Old Fashioned Pancakes ToTry

Posted on by July 27, 2017

Good Old Fashioned Pancakes

Recipe By: Dakota Kelly’s grandmother from here.
“This is a great recipe that I found in my Grandma’s recipe book. Judging from the weathered look of this recipe card, this was a family favorite.”

Ingredients.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.
  2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Crispy Spatchcocked Chicken Recipe ToTry

Posted on by August 7, 2017
  • Author: The Mediterranean Dish
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 65 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
  • Yield: 4

ingredients

  • 4 lb whole chicken
  • Salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp sweet paprika
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • Extra virgin olive oil

Optional 

  • 8 Campari tomatoes
  • 1 large sweet onion or Vidalia onion, peeled and quartered
  • Handful green olives

instructions

  1. One night before you plan to roast the chicken, spatchcock (butterfly) it (or ask your butcher to do this part for you). Place the chicken on a cutting board with its backbone facing you. Using a pair of sturdy kitchen shears like this one, cut out the backbone by cutting along both sides of the spine, and remove it. Remove the wing tips. (You can save the backbone and wingtips for making stock, if you like).
  2. Place the chicken, breast side up, on a large cutting board. Push down on the breastbone. Generously season with salt (and I mean generously) on both sides. Place the chicken, breast side up, on a shallow roasting dish. Refrigerate, uncovered, overnight.
  3. One hour before you plan to roast it, pull the chicken out of the fridge and set at room temperature.
  4. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, and adjust an oven rack right in the middle.
  5. In a small dish, mix the spices. Season the chicken on both sides. Pull its skin up, and apply some of the spice mix underneath as well.
  6. In a 12-inch cast iron skillet, add just enough extra virgin olive oil to coat the bottom. Heat on medium-high. As soon as the oil is shimmering, add the chicken, breast side down. Brown for 6-8 minutes, then flip over and brown on the other side another 5 minutes or so.
  7. Transfer the cast iron skillet to the heated oven middle rack. Slide it all way to the back of the oven, with the handle of the pan facing left.
  8. After 20 minutes, using oven mitts, carefully, turn the skillet 180 degrees so that the handle is now pointing right. Push to the back of the oven again. Roast for another 45 minutes, until the chicken is brown all over and the juices run clear. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before carving.
  9. Optional. If you like, about 20 minutes or so before you pull the chicken out of the oven, add the tomato and onion to a small roasting dish. Toss with olive oil and salt. Place on the lower rack of the oven to roast. When done, add a handful of spicy green olives to the roasted veggies and serve with the chicken. (see more ideas below)

notes

-If you don’t have time to salt the chicken and refrigerate overnight, do this as early as possible the day of.  Pat the chicken dry with paper towel before continuing on

-Other dishes to serve next to this Spatchcocked Chicken:

*Recipe adapted from Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat

Find it online: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/crispy-spatchcocked-chicken-recipe/

Kimchi – 1st Time

Posted on by August 13, 2017

7/23/2017 – The recipe below is from the downloaded copy of The Ferment Cookbook by Nourished Essentials. Our mods are after the dash or strike-out in the list of ingredients.

Yummy Kimchi

4 cups shredded cabbage (Napa, Chinese, or regular green cabbage)
1/2 cup minced red onion
1/4 cup sliced green onions
1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes – We probably had 1-1/2 T when it “looked right”.
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 cup grated carrots
1 teaspoon grated ginger root
2 T Lemon Juice – fresh squeezed
1 T Sea salt

1 In a large bowl, combine cabbage, carrots, red onion, green onion, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes and stir ingredients together
2 Add lemon juice and salt and mash ingredients. Then cover with a towel and allow to set for 30 minutes.
3 Once the mixture has started to be broken down by the salt transfer the ingredients to your wide mouth mason jar.
4 Begin to try and extract as much liquid from the mixture as possible by pounding the mixture inside the jar.
5 If there is not enough liquid in the jar, just add some brine to ensure that the vegetables are covered.
6 Like sauerkraut, fermenting time with kimichi will depend a lot on taste preference and how much salt is added relative to your veggies, but we recommend at least 10 but can be as much as 30

08/13/2017 – 3 weeks – Tried it for the first time and it was good. The heat came on slow. The cabbage and carrots were a little crunchy.

