Chai Chicken

Bhakti Chai is a local company, and I was recently treated to a tour of the facility thanks to Sprouts (a grocery store chain, if you're not familiar).

As soon as I sampled the product at the factory, I thought it would make a great marinade for chicken. Maybe I was just hungry.

Yeah, I know. it's a drink. It's not a marinade. But the ginger-forward flavor just wanted to be used in cooking. So ... we got to take some samples home, and after having a little pick-me-up, I decided to give Chai-Chai-Chai Chicken a try.

But, being me, I didn't actually do a marinade. Nope. I bought some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and I cooked them sous vide.

I know I post a LOT of sous vide recipes ... but that's because they're so easy and hands-off. Most of the time, I finish the recipe with a quick sear on the stove or maybe a broil in the oven, but that's all I have to do. With the chicken breasts, I just sliced and served.

Let me say here that sealing a sous vide bag that has a lot of liquid in it can be a little tricky. I didn't add a LOT of liquid, but if you're skeevy about having any liquid at all to deal with, just freeze some of your marinade mixture - in this case the chai - and put that into the sous vide bag.

If you've got a giant thick hockey puck of frozen stuff in your sous vide bag, you might want to extend the cooking time a little bit, but if you froze a 1/2 cup in a baggie so it's thin and flat, it's going to thaw pretty quickly. And seriously, you don't need a lot of marinade or sauce or whatever in the bag.

You can cook each chicken breast in its own bag (which is great if you're adjusting flavors to people's personal preferences) or cook them all together in one bag. Just make sure the breasts are in one layer in the bag, if you're doing a bunch of them together, so cooking is even.

Bhakti Chai Chicken Breasts

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

• Bhaki Chai Concentrate (I used the original version)

Let's assume we're doing just one chicken breast, okay?

If you've got those giant chicken breasts, one breast might be enough for two people, depending on what you're serving with it. If it's really huge, feel free to add another 15 minutes to the cooking time.

So, put the chicken breast in the sous vide bag and add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the Bhakti Chai - depending on how comfy you are with dealing with wet ingredients in your sous vide bag. If you were smart enough to freeze some of the chai ahead of time, you're so much smarter than me.

Add a pinch of salt, if you like.

Vacuum carefully and seal. Use the wet sealing feature, if yours has that option. If you want to be extra sure you have a good seal, wipe the recently-sealed end of the bag to remove any moisture, and seal it again on the end.

All done? Good.

Set up the sous vide for 150 degrees. Chuck that chicken in there and set for 1 hour (or a little longer, if it's one of the huge breasts that they sell these days).

Now go and do something fun.

When the chicken is done, remove it from the bag. Slice and serve.

That's it. No muss, no fuss. I didn't even bother browning the breast afterwards, but you can do that if you like. This was also great cold ... try it on a salad with an Asian-style dressing and some bean sprouts and snow peas - or maybe some of crispy fried wonton skins. Yum!

About Bhakti Chai

Bhakit Chai is a great example of a small business started by one passionate person. The original Chai product still exists, but the company has expanded the product line to include more flavors, a ready-to-drink line, and some fizzy chai drinks as well.

The fizzy drinks might have been my favorite, since I'm a fan of ginger ale and similar fizzy drinks that are less sweet and more refreshing.

But that doesn't mean I didn't like the others. The ready-to-drink iced chai is perfect if you just want to grab one and go. That's them, in the photo on the right. Lots of options, including one coffee-chai drink.

The concentrate is what you need in the fridge for drinking at home. I've been making mine with about 1/3 chai concentrate and 2/3 with either milk or almond milk, but of course you can adjust that to your preference. And you can drink it hot or cold.

If you're me, you can also use the concentrate in recipes. I was thinking that rice with a little chai would be really really nice with a stir-fry dinner. And chai rice pudding is awesome. Simmered down to concentrate the flavor even more, it would be a nice sauce for either sweet or savory.

While you can find some of the Bhakti Chai products on Amazon, you probably want to just go look for them at the grocery store, since they're a perishable product. Like, you know, go to Sprouts and buy them there.

