Corona Virus weekend - Time to get creative in the kitchen at home

Wow, just winding up another Covid weekend. A quick scroll through the socials and you can find out what all your friends have been doing to prevent boredom  taking over. Personally my life wasn't exactly on the edge before so the change is sadly, kind of minimal. Haha.

This weekend I got inspired by some of the youtube clips I have been watching and decided to either cook what I saw or get inspired to create from my viewing. After watching Mike Greenfield on Pro home cooks make peanut butter as part of his Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich, which looked awesome, by the way, I decided to have a go at making peanut butter too. Ingredient list is extremely short, something I love in a recipe and 3 of the 4 I already had at home. That was Saturday's fun. The result wasn't too bad and I'll definitely be giving it another go in the not too distant future with a few simple tweaks.

On to Sunday and I stole Mike's Air-fryer Korean Chicken wings recipe and gave it a go on my cheap purchased at Aldi model and it came out great. That was lunch. Inspired by a Mark Wiens video from his recent trip to Jamaica and a soup he ate in the market I decided to make chicken stock using Chicken feet and then a simple mirepoix of carrot, onion and celery  with a few cloves of garlic and some bay leaves. Some of the stock with be reduced down and frozen and some will be used in tonight's pea and ham soup which will fill the belly and taste great too. Should leave leftovers so that at least one night this week I won't have to leave home after I return from work. Everyday under normal circumstances that doesn't involve a visit to shop is a win. During the corona-virus pandemic it is a massive win.

kitchen spider

Let's start at the very beginning because as I think Mary Poppins said "it's a very good place to start". Peanut Butter isn't a food that I have spent too much time thinking about but I do occasionally like to spread some on toast at breakfast time and when I saw Mike's recipe I thought "I've got some time, the the ingredients are few and easily accessed, let's give it a go." And so off to the local Asian Grocery store I headed. In truth I was headed there anyway to get some ingredients for the dish my wife was cooking for dinner and I remembered that I had gotten peanuts from the Asian grocers previously. I was going to get the blanched peanuts but they were Chinese grown so I decided on the Australian grown which were only slightly more expensive and but did have the disadvantage of having the peanut skin still attached. In the original recipe Mike and his assistant had purchased locally sourced peanuts and had after toasting the peanuts in the oven had rolled them in a tea towel to loosen the skin and then used a kitchen spider (pictured above) to shake the skins free from the peanut itself. I don't have a kitchen spider in my home kitchen so with the help of my wife we shook the peanuts on a pizza tray in a similar way to how people is Asian use a cane basket to remove the skins from peanuts. The job was a little messy and time consuming and maybe for next time I will invest in a kitchen spider or simply purchase the blanched nuts from China. I think I should point out that the problem isn't China but simply that it is usually, unless there is a significant quality difference, better to get product which is grown closer to home. Simply put, less travel time is better for the environment and usually better and fresher product thrown in as a bonus. A third option is to leave the skins on and see how they turn out, who knows? They may add flavour.

The skinning of the peanuts was really the most difficult part of the job. The peanuts were toasted in the oven for about 10 minutes at 200°C, given a quick toss to turn them over and continued cooking for another 5 minutes. After this, tip the shelled peanuts into your food processor and process at a medium to high speed until the peanuts start to give out some of their oils. You make have to push the crushed nuts off the sides of your processor bowl from time to time so that the blade continues to do it's job. Other than that, add in a sweetener, in my case Golden syrup was on hand but honey would be perfect too. As well as that add in some oil of neutral flavour and a pinch or two of salt. Pulse the processor to mix and at this stage I also added back in the peanuts I had only partially processed at the start to give a crunchy peanut butter affect.

Whilst the end result didn't have a perfect texture (a little too dry), the taste was great and I would say it was a win with a dash of learning experience thrown in for good measure.

And so we move to Sunday. I started out by getting my chicken stock on the go. I diced onion, carrot, celery and garlic into a stock pot. I added in the chicken feet and sweated them in a little oil over low heat for an hour. I then added in water and simmered on the lowest setting I had that produced bubbling on the water surface. I was using a portable heat pad that I picked up at either Kmart of Big W a year or so back. I really like the product because it gives better heat control with my better quality thick based pots than I can get out of my regular stove top.  I found however on this occasion that the lowest heat setting of 60 was too low to produce a simmer but the next setting up which is 80 was a little faster boil than I was hoping to achieve. So I had to compromise by leaving the lid ajar which hopefully gave me some middle ground.

From there the job was simple enough. simmer away for around 3 hours, strain and use or put away in the freezer or fridge for later use.

Once the stock was ready, I used some to make my pea and ham soup. Stock made meant the soup making was an easy enough job. Add in a ham hock weighing in at just over a kilogram and simmer away until it is tender. The longer time you have for this, the better. I simmered mine for around an hour/ hour and a half and then added the green split peas but in future I would have preferred maybe 3 hours. Live and learn I guess. What you are looking for is the hock to add all it's flavour to the soup and then add in the green split peas which I had been soaking all afternoon into the soup for the last hour. When the peas break down they will thicken the soup and bring an element that will make this soup a meal in itself. Seasoning due to the hock being salty can be tricky and if seasoning at the start of cooking be careful not to over season as the soup liquid with intensify in flavour as cooking is continued. All in all I would say it was a win much like the peanut butter with a little something learnt for next time. I forgot to mention the reason I was thinking soup with chicken feet was the Mark Wiens youtube video from his recent (pre Covid) trip to Jamaica. In the video he visits a local market as part of a guided food tour and gets all food nerd (meant as a compliment) over a pumpkin soup which was served in a cup with a chicken foot in it for extra flavour. On seeing that I felt inspired to use the flavour of the feet to make stock and the ensuing soup. I think the big think the chicken feet bring to the equation is a gelatinous richness that you just don't get in stock powders and store bought liquid stocks.

Whilst the stock was simmering away I decided to engage my air-fryer for a chicken wing Sunday lunch.  I got the chicken bits with the wing tip removed and chopped into 2 pieces and took the Korean wings recipe from pro home cooks. This one was easy prep wise and a definite do again. All I had to do was season the wings with baking powder for extra crunch, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Toss in a bowl and then half a kilo at a time into the fryer at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, turn them over and give it another 10 at 185 Celsius. On the first batch I cooked at 180 all the way through but I decided to try to get a little more crunch with extra 5 degrees on the second batch and was happy with the result. Mike made an easy Korean spicy sauce and as luck would have it I had just purchased the week earlier the Gochujang (red pepper paste) paste for the first time in my life and was excited to have an opportunity to use it. I had purchased it to use in a kimchee stir fry and it goes well there too. The sauce was just a quick whisking of Gochujang, soy sauce, sesame oil, honey and rice vinegar. Toss this over the cooked wings to coat and as they say Bob's your uncle. Well if I had an uncle named Bob I guess. The wings were great topped with sesame seeds though I may very briefly cook the sauce to take out the slightly raw taste it had to it. I think maybe just a minute or two on a really gentle heat would get the job done.

And so that brings us to the end of a fund weekend of cooking. Certainly more satisfying than staring at the TV all weekend. Whilst the Coronavirus is a terrible thing which has brought great upheaval and tragedy across the globe for the lucky people who have not been too badly harmed financially or physically it has just been a very good reminder to slow down and smell the roses. Until next time, stay safe and happy cooking!!!