Chicken and Gravy

Still reeling from Thanksgiving, it’s been over a week since I posted, sorry about that to anyone who actually tunes in to this blog. We haven’t developed any followers yet, but thanks to all the spammers out there who give me something to delete when I check the message box. Since my good camera is broken I can’t take any decent pictures of what I’m currently cooking. I’ve decided I will try to sit down and type out some stuff for all the pictures I took before I started this blog. I know I’ve promised to deliver before, but this time I mean it! It’s raining here in San Fran, and I’ve gotten to 100% on Grand Theft Auto: TLAD& BoGT! If you know what I’m talking about give yourself a prize for being as big of nerd as me!

I’m gonna try to break these up into individual blogs and recall how I made what as best as I can, but if I drift off topic from time to time bare with me. And if you have a blogger account or even a Google, please follow Monkee Chow, heck you can even RSS to appear on your home page thingie, you know the one nobody ever uses because we all just briefly check our mail before heading straight t Facebook for a false since of community. Alrighty then, with that let’s talk about fried chicken and gravy!

This one is really simple (that’s why I’m starting with it). For the fried chicken I used a mix that was more akin to country fried steak. Of course flour, with a lot of pepper and salt, some cayenne, and touch of cornmeal. The gravy is the real star of this dish. Just start with some grease. By grease I don’t mean some synthetic jar of lard, or vegetable oil. To make really good gravy you will have to start by saving the grease every time you use your frying pan. I like to keep mine in a coffee can by the stove. After some time you will develop this gelled culture along with some still chunky liquid. For real gravy like grand-ma used to make you gotta take the gross gelled parts and slap’em in back in the pan. Just a bit now you want more gravy later right? Then you wanna add milk and a tiny bit of flour. If you have heavy cream handy use that instead of milk, but milk works fine. Add your own touch of spices, whatever you want the gravy to taste like. I chose bear and black pepper with a little salt and hot sauce. The French cut green beans fresh out of the can, and baked potato with tons of butter to fill out the plate. You should also have a big wooden spoon-even if you don’t have kids-and use that to stir your mixture. Keep the burner on medium to low setting or you’ll have burnt tasting gravy. Add some water or more milk depending on how thick you like your gravy and move on to eating this delicious masterpiece! 

Thanksgiving for two!

So it's come and gone for another year! That day when most people get together with their family and gain weight as resentment builds. Guys watch pointless football games, kids play in the basement, and the women cackle like hens in the kitchen. Silly, yes I know, if you're not from America or live close enough to your family to go home then what are you to do? I live on the opposite side of the country from my family, but luckily I have a wonderful lady in which I live with and allows me to cook up some tasty vittles on the big foddie holiday! I decided since it was just the two of us I wasn't going to fix some outrageously large bird! We tried that in 2008 and ended up with turkey leftovers in January! This year I went with Cornish Game Hen. To add to that I chose yellow squash, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and devil eggs, plus a new recipe for stuffing that I wanted to play with.

Lets start with my famous Bedeviled eggs shall we! I pre-boiled them the night before as to speed up the process. For my mixture I used Dijon Mustard, Sea Salt, Black Pepper and Chives.

My (not-so) secret ingredient of course is Mayo!

Mix it together as so!

Forget Paprika if you really want to devil up those eggs you gotta use this!.

Wa-La! These are the result!

Next I worked on the stuffing or dressing whatever they call it where you're from same difference. I Chopped up two slices of bread, sliced a few olives, added some chopped Rosemary, Garlic Salt, Basil, Sea Salt, and a few chives as well.

Mixed it all in bowl and get the pan ready. Boil one cup of water (in a small pot), in the frying pan melt some butter and minced Garlic. When the water is boiling and the butter is melted, combine the two and then wait a minute, then throw in the mix then to stir till it thicken, if you want it thicker add some bread crumbs or another piece of bread. 

Preheat the oven at 250 or 300 whatever, it's cool. Then go smoke a bowl and come back to work. It's time for the wild bird (as opposed to the yard bird).

Make sure you clean it well then give it a nice deep tissue massage with some butter! Then season them with some Rosemary, Basil, Sea Salt, Black Pepper, Cumin, and Minced Garlic. DON"T PUT THE STUFFING IN YET!!!!! Cannot stress that enough, there is nothing worst than burnt tasting stuffing. Now you're not just gonna throw it in like this though, you're gonna wanna put some veggies with this to give it some real flavor. so if you got some whole carrots and onions around use'em. You could put anything you want in there but I had some big baby carrots in the fridge and a red onion so I put them with it. But that's not all. I got the lady to part with a cup of Red wine and added about two cups of water so the veggies could swim. This is also for the slow cook, trust me this will be key in keeping your bird moist and falling off the bone! When all is said and done it should look like this. 

 

Cover then insert int o the oven like thus; 

Now it's time to chillax, and smoke another bowl, do some shots and play a little GTA IV; Ballad of Gay Tony! Throw in your corn on the cob at around the first hour mark. At the two hours mark and maybe a little less boil some taters, mash'em and then slice some squash and saute them bad-boys up! The last thing you want to create should be the gravy for the mash potatoes. You can do a homemade gravy, but I was lazy and felt I had done enough so I just used some store bought mix with water crap. I added butter and pepper to make it more mine, but other than that nada! Do one more shot and then check the condition of your bird. If it looks done but not brown enough then it's time to remove the cover and switch the shelving order from top to bottom. This whole process should run about three, to three and half hours. And with tall the weed and shots you should be pretty hungry. Remember to use self control and only eat this one meal. No breakfast, lunch, brunch not even a snack. Because this is a butt load of food for two people and all you will need for two days!

The end results should be placed as artfully on the plate as possible! And Boom-Shaka-Boom a wonderful Thanksgiven(sic)! Never mind the genocide of the indigenous people of this country or the dis-functionality of your family life, just eat until you're numb and then move into a comfortable state of sedation from drugs and alcohol! Speaking of Drugs and Alcohol after I took this pic I accidentally knocked my camera off the counter. Now you could blame the booze or the weed, but it was my fault for putting it too close to the edge of the counter while I was trying to work.

Due to the aforementioned camera mishap this was taken by my girl on her phone. Her bird had less squash because she requested it that way. The design on my own plate looked a little better with more squash.