Fermented Carrot Sticks – 1st time

Posted on by August 22, 2017

7/23/2017 – Followed the recipe below that was inspired by the DL’ed copy of The Ferment Cookbook by Nourished Essentials. Our changes are in after the dash in the ingredient list.

Trying these new lids

Carrot Sticks With Southern Twist

1 to 1-1/2 pounds of carrots(peeled and cut into sticks) –  We cut up enough to fill the quart jar
Two handfuls of fresh cilantro leaves – Used one handful
1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 tablespoon of sea salt
3 cloves of garlic peeled and crushed – used several large cloves and several small

  1.  Prepare the brine by combining the salt into the warm water so it dissolves. Set aside to cool
  2. Place the garlic cloves, cumin seeds and the cilantro in the bottom of the mason jar
  3. Place the carrot sticks on top so that they all ?t vertically.
  4. Pour brine over the carrot sticks leaving about 2 inches of headroom from the top of the jar
  5. Tighten the jar with the Easy Fermenter lid and place at room temperature for about 7 to 18 days
  6. Once the vegetables are tasting to your liking transfer to cold storage.

8/2/2017 – Eight days fermenting.  Tried two sticks in my lunch. Very crunchy and a bit of ferment taste. Did not appear to have fermented all the way through.

8/5/2017 – 13 days fermenting.  Stick is not so crunchy and had a better flavor. Needs longer.

8/19/2017 – After numerous times trying these they were never really tasty. They were crunchy but did not have any flavor. Not sure how to fix it.

Jimmy Dean Sausage Clones ToTry

Posted on by July 21, 2017

From a post at SMF – “…this set of three recipes from Top Secret Recipes posted by Todd Wilbur on FB:

Jimmy Dean Sausage clone recipe

This clone recipe re-creates three varieties of the famous roll sausage that you form into patties and cook in a skillet. Use ground pork found at the supermarket (make it lean pork if you like), or grind some up yourself if you have a meat grinder laying around for some good old-fashioned fun. Thanks for the inspiration, Jimmy!

Regular
16 ounces ground pork
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon rubbed dried sage
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon MSG (such as Accent Flavor Enhancer)

Hot
16 ounces ground pork
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon rubbed dried sage
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon MSG (such as Accent Flavor Enhancer)

Maple
16 ounces ground pork
3 tablespoons maple-flavored syrup
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon MSG (such as Accent Flavor Enhancer)
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

Combine all the ingredients for the flavor of your choice in a medium bowl. Form the sausage into patties and cook in a skillet over medium heat until browned all over.

Each recipe makes 1 pound of sausage.

Shrimp – Royal Reds

Posted on by July 9, 2017

7/8/2017 – At the farm – Bought 3 lbs, of 20-30 count, head-on, frozen, Royal Reds at Bayou Produce and Seafood for $6.50/lb. Owner said they were authentic from 1000 feet deep in a trench in Florida. We told him we had them recently that had come from Argentina. He said those would have been farm raised and not as good.

Brought to a boil a 6″ deep, wide aluminum fry pot with a little more than 1C homemade crab boil and turned it off. Let it steep for an hour then brought back to a rolling boil and dumped in the cold, headless shrimp.  Note we did not add salt as the owner said they are salty enough having come from so deep where the salinity is high.

Very pleased with the crab boil as it had the carport smelling like old time crab boil with strong full aromas. The shrimp had the flavor but not overpowering.

Owner said to add them to boiling water and as it reheated leave them in for no more than 3 minutes. Using Mary’s phone counting down from a 3-minute setting, when it timed out the first shrimp floated. As the pot had a strainer basket they all were removed from the boil at the same time. Dumped them into a bowl with ice.

Results – They:

  • sorta had a lobster taste as we were told to anticipate. Perhaps the crab boil masked it some;
  • were firm and a bit crunchy – definitely not overdone. Seemed like they are firmer meat than the typical shrimp;
  • did have a good shrimp taste that was more mild than typical;
  • were a nice change but not work paying a lot more which we did not do today as there were no cheaper fresh shrimp due to fresh water has pushed the shrimp offshore. Only thing available was frozen and all expensive by Bayou La Batre pricing.

