So first I can't believe I won. Gratsi, ya'll.
Second:
IT'S FEBRUARY.
Which is Black History Month!
Which means I'm thinking this challenge should have some Black History fried into it!
Examples:
- Oatmeal and Peach Cobbler!
Black bean burgers!
Cajun Chicken!
Gumbo!
Sambusi!
Literally shrimp of any kind!
Mashed potatoes!
Fried chicken!
Think New Orleans. Think spicy, think fried, think ribs, think jambalaya, think fun!
Bonus 8bit Challenge!
If you can create your dish in exactly eight steps, I'll be impressed and love you forever.
Cool beans (heh)! Let me know if this challenge sucks, I'll think of something else.
You have one week!
Tags below:
kleinbl00, veen, Complexity, _refugee_, flagamuffin, zebra2, rjw, wasoxygen, humanodon, ghostoffuffle, rezzeJ, thenewgreen, b_b, flagamuffin, insomniasexx, Meriadoc, OftenBen, ButterflyEffect, elizabeth mk and forwardslash
---
Edit: Deadline extended by one week! We've got some stragglers, it would seem. :3
STEP ONE – Music PEAS AND RICE! Play the music. STEP TWO – Procure Ingredients In order to be the inception of the Grubski challenge, I want to do this in eight steps for EightBit but also use only eight ingredients, e'ight? Here are my eight: Rice, Black Beans (what Jamaicans call peas in peas and rice), Onion, Scallions, Coconut Milk, Garlic, Chilli, Chives. The music you are listening to is One Step by Max Romeo (Maxwell Livingston Smith) one of the artists that brought reggae to Britain in one of the waves of cultural immigration that introduced a Jamaican diaspora to London. He was banned by the BBC for suggestive lyrics in his hit Wet Dream (which he insisted was a song about a leaky roof – suuuure it was Maxwell) and founded The Upsetters who worked with Lee Scratch Perry and went on to form the Wailers, so he's surely worth a listen. Born in 1944 he left home at 14 and worked on a sugar plantation before being spotted in a talent contest at 18. Sadly, refined sugar has historically been intertwined with the slave trade and huge fortunes (Tate & Lyle) were built on the labour of slaves. Apart from the karmic debt of pain on your plate implied by sugar, it's terrible for your health. No sugar was used in the creation of this dish. STEP THREE – Prepare Ingredients We're going to finely chop our onion and grate or dice our ginger (I prefer fine dicing as I like the crunch of ginger root on the tooth). Drain your black beans, measure your rice, slice your scallions, crush your garlic, shiver your timbers and pass the doobie. STEP FOUR – The Fry In a little oil, brown your onions and ginger for a few minutes – cover the raas clart dish, we've talked about this before, it keeps your onions moist– and then add your dry rice and fry in, allowing it to be covered in oil and flavour. Add your black beans and allow to heat through. Throw in some salt and pepper and your chilli. STEP FIVE – The Simmer Now you can measure your cup of coconut milk and a cup of water, stir through, cover and allow to simmer STEP SIX – Rum While we're waiting for the rice to cook through, let's pour ourselves a shot of rum; of course. For this particular dish let's use La Negrita, often considered little better than a cooking rum but shut up. Jamaica was getting along quite happily before the Spanish in 1509 and then the British around 1670 settled there and implicated it in the Atlantic slave trade. Due to its fabled beauty it became a favourite place to jump ship for privateers; meanwhile the 18th century slave-powered cultivation of sugar and coffee made it a valuable jewel in the British crown. It wasn't all plain sailing for the Brits, though, there were over a dozen slave uprisings which saw self-liberated communities establish themselves in the interior of the island. In the 19th century, some of these 10,000 black freemen were employed in militias to keep the enslaved population in check; for example in the widespread revolt known as the Baptist War. A post-mortem review of this uprising was part of the impetus in the 1830's for an abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. Thereafter for Jamaica it was a slow struggle towards increasing independence marked 100 years later by the founding of the PNP, the socialist People's National Party, which Max Romeo endorsed and in support of whom he wrote songs. The PNP themselves chose his single Let The Power Fall as their theme song for their 1972 election campaign. (They won.) How's the rice doing? Looking good? Nice, nice. As part of the West India Regiment, Jamaicans fought for Britain in WWI making up around 10 of 15 thousand troops. They settled in small numbers in Britain thereafter and went on to fight in WWII, but the largest influx was post-war. Trigged by a hurricane in 1944 but most by the promise of post-war jobs, a wave of immigration through to the late 60's (continuing in smaller