"Chicken Parm" w/ Sun-dried Tomato Risotto

It's been way too long since my last post, so if you're even reading this, thanks. It's hard to give a shit about a blog that barely exists.

I've been busy. Let's see, between the 50 hour work weeks, the sudden emergence of grad-school classes, and failed match.com adventures, it's been hard to find time to sit down and get back to doing something I actually enjoy. But regardless of the significant lapse between blog posts, I have not forgotten how to be a Fat Kid. This is what I do people. So let's get to it.

I felt like chicken parm. It's good comfort-food.
Good cold-weather-food.
Good I'm-not-concerned-with-calories-induce-massive-black-out-coma-food.

I was in need of all three of these things.

I decided I wanted to switch it up though. Traditionally, chicken parm arrives on your plate, breaded and deep fried, covered in layers of melted cheese, accompanied with its friends spaghetti and marinara sauce. There really is no reason to change anything about this. This is a beautiful thing already. But...I'm going to change it anyways.

I decided I would sub the pasta/marinara for a risotto that kind of tasted like pasta/marinara? But better? You'll catch my drift. I also decided to use bone-in-skin-on chicken breast.  

Chicken needs skin to be happy, and bones make things taste better. This requires no explanation from me. Or maybe it does, but you can Google that.

Risotto takes time so I decided to get to the chicken later.

I always use chicken stock as my cooking broth for risotto. But this time I added a bunch of chopped sun dried tomatoes to the pot and let that simmer for about 20 minutes to impart its sweet flavors upon the stock.

I then strained the broth to get rid of all the dried tomatoes. This left me with a lot less liquid than I started with. I would need more liquid to cook my risotto, so I turned to these bad boys.

These are the best fucking whole tomatoes in a can. They may cost like a dollar more than the other brands, but it's money well spent. Just take my word for it. If you're planning on making any kind of tomato sauce, start with these things.

I strained the liquid that comes in the can and just set the tomatoes in a bowl. Once you crush these things by hand, there will be plenty of delicious juice to add to your already simmering broth. I added enough so that my pot didn't spill over, so there was a little left over. This was kind of an experiment so I got a little wasteful.

I chopped a shallot, some garlic, and a whole bunch of basil. I then sautéed the shallot in some extra virgin olive oil and a little butter. Once the shallot was cooked, I added my garlic, some of the basil, and crushed red pepper.

Once the garlic was cooked (about 30 seconds or so), I added a cup of arborio rice and stirred constantly, for about a minute, allowing the grains to become opaque. At this point I added about a 1/3 of a cup of red wine. Once that cooked down, I began the process of slowly adding my stock, constantly stirring, and repeating. The basic method of cooking risotto. I added salt and pepper as necessary.

This process usually takes about 20 minutes. Once the rice was cooked to my liking, I added the rest of the basil I had chopped, a bunch of parmesan cheese, and some butter, and stirred all that up until it looked like this.

Now I needed to cook my damn chicken, so I covered this and set it aside.

I seasoned my chicken and whisked together some olive oil, parmesan cheese, crushed red pepper, and panko bread crumbs in a small bowl. I wanted to use this to crust the chicken, rather then top it with melted cheese. Just something different. I'm also not deep frying anything here.

I had pre-heated the oven to 400, placed my cast iron skillet over high heat and added some olive oil. Once it was smoking hot, it was time to sear that motherfucker.

After searing for about 2 minutes on each side, I spread my olive oil/parmesan paste over the tops of the breasts and put the skillet in the oven. The chicken needs to cook for 10 minutes or so. You don't want bloody chicken. After about 10 minutes, I put the broiler on high to finish it off and really brown the paste on top of the chicken. My substitute for deep frying I guess.

Once they were nice and crispy, I was ready to get my Fat Kid on.

A little arugula salad went nice with this as well. Honestly though, preparing the perfect bite of chicken and risotto on the same fork and placing it in my mouth brought all the classic flavors of chicken parm to life, but with a slightly different twist.  You still get all the cheesy, bready, crispy chicken action of the classic, but in a way you've never really tasted it. The spaghetti/marinara thing just gets a little boring to me. This is rock-and-fucking-roll in your mouth.

I realize this is not a recipe that anyone can really follow.

My blog sucks.

- Fat Kid

Holy Pancake

First of all, thank you to my sister for inspiring this.

Also, thank you GQ magazine for the recipe. I don't normally do this, but this thing was too awesome not to share with everyone.

This is the perfect hangover breakfast. Why? Because it's beyond easy. It honestly takes no effort whatsoever, but the results are impressive, relatively quick, and will have you forgetting about the 10 beers and splitting-booze headache because of its overall deliciousness.

Here is what you need:

• 1/2 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 lemon
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• Confectioner sugar

It's even better if you have:

• A pinch of nutmeg
• A teaspoon of vanilla extract

Pre-heat the oven to 425. Combine the flour, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and vanilla extract in a bowl and whisk until everything is properly mixed.

