Category Archives: Spicy

Jambalaya Gumbo

November 14, 2013Chicken, Seafood, SpicyKidd

My version of Jambalaya/Gumbo is one of my favorites to make (and to eat!). I made this with a roux (mix of oil and flour) to thicken it up and give it more flavor, and Jambalaya is typically made without a roux, so this is probably more of a Gumbo. But when I think Gumbo I think of adding okra, of which this has none. And this has tomatoes, which I think makes it Creole, the Cajun version having no tomatoes, I believe. So, Jambalaya or Gumbo? Creole or Cajun style? I don’t know, but I know it sure is good.

Since this is Recipe Options, before I give my recipe I should say there’s no need to stick to it! There’s a lot of variation with Creole/Cajun style meals. They usually all have the “holy trinity” of vegetables: bell pepper, onion and celery. And there’s also a “holy trinity” of herbs I think of as being necessary to Creole/Cajun style– thyme, oregano and bay leaves. And there should be some heat added with cayenne pepper, depending on how spicy you like it. After that, it’s wide open– three types of meat are pretty typical- sausage, chicken and some type of seafood. But if you just have shrimp, it’s a Creole shrimp stew! Or try crab meat instead of shrimp. If you don’t have sausage, I’ve used bacon and that works well. I mentioned tomato vs. no tomato. I also mentioned roux vs. no roux– I’ve made this plenty of times without a roux, and it’s still plenty good– and a lot faster to make. I add a little lime juice to my recipe, and that’s not traditional, but I think it really works with the other ingredients. We like it spicy, so I often add Tabasco sauce, as well as Jalapeno peppers or whatever peppers I might have on hand- Hungarian, Serrano, Thai-style peppers, etc. Never tried throwing a Habanero pepper in there, but I bet that would be really good. Some recipes call for a shot of Worcestershire sauce– sometimes I add some, sometimes not, depending on what mood I’m in. When it gets to the simmering stage, I’m tasting it and deciding if it needs a little more of this or that. Some dishes call for simplicity, but this is one that really brings out the mad scientist in me.

Ingredients:

16 Jumbo Shrimp
2 Boneless Chicken Breasts
2-3 Andouille Sausages (Mexican Chorizo works if you can’t find Andouille)
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes or several fresh tomatoes
2-3 Cups Chicken Stock
1 Bottle Clam Juice (Optional)
1/4 Cup Peanut Oil and/or butter
2-3 Tablespoons Flour
1 Green Pepper
1 Large Onion
4-5 Cloves Garlic
3-4 Celery Stalks
Juice of 1 Lime
Black Pepper to taste
Cayenne Pepper to taste
Salt to taste
1/2 Tsp. Thyme
1 Tsp. Oregano
2-3 Bay Leaves
Fresh Parsley

Serves 4

Chop up vegetables and cut up chicken and sausage into not too small pieces. Mince up the garlic into small pieces. Here’s a good article that covers cooking terminology like chopped vs. diced vs. minced. If the shrimp has shells, remove them and you can simmer the shells in the chicken stock for awhile to give the stock more of a seafood flavor. Otherwise, you can add a bottle of clam juice instead. Or do both!

Just about there!

Heat up the peanut oil (or peanut oil and butter, or 100% butter) on medium-low heat in a large pot and add the flour a little at a time, stirring constantly. Keep adding flour until the mix of oil and flour (the roux) has a paste-like consistency. Keep stirring, stirring until the roux is a nice medium reddish-brown color, the color of peanut butter or an old penny. This will take about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. To stop stirring for too long is to burn the roux.

While stirring the roux, I like to cook the chicken and vegetables (and the sausage if it’s uncooked, but not the garlic yet) with a little oil in a separate skillet. Then, when the roux is done, add the chicken, sausage, vegetables and garlic, and stir some more, letting it all cook a little more and blend.

Simmering away nicely…

Start adding the chicken stock (don’t forget to remove the shells if you added them), a little at a time, until it’s mixed in and has a good stew-like consistency, not too thick or too thin. The chicken stock should be hot or at least warmed up before it’s added to the roux in order to mix properly. Now add the tomatoes, herbs and spices (all the rest of the ingredients besides the parsley, shrimp and lime juice), and let it all simmer for about 1/2 hour-45 minutes.

