Corn Muffin, jalapeno, butter, cream cheese frosting.

I believe the vast majority of people in America can say the have had corn bread, or a corn muffin, but have they ever had a Butter, cream cheese, frosted corn muffin with candied jalapenos! If you haven’t had one of these you should try making it. Thwe recipe is as follows!

First lets candy those jalapenos!

1 frezno chili cut in half and seeded

1 jalapeno green, cut in half and seeded

1 cup 3 to 1 simple syrup (1/4 cup sugar ¾ cup water)

In a small sauce pot combine and bring to a boil for 5 minutes turn off and cool!

This recipe will make more than any house will ever need for muffins, scale this part down!

6 cups Flour

6 cups Corn Meal

1 cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

7 Tbls baking powder

7 eggs

6 cups milk

1 ½ cups vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients together, whisk milk with eggs, in a mixer add the dry mix and mix in the milk and eggs slowly, alternate the oil and custard till all is incorporated

Let stand for ten minutes

In this time brunoise the jalapenos and fold them into the mix. When the ten minutes is up scoop the mix into greased cupcake molds and bake at 375 for 20-30 min rotating the pan at half time!

Butter,cream cheese frosting

1# room temperature unsalted butter

1.5# cream cheese

1 egg

3 ½ cups confectioners sugar

In a mixer fitted with a whisk mix together until incorporated and smooth, add a shot of lime juice and put in a pastry bag! Let it sit at room temp until the cupcakes have cooled then top them with the frosting.  

What is a samosa!

A samosa is a stuffed pastry and a popular snack in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Centeral Asia, the Araibian peninsula , the Mediterranean (Turkey), Southwest Asia, the Horn of Africa, North Africa and South Africa. It generally consists of a fried or baked triangular, semi-lunar or tetrahedral pastry shell with a savory filling, which may include spiced potatoes, onions, peas, coriander, and lentils, or ground beef or chicken. The size and shape of a samosa as well as the consistency of the pastry used can vary considerably, although it is mostly triangular.

Seared Aleppo tuna,

Anyone can do a seared tuna that knows how to cook, but can they add the finesse needed to do it right. I will explain how I made this Aleppo seared tuna with mango salsa, fried yucca, and coconut cream.

These are the things you will need.

1# of  loin  yellow fin tuna +2

For the salsa:

1 ripe mango

1 small red onion

½ bunch cilantro

1 TBL passion fruit puree

1Tbl brunoise jalapeno

2 tsp seasoned rice wine vinegar

For the Aleppo seasoning

¼ cup dried Aleppo pepper

1 tsp cayenne pepper

2 Tbls salt

1 heaping TBL fresh ground black pepper

Coconut Cream

1 can coconut meat in syrup

1 can coconut milk sweetened

1 Tbl sugar

½ cup cream

1 large yucca.

First thing you should always do when working on a dish accompanied by salsa, is make the salsa before you do anything, Salsas are always better after they have sat at room temperature for a while.

Dice the mango, small dice the red onion, bruniose the jalapeno, chop cilantro, mix all these together add the passion fruit puree, and vinegar, season and let set.

Now adding the dry ingredients for the rub in a spice grinder, grind them to be fine and completely mixed.

For yucca, always peel through the second layer this can be achieved by slicing length wise down the side of the yucca and inserting the blade parallel with the slice. In a prying motion get the blade of the knife to start removing the skin on the yucca. Similar to peeling an orange if you think about it. Once peeled cut into desired sizes, I tried to match my tuna and yucca in size. Boil your yucca parts until they have softened and cool till completely chilled.

Coconut cream: strain the coconut from the syrup, add to sauce pot, cover with coconut milk. Bring to a simmer and cook for approximately 8 minutes, add sugar, cool completely, add to the blender and measure out the heavy cream. Blend the coconut with the milk until smooth. This part is important in order to get the proper consistency, while the coconut milk and coconut are blending add the heavy cream slowly to whip the cream into a solid state. Once you have added the cream turn off the blender immediately and poor the cream mixture into a metal bowl over ice and mix briefly.

Cut your tuna down to the desired size and season generously with your rub. You don’t want the tuna to be exposed through the spice mix. Get a pan hot, add canola oil, just enough to coat the bottom. Being very careful not to splatter yourself with hot oil place the tuna in slowly, sear for about 45 seconds on all sides and remove from the pan. You do not want to cook to deep in the tuna.

In another pan get hot with oil and sear your yucca till golden brown on all sides, finish in a 400 degree oven for about 4 minutes.

