ginger – H Lamar Thomas' Blog

May 4, 2012

Summertime in the South…or What’s In The Box?

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
Travel food and box lunches work within a delicate boundary between tasty, safe and easy to eat. A road trip with soggy sandwiches? Fast food? Health safety fried foods and meats? Gummy starches and carbohydrates? There is a way to have the best of all worlds with proper preparation of key ingredients, observation of temperature and time sensitive holding. I am concentrating on starches and side dishes.
Always look to the hottest regions of the world when putting together a box lunch. Humidity has a huge effect on picnic foods. Keep in mind basic terms for your meal: Does it need to be kept cold? Will it hold well? Can it be assembled when you are ready to eat or will it be a completed dish? Can it withstand heat for long? Will you eat it with your fingers or are dishes, chopsticks, knives or forks necessary?
We are making barley with lemon, sumac and cilantro; cold sesame lo mein pasta; and Japanese sweet potato salad with spiced ham and roasted sweet peppers. These are easy to make, filling, full of good vitamins and amino acid. Barley is much more than a beer ingredient, soup or breakfast. Only the sweet potato salad is gluten free this month.
A good substitute for hulled and/or pearl barley is spelt. Though spelt does have gluten it has been found to be tolerated. I like using spelt, when I can find it. Spelt looks like giant barley and is based in Mediterranean and Near Eastern regions. They are both high in good cholesterol, magnesium and phosphorus. It is a popular grain today but is still scarce in some areas, hence, barley, pearl barley in particular, is our grain for this rich salad. Hulled barley is more nutritious than pearled or polished. Barley, malt and wheat gluten are the primary grains responsible for gluten intolerance.
It’s funny how pulses and grams that became animal and bird food in the last century have now made it back to the daily table as delicious and enriching starches. This change is a great thing. Imagine a life without quinoa, amaranth, barley, lentils, millet and spelt? Some may still live without these amazing grains. The loss was all mine, and many others, up until the mid 1990s when quinoa and amaranth, the super grains of the Americas came to prominence. They are perfect for our beautiful South.
Lo mein/Canton noodles are wheat, water, salt and egg. They are available flat for sauté/stir fry and round for soups. Shanghai noodles are the larger, round style, which is what many American diners are used to in American-Chinese restaurants as lo mein. You can also use ramen pasta for cold dishes. This is not the instant, which is a college staple and easy lunch dish. The Japanese ramen interpretation of lo mein that has less fat content than Chinese lo mein. My friend Karen at Fooks Grocery suggested using ramen and it was a great addition alternate recipes for cold sesame noodles. You can use dry or fresh for the cold pasta dish, Sesame noodles. This particular dish shows up as a late night take out dish in movies all the time. Sesame noodles can be addictive. If you are using up pasta in your pantry then spaghetti and linguine are both good substitutes for Canton/lo mein pasta.
Sweet potatoes are grown all over Asia. There are around 70 varieties from purple to tan. The one we are using, the Japanese sweet potato, has a thin skin and is pale yellow, not deep orange which is the more common variety here in the South and in China. It is less sweet but as high in nutrients as any other sweet potato variety. They hold well for tempura frying, chips and as a diced salad style. Japanese sweet potato starch is used along with lime starch in making gluten free shiriitake noodles. Because of their versatility and health benefits sweet potatoes are amazing in any and all preparations, and yes, it is also used for making spirits (booze!) in Africa and Asia. Imagine a friend saying they had a sweet potato hang over.
Barley With Sumac and Cilantro
There are 250 kinds of sumac. The one we use for cooking is an Arabic sumac that is red and has a lemony flavor perfect for fish, lamb and grain dishes. It is not “poison” sumac we find here in our easements and woods. You can find sumac in the Athens area at Taj Mahal on Baxter Street. There are limitless ingredients of the subcontinent here so ask questions in the store. I go there specifically to buy sumac, starches, spices, fenugreek leaves and curry leaves. Our barley today is pearl barley. Puffed and ready to eat hot in 20 minutes. For our purpose you will cook the barley the night before and then add seasonings the next day. I am using the puffed so that it is similar in appearance to spelt/farro.
You can add things like chevre and ground lamb/turkey in grape leaves, various sliced olives, almonds, kim chee, seaweed salad and just about anything that complements grains.
1 cup pearl barley
2 cups water
½ teaspoon kosher sea salt (sea salt has no ammonia or bleach)
Bring salted water to a boil. Stir in barley. Reduce heat to simmer. Stir. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat.
24 leaves sliced fresh cilantro
1 ounce roasted red peppers, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4th teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon sumac
Stir ingredients and cover. Let rest 10 minutes. Chill. Garnish with chopped almonds.

