Posts Tagged ‘food’

PORK RIBS WITH A BALSAMIC BARBECUE SAUCE

Posted: October 28, 2026 in barbecue, Carnivore!, Food, pork, Recipes
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I’m posting this a few days before the weekend, so you can make your shopping list. Let’s face it: weekends are for ribs, and you can enjoy this recipe whatever the weather, because the ribs bake in the oven.

The balsamic vinegar I use in this recipe is not the super-expensive stuff that should only be drizzled on a fancy salad. I use the $9-a-bottle stuff that you can find in any supermarket. Good quality, and I try to find one from Modena, Italy, the world headquarters of balsamic vinegar.

3 lbs. pork ribs (I like the St. Louis cut)
4 cloves garlic, minced or through a press
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt

Place the ribs in a roasting pan, cutting the racks in half if you need to, to make them fit.

In a bowl, combine the garlic, rosemary, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar and salt, and then rub the mixture evenly all over the ribs.

Let the ribs marinate for an hour at room temperature or longer in the fridge.

 

Marinated ribs, ready for the oven.

 

Place a rack in the center of the oven and pre-heat it to 425. Pour 1/2 cup of water into the roasting pan with the ribs and cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil.

Roast the ribs until the meat is very tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

While the ribs are roasting, make the barbecue sauce…

1 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
1 tablespoon molasses
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons hot sauce (I like Frank’s)
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

 

Place the balsamic vinegar in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat to medium and cook the vinegar until it is reduced by a third, about 8 minutes.

Whisk in the ketchup, apple cider vinegar, honey, mustard, molasses, Worcestershire, hot sauce and salt. Bring the sauce back to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer until it has thickened, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

 

After baking, brush the ribs with the barbecue sauce.

 

Remove the ribs from the oven and transfer them to a baking sheet lined with non-stick aluminum foil or parchment.

Increase the oven temperature to 450 .

Brush both sides of the ribs generously with the barbecue sauce and bake them uncovered for about 10 minutes, until the sauce is browned and sizzling.

 

Delicious balsamic ribs!

 

Leftover barbecue sauce is great for rib dipping!

 

 

BUTTER CHICKEN WINGS

Posted: October 26, 2026 in Uncategorized
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These are even better than they sound!

 

A few months ago, I received chef Chetna Makan’s book, “Chetna’s 30 Minute Indian,” as a gift. The first recipe I tried was butter chicken, of course, because it’s so delicious. It was a big hit with my daughter and friends, and we’re looking at other recipes to try in the future.

 

Recently, we had dinner at a relatively new Indian restaurant in our area, Saffron, in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Excellent food and service. We had a great meal. But what peaked our curiosity was their butter chicken wings. Wings! I thought that was genius.

So I took their idea, and using Chetna’s recipe, I gave it a shot. They came out fantastic!

Measurements in my recipe differ from the cookbook due to the large amount of chicken wings I used (5 lbs.), but the actual ingredients are the same. I also needed to change the way it was cooked, because the wings were large and had bones, where the original butter chicken recipe used boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into smaller pieces.

5 lbs. large chicken wings
5.3 oz. container (150g) plain yogurt
5 tablespoons mustard oil
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
1 tablespoon Kashmiri chili powder
2″ piece of ginger, peeled and grated
4 garlic cloves, grated

I prepared the chicken wings by chopping off the tips. (But I do save them in a plastic freezer bag for future chicken stock.) Then I chop the wings at the joint to make two pieces from each wing. I set them aside.

The tips will be used later in for chicken stock.

 

In a large container that will hold all the wings, I combine the yogurt, mustard oil, salt, chili powder, grated ginger, and garlic. Mix it well. Add the chicken wings and make sure they are really well coated with the marinade. You can let it sit for ups to 3 hours at room temperature, or longer in the fridge.

 

Mix well.

 

A tip for fresh ginger: This is something I learned from a local farmer that raises her own ginger. I keep it in the freezer in a plastic freezer bag. When it’s time to grate, I simply take the frozen ginger and grate it, skin and all. The skin completely disintegrates and you don’t have to peel it. Then just put the unused ginger back in the bag and back in the freezer.

 

After marinating, spread the chicken wings onto a large sheet pan in a pre-heated 350 oven, and bake for 20 minutes.

