Baby Eggplant and Cherry Tomato Stir-Fry

I sure am glad I love eggplant because these Thai recipes call for a ton of it.

Crispy Thai Basil and Chicken

Frying is fun. Frying basil and having the apartment smell like an herb garden is even more fun. Eating that fried basil and realizing my arteries aren't going to clog nearly as fast as if I'd dropped a Twinkie in that oil is the bestest fun. Yes... bestest.

The most difficult part of the whole recipe is getting your hands on the Thai Basil (or if you're really lucky, Holy Basil). Thai Basil is different from Italian Basil. It's sweeter, more floral and carries a distinct note of pepper. I buy this stuff all the time from my shop down the street but I know I can also get it for a higher price at our local overpriced farmer's market.

When Holly got home from her 10 weeks in Thailand in 2008, one dish she remembered quite fondly was Crispy Basil. She just walked past me, saw a picture of Thai basil and told me the story of her first time trying it. She and her classmates were on their way to temple and the bus driver pulled over for lunch. They ordered up a dish of crispy basil and the driver warned them that it would be spicy. She had Holy Basil, not standard Thai Basil, so this won't burn your face off.

This recipe comes from The Food of Thailand on page 182

Ingredients:

• 2 handfuls Thai basil
• cooking oil
• 5 bird's eye chillies
• 1 tbsp fish oil
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 5 minced garlic cloves
• 1# finely sliced chicken
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 4 shallots, peeled and largely sliced
• 2 tbs chicken stock
• 1 red pepper

Mix the chicken, garlic, chillies, fish sauce and oyster sauce in a bowl. Cover and marinate for 30 minutes.

Heat about 1 inch of oil in a wok or deep frying pan over medium heat. Allow oil to heat for about 5 minutes then test temperature by dropping in a small piece of the basil. If it sizzles, it's ready to go. Deep fry 3/4 of the basil for about 1 minute until they are crispy. Trust me, they crisp up pretty quickly. Remove with a metal slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Discard the oil. I don't discard it. I transfer it to another pan and allow it to cool. I then strain it and funnel it into a jar. Since I only used it for the basil there is no sense in wasting this wonderfully flavored oil. Label the jar and store it somewhere for the next time you make this recipe.

Heat 2 tbsp of oil in the same wok or frying pan and stir fry half the chicken over high heat for 3-4 minutes. Remove the chicken and repeat with the other half. Return all the chicken to the wok.

Reduce heat to medium and add the stock and sugar to the wok, then the red pepper and shallots, and stir-fry for another 3-4 minutes. Stir in the fresh basil leaves. Serve up and garnish with the cooled crispy basil leaves. As always, accompany with rice. In this picture I've seasoned the Jasmine rice with a delicious garlic pepper sauce.

Chicken Stock Made Easy

Yes... I'm cheap. Today I had a master plan. I'm making another batch of Tomato and Black Bean Soup for lunches and knew I was going to need to purchase some chicken stock. No way... I'm going to save $2.98 and do it the old fashioned way, getting another meal or two out of the deal in the process. I cooked and carved a Rich's Famous Roaster (see previous recipe), found a better recipe for stock here, and got to work. Thanks to the Unemployed Chef and his blog for this simple recipe.

I am completely sold on making my own broth. I can make it taste however I wish and one batch of broth will save me about $10 in the long run. No sense in throwing out all those chicken bones and skin if you can put them to good use, eh?

Looks like something went wrong in the picture but it didn't. It only went right.

Recipe (mostly copied from the Unemployed Chef):

Ingredients:

• 1 roasted chicken carcass with the skin
• 8 cups of water
• 1 chopped large carrot
• 3 celery stalks chopped into thirds
• 4 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 rosemary stalk, whole
• sea salt
• whole peppercorns
• two handfuls of Italian parsley
• a handful of green onions, cut into thirds

Bring everything to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 3.5 hours. Strain and enjoy. You can keep it in the fridge for about 5 days or freeze it for a few months.

Oh hey... I opened the fridge this morning and discovered that the stock had turned to jelly. I thought for sure I had just invented the world's worst Jell-O flavor imaginable. Turns out that this is supposed to happen. Where as chemical laden store bought stock stays liquid in the carton, you can watch the real stuff jiggle.

Uncle Marc's Homemade Apple Sauce

This ain't your supermarket's Mott's.

