, brad and josh.

thoughts on tonight:

• Aaron has fulfilled my need for an effeminate, emotionally unstable Asian cowboy. The fact that this was merely an outfit he picked out is just, terrific. No one should cry that much at work, not even hospice workers that pinch their sack through a hole in their pockets just to feel something real.
• There is no reasonable way in which a table at opening night should be the “Hottest ticket in town” during any Los Angeles week. How could you get people to flock when it’s guaranteed that the food will mostly suck, it will take hours to arrive and there’s a decent likelihood you’ll be shutout of dinner when Ramsay “CLOSES IT DOWN”?
  • Then again, I’d bet that most people there are looking to get their smug ass faces on tv, ready to opine about the food’s poor quality and lack of expediency. Fuckers prolly have a script tucked away, too.
• Splitting the teams up based on gender serves a very specific role. It is far easier to have people of the same sex weed the weak or unwelcome member of their group than to mix and then filter. Politics won’t play into this decision right off the bat and barring a complete disaster by another commie, goodbye Aaron. You’ll have more than enough tears to fill your 10 gallon hat.
• My girl Julia broke down because she was being bullied and shut out of a team that specifically needed her skill as a short order cook. GIRL WORKS AT WAFFLE HOUSE!! That’s the jam and no one, not even the gulliest sous chef on either team can work a grill and get their orders straight like her.
  • Gordon would sport a half dog after enjoying a quality set of scrambled with cheese, raisin toast, grits, coffee and a waffle covered in butter and syrup.
• Goodbye Tiffani, you were trash on the show. No class, no leadership and a glaring inability to fry a fucking egg.

let’s make curry

i’ve got the ingredients and the hunger and the tough part is to figure out how to make part 1 = part 2. plenty of cookbooks and recipe printouts, ideas from tv shows floating around my head, but none of these let me maximize the limited amount of prep goods available.

check the pantry and this will be exhibit b to the four pork chops

combine one can of paste and 1 lb of pork chops. the plan was to marinate for two days after marinating a different chop last week for two days in soy and black pepper.

side note: awesome flavors, really intense pepper/salt combination and cooked it slowwww after a good sear of both sides and the surrounding fat.

silly me, i forgot to take them out thurs night and found myself starting at the chops yesterday afternoon. these were “preserved” in the marinating process since the paste is pretty thick. one can covered them pretty well and i think you could easy do an entire family’s worth of chops with it. cheap, and far easier than doing a curry stew or stir fry.

like the hedleys, it was time to get to work.

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