Olympics Day 2: Chicken Piccata

This afternoon we went on an excursion to extend the international beer selection. From left-to-right you'll see another British beer as well as beers from Scotland, Spain, France, Holland, Czech Republic and Jamaica.

For tonight's dinner Gail made chicken piccata in honor of Italy. I love how the flavors of the lemon and capers complement each other. The chicken was as tender as the butter it was sauteed in.

Chicken Piccata

amounts per serving

½ T olive oil

1 ½ T flour

4 oz boneless skinless chicken breast

¼ t salt

freshly ground black pepper

4 t dry white wine

2 t fresh lemon juice

3 T low-salt chicken broth

1 T drained capers

½ T butter

1 T chopped fresh parsley

Fresh lemon slice or wedge for garnish

1. Heat oil in heavy skillet (preferably not a non-stick variety) over med low heat. Meanwhile, measure flour into shallow bowl; set aside.
2. Pound chicken to ¼” thickness; sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Dip chicken pieces in flour to coat; reserve excess for thickening pan sauce.
4. Cook coated chicken in skillet until golden, about 3 min per side. Meanwhile, combine wine, lemon juice and chicken broth, set aside; measure capers into small bowl.
5. Transfer cooked chicken to platter; cover to keep warm.
6. Melt butter in skillet; remove from heat; whisk in reserved flour until completely smooth. Add wine mixture; bring to boil in skillet over med-hi heat; boil until sauce thickens slightly, about 2 min.
7. Stir in capers and parsley; pour sauce over chicken; serve immediately. 

Tonight's beer was also from Italy: Birra del Borgo's ReAle Extra. I brewed a beer once and forgot to add the hops. The resulting beer had a sour, lemon flavor that was pleasant but overwhelming. The ReAle had that same pleasant sour flavor balanced with an appropriate, but subtle hops. In fact, they triple the hops in this beer, but don't add them until the flavoring phase, totally skipping the bittering phase. This makes it a rather sophisticated alternative to my normal fare. This was piccata in a bottle. It was a perfect complement to the capers and lemon.

Olympics Day 2: Korean Marinated Beef

I enjoyed the Olympic opening ceremonies. My favorite parts were the agrarian village scenes, and of course, Mr. Bean. And now the sports begin. I have watched some cycling, boxing, women's basketball and volleyball. I don't know why volleyball isn't a televised sport all the time. That game was intense.

For lunch, Gail made us Korean Marinated Beef. Instead of fresh ginger, Gail used pickled ginger. That was a great addition, but use half as much if you try it. You might get a more tender result by marinating the beef longer. The sauce had a perfect sweet-salt thing going on. Make sure you serve it with rice to pick up all the extra sauce. By the way, that is a tomato from Gail's garden in the picture.

Korean Marinated Beef
amounts per serving

1 T soy sauce
1 t sugar
½ t sesame oil
2 T minced scallions, white and pale green parts only (reserve dark green parts for garnish)
1 t minced garlic
1 t minced peeled fresh ginger
4 oz flank steak
1 t peanut oil

1. Combine soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, minced scallions, garlic and ginger.
2. Slice meat across grain into very thin slices, no more than 1/8” thick, then cut into bite-sized pieces; marinate in soy sauce mixture at least 15 min.
3. Heat peanut oil in heavy skillet over high heat just until smoking; put on an apron while oil heats since ginger will spatter! Stir-fry meat until cooked through and browned, 3-5 min.
4. Serve immediately, garnished with scallion greens.

With that I had a Korean beer from the Oriental Brewery. Web research suggested that what I drank was called "Blue", but I couldn't tell from the bottle, and the website for Oriental Brewery doesn't even list it. This beer was a disappointment. It was fine for what it was, but that was the closest to Coors that I could imagine. And, that style is not my favorite. They can't all be great.

Let the 2012 Olympics Begin

I'm a huge Olympics fan, so I'm very happy for today's start of the 2012 Olympics. In addition, it's the start of a Flower's family tradition of themed meals during the Olympics. Gail wonderfully plans and prepares a variety of meals from various nations. This year, I'm trying to match the meals with a beer from each country. As a preview, in the picture below you see America, Italy, Great Britain, Korea, India, Japan, Australia, Germany and Russia.

Tonight's meal was in honor of the host country. Gail made a British Bubble 'n' Squeak based on a recipe from allrecipes.com. Gail added a poached egg to round it out. To me the flavor was excellent, but Gail thought it could use a bit less pepper and paprika and bit more salt. We both agreed it tasted a bit like hash. It was an excellent first meal of these Olympics.

