Tasty Indian Delivery in Park Slope - Joy Indian Restaurant

At least once a week I crave the fragrant and delicious cuisine from India.  When I was a younger man Indian food was not my cup of tea.   But that changed one day and that day is one I absolutely remember.   I was travelling for work and was staying in the M hotel in Singapore.  On Sunday they have "The Sunday High Curry" brunch buffet.   It was pouring out that day and I decided I would eat at the buffet.    There was like 17 different types of curry from all over asia and I absolutely fell in love.   I feel in love with one specific curry the most.   FISH HEAD CURRY!   YUM  

Anyway I digress

We have been ordering our home delivery Indian food from a place called Joy Indian Restaurant.  We have tried all the other local Indian delivery spots and I must say I think this one is the best.   This place doesnt have the most gourmet of Indian but when it comes to stick to your gut delicious Indian food Joy Indian Restaurant is fantastic.

They have one type of curry that I think I want to order a few gallons of and live off of for a few years.   It is called Dildar Curry.    A mild yet spicy curry with pineapple that I order with chicken.   This is so friggin delicious.  

There mushroom shaag is also amazing.   Earthy and fragrantly delicious

I don't claim this place is the best indian food in the world but when it comes to super delicious, absolutely fragrant, yum yum yummy indian food in park slope, you simply can not go wrong with Joy Indian Restaurant.

Roasted Duck Leg w/Hamhocked Kale and Porcini Ruota Pasta

Yesterday while stumbling around the market I picked up 3 ingredients I never cooked with before that I felt I needed to learn about:

Chicory
Duck Leg
Ham Hock

I thought I could use my Saturday to learn how to use my new ingredients by making something delicious.

Ok so what could I do with those ingredients??  Hmm....   Well.... I could roast the duck leg and that would probally be yum.    I could make hamhocked kale.   I could make a porcini ruota pasta and mix in the chicory at the end.  Ok a plan has formed!

Here is a pic of the ingredients:

First step is I wanted to really salt the duck as a salty duck is a tasty duck!   I made a rub for the duck legs.

Duck Leg Rub Ingredients:

1/4 cup of salt
I sprig of rosemary picked off
4-6 cloves of garlic (i did 6 but you could go as low as 4)

I mashed up the garlic in my mortar and peste and mixed it all together with the other ingredients.  I then rubbed down my duck.   Applying a rub to a good piece of meat is of course a private moments :) xoxo

In the pic posted above of the ingredients you can see the salt rubbed duck but let me also post this picture you can see it in more detail:

 

Ok with the duck prepped I quickly seared the skin to make sure it was brown and crispy.   I then through it in the oven for 60 mins at 340 degrees.   

Now this is duck.   So I reserved some of the fat so I could tie it into EVERY OTHER DISH.  When going duck...go big duck...BIG DUCK!!!!

I made a simple sauce with the reconstituted porcini mushrooms using mushroom stock, duck fat, and romano cheese.   YUM YUM YUM   Once I folded the pasta into the sauce I tossed in some chopped chicory to bring a bright peppery finish to the pasta coated in the rich mushroom sauce with duck fat.  To add insult to fat injury I put in a tablespoon of butter before serving and coated all the pasta with it.

I chopped the kale and put it in to boil with the hamhock by using a combo of duck fat, vegetable stock, mushroom stock and a little bit of water.   

PURE DELICIOUSNESS is what I got.  The meal was easy and amazing.   A bit of prep work but it was a charm to throw it all together

YUM YUM DUCK

YUM YUM HAM HOCK

YUM YUM CHICORY

Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Truffled Black Trumpet Mushrooms and Gorgonzola Cheese

My wife Megan and I decided to take a walk today and hit our local market.   We wanted to pick up something nice to make for lunch as this is the first day we are spending together since last weekend.   Working in a bi-coastal gig is tough :(

We started with the idea of maybe making a steak and mushroom sandwich but as always my eyes get me in trouble and the audibles ensue.

We decided to make a sandwich with simple Grilled Chicken, truffled Black Trumpet mushroom, and Gorgonzola cheese on a toasted baguette.

Yum Yum Sandwich

Here is what we threw together

2 large chicken breasts (trimmed)

2 sprigs of fresh Rosemary

Large handful of Black Trumpet Mushrooms

A few pinches of salt

Cracked Black Pepper

Olive Oil

Black Truffle infused Olive Oil

Nice piece of Mountain Gorgonzola cheese

1 crusty crunchy delicious fresh baguette

I gave the chicken a nice healthy coating of olive oil, salt, and cracked black pepper.

I gave the Black Trumpet Mushrooms a nice rough chop and chopped up the rosemary from 2 fresh sprigs.

I heat my grill to really hot and then lowered it to a medium/high heat.    I threw the chicken on it to get it grilling.   I heated a skillet to a nice hot heat and tossed in the black truffle oil.  Once the oil was nice and hot I tossed in the mushrooms and fresh rosemary.     I want to make these cook and get NICE AND CRISPY.   Nuffin says luvin like some crispy truffled mushrooms.  

After a couple of minutes or until i had bad ass grill marks on the first chicken side I then flipped it to the other side.     I cut a baguette into some open sandwhiches.  I drizzled some olive oil on it and tossed it in the broiler to toast up.     I cubed up some gorgonzola to get my finally assembly ready. 

