The Amazing Transforming Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Image from Wikipedia.org
I'm pretty sure it was these on the Tree of Knowledge

This is a tale of an incredible sauce that over the course of a week formed the basis for not one, not two, but three distinct dishes. With a few bits of that, tads of this, and a wave of the hand, the sauce took on three entirely different shapes.

It all started with delicious food bits on the bottom of my pan. You see, my wife and I often make a very cheap, very simple baked cheesy pasta dish. It isn't really mac and cheese... it's even easier than that. Basically, you cook up whatever random pasta (not spaghetti) you have in the house, then layer it with cheese (preferably multiple kinds) in a baking dish, put breadcrumbs and butter on top, and cook it.

There are a lot of variations... you can spice it up, add meat, or add more cheeses. I like to add bacon, not only because it's delicious, but also because it's normally the only meat in the house. Well, on this fine day, we had some chicken breasts. So, I decided to cook them up and put them in the dish. The quickest way seemed to be Sautéing, and since I can't leave well enough alone, a put a ton of other spice on them... garlic, salt, pepper, a dash of chili-powder... and primarily smoked paprika.

Now, you normally see sweet paprika in the store, and sometimes spicy paprika... those are good, but smoked paprika is AWESOME. I got my first bottle online, and thought that was the only way to get it (talk about inconvenient!) But, recently I discovered the AMAZING grocery store: Fairway. They have it there, and cheap! They also have tons of other amazing things, including a coffee section that will knock you out, and a fish market that DOESN'T SMELL LIKE FISH. Amazing. I don't live near by, but some of my in-laws do, so now when I go there, I can grab non-perishable things like the delicious smoked paprika.

Pardon my digression. Although, it could probably be said that my entire blog is a digression. A digestion digression! Oh snap. So, when I was done cooking these yummy chicken breast for our basic cheese/pasta bake, I realized that there was a ton of yummy bits on the bottom of my pan. Now, the way to make use of these flavorful, meaty tidbits is to deglaze the pan. A lot of times you do this with water, broth, vinegar, or wine. I, of course, wanted to deglaze it with beer... the problem? The dish I was making really couldn't use that much wet ingredients. But, I deglazed the pan anyway and poured the liquid over the chicken. The chicken sat in the liquid until I put it in the pasta bake, but I couldn't add the liquid to the bake, which is a waste.

My brain started to ponder over what I could use this recipe for. Suddenly, another dark hidden cooking idea I had in my head popped up and merged with the beer-deglaze idea. The idea: roasted red bell peppers. I had wanted to use roasted red peppers in a dish for weeks, but couldn't quite figure out what to do... So my brain slowly formulated the following recipe, that ended being a lot more than I thought it would be.

The chicken:
4 boneless chicken breasts
lil bit olive oil
1 tablespoon(ish) smoked paprika
1 teaspoon(ish) black pepper
1 teaspoon(ish) chili powder
dash o' salt

The sauce:
2 or 3 Red peppers
1-3 onions (depends on how many you have lying around, and how much you like onions)
couple cloves of garlic (depends how much you like garlic)
1 cup or so chicken stock
BEER
Any other spices you deem fit

LET'S DO IT:
The first thing to do is roast the red peppers. There are a LOT of ways to do this. Probably the best way is on the grill... but I don't have a grill, so there are a few other things. You could use tongs and cook them directly on your gas stove, which I did, and it works... but its smokey and stinky. What really works is laying down some aluminum foil on your broiling pan, and broiling these bad boys. The broiler is basically like an upside-down grill, so just keep checking these to make sure they're not... well, on fire. That's actually all you need to worry about, because you want them to burn. You basically cook/turn, cook/turn them until they are entirely black. Then, you place them in some airtight container... what I do is put them in a metal bowl, and place plastic wrap over them. Just make sure the peppers don't touch the wrap, because it will melt in get in your food. EW. We'll come back to the red peppers soon.

Sauté the chicken in a stick pan... okay, let me explain. You can't use a non-stick pan for this recipe. I KNOW, I KNOW. We love them, nothing sticks, easy to clean... blah, blah. But trust me, it's worth it! I use stainless steel, but as long as there's no Teflon involved, go for it (copper, aluminum, cast iron, re-enforced titanium.) I actually tend to not use Teflon pans unless I'm cooking something really sticky; i.e. eggs. You also want the pan to be pretty big and have a lid. This way, you can keep using the pan and not have to get too many pans dirty.