While that’s baking…

2 tablespoons oil
100g salted butter
8 cloves
8 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks (3″)
2 bay leaves
16 oz. passata, or pureed canned tomatoes
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
2 tablespoons Kasoori methi (fenugreek leaves)

Add the oil and butter to a pan over medium-low heat. Add the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves to the pan, and warm the spices for a few minutes.

 

 

Add the passata, salt, chili powder, garam masala and Kasoori methi to the pan, mixing well. Cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for about 10 minutes on medium-low heat. Don’t let it burn.

 

 

After 10 minutes, remove the lid from the pan and let it cook a few minutes more to reduce just a bit. Take the pan off the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Using a slotted spoon, remove the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and bay leaves.

 

You don’t want to crunch on these!

 

Pour the contents of the pan into a large bowl, big enough to hold all the chicken wings.

After the wings have cooked 20 minutes, pour off any of the fat in the sheet pan and place the wings in the bowl with the pan sauce. Mix gently, but really well to make sure the wings are really covered with sauce.

 

 

Place the wings back on the sheet pan (pour all leftover sauce on top)and bake at 350 for another 15 minutes, until the chicken coating starts to caramelize and get sticky.

 



2 tablespoons cream or half-and-half
2 teaspoons clear (and runny) honey 

Mix the cream and honey together in a small bowl. When the wings come out of the oven, let them cool for a few minutes, then drizzle the cream and honey all over.

 



I served the wings over plain jasmine rice, and some sautéed carrots from my garden.

 

 

 

MORE CHICKEN WINGS

Posted: October 21, 2026 in Uncategorized
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I love chicken wings. I could eat them every day. But I like to change up the flavors once in a while. So I often improvise. Sometimes, it’s…meh. But this last time, it was pretty tasty!

To keep calories a little lower–because, let’s face it, chicken wings are full of tasty fat and gristle–I usually bake my wings, not fry them.

2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated garlic
2 tablespoons granulated onion
2 tablespoons Kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

I cut the tips off the wings and save them for future use, when I’m making chicken broth. And I like to cut the wings at the joint to get two pieces, but that’s a personal preference. Place all the wing pieces in a large plastic zip bag.

In a bowl, combine the rice vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Pour this into the bag of wings, seal it tightly, and squish it around so that the marinade gets to every part of the wings. Let this marinate for at least an hour at room temperature.

In a separate bowl, combine the brown sugar, garlic, onion, salt and pepper.

When the wings have marinated long enough, get a bowl large enough to hold all the wings. Transfer the wings to this bowl, and discard the used marinade.

Dust the wings with about 1/3 of the seasonings, and toss the wings to coat. Dust again and toss. Do it one more time, using up all the seasonings, making sure the wings are evenly coated.

Pre-heat a convection oven (or air fryer, for you younger kids) to 325. Place the wings on a raised rack above a baking sheet (I like to line the sheet with parchment paper to catch the drips) and bake for about an hour, until the wings are crispy.

Note: If you bake the wings at a higher temperature, you could burn the sugar, so low and slow is the way to go!

DAD’S ALMOST-INSTANT WONTON SOUP

Posted: October 18, 2026 in Uncategorized
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I posted an Instagram photo of soup I made the other day, and had quite a few friends ask me what the recipe was. My daughter got hit with a cold a while back, and I knew only one thing would help: a bowl of my homemade chicken soup. But rather than adding pasta or potatoes, I decided to give it an Asian kick. It was simple, delicious, and soothing.

Making the ingredients for a great bowl of chicken soup, or wonton soup for that matter, takes a little time. But once you’ve got them, you can freeze them, so that putting them all together takes no time at all.

 

 

The key to a great chicken soup is making your own chicken stock. Let’s be honest, nothing out of a carton can possibly compare. For one thing, I buy the best quality pastured chicken I can get. Here in Rhode Island, that means buying from local farms when available.

I prefer buying a whole bird, roasting it for dinner, then removing all the meat from the carcass before I start making stock. If I’m making fried chicken for dinner, I’ll cut the raw bird up into pieces, then drop the raw carcass into a pot to start the process. Either way–a cooked bird or raw bird works great. (Just remember that a cooked bird can have some salt on it, so you don’t want to add any.)

