August « 2009 « Tyler Florence

This weeks TWTLISH: MUSSELS WITH COCONUT GREEN CURRY AND LIME

Friday, August 28th, 2009

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MUSSELS WITH COCONUT GREEN CURRY AND LIME
Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence

Yield: serves 2-4

Time: 35 minutes

3 pounds mussels

1 (15oz) can coconut cream

2 tablespoons Thai green curry paste

1/2 lime, juice only

1 cup chopped cilantro

Kosher salt

2 shallots, finely sliced

1/4 cup flour

Vegetable oil for shallow frying

2 limes, cut into wedges

Fresh cilantro, for garnish

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Rinse the mussels under cold running water while scrubbing with a brush. Remove the stringy mussel beards with your thumb and index finger as you wash them. Discard any mussels with broken shells.

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Combine lime juice, curry paste, cilantro and 2 tablespoons of coconut cream in a blender. Process until smooth and you have a bright green puree. Set aside.

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Set a large pot over high heat. Once it is hot dump in the mussels then add the plain coconut cream. Cover and boil for 10 minutes until the mussels open. When done remove the lid, add the green curry puree and mix well.

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While the mussels are steaming prepare the shallot garnish. Slice shallot into thin circles. Toss in seasoned flour to lightly coat then shallow fry in oil until crispy.

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Drain on paper towels and sprinkle on top of the mussels just before serving. Serve with fresh wedges of lime.
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This weeks TFF winner: Mojito Slushy made by Jess at Black Cat Kitchen

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

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We chose the Mojito Slushy made by Jess at Black Cat Kitchen because as summer winds down, it seemed like the perfect frosty cold drink to capture those last few weeks of the season. Be sure to check out the other great entries we recieved last week at Tyler Florence Fridays !

oh, yes, Tyler … you’ve done it again. Summer in a glass.

While trying to decide what to make with the mint that came in our CSA box, I came across this recipe and knew I had to make it for Tyler Florence Fridays. This was simple and incredibly delicious. Then again, it’s mint, rum, and simple syrup – how much can go wrong?

I loved that there were specks of the mint in here, but not chunks of mint like you sometimes get when muddling. I cut the recipe in half and got two servings out of it. I froze the other one since Scott wasn’t interested and it was equally delicious a few nights later. I did have to thaw it a bit in the microwave in order to be able to drink it.

Make these for your next grill-out. You won’t be disappointed.

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Mojito Slushy
Tyler Florence, serves 4

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/2 cup fresh lime juice, about 4-6 limes
2 limes zested
1/2 cup light rum
8 cups crushed ice
mint sprigs & lime wedges for garnish

In a saucepan over medium heat, add the sugar and water. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is clear. Set aside to cool.

Put the sugar syrup, lime juice, mint leaves, lime zest, and rum into a blender and blend until smooth. Add the ice and blend until slushy. Spoon into glasses; garnish with a sprig of mint and a lime slice.

Tags: mojito, tyler florence fridays

This Weeks Twtlish lesson – CRISPY SESAME CHICKEN SALAD WITH SPINACH, CUCUMBERS, AND CILANTRO

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

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CRISPY SESAME CHICKEN SALAD WITH SPINACH, CUCUMBERS, AND CILANTRO
Recipe courtesy of Tyler Florence

Vinaigrette:
¼ cup soy sauce
Juice of half a lemon
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1-inch knob fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon sugar

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1.5 lb), cut crosswise into 1-inch-wide finger strips
1 ½ cups panko breadcrumbs
¼ cup sesame seeds
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
A couple good handfuls of stemmed spinach leaves (about 4 cups)
1 cucumber, peeled, and cut into thin strips with a vegetable peeler
Handful fresh cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon sesame seeds toasted in a dry skillet over low heat, plus extra for garnish
Cracked black pepper

In a bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, ginger, and sugar. Rinse the chicken and pat dry with paper towels. Put it in another bowl large enough to hold it, pour over half of the vinaigrette and toss. Cover and let the chicken marinate in the fridge for about 2 hours if you have the time, or until you’ve got the rest of the dish ready to go. Set the rest of the vinaigrette aside.

