Spicy Old Man
Culinary Confessions of an Old Cook and Fledgling Author
A blog that looks at everyday recipes and the stories behind them
I’m Jim Boatwright, and I’ve been cooking my whole life. There’s something wonderfully fulfilling about cooking a meal for the people you love, family or friends, even when they’re both. Don’t smirk. It happens.
This blog celebrates the everyday cook, that miracle worker who manages to create good-tasting meals every single day.
I have a motto that’s evolved over the years. And here it is:
Ordinary food prepared extraordinarily well
Well, that and a famous observation by Snoopy in the musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” As Charlie Brown gives Snoopy his supper the adorable dog goes into a huge production number called “Suppertime.” Charlie asks him why he has to make such a fuss about his meals to which Snoopy famously and wisely said, and I freely paraphrase:
What’s wrong with making mealtime a celebration?
I wholeheartedly agree. So, this blog provides simple, easy-to-use recipes to make a family dinner a celebration. Then I’ll tell you the story behind the recipe. I call them “Side Table Tales.” And that’s when the meal gets personal, and the fun begins. My recipes are curated below.
Recipes
Basic Cream of Chicken Soup
Ingredients
3 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. flour
salt, to taste
1 ½ c. chicken broth
1 c. milk, preferably whole
½ tsp. garlic powder
Instructions
Melt the butter until it is hot and foamy.
Sprinkle the flour in the foamy butter and blend thoroughly. Continue cooking (this is a classic roux) until the mixture has a beige or khaki-color.
Slowly add the chicken broth, stirring constantly. The mixture will begin to thicken.
Slowly add enough milk to get the consistency you want. (Don’t worry if you get too much. Just let it cook down.)
Sprinkle the garlic powder over the soup when it is thick and simmering. Remove from the heat.
Curried Chicken Divan
Curried Chicken Divan Meets the Catholic Church
First things first — this is one of the first dishes I ever learned to cook, and I was quite proud of it. Even though it is very simple and almost a cooking cliché, I thought I was doing something when I produced “Curried Chicken Divan.” Unlike most divan recipes, this recipe calls for curry powder. And I have to admit that this dish caused me to fall in love with curry powder.
There are dozens of curries, each with its distinctive taste, texture, and kick. But for the most part the commercially available curry powder is just fine for my modest cooking skills.
Since this was a kind of “signature dish” for me in the early years of my cooking, it was an obvious choice for a little dinner party my ex and I were having for a group of friends. All of us were just out of college (well, for me it was graduate school) and the memory of school cafeteria food lingered wearily on our insulted taste buds. So, a dinner with Curried Chicken Divan, salad, and wine did seem elegant.
We enjoyed the evening immensely and ate with abandon, completely cleaning every scrap of the Curried Chicken Divan. Just as we started clearing the table one of the guests clapped her hands over her mouth and with wide eyes exclaimed, “It’s chicken! It’s Friday! It’s Lent!”
She was right! It was the first Friday of Lent—the Friday after Ash Wednesday, but it was a Friday; it was Lent, and we all had eaten chicken—a definite no-no for good Catholics.
“But chicken’s like fish; it’s okay, I’m pretty sure,” soothed another.
“No it’s not! Chicken’s like steak. You can’t eat chicken on a Friday in Lent any more than you can eat filet mignon,” explained another.
This conversation plodded on for a while. The entire table of good, but guilty, Catholics had eaten meat on a Friday in Lent. I, being Protestant, was exempt, but that certainly did not ameliorate the situation. I made the meal. I caused those good Catholics to sin! At least my renegade Protestantism wasn’t held against me since my soul was already in a precarious state.
The discussion continued and, in the end, it was decided that we would not speak of this to any priest and would not go to confession, since we all agreed that on that night and in that city and at this table, it would be okay to eat chicken on a Friday during Lent. After all it was the first Friday, and it takes a while to get used to the whole no-meat-on-Friday thing. It was an understandable lapse. So, a papal dispensation was declared without the benefit of the Pope. Alas, the Pope was none the wiser.
