Grilled watermelon and chicken thighs

Yes, I realise that this is an odd title, but it is hard to come up with anything different.
It is now officially hot in Texas, so we typically avoid adding heat inside the kitchen and use the grill for just about everything. Tonight's dinner was no exception. And, as usual there are leftovers: The dinner was a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, potatoes, grilled chicken and grilled watermelon. Sounds odd, I admit! But it did get the "we can serve this to people" accolade from Madame, so all is well.
Why thighs and not breasts? They are much easier to cook without drying out - more forgiving and more flavorful. Yes they are fattier, but we embrace the inner fat in this house. Flavor rules!
Also we typically don't dress our salads directly. We cook potatoes, dress them while hot and then use the dressed potatoes as the dressing for the salad overall. It is one way to make sure you don't overdress the salad. Oh, and since it is as fast to make a dressing as it is to open a bottle, the dressings are all home made. Where to start?

Ingredients

Potatoes

2 lbs waxy potatoes with the skins on

water to cover

salt

Dressing

1/4 cup cider vinegar

3T Sherry vinegar

1 small shallot - minced

1/2 t dry mustard

salt

pepper

3/4 cup neutral oil

2T Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Watermelon

6 watermelon wedges

oil to lightly coat - prevent sticking on the grill

salt/pepper to taste

Chicken

6 Boneless/skinless chicken thighs

1/2t Hungarian paprika

1/2t Cayenne Pepper

1/2t Cumin

1T coarse salt

a few grinds of pepper

Seeds from 6 cardamom pods

1/4 t dried oregano

Salad

A few lettuce leaves torn into bite sized pieces

6 small tomatoes (not cherry or grape sized - larger than that, and nice and ripe), each cut into eighths

1 small cucumber peeled and chopped so the pieces are the same size as the tomatoes

Coarse sea salt

Method

Potatoes

Quarter the potatoes. Place in cold, salted water in a saucepot. Bring to a simmer. and cook until fork tender, but not mushy. Drain the potatoes. While still warm pour the dressing over the potatoes and allow to come to room temperature

Dressing

Combine all ingredients, except oils into a glass jar. Shake to mix. Add the oils, and shake again to emulsify. Use immediately. However it will keep in the fridge for a week or so.

Watermelon

Season the watermelon with salt/pepper and brush with oil. Grill for about 3 minutes each side. Serve slightly warm

Chicken

Pat the chicken thighs dry. make up the rub by vombining the spices in a pestle and mortar, grinding until a fine, uniform powder. Coat the chicken with the spice mixture and allow to stand while the grill heats up. When the grill is hot, grill the chicken thighs for about 5 min/side until they are cooked through. Remove from the grill, allow to stand for a few minutes before slicing thinly across the grain.

Assembly

Lay some lettuce leaves in the bottom of an individual salad bowl. Mix in the tomatoes/cucumber. Decorate with the chicken slices. Add some dressed potatoes to the salad, place 2 grilled watermelon wedges on top, and serve.

It looks like a lot of work, but from start to finish this took the requisite 45 minutes.

Tarragon mustard

This little jewel came to mind when we were polishing off the last of the tarragon mustard from Provence. Madame wanted tarragon mustard. Madame shall have tarragon mustard. However the second half - can we please go to Provence to pick it up? was not about to happen for a variety of reasons. The main one being summer school.
So the experiment began. It also turned out to be really quick, easy and cheap. Win all around.

Ingredients

1/2 Cup coarse Dijon-style mustard. We used the generic supermarket brand

1t Coleman's dry English mustard powder

1T Apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup loosely packed tarragon leaves (whole for measurement purposes)

Method

Make a thin paste with the dry mustard and vinegar. Chop the tarragon leaves - make them uneven in size. Some quite small, some almost whole. Do make sure you don't use the stalks though. Combine the coarse mustard, the mustard paste and the chopped tarragon. Put in a noon-reactive, covered bowl for 24hrs to allow the flavors to blend. Transfer to an airtight pot. Use in any way you can imagine.

