Because I'm Tired of Complaining About Korean Phone Companies...

Here's a food post.

I tried to reverse engineer a recipie from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives for Sunday Lunch.  They had shown a Basque restaurant in Reno, which MUST go on the list as a to-do for next year's Worldcon.  Anyway, they had a fantastic sounding recipie for rabbit...

Lacking Rabbit but having a lot of Chicken Thighs (skin on) I thought I could substitute, and this is what I did...

6 Chicken Thighs
1 Large Onion
2 Peppers Green and Red
3 Assorted Sweet Chillies
8+ Cloves of Garlic, a bit smashed up
2 tbls Flour
1-2 Cups Red Wine/Port
1-2 Cups Stock (I used Beef as I was out of Chicken)
A generous splash of Worcestershire Sauce
1 tin tomatoes
1 tin tomato puree
Thyme, Rosemary, Mixed Herbs, Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil - a fair amount, probably 4-6 tbls in total for all the cooking

First, I did a dry rub on the Chicken consisting of: Paprika, Salt, Pepper, Hot Pepper, Cumin, Coriander, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder.  After applying the rub, with a drizzle (seriously, less than a TBLspoon of Olive Oil) I left this in the fridge for a couple of hours.

To cook:  I put all the veges in a large pan chopped into chunks and sprinkled over the herbs and Worcestershire, add the tomato and give a good stir.

Then I heated the rest of the Oil in a big heavy frying pan - then I browned the chicken pieces a few at a time - a couple of minutes on each side until they took some colour and then transfered to the vege pan.

Once I'd finished with the chicken, I deglazed the pan with the Red Wine (in this case it ended up as Port) and poured this into the vegs/chicken with the rest of the fluids - if things look dry, add some water - sprinkle the flour over the mixture - you don't really need to mix it in that much.

Cover the pan - I used a large roasting tin and covered with a tight foil cap - but a large casserole with a lid would work.

Cook.  I cooked this for 2 hours at 325F.

Don't be tempted to try it or look at it before the time is up.  The flavour takes a good 90 minutes to start to come out and it's a bit of an oily mess before then.  (Yes I tried it before then :) ) - it was just spectacular.  Rich, spicy, tasty, and the remains are going to last into tonight and we'll be trying it with Rice this time.

And, interestingly, it's actually not as calorific as you'd think.

Fun with numbers

Amazing what you can do with numbers if you're clever.

I've been reading Rand Simberg's Blog - which I probably shouldn't - but it took me all of 5 minutes to find the first glaring error in the referenced work, which makes me suspect that the rest of the conjecture is about as solid as a piece of jelly.