One of the best parts about going to tours of different companies is seeing how things are made. here's a super-short video of the bottling line at Bhakti Chai. It was cool watching it work. Yum, chai!

Thanks to Sprouts for sponsoring and arranging the tour and to Bhakti Chai for being such a great host (and for the samples!).

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Chai Ice Cream

Heh. I wanted to combine Chai and Ice in the title, but who on earth could pronounce Chaiice. You'd kill me, right?

So anyway, my buddies over at 37 Cooks have a challenge going with the folks at Leafcutter Designs who make the Recipe Dice, Chai Dice and Cocktail Dice. I said, sure, I'll play, but I don't need the dice, since I already have them.

I decided to roll some chai, and then I drank some chai and then I thought that iced chai might be nice and then the next thing you know the ice cream machine was churning.

It happens like that sometimes.

The really cool thing about the Chai Dice is that I don't have to think about what flavors to use (although you do need to decide how much, and you also need to think about what else you might add, besides what's on the dice).

The not-so-cool thing was that I rolled star anise, which happens to live at the very back left corner of my spice cabinet. I know exactly where it is, but it's a bit of a pain to get to. On the other hand, I like the flavor.

I guess digging for awkward anise was balanced by the fact that I had some dried lemongrass from Litehouse that I hadn't tried yet, so this was a good occasion to do so.

The chai dice told me to use milk and sugar ... but I fudged just a little by using a can of sweetened condensed milk. Close enough, I think.

Chai Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 star anise
2 green cardamom pods
2 teaspoons dried lemongrass
2 black tea teabags* (I used a decaf breakfast tea, but use what you like best)
5 allspice berries
5 black peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Combine the cream, sweetened condensed milk, star anise, cardamom pods, lemongrass, tea bags (tear off the little paper tag - you don't want bits of that in your ice cream. Ick.), allspice berries, peppercorns, and salt in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Bring to a simmer.

Let it simmer gently for just a minute or so. Give it a little stir to make sure all the spices aren't just lazily floating on top.

Turn the heat off, add the vanilla, and transfer all of it to a storage container. Let it come to room temperature (or close enough), then refrigerate until fully chilled.

Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer to remove all the spices and tea and whatnot, and discard the spices and tea and whatnot.

Churn the cream mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instruction. Transfer to a storage container and freeze until firm.

*You don't actually need tea BAGS. If you buy loose tea, use that as-is. No need to put in in a tea strainer or other device - it will get strained out along with all of the other spices.

I received the Chai Dice from Leafcutter Designs for my use on the blog at no cost to me. Quite some time ago. Any perceived obligation to write about them is long gone. Now I'm just having fun.

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Ch-ch-ch- Chai!

A while back, I received sets of cocktail, chai, and recipe dice from a company called Leafcutter Designs. The general idea is that you roll the dice and create a cocktail, chai, or recipe based on what you roll. It's a great way of brainstorming.

And it's a lot of fun, too. And tasty.

I'll admit that I don't follow the dice every single time - I mean, no one's looking, so if I roll an ingredient I don't have, I don't use it. Or I might tip one over now and then to get an ingredient I like better.

And pretty soon I'm going to cross out "arugula" on the recipe dice and maybe change it to endive or radicchio.

This time, I decided to roll the chai dice. I was in the mood for chai and didn't want to look up a recipe. I figured that the dice would lead me to some good flavors.

The funny part was when I rolled the dice and saw that I rolled black tea, I had no idea if I had any plain black tea.

I have a LOT of different teas, but most are mixed flavors, many are herbal, and some are green. I dug through my box 'o tea and through the random packets, and I found one black tea teabag. Just one.

But it was enough to make a single glass of chai and that was all I wanted.

The thing about the dice is that while you roll ingredients, you don't roll amounts, so two people could roll exactly the same thing and end up with completely different things.

Even with chai, where there are some pretty specific flavors that are expected, there can be a lot of variations. For example, I used a dried ginger product instead of fresh, and I used vanilla extract instead of a vanilla bean. And I used a whole cinnamon stick, but I could have opted for ground.