Sesame Noodles
You can use fresh or dried Chinese noodles for this dish. Always check the labels on Asian noodles/pasta and you will notice at least one key ingredient: wheat flour, rice flour, a bean flour or potato and tapioca flour. Western pasta is basically wheat flour. The different flours used in Asian pastas is what gives each one a distinctive flavor and texture.
Making cold or hot sesame noodles is easier and faster than most any other pasta. It took me 20 minutes to prepare this recipe. I cooked ramen and lo mein pastas to compare and found the lo mein to be better for the cold and ramen for hot/warm. Notice that the final sauce is not thick. If you make it too thick then it will become gummy upon refrigeration. Combine pasta and sauce while warm.
If you have trouble with peanut butter then use almond or cashew butter.
8 ounces lo mein
2 quarts boiling water
1/3 teaspoon kosher sea salt
Cook noodles. Drain and rinse under cold water.
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped into a paste
1/3rd teaspoon Indian red chili
½ teaspoon sambal oelek (Vietnamese Chili Garlic paste)
2 tablespoons brown sugar or date palm molasses
½ cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons peanut oil or coconut oil or corn oil
1/3 cup vegetable stock
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon toasted white sesame seeds
3 stalks green onion, chopped
Cook brown sugar and peanut butter in the oil until it is warm throughout, add garlic, ginger and chili. Heat on medium for five minutes. Stir so that it does not stick to bottom of the pan. Stir in vegetable stock, soy and vinegar and continue to cook and stir for ten minutes on medium low.
Add noodles to sauce and cook for two minutes so that the noodles are coated and there is a light sauce. Add toasted sesame seeds.
Other garnishes can be sliced pickle, cabbage, cucumbers, cilantro, green onions, chopped nuts or zucchini cut into thin strips to resemble pasta using a microplane vegetable slicer.
Sweet Potato Salad
Potato salads have been lunchbox, picnic and travel favorites for generations and there is no reason to stop now. What we can do is expand on the many kinds of potato. We are using Japanese yam for this particular recipe but sweet potatoes are just as perfect. Be careful on how long you cook the diced potatoes as they go from gently firm to very soft in seconds. Frequently check for firmness as they boil.
The addition of honey and molasses was a last minute idea when I was cooking a test batch. You can experiment with various honeys from local uncooked which is the healthiest to any number of honey from around the country and globe. The same holds for different kinds of molasses when you start comparing grape, date, sorghum and cane. Unsulphured Blackstrap molasses is truly healthy, in fact it is the only processed sugar that is considered to posses healthy nutrients iron, calcium, magnesium, trace minerals, B and E vitamins. It has more calcium than milk.
2 tablespoons corn oil, coconut oil or grapeseed oil
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
10 ounces Sweet potato, peeled and cut into small cubes
8 ounces Ham, cut into small cubes
1/4th ounce dried mango, minced
1/3 cup yellow onion, diced
2 stalks celery, small dice
2 Parsnips, small dice
1/3 cup chicken stock
3 tablespoons Chinese cooking wine
1/3rd cup Cashews
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
1 tablespoon Roasted Italian herbs: thyme, oregano, basil
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
2 tablespoons European butter like Kerrygold Irish, Plugra or local dairy
5 ounces Irish gouda or young swiss cheese, small cubes
Saute potato, ham, mango, onion, celery and parsnips in oil on medium high heat for five minutes. Add chicken stock and cooking wine, cook until liquid dissolves. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the cheese, and cook on medium low for five minutes. Remove from heat and add cheese. Refrigerate. You can also add any other fresh or dried fruits such as cherries, pineapple, pears, apples or grapes.
Of course any bread, cheese and cured meat is excellent for picnic, lunchbox or travel. Whether you are at home, school, on the back porch, in the mountains, by a stream or on the sea there is always a place for the new and unique plays on old standards for the picnic basket. The most important thing is to look to those close or far away and offer your peace and friendship. Any good Food can be sustainable, local and universal.

