New York Street Food

We were recently given a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon, and thought it would be a good way to dust off the old Friday’s Recipe feature.

For a while, we were posting recipes every Friday for you to try over the weekend – but pretty soon, we started running out of recipes.  We featured recipes from other people, but there are so many recipe sites out there, we started losing focus, and ended the feature.

After speaking about it with my wife, who shoulders the Friday’s Recipe burden much more than I do, we decided to make it an intermittent feature which will be posted when we have something interesting to share.

We have some excellent recipes using bourbon with steak, pork, sweet potatoes, and a few other foods.  But since we just got a brand new bottle of Maker’s Mark, and had chicken in the house, my wife wanted to come up with a new recipe from scratch.  And boy did she ever!

Friday’s Recipe is Sweet Bourbon Glazed Chicken with Maker’s Mark.

(more…)

Since we’re deep into the holiday season, I wanted to share our favorite winter drink recipe.  It’s technically called a Cranberry Hot Toddy, but we call it GROG!  After a few of these, you’ll know where the word “groggy” comes from.

Feel free to share this recipe with your loved ones and pass it around.  It’s a great way to spread holiday cheer.

We posted this recipe for Thanksgiving 2009, but have picked up a lot of new readers since then, so we decided to reprint it for people who didn’t see it last year.

We’re going to take some time off until after the New Year.  Happy Holidays to everyone, and we’ll see you out on the street in January.

Cranberry Hot Toddy aka GROG

2 tangerines

1/2 cup whole cloves

4 quarts unsweetened cranberry-raspberry juice (if unsweetened not available, omit the sugar below)

2 2/3 cups sugar

4 cups amber rum (such as Bacardi Gold.  Rum can be omitted for Virgin Grog.)

4 cinnamon sticks

1/4 tsp clove

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Cut tangerines crosswise into 1/4-inch thick rounds and remove seeds. Stick whole cloves into each slice of tangerine until the tangerine slices are mostly studded with the whole cloves.  In a large pot, simmer cranberry juice, sugar, studded tangerines and all the spices (including the rest of the whole cloves). Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.  Remove the tangerines and whole cloves with a slotted spoon or strainer. Add rum (if desired). Serve in large mugs or heatproof glasses. Enjoy!

Makes about 16 cups

Prep time: About 15 minutes

Cooking time: About 35 minutes

Storage tip: This makes quite a large batch. We recommend keeping the empty cranberry juice bottles for storing the leftover grog in the fridge.  It has stayed in our refrigerator for up to a month and still tastes great when reheated. It can be reheated in either the microwave or on the stovetop.

DEFINITELY OUR FAVORITE WINTER DRINK! Let us know what you think in the comments.

This Friday’s Recipe is courtesy of The Hungry Wife.  She says “Basil Chicken in Coconut-Curry Sauce is a one dish meal that is packed with flavor, and if you like Thai-style food, you will love this recipe.  Even though it has 2 jalapeno peppers and a bit of chili powder, the coconut milk really tames down the spice.  Basil Chicken is just the right amount of spices, and is a great way to introduce new flavors into your meals.”

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

2 teaspoons curry powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cracked black pepper

¼ teaspoon chili powder

1 large red onion, chopped (1 cup)

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 fresh jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 13 ½ or 14 ounce can unsweetened coconut milk

1 tablespoon cornstarch

3 tablespoons snipped fresh basil

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

3 cups hot cooked rice

Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces.  Place chicken in a medium bowl.  In a small bowl stir together the curry powder, salt, black pepper, and chili powder.  Sprinkle spice mixture over chicken, tossing to coat evenly.  Cover and chill for 1 to 2 hours to allow spices to penetrate meat.

In a large nonstick wok or skillet cook and stir onion, garlic, and jalapeno peppers in hot oil over medium-high heat for 2 minutes.  Remove onion mixture from wok.  Add half of the chicken to wok.  Cook and stir for 4-5 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink and cooked through.  Remove chicken from wok.  (If necessary, add additional oil.) Cook remaining chicken as above; remove from wok.

Combine coconut milk and cornstarch.  Carefully add to wok.  Cook and stir until slightly thickened and bubbly.  Return chicken and onion mixture to wok.  Stir in basil and ginger.  Cook and stir about 2 minutes or until heated through.  Serve over hot rice.

Makes 4 servings

To help you get into weekend mode, here’s a video recipe for how to make Long Island Iced Tea that was put together by Girls Mixing Drinks, which I found on Denver Food Guy‘s site.

Long Island Iced Tea always cracks me up because I grew up on Long Island  – and didn’t know anybody who drank them growing up!  (We were more into kamikazes back then.)

Since then, I’ve run across this drink in Dublin, Belize and other places far from LI, and occasionally order one.  When I order one and tell people I actually grew up on Long Island, it’s a good conversation starter in a foreign land.

The recipe is very simple – all you need are the white liquors (rum, gin, tequila, vodka and triple sec), citrus juice or sour mix and coke (-a cola).

Cheers!

We made cheesecake-marbled brownies for Thanksgiving dessert and they were excellent.  Brownies with cheesecake mixed in – how can you go wrong!

The recipe was originally in Gourmet magazine, but as usual, my wife made some changes along the way.  This recipe is a definite keeper!

(more…)