Air Fryer Mahogany Chicken

Yesterday a friend told me she wished she could cook like me. My food always looks so good and I never have any problems in the kitchen.

This morning I sent her a picture of my lunch I was making. It was supposed to be Mahogany chicken. It is Mahogany in one place but burnt in most others. I told her even the best cook in the world has problems in the kitchen from time to time. We just don’t post them on our blogs or instagram feeds. We quietly learn from our mistakes and try again and post our good looking pictures.

So what did I learn from this mistake? A glaze with so much sugar in it can burn quickly and I should have been checking it more frequently. I knew that but because I don’t use glazes very often it just didn’t occur to me at the time.

I also learned that different air fryers have different wattages and that means some cook quicker than others. It’s a matter of knowing how your particular air fryer works. When I remade the chicken to get a better picture, I dropped the temperature and extended the cooking time. I added the changes I made to the note at the bottom of the recipe.

In case you are wondering what happened to the chicken, only the skin was burned so I removed it and chopped the chicken meat up for a salad which was delicious.

Mahogany Chicken

• Difficulty: Easy
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From Easy Air Fryer Magazine

1 1/2 TBS soy sauce

1 1/2. tsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp grated, peeled fresh ginger

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 TBS honey, divided

2 bone in, skin on chicken thighs, trimmed of excess skin and fat

1/2 lb broccoli florets, cut in half if big

1/2 bunch scallions, cut into 2 inch pieces

1 1/2 tsp olive oil

In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, garlic and 1 1/2 tsp honey, mix well.  Reserve 1 1/2 tsp of the mixture for later use.   Add the chicken and turn to coat.  Refrigerate for 1 hour. Stir the remaining 1 1/2 tsp honey into the reserved marinade for a glaze.

Place chicken in the air fryer basket, skin side down and air fry at 375 degrees for 12 minutes.  Brush chicken with reserved honey/ marinade mixture and flip using tongs.  Air fry, brushing twice with the glaze, during the last 3 minutes of cooking., until the chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes more. 

Air Fryer Steak

Almost immediately after posting  the first part of my favorite things post yesterday, I got people asking how I cook steak in the air fryer.  So I thought I would post it. Please note this technique isn’t my creation. I got the technique from Bailey Fisher at her wonderful blog, The Whole Kitchen Sink.  It’s not a small batch cooking blog but you should go check it out anyway. Bailey’s food is always delicious. You are going to want to adjust the cooking time according. To the thickness of your steak and preferred level doneness.

Steak

• Difficulty: Easy
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From the Whole Kitchen Sink

your choice of steak

Your choice of seasoning blend,  my favorite seasoning blends are magic mushroom powder and just about any seasoning blend from Primal Palate

Preheat your air fryer to 400  degrees while you prepare your steak. Pat your steak dry.  Brush with a little oil and liberally sprinkle both sides of the steak with your choice of spices.  Place the steak in the basket and set the timer for 6 minutes then flip the steak and cook for 6 more minutes. Let stand a few minutes before eating.

My Favorite Things of 2020 — Part One– Products and Gadgets

2020 was not a year that allowed me to go out and find new foods to try and new gadgets to explore.  However, I did find a few things I absolutely loved even in the midst of the pandemic. 

Primal Palate Seasonings and Seasoning Blends

I have 29 small batch spice blend recipes on the blog and dozens more waiting for the small batch treatment so why on earth would I buy spice blends.  The first time I purchased a few Primal Palate Spice blends it was because they  were a small company I had heard of and I wanted to support them through the pandemic.  I was also very bored with my meals and was dying to try anything new.  All the rest of the times I have ordered from Primal Palate is because they produce a damn good product.  So much so I have ended up buying a jar of all 18 of their spice blends to try, both the vanilla and almond extracts,  5 of their single spices and 3 of their salts to experiment with.  I probably won’t keep all 18 spice blends on my shelf but I will always  keep a bottle of my favorites in the pantry.

If you are wondering what to do with all the spice blends, check out the recipe section of Primal Palate’s website.   They have tons of recipes using their spicate blends.  The ones I have tried have been really good.  Or you could be like me, most of the time, and just grab a random bottle and sprinkle it over everything.

Furikake

I know you are all probably going “What the heck is that?”  I was in the same boat when I first read about Furikake in one of the cookbooks I bought this fall.  Furikake is a Japanese seasoning blend that was used on rice.  I am told it was originally created as a calcium supplement. It is now as common on the Japanese table as salt and pepper. The blend contains sesame seeds, some kind of seaweed, and some kind of dried fish.   It wasn’t something I was going to buy but when I found it when I was at the Asian market  looking for some other things, I couldn’t resist trying it.  I am glad I did it’s amazing on everything, eggs, vegetables, popcorn, chicken, pork, beef as well as rice.