Tonight's beer was Sam Smith's Organic Best Ale. This beer reminds me of the beers I had last summer in London. It was clean and creamy with a slightly sweet finish. And, it had the low carbonation and tiny bubble structure common in British pub beers.

Thanks Gail for a great opening ceremony meal.

Krušovice Imperial: How a Pilsner Should Taste

I tried this Krušovice Inperial in honor of my daughter. Next semester she will studing in the Czech Republic. As it happens, I've also been wondering what American pilsner might taste like if they weren't, well, so bad. This is how I'd like them to taste.

You can taste the heritage of great Czech beers in the American examples, but without the character evident in this beer. First, look at the rich color. The richness continues through the mouth-feel. This beer is full of flavor, but refreshing, not heavy. If American pilsners tasted like this, we wouldn't have needed the craft beer revolution.

No Chewing Allowed Truffles Melt in Your Mouth

This blog entry is too long in coming. Noele gave me a feast of treats last Christmas, among which was a box of No Chewing Allowed chocolate truffles. I followed their instructions, and yes, the experience of letting the chocolate melt over your tongue is sublime. They didn't last long. Thank you, Noele.

Pretty Things Tasting at Formaggio Kitchen

I went to a tasting of Pretty Things beers at Formaggio Kitchen today. I hadn't realized that Pretty Things is a local brewery before today. The woman running the tasting, Anya, explained that they are headquartered in Somerville (Gail and I used to live in Somerville), but the beer is made in Westport at (not by) the Buzzards Bay Brewery.

I tasted each of the six beers in the picture. My favorite was the Meadowlark IPA, which I'm drinking right now as I write this blog entry. The aroma and flavoring hops are intense without adding an overly bitter character.  It's like drinking a glass of flowers. A shortage of these hops may make this beer difficult to get, so I'll have to get more before I can't.

I also liked both saison style beers. Their Jack D'Or is their biggest seller, and is delicious with aggressively bittered hops. Today I preferred the slightly less hop-heavy Field Mouse's Farewell. You never know what I'll be in the mood for tomorrow. Sometimes, I can't get enough hops. I also bought a bottle of the Baby Tree, a Belgian quad. You can almost chew the yummy Baby Tree.

Finally the American Darling on the far right was very good as well. It is probably the closest thing that Pretty Things has to a lawnmower beer. Note the lawnmower on the label.  But don't be fooled, this is not the Miller pony you really want right after mowing the lawn. This is the beer you want at a summer cookout. It's light, but not light enough to throw back after yard work as a thirst quencher.

Muffin Tin Lasagna

We had leftover spring roll wrappers from when we made (of all things) spring rolls. Gail came up with this recipe inspired by something she StumbledUpon and adapted from several online recipes. Spring roll wrappers are just small pasta sheets, after all.

These jumbo muffin tins are the perfect, single serving size. The top of the wrappers crisp up almost like nacho chips. Besides being a fun way to serve lasagna, the filling itself was delicious.

Muffin Tin Lasgna

⅓ lb lean ground beef
⅓ lb loose sausage
¼ t salt
¼ t pepper
3 c cottage cheese (Gail doesn't like ricotta, so we use cottage cheese)
1 egg
¾ c shredded Mozzarella cheese
2 c pasta sauce
12 egg roll skins (about 4x5” ea)
Non-stick spray
Tin for 6 jumbo muffins

1. Saute ground beef, sausage, salt and pepper until meat thoroughly cooked. Meanwhile, mix cottage cheese with beaten egg, and shred Mozzarella if necessary.
2. Mix pasta sauce into sautéed meat.
3. Preheat oven to 375F. Coat muffin tins generously with non-stick spray.
4. To assemble: line the bottom of each muffin cup with an egg roll skin. Score the cottage cheese and meat sauce mixtures into twelfes. This doesn’t have to be perfect but prevents not having enough for the last portion.
5. Spoon 1/12 of cottage cheese mixture into each muffin cup. Top with 1/12 of meat sauce mixture and 1 T shredded Mozzarella.
6. Make a second layer with remaining egg roll skins, cottage cheese mixture, meat sauce mixture, and shredded cheese.
7. Bake 10-15 min, until edges of egg roll skins are crispy and cheese bubbles.

Variation: Make mini lasagna cups using 48 wanton wrappers and two standard-sized 12-muffin tins.