Red Wine Sauce

So I am back on the cooking from every cookbook in alphabetical order thing. Today we have American Cooks: The General Federation of Women's Clubs Cook Book, edited by Ann Seranne, published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, copyright 1967, sixth impression.

I feel like this book was loved... just not so much by me.

This was one hundred and one percent a swing and a miss. 

I want to apologize to Mrs. Franklin Ussery, Jr. of Alice, Texas. I did not do your recipe justice. Revert my awful, awful wine substitution if you are curious but please for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster do NOT repeat what I did.

My shame incarnate.

Resources:

Original 1/3 cup butter 1/4 cup grated onion 1/3 cup presifted flour 1 1/2 cup dry red wine 1/2 cup catsup 1/2 cup beef broth 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper Dash of garlic salt 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 tablespoon prepared mustard Dash of ground cloves

So Very Wrong 3 tablespoons butter ???* dried minced onion 2 2/3 tablespoons all purpose flour 3/4 cup Chianti red wine vinegar 1/4 cup ketchup 1/4 cup beef broth 1/4 teaspoon salt Dash teaspoon pepper Dash of garlic salt 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar 1/2 tablespoon mustard

Method:
Melt butter in a saucepan. Sauté onions until golden. Sprinkle with flour. Gradually stir in wine. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened and smooth.

Stir in remaining ingredients. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Commentary:
This strictly speaking is an alphabetical cheat. In between deciding to start this up again (ie pulling out the next cookbook and pouring over it) and this post, I was gifted a collection of cookbooks. Thank you to the fine folks who make that happen by the way. So I should be cooking from 30 Minute Kosher, but America Cooks has plagued me. 

Why you ask? Well, it is a very complete cookbook with lots of reference materials, basic methods, cross references, variations, and so much more. But something about this one just did not speak to me. It is a huge book and I generally skipped the pork/beef to keep the wifey happy... and found nothing I wanted to make for dinner. 

Aside: this is a common problem. I find many older cook books to have a craptastic poultry section unless you are cooking a whole bird. 

So I went to the sauces and just made something for which I "had" the ingredients.

And let us just be honest here. The fuck up has nothing to do with Mrs. Franklin Ussery, Jr or the rest of the kind, wonderful women of The General Federation of Women's Clubs. Oh no. I own this mistake. Take a look at the chapter listing: 

1. Appetizers
2. Hearty Sandwiches
3. Quick Breads
4. Yeast Breads
5. Soups
6. Egg and Egg Dishes
7. Cheese and Cheese Dishes
8. Fish, Shellfish and Other Foods Prepared Like Fish
9. Poultry and Game Birds
10. Meat
11. Vegetables
12. Sauces for Fish, Poultry, Meat and Vegetables
13. Stuffings and Garnishes for Fish, Poultry, Meat and Vegetables
14. Dumplings and Other Starch Substitutions
15. Rice and Rice Dishes
16. Pasta Dishes and Sauces for Pasta
17. Salad and Salad Dressings
18. Pies and Pastries
19. Cakes
20. Frostings and Fillings
21. Cookies
22. Desserts
23. Dessert Sauces
24. Candy
25. Preserves
26. Beverages

There are four or five rarebit recipes. Hell, there is a frostings chapter. FROSTING!!! So this falls into the same category as Santa's Whiskers: I should probably revisit this cookbook someday. But seriously why did I make this unholy abomination you ask?

Can I interest you in a side of jellied vinegar and hatred with your nuggets?

Because I have been on a sauce kick. I eat chicken nuggets a lot. They are quick, easy, and (assuming you buy the right ones) reasonably healthy. But there is only so much barbecue or honey mustard one can eat. So I like to mix up my dipping sauces. Lately it has been brown sauce and I thought this might be my "next" thing. I was wrong. So very foolish and wrong.

This smelled delicious. It was such a promising start.

Now that I have gone on at length about nothing important, let us actually talk cooking. I substituted red wine vinegar and dried minced onions (the kind you find in the spice aisle) for red wine and grated onions. Also I did not have any ground clove, so gone. I do not think the dried minced onions was a bad substitution. * - I adjusted the quantity according to the side of the minced onions bottle. I forgot to write it down hence the unknown quantity in the recipe. Anyway they cooked quite nicely. This smelled wonderful... until I added the vinegar. 

