Author Archives: didjaeat
Miss Rachel’s Seitan Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
When I was making and selling Pierogies, I used to sell at the Greensgrow Farm Farmers Market. It was there I became friends with Rachel Klein, owner of Miss Rachel’s Kitchen, a vegan catering company.
For those of you who don’t know: vegan eating means nothing that comes from an animal. Nothing. So, sometimes that can make having special occasions or just even finding some great sandwiches a bit of a challenge.
So! Rachel covers all the bases: You want meals for yourself for the week? Done! You just want some food for a day or two? Done! You want lunch delivered to your work (downtown & university city on wednesdays and downtown on fridays)? Done! Having a big event (weddings, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties, communion parties, block parties..!)? Done! Is it a holiday and you want to eat vegan but want to spend time with relatives instead of cooking (for just you or for the whole family?)? Done! Are you vegan and also gluten free? Done! Whew! I am exhausted just typing all that.
The thing about vegan food that I have mostly come across is that a lot of it just is not very good (altho it is coming around, especially in the Philly area). I was a vegetarian for about 6 years and, if you are familiar with this blog and my eating habits at all, I will eat almost anything. So when I met Rachel, I was expecting sawdusty food with the texture of either nasty seaweed or a slightly chewy cinderblock.
Then I had some of her tofu chicken salad. It was so awesome that, if she had forgotten to bring me any during our stints at the market, I would pout like a 6 year old who wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons. Indeed, it was that fantastic.
So fast forward to right about now, and I do a little work on the side helping Rachel do her friday lunch deliveries. I am a huge buffalo chicken nut. I can eat wings all the live long day and anything with the word “buffalo” and “sauce” in it makes me immediately drool. So when she told me one day we were going to make Buffalo Chicken Seitan Sandwiches, I needed a second for drooling (not on the food tho, we are strict with our food safety regulations!). Then when she told me they were to also be on fresh Cacia’s Bakery rolls, that sealed the deal.
Buffalo Seitan
First off, you gotta use some good Seitan, and if you are serious, you gotta hit up Michael from Michael’s Savory Seitan. Michael is a great guy: tall and full of energy about Seitan & eating healthy. Lots of places around town sell his Seitan, wether in foods already made or you can get it at Whole Foods, Essene and tons of other places. Hit up his website!
Anywho, the first step in this awesome sandwich is the oven. As in, put that seitan in there. Baste it up with whatever kind of hot sauce you like. It gets the same consistency of chicken without the actual chicken. If you like big chunks, then don’t cut it down. If you like it more shreddy, go ahead, get all OJ and run your knife thru it.
Seitan Buffalo Chicken
This brings me to sauce. I have a little recipe in my head I like to use. I used it when I made buffalo chicken pierogies and it works beautifully. Feel free to use your own. Some people like to use a thickener, like corn syrup. Then you might want to cut the acidity of a sauce with butter. Your mileage may vary. I like to add ground red pepper and Sriracha sauce to my hot sauce. Hot in, hot out, haha!
Seitan Buffalo Chicken with Slaw
Anyway, what works great with a buffalo chicken sandwich? Coleslaw! So hey, let’s get that on there!
Follow it up with nice leafy lettuce for some crunch and what do you end up with?
You end up with this: the tastiest Seitan Buffalo Chicken Sandwich this side of the Pecos.
Finished Seitan Buffalo Chicken Sandwich!
I could eat this sandwich every night of the week. So good! Just because you are a red blooded meat eater, doesn’t mean that you can’t try this stuff. It’s delicious, and when it comes down to it, that’s really all that matters. In fact, Rachel once told me that most of her Lunch Club people aren’t even vegetarians, they just are interested in something different and delicious. You can’t argue with that.
If you are interested in the Lunch Club, click on the link above. You can order once or weekly, whatever (or if you know someone who loves good food, hit them up with a gift certificate!). Lunch comes with a sandwich, a soup, fruit and some homemade soup. With delivery right to your door, you can’t beat it.
Savory Stuffed Chicken
I don’t cook maybe as much as I should but sometimes I get the itch and try something new. I was watching Anne Burrell’s show “Secrets Of A Restaurant Chef” and she had been talking about stuffing chicken breasts. This got me thinking and I decided to try it.