Add the shrimp at about the last minute of simmering. You want to cook the shrimp until it’s just turned translucent. Shrimp should not be overcooked- you don’t want tough, rubbery shrimp! You can make the jambalaya/gumbo for the next day, and that’s fine– some say it’s even better the next day, when the flavors have had a chance to blend together. Just don’t add the shrimp until you heat it up again the next day.

When it’s done simmering, mix in the lime juice, serve over rice and garnish with fresh diced parsley if you like. Enjoy!

Grilled Chipotle Flank Steak

July 24, 2013BBQ, Beef Dishes, SpicyKidd

Here’s the follow-up from the Grilled Stuffed Poblano Pepper post, in which, as you no doubt remember, I was going to make fajitas, but the success of the stuffed poblanos happily changed our dinner plans to this marinated flank steak and the stuffed poblanos. But I will one day get around to making fajitas!

Flank steak is a flavorful cut of steak that’s a little tougher than some cuts, but cooked just right (medium-rare to medium) and cut in thin strips across the grain, is really good. Flank steak is often used in Mexican meals like fajitas, burritos, or just with a side of something like the aforementioned Grilled Stuffed Poblano Peppers.

Ingredients:

Flank Steak, 1 lb. or so.

1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1/4 Cup Dos Equis, or any beer, or plain water

Juice from 2 Large Limes
1/2- 1 Tsp. Chipotle Powder
1/2 Tsp. Black Pepper
1/2 Tsp. Salt
1/2 Tsp. Oregano
1/2 Tsp. Ground Cumin
4-5 Cloves Diced Garlic

Special Utensils:

Just a Grill

Serves 4

Mix all the marinade ingredients and combine in a one-gallon ziplock bag with the flank steak. Let marinade for 4 hours to overnight.

As always, heat up enough charcoal to cover 1/2 of your grill and soak some pieces of your favorite smoking wood, as mentioned in previous posts like Perfectly Grilled Filet Mignon. Also, since the steak is marinated, put some foil on the cooler non-coal side to catch the marinade drippings.

When the coals are ready, spread them out on 1/2 the grill and throw on the drained wood chips. Start the steak on the cooler non-coal side. Since flank steak is thin, it won’t take long to get to medium rare/medium– 4-5 minutes on a side on the indirect heat side, and 2 minutes or so on the hot coal side to finish the steak off with a little sear. I don’t bother with a meat thermometer when the steak is this thin, I just go by touch. A good guide to go by is feeling the pad on the palm of your hand under your thumb– if you touch your thumb to your index finger, that’s what rare feels like. Thumb to middle finger is medium-rare. Ring finger- medium/medium well, and thumb to pinky is well-done.

If you decided to make fajitas, grill some vegetables along with the steak– cut a red and green pepper and an onion in half, coat with a little olive oil, sprinkle on a little salt & pepper and throw them on the grill too. Once the peppers and onions are done, cut them into thin strips that can fit in tortillas easily, along with some avocados and maybe diced fresh tomatoes. serve with your favorite salsa and shredded cheese, and maybe even some sour cream if you want to get crazy. As for tortillas– flour is most common but I like corn tortillas. Either will make good wraps for your fajitas. Enjoy!

Grilled Stuffed Poblano Peppers

July 18, 2013BBQ, Heart-Healthy, Sides, Spicy, VegetarianKidd

I felt like grilling something sort of Mexican style last weekend. I had a general idea of marinating and grilling flank steak with some peppers and onions and making fajitas. So I stopped at the grocery store to get a few ingredients– the steak, some corn tortillas… and I noticed some nice-looking poblano peppers that intrigued me. Decided to pick up a few poblanos, not sure what I’d do with them. We already had plenty of red and green peppers to grill for the fajitas, so I decided to stuff the poblanos. Never tried stuffing them before, but I’d heard about stuffed poblano peppers and it sounded good in theory. Well, I put together some stuffing ingredients from what I had around, and the stuffed poblanos turned out fantastic on the grill! Delicious and filling. So good in fact, that we started eating them first and almost forgot about the flank steak, although that turned out great too. Maybe I’ll do a post about the flank steak next week. We decided the stuffed poblanos and the steak would be enough for dinner and figured we’d make fajitas another day.

It’s easy to make this a vegetarian meal if you use water instead of chicken stock to cook the rice and leave out the bacon. Leave out the cheese, and it’s vegan.

