Food Revolution: Chicken Korma to Chicken KorMex

This is part of a series of posts in which I cook something from Jamie's Food Revolution and then make it again with a twist. Find the other posts here.

I have definitely learned something from Jamie's Food Revolution: I really love Indian food, especially when it's homemade. This time I made Chicken Korma, and the rule definitely still holds true. This stuff is amazingly delicious. I technically tweaked Jamie's recipe a little, but that was just because some of his amounts were stupid:

• 2 chicken breasts (translated to human measures from "1 3/4 pounds chicken breasts")
• 2 medium onions
• optional: 1 fresh jalapeño (translated from optional: 1 fresh green chile)
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
• a small bunch of fresh cilantro
• 1 x 15-oz can garbanzo beans
• peanut oil
• a pat of butter
• 1/2 cup Patak's mild curry paste
• 1 x 14-oz can lite coconut milk
• a small handful of sliced almonds
• 2 heaped tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut
• 2 cups lite natural yogurt
• 1 lemon

Cut the chicken into chunks. Halve and finely slice the onions (tip: be sure to slice, not crush, to avoid tears). Slice the jalapeño from the tip up to just before the seeds, cut the remainder in half lengthwise, cut off the end, and push out the seeds (this is the technique that I've finally figured out will work to get the seeds out cleanly, let me know if you have a better technique). Put a few of the prettier slices aside for plating Peel and finely chop the ginger. Pick some cilantro leaves to use in plating and finely chop the rest. Drain the beans.

Put a large pan on high or medium-high heat (Jamie says high, but everything gets golden before 10 minutes either way, and I had to turn it down to avoid burning) and add some oil (about enough to just cover the bottom of the pan). Add the onions, pepper, ginger, cilantro, and butter. Cook for about 10 minutes (until the onions are golden), stirring pretty close to constantly. Add the curry paste, beans, coconut milk, coconut, almonds (except a little for plating), garbanzo beans, and slicked chicken. Stir. Half-fill the empty coconut milk can with water, and add it. Stir again. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes with the lid on. Jamie says to check it regularly to make sure it's not drying out and add extra water if necessary, which makes me think Jamie usually cooks in a desert with a dehumidifier running; this stuff was soupy when it finished, there was no risk of it drying out. The chicken should be tender and cooked when you finish. He says to season with (sea) salt and pepper, but I didn't need to add anything to make it delicious. I cooked some rice during the last 15 minutes or so of the simmering, and served the korma over that with some yogurt, the pretty bits, and a lemon wedge.

Trying to come up with a way to remix this one was daunting. First off, it was so super delicious, I didn't want to mess with it. Second, Patak's is a super cheaty way of cooking, but I wanted something at least close to the same: a paste of spicy goodness. What to do?

I decided to pick a type of food, and just substitute each of the ingredients as best I could, and see what happened. I knew I'd have a lot of work to do, so I picked something I'm familiar with: Tex-Mex. Here's what I did to Tex-Mexify each ingredient:

• 2 chicken breasts to 2 chicken breasts (we have chickens in Texas)
• optional: 1 fresh jalapeño to not optional: 1 fresh jalapeño
• a small bunch of fresh cilantro to a large bunch of fresh cilantro
• 1 x 15-oz can garbanzo beans to 1 x 15-oz can whole-kernel sweet corn
• 1 x 14-oz can lite coconut milk to 14 oz 2% milk
• a small handful of sliced almonds to a small handful of crumbled pecans
• 2 heaped tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut unchanged, because I need to use this stuff up, but I think I'd use shredded jicama if I didn't already have coconut
• 2 cups lite natural yogurt to 2 cups lite sour cream
• 1 lemon to oh crap I forgot the lemon
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger to I can't think of anything ginger-like, and ginger is tasty, so we'll call it fusion; I probably could have switched this to a few cloves of garlic, though

That leaves the paste. Well, this is supposed to be Texan, so I used 1/4 cup Salt Lick Chipotle BBQ Sauce thickened to something more paste-like with 1/4 cup chili powder.