Stuffing the chicken wasn’t the kind where you butterfly the breasts and then wrap them around actual stuffing. No, this is more like how you get filling into a cupcake. But first, let’s look at the making of the filling.
The beginnings of chicken filling
I started with a stick of butter, melted slowly. I then minced 2 cloves of garlic and threw them in. With garlic you gotta make sure it doesn’t burn or you have to start again and, frankly, I don’t have the patience for that. Anyway, the garlic slowly cooked into the butter and I shook a bunch of parmesan cheese in there, along with a little salt, pepper and italian seasoning. On the side I had a brick of cream cheese that was softened and cubed up sitting in a little bowl.
Then I threw in a tomato that I had taken the skin off of and let that swim around in the butter for a while. All this time it was on a low heat so everyone could have fun in the pan.
When everything was nice and together, I put
The shrimp for the filling
the mix into the bowl, mixed it up and set it aside. I knew I had one more thing to do! The mix felt like it was missing something, so I threw some shrimp into the pan with the remnants of the previous tenant and some more butter, garlic and parmesan cheese! I kept it at a low heat because these were precooked (It was what I had in the freezer. I know fresh is better but you have to roll with what you have lying around) and I kept on flipping them over in the butter & garlic mix.
In the meantime I kept mixing the cream cheese mixture. I wanted to make sure that everything was evenly distributed and there was no lumps in the mix.
The actual filling!
When the shrimp were done, I de-tailed, chopped finely and tossed into the mix. Again, lots of mixing. Once it cooled, I popped it into the fridge for a bit while I started working on the other pieces of this meal.
The chicken breasts were a nice size. Basically all I had to do was take a knife and make a slit on the fat part of the breast end and wiggle the knife around to make a pocket. I did that to 4 breasts and set them aside.
After that, I took a Ziploc bag and filled the bag with the filling, favoring one end of the bag. I twisted the bag closed and pushed the filling into the corner and cut off the tip of the bag (ouch! haha).
The cut off end of the bag fit perfectly into the chicken and I filled each one with the filling. It took a few minutes to get the hang of it but it worked great! I even added more filling to 2 of the chicken breasts because I had a bunch left over.
After filling the chicken, I dipped them in flour, egg and then Panko breadcrumbs and
Stuffed chicken frying up!
then they went right into the cast iron pan! When you do bread and fry things like chicken breasts, try doing it that way (Panko is a lighter Japanese breadcrumb that is delicious but it works even with regular breadcrumbs). The flour and egg mix combine to keep the meat moist and not fall right off the meat when you try and fry it. And of course, the egg helps the breadcrumb stay on as well. It’s good stuff.
I also didn’t have the heat turned super way up because I didn’t want to burn the breadcrumb and have raw chicken. So I had turned it up a lot before I put them in and then lowered it after because cast iron does hang onto heat. With something like this, it’s better to take your time then to hurry it up and burn the crap out of it. I had put too much time into prepping to screw it up at that point.
Pan roasted Brussel sprouts with garlic
With all this protein going on, you must have some kind of vegetable. If, for the very least, color, haha. My mom really likes Brussel sprouts, so I decided to pan roast some with olive oil, salt and garlic. I would rather eat the parts of my car engine then eat Brussel sprouts but she loves them and they do look pretty in our little mini cast iron pan. I made some peas for myself, I do love peas!
At this point everything was cooking at a nice clip and I had time to do something important: clean up. There are fewer things I cannot stand more than having to clean up a mountain of dishes after eating a good meal. It makes me crazy. Dishwasher or no dishwasher, cleaning up as you go is something I have learned over the years and I stick with it. Especially working with raw chicken, which, I am sure you know, can make you best fiends with the bathroom if handled incorrectly. I follow this rule: you touch the chicken, you wash your hands each and every time. Some people do not like to wash their hands 6 times during a cooking session but I say that is better than getting sick, or getting whoever you are cooking for sick. Just do it. Good food safety isn’t just for restaurants, it’s for everyone!
Sooo…once the chicken was done (I even used a thermometer to check!), I plated it up for my mom and I (my stepdad got corn and buttered noodles and I forgot to take a pic). I didn’t make the breading super crispy because I thought a nice golden brown would be better, and it was! Check it out!