Once I added the vinegar this stung the nose. I love vinegar but I have my limits. This tastes like vinegar with a faint hint of beef and onions. 

And the real kicker? Practically speaking, it is garbage for dipping. Way too thick. 

Pretty sure if I pulled this out of the fridge, nothing would have moved days later.

In hopes of saving some face I slathered it all over some chicken thighs, let set in the fridge for an hour or two, and baked. This was not horrible, but just kind of bland ironically. Not much came though.

How the fuck do you have an 1/8 teaspoons?!?

Also as might be obvious, I halved the original. Not because I meant to, but I only had that much ingredients. Sigh. Let us face it, I was bound and determined to get this cookbook off my list and that was all that mattered.

Conclusion:
I want to apologize to anyone who took the time to read this entire rant. 

There are too many recipes and cookbooks I want to try. I will almost certainly never revisit this and give it a fair chance. Sorry again Mrs. Franklin Ussery, Jr. of Alice Texas!

Wine Bread

I like wine. I really like bread. Wine bread? Sign me up!

Carbs, cutlery, and Cabernet

Sorry for the long absence (again). Doing the whole baby thing again. So I am back to changing diapers and making bottles instead of cooking fun things. But baby #2 is a few months old and getting a handle on life, so I had a bit of free time the other weekend.

Aside: I do not remember how I stumbled across this recipe (baby brain and all), but due diligence makes me post the source.

Resources:
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh yeast or 1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water
1/4 cup Cabernet, slightly warmed
1 tablespoon olive oil

Method:
Lightly mix together flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, rosemary, and pepper in a large bowl. Dissolve yeast in warm wine, add water to wine and mix all of the liquid into the dry ingredients until incorporated. Do not overmix. Cover the bowl with a towel and put it in a warm place to rise for sixteen hours.

After sixteen hours, fold the dough into itself so the top is tucked in the center and the bottom is now on the top. Place it back in the bowl, cover it, and let rise for 2 hours. When you have 30 minutes left of rise time, place a dutch oven in the oven at 450 degrees. Let it heat up for 30 minutes. Once heated, remove pot from oven, pour in olive oil and swirl to coat. Place the bread into the pot, top with remaining 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, cover, and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, uncover and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, or until the bread has a golden crust.

Commentary:
Homemade bread: to me it is always way too much time to benefit ratio. The grocery has amazing fresh bread. There are bakers and farmer’s markets a plenty with amazing fresh bread. So why did I make this? A couple reasons: 1) this is really super easy (see baby discussion above), 2) the flavor combination looked unique/interesting, and 3) it left me 92% of a bottle of wine to drink. Also since is a lot effort recipe, you are getting a low effort post by the way.

So kind of cool experience with this whole deal, I had only ever used dry active yeast previously. I could not find that in the store and bought fresh yeast. Luckily I did a quick Google and discovered it is a two to one ratio.

Sixteen hours is a really shitty time frame to work with. Sixteen hours after noon? Four AM. Fuck that noise. Schedule according. That said I ended it putting this in the oven closer to nineteen hours later, not eightteen hours. No regrets. 

Conclusion:
Tasty bread and an excuse to buy wine?!? Yes please! Just pull up your schedule before beginning.

Beef Stew

I have skipped ahead several cookbooks to Cooking with Wine for today's entry. I know, I know I said I would not do that, but this was for the greater good of mankind!

Mmm. Tasty greater good.

Daycare does a meal train for people in need. One of the families in our classroom just had a kid and asked for stews. I could literally could not say no! Ok... not literally or even figuratively really, but I like beef stew. I went through a dozen or so cookbooks before I found the right recipe. So without further ado Mother's Old Fashioned Beef Stew or simply beef stew.

Resourses:

3 tablespoons flour
Salt / pepper to taste
3 lbs beef cut into 1 1/2" cubes
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 tablespoons beef fat
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 1/2 onion (I used Vidalia), sliced
1 1/2 teaspoon marjoram, powdered
2 bay leaves
3 cups beef stock
2 1/4 red wine (I used a cheap Cabernet Sauvignon)
6 turnips, 3/4" cubed
9 carrots, ~1/2" sliced
6 potatoes, 3/4" cubed (I used larger baking potatoes)
1 1/2 fresh flat parsley, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon thyme (pretty sure I forgot this)
18 small white onions (I wanted pearl but couldn't find them), peeled

Method:
Put flour in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Mix. A few at a time drag the beef cubes through and coat on all sides. Refill as necessary.

