Recipe ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere. Many of my recipes come from recipes that I grew up eating or from meals that I have had while dining out. This bourbon maple chicken recipe actually came from an episode of Iron Chef America. I love watching cooking shows and getting ideas for things to whip up in the kitchen. The episode of Iron Chef America that I was watching just so happened to feature one of my favorite things in the world Bourbon.
Seeing how chefs at that level can use one ingredient in so many different ways has always been interesting to me. One of the chefs in the episode made quail on the grill and finished it in a maple bourbon sauce. I loved the idea and knew that I had to try it for myself.
Not having a grill in my kitchen or easy access to quail I knew that I had to make an audible in my rendition of the dish. I ended up deciding to substitute the quail for chicken thighs and bake the chicken in the oven and finish it in on the stove in the sauce.
I really had no idea what to do about the sauce. I started off the first time with a bunch of bourbon, some bourbon, and a bit of apple cider vinegar. It was really good, but I had no idea ow I made it so the second time I made the dish it didnt taste the same. Working through a few iterations of the bourbon maple sauce (actually measuring out ingredients) I ended up with up the recipe you see below.
Youll see that I served the chicken with my asparagus soup recipe.
Prep
Cook
Total
AuthorBen
Yield4servings
CoursesMain
As always thank you for taking a few moments from your day to read over this and I hope that you are able to try this recipe sometime and that you enjoy it. Feedback is always welcome and appreciated.
Have a blessed day,
Benjamin
43Categories: PoultryTags: chicken, cooking, dinner, featured, food, recipes
October 30,
The Vast Project
Vast was a huge success, so many amazing artists,musicians, songwritersall together in Cossack,
being inspired by the environment and each other.
There will be a music album produced, a documentary film,
and exhibitions of the visual artists work in
A kind of vast self-portrait.
I expanded the outline of my body, lying like a starfish, spread out to fill an empty room in the old post office building in the ghost town of Cossack.
I filled in the outline with. terracotta turtles.
I made clay turtles using plaster press-molds, aiming to use my body weight [54 kg] in clay. It took a few hours every day, so was thankful to get a bit of help from visiting school kids and some of the other Vast artists and musos. On the last day I reached my target, 54 kilos of clay, approx. turtles of varying sizes.
The result was photographed (best pic by Russell Ord Photography) in the room, then turtles were packed up and relocated on the salt-encrusted tidal mud-flats nearby, where Stormie Mills (famous street artist) and Bob Moore (ex-Mambo designer, muso and painter) collaborated on a giant drawing. Their work dwarfed my little installation in every way, but it was a fun new experience for me. (Mike Fletcher got some drone perspective overhead pics).
I was also out on the mud-flats earlier in the week, as bride wrangler, helping to get some shots and footage for Baby Guerillas ghost bride concept.
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It had been a non-working Wednesday. It was raining and both me and my little one felt too sleepy or lazy to get out or do anything constructive. Luckily, I had some sourdough bread getting ready to be baked (and eaten) so I did not feel like I was totally wasting my day.
As usual, some research was needed before I could find a recipe that made me feel comfortable. After consulting a couple of Swedish books on bread and a few Italian ones, plus several really well-made bread dedicated websites, I was more confused than before. Sourdough bread is apparently not as easy to make than bread made with yeast, which I just started to master. Hours and hours of fermentations are necessary for sourdough, the naturally rising, bread and it also seemed that complicated turns to the dough were needed at fixed intervals. Also shaping looked, oh so, difficult. I needed somewhere to start. An easy ice-breaking method to make bread with my new-born starter. And then I found it. Hidden in an Italian food-blog there was the picture of a beautifully rustic-looking loaf. The directions were brief but the author, a very talented La Cuoca Felice (the happy cook), was prompt in answering to all my (oh so many) questions. Including those on how to convert a recipe using a 50% hydration starter into a % one. The main problem with Italian bread recipes is that they ALL use 50% hydration sourdough. In fact, they call it pasta madre (mother dough), which gives you an idea of how thick the typical Italian starter is.