The final dish with the sprouts
The final dish with peas
The reaction was pretty positive! In hindsight I think I would chill the stuffing mix more before using it, because it really melted down, altho you could really get a nice sense of the garlic, shrimp and butter. But overall I was pretty happy with the results.
What do you guys think? Let me know!
Photos from the past
Hey There,
I had so much fun digging out the pictures from the last post, I found a few more!
Sometimes, when I am food shopping, I take pictures of random things. Sometimes I like the symmetry, sometimes I like the colors and sometimes I just think something looks cool. So here are a few.
peaches
xmas ham
eggplant fries
caramels
Huevos Rancheros @ Ida Mae's Bruncherie
Photo Roundup!
Hey Everyone!,
So I realized I had a bunch of stray pictures hanging around. I am the asshole you see snapping pictures of food at inappropriate times (“I know you are having that cookie because of your low blood sugar but it looks cool”…Snap!) but not all of my pics can be a whole blog post unto itself. So, here is a roundup of assorted pics that I thought would be cool.
First up! In a previous post, I drooled all over the internet about a Prime Rib that my cousin-in-law, Bob, the firefighter chef, had made. Well, what I did not mention was that his wife Chrissy cut me a giant piece to take home. So, later on, home alone on New Years Day, I wanted to eat it. But how? I cut it up, threw it in a cast iron skillet and started to just heat it up.
Leftover Prime Rib & Eggs
In a little bowl I mixed some ketchup, A1, sriracha, worcheshire sauce and water and threw it in so it wouldn’t get dried out. Then I thought, what should I eat with it? Duh.
It was a thing of beauty. The sauce had cooked down and caramelized on the meat and the eggs were cooked but the yolks were still kinda dippy. I sat in the green leather armchair in the living room with this plate on my lap and welcomed the first day of 2012 (yeah, I had to check) with reckless abandon. And lots of meat!
Changing gears…
I was in North Jersey doing some comedy awhile back with my friend Latice. It was a long drive and I was super crazy hungry. I ordered a burger (an aside: please don’t advertise a big giant burger and then give me a big giant…jetro frozen burger. It takes 20 minutes to make like 45 fresh burgers for the week. Salt. Pepper. Maybe something else if you wanna get crazy. It’s cheaper to buy a chubb (haha, yeah that’s what they call it) of meat from wherever you get your meat and make them yourself then to lie to me and make me angry.) and wanted nachos. I love nachos.
And what they served me made me so angry I wanted to burn the building down.
The Worst Nachos In The History Of The World
What we have here are the Worst Nachos In The History Of The World. They were over salted regular and blue corn tortilla chips with the bagged shredded cheese and old chili on them. Oh. And olives. Where are the other ingredients? They were on another plate (that I didn’t take a picture of due to being angry) in little cups. There was not enough for the both of us, which irritates the crap out of me, because nachos should be big enough to be shared by at least 3 people. THAT IS WHY THEY EXIST. Some idiot in the kitchen decides to make deconstructed nachos and then doesn’t even mention it in the menu. And then tries to pass off a frozen burger as homemade. For shame. FOR SHAME.
This is what nachos should look like:
Nachos at Urban Saloon
There is everything you need there. They don’t make their own chips either, even tho it is simple, but there is height, heft and yes, DELICIOUSNESS.
(And the maraschino cherries for dessert? You really get me internet, you really do…)
Ahem.
Frankenstein Cake Pop
My little cousin Matt turned 7 earlier this past year and he wanted a monster themed party (fitting for Matt, but you don’t know him, so this must seem very inside baseball. You’d be right. But, trust me.). So his mom Lorrie made a very cool cake and gave out these monster cake pops!
Lorrie makes such awesome baked goods that sometimes I daydream about keeping her in my basement to just make me baked goods all day long. But then I remember how silly that would be…my cellar isn’t big enough for that kind of operation. A girl can dream tho.
Anyway, aren’t they cool? The hair is oreo crumbs and the cake is a light and airy chocolate. Did I almost get into a fight with another 7 year old over one sitting on a table?
One may never know…(I sure as hell ain’t tellin’….)