Pastrami for Kelley’s birthday

Posted on by March 16, 2021

This cure and smoke turned out good. It was a joint effort with Mary helping a lot as we set it up and took it to the farm to turn it every day. Brought it back to Houston and smoked it almost 5 hours that afternoon. Finished it in the oven on Kelley’s birthday. The big difference this time was lightly grinding the rubs rather than leaving the seeds and corns whole. The small piece we had when it was opened and cut was good. Kelley raved about how good it was. Note the last Conclusion that grinding the seeds maybe reduced the flavor. See the May 5th cook as it was better.

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Chef JJ’s Compiled Turkey Process

Posted on by January 9, 2018

Below is a compilation of recipes and advice from Chef JimmyJ at Smoking Meat Forum about poultry and especially turkey. The brining piece is also on my Brining page.

For thawing advice and process safety tips go to the page titled Turkey Parameters- thaw, brine, inject. There is also a link there to 6 cajun injection recipes.

From Chef JJ – I brine all my poultry, even rotisserie chix. The recipe below is popular and Wade in the UK uses it commercially…JJ

Families Favorite Brine

1/2C Kosher Salt
2T Paprika
2T Gran. Garlic
2T Gran. Onion
2T Dry Thyme
2T Black Pepper
1C Vinegar (Any)
1 – 1-1/2 Gal Cold Water to cover Chix

1/2C Brown Sugar, Optional
1T Red Pepper Flake Optional

  1. Mix well and Soak the Bird overnight or up to 24 Hours.
  2. Remove the Chix, rinse if desired and pat dry with paper towels.
  3. Place in an open container (in also said on a wire rack in a sheet pan) in the refrigerator overnight or up to 24 hours for the Skin to dry.
  4. This will give a crispier skin when Smoking or Roasting.

Why to Wet Brine – From Dave Omak – “DiggginDogFarm recommends dry brining for increased flavor…. I have tried it and find that’s true… Also the meat stays more moist, when dry brining, versus no brining…. Wet brining can “add” flavor if spices, stocks are used in the wet brine… Wet brining can add moisture when supplemented with hygroscopic materials like salt and sugar… The salt and sugar remain in the meat fibers and “hold” onto the liquid solution….”

Injection – Not by Chef JJ. – See Turkey Injection recipes from Louisiana.

Post at SMF said –  “I injected each the night before with 1 cup butter and 1/3 creole mixed in. Smeared what I couldn’t inject over the birds and then dusted with more creole, garlic powder, and a little pepper. Turned out delicious for as easy as it was. About 15 minutes per pound.”

To Inject or Not to Inject – See this post for the debate and recipes.  I think the first time I will pass on the injection and see how the flavors in the brine soak in.

Juicy Smoke-tastic Chicken and Turkey posted here by Chef JimmyJ

I like Apple and/or Hickory with Chicken or Turkey. Determine doneness by measuring the Internal Temp (IT) in the thickest part of the Breast and Thigh, 165* and 175*F respectively.

For a One Step Smoke with Crispy Skin the birds have to be smoked at a temp of 300-325°F. You can figure about 15 minutes per pound to reach the desired IT. Electric smokers usually only go to 275°F. With these you will be smoking at the most common temp range of 225-275°F. You can figure on about 25 minutes per pound cook time + or – 5 minutes depending what part of the range you choose.

Usually, the skin will not crisp in a smoker so if the skin is not Crisp enough when the IT is 145*F in the Breast, put the Bird in a 425*F Oven to finish cooking to 165* and Crisp the Skin…JJ

Creole Seasoning by Kit Wohl

Posted on by March 18, 2026

Below is Kit Wohl’s recipe in our copy of her New Orleans Classic Seafood cookbook on page 92. This is the blend we began making summer 2017 and Mary “loved it” on chicken, in fry mix, and other stuff. The gram values are ours, derived from the conversion chart on this site. Notice the additional ingredients to make a blackening seasoning and a seafood fry. It is a standard in our kitchen and is made regularly and used weekly. It is in a SS shaker on the counter next to the stove with the salt and pepper.

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