Food, again.

Let me share with you a story (it’s shorter than the last one).

One man said, “I feel like chicken tonight. Like, chicken… tonight.”

Another said, “I think that’s copyrighted.”

But the first guy wasn’t listening and instead went to About.com to pour over endless recipes and dishes from the whole world over. Also, he was deaf. But since the second guy didn’t know this, he just thought the first guy was being a douche and went home to sulk about it. At home, he found a lottery ticket on his front porch that just happened to win him one-hundred-thousand dollars the next day. Thusly financed, he finally married his stripper girlfriend and they moved to the Keys where they lived in utter bliss until the god of the sea-folk – yea, Lord of the Under-Kingdom – rose that following summer to sow terror among the realm of the land dwellers. Until somebody stopped him. The end.

Point is: About.com contains a trove of information if you like to cook. Today, you get to share in my joy.

Portuguese Chicken Burger
(That’s what it’s called at least. Apparently, it’s an Australian recipe. Or, at least, it’s from an Australian. Well, somebody who claims to be so. Or not. I don’t know. Look, it’s the Internet; if you want, I’m sure you can hack into his birth records on your Ipodamaphone or whatever the hell it is kids do these days. Get off my lawn.)

Ingredients:
(Here’s what we’ve got)

Sauce:
- 2-3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
- 2 dried habanero chilis, chopped (since I’m cheap, we’ll be using 2 Tbsp of red pepper flakes, instead)
- About ¼ cup lemon juice
- 2 tsp ginger
- 6 Tbsp vegetable or olive oil
- 2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp white sugar
- ½ tsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp chili powder

- 1 cup flour (for coating)
- 1 tsp salt (ditto)

- 4- 6 burger buns
- some mayo
- some lettuce
- also, cheese (I’ll be using Swiss since that’s all we have at the moment)

Preparation:
(This is how it’ll go down)

1. Filet the breasts to your desired thickness. I found three breasts gave me about 6 small to medium filets.

2. Combine the red pepper flakes, lemon juice, ginger, oil, paprika, garlic, sugar(s), and chili powder in a bowl. Wisk it quickly until well blended.

3. Spoon about a third of the resulting sauce into a small bowl and set aside for later (topping).

4. Dip the chicken into the original sauce mix, coating each piece thoroughly. Transfer these to a container (preferably glass – doesn’t absorb flavor as much as, say, plastic) and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

5. Mix together the flour and salt. Remove the chicken and gently shake off any excess oil. Lightly dredge the filets in the mixture until covered.

6. Pre-heat a medium-sized, non-stick pan with a little oil. Pan-fry the filets for several minutes on each side.

7. Slap some mayo, lettuce, and cheese on those burger buns and you’re good to go. If you’d like to eat the chicken you just cooked, I guess you could put it on there, too.

8. Oh, and that sauce you set aside earlier would probably taste good drizzled over the chicken. Or whatever. I’m not you.

Result

Not what I was expecting. I don’t know why I thought it wouldn’t be as spicy when we’re throwing the equivalent of two hot peppers into the mix (not to mention the ginger and chili powder), but I found the product a bit lacking. Hanna – being a kind of sadist when it comes to spicy food – loved the chicken itself and opined that it would actually work best as a standalone entrée (sans bun and burger fixings). While I found that all heat and no sweet made for a spicy (yet boring) dish, I would be tempted to try this again from that angle; maybe substituting brown sugar in greater quantity, leaving out the chili powder, and halving the amount of pepper flakes. At least, that’s how I achieve ultimate flavor with this thing in my mind.

But that’s enough culinary alchemy for now. When I return, we’ll be discussing Lore checks, Clue tokens, and the menagerie of eldritch horrors stirring beyond the boundaries of space and time. Also, popular recipes for freshly shucked Cthonian.

Basically, you get to hear me rave about Arkham Horror. Because I knew you’d love that.

Pecans and Poultry

Terrified turkeys trumpet their trauma;
torn to tatters through torrid tasting.

Tupperware’s terrible truth: tainted tidbits.

Thank you! I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

A phone rings in the darkness. Groggy, you rise from bed, absently noting the ungodly hour displayed on the clock-radio as you fumble for your cell.
“Hello?” you say.
“Pop quiz, hotshot” the voice on the other end intones. “It’s Thanksgiving and you need to make something for dinner at your parents’ tonight. They want you to bring a dessert and all you have in the pantry is some noodles and half a thing of paprika. What do you do?”
“Uh…”
“What do you do?”
“I-…”
“WHAT DO YOU DO?”
“…”
“…”
I’ll probably just Google up something,” you mumble. “I don’t know. The sun hasn’t even risen yet…”
With that, the calls ends. You get the feeling that God or Dennis Hopper just tested you. Or perhaps strangers with your phone number are just anxious to see what’s on the menu this year. Either way, you’re through the looking glass at this point.

Last year my contribution to the feast was Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake; a vat of cream cheese, pumpkin puree, sugar, and butter poured into an equally rich graham cracker crust and chilled overnight. Since the recipe yielded more filling than expected I ended up with two of the damn things. To calculate their caloric content is futile. Adding machines laugh at such futile attempts to quantify infinity.

This year I went a lighter route and just poured a pot of melted caramel and chocolate over some buttered pecans.

Behold!

Caramel Pecan Torte

Ingredients:

- 9" pie crust*

- 36 caramels, unwrapped

- 1/2 cup whipping cream

- 3-1/2 cups pecan halves

- 2 tsp. butter

- 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

- 2 Tbsp. whipping cream

*The actual recipe speaks of creating your own crust from scratch. Always on the lookout to cut corners, I found it simpler to procure a 9” pie crust from the store.

First, combine the unwrapped caramels and 1/2 cup whipping cream in a heavy saucepan and cook over low heat until the mixture is smooth and melted together, stirring frequently. Once it’s the right consistency, remove from heat and add pecans, stirring to coat. With that accomplished, dump the mixture into the pie crust, using a spoon to gently pack it down.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate chips over low heat, stirring until smooth. Add the two tablespoons whipping cream and stir until blended. Pour this over the pecan filling already in the crust until completely covered. To finish it off, drizzle white frosting on top in the sigil of your favored god of the dark pantheon. Finally, throw the thing into the fridge to chill for at least an hour or until firm (I always just leave such concoctions to go overnight). The resultant confection went over well at dinner earlier today. That no one died clutching their chest in paroxysms of delight was a positive sign.

On a side note; nuts and heavy cream are highly valued commodities at this time of year. I counted myself lucky to scoop up one of the three remaining whipping cream cartons left at the store. This is on Monday, mind you. Such shopping patterns usually precede 1) the holidays and 2) encroaching Union forces looking to bivouac on your lawn. In the days leading up to similar occupations, all anyone can discuss is whose house will serve as Grant’s Headquarters/Drunken Rumpus Room.