So I adapted the recipe, taking away some water. What attracted me most of this method is that there was no kneading involved. I really do not know yet how to treat sourdough and I was nervous about working it. Differently from what I thought, no-knead methods are not recent development, but are part of many ancient bread baking traditions, included one that comes from Central Italy. To such tradition belongs the famous Pane Toscano (Tuscan bread) and also the bread I am going to describe. When I asked to La Cuoca Felice where did her recipe came from, she said it was the result of her experience in making bread so, since this gifted cook is from Nepi, a beautiful ancient town not so far from Rome, I named this bread Nepi Sourdough.
NEPI SOURDOUGH
You need: gr (little more than 1 and 1/2 cup) % hydration sourdough starter, gr (little less than 1 and 1/4 cup) water, gr (little more than 3 cups) bread flour (or Manitoba), gr (little more than 1 and 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon sugar or honey, 3 teaspoons marine salt. Suggestion: get a scale!
How to: The evening before you are planning to bake, mix the sourdough with the water and the sugar. Add the flours and the salt (last). Work the dough as little as possible, just enough to get all the ingredients mixed together. If using a machine, put it on the lowest speed and work the dough for no more than 2 minutes. Pour the mixture in a big bowl and let it rest at room temperature (20 degrees Celsius, 68 Fahrenheit) for about 3 hours, covered with a kitchen towel. Passed this time, cover with plastic foil and place in the fridge until the following day.
Pour the baby in the bowl and mix with all the other ingredients. Dont forget: salt last
The morning or the early afternoon after (depending on your schedule), take the dough out, cover with the kitchen towel again and let rest at room temperature for 2 hours. Now the dough is ready to be quickly shaped.
Transfer the dough on a wooden surface covered with some semolina (durum) flour and fold the 4 corners of the ball into a rectangular package (this is how I understood the original tirare i 4 lati instruction).
Flip the package over a semolina flour covered kitchen towel, making sure that the top of the folds is on the bottom. Close delicately the kitchen towel and let rest for hours at room temperature.
Passed the hours, place a little pot with water on the bottom of your oven and put in also the oven tray you are going to use to bake the bread. Turn the oven on degrees (Celsius, Fahrenheit) and, when it reach the temperature, flip the dough on the hot baking tray, making sure that the folds are now on the surface again. To do this smoothly, I first flipped the dough on a baking paper sheet and then gently placed the baking sheet with the dough over the hot baking pan. When you put the dough in, also spray some water on the sides of the oven, to create more steam. Close the oven and lower immediately the temperature to degrees (Celsius, Fahrenheit). Bake for minutes. After this time, open the oven and remove the pot with the water. Take away also the baking tray and place the bread directly on the oven grid. Close the oven and lower the temperature to degrees (Celsius, Fahrenheit). Bake for further minutes. Now turn off the oven, open and let the bread rest there for 10 minutes. Take the bread out of the oven, cut in half and place on a cooling rack to allow the steam to come out (and keep the crunchy crust). The bread is ready!
Still warm and steamy not bad for a first-time experience with sourdough bread!
CONSIDERATIONS: Yesterday, when eating this bread with some Parma ham, I had a reverie a taste long forgotten came back to my mind. I remembered the bread I used to eat as a kid each time we, me and my family, went to the lake (in the beautiful Roman country side). The memories from our Sundays at the lake, with the amazing rustic bread sandwiches we always bought there, are among my dearest ones. However I could not, up to yesterday, recollect the exact taste of that lovely bread. Now I can. It must have been a no-knead sourdough loaf. This whole bread baking experience is giving new meanings to so many things. Try to make your own and tell me. It brings bread to a totally different dimension. It is good. And nurturing. For our souls even more than for our bodies.
Hope this bread is good enough for YeastSpotting.
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An easy recipe for making the best slow cooker black beans youll ever taste!
Ive been told I make the best slow cooker black beans ever, but I cant take all the credit. When we were still dating, my husband taught me how his family made Brazilian-style black beans when he was growing up. His aunt showed me how to make black beans in the slow cooker. Before that, I thought beans had to cook them in a pressure cooker to get them soft like the canned beans we bought. (I still remember trying to chew on the crunchy beans wed try to cook at my house when I was growing up! Ha!)
