Older Bolder Life

Stronger | Leaner | Sharper | Longer - From Older Bolder Fitness

sauces

Sauce Monday: Our House Pesto (with a Roasted Twist)

By

At the risk of posting one of those recipes that just about every curious home cook already has in their repertoire, and probably a family favorite at that, I’ve had several requests of late for an easy, quick, damned tasty, and storable pesto recipe.

There are a ton of great pesto variations and recipes floating around out there, and we tend to lean on a fairly classic approach using really good ingredients – particularly the freshest basil you can get your hands on and a great parmesan cheese.

Several talented mentors in the kitchen, including our compadre Chef Libby in Austin, have taught us over the years that you can up your pesto game with a couple of simple roasting steps for the pine nuts and garlic.

Toasting (roasting) the pine nuts in particular brings out their umami flavors and we think adds a bit of tooth to the texture as well; you can either do in the oven or a pan on the stove (I do in the oven for 7-8 minutes at 300 to lower the risk of burning them, and typically just throw 3 garlic cloves in the pan as well to roast along with the pine nuts).

You certainly don’t have to do this, but you should try it at least once, and you’ll also find the roasted garlic is much more mellow and rounded after the gentle application of a bit of heat.

We usually scarf down a batch of pesto the day it’s made, but if you’re doing a bigger batch, you’ll preserve the basil’s bright green color longer in the fridge if you blanch the leaves for 15-20 seconds in simmering water followed by a dip in an ice-water bath immediately after. Drain well before blitzing, and your pesto will stay bright green in the fridge for days (though we always store ours with a thin layer of good olive oil on top too).

Friday I’m posting a great grilled chicken recipe featuring this pesto….

1 cup packed fresh basil leaves, see note above about optional blanching
1/4 cup fresh pine nuts, roasted
2-3 cloves garlic, roasted
1/3 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup good EVOO
1/2 to 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (or to taste)
1/2 tsp good salt (or to taste)
1/4-1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper (or to taste)

Roast the pine nuts and garlic if desired; see discussion above.

Blanch the fresh basil leaves if desired, see discussion above.

Combine the basil leaves, roasted garlic (minced if using raw, start with one clove), cheese, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil in your trusty food processor and pulse until the desired smoothness is achieved (we like our pesto with a bit of tooth or texture).

Store in the fridge with a thin layer of olive oil on top.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast 7 August: New Mexico Green Chile Sauce

By

Historians inform us that Kit Carson, rancher, soldier, fur trapper, guide, chili master, uttered these words on his death bed: “Wish I had time for one more bowl of chili.”

Of course I wasn’t there to hear those words spoken, but I’d bet just about anything that Kit was thinking about a big, steaming pot of “New Mexico Green” when he uttered those (in)famous words. Ask any chili-head about what the worlds “New Mexico Green” mean, and she or he will tell you stories of magical chiles which almost all seem to revolve around the Hatch Chile.

You’ve no doubt heard wine aficionados huff and puff about the terroir of fine wines, that special, sometimes almost ethereal uniqueness that combinations of plant genetics, geography, geology and climate (maybe even microclimates) produce in certain grapes.

You can be damn sure that same terroir principal applies to the magnificent green chile lovingly grown in New Mexico, and we’re talking most specifically the climate and terroir around Hatch in the southern part of the state, north of Las Cruces and El Paso.

Being profound chili heads around our camp, we’ve grown over a dozen chile varieties from seed even way up north in Montana, nursing them in basement heated and lighted grow racks, starting them in the middle of winter in early February and transplanting them with care in May. They were passably good, most of them, but still couldn’t/ can’t hold a candle to the bushel or two we ship over from New Mexico to roast and freeze every year, or the fresh Hatch chiles we can buy at our favorite markets starting about now in the late summer and early fall.

As a point of full disclosure, I’m not from New Mexico, though I was taught about and trained in New Mexico cuisine by a lovely woman over thirty-five years ago during my residency in Salt Lake City. She was the wife of a residency mate, born and raised in Santa Fe, and one of the most intuitive cooks in the kitchen I’ve ever personally watched work.