I made everything just like in the original, except I added the milk last at the add-everything-else step, and didn't quite bring it to a boil after adding the milk. I had no idea how this stuff would taste.

It came out pretty tasty, but my crazy concoction just couldn't top the concentrated deliciousness that is Patak's. Curries are just so good. I'll probably make it again, but probably not before I run out of curry pastes.

If you have any ideas for things I could have picked that were more properly Tex-Mex, or if you try a remix using a different theme, let us know in the comments.

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Posted in: almonds,chicken,chilis,cilantro,coconut,coconut milk,corn,curry,food revolution,garbanzo beans,ginger,milk,onions,pecans,sour cream,yogurt

Eat the Menu: New Additions! (now with DeliBelly description)

This is part of a series about my quest to try all of the yumminess at local restaurant Tacodeli. See my eat the menu tag for the other parts of the series. Scores are summarized here.


Today was the independently organized Taco Tweetup that Tacodeli thought would make a good preview event for my week. Tacodeli was offering a special on three-item breakfast tacos, so I headed to the site to see what might make a good mix (I always get named stuff off the menu, so this mix-and-match thing was new to me). To my surprise and delight, I was greeted on the site by... me! Well, ok, not me, but the cartoon me created for Jon the Geek Week by Victory Dog Design. They also have a nice explanation of what this whole Jon the Geek Week thing is all about on their events page (at least at the time that I'm writing this they do; presumably that'll change eventually).

Once I got to Tacodeli, there was another surprise waiting: a new taco! I mean, not just mine, but another new taco! I still got the breakfast taco special (Chorizo, Egg, and Papas, aka Mexican mashed potatoes), but I just had to try the brand new DeliBelly, and of course the delicious Jon the Geek.

The Jon the Geek Special (aka Mole Portabella) is "Grilled portabella mushrooms smothered with our traditional, made-from-scratch mole and topped with avocado, cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco." That's a fancy way of saying YUM! I'm so glad we were able to find something I like even better than Mole Chicken and Scallops. I give it 1.2 moles. I also found out that this is really similar to a taco Roberto (the owner of Tacodeli) used to make sometimes when he'd open up the original Tacodeli for his friends after they went out for a night on the town. In other words, the Jon the Geek Special has its origin in drunk food. I wholeheartedly approve. This is extra funny, since my roommate has been known to make sure our fridge is stocked with breakfast taco fixings before we go to anything where I might imbibe alcoholic beverages, because more than once I've felt the overwhelming urge to make elaborate breakfast tacos when I get home.

I forgot to write down or photograph the full description of the DeliBelly: (hopefully I'll be able to edit that in soon), but it's locally raised pork belly, avocado, cilantro, onions, and some sort of honey salsa "Richardson farm's pork belly, roasted and served with a serrano-tomatillo-Goodflow-honey salsa and served with cilantro, onion, and avocado." I'm not a huge pork fan, but this was about as good as pork can get. I give it 0.9 moles, which means it edges out the Lomo Especial as my favorite pork taco.

However, the most awesome part may have been the introduction of the official Tacodeli Eat the Menu Card. Inside, all 24 lunch tacos, 6 breakfast tacos, and 9 lunch specials are listed, along with space for four "Super Specials," with the "Jon the Geek Week Special Portabella Mole" pre-filled. When you order, the cashiers punch out the dot next to the taco(s) you order. Punch them all by the end of 2010, and you get a special "I Ate the Menu" t-shirt (assuming nothing goes wrong with that plan; the shirts aren't actually printed yet). I started my second trip through the menu today. Let me know in the comments if you plan to try.

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Posted in: awesome,eat the menu,Tacodeli

Eat the Menu Aftermath: How I Got a Week

This is part of a series about my quest to try all of the yumminess at local restaurant Tacodeli. See my eat the menu tag for the other parts of the series. Scores are summarized here.