The "milk" die says milk on all sides, but I could have made my chai with almond milk or soy milk or any other milk. And I made a hot chai. I could have made a cold drink with chai flavors, too.

I liked this version. I might make it again. Or, you know, just roll the dice and see what happens the next time.

Chai

1 cup milk
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 green cardamom pods
1/8 teaspoon dry ginger bits
5 coriander seeds
1 cinnamon stick

Put all of the ingredients except the cinnamon stick in a small saucepan and heat gently.

You could also heat the milk in the microwave in the mug you're going to use, but keep in mind that it tends to foam up, and you risk having it foam and spill out of the mug if you don't watch it carefully.

Let the spices steep in the milk for a minute or two. Go ahead and taste it and see if it's strong enough. If not, let it steep longer. If you steep so long that the drink cools off too much, just re-warm it.

Hey, we're having fun here. There's no wrong way to do this.

Put the cinnamon stick in the mug you'll use. If you want a stronger cinnamon flavor, you could also let it steep with the rest of the spices. Your drink, your choice. I liked the idea of using it as a stir stick, so that's what I did.

Strain the milk into the mug. Serve.

Note: I got the dice at no cost to me from Leafcutter Designs for the purpose of a review. I already wrote about them here, but. I continue to use them because they're fun. You'll probably see them used here again.

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Sunset at the Beach Cocktail

I've fallen in love with the idea of color-changing cocktails and layered cocktails. This time I decided to up the ante by creating a layered cocktail that has a color-changing component.

My friends at Smirnoff challenged me to create a "Day at the Beach" themed cocktail featuring their Ruby Red Grapefruit Vodka. Well, okay then.

I decided that my drink should not only be drinkable on a sunny, beachy day, but that it should also look like a day at the beach. But it also had to taste really good.

I decided that butterfly pea flower tea would represent sea and sky, and pineapple juice would represent sand. But that wasn't enough. I wanted the drink to represent sunset - that time when the sun suddenly turns the water and sky colors, and the sun itself is a glowing red ball.

I have round ice cube molds, so I simply added syrup from dark red cherries to the water in one of my ice ball molds to create a red sun. Easy peasy.

This drink requires some planning, because you need to freeze the tea and the pineapple juice in ice cube trays, and make as many ice balls as you'll need. But then assembling the drink is simple.

I could imagine these being the special drink of the day at a beach bar.

Before the vodka is added, on the left. Finished drink on the right.

As far as what this tastes like, the main flavors are pineapple juice and citrus, while the tea adds a light floral flavor - not as ... perfumy ... as lavender, though. Round ice cubes melt very slowly, and the drink itself is very cold because it's made entirely from crushed ice, so the cherry flavor doesn't become noticeable unless you let the ice melt a lot before the drink is finished.

Sunset at the Beach

For the prep:
Brewed butterfly pea flower tea
Pineapple juice
Syrup from Amareno, Luxardo, or other dark cherries
For the cocktails:
1 ounce Smirnoff Ruby Red Grapefruit Vodka

Prepare ahead of time:
Freeze the butterfly pea flower tea in ice cube trays (as many as you need) and freeze the pineapple juice in separate trays.

You'll use about 1 part tea to 3 parts pineapple juice. To figure out how much ice you'll need per drink (since ice cube trays hold different amounts) crush a tray of plain ice and see how it fits in a glass along with a round ice cube.

If you freeze extra, I'm sure you'll find uses for the ice cubes or crushed ice later.

Combine cherry juice with water to create a red liquid and use it to fill round ice cube molds.

To make the drinks;
Blend the blue ice cubes in your food processor or blender until you have blue "snow." Transfer it to a container. Rinse the blue out of the food processor or blender. Blend the pineapple juice cubes in the same way.

Place the pineapple juice "snow" in your glass, filling it about 2/3 full. Place the ice ball on top of the pineapple slush. Ideally, you want the ice ball peeking above the top of the glass, so how full you need to fill the glass depends on how big your ice ball is.

Add blue "snow" around the outside of the glass, surrounding the ice ball, making sure to leave some of the ice ball uncovered. Now you've got sand, blue water and sky, and the sun starting to set.