Making chicken stock is incredibly easy. It just takes time, which is an ingredient many people don’t have enough of. Honestly, though, if you’ve got time to binge-watch your favorite show on Netflix or watch a football game on a Sunday afternoon, you can make stock. If you can’t make stock at the same time you’re making dinner, simply put the carcass in a Ziploc bag and toss it in the freezer until you’ve got more time.

If you don’t want to deal with cutting up a chicken carcass, buy a pack of chicken parts. It doesn’t really matter what parts you use, as long as it’s something on the bone. You want all that good fat and gelatin.

Once you’re ready to make stock, fill a large pot with clean, filtered water. Drop in the chicken carcass or pieces. Chop an onion in half, 2 or 3 celery spears, and 2 or 3 carrots. (Wash the carrots well, or just peel them.) Everything goes in the pot. Turn the burner on high, and let it come to a boil. If it’s boiling too hard and spilling over, reduce the heat to medium.

Let it go for at least an hour, two or three is better. If it looks like too much water has evaporated, simply add more. How intense you want your stock is really up to you. You can reduce it like crazy to make something very concentrated, or you can cook it down to a point where it’s user-friendly right away. The best way to know is to taste it along the way.

When making your stock, feel free to add any other ingredients you like. But I stick with only the onion, carrots, and celery–avoiding garlic, salt, bay leaves, and other flavorings–adding them only when I use the stock at a later time in a particular soup or recipe.

Once the stock is done, I let it cool a bit before I strain it and pour it into individual plastic containers with tightly sealing lids. (Don’t use glass if the stock is going into the freezer!) Then it’s off to the freezer until I need to use it in a recipe.

When it’s time to make soup, I run the frozen container under warm water, and drop the frozen “block of stock” into a sauce pan, adding a little water to it, setting the burner on medium to thaw. Then it’s time to decide on what I want to put in my soup. Most of the time that simply means using whatever I’ve got in my fridge.

When I made my almost-instant wonton soup the other day, I had some carrots and organic kale in the fridge. (I only buy organic kale. The regular stuff is loaded with pesticides.)

I peeled and thinly sliced the carrots, and I removed the stem from the kale before chopping it up. I dropped the veggies in the soup and brought the heat up to high to get it to a boil.

If I’m using potatoes, I usually peel and chop them into small cubes and add them raw to the boiling stock. If I’m adding chicken, I usually choose already-cooked chopped breast meat. And if I’m using pasta, I use dry or pre-cooked, but I only add the pre-cooked pasta at the very end to avoid it turning mushy. When making chicken noodle soup, I add a pinch of salt and, for flavor, a pinch of dried bouquet garni to the pot.

With my wonton soup, I skipped the pasta and potatoes, because I had a package of dumplings in my freezer. A half-dozen of them, still frozen, go right into the boiling water. They’re fully cooked in about 5 minutes.

 

These dumplings were delicious in my soup.

 

Once the dumplings are cooked, the soup is done! I turn the heat off, and add a couple of drops of sesame oil to the soup, mixing it in well.

Once I’ve placed the soup in the bowl, a few splashes of soy sauce, and it’s ready to serve.

 

 

PICKLING BEETS

Posted: October 16, 2026 in Food, Recipes, beets, pickling
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Growing up in a Lithuanian family, there was a small group of foods that I had to love to survive, since they constantly appeared on the dinner table: potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, herring, and beets. Fortunately for me, I loved them all, despite my Mom’s desire to boil everything to death.

One of the many uses for beets, besides a cold summer soup and a hot winter soup, was pickling. Pickled beets are an excellent side dish for any hearty meat dish. (I love ’em with kielbasa!)  Store-bought pickled beets pack way too much sugar in every jar, so it was time to make my own. The addition of hard-boiled eggs to the mix is a personal one. If you don’t like ’em, leave ’em out and add more beets.

A real time saver is a product called Love Beets, which you can find in any supermarket. If you use them, you can skip the roasting of the beets altogether.

beets

 

4 to 8 beets, scrubbed (your favorite variety)
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
3 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
1 onion, sliced (I like Vidalias)
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled (optional)
6 fresh dill sprigs

Pre-heat the oven to 450.

