cooking « J2Davis' Adventure Journey

Feb 10 2011

Taiwanese Street Style Grilled Chicken Heart

Posted by JacQ

I crave Taiwanese street food every now and then. And some items are really hard to come by at the limited selections of restaurants. So I have learned to makes things I like myself… this is one example. My craving for chicken heart also thanks to Mark’s Daily Apples post about organ meat. I know offal is not that big here in the states, but in Asia and some other parts of the world, it is a culinary delight if well prepared.

The chicken hearts were purchased from Mekong Plaza Market in Mesa, AZ.

The chicken hearts were cleaned thoroughly with sea salt and water, then butterflied (make a score up and down the heart to open up the inside) so you can clean the inside of the heart and help the flavor of the marinate get in the heart.

Marinate:
2 tablespoon of honey
2 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of Chinese rice wine
2 large garlic cloves, minced

Mix all the ingredient for the marinate together in a large glass bowl, add the butterflied chicken heart, cover and leave in the fridge for at least two hours. I marinated mine for 3 days in the fridge.

You can grill this in an oven or on a grill. The hearts should be done by cooking each side for 10-15 minutes depending on how hot your setting is on the heating source.

After they were done grilling, I pulled them off the skewer and served over a bowl of fresh baby greens salad with Queen Creek Meyer Lemon Olive Oil and Queen Creek Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar with salt and pepper. It was YUMMY!

No Comments » // topics: cooking, good eats, photo gallery //

Aug 31 2009

Good Eats – Insalata Caprese

Posted by JacQ

I have tried my first Insalata Caprese when we were camping in Austin this year.

I got a container of fresh mozzarella balls, fresh basil and a bottle of 10-Year Gran Riserva Balsamico by Lucini Italia (I highly recommend it!) from Whole Foods. I also bought some vine ripen tomato from a local farmers market to make my first Insalata Caprese. mmm… I loved it!

Four months later, I am craving it again… I stopped by North Market in Columbus, Ohio. There were lots of local farmers selling heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil, so I got some Green Zebra tomatoes (often called an heirloom, but it is not) and a few other varieties.

While we were in North Market, Jeremy also purchased a quarter pound of a beautifully aged, 9-year cheddar cheese from Mike, the owner of Curds and Whey. I could not resist the thought of putting a little bit of it in my Insalata Caprese.

When we were in Arizona earlier this year, we visited the Queen Creek Olive Mill – a family owned extra virgin olive oil mill in Arizona, USA! We loved all of their extra virgin olive oils~ One of my favorites is the Mexican Lime Olive Oil. I am also going to try that for my Insalata Caprese this time.

Oh, I know… I am going crazy here… adding all sorts of goodies to make my own Explosive Insalata Caprese.

Then I decided to add some chopped fresh roasted ginger cashew and fresh roasted curried almond to this. Plus some reindeer salami we bought in Alaska. The last item was Cherry Wood Smoked Mozzarella by Maplebrook Farm in Bennington, Vermont (purchased from Whole Foods here in Columbus.)

A dash of sea salt and fresh ground pepper… ah, I am in heaven. The result was an explosion of flavors.

1 Comment » // topics: cooking, farmers market, good eats //

Oct 27 2008

Start of Teflon Free Cooking

Posted by JacQ

I have been reading and learning a lot about cooking with cast iron cookware. Finally I decided to look on Craigslist in Columbus while we are here for cheap cast iron skillets. Lucky me, I found one lady selling her 4 cast iron pans for $35 total. That was a good deal, considering she really took great care of the pans and they are well seasoned and used so I won’t have to do all the prep work before using them.

Now I am replacing my Teflon non-stick pans with one 12-inch cast iron skillet, two 10-inch cast iron, skillets, one 6-inch cast iron skillet and one 10-inch cast iron griddle.

I think of this as a start to healthy and environmentally friendly way of cooking. When well seasoned, it is almost non-stick, so you won’t have to add too much oil to cook your food.

This morning, I made some breakfast with it using local produce and it was awesome. I think it will take me a while to learn the new way of cleaning my new pans, but, I think it won’t take me too long~

Here’s a list of benefits I come up for using cast iron cookware: Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment » // topics: cooking, gadgets, lifestyle //