Ingredients:

4 Poblano Peppers
1 cup long-grain rice, like Basmati

2 Cups Low-Sodium Chicken Stock or Water
6 Strips Cooked, Diced Bacon
1 Small Diced Red Onion
1 Can Black Beans
1/2 Cup of your Favorite Salsa
1/2 Cup of Shredded Cheese– Cheddar, Colby, Monterey Jack, or any combo thereof
1 Tsp. Granulated Garlic Powder
1/2 Tsp. Chipotle Chili Powder
1/2 Tsp. Oregano
1/2 Tsp. Black Pepper

Special Utensils:

Just a Grill

Serves 4

Heat the 2 cups of low-sodium chicken stock or water to boiling, then add the rice, turn heat down to low, and cover. When the rice is ready in about 20 minutes, mix with the other stuffing ingredients. The same tip I gave for the fried rice recipe applies here– use just a little bit less than 2 cups of liquid to the 1 cup of rice, and it’s also a good idea to undercook the rice just a little. There’s more liquid to be added with the salsa and beans and more cooking to be done on the grill.

Cut the tops off the poblano peppers and carefully cut the two ribs on each side of the seed pod area that holds it to the inside of the pepper, so the seeds can be removed. Fill the empty pepper with the stuffing mix and put the top of the pepper back on, holding it on with two toothpicks.

The same grilling instructions from the Perfectly Grilled Filet Mignon post apply here: Get enough charcoal ready for one side of the grill, and soak a handful of your favorite type of wood chips. When the coals are ready, add the wood chips and roast the peppers on the hot side of the grill to get a nice char (but be careful not to burn them), turning at least once to a side. Then move the peppers to the cooler side of the grill to finish cooking. The peppers will take about 15 minutes total to cook, so if you’re grilling them with a thin steak like a flank steak, you’ll want to start the peppers first. Enjoy!

Ramen Noodle Soup

May 21, 2013Asian Style, Quick Meals, Seafood, Soup, SpicyKidd

Ramen Noodle Soup

From those 5-for-a-dollar noodle packets that are a staple of broke college students everywhere, to high-end Japanese Noodle restaurants, ramen noodle soups really run the gamut in price and sophistication. I ate a lot of those cheap packaged ramen noodles in college, and I still get a hankering for a bowl of noodles every now and then. You can buy higher quality ramen noodles at Asian markets or the Asian section of well-equipped grocery stores. I’ve used those, and they’re good. But we keep the cheap packaged noodles around for emergencies, in case we want to throw together a quick and really tasty bowl of noodle soup.

First, throw out the little packet of powdered seasoning that comes with the noodles– it’s full of sodium, MSG, and God knows what else. We’re going to make a much more flavorful and healthy soup base for the ramen noodles.

Since this site is called “RecipeOptions.com”, I’ll give two options for ramen noodle soups here– a spicy Thai Tom Yum-style soup, and a non-spicy soy sauce-flavored soup. These are not strictly authentic recipes– just quick and delicious Asian style soups I put together using ingredients I’m likely to have on hand.

These recipes serve about two people (or one if you’re hungry). Double up on ingredients as needed.

Spicy Tom Yum Style Ramen

Ingredients:

6-8 Raw Jumbo Shrimp, Deveined.
1 Package Ramen Noodles
2 Cups Low-Sodium Chicken Stock
Juice of 1 Lime
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Heaping Teaspoon Thai-Style Red Curry Paste
3-4 Cloves Garlic, Diced
1/2″ Square Piece of Diced Ginger
1-2 Celery Sticks
6 Green Onions
Peppers– Any Combo of Red/Green Bell, Thai, Jalapeno, Serrano, or Sweet Peppers– depending on what you have on hand and how hot you want your soup.
Handful of Mushrooms
Red Chili Pepper to taste– once again, depending on how spicy you like
1 Teaspoon of Peanut Oil
Few Drops Toasted Sesame Oil
Fresh Cilantro (Optional)

Dice up garlic and ginger. Cut celery and peppers into thin strips. Dice up mushrooms and cut green onion into 1/4-1/2″ pieces. Juice the lime. Cut shrimp down center about halfway through to butterfly them so they cook quickly and evenly.

Heat up a soup pan, add the sesame oil (just a few drops for flavor) and the peanut oil. Add the garlic, ginger, peppers, mushrooms and celery and stir-fry them in the oil for just a few minutes– not too long. Add chicken stock, red curry paste, fish sauce, and chili pepper. When it starts to simmer, add ramen noodles and cook for about two minutes.