Heat butter and fat in a stock pot. A few at a time brown beef cubes on all sides. When browned move to a plate or bowl to capture the juices. Add butter/fat as needed. Deglaze the pot with the wine, scrapping up all the bits. Add remaining wine, garlic, sliced onions, parsley, beef cubes, parsley, marjoram, bay leaves, and stock. Simmer for one and a half hours.

Add carrots, potatoes, small white onions, and turnips. Continue to simmer until the vegetables are tender, about two hours. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Commentary:
So I have moderately modified this recipe. The original was more or less 2/3rds the above, but I tweaked a few numbers.

One I did not modify was the extra large bottle of cheap wine.

I did not limit the excessive amount of meat either. 

This is from a Holland House cookbook. For those unfamiliar Holland House makes those cheap salted cooking wines available at the grocery. They're my go to sherry and Marsala. That said, I wanted to go with drinking wine not cooking wine (so I could drink it, duh). As a result I was pretty generous with the salt to taste part.

This is basically a commercial in book form.

Before I really got into making the recipe, I trimmed the fat and rendered it to get the fat needed.

I am just being practical.

Conclusion:
Next time a family in need needs stew count me in for this one!

Broiled Tarragon Chicken with White Wine

2017-08-29 Edit: I made this with cooking wine and marinated overnight. Do not try this method.

So I have a completely unrealistic goal! Want to hear? Sure you do! If you are actually reading this that is and not just skipping straight to the recipe below that is. I am going to attempt to blog something from every single cookbook I own.

Step One of Fifty-Five and Counting

I estimate that given my blogging output and the age of my child, this will take my approximately ten years! It is good to have goals right? So today we start with the first cookbook on my shelf alphabetically: 365 Easy Low Calorie Recipes. Why alphabetically? Because otherwise I will cherry pick and stop this process long before I am done.

So I bought this cookbook at a Half Priced Books clearance event at the local conventions center about three years ago. I am fairly confident it has only collected dust since then! Flipping through it, it seems to be a pretty standard "diet" cookbook: low calorie meals, low calorie alternatives, low calorie variations on classics, super basic recipes. Let us take a shot at that last one.

Resources:
2 tablespoons dry white wine (I used a pinot grigio)
1 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
3/8 teaspoons tarragon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 large boneless skinless chicken breast slice thick-wise

Method:
In a medium bowl combine everything but the chicken. Mix well. Coat chicken and let marinate one hour at room temperature.

Set oven rack about six inches from broiler. Preheat broiler. 

Broil chicken (in a broiler safe tray or pan, duh) about six minutes each side or until cooked through. 

Commentary:
I almost made the low calorie Hollandaise sauce. Then I thought to myself, I cannot think of the last time I made a Hollandaise sauce. I feel like I must have at some point right? I mean it is a classic. Hell, Wikipedia says the following: Hollandaise is one of the five sauces in the French haute cuisine mother sauce repertoire. Surely I have made it at some point right? Right... So I couldn't bring myself to go there. Luckily a bottle of wine and this was otherwise stocked in the house.

Oh and in case it is not obvious by the "eighths" ingredients, I halved the original. Also it was implied that they were using bone-in breast, so I cut the cooking times appropriately.

Aside: I think I really like tarragon. 

Anyway, two tablespoons of wine is a nice excuse to buy a bottle of Pinot right? I will be trying this one again with a bottle of "cooking white wine" and without the salt. I will also try leaving it in the fridge over night. Because if it is nearly as good that way, this might get regular rotation in the house. Preheat and twelve minutes cooking? Yeah: fingers crossed. 

One for the chicken... twenty five for me!

Conclusion:
Oh my! Oh goodness! I need more of this in my life!!! YES, yes please.

Or should I say: I liked it.

Pressure Cooker Sauerbraten

Protein! Carbs! Gravy! MAN FOOD! Plus: cookies. Everyone likes cookies.

A little before Christmas I bought myself a fancy dancy electric pressure cooker. It was one of those crazy deep sales they always have that time of year. I really didn't have a rhythm or reason to this. That said, it should not come as a surprise to say I like kitchen toys.