This is her recipe handed down from her mother and grandmother, and about as authentic as they come. Primal and paleo folks may bark about the 2 tablespoons of flour; we’ve tried and tried to make this work with gluten free flours, and it’s just not quite the same to our taste. (Sometimes you just have to use it, and we’ve long since stopped beating ourselves up for a tablespoon or two of flour to make a recipe work…)

Make a big batch and freeze some, it keeps for months, and it’s great to have some handy with the hankering for green chile strikes.

1 medium onion, chopped fine
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp avocado or olive oil
2 tbsp AP flour or your favorite gluten free sub
2 cups roasted NM green chile, stemmed, seeded, peeled, and chopped
2 cups chicken stock
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

In a large, stainless sauce pan, heat the oil over medium-low heat; add the onion and garlic and sauté for 5-6 minutes until soft. Note that you’re not trying to brown or caramelize the onion, just soften, turn down the heat if it begins to brown.

Stir in the flour and black pepper, coating the onion-garlic mixture well and cooking for a minute or two. Now slowly whisk in 1 cup of the chicken stock, keeping it moving until the flour has dissolved and the mixture is smooth.

Add the prepped chiles, the rest of the stock, cumin, oregano, and salt, then bring to a low boil. Reduce to a simmer and reduce slowly, stirring now and again, until your sauce reaches the desired consistency.

Will keep in the fridge for 3 to 4 days if you don’t use it all up on the first run, and this sauce freezes like a charm, and is a treasure to have throughout the year.

Enjoy.

The Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: Libby’s Chile Crisp

By

We’re always on the lookout around our camp for interesting sauces, spice mixes, and flavorings of all shapes and sorts to add interest to the foods we enjoy.

It really helps to have a friend “in the industry” to politely pester now and again, especially one who’s as creative as our compadre Chef Libby down in Austin. For reasons that aren’t wholly clear to either one of us, our palates align pretty damn closely, as do our tastes in recreational pursuits, namely fly fishing and other diversions undertaken on or around the water.

Libby and I were chatting several months about sauces, and I mentioned that we were looking for something along the lines of a typically sweet (make that overly-sweet) Asian chile sauce when she asked if we’d ever tried her version of a chile crisp?

For the life of me I couldn’t remember her ever sharing the recipe, one that she’d sourced years ago from Bon Appetit and fiddled with to clean up the ingredients to align more with a Primally-influenced palate.

Libby’s Chile Crisp has become probably my personal favorite table condiment of all time, displacing the ever-so-durable Tex-Mex table salsa (some might even call that a pico), a condiment that’s become increasing essential and good on just about everything I can imagine being seared, roasted, or otherwise cooked on a grill, eggs of every sort, and even vegetables (roasted or grilled in particular).

This recipe produces a rich, red slather that’s at the same time spicy (the red pepper and ginger), crunchy (the toasted shallots and garlic), with a hint of Asian-inspired flavors (the star anise, tamari, and ginger), with a soothing, flavor-infused oil to tie it all together.

Eggs will never be the same again with chile crisp in the fridge – I just had it drizzled over three chilled boiled eggs (cut in half so the just set yolks could soak up the flavor) for lunch as I finished this post in fact.

The recipe easily doubles, and you’ll get a better crisp-ing effect if you use at least an 8-inch sauce pan to spread the shallots and garlic out in a thin layer (go bigger if doubling the recipe); just watch them and don’t push them too fast. Oh, and by the way, we like it with more red pepper flakes; this is the recipe Libby originally shared with us back in the day.

3/4 cup oil of choice (we use half olive oil, half avocado)
2 medium shallots, thinly sliced
1 head garlic, separated into cloves, thinly sliced
2-3 star anise pods
1 cinnamon stick
2 to 3-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled, chopped fine
2-3 tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tbsp coconut aminos or tamari
Optional: 1-2 tsp sugar of choice

Combine the oil(s), prepped shallots, garlic, star anise, and cinnamon stick in a saucepan at least 8-9 inches in diameter. Place over medium heat until simmering, then reduce the heat to keep it just simmering and swirl now and again for 20-30 minutes, until the shallots and garlic have crisped and browned.