If you’re using fresh beets, wash them well and then wrap the beets in foil and roast them for about an hour, until tender. When they’re cool enough, carefully peel and quarter them. (Otherwise, just open the pack of Love Beets and you’re ready to go.)

In a medium saucepan, combine the vinegar, water, garlic, sugar, peppercorns and salt. Bring it to a boil and simmer over moderately high heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Let the pickling liquid cool to warm, about 15 minutes.

In a heat-proof glass jar or container, layer the beets, onion, eggs (optional) and dill sprigs and then cover them with the pickling liquid. Put the lid on the jar.

Let the jar stand at room temp for 2 hours, then place it in the fridge overnight.

They stay fresh for a week, but they won’t last that long!

CHOURICO WITH ARUGULA PESTO

Posted: October 14, 2026 in Carnivore!, Food, frying, Recipes, Rhode Island, Southern New England
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Chourico is as important to the Portuguese as bacon is to us Lithuanians. Here in Southern New England, they pronounce it “sha-rees,” not “chaw-reezo!”

I was joking with a friend the other day that if I won the lottery, I could buy a lifetime supply of chourico at my favorite store: Mello’s, in Fall River, Mass. His response was: “Is there such a thing as a lifetime supply of chourico?!”

Good point!

If you’ve had really great chourico, you’re always looking for new ways to include it in your cooking. Inspired by chef Chuck Hughe’s recipe, this is a great chourico appetizer that’s really easy to make. Whip up the arugula pesto ahead of time and keep it in the fridge. Then when guests come, just slice the chourico, sauté it in a pan until brown, and serve.

 

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3 cups fresh baby arugula
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup + one tablespoon grated Parmigiano Reggiano
2 lbs. chourico, sliced into 1/2″ pieces

Combine the arugula, walnuts, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and the 1/2 cup of cheese in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Set the remaining tablespoon of cheese aside for garnishing later.

 

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Remove the casing from the chourico and slice it into 1/2″ thick pieces. Sauté the chourico slices in a pan until both sides are caramelized and golden.

Place the chourico on a plate, topping with some of the pesto. Sprinkle a touch of the grated cheese to garnish. Serve immediately, while the chourico is still hot!

 

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BAKED ZITI, CLASSIC OLD-SCHOOL ITALIAN COMFORT FOOD

Posted: October 11, 2026 in Food, Italian, pasta, Recipes
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My baked ziti recipe is always a crowd pleaser. This time, I used rigatoni pasta, because that’s what I had in the cupboard, but use whatever shape you like.

As a teenager growing up on Long Island, I worked long hours at a local Italian restaurant called Pizza City East in Plainview. (The original Pizza City was in Ozone Park, Queens.) Though the pay sucked, I made some important friendships that have lasted to this day. I also learned many Italian cooking basics: how to open clams for red and white clam sauce, the secrets of great pizza dough, the art of a perfect espresso, and how to make massive quantities of baked ziti.

When I got older and I shared an apartment with my buddy, Don, we would regularly invite a large crowd of people over for a party, and a huge tray of baked ziti was an inexpensive and hugely popular way to feed a crowd that was doing some serious drinking.

The basic ingredients of baked ziti are the same as lasagna, the main difference being the wetness factor. If you make lasagna too wet, the thing will fall apart when you try to slice it. But baked ziti is meant to be sloppy, and it actually shines in its incredible gooiness!

My baked ziti consists of a meat sauce and 4 cheeses (ricotta, mozzarella, provolone, and Parmigiano Reggiano) using pasta that is boiled much firmer than al dente. Technically, I like to use penne, not ziti. It’s firmer, and really works well with this recipe. And there are plenty of great pasta choices out there for gluten-free diets. Our favorite brand of GF pasta is Garofalo.

I used to add a béchamel sauce to this recipe, but I’ve found that plain milk does the job just as well. Béchamel is better used in lasagna, where you want a bit of a thickening agent to keep it firm.

Gooey and delicious!
Meat Sauce…
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small carrot, finely chopped
1 lb. grass-fed ground beef or pastured pork, or a combination of both
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes
extra virgin olive oil for sautéing

Heat a tablespoon or 2 of olive oil in a large pan and sauté the onions until translucent. I finely chop the carrots by peeling them all the way down until there’s nothing but a pile of peeled pieces, then chopping them up so small, they almost melt into the sauce. Add the carrots and cook for 2 minutes. Add the beef (or pork) and cook the meat until it browns. Add the parsley, oregano, basil, salt, garlic and pepper and mix well.

