Limoncello Balls

When I was approached by Fabrizia Spirits to promote their limoncello products, I jumped at the chance. For one thing, I love limoncello. For another, booze! And while limoncello is a fine drink all on its own (particularly after dinner, in place of dessert), it's also an excellent spirit for cooking. And for drinking while cooking.

I've tried many limoncellos in my day, and Fabrizia is among the very best. It's light, not super sweet, and very smooth. Their limoncello cream, too, is excellent, as is their blood orange limoncello. Mr Minx and I had fun tasting and re-tasting each spirit, which inspired us to create some recipes for each.

The first, using the regular limoncello, is a riff on a bourbon (or rum) ball. For the uninitiated, they are somewhat like tiny adult cakepops, minus the stick and icing. Bourbon balls can pack a real boozy wallop, but a lower-alcohol drink like the Fabrizia limoncello (27% abv) makes the end product a lot milder. And easier to eat!

Limoncello Balls
Folks who like lemon bars will love these tiny treats!

12 ounces vanilla wafers, finely crushed
1 cup ground almonds
3/4 cup powdered sugar
Scant 1/2 cup Fabrizia limoncello
2 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
Finely ground zest of 1 lemon
1 cup powdered sugar, for dredging

Combine the cookie crumbs, almonds, and 3/4 cup powdered sugar in a bowl. Add the limoncello, corn syrup, and zest and stir well. Allow the mixture to sit for about an hour to allow the cookie crumbs to soften.

Place 1 cup of powdered sugar in a bowl.

Knead the crumb mixture a bit with your hands to ensure all ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Form small balls and roll in the bowl of powdered sugar to coat evenly.

Store completed balls in a covered container in the fridge.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. This is a paid promotion, however, all opinions are my own.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Blood Orange Chicken

As we've already established, northern Baltimore County isn't exactly the best place for Chinese food. Area restaurants are pretty mediocre, so when we have a craving for kung pao and aren't prepared to drive across town (or to another county), we make it at home.

The cookbooks of Fuchsia Dunlop are a real inspiration and we can't recommend them enough. Not only are the recipes great, particularly in Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, but the backstory for every recipe is fascinating. After reading all of her books, we sort of have an idea of what Chinese ingredients to keep on hand at all times. Two of those are Chinkiang black vinegar and doubanjian, which I employed in this tangy and sweet orange sauce for chicken. You could use it on pork or beef as well.

If you like your sauce a bit sweeter, use more brown sugar. If you like it hotter, use more doubanjiang. You can, of course, use plain rice vinegar in place of the Chinkiang, but you'll be missing out on the lovely caramelized flavor that black vinegar provides. The same for the doubanjian--sriracha will work, but it doesn't have the same mellow heat. It's also more acid-y than the broad bean paste, so you may want to cut back on the lemon juice or vinegar. A good rule of thumb to use when cooking: taste everything at every stage.

Blood Orange Sauce
This makes enough sauce for 3-4 boneless, skinless thighs or 2 boneless breasts. You can also use it as a glaze for chicken wings. In that case, omit the cornstarch and, depending on the number of wings you make, you may wish to also double the recipe. (Minxeats baked wings recipe here.)

2 shallots, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
Vegetable oil
Salt
Juice of half a lemon
Zest and juice of 1 blood orange (can use regular orange)
3 teaspoons black vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon spicy broad bean paste (doubanjiang)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
Cornstarch

Saute the shallots and onion in a few teaspoons of oil and a pinch of salt until softened, 2-3 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Cook chicken to your liking - baked, poached, stir-fried, etc. If they're not already in one, put chicken pieces in a saute pan. Pour over the orange sauce and bring to a boil. If sauce needs thickening, make a slurry with a few teaspoons of cornstarch and twice as much water in a small bowl. Drizzle some of the slurry into the sauce and stir. If not thick enough, add more. Toss the chicken pieces in the sauce to completely coat them, regulating the heat so the sauce doesn't boil away in the process.

Serve with rice and a green veg like sugar snap peas, snow peas, or broccoli.



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Lamb Tagine Chili

Yet another football-filled Sunday rolled around posing yet another dinner dilemma. Should I make something that cooks up quickly, or something that can stew on the stove for a bit while the game is on? On days when the Ravens lose, I am often too dispirited to put a tasty meal together, so it's best that I get dinner started well in advance. Chili is usually my go-to long-simmered meal, but honestly, I am so tired of it. I've made green chilis and red chilis, chilis with turkey, chicken, beef, and lamb. With cubed meat and with ground meat. Just about the only thing I haven't tried making chili with is tofu, and as much as I like the stuff, I don't think I could make it work.

Forget tofu. I went with lamb.

Rather than use a typical chili flavor profile, I switched things up and added things that one might fine in a Moroccan tagine: orange, lemon, olives, cinnamon. But it still has the coriander and cumin flavors of more familiar Tex-Mex chili. Except for the chile powder. If you want it spicy, feel free to add chiles.