When you’re ready to cook, put the panko and sesame seeds in a shallow platter and season with a little salt and pepper. Mix with your fingers so that the seasoning is incorporated and then taste it – the panko should be well seasoned. Roll the chicken pieces in the seasoned crumbs, patting gently so that the crumbs adhere, until well coated.

Heat 1/3 cup olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Line a platter with paper towels and set that to the side of the stove. Add about half of the chicken pieces to the pan and cook 2 to 3 minutes on each side until golden brown and crispy. Remove the chicken to the platter to drain. Do the same to cook the rest of the chicken.

Put the spinach in bowl with the cucumber strips. Add the rest of the vinaigrette and the toasted sesame seeds, season with salt and pepper, and give it a good toss. To serve, divide the chicken strips between four plates. Put a handful of dressed spinach on top, shower with more toasted sesame seeds and cracked black pepper.

Tags: #twtlish, tyler florence

This weeks TFF winner: Karen’s Bourbon Peach Cobbler

Monday, August 17th, 2009

This week we chose Karen’s Bourbon Peach Cobbler from Something Sweet By Karen. Sweet, delicious and seasonal – what more could you want?

be sure to check out Tyler Florence Fridays for all the other wonderfull entries last week!

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Last weekend was the local Peach Festival around here. It’s a pretty big draw every year, there’s never any place to park and the line of cars waiting to get in usually stretches about three miles. All of us want the same thing… to sample peach cobblers, pies, ice cream, salsa, and even slushies. The boyfriend and I always leave completely peached out, but still take home a huge bag wondering what we’re going to do with them all.

I was craving more cobbler after a few days passed by and I’ve had Tyler’s Bourbon Peach Cobbler recipe bookmarked forever. It was the perfect time to test it out.

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I’ve still been out of the baking loop (and down a little over ten pounds now to show for it) and I felt really rusty being in the kitchen again. I was somehow tripling certain ingredients instead of cutting them in half (?) and rummaging around the cabinets not remembering my organized chaos ingredient placements. However, this was a good recipe to sort of get me back in the swing of things. It’s fast, easy and I could make it in just a few pans and bowls using basic kitchen utensils and my hands.

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This cobbler is full of fresh peaches, has a thick sauce with a background note of bourbon and just the right sweetness and spice. The biscuits on top are brushed with heavy cream and sugar before baking and are perfect – crunchy on top, moist underneath. I’m telling you, you won’t even need ice cream to go on top of this (although I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt!). I didn’t use any simply because I didn’t have any in the house. The biscuit layers aren’t that overly sweet though, so be aware if you like things a little more sugary that you might want to add a little extra sugar to the dough or make sure you do have ice cream.

The only change I made was to adding a little vanilla to the peach filling. It seemed strange to me not to have any vanilla in the recipe.

I made half a batch and it was gone within an hour between the two of us.

I need more peach cobbler. Now.

Tyler Florence’s Bourbon Peach Cobbler
Show: Food 911 Episode: Chili Roundup

Ingredients
8 peaches, peeled and sliced, about 6 to 8 cups
1/4 cup bourbon
3/4 cup sugar, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing
Click here for directions

I do love this Tyler Florence, there’s no doubt about it.

Bourbon Peach Cobbler marks my 20th post for Tyler Florence Fridays, a group with the freedom to make any recipe of Tyler’s that they choose and then share their experiences every Friday.

Tags: peach cobbler, something sweet by karen, tyler florence fridays

Today this morning: old school cookery techniques, pickling and canning.

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

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Hi everyone-

If you didn’t catch it this morning, I had a great time with Ann Curry on Today this morning where I showed her out to work with some old school cookery techniques, pickling and canning.

Home pickling and canning are things that you probably haven’t seen a lot of these days…maybe not since your grandmother’s kitchen. But really, there’s no better way to stretch those beautiful Farmer’s Market summer fruits and vegetables well into the Fall and beyond. Pickling and canning are methods of preserving fruits and vegetables that go a long way to save money and provide good times in the kitchen.

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So, when you hit the market this weekend, think about how you love those summer flavors and pick up some canning jars and give it it at try. You’ll love the bright fresh flavors for months to come.

Tags: Ann Curry, Canning, Pickling, today show, tyler florence

Tyler Florence Fridays Winner: Kahakai Kitchen’s Chicken Paillard

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

This Week’s Winner comes from Deb at Kahakai kitchen, a great rendition of Tyler’s Chicken Paillard!