Dried flowers, a dusty letter,
Japanese figurines, yellow light
on the brick mantel shines,
wipe your eyes, look again,
and still it shines a cracked
and dingy pastel,
the morning itself seems like a postcard,
a loved memento of the life you’ve had.
But waking always brings this pause,
this gaze into the past…
You wish it was easier
to shake away the dreams,
just set them on the shelf
beside the light,
turn around and go your way,
To find something that will last.
And today these wishes
Do come true,
Today I woke and saw you.

February 24, 2012February 24, 2012

PANKO: THE OTHER WHITE BREAD CRUMB

PANKO: THE OTHER WHITE BREAD CRUMB
Modern American and Japanese food, art and medicine have an ever widening audience in both cultures. This exchange is not one sided. Our relationship is one of progress and growth. For every bite of wonderful, salt water expression in sushi, buttery Kobe beef, crisp tempura and gluten free pastas that we experience here, there is an equal reaction to hamburgers, Southern fried chicken and American-Italian foods in Japan.
This month we are exploring the uses of the coarse, white panko breadcrumb. Panko has been present in restaurants for a few decades but is fairly recent as a common grocery store product.
We import healthy foods and we export the fast food side of our culture. It would be amazing if our modern Southern, Northern California, New York and New Orleans food culture were more energetically marketed. They do appear in hotel restaurants around the world so that is a good start. Panko is one of those ingredients that make this expansion possible. We will be cooking fried panko pickles and baby bok choi; sautéed daikon (large white radish) pancakes with chili garlic sauce; and oven roasted panko salmon with orange sweet soy sauce Yes, Pacific salmon season has started!

Japanese holistic approaches to health have entered American homes with a positive integration of food, décor, mind and body. Modern American poetry has had an interesting and personal impact in Japan. Two scholastic literary collections that include things I have written have shown a great deal of interest in Japan. “American Diaspora”, a text book on the sense of geographic and cultural place for American poets; and “Last Call: The Bukowski Legacy Continues” which is a text of poetry and prose following the styles of Poet/Novelist Charles Bukowski. For every tanka and haiku that we all wrote as undergraduates, there is a contemporary American poetic form taken on in Japan and Asia. This is what makes all things “world” so beautiful, the exchange of culture through health, Art and cuisine.