Meanwhile combine the prepped ginger, red pepper flakes, tamari or coconut aminos, and the optional sugar in a medium bowl and set aside.

When the shallots and garlic have browned and are crispy, strain into the ginger-pepper bowl, and leave the shallots and garlic to cool in the strainer (makes them crispier). When cool, stir back into the infused oil.

Keep in the fridge between uses, and yes, the recipe doubles easily (you’ll want more…).

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: Creole Mustard and Honey Yogurt Dressing

By

Extra time at home of late has fostered digging deeper into my list of “damn, I should try and work out a recipe for that” list over the past few weeks.

My lovely wife is a huge fan of tzatziki, the wonderful Greek yogurt-based sauce / condiment packed with garlic, dill, and grated cucumber. Her enthusiasm for tzatziki has led us to explore of number of yogurt-based salad dressings over the past several months; there are several pretty damned good commercially-prepared options out there, many made with very acceptable ingredients for the most part, although they can be a bit pricey.

Being the inveterate tinkerer in the kitchen, the combination of looking for a new dipping sauce for these delicious Cast Iron Skillet Wings and working to jazz up our home salad routine led to some serious yogurt-based dressing and sauce experiments of late.

Using a Creole mustard (see if you can find Zatarains’s version) adds a depth of flavor and texture that’s hard to beat, and led to me experimenting with adding a few brown or yellow mustard seeds to the dressing as well. Yep, they’re a bit crunchy until they soften in the dressing (only a few hours needed) but add interest and flavor here.

As always, dressing recipes are simply a framework for you to start from, adjusting flavors to suit your (your family’s) palate, and you’ll want to try this one with varying amounts of honey.

This would probably be amazing with leftover Easter ham next week…

1/2 cup Greek yogurt
2-4 T honey
2 T prepared mustard
2 T Creole Mustard
1/2 t salt
Optional: 1 tsp of mustard seeds, see note below

Combine all ingredients in a small mix bowl and whisk together until homogenous and smooth. If using dry mustard seeds, which are great for additional texture, interest, and flavor, make sure to add at least an hour before serving so they hydrate and soften. Store covered in the fridge.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast 7 February: Lemon Bomb Piccata Sauce

By

With an eye toward a special Valentine’s day dinner coming up next week, here’s a nifty Lemon Bomb Piccata Sauce recipe perfect for fancy-ing up dinner, whether it’s completing a classic piccata chicken recipe, or drizzled over your favorite roasted vegetable hot from the oven or grill.

With the help of my friend Chef Libby in Austin I’ve been playing around with classic and not-so-classic piccata sauce recipes for little while now. Almost all the recipes you see out there feature, in some combination, the bursting acidity of fresh lemon, the umami of sautéed alliums (most often garlic and shallots), the briny funk of capers, along with a handful of other ingredients – including a healthy dose of fat (butter and/or olive oil), a reduced white wine or vermouth, and a bit of other liquids.

As one of our overarching goals here at Older Bolder helping you find great tasting food that’s geared to prepare efficiently in the home kitchen, this recipe also needed to be (relatively) easy to prepare at home, not too fussy in terms of ingredients or technique, and damned tasty.

This Lemon Bomb Piccata Sauce is right on target.

By the way, when we enjoy this recipe at home, we’re typically drizzling over chicken, shrimp, or a mild tasting fish (it’s really tasty on pork chops as well) as well as a vegetable side (most often oven-roasted during the cooler months, grilled during the warmer) – so note this recipe yields a fair amount of sauce. You can easily halve this one and it works like a charm.

And given that we really enjoy big flavors here at home, this recipe is very lemon forward (hence the ‘lemon bomb’ name), but as written it’s very very well balanced.

For this post, I’ve snapped a few quick images of the sauce served over thin-cut, pasture-raised chicken breasts, coated with a grated parmesan and almond flour dredge (quick recipe below), alongside a big dollop of roasted organic spaghetti squash. Wow, was this one good.

