A staple recipe for oven baked chicken that is juicy while still having a crispy skin and jazzed up with a bit of spice.

A baked yet crispy skin chicken is a common occurrence in our household. I would almost say it has become a staple of our kitchen meals over the past few months. If a whole chicken is on sale, Dan will buy one and it usually feeds us for a few days. This recipe is the perfect mixture of being easy, quick, and super tasty that after you try it a few times we hope it will be your go-to recipe as well.


Just a few ingredients are needed and you don’t need to add a spice to it if you don’t want. If you want crispy skin chicken just like the ones you get in the grocery store just follow the recipe using just the baking powder and salt. The key ingredient is BAKING POWDER, a friend of ours mistakenly used baking soda and their chicken turned out soapy. A way to remember is that you are “powdering a dry chicken”. For this recipe, we jazzed up our usual recipe a bit by adding in some Sabzi spice from Mini Kitchen. We have also made this style of chicken with ground white-pepper, paprika, or garlic powder, or even plain pepper.

Ingredients for Oven Crispy Skin Chicken

Directions for Oven Crispy Skin Chicken

The results of this chicken are comparative to having rotisserie chicken from the store (but with the spices and salt level you prefer). It is also very scaleable with different sized chickens (small to large, they all take around the same amount of time). Even better, your chicken can be spatchcocked the night before so all you have to do is put it into the preheated oven when you get home from work and it will be ready within 45 minutes. Baking Powder is not absolutely necessary to cooking the chicken, but it is really recommended for having a crispy skin. You have to try this out!

So now that you have some “leftover” risotto, the best dish to make is some crispy arancini! Arancini is essentially crispy fried balls of rice with some oozy cheese inside. Not only is it incredibly delicious but it smells great too. It probably is best to make risotto the day before and then turn the risotto into arancini; otherwise it would take a long time to prep and eat dinner. You could also make everything in one go, but you would have to ensure that the risotto is cooled completely (lay it flat on a pan) before using.

Ingredients

• 2 cups risotto
• 2 large eggs (beaten)
• 1/2 cup pecorino romano (grated)
• 1 cup panko crumbs (more for rolling)
• Cubes of Provolone, mozzarella (or similar) 

Directions

1. Combine the cooled risotto in a bowl along with the pecorino romano and panko.
   
2. Add the beaten eggs all at once and mix well.
   
3. Once all the ingredients are incorporated, spoon 1 tablespoon balls of the mixture into your hand. Gently flatten out the ball into the palm of one hand and using the index finger of your other press the cheese into the middle of the ball. Using both hands cover up the cheese and roll into a ball.
   
4. Place more panko crumbs into a bowl and roll the risotto ball in the panko crumbs.
   
5. Set the rolled ball onto a lined baking tray. Roll the rest of the risotto mixture.
   
6. To cook the arancini, work in batches (about 3 or 4 at a time) and fry the arancini in the deep fryer for 5-6 minutes or until golden brown. If you don’t have a deep fryer, fry the arancini in heated oil for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown. Once cooked, remove the arancini from the oil and drain on a paper towel. Top with more shaved pecorino romano before serving!
   

That’s all you need to have some crispy fried arancini at home! Feel free to try using different types of cheeses for various arancini flavours! You can also make a different type of risotto at first and then make them into arancini. Most of all, have fun and enjoy the food! 

• 2 cups arborio or carnaroli rice
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp butter (1 tbsp initially another to finish)
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 1-2 cloves of garlic (diced)
• 5-6 shiitake mushrooms (sliced)
• 1 1/2 cups of white wine
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 3 Tbsp cream (or milk)
• 1/3 cup Pecorino Romano (grated)

1. Heat a medium to large pot (we used our Le Creueset dutch oven) at medium heat with 1 Tbsp of butter and the olive oil. Once the oils are melted, start to saute the onion and garlic. Meanwhile in a separate pot heat the chicken stock to just below boiling.
   