Place the butter in a saute pan and melt. Once the butter has melted, pour the batter into the pan and place it immediately into the oven.




And now you're done. Leave it in there for 20 minutes, once the edges are nice and brown. Don't take it out early. I got distracted by the Ravens/Chiefs game, lost track of time, and pulled it out after 10 minutes. This was a very sad pancake.



Just be patient and leave it in there. I quickly whipped up another one, left it in the oven for the full 20 minutes, and my results yielded a nicely browned, magic fucking pancake.




Squeeze some fresh lemon juice over it, dust it with confectioner sugar, and start tearing away it. If you have good maple syrup laying around, you're going to want to get that involved as well. Think of it as a dipping sauce.

This thing is so awesome I can't wait to make more of them. It actually has a lot of versatility. You could make a desert out of it by drizzling chocolate syrup over it and eating it with ice cream.Or you could go the savory route, by maybe cutting the sugar, upping the salt a bit and hitting it with some olive oil and parmesan cheese. I'm definitely going to play around with this a bit.

So go make this. Make it for a group of people but don't explain how easy it is. I'm trying to make you look good.

- Fat Kid

Pho Real

So apprently there has been some pho contest going on in NOVA that I didn't know about. The top ranked pho houses in the area were placed in a bracket at random, and each week people have been voting for their favorites. This coming Monday, the #1 spot will be announced. I'm very curious, since the place that I love to go to didn't even make the cut. I must be slacking. Anyways, I'm looking forward to checking out the top place when it's announced next week. You can read more about it here.

Asian Attempt #2

OK so I didn't get my pho fix this week, so I attempted to make some on my own. This really wasn't pho though, it had more of a Thai flare to it since I incorporated red curry and coconut milk into it. I sauteed some onion, some portobello mushrooms, and garlic in olive oil, soy sauce and chili paste. Then I poured in a box of chicken stock, followed by some fish sauce, rice vinegar, the red curry paste, the coconut milk and fresh cilantro. Everything was going fine, until I decided to use this:

What the hell are these things? My choice in noodles further demonstrates my lack of Asian food knowledge. I clearly should have gone with something else. I mean eating anything with the word "cellophane" involved is probably a bad idea, unless you know how to use these things and when. 

I threw them in my broth last minute. They cook in like 2 seconds. He're the problem though: I felt like I was eating a jelly fish. These are the slimiest fucking things to ever be called noodles. They're so slippery that you can barely pick them up with chop sticks, let alone chew them. They just slide right down your throat. If anyone knows the right way to use these things, please let me know. 

Not Asian

- Fat Kid

My Attempt To Cook Asian

I was going to write an angry post about how much New Year's Eve always sucks, but I figured I'd at least try to start 2011 off on a more light-hearted note. 

I've been on a real Asian food kick lately, so I decided I'd actually try and cook something slightly related to that region of the world. I love Asian flavors, but I'm just not that familiar with the ingredients. The fact that this food has always been more of a mystery to me has caused me to avoid trying to cook it, simply so I don't go fucking up a good thing. So what do I do? I take my white ass to the pantry and pull out every Asian ingredient I have and concoct a mish-mosh of flavors that slightly resemble a dish representing said region. 

Check it.

Ok so that's honey, red curry paste, soy sauce, fish sauce, rice vinegar, and chili paste, lime and garlic. Notice that I'm not giving you specific amounts of how much to use of each, mainly because I had no clue what I was doing. I combined these ingredients into a bowl and whisked them together until I had a sauce-like consistency and I was happy with the flavors I had going on. 

I seasoned a piece of tuna with salt and pepper and threw it in a hot pan with olive oil and seared each side for about three minutes. 

Meanwhile, I threw together a salad of arugula and lightly tossed the greens in that sauce/dressing I just created with some spiced peanuts. I also basted the tuna with said sauce/dressing as it was finishing its sear on the second side. 

I sliced the tuna up, placed it on top of the greens, squeezed some fresh lime juice all over the place and this is what I got. 

What the hell is it? 

Insert generic name of "Asian Tuna Salad" here.

I mean other than the fact that I over cooked the tuna, this actually tasted pretty good. I had a decent balance of flavors going on here, with the bitterness from the greens, the spice/sweetness from the sauce, and the salty crunch of the peanuts. 

I really killed the tuna though. 

And maybe I just need to go get an Asian cookbook. Or Asian friends that can actually teach me a thing or two. Until then I'll probably stick with cooking white boy shit. 

Help

- Fat Kid

Speaking of Asian

I love this place.

Put a bowl of this stuff in front of me and I'm a happy Fat Kid.

Pho Sate is located in Falls Church and is probably the best pho I've had in Northern Virginia. 

Pros: 

• Rich broth that I could swim in.
• That fish sauce concoction you see in the picture on the left.
• Everything I've ever had there has been super fresh, right down to the basil leaves you pluck and add to your soup as you go. 

Cons:

• They only accept cash.
• It's in Falls Church.