So, anyway, Sauté the chicken over medium-high heat in a lil' bit of olive oil. Standard olive oil is fine, I always use cheap stuff for cooking, and the good stuff (ultra-extra-virgin, first cold press) for dips and salads. If you apply heat, its not worth the good stuff.

While one side is cooking, smack all the above spice on there (paprika, salt, black pepper, chili powder, whatever you want). Cook it all up till they're juuuust done. You'll be cooking (poaching, actually) them more later, so don't get obsessed about getting them ultra-done. Once done, place the chicken to rest somewhere while you cook the sauce.

During the cooking of the chicken, you can start up the sauce. Lay down a bit of olive oil in a medium sauce pan, and start sauteing the onions. I like to slice the onions reeeal thin before hand. I do this with a mandolin, but you can get it pretty thin with a knife. Cook them pretty slow, and reduce them down a lot. Once they're mostly cooked, add some garlic into the mix. I actually also sliced the garlic real thin, but if you're lazy you can use pre-minced stuff from a jar. Once the garlic and onions are cooked, pour in the chicken stock. Take the red peppers, peel of the blackened skin and de-seed/de-stem them. Then just plop them in the pot with the onions, garlic, and stuff, and turn the heat to low, letting it simmer.

Now, if you've left the chicken pan off heat for a while, time to turn the heat back up. Yup, there's nothing in there but the flavor bits, but to get 'um, ya gotta turn up the heat. Once it gets hot, pour some beer in there. What beer? How much? This really depends. I think you could use anything from a decent lager to a dark ale. I don't think you should use too light a lager--a middle of the road ale should be fine. No stouts or porters. Stouts and porters don't do good in high-heat environment because they tend to get bitter. Cold applications tend to be much better for dark beers (do I see stout ice cream in the future?) If I remember correctly, I used cherry wheat, but that's just because it was in the fridge. You pour the beer, probably about half of it, into the pan and use a metal utensil to get all the bits up. It should be sizzling and the pan should become clean pretty fast. Once you get all the bits up, pour it all into the mixture simmering in the other pot.

Turn the heat back up on the pot for a little bit, stirring the mixture. Then, take an immersion blender to it. Get it nice and smooth. Now, pour it back into the chicken pan. Put the chicken back in with the liquid, slap the lid on, and put it over medium-low heat. Let it cook for a while, what you're basically doing is poaching the chicken and letting the stuff get in there reeeaaalll good.

Serve the chicken over rice or pasta and pour the sauce over the whole thing. And it is D-LISH. And that's the end, right?

NOPE.

There was a ton of sauce left over. What to do with it? The next day, my wife added a little bit of tomato paste to it (I'm sure any tomato product would work, its just what we had), and some oregano and other spices. She slapped it on some homemade Naan, put some cheese on that with garlic, and BAM we had naan pizza with roasted-red-pepper sauce. It was delicious, and that was it. Right?

NOPE

A few days later, we STILL have some of this sauce left over. I decided to put it on pasta... but why not doctor it one more time? Shoved it in a pot (small, at this point... not much left) heated it up, then added about a half a cup to a cup of heavy cream. Some Parmesan (Parmigiano-Reggiano if you have the money) wouldn't hurt either. Then BAM. Some REAAALLLY good roasted-red-pepper-cream-sauce-over-penne.

So, I ended up inadvertently creating an extremely versatile and yummy sauce. This is also one of the few recipes that I really created start-to-finish. Most of my other ones are doctored recipes, recipe combos, and doctored combos. Give it a shot; there are few things more delicious then roasted red bell peppers.

Thanks for reading, and remember: Don't be afraid to drink it, eat it, or cook with it. But always drink it in moderation while you cook it.

Sudstastic Adventures 1: Dogfish Head’s 120min IPA

The average beer is about 3-5% abv. Many craft beers are around 8%, and a decent amount can get up to 10 or 11%. A number of red wines are around this same area. Dogfish Head’s 120min IPA is about 18% abv. This is about as high as you can get without dishing out $150 for Sam Adams Utopias.