Finally, most classic piccata sauces call for the addition of a splash of white wine or vermouth; you can do it with or without as noted below without impacting the integrity of the sauce in any way. Of note, my lovely wife thinks it’s best with a splash of vermouth reduced down…

8 tbsp grass-fed butter
2 medium shallots, finely chopped
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 medium lemon, cut into half-moons
1/3 cup + 1 scant tbsp fresh lemon juice
3 tbsp capers, rough chop (can add more)
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth (see note*)
Good salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Chopped parsley

For the quick sautéed chicken
2 large boneless/skinless chicken breasts, split horizontally and pounded to 1/4”
3 tbsp finely ground almond flour
3 tbsp finely grated parmesan
1 tsp good salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper

Into a medium skillet over medium heat goes the butter, shallots, garlic cloves, lemon pieces, along with a generous pinch of good salt. As the butter melts, stir now and again, lowering the heat to medium low after about two minutes – you don’t want to caramelize the shallots or garlic, just soften them.

*If using a bit of wine or vermouth, add 1/4 cup now, and reduce until almost gone; then add the lemon juice and capers and stir for another two minutes, then add 1/3 cup of broth or water and bring to gentle simmer, stirring now and again until the sauce is glossy and smooth.

*If not using wine or vermouth, add the lemon juice and capers and stir for another two minutes, then add 1/2 cup of broth or water and bring to gentle simmer, stirring now and again until the sauce is glossy and smooth.

At this point remove from the heat, adjust for salt and pepper, and pour over your protein or veg and top with freshly chopped parsley.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Sauce Monday: A Quick, Easy, and Delicious Home Tzatziki Sauce

By

For reasons that I still can’t honesty account, my lovely wife and I came to appreciate Greek cuisine, relatively speaking, a bit later in life. It probably had something to do with us both growing up in the South during our formative years, and coming from families that simply weren’t the most adventurous when it came to exploring foods from other cultures and locales.

We’re huge fans of Greek cuisine these days, finding its spice array and emphasis on (for the most part) simple ingredients prepared very well deeply satisfying and delicious.

I’m sure that’s part of our long-standing appreciation of various Mediterranean cuisines, but there something about Greek flavors that my wife in particular just loves, with admittedly Tzatziki Sauce being right at the top of the list of her Greek favorites. Other faves include a slab of salty, fresh, Greek feta, drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with fresh oregano, with a pile of Kalamata olives alongside and freshly prepared, olive oil-drizzled hummus too.

But a Greek meal just wouldn’t meet her standard without a tub of tzatziki sauce alongside. Tzatziki is a flavor-packed sauce based on Greek yogurt, bursting with vegetal and herbal notes from chopped or grated cucumber, garlic, dill, lemon juice (or vinegar), and occasionally mint.

Neither of us were fortunate enough to have a Greek grandmother working magic in the kitchen to teach us the secrets of Greek cuisine, though after several years of fiddling, we’ve settled on this as a base recipe to work from when making tzatziki at home. My wife prefers the herbs and spices pretty much as written, though left to my own devices, I’d always add more garlic, dill, a bit of finely minced mint, and acid (preferably fresh lemon juice).

We just enjoyed a batch of fresh tzatziki with a Greek marinated flank steak I’ll be posting for this week’s Friday Feast…

1 medium cucumber, peeled, grated (or diced), salted, and drained
2 cups full fat Greek yogurt
1-2 garlic cloves, grated or minced
2-3 tbsp fresh minced dill (may include some mint)
1-2 tbsp EVOO
1-3 tsp lemon juice or vinegar of choice
1 tsp salt, divided

Peel and grate or dice the cucumber (I prefer to grate on the large holes of a box grater), then salt with 1/2 tsp of kosher salt and set in a colander for at least 15 minutes to drain. When ready to stir the sauce together, compress as much water as possible from the cucumber before combining.

Stir the remainder of the ingredients together, stir in the drained cucumber, and taste – adjust the seasonings to suit your palate, and add more EVOO or lemon juice to adjust the texture as well.

Will keep for several days in the fridge, covered of course, though we seem to never have any leftovers after a Greek feast at home.

Enjoy.

