Sticky Chicken and Dirty Hands

I am coming to you today from our second bedroom, which is halfheartedly decorated as an office at the moment. It contains a succulent that is slowly dying from lack of sunlight and a leather couch that no one ever sits on, unless a grown-up timeout is necessary.

The floor slopes down and so as I type my rolling chair is gradually creeping its wheels away from the desk, as gravity does its work. I do not really need this added obstacle. It has been a few months since I last sat here. The further I get from writing, the harder it is to come back to.

Some may feel this way about going to the gym or playing guitar. These are actions that generally feel fine once you get going, though there are infinity excuses for avoiding them. But Christmas presents have been purchased and the entire house is freshly dusted, so I am out of procrastination devices at the moment.

Since it is December, I can’t help but think about the year ahead. There is no magical reset that happens come January, but I would like to do a couple things differently.

I want to listen to less politics and more music. I have found that hearing people I agree with rehash the daily grind of scandal and domestic horror does not help me feel less scared. It makes me want to move to Canada. So I might as well listen to a little Stevie Nicks and make a plan to visit the Grand Canyon before it is too late.

Too much time has already been wasted, devoted to the worst that could happen. There once was space for levity and I want it back. After the election in 2016, writing about food seemed frivolous. I somehow forgot that cooking is a way to connect.

For instance, deep-frying anything (chicken, perhaps) communicates that the cook is slightly insane. But dodging hot oil like it is liquid shrapnel says you, dear eater, are worth it. It also forces residency in the present for at least an hour or two, which can be as meditative as a yoga class without the talk about rinsing your kidneys.

I also recommend using hands instead of kitchen tools when it is safe to do so, despite the added mess and, perhaps, a little because of it. Dressing a salad in this manner can be calming and it typically feels even better to eat vegetables after preparing them as such.

A little intensity in the kitchen does not hurt either. This time of year pounding a pomegranate for its seeds is violently therapeutic, even as pink juice splatters the kitchen cabinets like a crime scene. What this says is up for interpretation, but there is room for all of it.

So it seems I hope to cook with more intention and by any means necessary.

The recipe today is simple and sturdy – no deep-frying required. The chicken blisters and browns, cooking up reliably tender time after time. I reduced the soy sauce and the honey, because I am acutely aware of my aging body, and the chicken does not suffer a bit from it. The reduction allows it to make frequent appearances at dinner.

Try pairing the recipe with a fast salad of sliced cucumber and carrot strips. I usually prepare a lemon vinaigrette with two times as much oil to acid. Add mint and sesame seeds if you have them, but do not make a thing of it if you are without. Any grain would make a fine accompaniment to all this, but white rice is particularly quick and comforting. Do not skip the starch: you will want it to sop up the extra sauce. This is the best part, so enjoy it.

I wish you more joy than dread for the year ahead of us. If you are at all like me, my best advice is to try and stay in the kitchen while you cook. With any luck I will be there too, making chicken and listening to Gold Dust Woman.

Sticky Chicken

Adapted from Rachel Khoo courtesty of Food52

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger (or a thumb-size piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced)

• 3 small garlic cloves, peeled and minced

• 1 dried Thai chili, minced

• ¼ cup soy sauce

• ¼ cup honey

• 2 tablespoons fish sauce

• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

• 4 bone-in chicken thighs

• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds (optional)

Instructions:

Set the oven to 400 degrees. In a baking dish, whisk together the first 7 ingredients. Add the chicken and toss it in the sauce until fully coated.

Bake for 45 minutes (or until the internal temperature registers 165 degrees). The skin should be bronzed and crisped.

Notes:

1. To make this into a meal, prepare a salad and make some rice while the chicken cooks. I prefer plain basmati made with 1 cup grain to 1¼ cups water. Bring the rice to a boil, then cover and simmer on low for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it sit 5 minutes before removing the lid.

2. My recipe for a simple vinaigrette is the juice of one lemon, about ½ to ⅔ cups olive oil, 2 teaspoons of both honey and Dijon mustard, plus a few pinches of salt and fresh ground pepper. Adjust seasoning to taste.

One Hell of a Whiskey Sour

If you are not careful, your life can take on a life of its own.  I woke up early on a Saturday morning not long ago and realized I had spent a good portion of the month talking about molly bolts and plaster walls to anyone who would listen, or pretend to.  I do not want to be the kind of person who, when asked how she is doing, starts talking about the problems she is having with her drapes.

But a lot has been going on lately.  My grandmother, the matriarch of our family, passed away just shy of her ninety-fifth birthday. 

My little brother got married. 

Brett and I also bought a condo in Boston. 

If I had to sum up the process as a first-time home buyer in a city without ample housing, I would liken it to looking for lodging on the island from Lord of the Flies after getting a partial lobotomy.  You are forced to use a new set of vocabulary you do not understand. Advanced degrees and personal triumphs become meaningless. Other buyers become the enemy.

In the end it just feels like you are lighting money on fire.

Suffice to say thinking about food, and then writing about it, has not been at the top of my list. I recently started cooking again and will have actual meal suggestions soon, but in the meantime I have more booze for you. 

Almost six years ago to the day, on my old site, I offered up a bourbon sour recipe.  It involves shaving the skin off a couple lemons with a surgeon’s precision and then letting those skins sit in sugar, while you bash them every so often to release their essential oils.  The result is lovely.  It also takes a while.

I have not had an exuberance of time, so the world’s most technical sour recipe is not going to cut it theses days.  Also, we prepared this new version in batches after my grandmother’s funeral as a tribute to her love of whiskey sours. It more than got the job done.