numbers thereafter) led to a thriving and vibrant community establishing itself and bringing with it culture, cuisine and music. One hugely popular genre which took off in the UK was ska. Here's the outrageously attractive Millie Small singing My Boy Lollipop, probably the first breakthrough ska hit in the UK in 1964. STEP SEVEN – Stir In The Fresh By now your rice and peas will be fluffy and cooked through, so you can throw in your chopped scallions, your garlic, your chives and any other cheeky spices you have to hand (cumin for me). Stir through a little more, keep the heat low, you're almost ready to serve. Hugely influential in the UK, Jamaican music brought reggae, influenced Indian bhangra, and fused punk and reggae to produce two-tone – the soundtrack to my eighties – and thereafter trip-hop, jungle, dub-n-bass. All my jams, yo. What's that, you don't know what two-tone sounds like? Why, here, brave reader, have an earful of this hour-long mix you can enjoy while you're eating your modern peas and rice. STEP EIGHT - Youth and youth, don't be rude, It's time to eat some good food Now your rice is ready, I suggest you serve it with something cold and dark; perhaps a Mahon Negra; and some hot sauce for extra kick. Meanwhile you can wander through the history of Jamaica and the UK on Wikipedia. The influences are profound. In this dish: one can of black beans, one cup of long grain rice (with one cup of coconut milk and one cup of water), one small onion, a tablespoon of fresh ginger root, a handful of chives, one garlic clove, one scallion (spring onion), one chilli. Serves 2 - 4 MAYBE. No sugar was harmed in the making of this dish; and know what else? It's totally vegan.
Hubski is demographically US-centric site so I thought I'd tip a hat to the influence Jamaican history has had on the UK. For this, I will need to make a classic Jamaican dish. Youth and youth, don't be rude
It's time to eat some good food
For the poor underwealthy
Need to be healthy
You know
Yes, I agree. I posted but didn't even put down the steps of how I made my dish. Complexity, my hat's off to you!
Right. Well, I'm just going to go ahead and say Complexity wins this one unless someone else seriously throws down but hey. I made the food and took the pictures. COUNTRY CAPTAIN Pretty much "white people slave food." Why the hell it's called a "country captain" since it's basically creole curry is the subject of much debate. Charleston lays claim to it, as does Savannah. We're making the Savannah recipe here, because Garden and Gun is the shit, as I've mentioned several times before. Best guess: someone southern learned it from someone who had been in India, where it was called something that sounded vaguely like "Country Captain". This is how even jodhpur-wearing Colonials can come to call milagu thanni "mulligatawny." Granted - there's no part of the Triangle Trade that touched on India. So perhaps this is some of the only Southern cuisine that isn't dependent on slavery. Whatever. I technically live in Westchester (I type this 20 feet from the Playa Del Rey border in two directions) and my home Depot is in Compton so if I want "black history food" it's way easier to buy than make. There is nothing I can make that Pann's can't make better, which is ironic 'cuz Pann's was started by a guy with the last name "Panagopoulos." Anyway. Eight steps, eh? Let's see. 1. Un-chicken the chicken This is a chicken. It is not in useful format. 10 minutes later: With salt'n'pepper: Not shown: the part where I take the chicken fat and skin I don't want to eat and render it down in the frying pan. yes, you should use bacon grease but since you don't taste anything bacon with this (although sometimes I'll get my grease by frying a little bacon and then using it to garnish - more in a minute) I just rendered me down some chicken fat. 2. Curry Powder. As with all curries, the fresher the better. I don't have a rippin' load of fresh spices handy and I'm still sick and besides, I forgot a lot of shit on this so oopsie. Yes, that is a coffee grinder. Typically I put the hard shit in there (cinnamon stick, coriander, cumen seed, cardamom, clove) and whack it then put the soft shit in and blend it. This time I forgot the clove and put the coriander in last so I had to schlep it all out of the grinder, nuke the coriander then blend. yes, you end up with like half a cup of curry powder. No, it doesn't fuck up your coffee the next morning. That's because I have a Mr. coffee, which you can wash, as opposed to that bullshit Krups thing that is completely useless for everything. 