Red Velvet Donut
I found myself out of my area of cheesesteaks and tastykakes and into another area called Brooklyn. It looks a lot like Philly but with much more annoying Yankee/Giants/Mets crap plastered to all the cards. So instead of making an afternoon out of keying cars, I ended up eating this…a red velvet donut.
I didn’t eat it when first given to me. It sat in the bag for a bit. While I do tend to write about baked goods, I really very rarely eat them because too much carby stuff turns me into a parade float. Ahem. Anywho, this beauty is from the Peter Pan Bakery on Manhattan Ave in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. This thing was freakin’ amazing. Could it have been better with cream cheese frosting? Perhaps. But it was like eating a cupcake, a cake and a dance on a ballroom floor and I’ll take that any day.
Awesome Cupcake
I’ll end this hodgepodge post with a cupcake. A plain vanilla cupcake. I don’t remember exactly where I had this thing (it might have been another one of Bob’s creations), but I remember the icing. I hate cupcakes that have skimpy sugar-ball icing. They have no flavor. No panache. No…soul.
This was a perfect cupcake. Cream cheese icing. Tiny sugar crystals. It took me awhile to get down to the cupcake but ya know what?
It was a holiday cupcake and I was in love with it. And that was just fine with me.
New Year’s Eve Feast
There are some people who need to go out and roam about drunkenly to have, what they consider, a successful New Year’s Eve. There are others who need to have an epic, crazy, shitshow of a party at home in order to be successful (including, but not limited to: a painted cat, someone’s underwear in the freezer and the sofa covered in spray cheese with the lawn covered in PBR cans). And then there are some people who are content to stay home and cuddle up with their significant other whilst drinking wines, eating cheese and watching some kind of PBS special about NYE celebrations around the world. Those people should be kicked (but that’s besides the point…).
I like a one stop house party. This year, I deviated and went to a gathering of cousins up in the Northeast and then to my friends Jackie & Tim’s annual bash afterwards. Both were a great time (Jackie & Tim’s parties always rock!), but I wanted to write a little bit about the food at my first stop.
My cousin-in-law Bob likes to cook, and he really outdid himself. First up? Prime Rib!
Prime Rib out of the oven!
Prime Rib, over the years, has gotten kind of a bad rap as a boring standby buffet food atany big hall occasion such as a wedding, anniversary party or anything someone’s parents have to pay for. If it is not seasoned and boring, it can be a let down. If it’s like this, right out of the oven, you just get EXCITED! (Ok, so maybe not that excited, that might just be me. I don’t get out a lot and have been single for awhile.)
Some people think Prime Rib is just Roast Beef. No! Roast Beef is made instead of Prime Rib and once you had really, really mouth watering Prime Rib, you will never blaspheme again against the lovely Prime Rib. (Bonus! Count how many times I used the term “Prime Rib” in this paragraph! Pat yourself on the back!)
Prime Rib after resting!
A big mistake people make about meat is that they just take out of the oven, or off the grill, or even off the stovetop, and they don’t give the meat a chance to rest. Resting lets the meat relax and the juices can redistribute. If you ever cut into a steak and all the juices ran out and the meat ended up being kinda dry, the meat didn’t get a chance to rest. Feel free to smack the chef and grab some A1. This is what a Prime Rib, fully rested, looks like!
Au Jus!
While the meat is resting, you can pop the roasting pan up on the stove and turn up a medium heat. Add some wine & stock and start scraping the bottom (the meat drippings!) of the pan to create a very cool Au Jus (or, thicken it up and make some gravy). Bob did just this, while I tried to drool on me and not the counter. I leaned in and snapped a shot!
The best part of the Au Jus, besides it being unbelievably delicious and cheaper then jars of salt filled gravy, is that when you have to clean that pan, anything that would have stuck to the bottom has dissolved into the liquid. So, really, you are just helping yourself.
Prime Rib all carved up!
Wondering what the final product looks like? How about this! Absolutely amazing! My hat is OFF to Bob! I know I ate a good 2 slabs of this buttery goodness, and even some of my other relatives, who aren’t into big pieces of meat, enjoyed it as well.
Deviled Eggs
Not to be outdone, My cousin Michele made her Deviled Eggs. I don’t know what she puts in them, but she knows how to pack them. She doesn’t fill those eggs with a skimpy bit of filling, she fills and covers the whole egg with the filling! And they are fantastic!
