May Highlights

We had another visit from the health department and if you follow me on twitter @tyronebcookin or Facebook you saw my humorous posting: Stick THAT in your dishwasher and sanitize it!

Things are wrapping up here in the kitchen as school winds down. We grilled a few meals outside in front of the kitchen just to kick things up a level. Chicken for fajitas!

Burgers for cheeseburgers and fries!

When I am not in the kitchen or out in the parking lot playing with fire, you can try to catch up with me at my mobile office:

Ice coffee, nothing fancy here...keeps me moving. 

Sign of the times...

Everyone is getting cheap nowadays. Foodservice is no exception. Prices and packages are getting changed with no forewarning...and probably in hopes that YOU TOO will not catch it right away!

Take for instance last week. Last Friday I was calculating costs on a particular meal and realized HEY! I am losing some money on this! How did that happen? Well I guess it's my own fault for not seeing it on my invoice but a particular item went up by $.50 and I didn't even realize it! Or did I? The delivery person said the price changed 2 months ago...REALLY? I am going to pull some invoices!!! But in the meantime I had no professional courtesy of even being told about the increase!

NEXT. Last food order I received plastic spoons like I usually order and no, the price didn't change, product number was the same, but the product was made much cheaper and smaller than before?!?!? Again, no warning or explanation. Did they think I wasn't going to catch this!!!

SIGH!

Pecan Crusted Chicken

Two ways to do pecan crusted chicken that have worked out rather well for me that do not include using flour or breadcrumbs. Can easily be Paleo and gluten free! The chicken can be crusted just on top or completely...some prefer to coat just the top as pecans definitely are not cheap.

First, a long time ago in East Texas I was part of a catering company (Exclusively Yours Catering Company) that specialized in giving people exactly what they wanted when they requested. Sure we did everything from fine dining to back yard BBQ but we also replicated family recipes and created new dishes from scratch based off of our customers wants and needs. One particular time we had a party that wanted pecan crusted chicken and I was so tired of other recipes calling for flour, breadcrumbs, or some other 'gummy' substance that didn't really help the overall taste of the pecan crusted chicken which led me to my first recipe. This is scaled down to a 'family of four' scenario:

4 - 4 to 6 oz boneless skinless chicken breast
1 - cup of honey slightly heated
1 - cup of pecans chopped by hand or food processor
2 - tablespoons brown sugar (optional)
1 - tablespoon Emeril's Essence (optional, can use your favorite spice mix that is similar we had one we used to sell online called Secret Seasoning #2)

Salt to taste in dry mix before using chicken. For consistency of chopped pecans see pictures below.

**Preheat oven to 400F. If using commercial convection oven then use 350F.
Rinse and pat dry chicken breasts. Mix dry ingredients including pecans in shallow bowl or pan. Put honey on plate or in bowl and place chicken in it, flip to other side coating evenly then letting excess honey drip off. Now place chicken in dry mix with pecans pressing the chicken down, shaking bowl slightly then flip breast over and repeat. Chicken should be well coated by now. Put in baking dish or sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Repeat this process till all the chicken is done and on sheet tray. Cook in oven for 20 minutes and check temperature. 165F to 170F internal temperature is what we are looking for...let chicken rest 5 to 10 minutes then serve with honey mustard sauce. ~~

Next recipe called for a little different take on the sweet part of the chicken instead of using honey. Why? Because the honey gave the pecan crusted chicken a taste not everyone liked and the chicken coating came out a little stickier...I am not saying that is a bad thing at all, just different. I think the honey results came out more 'caramel-y' (if that's a word). This time around I used egg whites as the binder:

4 - 4 to 6 oz boneless skinless chicken breast
4 - egg white slightly beaten
1 - cup of pecans chopped by hand or food processor
2 - tablespoons brown sugar
2 - tablespoons Montreal Chicken Seasoning
1 - pinch of cayenne pepper, Cajun seasoning, chipotle, red pepper flake, or whatever form of 'heat' you like! Or none! (This is optional)

**repeat cooking instructions above substituting the egg whites for the honey. ~~

What kind of honey mustard sauce you say?

1 cup preferably local honey (more flavor)
1 cup stone ground or spicy mustard
2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup of mayo

Mix together in bowl, adjust as you feel needed to your taste buds.

~~ Special shout out to Gary Hoag who I worked with when developing the first recipe! That party was a blast! Second recipe I developed and used in my current kitchen at the academy. Which also was met with excellent reviews.

Teres Major Steak

I remember back in the day (2006-2007) catering in East Texas finding out about this muscle in the cow between the shoulders or shoulder blades called terse major. It is a seldom used muscle second only to the tenderloin filet in tenderness. It is also referred to as a shoulder tender. If sliced into medallions, they are appropriately named petite tender medallions. Also known as (AKA) petite beef tender, beef filet, chuck tender steak...the list goes on. But with great beef flavor, a good chew/bite that's tender, and a fraction of the cost of tenderloin you can't lose on price and flavor!

