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
• Print

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. 

Korean Style Stir Fry Sauce

One of the things I love about my home town is there a lot of ethnic grocery stores in the area. There are several Asian markets, a European market, an African market, an Indian market, a Balkan market and probably even more I don’t know about as I know about most of the markets by word of mouth or through one of my explore the city walks.

I love spending time walking up and down the aisles, looking at stuff and picking new stuff to try. Sometimes, I get lucky and find an absolute treasure like this Tea Masala, that makes a Masala tea exactly like the one I love at my favorite ethnic restaurant, the Himalayan Yak. Other times, I don’t get so lucky and bring home Durian flavored cookies. If you never heard of Durian, it is a fruit that supposedly tastes delicious but smells like something rotting. It is bad and I just had cookies. I can’t imagine what a whole fruit smells like. But by far, I have had more positive shopping experiences at ethnic markets then bad ones. Trying new things is always a chance no matter where you shop.

My current favorite ingredient that I bought at the Asian market is Gochujang, a Korean hot pepper paste. This ingredient was way outside my culinary comfort zone because I am a hot spice wimp. The first time I used Gochujang in a recipe I was expecting it to blow the top of my head off like a scotch bonnet pepper. Instead, it has a pleasant heat and earthiness that I really like.

I found the recipe for this simple stir fry sauce by googling easy stir fry sauces. I was so excited to try it Because I love a good stir fry sauce and it did not disappoint. I don’t know how authentic my vegetable choices were to Korean food, I used Bok Choi, green beans and white mushrooms, but it was delicious.

A Few Tips For Shopping At An ethnic market:

1. Be respectful. You are going to see things in ethnic markets you don’t see in your average grocery store. The words yuck, ick, or that’s disgusting should never leave your mouth. Just move on to the next thing or leave the store. This shouldn’t even need to be said but after watching two people throw an absolute fit because they couldn’t find “American” food in an Asian market I guess it does.
2. Google and Google translate are your friends. You won’t know what a lot of the items are on the shelves, although some will be very familiar. Google products to find out what they are. Snap a picture of the ingredients or directions if they are in another language and run them through Google translate to see whats what.
3. Step outside your culinary comfort zone and try something new. Some of my favorite things to cook with like Furrikake, Gochujang and Kimchi, have all become my favorites because I just picked them up and tried them. I had no idea what to do with them at first. I just googled the item for recipes, picked one and tried it. It has lead to many really enjoyable meals.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

2 1/2 TBS Gochujang (Korean hot chili paste)

1 1/2 tsp soy sauce

1 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 tsp Gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes)

In small bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix well

Instant Pot Bison Roast

On Saturday I went to the Farmer’s market with my friend, Steph. I wasn’t planning on buying anything. I just needed to get out of the house for awhile. Of course that meant I came home with a Bison chuck roast and about 5 pounds of yellow baby potatoes. I have never eaten Bison before, much less cooked it so I had no idea what I was going to do with this roast. Why do I do this to myself?

As always, when I have an ingredient I haven’t cooked with before, I search the internet to see the possibilities. This time the internet failed me there just aren’t many people posting Bison meat recipes on their blogs. So I decided to crowdsource some ideas from a tea group I belong to on Facebook. What does Bison have to do with tea? Absolutely, nothing, but the group is a supportive community that posts about everything not just tea. I got some great information and links to information.

One of the links was to a site called Rock River Bison that had a recipe I adapted using what I had on hand as I didn’t have the specific rubs they used in the video. I had decided to use my pressure cooker before I saw the video. Bison is very lean so it overcooks and dries out easily. You need to cook it low and slow in in the oven or crockpot for hours to prevent that or use a pressure cooker that makes it more difficult to over cook. I didn’t have hours. I was hungry now so pressure cooker it was.

It was so worth the wait. The meat was very tender and juicy, not dry at all. It would be very easy to adapt this recipe to use other sauces and spice rubs. How about teriyaki sauce, 5 Spice powder and rice vinegar or salsa, taco seasoning and apple cider vinegar?

I added a little sauce to some of the shredded meat and served it over a bunch of the baby yellow potatoes I baked. I have also served the shredded meat and sauce over pasta lot in a sandwich like the picture.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

Adapted from Rock River Bison

2-3 TBS of your favorite meat rub, I used Primal Palates BBQ Rub

1 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce, I used 8.5 oz bottle of Primal Kitchens Classic BBQ sauce

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

2 lb Bison chuck roast.

If your pressure cooker has a saute setting, set it to high and let it preheat. If it doesn’t have a saute setting, heat a frying pan over high heat. While the pan is heating, cut your roast into steaks, season both sides with the whatever spice rub you are using. When your pan is hot add a little oil and sear the roast on both sides.

Add the seared roast to the liner of the pressure cooker. Add more spice rub to the meat and use your hands to coat the meat evenly. Add your BBQ sauce and vinegar. Close the lid and turn the vent to the closed position. Set the pressure cooker to high pressure and cook for 45 minutes. When the meat is done cooking. Natural release until the pin goes down. Remove the Bison to a plate and shred with two forks.

Spicy Coleslaw

This stack of new to me cookbooks is making me so happy! They are all by my all time favorite cookbook author, Mark Bittman. I have been cooking from his various incarnations of How To Cook Everything for over 20 years. I have made literally, dozens of his recipes of over the years and many of those recipes have made it to my favorites list. One of my cooking goals is to have every cookbook Mark Bittman has ever written. Adding these cookbooks to my collection gets me really close to accomplishing that goal.

I made a BBQ Bison roast last night and needed a quick and easy side dish so I made this coleslaw from one of my new Mark Bittman cookbooks. This is not your typical Midwest coleslaw recipe as there isn’t a drop of mayonnaise to be found. Instead Mark Bittman uses a basic vinaigrette to season and sauce the coleslaw. Its a refreshing change from the waterlogged, stodgy coleslaws that I grew up with.

You can use any type of cabbage here. I had some Napa cabbage so that is what I used.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

Adapted From How To Cook Everything The Basics

1 TBS Dijon mustard

1 TBS Balsamic Vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1 1/2 tsp sugar

3 cups cored and shredded cabbage

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 cup scallions, chopped

salt and pepper, to tast

Whisk the mustard and vinegar together in a small bowl. Slowly, whisk the oil into the the vinegar/mustard mixture. Once the oil is combined add the sugar and whisk until dissolved.

Combine the cabbage, peppers, and scallions, toss with the dressing. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

Gado Gado Dip

My friends don’t believe me when I say this but sometimes I don’t feel like cooking. This week I cooked exactly twice. I made blueberry waffles one morning and a stir fry for dinner which was basically leftover rice and a bunch of random stuff from the fridge. The rest of the week I have been living on cereal, delivery, and this dip. The dip is good on raw veggies or on chips. Here is hoping that I feel more like cooking next week.

• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

1/4 – 1/2 tsp chili flakes

1/2 clove garlic, mince

1/4 cup peanut butter, I subbed Sunbutter. You could also sub another nut butter.

1 1/2 TBS lime juice

1 1/2 TBS brown sugar

1 TBS fish sauce

1 1/2 tsp soy sauce

2 TBS hot water

salt, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.