No trip to Provence required. :-(

Dashed hopes

Madame was excited because she had found some soup recipes that looked to be nice and relatively low in calories. One was carrot ginger, the other chicken/leek. I did a frenzy of soup making over the weekend so we would have lunches at home this week. Interestingly the carrot/ginger was so thin and watery that I have no idea how to make it really tasty. And the potato/leek used Greek yogurt instead of cream (2% fat as opposed to the 30+ % that cream contains) was pretty uninteresting too. OK flavor (and needed a whole lot more salt than the recipe called for), but texture was off. No fat to coat the starch granules = lots of starch granules hanging out and being a bit gummy.
The chilled tomato soup - recipe from Cooks illustrated (with olive oil to give it body) and the avocado/spinach/lemon juice/yogurt soup were both fantastic.
I was hopeful that somehow I would be able to make something edible that had fewer fat calories (well fewer calories/serving in general).
In future I will make things the way I like and reduce the serving size.
No wimpy food!

Emergency Frozen bananas

I keep frozen bananas individually peeled and wrapped in cling wrap in the freezer for those moments when an emergency arises and you just have to use them. Admittedly the emergencies aren't frequent and they do usually involve drinks! Last night, however we found ourselves in need of some rejuvenation after a very healthy dinner. Well healthy if you think (as I do) that a small amount of pork fat is a good thing. Of course a large amount would be better. By using the frozen banana the drink requires less ice and is thus less diluted.
.
Anyhow, we decided that a Bailey's banana drink would be a good thing to have and within about 90 seconds it was in the glasses|

Ingredients

1 frozen banana

1/4 cup banana rum

1/4 cup coconut rum

1 cup Bailey's Irish Cream

1 cup crushed ice

Method

Put all ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth. Serve in tall glasses.

Playing with legumes

Tonight's dinner was an experiment. I saw some non-frozen edamame at the supermarket. On the back of the packet it suggested a salad with lentils and some other stuff. Well, I am not one to follow the packet instructions, but I am very happy to liberate ideas and make the results my own. Also, I had some sous-vide pork jowls in the freezer, some shallots, red peppers, tomatoes, various vinegars, sea salt etc. So of course the thing to do for dinner was a roasted edamame salad with red peppers, tomatoes, basil served on top of a lentil/shallot/pork jowl base. It got the "we can serve this to people" accolade from madame, so I guess it was OK. Also, I think it may have cost a whole $3 for about 6 servings. The beer with dinner was a whole lot more than the food!

Ingredients

4 oz cured pork jowl (can substitute pancetta or guanciale) diced very small

1 shallot, minced finely

1 lb of rinsed dry lentils

Water to cover (no I didn't measure it, sorry!)

1 red pepper, diced small

1 yellow pepper diced small

10 oz shelled edamame

2 small tomatoes diced small

8 basil leaves, chiffonade

Vinegar to taste (we used sherry vinegar)

Sea salt to taste

Method

In a sauce pot render the pork product gently. You don't want cripsiness, but you do want the fat to render a bit. When the pork is cooked, add the shallot and mix/stir for about 30 seconds. Add the rinsed, picked-over lentils and cover with water by 1/2". That may be enough water - you can always add more later. Bring to a simmer and cook until the lentils are tender. About 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F. 

Once you have cooked the lentils, spoon some of the mixture into an 8x13 Pyrex or other non reactive pan. This should be to a depth of about 1/3". There will be lots of left overs. Combine the edamame, diced peppers and spread over the lentils, Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, until the edamame are just showing a little color and dryness. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with some sherry vinegar. I don't recommend balsamic here. Red wine or cider vinegar would be fine. Leave to cool.

Before serving, sprinkle the diced tomatoes and basil chiffonade over the edamame. Eat at room temperature. I was using salted jowls, so there was no need to add salt. However if you are using guanciale of pancetta you might need to salt to taste.