Now comes the fun part. Pour the Ruby Red Grapefruit Vodka over the top of the ball and over the blue ice, and it will immediately change color.

Serve. A paper umbrella is optional, but highly recommended.

Thanks to Smirnoff for supplying me with tasty beverages.

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The Futuristic Arnold Palmer Cocktail

My dad wasn't much of a drinker. He drank coffee in the morning, and water during the day. But I could imagine him enjoying an Arnold Palmer - a combination of tea and lemon juice - at a party or barbecue.

He was also very interested in science, so I think he would have been amused by a blue tea that would turn colors with the addition of lemon juice. It's a futuristic cocktail that certainly didn't exist during Dad's lifetime, but I think he'd approve.

Perhaps even applaud.

Pink might not be considered a "manly" color these days, but think about it - the pink(ish) and blue sides of the glass could certainly represent boy and girl children of those dads.

For dads who do drink (and for me, too) I've turned this into a cocktail with Crown Royal, which adds nice depth of flavor.

Butterfly pea flower tea might be a little hard to find locally, but it's available online. I got mine from Wild Hibiscus Flower Company.

The Futuristic Arnold Palmer

It's pretty without pink; and the color is natural!

Finely crushed ice
1 cup brewed and chilled butterfly pea flower tea
1 ounce simple syrup
2 ounces Crown Royal Deluxe
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Fill two glasses with the crushed ice.

Combine the pea flower tea, simple syrup, and crown royal. Stir to combine.

Pour the tea mixture over the ice.

Add a teaspoon of lemon juice to the glasses, at the edge of the glass. Stir the juice in on one side of the glass only, to turn half of it pink-purple while leaving the other side blue. Because of the crushed ice, the color doesn't travel quickly throughout the glass, but for best presentation, serve right away.

The color you get is dependent on how strong the tea is and how much acid you add - you can get anything from pink to purple, so it's a good idea to practice a bit if you're hoping to get an exact shade of pink or purple.

Or, if you're into the show, add the lemon juice in front of your guests, and let them marvel at the color change as it happens.

I regularly receive products from the Diageo brands of alcohol for my use.

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Hot Buttered Rum with Mint Tea

The weather here has been ... strange ... with dreary, rainy days and even a chance of snow on Mother's Day. To make it worse, I managed to catch a cold. Not so great for recipe creation.

But inspiration comes from everywhere, and a warm cocktail made a whole lot of sense to me. I've made a couple of versions of hot buttered rum, before, but this time I decided to change thing up by using hot tea instead of hot water.

Apparently tea is a becoming a hot thing in cocktails, but I just liked the idea of adding the flavor of a mint tea to the cocktail. Ron Zacapa 23 rum is a little bit sweet on its own, but I added a little more sweetness.

If the weather's not behaving where you are, this would be a nice, warming drink for a Mother's Day brunch. If you've got warm weather, serve this cold - just omit the butter.

Hot Buttered Rum with Mint Tea

1 cup brewed mint tea
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon butter
1/2 ounce Ron Zacapa 23 Rum

Add the honey and butter to the tea and mix until it's a little frothy. Add the rum and stir. Serve hot.

I received a bottle of Ron Zacapa 23 at no cost to me.

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8 Tips for Making Macarons

Bonne Maman Jams, a Le Creuset Teacup/pot and home made macarons.

Mother's Day is coming, and brunch is traditional for many family celebrations.

Even if the meal isn't technically a brunch, daintier foods tend to prevail. And what's more dainty for dessert than a French Macaron?

No, not macaroons, with coconut. I'm talking about the light, crisp, chewy meringue-related cookies that are French Macarons.

The nice thing about macarons is that the flavors (and colors) are endless. Since the basic cookie is nearly white, you can tint them with a tiny bit of food coloring (the Silpat kit I received came with food coloring for that purpose) or you can find recipes that take on color from their ingredients. Like, say, chocolate.

Then come the fillings. I used a chocolate ganache for this batch, but buttercream would be lovely, or make your own on-the-fly fillings. How about a nut-butter and jam? Or jam and whipped cream cheese? Or just Bonne Maman jam?