Add green onion, lime juice and cilantro (if you like cilantro– a lot of people don’t like the taste, but if you do it really adds a lot to the soup). Finally, add the shrimp, turn off the heat, cover and let the soup sit for about three minutes. This is the secret to NOT overcooking shrimp in soup– don’t boil it! Make sure the shrimp is completely submerged in the broth and let the residual heat cook the shrimp just right. Enjoy!

Ramen Noodles with Soy Sauce Flavored Broth

Ingredients:

6-8 Raw Jumbo Shrimp, Deveined.
1 Package Ramen Noodles
2 Cups Low-Sodium Chicken Stock
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
3-4 Cloves Garlic, Diced
1/2″ Square Piece of Diced Ginger
1-2 Celery Sticks
6 Green Onions
1/2 Sweet Red Bell Pepper
Handful of Mushrooms
Fine-Ground White or Black Pepper, to Taste
1 Teaspoon of Peanut Oil
1 Sheet Nori (Japanese Seaweed), cut or torn into strips

Dice up garlic and ginger. Cut celery and peppers into thin strips. Dice up mushrooms and cut green onion into 1/4-1/2″ pieces. Cut shrimp down center about halfway through to butterfly them so they cook quickly and evenly.

Heat up a soup pan and add the peanut oil. Add the garlic, ginger, red pepper, mushrooms and celery and stir-fry them in the oil for just a few minutes– not too long. Add chicken stock, soy sauce, and white or black pepper. When it starts to simmer, add ramen noodles and cook for about two minutes.

Add green onion and nori. Finally, add the shrimp, turn off the heat, cover and let the soup sit for about three minutes. This is the secret to NOT overcooking shrimp in soup– don’t boil it! Make sure the shrimp is completely submerged in the broth and let the residual heat cook the shrimp just right. Enjoy!

Smoked Chicken Jalapeno Soup

September 3, 2012BBQ, Chicken, Heart-Healthy, Soup, SpicyKidd

Smoked Chicken Jalapeno Soup

This is a good one. I first came up with a variation of it looking for a way to get creative with some smoked fish on a camping trip. I usually use chicken now, because it’s more typical I’ll have some leftover smoked chicken on hand. It was perfect for this past Labor Day Weekend, because I had just happened to have some applewood-smoked chicken left over from a barbeque, and I have a ton of tomatoes and jalapeno peppers from the garden. The combination of spiciness, smokiness and citric flavors (from the lime juice) work together fantastically.

Ingredients:

Smoked or Barbecued Chicken
30 oz. Chicken Stock
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes or several fresh tomatoes
1 Green Pepper
3-5 Jalapeno Peppers
1 Large Onion
4-5 Cloves Garlic
3-4 Celery Stalks
2 Carrots (optional)
Juice of 1 Large or 2 Small Limes
Black Pepper to taste
1/2 Tsp. Thyme
1 Tsp. Oregano
2-3 Bay Leaves
1 Tbsp. Olive Oil

I added carrots for a little extra color this time, but I usually don’t add carrots to this, so I consider them optional. What I DON’T consider optional is the lime juice and the jalapenos. If you don’t want it to be too spicy I’d recommend cutting out the seeds and the ribs that attach the seeds to the inside of the jalapeno peppers, instead of using fewer peppers or leaving them out altogether.

Dice up vegetables. Dice or shred chicken. Squeeze lime juice and set aside.

Cook diced peppers, onion celery and garlic in olive oil until they soften up. Add chicken stock, tomatoes, and the rest of the ingredients except for the chicken and lime juice.

Note: Even though I had some frozen home-made chicken stock on hand, I just used canned chicken stock for this soup. I like to save the good stock for recipes that benefit the most from the flavor and richness of the home-made stock, but this soup has so much going for it flavor-wise I decided to save the good stock. You may disagree, and decide to use good stock for this if you have it.

Simmer for about 1/2 hour, add the chicken and simmer for another 20 minutes to 1/2 hour (since the chicken is already cooked, I don’t add it right away but I like to let it simmer long enough to let the smoky flavor mix in). Add the lime juice at the end, after the soup is done cooking– if you add it at the beginning the lime flavor won’t be as “bright”.

Serve with pasta or rice. You could even dice up some potatoes and throw them in, same time as the chicken. I usually prefer rice, but I had some pasta left over from the day before, so I used that in the photo.

Enjoy!