Spinddrift Sparkling Water

I am not a fan of sparkling water.  I read something that compared it to drinking static and most of the time I don’t think the comparison is inaccurate.  However,  I keep trying new brands of sparkling water because I want to find something I enjoy besides tap water when I am on my next Whole 30 and give up my diet Dr. Pepper and Arnold Palmer Half Tea Half Lemonades.

I tried Spindrift because they offered a sampler pack of all their flavors this summer.   It was one can of all their flavors except their newest flavor, pineapple, you got two of those. I figured if I wasn’t crazy about them it wouldn’t be too hard to finish them up.

The good thing is that Spindrift isn’t so heavily carbonized that it tastes like static. It also has distinct flavors to each different type of flavor. I think that is because Spindrift flavors their seltzer with actual fruit juice instead of just natural flavors. My favorite flavor, to the surprise of no one who knows me, is the cranberry-raspberry.

Gourmia 7 Quart Air Fryer

I put of buying an air fryer for along time because I wasn’t sure I would use it enough to make spending the money.  I just don’t fry a lot of things. My other concern was the size of the basket. Most I had seen were not even big enough to feed one person much less two or more.

On my 50th birthday I was strolling around Best Buy and saw a 7 quart Gourmia air fryer. It looked big enough for me to cook enough food to feed me at one time and it was on sale. It came home with me that day.

My only complaint about my air fryer is that I didn’t find it sooner.  Air fryers are much more versatile then it seems on the surface. I have baked muffins and cookies, made steak, lasagna, casseroles, tons of vegetables and so much more. Pretty much anything you make in the oven can be made in the air fryer if you can find a pan that fits in the basket. I am absolutely amazed at how often I use it.

Air Fryer Hard “Boiled” Eggs

Okay. Do we really need another way to hard “boil” eggs? Probably not but this recipe shows exactly how versatile the air fryer really is. I wasn’t expecting it to work or work well but surprisingly it does. There is no sulfurous smell and icky green, gray yolk of an overcooked egg. The texture of the white isn’t chalky and the yolk isn’t grainy. The eggs peel like a dream. The shells practically slide off.

Will I always make my hard “boiled” eggs this way? I don’t know. I don’t eat a lot of hard “boiled” eggs but it was an interesting experiment to see just what the boundaries are on what the air fryer can do and do well.

Hard Boiled Eggs

• Difficulty: Easy
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From My Forking Life

1 – 6 large eggs

Preheat your air fryer to 270 degrees. Place raw eggs in the air fryer basket and cook at 270 degrees for 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, remove the eggs and place in a bowl of ice water for 5 minutes to stop the cooking. Peel and enjoy.

Air Fry Apple Pies

There are just some ingredients that don’t lend themselves to small batch cooking. They don’t come in small packages or they don’t freeze well so you can’t really plan to use them later or, if you are like me, you know if you toss the remainder in the freezer you will forget about them and end up throwing them out in 6 months anyway.

Egg roll wrappers are one of those ingredients. I used 8 of them in the air fryer traditional egg roll post so I had 6 or 7 wrappers left. What the heck I am I going to do those leftover wrappers?

I am currently in deep, mad, love with Pizza Hut’s apple pie dessert. Don’t ask me why. I just am. So I wondered if I could make something similar using my air fryer, egg roll wrappers and a homemade apple pie filling. The good news is I totally can so now I stop ordering pizza just so I can get apple pie for dessert. Lol.

The best thing about these pies is you don’t have to cook the filling first.

Apple Pies

• Difficulty: Easy
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Inspired by Dessert For Two

1 medium Honey Crisp apple, peeled and chopped

1/8 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 TBS sugar

5-6 egg roll wrappers

In a small bowl, combine the apple, allspice, cinnamon and sugar. Mix until the apples are well coated.  Add 3 tablespoons of the apple mixture to the middle third of the egg roll wrapper. Fold each side of the wrapper toward the middle of the filling.Bring the bottom third of the egg roll wrapper over the top of the filling and roll up.Use a bit of water applied to the wrapper with your finger to seal the egg roll. Preheat your air fryer to 400 degrees for 2-3 minutes while you finish filling the egg rolls. Once all the egg rolls are rolled, lightly spray them with oil or cooking spray and place in the air fryer basket. Bake for 10 minutes flipping half way through the cooking time.