Am I saying JAM a lot?

 Well, that's because there's a giveaway here, where the winners will get a Silpat macaron kit, a gift set of Bonne Maman jam/jelly products, and an adorable Le Creuset stoneware tea for one with a cup on the bottom, and you use the top part to brew your tea, So cute.

Won't that be great for Mother's Day? A spot of tea, some English muffins or toast with jam, delicate little sandwiches, and macarons to finish the meal. Oui! 

While macaron perfection is a skill I have yet to master, I've made acceptable macarons a few times, and I've made enough mistakes that I think I can point out places where you might go wrong.

1) Almond flour, finely ground.
If your almond flour isn't super-fine (like flour) give it a buzz in the food processor, maybe with some of the powdered sugar, until it is as fine as you can get it. Some recipes even suggest passing it through a fine sieve.

I made the last batch of macarons with almond flour straight from the bag, and while they tasted fine they were a bit rough on top and the cookies had a different texture than those made with super-finely-ground almonds.

2) Mise en place is your friend.
Have all your ingredients ready and standing by. Separate those eggs, weigh your ingredients, and have everything ready to go before you start whipping and mixing.

You'll need two bowls, the usual assortment of measuring and mixing tools, and a few specialty items as well, like a piping bag.

Here's the macaron kit from Silpat, which includes a mat, piping bag, two tips, a pastry brush (not shown), food colors, a thermometer (did I mention that some macaron recipes are fussy?) and a scraper. The kit also includes a thumb drive with recipes.

3) Whip them right!
Egg whites are what give macarons their lightness and their structure, so you need to whip them to the proper consistency. If you're using a stand mixer to do your whipping, don't walk too far away from it. Underwhipped egg whites just need a little more whipping. Overwhipped whites can't be salvaged.

4) Pipe them right!
Some of my macarons rose oddly - tilted to one side or the other - while others were perfect. This was more likely to happen when I was using a recipe that resulted in a thicker batter and I piped in a circle.

I got better results when I simply put the tip in the center of the circle I was aiming to fill, and piped straight down and let the batter flow to form a circle. This also helped me form an actual circle rather than oval or odd-shaped macarons.

The Silpat Macaron Mat has circles drawn on the mat to make it easy to gauge the size of the macarons and to make perfectly round circles. Those circles would also be useful for cookies or any other food when you're trying to keep them evenly spaced.

5) Let them dry!
For the frilly rise to happen along the sides of the cookies, you need to let them sit around after piping until there's a nice crust on top. Depending on how dry it is in your house, this could be quick, or it could take much, much longer. It's possible to over-dry the cookies, but I don't know for sure what horrors would happen if that was the case - I barely have patience to let them dry enough.

This is NOT supposed to happen!

Some of my cookies had little peaks from piping, and I wanted to get rid of them. To keep my finger from sticking, I dipped it in bit of cold water. This worked really well. I thought. But the tops of those few cookies never dried right, so strange things happened when the cookies baked. These tasted just fine, but there's no way I'd serve them.

6) Bake them long enough - but not too long.

Perfectly pale, acceptably toasted, and ... oops!

Macarons aren't really supposed to brown. A tiny bit along the edges might be okay, but you don't want your white macarons getting a tan in the oven.

7) No, really, let them cool.
Before the macarons are fully cooled, they will stick to the Silpat baking mat like the suckers on a tentacle. If you try to lift them, you will tear the cookie. So you can't peek underneath. You just can't. But when the cookies are fully cooled, they'll pop right off. Be patient!

8) And if all of that doesn't work...
If it goes wrong, claim that you meant to do that. Seriously, unless you're opening a French bakery, perfection isn't required. You're making cookies for your mom. She'll be happy, even if they're a little lopsided.

As for those over-browned cookies - I did that with one batch, and to me the flavor was a little like a toasted marshmallow. I know they weren't supposed to be like that, but I liked the flavor anyway. If all of your macarons are egg-shaped or tilted or over-browned, just smile and serve them. No one needs to know you didn't plan it that way.

Just pour a cup of tea, and relax!