Empty the can of tomatoes into a blender and blend it until smooth. Add this to the pan and mix well.

Cook the meat sauce for about 10 minutes, then remove it from the heat and set it aside.

Beautiful baked ziti!
4 slices provolone cheese (about 4 oz.), chopped
ricotta cheese (about 8 oz.)
mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 8 oz.)
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 cup whole milk
12 oz. small pasta, like ziti or penne

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, combine the provolone, ricotta, mozzarella (save a little bit to sprinkle on top at the end), Parmigiano Reggiano, and milk. Add this mixture to the meat sauce and mix well.

For baked ziti, I use a deeper pan than I would for lasagna, about 4″ deep.

Boil the pasta in a pot of salty boiling water until very firm…firmer than al dente. Drain the pasta and pour it into the pan. Add the cheese and sauce mix and mix it all really well.

Smooth the top of the ziti mix flat with the back of a large spoon, then sprinkle the remaining mozzarella evenly over the top. Sprinkle a little oregano on top, and place the pan in the oven to bake for 30 minutes, or until the mozzarella on top is a beautiful golden brown.

The best mac and cheese ever: baked ziti!

THE VELVET ELVIS

Posted: October 9, 2026 in Cocktails, drink recipes, Drinks, Food, mixology, Recipes, restaurants, travel
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As I mentioned previously, Stoli filed for bankruptcy in 2024, and now they’re getting rid of their USA inventory. I grew up with this vodka, so I’m making sure I have a supply of it at home before it’s all gone.

I consider Stoli elit to be the best vodka out there, so I’ve already secured my stash! (I never mix with it.)

And I consider Stoli Vanilla to be the best vanilla vodka you can find. This recipe , which I’ve been making for many years, is still my favorite way to use it in a cocktail.

The inspiration for this incredibly easy to make cocktail is the famous Capital Grille Stoli Doli. I think I’ve done it one better with my Velvet Elvis.

A Stoli Doli is simply Stoli vodka that has been infused with fresh pineapple. If you sit at the bar at the Capital Grille, you won’t be able to miss the very large jar of freshly-cut pineapple pieces swimming in vodka. They literally pour it “from the tap,” and serve it straight up, like a martini, or on the rocks. It’s delicious, and I’ve certainly had my share of them.

I decided to make my own at home one day, to serve to my friends at an upcoming party. But to my disappointment, I didn’t have any Stoli vodka in the house. (An embarrassment to most Lithuanians.) But…I found a bottle of Stoli Vanilla, and it changed everything! I used that instead of regular Stoli and I came up with a sweeter, smoother drink that is now legendary among my friends.

VELVET ELVIS

2 ripe, sweet pineapples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1.75ml Stoli Vanilla

Find a gallon-sized glass jar with a lid. Peel, core and slice the pineapples and drop the pieces in the jar. Pour the vodka in, mix well, and seal the jar. Keep it at room temperature for 7–10 days, giving it a gentle shake every day.

After 7–10 days (don’t worry…a little longer won’t hurt anything), strain it, squeezing the pineapple pieces to get every bit of liquid out. Discard the pineapple pieces. (As much as you might think they would be fun to munch, they’ve given up all their flavor to the cocktail, and taste terrible!)

Keep the Velvet Elvis refrigerated. Serve with rocks (or 1 big rock!), or shaken and poured into a martini glass.

As a martini, or on the rocks!

THE PERFECT COFFEE STEAK RUB

Posted: October 3, 2026 in beef, Carnivore!, Food, grilling, Recipes
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If you’re like me and you grill outdoors year ’round, this is for you. But in case of nasty weather, this works indoors as well.

I rarely order beef at a restaurant, because I can usually make a better steak at home. For one thing, I use humanely raised grass-fed beef, something few restaurants offer. And I can cook it for less than a third of the price of a steakhouse. Granted, most steakhouses dry-age their beef, a time-consuming process of taking slabs of beef and keeping them in a fridge for weeks until a certain amount of moisture is sucked out of the meat, intensifying the flavor. I’ve done that at home in my fridge, but it takes a lot of time and effort.