Chicken Divan
(Curried Chicken Divan)
Ingredients
1 bunch of broccoli; cooked, drained, and cut into bite size pieces (frozen or fresh)
½ c. cooked chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
1-2 cans of cream of chicken soup (or if you’ve got the time make your own)
½ c. mayonnaise
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tbsp. curry powder
juice from one lemon
½ c. sharp cheddar cheese, grated
buttered bread crumbs
2 tbsp. butter
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Arrange cooked broccoli in a greased 9x13-inch baking dish.
Place chicken on top of the broccoli. Combine soup, mayonnaise, yogurt, curry powder and lemon juice.
Pour the soup mixture over the chicken. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs. Dot with butter.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Eggplant Parmesan
England, Language, Great Food, and Love
My wife and I just returned from a fantastic two-week excursion to England and Scotland. The weather was perfect, a real rarity for the UK. No rain, blue skies, pleasant temperatures, and lots of glorious sunshine. For me the UK is a special place. It’s almost magical. Maybe it’s because England is my ancestral home. Maybe it’s because it’s just that charming.
Now, almost everyone knows that there’s American English and British English. And while the two are virtually the same there are those words and phrases that are different: lift= elevator; servette= napkin; lorry= truck; biscuit= cookie; and so on. In fact, that now ubiquitous “no worries” response that seemed to spring out of our digital world has its roots in British English.
And then there’s aubergine. Eggplant. I completely forgot that linguistic flip-flop when we visited Bill’s on Cheap Street in Bath. Bill’s is a thoroughly charming English pub with great food and that warm, cozy atmosphere that gives British pubs their reputation.
As my wife set her sights on scones, clotted cream, and strawberry jam—Cream Tea, I studied the menu and found an intriguing, exotic offering: Aubergine and Mozzerella Parmigiana. Baked eggplant (aubergine), Parmesan, spinach and tomato sauce topped with green basil pesto & creamy Buffalo mozzarella (wording from their menu).
As soon as our waitress placed the dish on our table and I saw eggplant, I then remembered the eggplant/aubergine word switch. The dish was vaguely an eggplant parmesan variation. It was fabulous, but it got me thinking about my old recipe for eggplant parmesan, so when we got home to the US, I wanted to prepare the dish to compare our Americanized version to this British variation.
I’m not too sure which I prefer, but I always get a kick out of preparing this rich dish. My daughter who lives in New York was visiting us when I made it this time, and it was especially rewarding. It reminded me again, that there is no greater joy than cooking for people you love.
Here’s the recipe and a sincere hope that you have those you love close by and can prepare this Americanized classic for them.
Eggplant Parmesan
Ingredients
2 medium eggplants, cut into ½-inch-thick round slices
salt, as needed
4 c. fresh breadcrumbs
1 tbs. dried oregano
1 tbs. dried thyme
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
3 large eggs, beaten
4 tbs. water
4 tbs. milk
4-5 c. marinara sauce
½ c. Parmesan cheese, grated
1 lb. mozzarella cheese, grated
Instructions
Arrange the eggplant slices on large platter and sprinkle generously with salt. Set aside for at least 15-20 minutes. This will let the bitter juices weep from the eggplant.
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Rinse the eggplant slices thoroughly. Blot the slices to dry.
Combine the breadcrumbs, oregano, and thyme in a bowl, and then season with pepper.
In another bowl, combine the egg, milk, and water together.
Dredge the eggplant slices one at a time in the egg mixture, and then dredge in the breadcrumb mixture. Shake off any excess breading and set aside. Sometimes you may need to press some additional breadcrumb mixture onto the eggplant slices if the slice isn’t coated with the breadcrumbs.
Place the breaded eggplant slices on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Flip them over and continue for 5-10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and let cool slightly.
Coat a baking dish with olive oil. Cover the bottom of the dish with ⅓ of the marinara sauce and arrange half of the eggplant over the sauce. Cover the eggplant with another ⅓ of the sauce. Sprinkle half of the Parmesan and half of the mozzarella over the sauce. Repeat with the remaining eggplant, sauce, Parmesan, and mozzarella. Bake until hot and just beginning to brown, about 30 minutes.