Scrumptious Street

"Spring Chicken" with Asparagus and Morels

I know that sometimes we cooks, chefs and bloggers get predictable.  But, every year there are certain foods or ingredients that really get our juices flowing, our kitchens humming, our hearts buzzing. Typically, they are items that are only at their peak a short time each year and we wait all year long for them.  For me, one such example is my penultimate Spring combination of baby asparagus and fresh morel mushrooms.  EVERY YEAR, I feel like Spring hasn't begun until I've successfully hunted them out in the Farmer's Markets, reminisced about my Dad gathering morels in the woods when I was young (he can smell them 1/4 mile away I swear) and cooked up the first batch of the year!  Here's this year's creation, my "Braised Chicken Thighs with Asparagus Tips, Green Garlic and Crispy Morels."

This was wonderful, Spring on a plate.  Healthy, light, earthy and succulent. This dish really exemplifies how cooking with the simplest and freshest ingredients is so fulfilling and delicious.  Pay attention to textures here and it'll be perfect.  You want juicy and tender chicken with soft yet still firm asparagus.  You want peas just the other side of raw, so they pop in your mouth but are still tender.  You want the morels to be like well-seared meat: moist on the inside and crispy on the outside.  Rather than following exact times in my recipe, keep your focus on getting these combination of textures, taste as you go and don't let anything go past done into the land of soft of mushy. (Oven temps and equipment make it vary anyway,)  If you put care and attention into this dish and focus on flavor and texture, you'll be thrilled with the delicious result! Next year, I'm hunting my own morels because even what you get in the Farmer's Market don't compare with what you find in forests!

Ingredients

Serves 2

4 chicken thighs, bone-in and skin on

2 T. extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1/2 c. dry white wine, such as Pinot Gris

1 fresh bay leaf

1/2 tsp. fennel seeds

1 tsp. Herbes de Provence

1 small shallot

2 T. fresh green garlic, minced

2 c. fresh baby asparagus tips

1 c. fresh morel mushrooms

1/2 c. fresh English peas, shelled

1/2 lemon, juiced

Method:

1. In a small bowl add 2 T. kosher salt and 2 c. water and stir to dissolve.  Slice the morels in half lengthwise and add to the salt water.  This helps remove any small bugs that may be in the mushrooms.  (Yes, they could be there but this gets them out.) Soak the mushrooms for 20 minutes.  Gently skim the mushrooms off the surface and rinse thoroughly with cold water.  Squeeze dry with paper towels and let the mushrooms continue to dry on a plate.

2. Preheat oven to 350˚F.  Pat the chicken thighs dry with paper towels and season with the kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.  Take out a oven-proof skillet or braising pan with lid and place on medium-high heat on the stove.  Add 1T. of the olive oil.

3. Brown the chicken on all sides, starting skin-side down until a dark golden brown, about 5-8 minutes.  Add the bay leaf, herbes de Provence and shallot and saute until the shallots begin to soften, about 4 minutes more.  Pour in the white wine, add the green garlic and asparagus and toss to combine.  Cover the pan with a lid and place in the oven.  Bake for 35 minutes.

5. At 30 minutes, take out another small skillet and heat the remaining 1 T. olive oil over medium heat.  Add the cleaned and dried morels when the oil is smoking hot.  Fry the morels until crispy, about 8-10 minutes. 

6. When the chicken has baked 35 minutes, quickly remove the pan from the oven and add in the fresh peas and toss.  Return the pan to the oven without the lid and braise another 5 minutes.  Finish frying the morels to crispy brown and set aside.

7. Remove the pan from the oven and spoon the chicken and vegetables onto plates or a large serving platter.  Squeeze half a lemon over the chicken and vegetables.  Lastly, top with the crispy fried morels and serve immediately.

Indonesian Corn Fritters with Sweet-Hot Chili Sauce

Rarely do I cook from another person's recipe and when I do, I often regret it.  When cooking, I have a specific vision in my mind and my tastebuds can "imagine" exactly what the result should be.  Often, if I cook from another person's recipe, the results are not what my culinary imagination craves.  So, I end up tossing it out and starting over, utilizing any new concepts the recipe might have introduced but basically executing on my vision.  It's a good thing I try again, however, because the second-efforts are always much more successful.  Here in San Francisco, I've been incredibly inspired by the fantastic produce available year-round and the plethora of Asian markets.  I've also met some great chefs, one of whom happens to be Malaysian.  I consulted her on this concept and thank her for some great ideas and starting points.  In the end, however, I came up with my own recipe, which still is quite authentic and yet even more flavorful than the other variations I tried.  This is a typical Indonesian street food called Perkedel Jagung, otherwise in English as "Indonesian Corn Fritters".  