Now all the mies en place has been completed you can play with the plating all you want. That is how I did my tuna. It looks like a lot of work but really it is nothing.

How to cook a hard boiled egg!

On the rounded side of the egg poke a hole with a tack to open the air sack inside of the egg. Bring water to a rolling boil. Set a timer for 12 minutes, place your egg into the boiling water very carefuly and start the timer. Once the timer has sounded, remove the egg and cool in ice water until ready. Peel and eat! thats the recipe for a perfect hard boiled egg, if anyone needed it.

Marli Ave egg off

I have made 150 hard boiled eggs for this marli ave event today in downtown Boston. The challenge was to make them into a deviled egg of your choosing. What I did with mine is whipped the yolks in a food processor and emulsified a simple lemon black pepper aioli into them until they were creamy. I transferred them into a separate bowl where I folded in chives and alepo pepper to add that reddish speckling everyone is so used to seeing. I will finish them with chard scallions, sweet and spicy rocotto sauce and micro amaranth. I hope they are a big hit!!! Wish me luck!

Roasting whole pigs head

Well it is apparent that I need more practice with this as I did not allow my self enough time to finish the cooking of the head today! I have had it in the oven for almost 6 hours at 350 degrees mostly covered and it still has a while to go. But on the other hand it does smell delicious and looks great so I’m on the right track. So far what I have done with it is, burned off all excess hair from the pigs head, made incisions and packed garlic into every spot allowed even in the eye sockets. I prepared a rub from 9 spices. Fennel, cinnamon, coriander, caraway, black pepper, alepo, cumin, cayenne, and ginger. This I then made into a thick paste by adding half of my seasoning to a pepper paste called aji Amarillo. Once incorporated into a paste I rubbed it into the pork on all exposed meat faces. I slit some of the fat between the skin and meat to create deep pockets where I proceeded to pack this paste into. I cut mirepoix and added tomatoes and 2 heads of garlic. About 1 ½ quarts of veg stock placed the head into the oven covered with foil and slit down the middle for the nose to poke out through. This is where Im at. Im thinking of doing a deconstructed el Salvadorian Papusa, ralleno style with Columbian and Peruvian influence.

Roasting Amish Chicken.

Now some people may not know what Amish chicken is, but it is exactly that, chickens that have been raised by the Amish people of America and bought in small batches from distributing companies to get them out to people like me.

Last night I made a roasted Amish chicken with a coriander, fennel, cumin, black pepper and salt, rub, turned out to be very delicious.

The first thing that I do when I roast a chicken is to; first wash down the surface that I am going to work on, get gloves and all my mies en place together. These items are

-Half hotel pan or a 10/12 roasting pan.

-Mesh rack

-Large Sautee pan

-Basting spoon

-1/2# butter

-1 Spanish onion

-1/2 head or garlic

-1/2 hand full of picked cilantro

-1 lemon

-Rub  mix

-Towels

-Aluminum foil

-Butchering twine.

Next I wash the bird and pat it dry,

Now we trim up the bird by removing any of the unnecessary pieces. Look for the little nub, located at the back of the bird by the large opening; you can cut it off with scissors or a knife, the other part I usually clean up is the neck area, and the wishbone. For the wishbone, I like to slice around it before while it is still raw, then pack a half clove of garlic in each pocket made by slicing around the bone, then pulling on the excess skin with light jerking motions it will tighten up the breast, and slice off a thumbs thickness of the left over skin. Now season the bird generously, being sure to coat the entire chicken in every crevasse, even inside. Chop the onions and left over garlic in large chunks, skin on the garlic is fine no need to peel it. Pack these into the bird and close the hole with a half a lemon. Now tie the bird by making a large circle of twine tied together and loop it around the extremities. Once the wings have been secured, making a large X across the back towards the rear, loop the legs one by one going around the right leg in a clockwise motion and the left in a counter clockwise motion, pull the rope tight and loop around them both will complete the process. Tie and cut the remaining twine. Get the large pan smoking hot but over medium, medium high heat and lay the bird on its side. Cooks for about 3 minutes until there shows caramelization has developed, then flip the bird to the opposing side and continue to reach the said goal, once that had been achieved then onto the breast and repeat the same process. Then put the bird into the roasting pan fitted with the rack. Put remaining onion and garlic over the carcass and lob hunks of butter into the pan, being sure to put 2 or 3 in behind the lemon. Close up the roasting pan and cut an opening about 8 inches long down the top of the foil. Put the pan into a preheated oven at 350 degrees. Cook for 45 min, baste the bird several time, turn the heat up to 375 and cook for about 1 hr more basting every so often.

I hope you can follow all of that!