I have the unique honor of living within 20 minutes of Oak Tree Buy Rite. Oak Tree is one of the best beer stores in the country, and I’ve heard stories of people coming from as far as North Carolina to visit this Mecca of beer. Luckily, I live just far enough away that I don’t go there on a daily basis, wasting all the money I don’t have. Unlike other stores, Oak Tree stocks an ample supple of 120min IPAs, which I have admired for the past year or so. The reason I didn’t buy a bottle until now is that it’s about $9 for a bottle. A 12oz bottle. This may seem steep, but if you consider that a 750ml bottle of decent schnapps costs about $20 and clocks in at a similar abv, it’s not too bad.

Why is this beer so alcoholic? Well, the answer is in the name. An IPA (Indian Pale Ale) is a popular style in America known for it’s massive hoppiness. During the making of a normal IPA, the wort is boiled for about an hour, with hops added during this time. Some get a little crazy and boil it for an hour and a half. Dogfish Head goes nuts and does it for two hours. The longer you boil it, the more sugar you get. The more sugar you get, the more alcohol the yeast produces when you ferment it. However, at the same time, Dogfish Head continually hops the beer as it boils. This means the beer will end up incredibly hoppy, incredibly alcoholic, but surprisingly pretty sweet due to all the sugars produced during the long-term boil.

With big beers like this, it tends to be a one-time adventure for me. I want to try it for the experience, and then not drop so much money for it again. For instance, a few weeks ago I bought Southern Tier’s Crème Brule stout. I tried it, and it was an interesting experience, but something I wouldn’t need to have again. I mean, if someone offered it to me, I’d say sure, but beyond that, I’m good. I assumed the 120min IPA would be like this. At $9 a bottle I needed it to be like this. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

The extremely helpful fellow at Oak Tree suggested I try the vintage 2006, as the harshness of the hops have mellowed, and the flavors have complexified. So, I got home and reluctantly stowed the beer in the Fridge. Despite wanting desperately to pop it open right away, it was a work night, and this is not a beer to have on a work night. I knew I had off on Wednesday for Thanksgiving break, so I scheduled my beer-quality-time for Tuesday night. Yes, I literally put it in my daily planner.

As I am an info-junkie, I looked on the Dogfish Head website and found a video from the brewmaster Sam Calagione about the 120min IPA. This is an interesting guy who I saw talk at Beer Advocates Extreme Beer Fest last year, and who was a primary person followed in the amazing documentary Beer Wars. He has the whole beer in a goblet, but explains this is only to showcase the beer, and he highly suggests splitting a bottle with a friend. The nice fellow at Oak Tree suggested sharing it with a friend… or two. They both also suggested that it should be served at room temperature. I ignored both of these suggestions. I’m not sure why. Okay, yes I am. I didn’t share it because I wouldn’t mind any effects that may occur by drinking it on my own (hey, I had no work the next day!). And I didn’t drink it at room temperature because I knew it would take me a few hours to drink, and I like experiencing the full spectrum of taste; from cold, to cool, to almost-warm. Each of these stages offers a unique tasting experience for a beer.

So, Tuesday rolls around and I excitingly run home and grab the beer. I pour it into my trusty Chimay goblet. The first thing I notice is the color. Most IPA’s are transparent. They range in color from dark amber, to copper, to a light, almost lager yellow. This beer was the color of apple cider, but what was striking about it was that it wasn’t transparent. It was foggy. I’m assuming that since it was continually hopped for 2 hours, the hops imparted almost all of their resin to the beer. I can’t say for sure, but it was definitely an interesting color.

The smell was intense; a lot of hops with some interesting underlying fruit scents and sugars. The taste was massive and complex. The hops were there big time, but as appose to a big spicy hop flavor, it was a more complex fruity, grassy hop flavor. I got a lot of grapefruit, as well as almost a buttery flavor. And, to be honest, this is one of a few beers that I’ve had where the fact that hops and cannabis are related really comes through. Alright, alright people, don’t get any funny ideas. I’m sure anyone who’s been to college at least knows what the stuff smells like. Either way, this beer was surprisingly drinkable, and the 18% abv was incredibly well hidden. I expected to only sip it, but ended up taking some sizeable swigs. It did last the entire night: through the afternoon snack, through dinner and through the making of apple dumplings (you’ll see a post on that soon!).