Life is crazy. When I was Eating the Menu at Tacodeli a couple months ago, I was hoping the people who worked there would get to know me well enough that I wouldn't have to give them my name when they took my order. I never expected more than that.

But then, at the end of June, I got a direct message on Twitter from Tacodeli. "Hey Jon!" it started. "I was wondering if you could give Roberto (owner of Tacodeli) a call? He'd like to talk to you." The message ended with cell phone number of the owner. I called immediately.

The Tacodeli twitter crew had been keeping Roberto up-to-date about my quest, and he thought it was hilarious. He wanted to do something to celebrate. It took us a few tries (and one lunch with almost too many tacos), but we found a worthy recipe for my taco. Putting together the description hit three very different parts of the menu, which seemed appropriate:

• From Vegetarian/Frontera Fundido Portabella: "Oven roasted portabellas..."
• From Chicken/Mole Taco Chicken: "...smothered with a traditional, made-from-scratch mole. Garnished with cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco. (sauce contains nuts)"
• From Breakfast/The Jess Special: "...and fresh sliced avocado."

Ok, we had to edit a little to mix those together, but it comes out as the Jon the Geek Special, "Grilled portabella mushrooms smothered with our traditional, made-from-scratch mole and topped with avocado, cilantro, onion & crumbled queso fresco."

I'll give the taco an official taste soon (complete with photo), but wow is that thing good. I hope others like it and help me convince Roberto to make it available more often than just this coming week.

Speaking of that... in addition to the special, Roberto decided to put together a Jon the Geek Week, starting this Sunday, 8/22 (my big sister's birthday)! He also printed up some official Eat the Menu cards. If you get a card completely punched (and all you have to eat is the tacos, he's making it almost easy), he's going to have a prize of some sort (I don't want to say more in case there's a problem with the planned prize). All because I randomly decided to try everything and blog/tweet about it!

Oh, there will also be a "wrap party" for Jon the Geek Week, Thursday night at my "home" Tacodeli (Tacodeli Central). Details here.

The future is awesome.

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Posted in: eat the menu,Tacodeli

Why I Ate the Menu

This is part of a series about my quest to try all of the yumminess at local restaurant Tacodeli. See my eat the menu tag for the other parts of the series. Scores are summarized here.

It's said that variety is the spice of life, and Tacodeli knows a thing or two about spicing things up. Tacodeli has twenty-four lunch tacos and six named breakfast tacos on their menu, plus an additional seven tacos available as daily specials. However, thirty-seven tacos is a lot to keep track of.

Taking on the challenge of eating the menu gave me a reason to keep track of which tacos I'd tried and which I hadn't, ensuring that I'd experience all of that delicious life-spicing.

If only there were a way for others to keep track of their own quests to eat that menu...

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Posted in: eat the menu,Tacodeli

Food Revolution: Vindaloo to Incaloo

I finally got back to Jamie's Food Revolution this week. These recipes were more involved than the ones I'd made so far, but I think they both came out really good... once I fixed my remix. More on that in a bit.

Strangely, I can't find Jamie's vindaloo recipe online. Here it is:

• 2 medium onions
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 fresh chilis (I use serranos)
• thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger root
• "small bunch" of fresh cilantro (I take that to mean about a quarter of what HEB thinks a bunch is supposed to be)
• 4 ripe tomatoes
• peanut oil
• pat of butter
• 1 3/4 pounds diced pork shoulder (but he said chicken's also fine, so I used chicken)
• 1/2 cup Patak's vindaloo paste (check your international aisle)
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 cup natural yogurt
• 1 lemon
• about 2 cups rice (I cooked mine in chicken broth, see below)

My remix was about a year in the making. Last August, the chefs on Top Chef Masters were challenged with making gluten-free, soy-free, vegan food for Zooey Deschanel (one of the few human beings capable of convincing people that such restrictions are more endearing than persnickety). The winning dish was quinoa spaghetti. After (or, more likely, during) the episode, I had to look into this "quinoa" stuff to see what the heck it was.