2. Add the sliced shiitake mushrooms and continue to stir. Keep stirring until the onion turns golden brown.
   
3. Once the onion is golden brown, add in the white wine.
   
4. Continue to stir and allow the white wine to simmer for about 1 minute. You want to give time for the alcohol to burn off. You can also use water in place of white wine if you don’t have any on hand. Then, add in the rice ensuring that all the rice is coated with the oil. Toss in a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper.
   
5. Add in about 3 ladles of chicken stock into the mixture and stir. Continue stirring and slowly adding chicken stock by the ladle until the rice is done (20-25 minutes). You want the rice to be al dente (firm but not raw).
   
6. When the rice is done turn the heat off. Then, add in the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter, cream (or milk), and the pecorino romano. I also reserve some of the cheese for topping the risotto along with some freshly ground salt and pepper to taste.
   

   Hope you enjoy making this shiitake mushroom risotto as much as we do. I really enjoy using fresh shiitake mushrooms because it infuses a lot of earthy flavours into the risotto compared to regular white or brown button mushrooms. We have already been using shiitake mushrooms on our fresh pastas so it was only natural that we would make it in risotto as well. You can also create different variations of this risotto such as a fresh summer risotto with fresh basil and cherry tomatoes added at the end (in that case omit the shiitake), asparagus and red pepper risotto or even a lobster risotto.

   Check back soon (or subscribe to my mailing list) for the follow-up to this post on what you can make with your “leftover” risotto. 

For my inaugural post I thought I would write about my homemade ramen noodle recipe. My quest to make a ramen noodles from
scratch started several years ago simply because the few Edmonton restaurants
that served ramen (at the time) were not lining up with what I was looking for.


Comparing ramen is difficult because it is extremely subjective. More importantly, ramen is one of those penultimate comfort foods because of memories attached with eating it. Ramen is not just any noodle, it’s the noodle that someone ate when they were hanging out with friends, it’s the noodle bowl from that place your parents took you to when you were young and you didn’t understand the menu but you were able to point to a specific bowl. In addition to dealing with memories there are so many different types, styles, and interpretations to ramen.  When I’m testing ramen, I’m not trying to determine which one is better but which one is closer. Closer to the one I’m trying to manifest from a texture, flavour, chewyness I have in my mind rather than replicate a noodle I’ve eaten.

One of my very first memories of ramen-like noodles is this instant noodles from a brand called Mama. At the time, I didn’t know about words like al dente or umami, daily recommended sodium intake, I just knew that it was good! What was the first noodle you ate?

We posted our ramen noodle recipe and writeup a while ago and I have been tweaking the “winning” recipe and adjusting my recipe based on feedback and lots of testing. Since there have been multiple revisions (8 so far!), this post will be about my current (2016) homemade ramen noodle recipe and what I’ve done to get there.


What distinguishes ramen noodles from other noodles (e.g. pasta, rice
noodles, Japanese udon) is that they are alkaline (the opposite of being
acidic) whereas other noodles have no added alkalinity. Increasing alkalinity of the noodle dough makes the noodles
“slippery” and chewy with a slight yellow tint.

Danprime’s ramen noodle version 8

When it comes to testing ramen noodle recipes I spent a lot of time not only researching but also making several batches/recipes. All of the recipes add alkalinity through the use of either baking soda, baked baking soda, or kansui (also known as lye water). Over a year ago, through testing, I found that recipes that used baking soda made inconsistent noodles between successive batches (some batches were ok, some were too soapy, etc). Because the strength of the baking soda varies unpredictably it makes it difficult to adjust your recipe for the desired effect. I wanted my recipe to be repeatable and consistent which led to only testing recipes that called for kansui.

My noodle recipe (revision 8) on the left, a ramen recipe from norecipes.com on the right.

