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Tag: portland blogs

  • Chicken Shawarma Dinner

     

    First and foremost, this is a multi-recipe post! Nothing here is too complicated, and when you make (and eat) all these things together, the result is immensely satisfying; it’s a favorite weeknight—yes, weeknight—spread for us. This is a dinner that really exemplifies some of our favorite flavors: bold spices, fresh herbs, and obscene amounts of garlic. While we understand that this recipe might not be exactly authentic (it isn’t), we can promise that it’s completely delicious. The styles of shawarma, after all, are completely dependent on what’s around and what’s good, and we used what was in our pantry. We can also promise that this is one of the easiest and quickest smorgasbords you can make to impress a small crowd. It makes a great sit-down meal, but also could promote casual grazing at a party. We’ve tried it both ways: 10/10, would recommend.

    The zhoug was inspired from the Jerusalem cookbook, and has since found its way into many dinners of ours. Call us predictable, but we are suckers for fresh and spicy sauces that brighten things up.

    Parsley and Mint Zhoug:

    • 1 cup of fresh parsley leaves, packed, some stems are okay
    • ½ cup fresh mint leaves, packed
    • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
    • 2 green chiles, stems removed
      • Note: You can use whatever green chiles might be available to you for this such as jalapeños or serranos. We love using Thai chiles, and for this particular recipe we us 4–5. It all depends to how spicy you want this condiment to be.
    • 1 heaping teaspoon of ground cumin
    • Juice of 1 lemon, seeds removed
    • ¼ cup olive oil
    • Salt to taste

    Combine parsley, mint, garlic, chiles, cumin, and lemon juice in a food processor and pulse the ingredients together, occasionally scraping the sides of the bowl. Once the mixture resembles a thick paste, keep the blade running and pour in the olive oil through the top slowly, creating an emulsion. Season with salt and double check the mixture for smoothness, pulsing occasionally if needed. Serve in a small serving bowl.

    Chicken Shawarma:

    • 1 pound of chicken breasts, trimmed of silver skin
    • Kosher salt
    • Shawarma spice mix:
      • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
      • 2 teaspoons curry powder
      • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
      • 1 teaspoon sumac
      • 1 teaspoon paprika
      • ½ teaspoon ground allspice
      • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
      • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
    • Oil as needed
    • ½ large sweet onion, thinly sliced into strips


    Rinse the chicken pat dry with a paper towel. Fillet meat into pieces with even thicknesses; about an inch. Cover one side of the meat liberally in salt and spices and set aside.

    Bring a pan to medium high heat with half a tablespoon of oil or so and place the chicken in the pan. As the meat cooks, salt and cover the other side with salt and spices. Cook until the chicken starts to whiten up the sides, then flip to finish cooking. Test the chicken for doneness (160-165°F) then remove from the pan to rest for 10 minutes before serving. While the chicken rests, add the onions to the pan and a little bit of water to help the drippings from the pan release. Cook onions until they become soft, translucent, and have sopped up all the drippings. Remove from the pan and serve.

    Serve with pita, hummus, baba ghanouj, and, if you can swing it, throw together a two second Greek salad.

    Serves 4.


  • Tiger Cry Steak

    This recipe from my childhood grew up over the years as I grew as a cook and — in its final form — it has changed into something simpler and more representative of my relationship with Nate, highlighting both of our strengths in the kitchen. Nate is all about technique (and very good at cooking meat) while I tend to be more of the flavor-combiner/mad scientist sauce making type, and this recipe relies on the success of both of these schools of thought. Nate’s well executed marinated steak is the perfect platform for this fresh herb chimichurri which will sear your face off and keep you coming back for more.


    Tiger Cry Steak:

    • 2 beef or buffalo steaks (any kind will do, but we used buffalo top sirloin), 8 ounces each, trimmed of fat and silver skin

    • ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

    • 1 stalk of lemongrass, tender white interior sliced thinly, green and husks discarded

    • 2 tablespoons thin soy sauce

    • 2 tablespoons lime juice

    Mix the pepper, lemongrass, soy sauce, and lime juice together to make a quick marinade then transfer to a plastic bag big enough to hold the meat. Add the steaks to the bag, distribute the marinade evenly, then marinate the meat in the fridge for a couple of hours to overnight (overnight is best). Before cooking, allow the steaks to come up to room temperature and be patted dry.