Meat is a good excuse though.

I made a recipe (lemon barbecued chicken) I have made a fair number of times and just seemed like a good match. Really it was fine. But it did not seem like I was getting anything out of the pressure cooker as the chicken was just about the same as when I make it in the oven. I guess it cooked a little faster, but not enough to justify a new toy.

So I bought Pressure Cookers For Dummies. I found a used copy for a couple of bucks shipped. It talks a little about pressure cookers in general, which is nice. It touted its sauerbraten as one of the most impressive things to make in a pressure cooker as it reduced time from one thousand eight hundred minutes to eighty (this is way more impressive in minutes). Well that sounded damn impressive and I just so happened to have a shoulder pot roast sitting in the freezer I had no plans for.

Included because I thought this picture was pretty. 

Resources:

Wine. Wine is priority #1. Cookie crumbs are a close second.

1 cup water
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 dry red wine (I used a cabernet sauvignon that I had on hand)
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons salt
salt and pepper
4 lb beef roast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large carrots, coarsely chopped
2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
3/4 cups crushed gingersnaps
2 bay leaves
cornstarch (optional)
egg noodles (cooked at some point)

Method:
Combine the water, vinegar, wine, brown sugar, clovers, and 2 teaspoons salt. Set aside.

Generously salt and pepper the meat.

Heat the oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Brown the meat evenly on all sides.

Add the meat, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, crushed gingersnaps, and bay leaves to the slow cooker. Pour the mixture from step 1 over the meat. Stir to combine. Cover and bring to high pressure. Cook for 60 minutes.

Release the pressure, quick-release method (mind your fingers as to avoid scalding). Open and remove the cover.

Remove the meat to a serving platter and cover with foil. Discard the bay leaves.

Pour the cooking liquid into a food processor and process until smooth. Season to taste. Whisk in cornstarch and reduce to thicken as desired in a pan over medium-high heat.

Slice the meat thinly. Serve over the meat and gravy over egg noodles.

Commentary:
I halved the above recipe because my roast was closer to two pounds than four.

Baby food and croutons are optional.

As noted, I thickened the gravy by adding cornstarch and reducing it on the stove top just a little. This is a deviation from the original recipe. Honestly, one of the big take aways for me with the pressure cooker in general is thickening sauces. Since you need large amounts of liquid for the pressure cooker to work, the final results are, well, liquidy. I have added cornstarch and reduced almost every sauce that has come out the thing since. If you have a stove top one you can do that directly. I have the electric / stand alone kind, so I have to transfer the sauce to a pan and then reduce. Not a big deal... the wifey (who I am giving one more pot to wash) may disagree.

Aside: it is kind of neat to have a sauce where you have "liquefied" onions and carrots. Is it not?

Pro tip: crush way more cookies than you need. Then you can get the leftovers by the spoonful. Mmm cookie crumbs.

Conclusion:
The grocer has roasts on sale pretty frequently (in fact I made one last night and I have one more in my freezer). This will undoubtedly be made again.

Alsatian-Brined Turkey with Riesling Gravy

Mmm. Bird

Mmm. LOTS of bird.

  
Story time! 

Back in the fall of 2004, I was straight out of college. My undergraduate fraternity was doing a magazine fund raiser. While I was tempted to point out that what a horrible fundraiser it was (which I assumed was a lesson we all learned back in the sixth grade), I bought a couple magazines to be supportive instead. Because I am a nice guy like or I felt horribly obligated. One of the two.

Having subscribed ever since, Food & Wine has been a huge part of culinary growth and this was in one of the first issues I received. I find the magazine strikes an excellent balance in my opinion. There are interesting and challenging recipes like today's. That said, most of the time I get most or all of the ingredients at the larger chain groceries and I do not need to special kitchen utensils. 

If I had a point (which I am pretty sure I do not), it is this is a damn fine bird. Damn fine.

Honest doc, I will start that low sodium business... after Thanksgiving.