There is one steak that I couldn’t match for the longest time, and that was the Capital Grille’s bone-in Kona crusted dry-aged NY strip. I would have dreams about that steak! It was time to find a way to make something that would satisfy my craving for that amazing steak at home.

Looking at a variety of coffee rub recipes on-line, I started the slow and steady process of combining ingredients in just the right proportions, tasting as I went. What I came up with really accentuated the flavor of the beef I was cooking, better than I had imagined!

 

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3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground coffee (use your favorite)
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

 

Combine the ingredients, mixing well, and keep them in a tightly sealed container at room temperature.

The secret ingredients are the brown sugar and the cocoa. The brown sugar gives the steak a caramelized crust when cooking, and the cocoa rounds out the flavors and gives the beef an extra “umph!”

When using, sprinkle the seasoning liberally on both sides of the steak before cooking. When cooking indoors, I like to add bacon fat to a hot cast iron skillet, searing the steak on all sides, and then finishing it in the oven. But let’s face it: nothing beats the grill!

 

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A side note : I’m going to a party today where I was asked to bring pulled pork. I used this rub on the pork shoulder, and it came out fantastic! It also works really well with chicken!

IT’S NOT KFC, BUT IT’S CLOSE ENOUGH!

Posted: September 29, 2026 in Carnivore!, chicken, Food, frying, Recipes
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It’s been a while since I posted this. Inspired by a recent conversation I had with a friend, I decided to share it again…

It’s never a healthy option to eat fast food. Michael Pollan said it best: “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.”

Years ago, a guy who claimed to be the nephew of Colonel Sanders, revealed the 11 secret herbs and spices that made KFC‘s original recipe chicken a worldwide success. He said he worked for his uncle for many years and had to make huge batches of the seasoning mix.

For me, KFC is like crack. Although I’m a big proponent of grass-fed this and pastured that, my kryptonite is KFC‘s original recipe chicken. There’s a KFC right next door to a local Home Depot in my area and my car literally drives itself to the pick-up window…I can’t help it. I justify the consumption of this heavenly grease by asking for no sides–no biscuit, no nothing. I get one breast and one thigh, and I drive off, steering my car with my knees as I indulge in my dirty secret, the hot grease dripping down my chin, a roll of paper towels at my side.

Making the KFC chicken recipe at home means I do have some control over product quality. I can use pastured chicken. I can use clean oil. I don’t have the fancy pressure fryer they use at KFC, but I can use the healthier option of oven-frying. That means I fry my chicken in oil until golden brown, then finish the cooking process in the oven.

I have to say, the recipe really works! Maybe if I placed the real KFC side-by-side with my home-made chicken, I’d notice a big difference. But my brain said it was pretty damn close and absolutely delicious! If I could change one thing, I would use smaller chicken pieces next time. I used large pieces and the meat-to-breading ratio was off. Though it was mighty tasty, I was craving more breading per bite.

The recipe calls for all-purpose flour, but if you follow a gluten-free lifestyle, using Cup4Cup GF flour works just as well.

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon celery salt
1 tablespoon dried mustard
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons basil
1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 egg
5 lbs. chicken pieces…your choice
oil, for frying

Combine the flour and the “11 herbs and spices” in a bowl. Mix well.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk and the egg. Add the chicken pieces to this bowl and let the chicken soak in it for 10 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Pour a couple of inches of the oil into a pan with high sides and heat it to 340 degrees, using a thermometer. Don’t fill it with too much oil, because oil expands when hot and it could spill over.

Take the chicken pieces out of the milk and egg mixture and coat them with the seasoning mix one at a time, making sure you coat them well. Carefully place the chicken in the hot oil. Don’t overcrowd the pan…work in small batches. Too much chicken could cause the oil to spill over the top.

Fry the chicken pieces just until golden…no need to cook them all the way through. Place the pieces on a rack over a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. (I avoid using aluminum foil these days.)

When all the chicken has been fried, place the baking sheet in the oven and cook until the chicken pieces reach an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees.

Make a lot! Leftovers are great, and they re-heat really well in the oven! (Don’t use a microwave…the oven is best.)

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