Other dishes that make world foods possible are fried foods, pickles, pancakes/crepes, rice and pastas. How we prepare them is what defines recipe origins. Something as old as breadcrumbs has taken on vastly diverse manufacture and use. Some of us grew up knowing only Italian seasoned and plain breadcrumbs. Progress changes things. Japan found a way to toast bread from the inside out using electric probes in the bread dough. This way of bread baking made it possible for a whole new kind of breadcrumb, the white panko breadcrumb. It is cooked crispy from the inside out so that there is no crust and the texture is uniform throughout the bread.
Panko is coarse, white and allows for fast and crispy cooking. Progressive Chefs have found hundreds of ways of using panko throughout American and World cuisines. You can find panko in almost any grocery store. Some still keep it only in the Asian section, but most will have it alongside Western style breadcrumbs.
Bok choi or bok choy is a member of a family of Chinese cabbages. I have heard the word choi used to describe leafy vegetables in general. Bok choi has no cholesterol or fat, and is high in vitamins C and A. Raw, it has a crisp and clean flavor. I think all chois taste great, think of a marriage between baby lettuces and cucumber and you have a sense of the flavor. They are highly adaptable from raw to fried. Sesame oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce and fermented black bean (soy beans) and garlic each are compliments to bok choi. The bright flavor and crisp characteristics of bok choi is a perfect match for panko fried pickles.
The first time I saw fried pickles as a beer food was in Sausalito, CA. A table of Japanese men were eating fried pickles and drinking draft beer. I thought it was pretty cool because fried pickles are Southern and Japanese, with each culture thinking it is their own creation. That scene was in 1980. Thing is that open fires and boiling oil tend to encourage cooks to put anything to the test. Salty, sweet and sour, fried pickles take on a vibrant flavor that begs you to eat more. They are good as bar food or as an appetizer. Pilsner is the perfect beer for these crispy bar snacks. Salty and sour makes you thirsty, hence they are primary flavors in bar food.
FRIED PANKO PICKLES AND BOK CHOI
The dipping sauce is mayonnaise based. I recently bought two different kinds of Philippine vinegar bbq sauces at Fooks Grocery and in three days one is half full. They are that good. The brand is Kuratsoy from Isabel Village in the Philippines. It is a blend of coconut vinegar, “spices” and soy.
The world of vinegars is populated with white, apple cider, sorghum, cane, balsamic, pomegranate, red wine, sherry and champagne to the complex Japanese brown rice and deep, bitter Chinese black vinegar. Vinegars, alcohol, stocks, fruit and vegetable juices are all important for deglazing hot woks and sautéed dishes as well as important ingredients to our sauces and marinades. Never underestimate the quality of a vinegar, it’s all a happiness.
Isabel Village Mayonnaise
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons Dukes mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Kuratsoy extra hot thin bbq vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1/6 teaspoon thyme
1/6 teaspoon basil
1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
Combine well and refrigerate. Tightly covered, this will keep for several weeks.
Bok Choi
3 bok choi, washed, thick slice
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Slice and toss with oil. Refrigerate until ready to eat.
Pickles
10 dill pickles, 5 cut in spears and 5 cut in thick oblong slices
¼ cup milk
¼ cup Greek yogurt (plain)
Combine milk and yogurt, stir and add pickles. Refrigerate for two hours.
1/3 teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground Indian chili or ground red chili pepper
1/3 cup unbleached white flour or brown rice flour
1 cup panko
Mix dry ingredients.
1 quart corn oil heated to 350 degrees

Remove pickles from marinade and drain. Put the dry ingredients in a plastic bag. Add the pickles to the bag. Shake. Take pickles out of bag, shake off excess starch and fry for 2 minutes. Using a spider or slotted spoon lift pickles out of oil and drain.
Scatter the bok choi over a serving platter, spoon Isabel Village Mayonnaise in the center of the plate and around the edges. Stack pickles on the bok choi. Garnish with chopped Chinese parsley/cilantro and very small amount of coarse sea salt and crushed dried pepper. Dried jalapeno is very good pepper choice for this dish. It can be found in the Latin section of the grocery store along with several other kinds of dried pepper. At one time or another, try them all, learn how each has an important flavor.
DAIKON PANCAKES WITH CHILI GARLIC SAUCE
This is comfort food at it’s finest. My favorite is Hong Kong style but there are Korean, Taiwanese, Beijing, Vietnamese and of course Japanese styles as well. Our chili garlic sauce is simply, Srirracha. Srirracha was made by a Vietnamese immigrant in Los Angeles back in the 1970s because he was trying to recall his grandmother’s home cooking. “Rooster sauce” became an international hit.
Daikon is a mild white radish. They look like huge white parsnips. They are good raw or cooked. Daikon is used a lot in sushi restaurants. It is great cold to mild weather food. One of my fondest food memories is that of eating radish cakes hot off the stove, it was snowing and we were in comfort food heaven inside looking out at late winter. Radish cakes are popular at dim sum restaurants.
1 ½ cups daikon, peeled and shredded
2 cups cold water
Soak in cold water 30 minutes. Drain.
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 clove garlic, crushed and minced
½ onion, minced
1 egg, beaten
½ cup panko
1 teaspoon Five Spice Powder
1 teaspoon paprika
4 ounces corn oil for frying