Le Creuset Tea for One

Thanks to the participating companies for sponsoring these group posts and for supplying product for the giveaway!

The other bloggers participating in this giveaway are:

Miss in the Kitchen, who made Macarons with Champagne Buttercream
Foodhunter's Guide who made Chocolate Raspberry Macarons
Thyme in Our Kitchen who made Pistachio Macarons

Giveaway is over!

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The Perfect Chai

Like Indian food? Want to make it at home?

The Cafe Spice Cookbook touts 84 "quick and easy Indian recipes for everyday meals," and the chef who wrote the book says that ingredients are readily available. That's good news, because I've grumbled that some Indian cookbooks require ingredients that have to be purchased in specialty stores.

Indian recipes typically use a lot of spices, but they're all common enough. The problem I had with other Indian cookbooks was that some of them required specific spice mixes like garam masala or chaat masala. This book does, too, but it also gives recipes to make those mixes yourself.

If you're near an Indian market or you have the mix in your pantry, you can use that - if you can't buy the mix, you can make your own from spices that are easy to find. A simple thing like that makes this book a lot easier to cook from. A lot.

The book also has a recipe for Ginger-Garlic paste, which is another item that is common in Indian cooking and sold at Indian grocers - but again, if you don't live near an Indian grocer, you can make your own.

The very first recipe that caught my eye was the Chicken Tikka Masala, and the second was the Tandoori Spiced Roasted Chicken. Another recipe I have bookmarked is a veggie sloppy joe - I don't think I'll serve it as a sandwich as suggested, but it sounds like it would be a really good vegetable stew.

But I decided to start with something simple, before I launched into one of the more complicated recipes.

Chai seemed about as simple as it could get, and I like chai. When I went digging through my stash of tea, I realized I didn't have any plain black tea. I did have a ginger-peach black tea, so I figured I'd give that a try, since the chai used ginger.

The chai was good, but the peach flavor in the tea I had was a little too strong in the finished drink. It would have been a lot better if I had used a plain black tea - I suggest that if you make this, you use the right tea

The Perfect Chai
Adapted from The Cafe Spice Cookbook by Hari Nayak

2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 1-inch piece fresh peeled ginger, lightly crushed
6 green cardamom pods, crushed
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons loose black tea, or 1 teabag black tea (like English breakfast tea)
Sugar, for serving

Put the water, fennel seeds, ginger, and cardamom pods in a saucepan and bring to a boil on high heat.

Lower the heat to medium and boil for another minute.

Add the milk, let it return to a boil, then take it off the heat and add the black tea. Cover the pot and let the tea steep for 3 minutes.

Pour the mixture through a strainer into 2 teacups. Add sugar, as desired.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

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Baileys and Chai! Oh My!

I've been a fan of Baileys Irish Cream for a long time. Although I've had it mixed with coffee as an after-dinner drink, and I've mixed it into hot chocolate as an evening treat, it never dawned on my to create a warm cocktail with Baileys.

But once the idea hit, I had to give it a try.

I didn't want to just warm the Baileys though - I wanted more depth of flavor. I wanted something that would pair well with the Baileys, but not overpower it.

I chose chai. I used an instant chai mix (add hot water and stir), but you could certainly brew your own.

Oh, and I used the salted caramel Baileys. The regular Baileys would be just fine, as well. Your choice

This would be nice for a cozy brunch or for a quiet evening at home. A box of chocolate covered caramel candies on the side wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

You know, for that holiday where people tend to give boxes of chocolates?

Baileys and Chai (oh my!)

6 ounces prepared chai tea (hot)

1 ounce Baileys Salted Caramel Irish Cream 

1/2 ounce Smirnoff Caramel-Kissed Vodka

Prepare the chai tea in the mug of your choice. Add the Baileys and vodka. Stir and serve.

This would be good with a dollop of whipped cream, if you like. It would also be good cold. But hey, it was snowing and a hot drink was absolutely the right idea.

Anti-Disclaimer. See that bottle of Baileys? I bought it. And the Smirnoff has been hanging around here for quite a while, so I'm not sure which door it entered by. But it's mine, now.

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