Indonesian chicken wings.

I love Asian street food. I also love Buffalo wings. I had some chicken wings in my fridge but I didn't have any Frank's Red Hot (hot sauce) which is what I like to make my Buffalo wings with. Instead I went the route of making an Idonesian bbq sauce with kecap manis which is Indonesian soy sauce that's sweetened with palm sugar. It's thicker and sweeter than other soy sauces and I mixed it with sambal (chili garlic paste) and ginger. This was a great summer snack especially with a few Bintang beers. You can make them as spicy as you want them, just don't burn your kitchen down because will get a little smokey if you broil them like I do.

Indonesian Chicken Wings

3 lbs chicken wings (tips removed)
1/2 c kecap manis
2 Tbsp sambal
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger
2 Tbsp fresh squeezed lime juice

Remove the tips of the chicken wings and cut them in half at the joint. Preheat broiler. Combine the soy sauce, ginger, sambal, honey and lime juice and stir until mixed well. Marinate the chicken in the bbq sauce for 30 minutes refrigerator. Place the chicken wings on a broiler pan or sheet pan in a single layer spread apart. Broil for 8-10 minutes each side until the chicken is perfectly cooked. Serve right away.

little piece of chicken

Roasted chicken is not glamorous. It's not the kind of dish you think of when you have guests you want to impress. Too many visions of clicky chicken dry as a bone. It takes too long to cook and you can't seem to find that instant temp you had laying around so you just cook it until the color pink is eradicated. Well it doesn't have to been this way. Roasted chicken is a beautiful dish when cooked properly. I'm a fan of the high heat for less time method. One of my favorite chicken recipes is from James Drohman of Le Pichet & Café Presse. It's simple and has amazing texture and flavor. I added some truffle butter to doll it up a little. I served the chicken with a fresh chorizo stuffing.



Roasted Chicken
3/4lb roasting chicken
1/4lb butter
2 Tbsp truffle butter
coarse sea salt
fresh cracked black pepper

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Truss the chicken. Melt the butter in the roasting pan over medium heat on the stove top. Select a heavy roasting pan just large enough to hold the bird. Rub the truffle butter under the skin of the bird. When the butter is melted, place the chicken in the pan on its back. Baste well with the butter. Season liberally with the sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. Put the chicken in the oven and roast until done, basting every 15 minutes. Depending on the size of the chicken and your oven, this should take about 1 hour. Remove the string and serve immediately

My cheese is moldy.

Everybody loves cheese (wasn't that a tv show?). Ask any ex-vegan what their downfall was and 90% of the time it'll be the fromage. When I was a kid I would sit there and eat a whole block of velveeta by myself. Yeah I know that's not really cheese but it was close enough. As I've gotten older my tastes have refined a bit and I tend to enjoy cheeses that aren't sliced and individually wrapped in plastic. Washington state is home to some amazing cheesemakers (and a lot of ex-vegans). One of my favorite cheeses is the seastack from Mt. Townsend Creamery. Seastack, or the Sleestack as K likes to call it (any Land of the Lost fans out there?), is a brie style cow's milk cheese that is mold ripened for two to three weeks. It's coated with vegetable ash and salt ot give it an earthy flavor. I love this cheese. It's soft and creamy with a tangy bite from the rind. It's the perfect cheese that will stand up to a bold acidic white wine. As I recently discovered it's also a great cheese to cook with. I made a light cheese sauce out of it and served it with brussel sprouts. Very delicious.


Brussel Sprouts with Seastack

1 lb brussel sprouts, trimed and cut in half
1 Tbsp butter
1 round of Seastack cheese
1/2 c dry white wine
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper

In a saute pan over medium high heat melt the butter and saute the brussel sprouts cut side down until they get a nice caramelization (about 3-4 minutes). Pour in the wine and with a spoon swirl in the dijon mustard. Cover and turn the heat down to medium low. Steam for 6-8 minutes until just tender. Cut the Seastack in half. With a spoon scrape the cheese out of the rind and stir into the sauce until the cheese dissolves. Serve immediately.