Combine. Add daikon to mix and mash it all together. Shape eight pancakes. Heat oil in large iron skillet and pan fry until crisp outside, hot inside. Serve with Srirracha and chopped cherries for a complete set of flavors. Srirracha is also good mixed with mayonnaise.
PANKO SALMON
Panko is the star today but with salmon season beginning it is a tough call as to what is our feature today. Pacific salmon are: Chinook, chum/keta, sockeye, coho/silver and pink. Stick to this set of salmon and you will never go wrong.. What does this mean? Buy Alaskan to Washington Pacific salmon in season, your body, taste buds and the fisheries will thank you. Do this, pretend that Atlantic Salmon has never been farmed in the Pacific Ocean. See how plentiful and untarnished the waters can be?
SALMON
2, 7 ounce salmon fillets, skin on (crispy skin is tasty!)
1 teaspoon pink sea salt
1 tablespoon sweet rice vinegar
Mix vinegar and salt. Rub on flesh and skin.
1 cup panko
Dredge flesh side of salmon in panko. Press it into the meat so it holds.
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon olive oil

Heat iron skillet with butter and oil. Put salmon in flesh side down. Cook three minutes. Use a fish spatula and turn. Cook two minutes and then finish in 450 degree oven for five minutes.
4 ounces Pearl River dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons date palm sugar or date molasses, or brown sugar/molasses
4 tablespoons fresh orange juice
Combine and heat over low heat until thickened. Stir as it cooks.

Set salmon on plate, drizzle sauce over salmon. Shredded carrots and zucchini, Indo-Asian pesto, and Japanese pasta is very good with salmon, and of course a side of wasabi is always welcome.
April is a big, breezy, blossoming, farmers market ready, food crazy, happy, pollinating month of rebirth and hope. Spread the love. There’s always love to spare.

For every passion
There is compassion,
With a prayer to peace,
To faith and hope,
This is our life alive
At the start of each day.
In each sunrise, sunset,
A thousand possibilities
Are cast into the world.
From the farmers we see
Heirloom seeds,
Heritage crops,
Climbing vines
Of wild sweet peas,
Peppers, peppers, peppers,
All fill the carts
Of our local markets.
And then,
Winds crash down
From the Nantahala range,
Carrying rain clouds
And the thrill
Of June tomatoes,
Silver Queen corn,
Buckets of squashes
And piles of potatoes,
This is Georgia
At the beginning of Spring,
When our hearts
Reach as high
As Jack’s beanstalk
And our spirit
Dares to touch
The heavens above.

October 14, 2010October 15, 2010

DIFFERENT HENS IN FAMILIAR PLACES

Chilly weather and the beautiful change of colors of North Georgia in November, the Georgia-Georgia Tech game, and of course, Thanksgiving. Just thinking about the season makes me hungry. It is a favorite for us all, and normally we gather with our extended families around the traditional 15-pound turkey and a dozen side dishes. But what if there is just the two of you, or a turkey isn’t what you want this time around, and you want to save the big bird for Christmas. Well, you have a few choices for your poultry needs and they are poulet rouge (from Plow Point Farms), duck, goose, chicken, turkey, pigeoneaux, dove, quail, pheasant, and Rock Cornish game hens. We will be preparing the game hen. The recipe will work just as well with any of the other birds, but there is something of a guilty pleasure in having a whole bird of your own on the plate. Choose your sides from whatever is looking the best in the produce section.
(If your mood is towards one whole bird to split for two then use a poulet rouge hen from Plow Point Farms in Oconee County. The BEST chickens I have ever eaten. )

Tyson Farms created the Rock Cornish game hens we normally see in the grocery store in the middle 1960’s. The original Cornish game hen is from the land of King Lear, Cornwall, England. They are quite affordable and just the thing if you want treat yourself to something special for dinner without the high cost, hours of basting, or endless leftovers hanging out in your refrigerator.
Poulet rouge, aka red hen of the piedmont and in our case, of Oconee county, Georgia. This breed of chicken is longer, meatier without being fatty but remaining juicy at any stage, be it fresh and roasted to 165 degrees internal temperature on the thigh bone, or as leftovers. The flavor is very smooth, texture is meaty yet juicy. I am amazed by this perfect chicken in any preparation. I have mostly approached it with the cuisine of my past, Haute Cuisine, French Continental and whether stuffed under the skin with herb butter or chevre and roasted; boned and folded around shiitake mushrooms, garlic and feta cheese; buttermilk marinade and Southern fried; cut into six pieces and roasted with a light golden stock; Thanksgiving style roasted whole with carrots, turnips, small onions, garlic and red potatoes, it does not matter because any way it is prepared it is the best chicken you will ever eat. Cornish game hens and poulet rouge are definitely my two go-to birds when I have a need for chicken…and that’s a lot!
You will find adobo seasoning in the Mexican section at your grocery store. Cardamom is usually used in sweet pastries, but in this case it is a great compliment in bringing together the spice of the adobo and the deep flavors of black strap molasses. If you can find it, black cardamom adds a very unique Indian flavor to your dish. What you end up with is a combination of bright and deep flavors, with each taste complimenting the other.
(Please try out all of the choices that we have for sweet flavors, from granulated white sugar to the different honeys, molasses, palm sugar, turbinado, maple syrups, and grades of sugar, including slices of raw sugar cane. Although most sugars are not considered healthy, black strap molasses is truly good for you as it is converted into energy and is not stored as fat in your body. Take a cup of wild flower honey and add orange, lemon and lime skins (no white), 1 stick of cinnamon and one piece star anise. Mix and cover. Store in cabinet for three days. Honey syrup to live for!)