    On the grill or stovetop, cook the steaks for 4–5 minutes on one side to create a nice sear, then flip them and cook for another 3–5 minutes. For medium-rare steak, test the temperature with a meat thermometer to make sure the interior is around 135 degrees. Allow meat to rest for 10 minutes, reserving the meat juices, then serve with chimichurri.

    Thai Style Chimichurri:

    • 2 cups of fresh cilantro leaves, packed, some stems are okay.

    • ½ cup of fresh mint leaves, packed

    • 4–5 thai chilies, stems removed

    • 1 shallot, roughly chopped

    • 2 large cloves of garlic

    • 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon of fish sauce

    • ⅓ cup lime juice (about 2 limes)

    • ¼ cup vegetable oil

    • Leftover meat drippings

    In a food processor, combine the cilantro, mint, chiles, shallot, and garlic and pulse until the ingredients are all finely minced. Mix the fish sauce, lime juice, vegetable oil, and meat drippings together into a vessel with a spout and pour into the food processor with the blade running. Blend until it becomes a smooth sauce. Serve with rested meat.

    Serves 4.


  • Smashed Raspberry Grilled Cheese

    Our challenge of savory seasonal eating continues!

    Raspberry season is upon us, and we quickly discovered through our research process that there’s not a whole lot of savory raspberry recipes out there, which we found simultaneously disappointing and alluring. We found plenty of jams, jellies, cookies, pavlovas (Christ, so many pavlovas) and cakes, but no one seemed interested in figuring out how raspberries could make their way out of the realm of dessert.

    But if there’s a way to make something savory, we will find it. As usual, the key was cheese.

    Grilled cheese sandwiches are essentially a step below pizza ingredient-wise, so they’re near the top of the favorite food list for us. Few things can compare to crisp and thickly sliced rustic bread (Nate makes the best) with melted cheese. However, there is one thing that these sandwiches usually lack to create what is more commonly accepted as a “complete taste” on its own, and that’s acid. That’s why you see grilled cheese and tomato soup paired together all over the place.

    So we thought…why not switch up the acid?


    Berries and cheese go way back, so we weren’t too scared about them intermingling. Our acidic subject? Fresh raspberries. Our cheese? We eventually decided to go with a blend of chèvre for flavor and Jarlsberg for texture. So we smashed some raspberries we got from Sauvie Island Farms after a lovely day of berry picking onto some of Nate’s homemade 50% whole wheat sourdough bread and got cooking.

    The results? Crunchy, fluffy, creamy, gooey, and tart. It was everything we hoped it would be and more. If you have any fruit laying around, especially incredibly fresh fruit, we wholeheartedly recommend you put your thinking cap on and find a cheese that’ll pair well with it, then immediately stuff it in a grilled cheese sandwich. You will not be disappointed. Sometimes it really is the simplest things that taste the best.

    Smashed Raspberry Grilled Cheese Sandwich:

    Makes 1.

    • 2 thick slices of good rustic bread (whole wheat sourdough was magical with this, but if you wanna try something else, it’ll still turn out awesome)
    • About 1 tablespoon of butter, room temperature
    • 8–10 ripe raspberries (enough to cover the surface of one piece of bread)
    • 2 ounces of Jarlsberg cheese, grated
    • 1 ounce chèvre, room temperature
    • A dash of freshly ground black pepper

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    In a small bowl, mix the grated Jarlsberg and chèvre together along with the fresh black pepper. Set aside.

    Butter both pieces of bread on one side using ½ a tablespoon of butter each. On the unbuttered side of one of your pieces of bread, lay out your raspberries and smash them with a fork, moving the juices around until the entire surface of the bread is covered. Spoon the cheese mixture on top of the smashed raspberries and spread it until the cheese covers the surface of the bread. Put the other piece of bread on top, buttered side up.

    Preheat a non-stick pan on medium heat and put the sandwich in the pan. Allow each side to cook for roughly four minutes, adjusting heat as needed to cook the sandwich through, or until each side of the bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted. To help the melting process along, you can put a lid on the pan, keeping the heat trapped in, though you should limit this because you will lose that deep crispness with too much steam.

    Allow sandwich to cool, then go to town.