Over the past 16+ years, Ive perfected it. (High five!) Its not too difficult, but because I make slow cooker black beans about once a week or so, it was important for me to get it right and I had ample opportunity for practice. We eat them throughout the week either as a side on top of rice, in soup, or one of my favorite ways, mixed with quinoa and salsa for breakfast.
There are a few secrets to making awesome slow cooker black beans, and it applies to other types of beans and legumes too.
Lets get started!
The difference between the beans I make and other recipes is that I rely heavily on aromatics to flavor the beans as they cook. It truly does make all the difference.
The aromatics I use:
In the comments below, you can read what other readers have added to make the recipe their own. Totally add cumin, oregano, paprika, chili powder, or other chopped veggies like celery, chilies or bell peppers. I prefer to make a large plain batch of beans and add those other spices and ingredients when Im making a recipe with the cooked beans. I think of them and use them the same way I do canned beans. But by all means, spice it up!
One of the best things we do is add a ham bone to the pot. (Yes, theres salt in that, but it hasnt made too much of a difference like adding plain salt has.) It becomes the base of Brazilian feijoada (black bean and meat stew) to which we add other meats and sausages.
I get this question often. The reason the salt is added at the end is because it can inhibit the beans from softening. Will the beans turn out okay if you didnt wait until the end? Probably. Hopefully! Other things can also prevent the beans from softening as they cook too. (See further below for the answer to that question!)
Yes! Its VERY important to sort the dried beans and give them a good rinse before before cooking them.
Before you rinse the beans, sort out any small stones, broken, wrinkled, or otherwise misshaped beans.
I will place the dry beans into a large bowl or on a large plate and go through them. I find that black beans are more notorious for stones than other varieties of beans; probably because they are smaller. Dried beans arent usually washed before they are packaged up. Ive bought dried beans from a local farmers market that were covered in dust from the field, tons of small rocks, and even bits of grass, weeds, or grain. I dont like eating dirtI dont know about you!
To rinse the beans, you can do one of two things: 1) place them in a large colander (with small holes) or a fine-mesh sieve and rinse under running water, or 2) my preferred way, place the sorted beans in a large bowl of cool water. Agitate the beans with your hands to loosen any dirt, drain through a sieve or colander; repeat until the dirt is gone. The black beans will color the water, so it wont ever run clear. But you should be able to see that there is no longer dirt at the bottom of the bowl.
Ah, the most frequently asked question! I used to think you HAD to soak beans before cooking until I didnt one time and they cooked in the same amount of time as when I soaked them. This got me to thinking that it probably wasnt an issue when using a slow cooker. Im not sure how much it cuts down on cooking time on the stovetop.
Soaking is thought to help remove anti-nutrients or the extra starches that can cause gas and bloating commonly associated with beans. Personally, I dont believe soaking them makes them all that more digestible, nor do I believe the part of anti-nutrients. Eating beans often will help your body become accustomed to the fiber and starches in the beans and youll probably end up with less gas and bloating.
This advice (remember Im not an expert per se), does not pertain to kidney beans. They should be boiled first in water, drained and rinsed, then placed in the slow cooker with fresh water. Ive never been sick from eating beans that werent soaked or boiled, but some may have more sensitivities than I do.
My advice: Do what you think is best for YOU and your family. The slow cooker I use is a high end one and I know that it heats properly and cooks at a high enough temperature. I also use HIGH rather than LOW most often. Like I said, we have never been sick from a pot of beans not even once. Ive cooked hundreds of batches of slow cooker beans with no problem at all.
Read this article from eunic-brussels.eu for more info.
That being said, please read the comments below and inform yourself based on the experiences of others.
Everything goes into the slow cooker, except the salt, and is covered with water.
My slow cooker is very large (affiliate link), so I can make 2 pounds or more at a time. I use around 6 cups of water for each pound of beans. That is more than enough water. It may seem like too much water, but if too little water is added, the beans might absorb what water there is and burn. (This may or may not have happened to me a few times.)
You can always drain them later. We like to ladle a bit of the cooking liquid with the beans onto rice its very flavorful. If I make black bean soup, I will also reserve some of the cooking liquid to flavor the broth.