ADOBO AND PLUM GAME HENS
2 1 1/4 pound each, Cornish game hens
Thaw them out in your refrigerator. This will take a day or two, but don’t rush it. Remove neck and giblets from cavity. Rinse in cold water. Pat dry with paper towel.
COMBINE
2 tablespoons Adobo seasoning
1 tablespoon ground cardamom
1/3 cup Molasses
1/4 cup Light soy sauce
Rub the season mix half of it over the skin and inside the cavity of the hens. Refrigerate overnight. Save the rest of the seasoning for when you cook them.
STUFFING
2 stalks celery, diced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
8 purple plums, peel and remove the stones
2 teabags Darjeeling tea, remove tea from bags
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup warm water to bind the stuffing
(If you cannot find fresh plums, don’t be ashamed to use canned or dried. It’s ok to substitute with nectarines, apricots, lychee, rambutan, jackfruit, peaches or even apples and pears.)

Mix the stuffing in a small bowl. Now fill the cavity of each hen with the stuffing mix. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Rub the rest of the seasoning on the hens. Roast in small roasting pan for one hour.
There are two ways to check for doneness. The first is with your trusty thermometer, which will register 180 degrees, the second is to insert the tip of a boning knife into the section between the thigh and breast, the juices of the bird will run clear. If the liquid is cloudy then it is not done. Do both and you will see how it works. The skin is going to be dark, so don’t think that you have burned your dinner, remember, we seasoned with molasses and soy. Let the birds rest for 10 minutes after you take them out of the oven before you have your dinner. This allows the juices to settle and the meat to tighten back up after the cooking. They will slice easier, and will taste better if you allow this resting time.
CORNISH HEN MOLE (pronounced MO-Lay)
A mole is a very popular central Mexico and Central American dish and style of cooking. It involves a clay pot. That’s easy. Then it uses chocolate, chilies, aromatic spices, tomato, herbs, nuts, garlic and dried apricots or other dried fruits to balance the heat. Mole is one of the more complicated sauces/dishes to prepare and requires a bold hand with the seasonings and a gentle method of cooking. Think of it in terms of Thai curries, Vietnamese soups, French cassoulet, or Spanish paella and you’ll get an idea of how serious this dish is to the Oaxacan cooks of central Mexican. As you may have noticed, chocolate is not just a dessert or drink; chocolate can be used throughout a meal as a garnish and central ingredient to every course. Chocolate is bitter, sweet, dry, moist, bittersweet and even hot, but never white, as white chocolate has no chocolate and is made with coconut and palm sugars.
We are using Cornish hen because it is small, tasty, and tender, doesn’t take forever to cook, will fill up with the mole flavors and not fill you up. And because I think that Cornish game hens taste great and are an easy small entrée for two to share in a meal of several courses.
Toast the nuts/seeds with the spices before adding to the mix. Do this in a pan in a 475~ oven for ten minutes. Do not be afraid of the list of ingredients. You can use garam masala as your base and go from there if you like, or buy a premade mole as your base and season from that as a starting point.
MOLE
¼ cup duck fat or olive oil
1-tablespoon chipotle, chopped
2 tablespoons poblano, diced
2 tablespoons onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup tomato, chopped, seeded
1/3 cup dried cherries, chopped
1/3-cup mixed peanuts and cashews, toasted
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
½ teaspoon cloves, toasted
½ teaspoon cinnamon, toasted
½ teaspoon ginger, toasted
1-teaspoon allspice, toasted
2 tablespoons dried Oregano
1/3 cup fresh Cilantro, chopped
¼ cup fresh Parsley, chopped
1 cup unsweetened Chocolate
½ cup chicken stock
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon sea salt

