recipe

Confit: a great way to get more fat in your diet!
03/02/2010 - 13:18

Confit, which involves cooking meat in large amounts of fat and is delicious and a great way to get more fat in your diet. As a bonus any meat that is made into confit lasts longer. Duck confit is the most well known confit, but you can cook nearly any meat this way. The most recent issue of the Weston A. Price journal mentions how the real old fashioned Mediterranean diet included lamb cooked in its own fat and salt, which they stored and ate through the winter.

I first had chicken confit at Lot2 in Brooklyn. Since I have SOOO much lard from the NYC Paleo Meetup Meatshare and my CSA share from The Piggery, I decided to try it myself. Unfortunately, I made a HUGE mistake....

I only made two chicken thighs. You really do need more, it's so delicious and fairly easy. Furthermore, it has the luscious taste of a good fried chicken without the mess or the breading.

For this confit I used

  • Lard from The Piggery
  • Chicken thighs
  • Salt, garlic, and pepper

Yeah, it's that simple. To prepare the chicken for confit, I put a little bit of the salt, garlic, and pepper on the skin and wrapped it up and placed it under a heavy dish, skin side down, in the fridge. A few hours later I took it out. I made it a little bed in my crockpot with squares of the unmelted lard to slow down the cooking a little since my crockpot gets a little hot. At 11:30, when I went to bed (I know, bad), I put the chicken skin side down on the lard bed and turned the crock pot on low. When I got up at 7 my whole kitchen smelled of warm fried chicken.

For the finished touch, I put in in my toaster oven on broil to crisp the skin. I wanted to save it for dinner, but I couldn't resist. I ate one thigh for breakfast. Between the crispy golden skin and the silky smooth fatty flesh, I was in heaven. It was like fried chicken...except it wasn't just the skin that was delicious! The whole thigh was amazing, even the little ends of cartilage on the bone, which had melted and then been crisped into a pork rind-like treat. There was excess fat left over, so I'll poach some root veggies in that when I eat the second thigh.

I'm normally not a huge fan of chicken...I LOVE the skin, but the flesh bores me to death. This solved that problem and the lard surplus too! 

Comment?: 12
Super Super Bowl Snack: ajitsuke-nori
02/02/2010 - 16:34

Lately ajitsuke-nori has been supplanting kale chips as my paleo snack of choice. Ajitsuke-nori is nori toasted with a nasty paste, typically made from soy sauce, rice wine, fish paste, and chili pepper. You can buy it as a Japanese grocery, but it's hard to find without gluten-containing soy sauce. You can make it yourself simply by painting a sheet of nori with a mixture of gluten-free soy sauce, rice wine, and your favorite flavorings. Brush it on and toast until the coating is dry and the nori crispy...voila! A delicious snack rich in iodine and other essential minerals.

Comment?: 2
Dances With Vegans II: Kale Chips
01/25/2010 - 19:34

 

I admit it, sometimes I crave snacks. When it's movie night and everyone is eating popcorn (and yes, corn is a grain), being paleo can mean feeling left out. Of course there are nuts, but I like to watch my consumption of those because while they have lots of nutrients, they can also mess up your ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 if you eat too much. 

Lately my new favorite snack is kale chips! In Brooklyn, NY Naturals sells a raw vegan version with a zesty flavor that I love. They are popular with vegans, but they are a great choice for cavepeople (or whatever we are calling ourselves these days) or low carbers in general. 

While I prefer the texture of kale chips made in a dehydrator, you can also make them at home as well. Here is a standard oven recipe. I make a variant using coconut oil instead of olive oil and my own handground spice mixture of cumin and coriander. If you do dairy, they are pretty delicious with just a little grated Parmesan. 

Comment?: 1
Squash Soup Method
01/17/2010 - 18:59

 

I misplaced my camera, so I drew this on MS Paint. It's probably better than the pictures I take anyway.

I won't lie, I have trouble following recipes. There is always some ingredient that I don't have and some ingredient that I want to add to see what happens. I apologize to the people who have eaten some of experiments over the years. Eventually I do get things right though. I have made numerous squash soups and most of them have been atrocious. Thankfully, I have managed to figure out a method that I think gets optimal nutrition with paleo ingredients. 

First, the squash. While pumpkin has many positive associations, it is actually a pretty inferior squash and most canned pumpkin is actually hubbard squash. I like Hubbard, Red Kuri, Kabotcha, and Butternut squashes because they have non-stringy texture and plenty of flesh. Yes, you can put squash in your crock pot and it turns out great. You don't even have to cut it up, just stick it in there on low, go about your business and when its soft you can add it to things without even peeling it, just cut and scoop out the flesh. 

Second, the stock. I usually make soup when I have leftover bones lying around. The longer you cook those bones, the better nutrition you get from them, including calcium, which is hard to get in non-dairy diets. The stock can also be made in the crock pot, of course. An hour before I am going to make the soup, I put the stock in a pot and add some seaweed, an important source of iodine and other minerals, and some dried mushrooms. I simmer that and sometimes it smells not so delicious, but in the end it tastes fine. After that I add the soft squash and some spices and simmer it 10 minutes more. 

After that, my mission is to make it creamy by getting rid of the stringy parts of the squash and adding some creamy fat. I used to use coconut milk, but because of the BPA problem I use it less and less. Tonight I used homemade nut milk. I blended just a few walnuts until I got a creamy liquid and strained the nut pulp out. You could also use the flesh of a young thai coconut. If you tolerate dairy well, just use cream...because it uh, makes things creamy pretty well. 

Remove the bone and the seaweed if you don't like it. I leave it in though and add everything to the blender along with the nut milk/cream and blend it. Voila! Creamy flavorful squash soup packed with nutrients. 

I forgot to mention that this soup is also extremely soothing for upset stomachs. Kombu and squash are both prized for their ability to calm the digestive system. 

Comment?: 0
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