The Older Bolder Life Sauce Monday: Simple Cilantro Chutney

By

This past week I was chatting up a new chef friend about the melting pot of different cuisines we’re seeing these days in some of the larger Texas metroplexes.

Here in the DFW area, long a classic steak, barbecue, and Tex-Mex bastion, there’s been an explosion of eateries featuring a host of different cuisines – Indian, Pakistani, Thai, Korean, African, Cuban, Laotian, Argentine, Vietnamese, African to name a few – the list could go on and on.

My new friend happens to be a native American citizen, born to Indian physician parents who immigrated to Dallas (Plano) nearly 40 years ago; she insists she was groomed from an early age to go into medicine, but fell in love with food and cooking early on and never looked back.

It’s a long story as to how we started talking about different sauces; I think we were actually talking about spicy green table sauces, like the jalapeño-based hot sauces from Mexico and the Caribbean, chimichurri and aji sauces from South America, and eventually this Simple Cilantro Chutney her mother used to make routinely at home.

I get it that folks are either fans of cilantro or they despise it; we’re in the cilantro is awesome camp, and have used this quick and easy recipe a couple of times already this week. This rule of thumb recipe can work for just about any green herb you want to throw in the blender (parsley and basil are on my list this next week) if you’re not big on cilantro.

The formula is an easy one – a big handful of herb, one or two serranos for heat, a burst of fresh lime juice for acidity (vinegars would play as well), and a bit of salt for balance. My new friend insists her mother always added a pinch of sugar to preserve the bright green colors (not sure about the chemistry but it does seem to help, as of course does the acid).

What’s fun about this one is throwing in what ever else suits you at the moment, like the cashews or pepitas, a bit of ginger, and more spice. Play with this one a few times and dial it in the way your family likes it…

1 medium to large bunch of cilantro, largest woody stems trimmed
1-2 serranos or other green chiles
Juice of one large lime, more if needed
1-2 tsp good salt (to taste)

Optional
Pinch of brown sugar
2-3 tbsp of roasted cashews, peanuts, pepitas
2-3 tbsp toasted coconut flakes
Ginger to taste
Toasted spices: mustard seeds, coriander, cumin, fennel, etc

Add the herbs, peppers, lime juice, salt, and optional ingredients to your trusty blender and go to it; the sauce is more interesting if you leave a bit of texture, though you can certainly puree it until very smooth as well. Add a little more lime juice if you need to thin it, adjust for salt, go to it.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Sauce Monday: Roasted Red Pepper Mayo

By

One of the food discoveries we’ve made along the way on our Primal/paleo journey is how incredibly useful flavored mayo’s and aioli’s are when it comes to making mealtime time much much more interesting. We reach for our mayo and aioli jar just about every meal there’s a hot or cold protein on the plate.

Being able to consistently make delicious avocado oil, olive oil, or a combination of the two (our favorite) mayo at home in minutes has revolutionized the way we think about using this condiment. And I’m not kidding, when it’s time to make another batch, I don’t even think about it, quickly gather the goods, and can have it done and in cooling in the fridge in under 5 minutes.

Back a few months ago I posted this list of some of our favorite mayo and aioli flavors and variations, and listed among those a red pepper version.

Here’s the full recipe we’ve been using to make this one, and while you can certainly roast your own red peppers like I did for this Easy Romesco Sauce a few weeks back, using well-drained commercially prepared red peppers works here just as well. You will most likely have everything you need in to zip up a batch of this one in the fridge or pantry; don’t leave out the capers – their briny, tart flavor adds to the final taste ensemble nicely.

As always, consider this a base recipe to modify from, though I’d suggest making a batch as it’s written before deciding where you want to take it next time around.

1 cup avocado or olive oil mayo (use this recipe)
1/3 cup drained and chopped roasted red peppers or roast your own (see above)
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp drained and chopped capers
1 tsp good paprika
1/2 tsp salt (to taste)

Into your trusty blender or food processor go the ingredients; blend/pulse until well combined and smooth. Store covered tightly in the fridge for up to 5 days, though it’ll never last that long.

Enjoy.