Resources:
5 quarts plus more cold water

1 1/4  cup Kosher salt (plus more for seasoning)

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup yellow mustard seeds

1/4 cup dried chopped onion

2 tablespoons caraway seeds (in two spice bags)

2 tablespoons black peppercorns,lightly crushed

2 tablespoons juniper berries, lightly crushed

6 bay leaves

(1) 18-pound turkey (less neck and giblets)

2 1/2 cups (2) bottles Riesling

1 large onion, quartered

1 head garlic, cloves separated but not peeled

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth (or if you are motivated make your own turkey stock)

Pepper 

Method:
About one week before turkey day, begin thawing the turkey in the fridge (see Butterball's thawing calculator, but keep in mind you need extra thawed days for brining).

About three days before turkey day, in a large pot, bring 4 cups of the water to a boil. Bag the caraway seeds half each in two spice bags (bagging is optional, ie you can just throw them in if you like). Add 1 1/4 cups of kosher salt, the sugar, mustard seeds, dried onion, the bagged caraway seeds, peppercorns, juniper berries and bay leaves. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar completely. Remove the pot from the heat. 

Line a large stockpot or bucket with 2 very large, sturdy plastic bags (make sure they are unscented trash bags). Put the turkey into the bags, neck first. Pour the warm brine over the turkey. Add 1 1/2 cups of the Riesling and 4 quarts of the cold water. Seal the bags; press out as much air as possible. Refrigerate.

On turkey day, preheat the oven to 350°. Drain the turkey, scraping off the spices, then transfer it to a large roasting pan and let it return to room temperature. Discard the brine. 

Add the quartered onion, the garlic and 1 cup of the water to the pan and roast the turkey for 1 1/2 hours. Add water has necessary to keep the base of the pan moist (eventually the fat will do that for you). Roast for about 1 1/2 hours longer, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into an inner thigh registers 165°. Cover the breast loosely with foil during the last hour of roasting to prevent it from browning too quickly. 

Transfer the turkey to a cutting board. Strain the pan juices into a measuring cup and skim off the fat; reserve 3 tablespoons of the fat. In a bowl, mix the reserved fat with the flour until a paste forms. 

Set the roasting pan over 2 burners and heat until sizzling. Add the remaining 1 cup of Riesling and bring to a simmer over moderately high heat, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom and sides of the pan. Strain the wine into a medium saucepan and boil until reduced to 1/4 cup, about 5 minutes. Add the stock and the reserved pan juices and bring to a boil. Whisk in the flour paste and simmer over moderate heat until the gravy thickens slightly and no floury taste remains, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Carve the turkey and serve with the Riesling gravy on the side.

Commentary: 

This is no small amount of effort. That said while it is a lot of work, it is not hard work (well except maybe carving the bird). This does not require any special skills or tools (unless you count roast pans and buckets). Anybody can do this bird. Just take your time and double check things as you go.

No small amount of space either.

Come to think of it, it is not small amount of anything really.

Make sure you have unscented trash bags or you will be a last minute grocery run like me.

I decided Lysol was not the turkey flavor I was going for.

Speaking of effort, do not get lazy on the "scraping off the spice" part. This is a lot of effort, but it is worth the effort to not bite into these spices later.

Beautiful bald birdy.

The gravy is the best part of this meal. Do not skip it (as I have foolishly done). Serve with mashed potatoes (duh, gravy), on the turkey, on sandwiches of left over turkey, snort it, hell bathe in the damn stuff. Just do NOT skip it. It is simply my favorite part of this meal.

Juniper berries are the only ingredient you cannot get at the grocery store (well at least before I moved to the Puritanical hell that is Pennsylvania, where they only sell wine and unionized, government run stores). Amazon has them, as does Penzeys.

This part stinks by the way. As in it actually smells bad. Windows are your friend.

Conclusion:
Absolutely to die for. Simply amazing. Skip the boring turkey, do not bother to fry your turkey, and brine that SOB!

Baked Apple Butter Brown Sugar Chicken

Let us just get this out of the way: I ROYALLY fucked this up. Forgive the language, but sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. Next time, I will possibly follow the original recipe or remake as I have below. However you, my loyal viewing audience, get what I actually made. Why? Something about honesty or integrity or some other BS like that. Plus the original recipe does not match my pictures.

Not a chicken wing.

Also I just want to point out, I keep my promises. I said I would revisit apple butter after the last recipe was just ok. More integrity! I am an integrity MACHINE!

Resources:
2-3 pounds chicken breasts cut into 3-4” long, 1-2” wide pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (canola)
2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 cup apple butter
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoon Sriracha, or more (much more) to taste, divided

Method:
Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a baking dish with foil.