About 30 minutes before the end of the cooking time, remove the lid of the slow cooker and remove a few beans with a spoon and blow on them. If the skins peel back, the beans are done. They may still be a little firm. Taste one to be sure. If its still a little crunchy, the beans need more time. Another hour on HIGH, or a few hours on LOW.
I use 1 TABLESPOON per 1 POUND of dry beans. That sounds like a lot of salt, I know! But that salt will absorb into the beans and be just the right amount. Now, if you are on a salt restricted diet, of course you can omit the salt completely or use less. Weve found we like the 1 Tablespoon per pound and that the beans are well-seasoned and ready to eat or use in a recipe.
After stirring in the salt, replace the lid and let them continue cooking for the additional 30 minutes, or longer. If the beans cooked more quickly, I will remove the insert, add the salt and put the lid back and let the beans absorb the salt off the heat.
The beauty of making a big batch of slow cooker beans is that you can use some now and save some for later.
After cooking the beans and seasoning them, I let them cool completely before transferring to containers or resealable freezer bags for storage.
The beans freeze very well separated into quart or gallon-sized bags. Freezing them in flat layers helps with both storage and thawing. They stack nicely and are easy to slip into a bowl of warm water when youre ready to use them.
The slow cooker black beans will keep for about a week in an airtight container in the fridge. They will keep several months in a normal freezer, or even up to a year in a deep freeze.
One pound of dry beans yields about 5 cups of beans (minus the liquid), which is the equivalent of about 3 (ounce) cans of beans, give or take.
These are some of my very favorite recipes that I make over and over again using slow cooker black beans:
And from some of my favorite bloggers:
I have owned a few different slow cookers over the years. I started with a CrockPot given to me by a good friend. I loved that slow cooker and used it often until it stopped working. Boo! I then purchased an All-Clad Quart Slow Cooker with a non-stick metal oven- and stovetop-safe insert. I loved that slow cooker dearly, but unfortunately the non-stick coating bubbled and peeled and I believe it became hazardous to keep using it. It also stopped working shortly thereafter or I would have replaced the insert. (Or it might have been our wonky old house and its crazy electrical system that did it)
Next, not wanting to give up completely on All-Clad, I bought another All-Clad Quart Slow Cooker, but this time with a ceramic inserts. I ADORE THIS SLOW COOKER. But it is a bit more expensive and not always practical for everyone. Its huge, basically. As far as price goes, they have come down a lot. They used to sell for around $ and now you can find them under $
Because I use my slow cooker numerous times a week, and because I sometimes photograph cookbooks and recipes for clients, I needed an extra slow cooker to keep up with all the slow cooker recipes I photograph. Ha! I added a CrockPot 7-quart slow cooker because they are affordable and work well. (Not as well as my All-Clad, but a decent second place.)
I have yet to purchase an InstantPot or pressure cooker. I have used one in the past, but I have an irrational fear of both pressure cooking and deep frying. Im trying to overcome both. ;) This year () I will buy an InstantPot and add directions for those that have asked.
First thing, take a deep breath and before you leave a nasty comment, a few things: 1) its not the recipe. Ive literally made this hundreds of times successfully, as have numerous readers and friends. 2) its probably not you! Ill explain more below.
Here are common reasons your slow cooker beans didnt turn out:
If you have made this recipe for slow cooker black beans and you enjoyed it (or maybe you didnt!) please leave a comment below so other readers can gain from your insight. And if you feel inclined, please rate the recipe as well. Thank you!
Variations:
White beans (Great Northern, Cannelini, navy, black eyed peas)
-add to the slow cooker: chopped vegetables (carrots, fennel, celery), rosemary, sage, thyme, garlic, onion.
-use in salads, soups, purees, braised (side dish)
Pinto
-add to the slow cooker: a few sprigs fresh cilantro, dried oregano, a diced chile (serrano, jalapeno, etc), ground cumin, onion, garlic, bay leaf.
-use in chili and soups, salads, refried, etc.
Kidney
-cook the same way for pinto or black beans
-for use in Italian soupsproceed as for the white beans
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
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