This is not an overly precious cocktail.  But it has a nice citrus backbone, uses ingredients that are easily procured, and avoids those premade mixes that arrive in a parakeet-like hue. It can also be made and drank quickly.  The original instructions included an egg white, which these days I leave off.  Mostly because I feel too fragile for the threat of salmonella.  I suspect this is how my grandmother would have preferred the drink anyway.

Cheers to you, Grammie A.

Whiskey Sour

Ingredients:

• 2 ounces whiskey (I still prefer bourbon), see notes
• 1 ounce fresh lemon juice
• ¾ ounce simple syrup, see recipe below
• ice (at least 5 cubes)

simple syrup

In a medium saucepan, combine equal parts water and sugar (I typically use a ratio of 1 cup sugar to 1 cup water). Set on medium heat and stir occasionally until sugar dissolves.  Allow to cool to room temperature and then store in the refrigerator until needed.

Instructions:

In a cocktail shaker, combine whiskey, lemon juice, and simple syrup with two or three ice cubes.  Shake vigorously (count to 10 while shaking).  Strain into a glass with more ice.

Makes one drink

Notes:

1. Two ounces of whiskey makes a cocktail that is on the stronger side.  If you prefer a more modest drink, use 1½ ounces of booze instead.  Regardless, ice is an important component in this drink, as it helps with dilution.  If you are making a big batch of sours, instead of shaking drinks individually with ice, you will want to use the following ratio: 2 ounces whiskey, 1 ounce lemon juice, ¾ ounce simple syrup, and ¼ ounce water per person.
2. Recommended bourbons include: Noah’s Mill (note this is slightly higher in alcohol than the others), Four Roses, and Bowman Brothers.
3. Occasionally, I make this recipe with a rich simple syrup, which uses a ratio of two parts sugar to one part water.  Just depends which version we have in the fridge.  Both are good.
4. The pictures from my brother's wedding are from Calypso Rae Photography. Please be advised they look even better on her site.

Don Swan and the Presidential Tiki

In a corner of my kitchen there is a crinkled drink recipe that looks like it was shoved into a wallet during the Bush administration.  It is covered with blurred blue inkblots, a casualty of errant droplets from cocktail shaking. The instructions have been asterisked and annotated.  In truth it has only existed a couple of months, though its worth could easily expand to cover decades of presidential destruction.  The paper is already well worn.

Its inspiration came from Blossom Bar, one of my favorite Boston-area restaurants.  I have wanted to go to its sister location, The Baldwin Bar, in Woburn. Mostly because they sell a large drink served in a giant smoking swan.

But The Baldwin exists outside the bounds of public transportation.  I feel very strongly that no one should drink and then drive—and also believe no one should have to forgo the pleasure of consuming aperol from a communal copper swan vessel—so I have not yet determined how to make that dream a reality. 

No matter: Blossom bar to the rescue. The restaurant is a magical place where Sichuan food and thoughtful cocktails come to vacation. The decor is awash in sea foam green, wood paneling, and stone.  Everything is both intensely pleasurable and fun.

Though it does not come in waterfowl glassware, they have a drink called Angie Valencia, which features both aperol and aguardiente—a Columbian liquor that I have previously drunk only once. The slightly sweet licorice-tasting spirit is colloquially called firewater and often taken as a shot.  So I obliged and behaved like a native.

This aguardiente was a little more mild-mannered, served as a tiki with the inclusion of papaya and kaffir.  It was very good but still gone in 60 seconds. Since it quickly became apparent slamming thirteen dollar-drinks would not be a sustainable habit, Brett agreed to try and replicate it at home. We tested many versions and ended with a cocktail that contained a similar herbal, slight anise flavor with a tropical backbone.

Our drink does not require the creation of specialty syrups, nor the procurement of produce that cannot be commonly found in grocery stores across the country.  Though I am someone who purposely singles out black jellybeans, I am confident even the anise-haters that walk among us will welcome this cocktail. We used Herbsaint, which is higher in alcohol than aguardiente, but any variety of similarly flavored spirits should work.

To make it you will need two fistfuls of ice and something to smash it with, so the cubes break into classic tiki-sized shards.  Then shake together a variety of liquors you might not currently keep around, but will soon require on a regular basis.  Garnish with a small bouquet of mint—Brett recommends thwapping it on the table to release its fragrant oils.

Naming a cocktail is nearly the best part about making one.  It turns out Angie Valencia was a Colombian lingerie model and infamous drug smuggler.  Our namesake is similarly paradoxical and a bit of a long story. Suffice to say it involves dressing up a pink metallic swan to look like our current president, complete with his classic orange hair and scotch-taped red tie.  The rest, well, speaks for itself.

It is a peach-hued drink that tastes of spring.  Like the season, it won’t last long.  No problem.  Just go ahead and pour yourself another. Unlike the president, it is quite palatable.

The Don Swan

Ingredients:

• ¾ ounce fresh lime juice
• ¾ ounce orgeat
• ½ ounce Montenegro amaro
• ½ ounce rum (see note)
• 1¼ ounces aperol
• 2¼ teaspoons anise-flavored liquor (e.g. Herbsaint or Pernod)
• Fresh mint leaves, for garnish

Instructions:

Place 6 or 7 ice cubes in a plastic freezer bag and bang with a rolling pin to crush them to no bigger than marble-sized pieces.  Pour into a 12-ounce glass and place into the freezer to chill.

Combine all ingredients, except the mint, in a cocktail shaker with 2 additional ice cubes.  Shake about 10 seconds.  Pour into the chilled glass.

Garnish with a bunch of mint leaves wedged into the side of the glass.

Makes 1 cocktail

Notes:

1. Plantation pineapple rum is fabulous here.  Mostly, you’ll want to use a decent rum—opt for one that has been aged in oak for a richer caramel flavor.
2. If you can find aguardiente, I am sure it can be substituted for the other anise-flavored liquors though it will be less potent.