Recently Consumed (and some cooking tips) – Covid-19 Edition

I'm pretty much bushed; so just a quick post of things that came out of our kitchen.

We finally got our delivery of beans and lentils from Rancho Gordo; yes, they are swamped and out of a lot of items and delivery was delayed a couple of times; but believe me, their product is worth waiting for.

Made a Lentil and Kale Soup….made with…well, bacon fat of course.

And the missus just "needed" a couple of poached eggs. I've learned a couple of key points when making poached eggs over the years:

1 – The fresher the eggs; the better the outcome is. The older the eggs are, the more runny the whites are, which will make for very "wispy" poached eggs.

2 – Strain your eggs before poaching. This will remove the really runny whites

The Missus requested Katsudon a favorite of Hers a few nights back.

She will even eat the leftovers cold….I think She might even prefer them that way!

For me; one of the key steps is a short 15-20 minute brine of the chicken breast. I use a basic brine similar to what I use for smoking chicken.

For one pound chicken breast; cut and pound to an even 1/3 inch thick, then brine is a solution of 1/4 cup kosher salt, 1/2 tsp granulated garlic, 1 quart water for 15-20 minutes. Make sure to dry the chicken well before initiating the breading process.

You'll find that you won't need to add much more seasoning when breading the katsu.

Here's something I made for myself when the Missus was working – Kimchi Fried Rice with Chashu Chicken and of course….it just needed an egg!

Hope everyone has been eating well!

Have a safe and delici-yoso weekend!