From the Wikipedia article and a few other sources online that I can no longer remember, I learned that quinoa is a grain that, at least according to its advocates, is easier to grow, more nutritious, and otherwise simply better than corn, but which the Europeans didn't understand and associated with non-Christian Incan religious ceremonies, and thus suppressed. It's higher in protein than other grains, and is thus very useful especially for vegetarian diets. It isn't every day that you get a chance to try a whole new grain, so I had to try it.

But, apparently, this need wasn't very strong. I put off trying quinoa until about a month ago, when it appeared  at the Central Market Cafe here in Austin in a salad of some sort. I don't remember anything else about the salad, but the quinoa passed that first test, and reminded me that I wanted to try this. I decided to mix it with other ingredients available to the Inca civilization that gave us quinoa, because, why not?

I replaced the ginger with turmeric, the lemon with a key lime, the curry paste with Peruvian yellow pepper paste (aka "aji amarillo" paste, since it's made from yellow aji peppers), and the meat with about 1.75 pounds new (small/baby) purple potatoes and a couple ocas (because I'd read that the people of the Andes ate ocas, and my grocery store happened to have them). I also added a tablespoon of cumin, but I forgot to do so until after my first serving. Do not forget the cumin! It is absolutely vital. I also replaced the rice with quinoa, which I again cooked in chicken broth. While that's technically cheating (since Incas didn't have chickens), using cuy broth seemed like it'd probably be going too far (and boiling a pan of just water indicates a lack of creativity).

Peel and slice the onions, turmeric, and garlic. Slice the serranos. Pick off a handful of cilantro leaves, then chop up the rest of the small bunch. It's probably a good idea to peel your ocas (if you used them) at this point, but keep those aside; they aren't part of this first batch of veggies.

Heat a large pan on medium-high heat, and add the pat of butter (optional and honestly probably unnecessary, and also kind of cheating since the Incas didn't eat dairy) and a "couple of lugs" of peanut oil (Jamie always puts it that way; it seems to mean about what it seems like it would mean when you start pouring the oil in and get that "glug glug" effect). Add the chopped veggies, and cook for 10 minutes.

While that's cooking, cut your potatoes in half, chop your ocas (I chopped them up like I would carrots), and quarter your tomatoes. Add the potatoes and ocas to the veggies once the veg is softened and golden, along with the pepper paste. Stir everything to coat, and add a little salt and pepper. Much more importantly, add the cumin. Add the tomatoes, vinegar, honey, and about 2 cups water (enough to just barely cover everything; it wouldn't be a terrible idea to use broth here, rather than water). Stir again, then bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 45 minutes covered, stirring occasionally.

When you have about 20 minutes left, boil the broth, and then add about 2 cups of quinoa (check your packaging; you may, like me, have to rinse and soak the quinoa the night before). Reduce the heat and cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes. It didn't seem to be super picky, so basically simmer it until everything else is ready.

I served it with yogurt in the photo, but I should have left that out to fit my self-imposed rules. I left it out when I had leftovers just now, and I don't think the recipe suffered for it. I don't show the key lime here, which I sliced in half and squeezed over the top (like you might a lemon).

The crazy thing to me about this is what a huge difference the cumin made. I was thinking last night that I'd have to break the rules and use some chicken or pork (or maybe cuy, llama jerky, or penguin, since those were among the Incan meats I could find) if I made this again. The cumin made all the difference. This definitely stands on its own without meat now. You could probably add some if you like, but I don't think it's needed.

Don't be fooled by the similar appearances of the dishes in my photos here. Despite some commonalities, the difference between the curry paste and the pepper paste + cumin was enormous. I definitely recommend trying both, though.

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Posted in: chicken,chilis,cilantro,curry,food revolution,garlic,Inca,oca,onions,potatoes