About two years ago I discovered the joys of making apple sauce at home. Living in an area where apple farm exist in abundance offers up a fall time advantage. Fresh cider in every store, inexpensive apples and pies of all sorts coming out of bakery ovens county wide. In San Luis Obispo County the undisputed place to visit this time of year is See Canyon, a coastal valley dotted with acres and acres of apple growers. It's fun to head out there and visit any one of the groves, much like a wine tasting tour of Paso Robles up north. My favorite grower to visit is Gopher Glen with their 30+ varieties on stock at any point during the season.

If you've never made apple sauce, I can assure you it's quite simple and very rewarding. If you've only have store bought apple sauce then you've been missing out on what apple sauce should taste like. I use the sweet apples and the brown sugar because Holly prefers her sauce sweet and as I prefer to cook for other people, she wins. Were it for just me, I'd make it a bit more tart. Here's my recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2# Braeburn apples (sweet)
• 2# Chieftan apples (sweet but different)
• 1# Limbertwig (to offset the sweetness of the other two)
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 tbs brown sugar

Peel, core and quarter the apples. Give them a good rinse and add to a large pot. Add the water, cinnamon and brown sugar. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 2 hours; stirring occasionally to work the seasoning around. Mash (or immersion blend) them together real well until you reach the consistence you prefer, add the sugar, mix it in real good... and you're done. You can eat this hot or cold and it is soooo good. Leaves a great aroma in the house as well.

Pan-Fried Aubergine & Lamb (Turkish)

"Istanbul, now Constantinople"

Holly and I both have the same dream to travel to Istanbul one day. After knowing one another for almost 20 years, we only learned that detail about each other a couple of months ago. Since then we've started ourselves on the path to an Istanbul, Turkey vacation in 2012. To get myself worked up I put on an episode of No Reservations wherein Tony goes to Istanbul (see collection 8 on Netflix). Everywhere he went there was lamb being served. Lots and lots and lamb.

Now, I love lamb. The flavor is unlike any other meat, it's succulent, flavorful, mildly oily and it sits on the palette for hours if cooked properly. Last night at dinner with the Hovey's I ordered the Braised Lamb Shank and was in heaven. Eating lamb takes me back to the happier days of my childhood when my parents were still married and we'd take our annual trip out to the Lazy-H Ranch in the mountains of San Diego for Easter dinner. I can still see the dining room full of people enjoying their meals and hear my dad telling us boys that the only way to eat Easter dinner is to make sure it's with lamb and some mint jelly. Ah memories...

After my experience last night, the pleasant memories of holiday dinners swimming through my head and Anthony Bourdain shoving images of cooked lamb into my retinas for an hour, Holly surprised me and said "I wonder if this cookbook has any Turkish recipes?". Lo and behold it did and not surprisingly most are lamb based.

The decision of which to cook was simple. I was already planning on making a tomato and eggplant Thai stir-fry for dinner, all I needed to pick up were a couple of onions and the lamb. That sweet, beautiful lamb.

It starts out as a stir-fry but winds up being like a stew. Holly had never tried lamb and doesn't care for the texture of onions (but enjoys the flavor of them). For me, it was like eating some of my best memories... only better. For Holly, she kept replaying that scene from the Simpsons wherein the lamb begs Lisa not eat it. I say butcher that lamb and let's make some dinner.

This recipe comes from an old cookbook from 1984 entitled Best of International Cooking by HPBooks and can be found on page 194.

Ingredients:

• 2 small eggplants, cut in cubes
• Salt
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 tbs butter
• 3 tbs sesame oil
• 1.5 # of lamb, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
• 3 onions, coarsely chopped
• 2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
• Ground pepper
• 5 cups of hot beef stock

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the cubed eggplant with 1 tbs of salt; let stand for 30 minutes off to the side while you prep and measure everything else. Put the stock in a saucepan and start heating it on low.

Rinse the eggplant and dry with a paper towel. Heat your large skillet (I used my wok) to medium and add the oil and butter. Once nice and hot, toss in the eggplant and saute until brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and allow to dry.

Increase the heat to high and add the lamb to the juices still in the wok. You're only going to sear it, so once the lamb has browned, remove it with the slotted spoon and place into a bowl.

Turn down to the heat to medium high and saute the onions until they are nice and gold. I used white onions. Red onions would have scared Holly away and lets be honest... yellow onions are pretty flavorless. Throw in the tomatoes, the garlic and as much salt as you want; cook for 5 minutes.

Add the browned lamb with some more salt and pepper. Add the hot stock to the mix and turn down the heat to low to simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the eggplant and increase the heat to medium. Cook for 30 more minutes.

Serve with a slotted spoon. Serves 4 to 6.