Whole Foods Friday: Fried chicken and a light drink

How about some fried chicken? This is a shallow-fried chicken, so you won't be left with a vat of oil. The chicken ends up very moist, with a nice crust.

And there's a secret in this recipe that might rock your world. The first dredge is not in the usual flour. Oh no, this one starts of with cornstarch. Have you ever fried chicken (or fish) and had the crust fall right off? The cornstarch helps to prevent that.

Shhhh ... don't tell anyone I told you.

A lot of fried chicken recipes start with a soak in buttermilk, but this one spends time in yogurt, instead. It has the same result, but these days yogurt is a lot more common at grocery stores - and you can buy small quantities instead of a whole quart of buttermilk.

Seasoning goes into the buttermilk and the flour for a double-dose of flavor. You can go crazy with herbs and spices, but this time I wanted the chicken to be the star. Just a little seasoning, and whole lot of chicken flavor.

Fried Chicken

1 chicken, cut up (or equivalent in pieces)
1 cup yogurt
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 egg
1 cup all purpose flour
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pinch of cayenne (optional)
Oil, for frying

Put the chicken in a zip-top bag and add the yogurt, salt, and paprika. Massage the chicken in the bag so the yogurt and spices are evenly coating the chicken pieces.

Refrigerate for at least an hour or up to about eight.

Have your breading station ready before you start cooking. Flat bowls or lipped plates work well. Have the cornstarch in one; the egg, beaten with a tablespoon of water in the second; and the flour seasoned to taste with salt, pepper (and, if you want it, a pinch of cayenne) in the last bowl.

Remove the chicken from the bag and pat (mostly) dry. You don't need to be fanatic about it, but remove the majority of the yogurt.

Heat about 1/2 inch of oil on medium-high heat in a heavy pan with a lid.

Dip the chicken into the cornstarch first. Shake off any excess. Dip into the egg and let the excess drain off. Dip into the flour, and shake off the excess.

Fry the chicken until all sides are nicely browned, working in batches if necessary to keep from overcrowding the pan.

Once all the pieces are browned, cover the pan (returning any pieces of chicken you removed to make room).

Lower the heat to medium and cook until the juices in the chicken no longer run pink - 30 to 45 minutes depending on the size of the pieces and how long it took you to brown them in the first step.

When the chicken is done, let it drain for a few moments on a rack to let the clinging oil drip off.

Serve hot. Or cold. There's not much better than cold fried chicken the next day.

Moscato and Blood Orange Cocktail

This is an incredibly simple drink - just two ingredients. But it's a pretty pink and festively bubbly. The sweetness and bubbles cut some of the richness of the fried chicken, and the tartness of the orange adds brightness.

Moscato is a fairly sweet wine, but still light - not like as sweet as an eiswein or a sweet sherry, for example.

To make it, simply squeeze the juice from a blood orange into your glass and top with moscato. That's all there is to it. You can garnish it with segments of blood orange if you like.

For more information about Whole Foods Friday, see the tab right up there at the top.

Whole Foods Friday: Tomato and Red Pepper Soup

I like tomatoes in soup. Even if they aren't a big part of the flavor, I like to see a few bits of tomato.

But tomato soup may be my all-time favorite.

When some people think about tomato soup, they think about a plain, creamy tomato soup. Smooth and comforting.

Sure, that's good. Sometimes I make a relatively plain tomato soup. But more often I dress it up with other things - vegetables, noodles, rice. - you never know what I might add.

This time, the tomatoes weren't the only bright red star in the soup. Roasted red peppers brought their sweetness and unique flavor as well.

And then there are the add-ins that add texture and body to the soup. It tastes rich but it's actually very light. If you make it with water or a vegetable stock, it's vegetarian. Skip the cheese, and it's vegan as well.

Tomato and Red Pepper Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1/4 cup mushrooms, very finely diced
1 teaspoon salt
1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes
1 16-ounce jar roasted red peppers
2 quarts water (or stock)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup tricolor orzo
Chevre, for garnish

Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Add the onions, mushrooms, and salt. Cook, stirring as needed, until the vegetables soften. Crush the tomatoes by hand, or chop them into small pieces. Add the tomatoes and their juice to the pot. Chop the red peppers as well, and add them to the pot.

Add the water (or stock) tomato paste, thyme, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cook, stirring as needed for another 30-60 minutes, until the tomatoes and peppers break down a bit and the flavors meld. Add water or more stock if the soup thickens too much.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt, if needed.

Bring the soup back to a boil, add the orzo, put the lid on the pot, and turn off the heat. The orzo will be cooked perfectly in about 15 minutes.

Serve with a dollop of chevre for garnish.

Molecular gastronomy at home

A while back, I got a molecular gastronomy kit for review from a company called Molecule-R Flavors. I'd been itching to play with molecular gastronomy ever since I first heard about it. so I was pretty excited to get my paws on this kit..

Actually, I wanted to create magic with food even before I'd ever heard of molecular gastronomy. You know - if I happened to end up in that alternate futuristic universe.

When I started to see what chefs were doing with food, for sure I wanted to play. But I had to wait.

I know a few people who jumped on the molecular bandwagon right away and ordered ingredients online from the same sorts of places the chefs ordered from.

But when I looked into it, I realized that minimum quantities were often a lot larger than the average home user would ever need. I wanted to play around with molecular gastronomy a little bit - I didn't want to make it an everyday thing.

So, I waited. Not very patiently. But I waited, anyway.

Now there are companies that have created molecular gastronomy kits, with ingredients in reasonable quantities. Even better, the kit I got had the ingredients pre-measured in packets. You see, with molecular gastronomy, sometimes the amounts you need are very small. I have a good kitchen scale for weighing flour for bread. But it's not like a lab scale.

The kit also included a few tools.

When I opened the box and rifled through it to see what was there, I was a little surprised to see there was no recipe book.

Ah, but there was a DVD. I figured there would be recipes on the DVD. You know, text. Instead, it's all video.

Which is both a good and bad thing. The good thing is that you can see what things are supposed to look like as you're working with them. And trust me, that's a very good thing.

The bad thing is that unless your computer is in the kitchen, you're going to need to jot down the instructions for the recipe you're going to make. The other bad thing is that you can't just shuffle though a book, look at photos, and decide what you want to make based on ingredients or other factors. You need to watch the videos. They're all very short, but a booklet of some sort would have been nice.

Needless to say, the kit doesn't include a tank of liquid nitrogen, but it includes enough to keep me busy for a while. So far, it's been fun, and a lot simpler than I expected it to be. You'll see. Coming soon.

Well, okay, here's a little preview.

Looks interesting, huh? Stay tuned. You'll hear ALL about it.

UPDATE: The folks at Molecule-R just informed me that there was supposed to be a PDF on the DVD with recipes and instructions, and they emailed a copy to me. AWESOME! To be honest, the PDF might have been on the DVD I received, but I had some technical difficulties (computer issues, not the DVD itself) so it's possible I just missed the fact it was there. Thanks to Molecule-R for such a quick response!