Chicken Paillard with Fresh Fig Salad and Blue Cheese for Tyler Florence Fridays

Just when I think I have reached the pinnacle of Tyler’s brilliant recipes, I find another gem out there that impresses me all over again. I was lucky enough to stumble across some small bags of fresh local figs at the farmer’s market on Saturday, (it pays to get there very early as “finds” like figs sell out fast). We don’t get to see local figs here often, (unless you are lucky enough to know someone with a fig tree in their yard), and they are so much fresher and firmer than the ones brought in from the mainland that you can occasionally find in the better grocery stores here. Enjoying some fresh, I wanted to do something wonderful with the rest of them so I looked to Tyler. He has several recipes that use fresh figs, but the one for Chicken Paillard with Fresh Fig Salad and Blue Cheese in Tyler’s Ultimate with its variety of interesting ingredients, looked like it would be fun to try.

You can find this recipe in Tyler’s Ultimate on pages 138-139

Tyler says: “Pounding chicken breasts into paillards, which means thin slices, is a great way to use chicken breasts in the summertime for salad. It cooks fast and evenly so the meat stays nice and moist. The salty-sweet combination of figs, pancetta, and blue cheese is dynamite. If you can’t get your hands on fresh figs, peaches work just as well.”

Chicken Paillard with Fresh Fig Salad and Blue Cheese

Tyler’s Ultimate, Tyler Florence

(Serves 4)

Vinaigrette:

3 Tbsp honey

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 shallot, chopped

1 Tbsp sherry vinegar

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tsp chopped fresh tarragon

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 pounds)

kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 lb pancetta

extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 lb blue cheese, broken into hunks

1 bunch of arugula, trimmed

1 small basket seasonal figs, halved

tarragon leaves, for garnish

First whisk together all of the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a small bowl and set it aside.

Sandwich the chicken breasts between 2 layers of plastic wrap and pound them very thin with the side of a meat cleaver or a rolling pin. Remove the chicken breasts from the plastic and season well on both sides with salt and pepper.

Heat a large saute pan over medium heat. Unroll the pancetta so it looks like big strips of bacon. Add it to the pan and fry it like a tangle of bacon until the fat is rendered, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

Drizzle a 2-count of olive oil into the pan with the pancetta drippings. Add the chicken and pan fry 3 to 4 minutes on each side to brown the breasts and cook them through. Use a spatula to remove the chicken to the paper towels with the pancetta. Add the vinaigrette to the saute pan and heat for a few minutes, stirring, to deglaze the bits of pancetta and chicken from the bottom of the pan; take the pan off the heat.

To serve, arrange the chicken on a platter. Scatter the blue cheese, arugula, figs, and pancetta over. Drizzle the dressing over everything and garnish with the tarragon leaves.

Notes/Results: WOW!!! This is so good and it is such a gorgeous dish too! I was thinking it might possibly be too many things on the plate and that the flavors might compete with each other, but I should not have doubted Tyler. Everything works so well together; the juiciness of the figs, the sweetness of the honey, the assertive, sharpness of the blue cheese, the peppery arugula, the crisp, salty pancetta, and the lightly anise flavor in the tarragon; they all compliment each other and add a new dimension of flavor to the chicken. In fact, although it was moist, juicy, and good, the one ingredient I wouldn’t miss if it were taken out would be the chicken–the salad is good enough to stand on it’s own. I made the recipe as written, the only difference was that the pancetta my neighborhood grocery store had was in packages and very thinly sliced. I didn’t want to make a trip to Whole Foods, but would have enjoyed a thicker cut in the pancetta, for a bit more substance in the texture. The salad goes together quickly and easily, (you can put it together in well under 30 minutes), making it a perfect hot weather dinner. The dish is versatile enough to be a simple casual supper or impress your party guests. This is a winner recipe. If you get some fresh figs, (or as Tyler says peaches will work too), I urge you to try it. In fact, if I can get more figs at the market this week, I’ll be making it again. It will go down as one of my very favorite Tyler recipes so far. Delicious!

Head over to the Tyler Florence Fridays blog (here) to see what our other TFF members selected to make this week and what they thought about their recipe choices.

Tags: Kahakai Kitchen, Tyler Florence Frida