I’m not the only one to make several iterations of ramen noodle recipe, here are two from http://notsoancientchinesecrets.com/

When making ramen here are a few terms that are useful to describe noodles:

• Elasticity / Springiness / Chewiness – how quickly the cooked noodle tries to return to it’s shape after it’s been deformed
• Tensile Strength – the force required to break a cooked noodle
• Flavour – Ramen noodles are characteristically alkaline (opposite of acidic) which imparts what some people describe as a soap-like flavour. If you want a strong example of alkaline noodes, try eating some wonton-noodles.
• Liquid Adsorption – how well it carries the soup or broth as you eat the noodle (little adsorption means you don’t get much of the soup when you eat the noodles, high adsorption means you taste a lot more of the soup or broth as you eat/slurp your noodles).

The ramen recipe we posted is a great starting point because it was a very repeatable recipe. However, it was pointed out to me that the alkalinity of the noodles was quite strong, almost over-powering the more subtle flavours of the flour. I had been testing so many iterations to the point that I didn’t notice how alkaline it was until it was pointed out. This resulted in several iterations where I tried to reduce the alkalinity but maintain the chewyness. When you reduce the alkalinity in noodles, you tend to get softer (less elastic / chewy) noodles. So this recipe balances the alkalinity and chewyness that I’m looking for.

Danprime’s Ramen Noodle Version 8

Homemade Ramen Noodle Recipe (version 8)

Ingredients

• 240g of All Purpose Flour (I used the NoName brand from Loblaws/Superstore/No Frills)
• 60g of bread flour (not the whole-wheat kind, just regular bread flour)
• 10g of dried gluten powder (Bulkbarn)
• 3g of kansui (also known as lye water bought at T&T)
• 137g of room temperature water (22 C) separated into half-cup (125g) and remainder less than a tablespoon (12g)

Toppings for ramen.

Equipment

Time

4 hours

Instructions

1. Put all dry ingredients in mixing bowl of KitchenAid stand mixer and turn on machine at speed  level 4 for a few minutes.
2. Mix kansui into 125g (half cup) of water
3. Lower the stand mixer’s speed to second lowest setting
4. Slowly pour kansui + water solution into mixing bowl while the stand mixer is still mixing.
5. The flour should start to clump together like wet sand or brown sugar but is still relatively loose.
6. Add remaining water and the flour should now form little nuggets, if it’s still powdery-sand-like slowly add water in teaspoon increments until the one or two nuggets form.
7. Stop mixer and start kneading the dough inside the bowl. I find it easier inside the bowl as it keeps everything together
8. Knead for 15 minutes until a solid mass of dough is formed
9. Transfer dough to table (note that you shouldn’t really need to use a lot of extra flour at this point), continue to knead for another 5-8 minutes. Dough should really be resistant to kneading at this point.
10. Wrap in food wrap and place dough ball in the fridge for around 3 hours. I used to leave it overnight but I have found that it didn’t make that much of a difference.
11. Setup pasta roller to be at the largest setting
12. Divide into 8 smaller balls (i.e. divide into half, divide each half into halves, and divide those halves into another halve). If you’re doubling the recipe, divide into 16 balls.
13. Flatten each ball a bit with your hand before you roll through the pasta roller
14. The first setting may require several passes. You are looking for a smooth sheet of dough to come out of the roller, no jagged edges or shaggy dough.
15. After the first pass, let the sheet of dough rest on the table for around 5 minutes (you can use this time to work on another ball). This is to let the dough rest a bit. If you are too aggressive in thinning out your dough you will lose some of the elasticity. At this point, you can start using flour to prevent the dough from sticking
16. After the first pass, decrease the thinness and run it through at least twice each setting, always letting the dough rest for a few minutes between each setting.
17. Continue to decrease the thinness until you are at level 7 and let the dough rest for a few minutes.
18. Cut the sheet dough using the pasta cutter (liberally dust the cut noodles with flour).