The mole takes one hour of cooking on the stove for the sauce to reach the correct flavor and consistency.
I prefer a large iron skillet to cook this part of the dish. If you do not have one then use a stainless steel thick, large high sided pan, not a soup pot. Use a large wooden spoon for the stirring. Heat the duck fat, lard or oil on medium high heat in the pan, and add the peppers and onions. Cook until they are soft. Add the garlic and tomato and cook on medium low heat for fifteen minutes. Add the toasted nuts and herbs and stir. Add the fresh herbs, stir. Cook for fifteen minutes. Add the chocolate and stir, turn up the heat to medium and keep stirring for five minutes. Add chicken stock and Worcestershire, stir and turn heat to low. Let simmer uncovered on low for about fifteen more minutes. You will need to stir it from time to time to keep it from splattering or sticking to the pan. It will be thick but still liquid. If it is too thick then add more chicken stock.
Remove from heat and let cool. Overnight is fine or you can mix it with the hen and immediately cook in the oven.
HENS
The mole is enough for two hens. Thoroughly wash the hens in cold water and pat dry with paper towel. Did you remove the giblet bag from inside the cavity? Cut the bird into six pieces.
Put the pieces into a large bowl and mix with the mole. Put in heavy duty roasting pan or clay pot. Preheat oven to 375~ and cook for one hour.
You can also add the cut up hens to the mole sauce as it cooks and simmer it this way for thirty minutes right in the sauce and it will be very tender and spicy. It’s just that the way in the pan requires constant attention and in the oven you can just let the oven do the work while you enjoy the other courses of your fine Valentine’s dinner.
Divide between two plates. Squeeze a half lime over the dishes to add an extra lift to the flavors. A good side would be quinoa or wild rice. Divide an apple, Asian pear or a bunch of grapes to share with this as well. Fruit and Chocolate
POULET ROUGE TRADITIONAL
If you are feeling more traditionally inclined and want to make your hens taste like the bird of the last 25 years then but better:
SPICE RUB
2 ounces butter
½ teaspoon dried thyme
4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon poultry seasoning (ground sage and bay leaves)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Crush ingredients in your spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle. Rub under the skin.

STUFFING
1 stalk celery, fine dice
½ medium white onion, fine dice
2 cups coarse Italian bread crumbs
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
1//4 cup dried cranberries
1 teaspoon coarse salt
½ teaspoon coarse black pepper
2 egg yolks
Combine and divide, stuff into the cavity of the bird.
ROASTING
6 small red potatoes
1 large turnip, rough chopped
2 cups acorn squash, peeled, seeded and rough chopped
1 leek, washed and diced up to the light green stalk
4 cippolinni onions, peeled and stems removed
2 stalks celery, diced
1 cup very rich chicken stock

Roast 45 minutes at 425 degrees. Baste every 15 minutes. Turn the oven to 350 degrees and cook for 30 minutes. It really is that easy.
Collards and field peas go great with this way of cooking the poulet rouge.

THANKSGIVING
Early evening opening into a November sky

Of fog brightened stars and shadowed trees,

Wicker chairs creaking as we lean back and yawn,

Sharing sweet warm tea and Anjou pears.

Coltrane’s Meditation on the stereo,

It flows and rises.

Dark eyes, brown and gold, sea deep,

Mahogany-black hair, thin strands

Moving along with the autumn song

Of the wind and the birds in our garden.

It’s so peaceful here, after dinner,

Relaxed and easy, where this is the wish:

The working world slips away and it’s just us,

Here on the back porch, feeling the night,

Feeling it all wrap around us

So vibrant and crisp,

Alive with thanksgiving,

With each other.

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