Tag Archives: onions

Eggplant Mingus

What is now to be known as Eggplant Mingus was made tonight, called so for its wide variety of foods in the dish.

EggplantMingus

What you need to feed two healthy boys:

  • 1 yam
  • 1 sweet potato
  • 1/2 eggplant
  • Handful of asparagus
  • 2 breasts or 4 thighs of boneless chicken (with bones you’ll need more)
  • 3 big mushrooms
  • 2 slices of onion
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Balsamic vinegar

Spices:

  • Paprika
  • Tarragon
  • Chili powder
  • Sea salt and pepper
  • Oregano
  • Sesame seeds

To start, I always get the water boiling for the potatoes. They should be washed and diced into your own style of chunks for boiling. When the water comes to a boil put them in.

EggplantMingus-2The Eggplant should be chopped into ~1-2cm slices and put on a pan to let the eggplant sweat. After 5-10 min they’ll be sweating, wipe that off and lightly cover them with a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, oregano, and salt. Remember to save half for when you flip them in the pan. Once you’ve got the mixture on the eggplant, turn the pan on fairly high because to make sure you get them nicely browned. Watch them carefully though, cause they can burn quick.

EggplantMingus-3

Chop up the chicken and put it into the frying pan with about a half teaspoon of paprika, tarragon, chili powder, oregano and sesame seeds on the chicken, as well as a bit of olive oil to hopefully stop the chicken from sticking to the pan. Put this on med-high heat, and fry.

When the chicken is nearly done, I add the mushrooms chopped into cubes, and the diced onions to give it a interesting flavor. The eggplant should be flipped by this time, and working on its second side.

I would also at this point put in the asparagus. I just put mine in with the potatoes because I was running out of elements. They really don’t need to cook for long, ~ 3 min.

EggplantMingus-4

Take some time to add something pretty to the dish, I chopped up some cucumber into almost all the way through slices, and then sliced some thing leaves of red pepper to stuff in each slice. It adds some more veges to the mix, and bring a whole lot of color!

Don’t be afraid to put an extra dash of salt on the eggplant!

Look good? Tell me how yours went!

Enjoy!

Chicken Balsetta by Ned Tobin

I call this dish Chicken Balsetta for its Basil. Its one of my staples.

What you’ll need:

  • rice (1/3 a cup per person)
  • chicken (~1 breast per person)
  • 1 tomatoe
  • 1/4 broccoli
  • 2 small carrots
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 2 slices of onion
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • sesame seeds
  • celery seeds
  • basil
  • paprika
  • tarragon
  • salt/pepper
  • cardamom seeds

chicken balsetta_2

To start get the rice on to boil. Wash the rice a few times by running it under the water, and then (for white rice) add 1:1 water:rice and bring to a boil, then turn to low and set your time for 15 minutes.

While I wait for the rice to boil, I chop up my chicken into bite sized pieces, and put them in the frying pan, add a dash of olive oil and turn it on med-high temp.

At this point, I add all the spices. My favorite for all chicken dishes is tarragon, some paprika, sesame seeds are a must, celery seeds, and the spice to make the recipe: Basil!

Keep an eye on this when cutting up veges so that it doesn’t burn (ie. stir it frequently!)

I like to cut up my garlic and onions first, to quickly get them in with the chicken to give it more flavor, but thats me.

Then cut up the carrots (and any other veges you so choose to add, just not the tomato) and throw them in when the chicken is almost done.

When this whole mix is almost done put your chopped up tomato’s into the mix, you just want to warm them up so that they don’t get soft on you, but still warm (this is how I like them personally).

Mind your rice, it should be done about the same time. The chicken usually takes me about 10 min, the rice 15 min always. So, just time it right.

I like to serve mine with a side of a few slices of tomato to make it look extra pretty!

chicken balsetta_4Enjoy!