Back then we bought it for $2.80 a pound. And it was a hit! It's said you can cook it all kinds of ways but the most successful way we found to do it was to rub it down (whatever rub mix or seasoning you want to use) and sear it on the grill or in a pan, finishing it in the oven to a medium rare. At that time a major meat company (and family) that we knew told us the price was about to go up! Apparently two nationally know restaurants were about to make very large purchases of the meat for their fajitas and other beef dishes. ~ fast forward to today.

I recently started doing some beef dishes and now that I am in Alabama it's a harder 'sell' for beef than chicken or pork. Remembering the teres major I asked my local meat supplier what the going rate was for it and it was $3.90 a pound un-trimmed or $5.40-65 a pound trimmed. Although you have to buy at least 65 pounds if the un-trimmed or 25 pounds of the trimmed for those prices. Still not bad at all considering the popularity of it has died back down and it's 7 years later! Not to mention the current price of beef tenderloin!

You can currently buy this meat at Sam's Club under the name petite tender beef filet, 2 in a package, already marinated in different flavors at $5.48 a pound. Which runs around $20 a package.

After serving this at a banquet hot (with a separate mushroom gravy) I served the leftovers cold as part of a sandwich platter at a luncheon. A few people were at both events and though they raved about it at the banquet, they later said it was even better cold with a horseradish sauce I had prepared!


I prepared the meat by searing it in a pan with a garlic herb mixture rubbed into it, then in the oven for 20 minutes at 350. After that it stayed in a warmer for 30. It was in a chafing dish for another 20 minutes. Which brings me to my last advantage of this meat, it stayed a nice medium-rare, to medium pink inside the meat thru this whole process. The picture on the bottom of this post is of the slices I used on a platter.

There doesn't seem to be a down side to the teres major!

Sweet Potato Fries, Pan Fried Tilapia...

Wasn't really going for Paleo diet but I didn't have buns to make black bean burgers! - fried sweet potato fries, pan fried tilapia with almond meal, Parmesan, and a homemade aoli sauce (was going to make tarter but no mayo, so had to make my own). Yeah, I know...first world problems!

Great Turkey

[Cooking in a commercial kitchen...]

Jenny-O has Turkey breasts in bulk usually coming in foil wrap at 8 to 12 pounds a piece. 2 in a case. Best bet is to defrost them in the fridge 3 to 4 days in advance.

After defrosting I would NOT cook them as recommended inside the foil. Cut the plastic and unwrap the foil to find two large turkey breasts that you can separate and lay flat on a sheet tray. You can fit a whole case on one full size sheet tray this way.

I use sea salt (although any will do) and a garlic and herb seasoning that has no salt added. I cover the top of them heavily with the garlic and herb mix.[I think I discussed this in the past but I prefer to control the salt AND you waste money buying pre-mixed seasoning and herbs because the first ingredient is salt, which is dirt cheap. Sometimes you want to heavily season but you can't because the salt in the mix will overpower it.]

Cooking the turkey in a convection oven on 350 to 375 (depends on which way your oven 'leans' toward on keeping good heat when the door is opened) for almost 2 hours or internal temp is 160. The weight of the Turkey will make the internal temp rise at least 5 more degrees when you put in on the rack to rest. AND YES, please let this meat rest!!! Easier cutting/slicing and less juices will run out.

Some juice will still escape when you cut it but If you use a little trick, like slicing the turkey on a cutting board that is laying inside a sheet tray, then you can pour the juice back over the meat.

5 Point infraction

Once again the health department has descended upon us...actually she is really quite a nice lady. I guess I was trying to make it sound dramatic. She talked to me about a few things we needed to work on and I asked questions to see how I could make some areas better. Our space is small and odd both for the kitchen and pantry/storage (our rooms are not perfectly square/rectangle) so I really try to have good questions for her in able to help us utilize our space while staying within the boundaries of inspection.

This inspection my Sous Chef Roberto decided he would buy a can drink from the machine out in the main dining area...but unfortunately for us he had placed it on top of the ice machine. 5 points for open drink stored on top of ice machine! Drinks must be in 'to-go' style containers with lids and a straw, BUT also be in a designated area away from food products...like maybe a shelf over the dish sink area.

Last inspection we scored a 98, 2 points for textured ceiling in storage area. Its supposed to be smooth and non-porous. We got that fixed. This inspection I suppose we have to settle for a 95!

Once again our 100 score has eluded us! ~

[Sous Chef Roberto has adequately been given a hard time and the inspection was a few weeks ago, but in keeping with our relentless jokes and hard times I waited till now to post this so we can get another few weeks of ribbing out of it]