Cooking the Noodles

• Eggs
• Flour

We make our pasta using an egg:flour ratio of 2:3 (two to three). This means that we usually weigh our eggs first, then multiply that weight by 1.5 to calculate how much flour to add. For example, when we weigh two eggs and the scale displays 60g, the amount of flour to mix in is 90g (1.5 x 60g = 90g). Dan says that this is a great chance to practice your math OR you can use this calculator that Dan made!

Enter weight of Eggs: Calculate Weight of Flour

If the pasta sheet gets sticky, lightly flour each sheet of pasta before running it through the pasta maker again. 

While you are cutting the pasta, boil water in a heavy 5 quart pot. Add a pinch of salt to the water. Once the water is at a rolling boil, cook your fresh pasta for under 2 minutes. Stir occasionally. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly so be careful to not overcook it.

Place a bowl underneath a colander and drain the pasta. We usually reserve some of the pasta water behind and then use it to coat the pasta. This will help the seasoning to stick to the pasta. We typically season our pasta with two tablespoons of truffle oil (we buy ours from the Italian Centre – look for the ElleEsse made in Italy bottle with chunks of truffle inside), fresh ground salt and pepper. Right before serving shave pecorino romano onto the pasta. Feel free to dress your pasta with pesto, red or white sauce. Regardless, the pasta will taste amazing!

I don’t typically plan our meals, as often Dan finds ingredients in the fridge and makes something for dinner. This pie is the product of our “meal planning” (i.e. how to use up a lot of leftover braised pork shoulder). When we thought of what to make with the leftover ham, comfort food came to mind and who doesn’t love pie? There is no hard rule that says pies must be sweet and adding cheese to this pie dough not only makes it tasty but also keeps it flaky.

Ingredients

Pastry

• 2 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
• 3 Teaspoons baking powder
• 1 Teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
• 1/2 Cup of grated cheddar cheese (we used tillamook cheddar)
• 1/2 Cup of Milk

Filling

• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 small onion chopped
• 1 can of plum tomatoes
• 3 Cloves of Garlic
• Approximately 1 cup of leftover roasted ham/pork shoulder chopped
• 2 Tablespoons All purpose Flour
• 2 Tablespoons grated parmesan cheese 
• Salt/Pepper to taste
• 1 egg white, beaten

Directions

1. In mixer, add flour, baking powder, salt, butter, coconut oil, and cheese. Beat until combined. Add milk to pull the ingredients together.
   
2. Remove the dough from the mixer, wrap it in saran wrap and place it in the fridge for 30-45 minutes. This will help solidify the dough to make it easier to roll out later. Try not to leave the dough in the fridge for too long as it will become very hard, on the other hand leaving the dough in the fridge for too short of a time will result in crumbly dough that doesn’t come together.
   
3. Meanwhile assemble the ingredients for the filling.
   
4. In a medium sized pot, heat the butter. Once the butter has melted add the onions and garlic. Cook until the onion becomes semi-translucent; almost clear.

   

5. Add the canned tomatoes and peppers to the sauce. Then add the flour and toss well.

   

6. Remove the dough from fridge and split it into into halves.
   
7. Coat an 8-inch pie pan with butter. Taking half of the dough, roll it into a circle that is larger than the pie dish.

   

8. To transfer the dough to the pan, use the rolling pin.

   
   

9. Use your fingers to push the dough down into the dish.

   

10. Fill the pie with the tomato filling. Then, sprinkle the chopped hame into the tomato mixture.

    

11. Take the second half of the dough, roll it into a circle, then cut into strips.
    
12. Place the strips of dough on top of the pie.
    
13. Preheat the oven to 400F. Brush the pie with an egg-white wash.

    

14. Bake initially for 10 minutes at 400F, then reduce the heat to 375F and bake the pie for another 35-45 minutes. The pie should begin to bubble when it is ready to eat.
    
15. Serve warm.

    

 Ham, Tomato and Cheese is a classic combination that definitely cannot go wrong. This pie was a hit and a great way to use up leftover meat. We will definitely revisit this pie soon.