Once the bread was nice and toasty I removed the chicken from the grill and cut into 3/4" pieces so I can begin my sandwich assembly.    Grilled chicken first then the truffled black trumpet mushrooms and finally a healthy dose of gorgonzola cheese.    Close the sandwich up and cut it in half and serve

All I can say is the following....

YUM YUM Sandwich

Oh and if you are asking yourself the following question:  "In your ingredients picture I see an heirloom tomato but you didn't say what to do with it.  What the hell???"

Well....I decided I didn't want to add the mushy tomato texture to the sandwich when I already but the creamy mushy goodness of the Gorgonzola.    So  I saved it and just made it as a delicious afternoon snack :)

YUM
YUM
TOMATO

:)

Three Mushroom Risotto - Chanterelle, Black Trumpet and Baby Shitake

Last weekend I wrote about making a Smoked and Grilled Octopus with 3 Mushroom Risotto.  I posted the recipe on how I make the Smoked and Grilled Octopus but I never posted the recipe for the 3 Mushroom Risotto.  

So here we go....

1st off this recipe is (!*@# delish.   YUM YUM Risotto.  

The idea for the recipe that night came from when I was walking around Union Market.   I saw the most beautiful Chanterelle Mushrooms and so it began.  

Shopping with you eyes, belly and nothing more is always a fun day :)

Lets start with the mushrooms.   I used:

1 large handful of Chanterelle Mushrooms
1 large handful of Black Trumpet Mushrooms
1 large handful of Baby Shitake Mushrooms


This is like my holy trinity of mushrooms.  I really need to take the time nerding out a bit more with mushrooms.    The new year definitely holds a Mission Mushroom in it.  That is for sure!

1 Large Shallot
4 Garlic Cloves
Pinch of Salt
Ground Black Peppercorn
1 cup of Risotto Rice
2 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of vegetable stock
1/3 cup of Romano Cheese
2 tablespoons of Garlic
1 tablespoon of butter
2 Sprigs of fresh oregano

So the recipe is super simple.  

Chop up the Garlic and the Shallot.    Chop up all three piles of mushrooms.  Heat up a nice skillet and get the oil in it.   Get it nice and hot but keep it on medium heat.    Drop in the shallots and sweat them a bit.   Add in the mushrooms and get them coated with the oil.  Add the butter to give it some flavor and let it coat the mushrooms.  Add in the garlic and the oregano and get all of the flavors together.   Add the rice in and ladel 1 cup of the chicken stock in.    Bring it a slight boil and let it to boil down mixing often.    Ladel in the vegetable stock then and repeat.  Then do it once again with the last bit of chicken stock.     Add in the romano cheese and mix it all around.    Add salt and pepper to taste and SERVE with chopped fresh oregano on top.  

Easy as pie :)

Smoked and Grilled Octopus w/3 Mushroom Risotto

This week my wife and I had the pleasure of both traveling to the same city for work.  The beautiful city of San Francisco.    This is the city that I work and have a small corporate apartment in so I am really growing to love it.   Since she was traveling with her company we got a hotel room and that was super duper nice.  

While we were there she kept talking about my indoor smoker and how she wanted me to smoke some meat when we got home to good old Park Slope Brooklyn.

I decided to smoke two things this weekend....

Pastrami and Octopus

YUM

So tonight was all about the octopus.   My brisket is sitting it's pastrami brine for tomorrow so on to my eight tentacled friend Mr Octopus!

I found a beautiful looking Octopus at Union Market in Park Slope.  My plan was to make Smoked and Grilled Octopus as a main course to dinner tonight.   I started to stumble around Union Market looking for something to inspire a side dish.   I passed the mushroom section and saw these BEAUTIFUL Chanterelle Mushrooms so I decided to serve it 3 Mushroom Risotto.   I will post that recipe in my next post and just focus this post on how I made my Smoked and Grilled Octopus.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 of a clean and fresh Octopus
• Fresh Tarragon
• Fresh Rosemary
• 1/4 cup Sea Salt
• 10 Whole Black Peppercorns
• A Whole Garlic
• Olive Oil

It starts with washing off the Octopus.  I then created a cold water boil for the Octopus.   I added cold water to a pot that was enough to cover the Octopus.  I added the salt and stirred it in.   I halved the garlic and threw it in the water with the  peppercorns.   I then added the Octopus to the pot as well.     I then threw in some sprigs of Tarragon and Rosemary.   I set the burner to high to get the pot to a boil.   Once it comes to a heavy boil I turned it down to a low boil and left it on for 40 minutes.  

This is the critical step right here.  You need to boil it to make the meat tender but you do NOT want to overcook it or all your hard work will go down the drain.  

Once it was ready I took it out and just chopped off the tentacles as that was the bit of the Octopus I wanted to serve as a dish.    I had prepared my indoor smoker with mesquite chips and got it nice and smokey.   I place the Octopus in the smoker and put it in the over at 225 degrees for 15 minutes to got some smoke flavor on the Octopus.    I heated up my stove top grill to a very high heat.   I removed the Octopus from the smoker and gave it a nice olive oil coating.   I then dropped it on the grill to give it smoke nice final grillage to make the Octopus wonderful.  

I lt the Octopus grill for about 3 mins on each side just to give it nice grill marks and crispy it up a bit.    The final product was amazing.    I served it with 3 Mushroom Risotto and I will tell you all about that wonderfulness in my next post.  

Take a peak of my tasty Smoked and Grilled Octopus

HAPPY COOKING!

YUM YUM OCTOPUS