Buffalo chicken thighs

Buffalo sauce. Crude, salty, highly processed, low brow. Also: unspeakably delicious.

I love buffalo chicken.

With bleu cheese.

I love it to a shameful degree. I more than love it: I lurve it; I luff it with two F's. But why is it always wings--the most impractical, messy, meatless part of the chicken? And what's with all the frying? Is that really necessary?

Well, here's my take on things. Note: David Squires, this is for you.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
• 1 1/2 cups crushed-up corn flakes
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/4 cups Frank's Red Hot Wings sauce

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 450º.
2. Combine half the bread crumbs and half the corn flakes in a large bowl. Put the eggs in a separate bowl. Prepare a broiling pan.
3. Coat the chicken thighs on both sides with egg, then coat in the bread crumb mixture, and then place on the broiler. When the breadcrumbs become soggy (after 2-3 thighs), start over with the second half of the mixture.
   
4. Broil the chicken for 12 minutes on each side or until the juice is golden when the chicken is pricked with a fork.
5. Immediately before serving, put the hot sauce in a shallow bowl or casserole. Coat each thigh on both sides; serve immediately.

Serve with a dollop of roquefort mustard and several sprigs of celery or parsely.

Roquefort Mustard

I love buffalo chicken with bleu cheese sauce, but I always feel like that sauce is needlessly heavy and insipid. Then, in early 2007, I was at the Stonewall Kitchen store in Maine, and I discovered their Blue Cheese Herb Mustard. This is an excellent product, but--you know me and processed food--I wanted to make it myself.

I experimented with gorgonzola, which was way too sharp and not creamy enough. Then I turned to roquefort, and it provided a beautiful smoothness whose pungency played right off that of the mustard. It screamed out for tarragon, and that was that. Try this on your buffalo wings; I promise you won't be disappointed.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 oz dijon mustard
• 2 oz. roquefort cheese
• 2 tsp. dried tarragon

DIRECTIONS:

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl or mini-prep.

Sourdough pita

This is trivially easy and, if you have a sourdough starter, pretty close to free. Adapted from this thread on "The Fresh Loaf," which got it from Randy's Vegetarian Cookbook. Use a 475° oven for pocketless pitas. Roll thinner and raise oven to maximum temp for pitas with pockets.

Makes 3-4 pitas. Double or triple as needed.

Variation: this recipe produces a deep, moist pita, more like what is found in Greek restaurants. For a rustic, "desert" pita, leave out the water and add substantially less flour at the end. Roll into much thinner pitas--say, 1/8" thick--and bake for no more than 3m 30s. Note that kneading such a dough is much more physically demanding.

Notes: if making several batches at once, do not roll out each loaf until immediately before you put it in the oven. Also, cover unrolled balls with a damp cloth to prevent them from drying out.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup sourdough starter
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups flour (divided use)

RECIPE:

1. In a large bowl, mix sourdough starter, water, sugar and 1/2 cup flour. Add salt.
2. Knead in another 1/2 cup flour. Knead for 5-10 minutes or until the dough forms a springy, cohesive ball. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise for 45-60 minutes.
3. Knead in more flour until you have a firm, but still pliable dough.
   
4. Cut into 3-4 equal pieces. Roll into balls and let rest for 10 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 500°. While the oven is heating, roll the balls into 1/4" sheets. (Do not roll any thinner than 1/4".)
   
6. Bake for about 5 minutes, or until the pitas suddenly puff up. (They will collapse again once you remove them from heat.)
   

If eating that day, let cool for a moment then serve immediately. Otherwise, allow to reach room temperature, then freeze in an airtight container or bag.

Sourdough pancakes

I briefly considered calling these "one pancake to rule them all." Seriously, I have only had pancakes this nice from one place before this: Johnny's Luncheonette in Newton, MA. (Their pancakes have become more variable in quality since the early 2000s.)

These delicate, crepe-like pancakes are out of this world. Thin, soft, just a hint of sourness to balance the sweet, with the caramel notes of the seared exterior--incredible.