Deviled Eggs are, again, another food that people kind of sigh when talked about. But find a good recipe and run with it! There is a reason why this appetizer (or, as we use it, side dish) has been around for so long…they ROCK!
Homemade PIzzelles!
Dessert, you say? After taking a lap or two around the block, I cleared some room and took a look at the dessert table. Homemade Pizzelles (made by Bob yet again!), cupcakes and cookies.
I love holidays, but I think my pants are glad it’s over! That is, until all the Valentine’s Day candy goes on sale…
Urban Saloon’s Cubanish Sandwich
One of the things I do on a regular basis is stand up comedy. There is an Open Mic on Monday nights at Urban Saloon called Laughs on Fairmount that I try and hit weekly. It’s a fun mic with a great vibe. Just as importantly, Urban Saloon has some great food. Last week they updated the menu and, being the glutton I am, I decided to give something new a shot. The new Cuban Sandwich.
Cuban Sandwich with Loaded Tater Tots
This Cuban sandwich has pork, ham, cheese, pickles and a nice mustard on both sides. The pork is pulled and the ham was grilled before putting this thing together. They weren’t skimpy with the mustard and it was nice and warm when I got it. Overall, it was delicious.
I opted for loaded tater tots instead of fries (or a side salad) because Urban makes the absolute best with bacon, cheese whiz and green onion. Oh my god, they are awesome! Perfectly fried and the bacon is obviously not from a can or a bag. I have had them many times and I swear to you, you will never find a better tot plate in this city.
The one small problem I have with this sandwich, and it makes it not really a Cuban but a
Side shot of the Cuban
cuban-ish sandwich, is this: Cubans are made on a roll. Always on a roll. Then you press it and it moves into delicious territory. This sandwich was made on white bread. So, technically that makes it a crazy good grilled cheese with meat..and a pickle. I’m still kind of puzzled about that. Maybe the kitchen didn’t have any rolls? Maybe they dropped the sandwich and it was the last roll and they had to remake it with white bread? I have no idea.
It was a good sandwich (which fantastic loaded tater tots) but not being on a roll was just weird. If they add a roll, this thing could be a huge, huge seller.
Another shot of the Cuban
Earl Of Sandwich Maybe Stole My Heart
Ok,
So, as you may or may not know, I live in Philly, aka Sandwich Capital Of The World. We have the best sandwiches, the best bread, the best selection and the best sandwich makers in the world.
I will pause here for guffaws from people of different cities.
*pause*
Ok, so, yes, we do it right and we do it above and beyond. When you live in sandwichland, it is hard to eat sandwiches other places and not be let down (this is why I would like to buy the Subway sandwich chain and put it right out of business. And then chase Jared with a pitchfork to Canada…but that’s another story for another day). I have come to accept that when I am in other cities and I get a sandwich, it is just sustenance, not anything to be enjoyed.
And then something weird happened.
I spent 7 days in Disneyworld with my Aunt and cousins. One day I went with my Aunt to Downtown Disney to do some shopping. Downtown Disney, if you didn’t know, is a plot of land chock full of shops, some Disney themed & some not and restaurants of all shapes and sizes. For instance, there is a Wolfgang Puck there (I ate there and wasn’t very impressed. There should be no mold smell anywhere in your restaurant. I am talking to you, enclosed porch area.), a Rainforest Cafe, a House Of Blues, a Fulton’s Crab House, you get the picture. There are also a few quickie type places, and Earl Of Sandwich is one.
It was hot, I was tired and we just wanted to eat. I thought the place was a sit down and when we walked in, we were a little taken back. It is more cafeteria style ordering, and the line was loooong. But to our surprise, it moves quickly because you order on one end of the counter, just the sandwich (or salad or soup, the big stuff), and move along to the other end where you pick up a dessert or a side (like, say, potato salad) and slide on down to the cashier where you pay for everything as well as a drink and/or slushie. They give you a pager and you hang out while they make your sandwich and page you.
The pictures on the boards hanging about looked delicious but we all know food magic can be done via crafty photogs. Once the pager went off, I skipped over, picked up the bag and slid back into my seat. I have never been so happy to have my expectations shattered.
