A simple cold sauce.

Wherein Mr Ullman offers a sauce rather then a meal

This is a sauce I occasionally make. It does not heat up well so I serve it cold as a dip when I use it on fish or crab or as something I brush on after cooking in the case of pork or beef. It is also tasty on potatoes.

This is what you need:

About a quarter of a red onion

Fennel, four or five stems and a bit of the bulb (fresh).

A table spoon of horseradish sauce

A splash of apple cider vinegar

A one cup container

Chop the fennel and red onion together finely.

Fill the contain half the way up with a good oil, I used toasted sesame this time but olive or peanut oils also work fine.

Add the splash of vinegar and the horseradish and stir.

Add the fennel and oils and stir again.

While I haven't tried it I think a tomatillo would be worth adding.

Tonight I used it on a beef loin sirloin. I baked it for about a half hour at 400. I took it out of the stove and let it rest while I made up the salad. Brushed on the sauce and take everything to the dinner table.

Lentils ( and chicken)

Wherein Mr. Ullman uses up some chicken parts and notes the lentil

I love lentils.  They are a tasty bean, cook in twenty minutes and don't keep you from polite company.  So let's go there. 

I had a couple of boneless chicken thighs and part of a breast around the house that needed to be used before to much longer. I put the chicken into the oven and baked it at 350 for about twenty minutes on a side. While that was cooking I checked my lauder to make sure I had everything else I wanted to use and discovered I did have most of it. I would have to wing a bit but that is the fun of cooking.

First things first-- the parsnip. I had read a recipe a few days ago about deep frying parsnip. I took a parsnip, thinly slicked it and fried it in my number 8 cast iron skillet. I fried them in olive oil until the edges got brown and then reduced the heat to low. I added a fair amount of diced leeks and carrot greens to the parsnips and let everything slow cook while I prepared some some lentils.

When the the chicken was done I added some clam juice into the stuff in the skillet and proceed to pull apart the chicken (ouch, ouch and ouch-- I'll let it cool a bit next time). As I pulled the chicken I added it to the skillet and upped the heat to medium low. Once the chicken was pulled I added about half a can of pretty good condensed cream of mushroom soup, about a fifth of a cup of brine from a jar of pickled artichoke hearts and a couple of spoonfuls of horseradish sauce. Added the lentils (which were about three quarters of the way done), some all spice and a couple of shakes of oregano and stirred . I covered good old number 8 with its lid and let the concoction reduce for about twenty minutes.

The recipe is a keeper but needs a slight bit of work in the Daniel Ullman test kitchen. There was a good sweet taste that needs to be pulled out. What jumps out to me is that corn season is starting. I might add some sweet corn kernels or, more likely, dice up some post eaten cobs and put them into the mix while it is reducing. Maybe some almonds?

Chicken thighs!

Wherein Mr. Ullman poaches some chicken thighs

For reasons known only to Albertsons HQ the grocery store was having a damn fine sale on chicken thighs. This is cool by me, I like chicken thighs better then chicken breasts so I purchased 2 and a half pounds which set me back a $1.99 since I have an Albertson's Preferred Savings Card (they don't require you to fill out a form so it is the only one I own). So, what to do with them?

That was an easy question to answer. I had made a mayo a couple of days back. I used a peanut oil base , cukes and toasted corn kernels, It didn't work well as a sandwich spread but it might work well here.

So that is where I started although I did dilute the mayo with some of the marinade from a jar of baby carrots . I also chopped up some celery root, English parsley, carrot greens, a couple of roasted garlic cloves from the night before, a bit of a leek and a baby carrot  I put all of this into a Ball jar, add some soy sauce and a small bit of something marked only as Hot Sauce and got out my single handed toastmaster mixer. Added some cinnamon and pepper under the assumption that it couldn't hurt.

I then heated the oven to 350, got out my trusty Pyrex and placed about five thighs into it (two for tonight, the rest for a chicken salad I want to attempt).I  sprinkled some  uncook (but shelled thank god) sunflower seeds on top of the chicken. I poured three quarters the above concoction on top of the chicken and baked for twenty minutes, basting when the mood struck. Flipped the chicken and added the rest of the concoction, basted, and cooked for twenty more minutes. Served with rice and, because of the state of the lauder, a simple salad.

Very tasty. In fact it was tasty enough that the two meant for the chicken salad didn't make it. They were eaten that night.