In a medium bowl, mix everything besides the sour cream and half the Sriracha (ie 1 tablespoon DOES get mixed in). Stab the chicken with a fork repeatedly until well punctured and the everything is well mixed.

Place chicken onto prepared baking dish and baste with remaining sauce. Place into oven and bake for 25 minutes, using tongs to turn halfway and basting with apple butter glaze on other side of wings.

To make the dipping sauce, whisk together sour cream and Sriracha to taste.

Upon removing from oven, drizzle sour cream sauce over the chicken and serve.

Commentary:
Ok so this is a Frankenstein monster here. I substituted breast meat for wings. That part was planned. But this recipe was originally a three part sauce: one to mix the chicken in, one to baste, and the sour cream drizzle at the end. Because I cannot follow basic instructions, the chicken sauce and the baste became one. You know what, I was having a good day, I did not let my screw up ruin it. Do not judge me!

This helped.

An additional screw up occurred when I decided to wash the bowl with the remaining sauce before I basted for a second time at the half mark. I am unsure of how much wine I had drank at that point, but we will blame it on the wine.

In regards to the sour cream, I kept adding Sriracha until it tasted good. If I had to guess I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 tablespoons. One was just was not enough! Very little heat comes through in the chicken itself. This is the place you want to control the heat.

As an aside, hopefully when you copy and paste my recipes you will not get this crap.

I am unsure how to add nicotine to the recipe.

Conclusion:
FABULOUS! I ate the sauce with a spoon after I was done. Seriously, and I say that without shame.

Note the cleanliness of the spoon. I did not even stop at this point. I ate half of what you see here.

Spicy Almond-Crusted Chicken with Honey Butter Sauce

Warning: nuts contains nuts.

Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer. So now that I have that out of my system, I think Stone Brewery is one of the most influential breweries out there. At least they are to me personally. Like most my age, college was cheap yellow fizzy. After a Coors Brewery tour, I drank Blue Moon when I could get my hands on it, but that was about it. The first year after college my buddy Trevor introduced me to Stone's Imperial Russian Stout. The flood gates were opened. My mind was blown. It looked like motor oil. It tasted nothing like Guinness, a beer I never loved and my only point of reference for stouts. Fast forward quite a few years and I am a loyal Stone customer. So when I had a chance to see Greg Koch (CEO & Co-Founder) speak, I was in like Flint. He was selling the book that today's recipe comes from The Craft of Stone Brewing Co. I am a little ashamed to admit even though this was a couple years ago, I have never made anything from it... until now!

Disclaimer: I never drink Stone's Imperial Russian Stout if it is less than six months old. Yes aging beer is a thing and yes it matters. This may sound weird to you non-beer nerds, but trust me. If you are going to drink it, age it first or buy last year's release.

Knowing people is not always a good thing.

Interestingly enough this recipe does use alcohol but not Stone beer. The recipe recommends pairing it with their Cali-Belgique IPA, which I did, but the alcohol used is a dry white wine. I love dry white wine shallot sauces, so I was all about this guy.

Picture is a bit blurry but by the end of the night so was I.

Beer, wine, shallots? Ok I am drooling, let's get to it.

Spicy Almond-Crusted Chicken
Resources:
1 1/4 cups blanched slivered almonds, separated
1 cup panko
1 Serrano pepper, seeded and minced
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large chicken breasts slice thicknesswise
lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
honey butter sauce (recipe to follow)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Spread 1/4 cup of the almonds in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast for 4 minutes, stir, and turn them over. Continue roasting until golden about 4-5 additional minutes. Reduce the oven to 350°F and set aside the almonds to cool.

Put the remaining 1 cup of almonds in a food processor, along with the panko, Serrano, crushed red pepper, flour, and salt. Pulse until the mixture is finely ground.

Coat the chicken breasts with the mixture and lightly sprinkle with lime juice.

Heat the oil in an ovenproof pan or skillet over high heat. Sear the chicken until browned and crispy: 1-2 minutes per side. Set the pan in the oven and bake until cooked through (15-20 minutes for me, but this is all about the girth of your meat). Serve immediately with honey butter sauce and topped with the roasted almonds.

