Rouxbe’s Community Blog

Chicken that is not only juicy and tender but full of flavor and even a little kick!

With ingredients like Mexican chiles, cumin, coriander, fennel, garlic and extra-virgin olive, how can the chicken not be happy happy!

For quick cooking I first butterflied the chicken (which is super easy-peasy), but you can simply buy chicken breasts, if you prefer.

The Chile n’ Spice Oil is great with the chicken (or any other grilled meat for that matter), but the best part is that it makes for a mouth-watering dipping sauce.

Any leftover chicken makes for a tasty quesadilla or panini sandwich…good luck on actually having any leftovers though :-)

Here is a link to the full text recipe for the Chile n’ Spice Grilled Chicken. This dish also pairs well with the Char-Roasted Red Peppers and some fluffy couscous to soak up the flavors. Here is a recipe for Traditional Couscous (a more neutral tasting side dish) and here is one for Moroccan Couscous (a bit more flavor and added ingredients).

Hope you enjoy - dawn

I have heard that some parents struggle to get their kids to eat a variety of things. Many parents simply don’t have a strategy. I used one I learned from my grandfather.

When I was four, I stayed many weeks with my grandparents. My grandmother was an excellent cook, and my grandfather a very good gardener who dearly loved his food. He especially loved eel. In fact, I often shopped with my grandmother at the fishmonger and I was given the responsibility of choosing the live eel from the tank which would eventually end up on my grandfather’s plate. He took educating his grandchildren very seriously, and on this occasion used eel as part of his strategy. He had invited an old army friend for lunch who was quite excited about these eels himself. I had never tried them, and never wanted to, but suddenly all this anticipation of eels made me curious. I was given a bowl of noodle soup, but all I remember wanting that afternoon was some of that eel stuff. When the casserole of the eels came out of the old wood-fueled oven, the guest’s eyes lit up. My goodness, I thought, these things must really be good. My grandma basted them with the tomato based sauce, finished them with a few drizzles of olive oil, and brought them to the table. They were shiny, piping hot, cut into chunks. There was nothing else to accompany them. They looked magnificent. Was there enough for me? I was shy, too afraid to ask my grandfather if I could have some. These were made especially for him and his war buddy. I ate my soup quietly but stared at the eels and mesmerized by the gestures of incredible pleasure made by the old guest. His eyes, his nose, his brows, his chin, his hands, even his feet expressed a pleasure I had never seen before by someone eating food. Can food do this? My soup is good, but it’s not doing the same thing for me. Soup is for babies. I wanted what they were having. I absolutely had to know what those eels tasted like, but not courageous enough to intrude on their eel-tasting bliss.

Luckily the old guest noticed that I coveted his eel. He asked me if I had ever eaten eel before. I simply replied “No”. I could have pressed, but obviously not brave enough. However, the kind old man then asked me if I’d like some. But I ruined the opportunity by turning to my grandfather instead of jumping to the offer.

“He’s not ready for something like eel yet,” my grandfather said. My disappointment was almost unbearable, but I knew not to make any scene. And then came the lesson: “Eel is an acquired taste. First you acquire the taste for chicken. Then you acquire the taste for rabbit. Then you acquire the taste for carp. And only then are you ready for eel.” I knew exactly where he was going with this. I often refused to eat rabbit, which my grandfather likes to eat at least once a week. And I simply disliked the smell of fried fish, especially carp, which he also loved. In order to eat the eel, I had to graduate to it. And it worked. I ate rabbit and carp to my grandfather’s delight – eventually to mine too. I did eventually graduate to the eel. I remember the day I chose the eel for my plate, a day as special as when I bought my first pair of hockey skates. The eel was delicious. Today I describe it as a combination of rabbit and carp.

Tony Minichiello

Culinary Instructor, NWCAV

Stock-based clear soups can be quick to put together, especially when you have a quality stock on hand. Stock-based clear soups rely on a variety of ingredients to form the main flavor base. Liquid (usually stock) is added to enhance and bring the main flavors together to form a delicious soup.

In this lesson, we will walk you through the process of making a stock-based clear soup. Just by following a few key steps, you’ll be able to create many tasty soups.

Happy Cooking!

The Rouxbe Cooking School Team.

Steel-cut oats have a dense and chewy texture with an almost nutty flavor. They are sometimes referred to as course-cut oats, pinhead, Irish oats and sometimes even Scottish oats. I guess everyone wants to claim this healthy and delicious oat as their own!

Steel-cut oats are produced by running the whole grain through steel blades that then slice the grain into 2 or 3 pieces. Because the outer shell is still mostly left intact, steel-cut oats are more nutritious than regular oats.

That being said…nowadays when we want something, we want it as quickly as possible…but some times things that are really good, just take a bit longer. Yes, cooking them does take longer than instant oats, but it is well worth it. Not only does it have a much richer and nuttier flavor, it is also super good for ya!

Here is a recipe for Steel-Cut Oats with Fresh Fruit. I believe that the secret to this recipe is the vanilla soy milk. Trust me, I have been making steel-cut oats for years and ever since I tried it with the vanilla soy I have been hooked. Kimberley actually gave me the idea, as she had it recently in a restaurant (they were kind enough to share their secret).

To make the oats, they can be cooked much like rice (brown rice in particular). I have a gas stove and for some reason I can never get the flame low enough, so my oats would always boil over…argh! I then started baking them (again like rice) in the oven. This worked well, but it was a pain to turn on the oven just for breakfast. Then a few weeks ago we received some products from Breville, one of them being a steamer, let’s just say that I now steam my oats and it is stupidly easy and delicious!

Ciao for now

dawn

p.s. while doing a search for steel-cut oats on the internet I kept seeing “danger of steel-cut oats”. I was curious at to what was so dangerous about them, I clicked on the link. Turns out there is a band called “Danger and the Steel Cut Oats” and they are actually pretty good - and they don’t seem dangerous at all :-)