Patrick's Kitchen Experiments

My name is Patrick and I like to cook. I don't follow recipes and like to make things up as I go. I skew my cooking toward spicy. I document my experiments on this blog. Enjoy.

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Roasted & Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

My mom got me a small chile pepper plant for my balcony at the beginning of summer. We didn't know what kind of chiles it would produce but it was certainly producing a ton of them! As the small green peppers began to turn a deep red, I needed to either use them or lose. Having never made my own crushed red pepper flakes, I decided to ply these particular peppers in just such a spicy experiment.

Ingredients

25+ ripe chilis of any variety

Preparation

Cut off the stems and cut the chiles lengthwise. Do not discard the seeds unless you're a weenie. (Don't be a weenie.)

Arrange the split chiles and seeds on a dry baking sheet.

Pre-heat your oven to 175º.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and roast the chiles for 6 hours.

Turn off the oven and leave those bad boys in there overnight to further dehydrate.

Crush the dried chiles into fiery little flakes with a mortar and pestle or pulse them in a blender.

Funnel the magic dust into an empty spice jar.

That's it! Now you have homemade roasted and crushed red pepper flakes! You'll get a little less than a quarter cup from 25 small chiles. Add them to soups, eggs or dry rubs and you're good to go!

Oh, and be sure to thoroughly wash your hands before you touch anything. Like your eyes. Or before you go to the bathroom. Bad news otherwise.

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Mint & Basil Simple Syrup

Simply syrup is an aptly name accouterment—it's extremely simple to make. It comes in many incarnations and can add a range of notes to a range of consumables. This recipe is for one of my favorites, especially in the summer. It's great for cocktails and goes really well with iced tea.

Let's get started, shall we?

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 handful of basil leaves

1 handful of mint leaves

Preparation

Mix 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water in a pot over medium heat.

Stir the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Roll the mint and basil leaves in your hand to rough them up a bit.

Drop the herbs into the pot.

Remove the pot from the heat and let the mixture steep for 15–20 minutes.

Once the mixture has cooled, pour the syrup through a strainer into a jar or bottle. 

Now you have a delicious simple syrup that smells great and adds an herbaceous note to drinks, fruit and baked goods. It might even be good enough to drink straight. (Not that I've done it. More than a few times at least.)

The simple syrup will stay good in the fridge for about two weeks.

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Favorite Flavors: Rosemary & Marash

Generally, when I'm cooking for others, I like to keep  flavors simple, bright and distinctive. With that in mind, I tend to focus on two complementary flavors and build dishes around them. My favorite flavor combination right now is fresh rosemary and dried marash chili flakes. They work best together in dishes that are cooked at high heat, like roasted chicken or pork tenderloin.

Everyone should be familiar with rosemary's aromatic qualities but marash is far less known. This medium heat Turkish chili is sun dried, oily and often cured with salt. It has subtle flavors of dried fruits and the earthiness of cumin. I like to think of it as a more distinctive ancho chili.

Try this combination next time you're going to roast chicken breast. Put some sprigs of rosemary under the skin and rub the outside with olive oil, marash, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Roast the bone-in, skin-on chicken at 400° for about 35–40 minutes.

Even if you screw up the dish, rosemary and marash is guaranteed to make your house smell incredible for the rest of the day. Can't beat that.

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Frozen Mango & Mint Purée

Puréed mango, banana, mint and basil with a touch of agave and lemon juice. This is a really tasty snack for a summer afternoon. It tastes like a lighter version of a gelato. Mango and basil are very good friends but they don't get to hang out enough. Mint makes everything better. Lemon and agave are there just to make sure everyone else is cool.

Ingredients

1 ripe mango

1 frozen banana (frozen is optional)

5 mint leaves

1 basil leaf

juice from half a lemon

1 teaspoon agave syrup

1/4 cup juice, milk, yogurt or water

Preparation

In your blender, combine the 1/4c juice, milk, yogurt or water, mint and basil. Pulse until the herbs are mostly broken up.

Dice your banana and mango. Here are some methods for dicing a mango. I prefer methods 1 and 6. The others are a combination of sketchy and weird. 

Add the diced banana and mango to the blender.

Purée until everything is nice and smooth.

Add the lemon juice and agave syrup. Blend until they are incorporated.

Pour the magic into a small dish and pop it in the freezer for an hour or two.

That's it. Enjoy.