Honey Butter Sauce - Be sure to read the commentary before attempting
Resources:
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon cracked black peppercorns
1 teaspoon minced shallot
1 small bay leaf
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons honey
1/2 cup very cold unsalted butter, cubed

Method:
Combine the wine, vinegar, peppercorns, shallots, and bay leaf in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Once the mixture is simmering, adjust the heat to maintain a brisk simmer and cook until the liquid is mostly evaporated, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the cream and honey and continue simmering until the volume is reduced by half, 3 to 5 minutes. (This portion of the sauce can be made up to 1 hour before serving. Simply return to simmer when you are ready to proceed with the recipe.)

Turn the heat down to low. Remove the pan from the heat and add a few cubes of butter, whisking constantly until the butter has been completely incorporated. Return the pan to the heat, and add several more cubes of butter, again whisking constantly until the butter completely incorporated. Continue to add the butter, a few cubes at a time, alternating with the pan on and off the heat and whisking with each addition, until all of the butter is incorporated (see comments).

Stain the sauce though a fine-mesh and serve hot.

Commentary: 
Growing up in the Midwest, seafood was never my thing. In all fairness, my exposure as a kid was Red Lobster and McDonald's Filet-O-Fish. As an aside, the wifey has no excuse since she grew up kosher in Boston, but oddly she dislikes seafood even more than me. So while as an adult I have come to realize seafood can be quite enjoyable, I never make it at home. I mean literally never. So when I read a recipe that says tilapia, my mind reads it as chicken. Today's recipe is supposed to be tilapia. You make it how you want and I will do the same. :P

This is a pretty involved recipe, so read it through once or twice and leave plenty of time.

This was just the prep work folks. Get ready for a long, sweaty day in this kitchen with this one.

I used a pinot grigio I had lying around for my dry white wine.

As far as the beer pairing: thumbs down. Like a good little beer hipster I love IPAs. No wait, IPAs are so last year! Gawd... Anyway, I just do not think they pair with food well. The bitterness is too much. I like my IPAs as a stand along thing. Cali-Bel is a good one too.

I am an engineer by training. I think of things logically. I want nuts, I got to the nut section. I looked at the wasabi almonds, the caramel almonds, the salt & vinegar almonds, etc and got mad. There were not any blanched almond slivers. So I bought plain almonds thinking I would make due. Two hours later I go back to the store because I remembered they are in the baking section NOT the nut section. Do not be me.

Toasted nuts shown with untoasted for reference.
Also I hate my local grocery store!

I cracked my peppercorns lightly with a spoon. 

With the Pyrex and the spoon I feel like this belongs in a anti-drugs commercial.
Drugs are bad, m'kay? Don't do drugs, m'kay?

The wifey hates spicy. I love spicy. I also love the wifey, so I try to make her happy. Yet I still want spicy food. What is a guy to do? One thing I loved about this recipe was how easy it was to make in spicy and non-spicy batches. I ran the breading through the food processor without the red pepper and Serrano. Before breading the chicken, I split the breading into two batches and ran half though the food processor again, this time with spicy ingredients. I was being overly paranoid thinking this was going to be pretty spicy (spoiler: it is not) so I pan fried and baked separately.

Love is separated chicken.

So I obviously did not put my skillet in the oven. I just transferred the chicken to some Pyrex before baking.

BTW my browser is capitalizing Serrano, not me. I am just too lazy to change it. I am pretty sure it should not be. Also I am too lazy to look that up though.

This sauce has a tendency to separate. So keeping the heat on low and adding the butter slowly is key. The cookbook has a two paragraph disclaimer that basically boils down to: use very cold butter and occasionally remove the pan from the heat as the butter melts.

This is the "This portion of the sauce can be made..." break.

Butter! More butter!
I do not want to be able to see my toes by the time I am done with dinner!

ALL the butter! Muhahaha!

Conclusion:
This is a tough one. I do not think I would make it again. The good: the breading was light and fluffy as panko tends to be. It had a wonderfully mild almond flavor (although the toasted bits were a bit much). The butter sauce had just the right amount of honey flavor and was the highlight of the dish. The bad: all combined it was just ok. It was a lot of effort and little reward. The spice level was very low on the spicy batch as previously noted, which made me a sad panda. Also this obviously lost something on the conversion to chicken. I think it needed more salt because chicken.

tldr version: it was good, but not worth the effort.