Kaimusailing

The unseasonable pleasant weather is causing the no-see-ums to come out and bite and swarm around me. My soup patrons are driven away. Others stay for a while and say, “Use DEET, that’ll keep em away”. But I am killing them, they bite, I kill. It’s February and the forecast is 80ish afternoons and 50 in the morning. Perfect weather, for the biting bugs.
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The nightmare scenario which was mentioned after I posted the last post, was a phrase plastered on the TV screen during a car repair insurance ad. I did some research to see if these repair insurance schemes are scams or not. I found out they are legit, but there are lots of unhappy customers. It’s a huge business and sometimes a snafu will happen.
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The Chicken Mole Soup was a success. Picante salsa makes it a touch spicy, medium salsa might be preferable to some.
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Webb Chiles has completed his circumnavigation of Hilton Head Island and I had several conversations with sailors about the sailing on the Southeast Coast. The season is starting right now with unseasonable weather, sailors antsy, anxious to get out there. Me too, but my hip and back problems need to abate. I’ll keep babying for a while.
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My next concoction is Tandoori Chicken, a recipe I made many years ago and later lost. Now I have the Taste-principle Cookbook again, a revised version with Ethnic Cuisine in the title. I also needed to make something palatable to those who cannot eat spicy Indian food, so I will make Cream of Chicken Vegetable Soup. The chicken in both recipes is from Walmart, skinless, boneless, thighs. The cool thing is that by deboning the thighs, the resultant chicken can be flattened into the tandoori marinade. No need to skin the chicken and cut divots into the flesh. As far as the cream of soup, the thighs will work out fine.
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The authentic tandoori spice mix is very hot, red, and applies to the chicken like paste. When the chicken is baked, the paste becomes a spicy flavorful crust. Can’t wait.
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The Cream of Chicken Vegetable Soup was made first. The tandoori marinade was in the fridge, the longer the better. For the soup I prepped the vegetables, onion, leeks, celery, mushrooms, but I cheated on the carrots and was using prepared matchstick carrots. A quart of water was brought to boil with two Knorr chicken cubes. The vegetables and chicken were added and the mixture cooked for about 20 minutes, then it was ladled into a colander in a large bowl. The empty stock pot was used to melt ¼ cup of butter and ¼ cup of flour was mixed with the butter and sauteed for about 2 minutes. Next the broth was ladled back into the roux while whisking it. I allowed it to cook and thicken for a few minutes. The chicken thighs were fished out of the glop in the colander and set aside on a cutting board while the rest of the veggies were returned to the soup along with a quart of half and half. The chicken thighs were chopped up and added to the soup. The only seasoning was garlic salt and fresh ground pepper. The result was about as good as it can get.
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Steamfitter Bill arrived in the boatyard and his boat is on the hard right off my bow. I had to go down and do something with the leftover cream of chicken in the stock pot that I had left under Kaimu. It was OK to leave it on a chilly evening, but now it was warming up and I had to put it in the fridge. Radio Bill had provided me with 4 food storage containers as a result of my complaining about all the containers that I had lost over the past few weeks. I ladled the soup into the containers and gave one to Steamfitter Bill, it was around noon time. He microwaved it and ate it and said it was good. I had to dishwash the stock pot and a bunch of other kitchen utensils. Then I had a small portion of the soup for my own little lunch. Yummy.
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I was spending a lot of time on the bike because I was pain free there. On my own two feet I was in pain. I thought of Floyd Landis, the bicycle racer who had necrotic bone damage in his hip, yet rode the Tour de France, and won it, but later was stripped of his achievement due to some performance enhancing drugs. I now knew that he was probably pain free on the bike, yet suffering just walking about. It means the hip joint, ball and socket, is grinding on the nerves, but on the bike there is no pressure, your weight is held by your butt on the seat.
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My plan was to make the Tandoori Chicken. I decided to use the pizza oven as a tandoori oven. Steamfitter Bill suggested we go to the gas station restaurant for our dinner and meet with Matt, of sloop Chamar. I found out Matt had suffered a heart attack during the time I was up on the Chesapeake. He also had shoulder problems, but he has the ways and means to live well in spite of all that.
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It became a beautiful day, about 75 with not a cloud in the sky. Of course this is the cue for the no-see-ums to come out and swarm and bite. Uncomfortable. No tandoori today. We went to the gas station restaurant.
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Rick’s Place. The owner of the restaurant said he still cannot smell and taste anything, he had contracted the covid virus. That explained why the restaurant had been closed for two weeks back in the Spring. How has he managed through this pandemic. He was in business and very attentive to his customers, plus he is putting out some really good food. He had a special tonight, salmon, and I ordered it with teriyaki sauce plated on greens with a walnut raspberry vinaigrette. When I described the chicken mole I had made, he said, “Oh, a gourmet in the boatyard”, but I said not gourmet. The salmon was also not gourmet, but it was good and I ate it all quickly, no lunch.
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The temperature was dropping and I was not dressed for it. We hung on for a while, then retreated to the boatyard, fire up the heater.
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The next day I made rice pilaf in Kaimu’s galley. I sauteed 1 cup of brown rice in ¼ cup butter along with 4 sliced mushrooms and a diced medium onion. On the second burner I brought 1 ¾ cups of water to boil, then added it to the saute along with a Knorr chicken cube. The mixture bubbled, I mixed it, dusted with fresh ground pepper and garlic salt. After simmering for about a half hour it was done well enough.
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Next I went to the woodshop and set up the pizza oven. I fired it up and turned the heat control all the way down. After a while it settled in at just under 500 degrees. The chicken marinating in tandoori spices and yogurt was layered on a pizza baking pan. Into the pizza oven it went and after about 15 minutes I pulled it out and flipped the chicken pieces. Back in for another 15, then checked for doneness, then brought the pilaf to the woodshop. Radio Bill and Steamfitter Bill were on hand to taste the concoction. The flavor was not as hot as I had remembered this dish, but very tasty.
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The image is of a plate of the tandoori chicken and rice pilaf.