I also made my own riff on a sweet and hot chili dipping sauce to accompany the fritters and add great spice, coolness and that addictiveness I always crave from hand-eaten snacks.  It's too bad I didn't photograph the first attempt to show you the difference.  Mr. Scrumptious is always encouraging me to do that, but I'm usually so disgusted by the failed expectations that I don't want to make it permanent.  The first attempt was doughy and dense like a hush puppy and I was craving more moist inside/crispy outside and flatter like a crab cake.  It was poorly seasoned but with overwhelming spice and bite of raw garlic and raw shallots.  Often in my cooking classes I focus a lot on the difference between seasoning and spice.  They are very different things and one should never forgo seasoning for spice.  Otherwise you have bland, hot food that burns but doesn't taste like anything.  Properly seasoned food should taste like the main ingredient and that ingredient should be elevated and showcased.  In this variation of the dish, the corn is that main ingredient and everything else is there to make corn taste deep and fresh I want the layers of flavor to be built from the corn up. Tangy, sweet, crispy, soft and salty all come together for a complex and fantastic celebration of corn at its most exciting, instead of corn as a staple at its most bland.

So here's how I did it and please, if you try this and don't like MY recipe, please let me know!

Ingredients

Serves 4 as appetizer

1 tsp. freshly toasted and ground coriander

1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 medium shallot, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 tsp. fresh galangal, minced

1/2 tsp. fresh ginger, minced

1 tsp. kosher salt

1 T. sugar

4 ears fresh sweet corn, kernels cut from cob OR 3 c. frozen corn thawed and squeezed dry

1 T. minced green garlic (now in Farmer's Markets!) or green scallions

1/2 lime juiced and zested

4 T. brown rice flour

1 large egg, beaten

canola oil for frying

For the Sweet-Hot Chili and Cucumber Dipping Sauce (Saus Lado)

4 fresh red Thai chilies, finely sliced

1 clove garlic, sliced lengthwise in four pieces

1 T. seedless English cucumber, minced

1 lime, juiced

3 T. sugar

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. palm vinegar or rice wine vinegar

2 T. ketchup (optional)

2 T. warm water

Method:

1. Make the dipping sauce first so it has time to meld flavors and lose some of the raw taste.  Make sure to leave the garlic in big chunks.  You want the flavor of garlic, but not small pieces of raw garlic to stick to the fritter when you dip.  In a small bowl add the chilies, garlic, cucumber and lime juice.  Stir to cover all veggies with the lime juice.  Add the sugar, kosher salt, rice wine vinegar and ketchup if using.  Go for ketchup if you want a milder and sweeter flavor, leave it out if not.  Stir thoroughly and add in the warm water to thin slightly.  Set aside.

2. In a small skillet toast the coriander seeds and let cool.  Put the coriander, black pepper, shallots, garlic, galangal, ginger, kosher salt and sugar in a small food processor and puree until a smooth paste.  A mortar and pestle is an even better tool for the job if you have one and the inclination to do it manually.

3. In a medium bowl, lightly mash some of the corn kernels with a fork and leave others whole.  This helps create a combination of textures and the mashed corn helps in binding the fritters.   Add in the spice paste mixture and combine well.  Add in the green garlic or scallions and lime zest and lime juice.  Let sit for 20 minutes or so to let the flavors meld.   

4. Add in the rice flour to the corn mixture after sitting a bit and toss thoroughly.  Pour in the beaten egg and stir lightly until well incorporated.

5. In a large skillet, cover the bottom of the pan to 1/4" in high, for a shallow fry.  Turn the heat to medium and when the oil is shimmering hot and sizzling, it's ready.  Drop carefully a large tablespoon of the corn batter into the oil.  You can drop probably 3-5 into a normal sized skillet but do not crowd the pan.  Lightly press each one flat with the back of the spoon.  Fry until the fritters are golden brown on the first side, about 2 minutes and then flip.  Fry the second side until deep golden brown, anothe 2-3 minutes.  Remove fritters from the oil and let drain on a cooling rack with paper towels underneath to catch any excess oil. Repeat in batches.

6.  Serve the fritter while still hot, on a large platter and garnish with chopped chives and lime wedges.  Put the dipping sauce on the side.  Encourage people to give a quick squeeze of lime over the fritters and then dip in the sauce and enjoy!