Lamb Tagine Chili

2 leeks
Olive oil
2 pounds ground lamb
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Generous pinch cayenne
1/2 cup orange juice
Rind from half a lemon, julienned
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 roasted red peppers, diced
2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon honey
1-2 tablespoons of flour
Salt to taste
1½ tablespoons sesame seeds
1/4 cup green olives, sliced
Cilantro leaves (optional)
Basmati rice

Cut the leeks in half and slice thinly. Wash thoroughly to get rid of any sand or dirt. Add a bit of olive oil to a large pot or dutch oven and saute the leeks for a few minutes. Add the lamb and cook, stirring frequently, until the meat is broken up into smaller chunks and browning in spots, about 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic and spices and cook an additional five minutes. Add the orange juice, lemon rind, tomatoes, peppers, and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to medium-low and simmer for at least an hour, until meat is tender.

Skim fat from broth and bring to a boil. Combine the flour with twice as much warm water (or stock, or sauce from the pot) and stir well to make a runny slurry. Dribble into the chili and stir to combine. Add as much or as little as you need to achieve a consistency you like. Stir in the honey and add salt to taste (at least a couple of teaspoons).

Serve over basmati rice with a sprinkle of sesame seeds, some olives, and cilantro, if you wish.

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Preserved Lemons

Let me tell you about one of my favorite ingredients. It's something that adds sunshine and happiness to any dish: preserved lemons. Yeah, regular fresh lemons can do much the same thing, but when you preserve a lemon, that is, pack it in salt and allow it to sit for a while, the lemon flavor seems more intense. And you can eat the whole thing. But maybe throw away the seeds.

So what to do with preserved lemons? A traditional North African condiment, found predominately in Moroccan cuisine, the lemons' flavor works beautifully with olives, lamb, chicken, and smoky harissa paste. I chop a bit up and put it in chicken salad, and I've stewed chicken thighs with tomatoes, roasted peppers, olives, and preserved lemons, too. Stir a little into mayo to make a nice topping for a lamb burger. You'll find several uses for preserved lemon in the Minxeats archives, for example in this swiss chard dish, this bean dip, and this chicken and fennel dish.

Preserved lemons even taste good in guacamole.

Making preserved lemons is the easiest thing ever. It just requires a bit of patience. Like six week's worth.

Preserved Lemons

Lemons (organic if you can find them; Meyer lemons are great)
Kosher Salt
Lemon juice
Jar large enough to hold lemons snugly

Cut the lemon nearly in half lengthwise, stopping about a half inch before you reach the other tip. Make another identical cut perpendicular to the first cut, so the lemon is nearly quartered. Holding it over the jar you're going to use, prise the four sections apart and pour kosher salt into the space between them. Close the lemon and place in the jar. Repeat with enough remaining lemons, squashing them as you put them in, that the jar is full and lemons are packed very snugly. Fill the remaining space with lemon juice and a couple spoons-full of salt. Cap the jar and shake it so the juice is evenly distributed.

Refrigerate, shaking every couple of days so any salt and juice that accumulate at the bottom is distributed through the lemons. I find it takes about a month to six weeks for the lemons to soften to the proper texture (they should feel cooked).

To use, cut off a the amount you need and rinse it (or not) before adding to your dish.

Yes, I started this post so long ago, we still had a Christmas-themed tablecloth on.

Preserved Lemon Guacamole

2 ripe avocados
1/8 of a preserved lemon, rinsed lightly and minced
3 scallions, finely chopped

Cut the avocados in half, remove the pit, and scoop the flesh into a bowl. Add the preserved lemon and scallions and mash with a fork until the desired texture. You shouldn't need to add salt, as the lemon is quite salty.

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Avgolemono Soup

When I made that Greek-ish pasta dish the other day, I ended up with far too much for two people. That means leftovers, and while we do appreciate not having to cook on some random weeknight, I I am not particularly fond of eating rewarmed pasta that already has a sauce on it. After a few hours in the fridge, the pasta has sucked up whatever moisture there might have been in the dish to begin with, and if there's no extra sauce in a separate container, it's just too dry for me. But since this particular pasta dish had some lemon in it, and certainly a lot of other flavors that work harmoniously with lemon, I thought dumping the leftovers into some avgolemono soup might provide the necessary moisture.

Avgolemono (Greek for egg-lemon) can be a soup or a sauce, usually made with eggs and lemon juice, heated with stock until thick. It's pretty easy stuff, one just has to watch not to add too much hot broth to the eggs all at once so as not to curdle them. At that point though, it's egg drop soup and not necessarily a bad thing. There's usually some rice or orzo in a classic avgolemono soup, so if you don't have leftover pasta, then add about 1/3 cup of raw rice or orzo to the chicken stock and boil it for about 10-12 minutes, until the grain is done but not mushy, before adding the egg and lemon.

Avgolemono Soup

6 cups chicken stock
2 cups leftover Greek-ish pasta
4 eggs
1/3 cup lemon juice
salt and black pepper to taste

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer. While stock is simmering, warm the leftover pasta.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until frothy. Whisk in the lemon juice.

Slowly pour 2 cups of hot chicken stock into the eggs, whisking constantly. When combined, slowly add the egg mixture to the pot of simmering stock.

Immediately remove stock from heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Portion the warmed pasta into large serving bowls and ladle soup over top.



Posted on Minxeats.com.