Hawaiian BBQ Wrapped Up
Earl Of Sandwich makes little loaves of bread (to those of you familiar with Wawa, they are about the size of a Shorti. Those of you who are not familiar with Wawa, I am sorry for you.) about 6 inches long. They warm the sandwich up and wrap it in a foil wrap to keep it’s heat, altho I gotta say, it won’t last long.
I ordered the Hawaiian BBQ sandwich. This thing had Grilled Chicken, Roasted Ham, Aged Swiss, Fresh Pineapple & Hawaiian BBQ Sauce. It could have been a hot mess, and not in any kind of good way. The chicken could have been dry, the ham could have been lunch meat crap and the Hawaiian BBQ sauce? God knows.
Hawaiian BBQ Unwrapped
So I jumped in. I unwrapped. The bread was still warm and soft, but it seemed sturdy. Cut on a bias, so I could peek in, it smelled delicious and I had to restrain myself from just stuffing it right in my face in order to take some pictures!
Closer Side Shot Of Hawaiian BBQ
The chicken was shockingly juicy. It has absorbed some of the fresh pineapple pieces, that did not fall right out of the bread. The ham was cut thin, but you can tell they make that ham there, and don’t just ship it in and open up a cryovac bag.
The star of the show was the BBQ sauce. It was sweet without putting you in a coma, with a nice tang that the pineapple compliments. There was just enough to soak a little into the bread without making it soggy but enough to mix in with the ingredients. I have to hand it to the food guys in the bog offices at Earl Of Sandwich, this was a kickass sandwich.
But the star, the real shining star of this beauty is the bread, called “artisan loaf”.
Side Shot Of Hawaiian BBQ
I don’t know exactly what they means, but it was able to hold that crazy, juicy delicious thing all together without falling apart. The texture is almost like a southern biscuit but still slightly buttery and not ridiculously chewy. I don’t know how much R&D they put into that bread but BRAVO!
I also ordered 2 sandwiches besides the Hawaiian, to keep in the fridge at the hotel for late night eating. One was “The Original 1762″ (Freshly Roasted Beef, Sharp Cheddar & Creamy Horseradish Sauce”) and “The Full Montague” (Freshly Roasted Beef, Turkey, Aged Swiss & Sharp Cheddar, Lettuce, Roma Tomatoes & the Earl’s Mustard Sauce). I ate the Original the next night after a particularly long day at The Magic Kingdom. It melded together into, and I am not exaggerating, a sandwich fit for the Gods. I didn’t even warm it up, the roast beef and horseradish sauce mingled together with the cheese and the bread held together perfectly. I ate the Montague the day after that for lunch and still, fantasticalness (yes, that is a word). Mustard sauce didn’t get lost in the bread and even the lettuce (Bib lettuce I believe) was great!
I have never had a sandwich so good outside of my home area like this! And while I did not have the soup or the potato salad, my Aunt did and she raved about the potato salad and loved the soup. She loved that you could browse the salads and desserts in the line going towards the register, which is nice if you are picky about what something looks like or how fresh something is. We both thought the (lettuce type) salads looked awesome as well.
Earl Of Sandwich, I implore you: please come to Philly, beyond our airport (or which you do have a stand and I have, more then once, thought about driving there just for another bite of your deliciousness). Philly will embrace you. You do it right, unlike other sandwich chains *coughsubwaycough* and make them look like fools.
Greetings From New Orleans!
Hey Everyone!
My cousin John visited New Orleans for work and tried to jam some good food into his visit. He succeeded!
Beignets!
John says “Beignets from Cafe Du Monde. It’s fried dough covered in powdered sugar. It is something good covered in something great; like a monkey in a gold tuxedo!”.
I can’t really argue with that.
Po Boy!
He also sent me a picture of a Po’ Boy he ate there.
John says “Po’ Boy from The Acme Oyster House. A shrimp Po’ Boy to be precise.”.
John is a man of not many words but he knows some good food when he sees it!
Whiskey and Waffles
Over the July 4th weekend, I had a huge order for work. I worked like a fiend the whole time and then a straight 24 hours up until the deadline. After I dropped it off, I walked over to Darlings Diner and had their Belgium Waffle and a Jameson and Ginger Ale.
It really does cure all that ail’s ya!
Whiskey and Waffles
(click to embiggen)
DidjaEat? 