The worst part of the whole thing is how incredibly delicious this beer was. I mean, I could probably drink this beer once a week… if I were Bill Gates. In fact, just thinking about it now makes me salivate. I also have acquired an intense curiosity to see how a fresh batch tastes. However, I doubt I will be having another bottle—fresh or vintage—anytime soon. There’s a pivotal part of the puzzle missing before such an event can occur: a job.

Thanks for reading, and remember: Don't be afraid to drink it, eat it, or cook with it. But always drink it in moderation while you cook it.

Unwanted Beer Recipe 1: Drunken Noodles

Ever get a six pack only to find that the beer's taste sadly disappoints? This is a dangerous side effect of being a beer connoisseur such as myself. But after you've dumped so much money on a craft beer, you can't just throw it away, right?

Well now you won't have to. This is the first segment of a multi-part series chronically my adventures of cooking with beer. Surprisingly, some of the worst tasting beers to drink, actually end up being pretty good when put into cooking. Although, sometimes it isn't the beer that fails; it's the recipe. But, if it works 80% of the time, cooking with your unwanted beer is well worth it--much better then throwing it away.

Oddly enough, my first recipe differs from the norm a bit. As appose to a sub-par craft beer, this recipe calls for an American/Euro macro lager. "What?" you say, "How can Josh have macro lagers in his fridge!!??" Well, despite my extreme love of delicately made craft beer, and my problems with big-beer companies caring only about money and not about taste or their employees, I also have an extreme fear of something else: losing all my money. So, when a father-in-law offers a plethora of left-over macro lagers to take home after a vacation, a thrifty man such as myself takes it.

I also care for my visiting friends, who often aren't nearly as picky as me when it comes to beer. So, through the later summer months and early fall months, we slowly picked at the many cans of Red Dog and Heineken until we were sick of them and only a few were left. So I asked myself: "What can I do with these beers?" The answer came indirectly from a fellow-foodie full-time co-worker. "Now, when any recipe calls for water, I use beer. Chili, stew, you name it!" he says. "I'll keep that in mind," I say. And I did.

What popular, cheap college dish calls for two cups of water? You guessed it: Ramen Noodles. So, I decided to cook Ramen Noodles with beer. It's a pretty simple, manipulatable, and interesting recipe. Here we go:

Primary Ingredients:
1 can cheap lager
Some water
1 Pack Ramen Noodles

Secondary Ingredients:
Ginger-scallion sauce
Bouillon packet
Soft boiled eggs
Dumplings
Wontons
Hoisin Sauce
and so on...

Directions:
Pour the beer into a small pot (carefully! it's carbonated). Add a little water (to round the liquid off to two cups). Boil, add Ramen Noodles, and cook for 3 minutes.
NOTE OF CAUTION: Be careful boiling the beer and when you add the ramen. This stuff tends to bubble up, and sometimes out. You may have to take it on and off the heat, take the lid on and off, etc.
And that's it. That's the base of the recipe. Basically, it's just a different way of cooking Ramen. From their, you can go in about 20 different directions depending on your tastes, time frame, and stuff in your fridge.

One of my new favorite things to do is to use the ginger-scallion sauce of a popular New York chef. You can use it in a Ramen soup, or you can strain the noodles out of the beer and saute/stir-fry it with the ginger-scallion sauce. The possibilities are endless.

If you're going to do soup, I suggest tossing that high-blood-pressure-in-a-foil-packet that comes with the ramen noodles. You can make your own flavors, and if you need an instant soup base, just add a packet of sodium-free bullion packets. Cheap and healthy... okay, healthier. Also, try out some soft-boiled eggs in the soup. They taste great with the noodles, and the runny yolk adds an extra something to the soup.

I plop the eggs in an electric kettle that shuts off automatically when it boils. As soon as it shuts off, I start a two-minute timer and put the eggs in an ice bath right afterward. Electric kettles are AWESOME. I've been trying to rig it so the button that switches off on the electric kettle hits the start button on the timer, but haven't had success so far. I'll let you know if it works out.

Well, that concludes Unwanted Beer Recipe 1: Drunken Noodles. Expect a lot more from this series, including Aprihop bread, Cappuccino stout mustard, and maybe even some beer desert recipes. Thanks for reading, and remember: Don't be afraid to drink it, eat it, or cook with it. But always drink it in moderation while you cook it.