This is basically this recipe, halved, with a couple of minor modifications. (I mean, olive oil? Seriously?) Also, I took my sourdough starter directly out of the fridge and it was fine. Finally, I used baking powder instead of soda and I think it was better.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 1 tbsp. butter, melted
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp warm water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine baking powder and warm water. Set aside.
2. Gently mix all other ingredients in a small mixing bowl
3. Add the baking powder mixture and gently combine.
4. Allow mixture to stand while heating a skillet to medium-high.
5. Pour about 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Cook for 60-90 seconds per side. (The pancake is ready to flip the first time when a number of small holes have appeared on the top.)

Serve immediately. Discard leftover batter.

New England Feijoada

This is my take on the succulent Portuguese bean stew of the same name. Being a New Englander, I could not resist making it slightly sweet, but the spirit of the authentic thing shines through. I would have loved to use some tawny port instead of sherry, but that was all I had.

Initially, I made the stew in a slow cooker; but this dried out the linguica. I have not yet tried it out on range-top, but I have a very good idea of how it should come out. All in all, I am quite pleased with this excellent winter stew.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb. dry black beans, soaked overnight
  
• 2 lbs oxtail, trimmed
  
• 1 lb. linguica, cut on a bias into 1/3" rounds
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3 large cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 cup pitted prunes
• 1/4 cup tawny port or sherry
  
• 7 cups water
• Olive oil for sauté

DIRECTIONS

1. In a heavy pot, brown the oxtail over medium-high heat until seared on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Remove and set aside.
   
2. Reduce heat to medium-low; add olive oil. Sauté onions and garlic until caramelized, about 10 minutes, turning frequently.
   
3. Add the port and scrape the bottom of the pan with a spatula. (If using a nonstick pot, be sure to use a plastic spatula.) This should free up all browned bits from the oxtail and the onions.
   
4. Add all remaining ingredients to the pot, and simmer on medium-low for 1 1/2 hours or until beans are tender.

Serve with white rice.

Sweet potato latkes revisited

I wish I had written down what I did for my sweet potato latkes, as they were a smashing success this year. Alas, I failed to do it at the time, so the best I can do is try to remember a few points about what worked.

• Use olive oil. It tasted immeasurably better than the canola stuff you usually get. Light olive oil is available in big jugs on the cheap (I got a 38 oz monster for $10.99) and that's more than enough to get you through a lot of latkes. Note that olive oil has a lower smoke point than canola oil, so watch the heat or you'll be scrubbing.
• Use one egg and at least three tbsp. flour for every pound of sweet potatoes. You may need even more flour than that. I found that with this much egg and flour kicking around, I didn't have nearly as much trouble getting them to hold together.
• Sweet potatoes don't cast off nearly as much water as regular potatoes do, but they are also less starchy and therefore don't want to stick together.
• Lots of onion. Maybe one medium onion for every 1.5-2 sweet potatoes.I was hesitant to use a lot of onion at first--they're sweet potatoes, after all!--but they really added a fantastic dimension that played right off the olive oil in spectacular fashion. With less onion, the taste was a bit sweet and insipid.
• Careful with the salt. I used the guidelines for normal latkes (about 1/2 tsp. per pound) and it seemed like a lot.

I can't remember if I used any baking soda in the sweets. Too bad; otherwise I'd write up a guestimate of the recipe.

I'm very interested in shredding one beet and tossing that in with the sweet potatoes next year. It would add a lot of pizazz.

Apple cranberry sauce

Adjust the proportions here according to taste; they can vary pretty widely. Mine comes out quite tart and not too sweet.

Note that applesauce requires almost no water; you just add enough to allow the apples to steam themselves into a sauce.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 lbs granny smith or other sour apple, peeled, cored and quartered
  
• 1 lb. fresh cranberries, rinsed
• 3 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
  
• 4 cloves, whole
  
• 1 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 cup water

DIRECTIONS:

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker. Mix thoroughly and turn heat to low. Let cook for 8-10 hours, stirring occasionally. Mash before serving. Refrigerate unused portion.