3. Veggie chop I've mentioned before I'm deathly allergic to green peppers. So I cut them big. If you're cutting peppers big, cut onions big. If you're cutting onions big, cut... whoops. Forgot to buy celery. As mentioned, sick. Hey, I remembered the serrano. Which for some reason doesn't do anything to me. Ooops. Let's get the canned tomatoes in there for a beauty shot as well. 4. Fry Fry Fry So the chicken we've been browning? Yeah, mostly we're going to poach it but we needed a sear. So out it comes. In with the seary bits go the veggies. in with the seary bits go the free world supply of curry powder. The recipe calls for cooking the veg until it's "soft" but FFS - we're going to boil this shit for half an hour so I mostly just let it rawk then add the tomatoes and chicken stock. 5. Cookie cookie cook Now that the veg is curried and the sauce is started, we put the chicken back in. And ignore it for half an hour. You could probably go 20 minutes; chicken is done at 165 and when you boil it for 30 minutes it's at like 180 but hey - we were putting the kid to bed so it went 45 and didn't suffer. But in that 45 you can do other things like 6. Garnish All sortsa shit is suggested for Country Captain. I gleefully endorse the following: Not pictured: A) Scallions (forgot) B) Bacon (too lazy) C) Sour cream/plain greek yogurt (thought we had some; we didn't) D) candied pecans (too fiddly by half) Now that that's good, let's get to 7. Rice Not pictured. I have a rice cooker. It cooks rice. It takes about 20 minutes, then keeps it hot for a week. After 48 hours it's half glue, half toenails so eat it in the first 24. And now we're ready for 8. Plate Note that you've got a chicken ($13 for organic), a bell pepper ($1.50 organic), an onion ($0.75), a shit-ton of spices (~$30 but you can make like 10 recipes worth with all of it - I mean, 2TBSP of cinnamon - so let's call it $3), a serrano (legit four cents), a can of tomatoes ($2) and some rice ($1/lb; this is about half a pound of rice) and it'll make about three meals for two. That's about three bucks a meal. But it isn't half as awesome as Complexity's.
Nuh uh, that's looks mouth-wateringly delightful. I will have to try it when travel settles back down.
TNG Makes Homemade Mac and Cheese, Black Eyed Peas, Broccoli and Tofu Ingredients: Prepped: Plated: I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty awesome. I used this mac and cheese recipe with some slight modifications. I used chinese 5 spice and some garlic salt instead of the suggested spices. It was damn good. Broccoli is steamed with some butter and "Spike." Tofu was marinated in hoisin, soy sauce and lime juice and the black eyed peas were cooked with a bunch of cheese left over from the mac. It was all quite tasty.
Of all the great culinary wonders that have been adapted from West Africa to America, my favorite is doubtlessly fried chicken. Mine involves a multiday process. First, the chicken (only thighs and legs) are brined overnight, the brine containing various spices: Next, they're soaked overnight in buttermilk that contains spices and various aromatics, bay leaf, etc.: Third, I did a bunch of shit that I forgot to photograph in the chaos that was my kitchen last night, including the finished product, the delicious home made mac and cheese, potato wedges, and beet salad that went with it. Sadly, all I have left is this less-than-impressive photo of today's leftovers that I will be enjoying at lunch. Anyway, let's all just agree that Complexity wins and move on, though I would've preferred he drink Red Stripe with that Jamaican marvel.
Mashed Potatoes & Hot Wings One taketh around one pound of free-range chicken wings. Marinate them with chili, paprika, curry powder, some salt & pepper and sunflower oil. Optionally, use vinegar. Let it rest for a while before putting them in a pan with a bit more oil to prevent it from sticking. Put it on a medium to low fire and put a cover over it. Flip the wings over every five minutes until it's done (after 20 minutes or so): Meanwhile, make some mashed potatoes and vegetables in different pans. I found some mixed green vegetables. When it's all done, arrange it nicely on a plate to get this result:
This challenge sounds awesome 8bit! Very creative, a nice way to add in the black history month too. 8 steps... I'll see about that. I'll begin researching my dish tonight! We have a restaurant nearby called Mama Dips that is famous for its soul-food. I will research their menu. Cheers!
Hey 8bit, don't wait on me, I'm up to my eyeballs in work and will not have a chance too cook till later next week. Ugh! Great challenge though!
I have my mom in town visiting and we discussed our plan to cook a meal for this, my wife was in on it too. Alas, I've been sent to a conference and will not return in time to prepare a feast for this one. If you feel inclined to give me till Thursday, I'd be glad to participate, but no worries if not. You have some awesome contenders in there already!! Fwiw, I'm staying at a place that seems about as white as they get. I feel very brown here.