Chiki Paht Paaaah

We want to make Cartman proud. And we also want to make a chicken pot pie that, while it’s not entirely virtuous, is not as horrible from a nutritional perspective as even the best grocery store pot pies. Cooper was really craving chicken pot pie, and I had a bunch of leftovers that seemed ideally suited, so here you go:

2 cups chicken, cut up into bites (we had leftover grilled)

2 cups amazing chicken stock that you had in the freezer. No? OK, use box broth.

1 cup milk. Or so, not sure how much we used

6 TB butter, 6 TB flour. You know where we’re going with that.

1 cup diced carrots

1/2 cup dices onion

2 deep dish pie crusts

1 sheet puff pastry dough

peas, corn, if you want. About 1/2 cup each

Cook the carrots and onions til al dente in the chicken stock. Make the roux. Add the stock/carrot/onion mix and then the milk to make a thick-ish sauce. Season with salt, pepper, tarragon, basil and dill (just a bit).

Bake the pie crusts until done, but not too crisp.

Put the chicken filling in the crusts, then top with puff pastry. We rolled it thin, then cut one circle to cover one pie, and then cut various random pieces to cover the other. They’re not out of the oven yet. I’ll update if either method is tragic, or spectacular. We’re baking at 400 for about 30 mins. You could probably do butter or egg white on the top for added pretty. I may throw a sprinkling of cheese on for that purpose.

Chef Rob’s Caribbean is an Interesting Place

Located in the strip mall immediately north of 285 on Roswell Rd (on the left), Chef Rob’s is unassuming from the outside, except for the expensive cars/rims in the lot, one of which has vanity plates that say CHEFROB. Inside, the decor’s reminiscent of the Caribbean, in that it appears sort of unplanned, as if somebody found some cool things here and there and put them all together without any regard for whether or not they go together.

So, I approached the menu with an open but slightly skeptical mind. We wanted two entrees, so we wanted a small/light appetizer, but they all seemed like a fairly large commitment. As an alternative, we ordered a side order of sweet potato fries, which were lovely, salted just right, and served with ketchup on the side. James thought the fries were great without ketchup. I, however, love ketchup delivery mechanisms, and these sweet potato fries served that purpose much better than ones I’ve tried in the past. The entrees appeared just as we were finishing the fries – perfect timing.

Dinner was accompanied by semi-live music. A fellow with a metal drum sang to some sort of karaoke versions of non-Caribbean ’80s music. It sounds weird, but did actually make me feel like I was at a trippy Caribbean resort. And you really can’t beat live music. And the dude’s dreads were awesome.

We split both entrees. The first was pan-fried tilapia with julienned vegetables and jasmine rice. The sauce seemed more Asian than Caribbean (a sweetish, teriaki-ish glaze), but the dish was delicious. I recently read in Cooks Illustrated that tilapia is a bottom-feeder, like catfish, and that it can have a slightly muddy flavor. I’d never noticed that before, but now that the suggestion was in my head, I did indeed taste the muddiness of the tilapia. However, the tasty sauce more than made up for it.

Our other entree was the shrimp and jerk chicken fettucine. It was a little spicy, but certainly not off-puttingly so. In fact, the creamy sauce complemented the chicken and shrimp beautifully, and the pasta was perfectly cooked. When we ordered, we figured we’d need a take-home box, but we pretty much wiped it out.

All in all, this was a tasty dinner. The food was not as interesting as the venue, though. Anyplace that serves a dish called Rasta Pasta invites speculation about what other sorts of ventures might be supported by the Caribbean Cafe’s convenient location…and that was half the fun.

Rich Salmon Tacos

Leftover grilled salmon turned into some really delicious soft tacos this week. As a bonus, the leftover taco filling made a great sauce over pasta the next day, and don’t we all love to eat salmon for three days straight. Now I just need to remember how I made them. Let’s see…

Step 1: Invite your mother over for a nice little dinner. Make way too much grilled salmon, rather plain, with just a little salt, pepper, and lemon (What?? That’s what she likes!).

Step 2: The next day, chop some stuff up:

1 large tomato (pretty fine dice)

1 handful cilantro (about 1/2 cup)

1 large clove garlic, minced

You’ll also need about 3/4 cup sour cream, about 1/4 cup heavy cream, chives, 1/2 to 1 tsp adobo seasoning (it’s salty! You can add more if you need to, but you can’t take it out), 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, the juice of one lemon, and a pinch of sugar. There were probably other things that I’m forgetting, so feel free to improvise as always. Oh, and you’ll need small flour tortillas.

Step 3: Steam the tortillas. If you don’t have a handy dandy tortilla steamer, place a damp kitchen towel on a cookie sheet, spread the tortillas around, then cover with another damp towel. Bake on 325 while you’re making the filling.

Step 4: Make the filling. Start by sauteeing the tomatoes in hot olive oil until they begin to come apart, because I don’t like raw tomatoes and this is my recipe. Add the garlic about halfway through, being careful not to let it burn. Add everything else except the chives and – obviously – the tortillas. Warm the leftover salmon a little in the microwave, then add to the sauce, breaking it into pieces. How much salmon? Well, how much did you have left over? That much. I had two pretty large pieces, each about the size of my hand. And if you used the nasty kind with the odious gray backing, pick that shit off before you make the taco filling!

Step 5: Dump some filling in each tortilla, garnish with chives, and serve with fresh corn on the cob. The corn is not optional. The texture and sweetness of the corn complements the tacos in an important way. I thought about cutting it off the cob and using it in the filling, but there’s already a lot going on in the filling.