By the time I leave this place, I feel all warm and happy on the inside, with my nose running profusely from the amount of spice I've added throughout. 

Don't shake my hand after you've eaten here with me. 

- Fat Kid

P.S. Take home your extra broth, because if you've loaded it up with the sauces they provide for you, this stuff tastes even better the next day. I brought it to a boil and added some left over steak to it, as well as some egg noodles. You'll be very happy you did this.

Fat Kid Pasta Amatriciana

Ever since visiting Rome a couple of years ago, I've been recreating certain dishes and attempting to come close to the food I tasted throughout my pasta-filled journey. During my stay, I enjoyed plate after plate of Italian gastronomic perfection, to the point that you would have thought I had never seen pasta in my life. It's that good.

This adventure through carb-land highlighted many instant favorites that are simply not the same when experienced in America. Realizing that I can't simply hop on a plane to Italy whenever I want fresh pasta, I decided that I needed to learn how to make it myself. Honestly, I could have fresh pasta on it's own with nothing more than garlic, olive oil, parmesan and red pepper and still have my mind fucking blown, but I also wanted to attempt to master one of my favorite dishes that I tasted in the small town of Tivoli.

The pasta amatriciana I had in that town stood out instantly. It probably had something to do with the pork fat. I realized at that moment that I needed to make this and make it well, and I think I've finally arrived at that point. Allow me to explain.

You'll need this:

• 1 lb. of pancetta or guanciale
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• died oregano
• crushed red pepper
• salt
• pepper
• extra virgin olive oil
• reggiano parmesan
• 1 lb. of fresh pasta

Start with the fatty pork goodness. You can generally find sliced pancetta in any grocery store, which you'll need to chop into strips. I got a half pound of some super-expensive-locally-made-hot-shit from some specialty store, along with a half pound of guanciale, which is harder to find, but it's what this dish is traditionally made with. But if it's not a special occasion, just head to Whole Foods.

Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil into a large, cold pan and add all of your pancetta. Turn the heat to medium. You want to slowly let this stuff cook until it's crispy. Cooking it slow like this will render out the most fat, which is what you want to do in this case. It should take about 20 minutes.

Once the fat has rendered out and the pancetta is nice and crispy, remove a quarter of the pancetta from the pan and eat that shit up with a spoon like it's cereal.
Ok wait, only do that if you're alone. And I really do mean alone.
If not, reserve that pancetta for later.

At this point, add your chopped onion and stir everything together. Salt the onions generously, as this will help pull out the sweet, natural juices of the onion. Add the dried oregano, freshed cracked pepper, as well as crushed red pepper, depending on how much heat you like in your pasta sauce. Leave the heat on medium and sweat the onions until they're translucent and tender, looking like this.


Turn the heat to medium-high and add your garlic, stirring until fragrant, about a minute.
Add the crushed tomatoes and stir to incorporate.
Add the bay leaves.
Bring this up till it's nice and bubbly and reduce the heat to medium low, allowing the sauce to simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour.
Taste it throughout and adjust the seasoning as needed. I always add more salt and pepper after adding the tomatoes, because it needs it.


As the sauce is finishing up, get your pasta on sonnnn.
I am no expert on making fresh pasta. I just started making it so give me a break people. All you need is eggs, flour, a pasta roller, and Google. I found out how to make it here, so I'm not going to get into detail about that. I am going to show you pictures though.

You can use regular dried pasta if you want, I do that all the time and this is still an awesome dish. But if you want to make people O in their pants, fresh pasta will do the job every time.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt the water and add your pasta. Cook the pasta until it's almost al dente, so just a little shorter than usual. The pasta will finish cooking in the sauce.

Drain the pasta and add it back to the pot over medium heat. Spoon enough sauce out of your pot and add it to the pasta, just enough to stir and  incorporate everything to make the pasta happy. At this point, you want to pour olive oil over everything, as well as the parmesan cheese, stirring all the while. This helps marry the sauce and the pasta together. Once the pasta is cooked and fully incorporated with the sauce, turn off the heat and serve, topping with additional sauce if desired, parmesan cheese, and the reserved pancetta for a crispy garnish.

I made this for Christmas Eve dinner. In my family, we traditionally have pasta with red sauce and shrimp on Christmas Eve, so I quickly sauteed some shrimp in olive oil, which go great on top of everything as well. That's just extra though.

This takes me back to Tivoli. Pasta tastes so much better when it was just made 5 minutes before you've put it in your fat mouth. Seriously. When it's perfectly cooked and tossed in this delicious sauce, you'll forget about that Americanized-Olive-Garden-horse-shit and want to eat this all the time. I'm not being a snob people. Italians just do it better than us. We take what they do and fuck it all up.

If you're a friend of mine and dont feel like going through the trouble to make this, I'll probably make it for you in the near future, because I love doing it. But if I don't really know you, don't go emailing me, asking me to make it for you, because I'll probably get all awkward with you.

Now go eat this and say thank you to all the Italians.

- Fat Kid