Spring Hill's Fried Chicken Dinner

One of my favorite foods in the world is fried chicken. There are few things better than biting into hot, crispy batter then encountering juicy, flavorful chicken.  It's damn good.  Not ever having had the pleasure of eating homemade fried chicken in the south, most of the fried chicken I've had have been at fast food establishments and restaurants.  I've just about given up having fried chicken at restaurants.  It's inevitably overpriced and not as good as the fast food places -- such as Church's or Ezell's (a Seattle establishment famed for having fried chicken so good that Oprah Winfrey has said that it's her favorite fried chicken and has it flown out to her in Chicago).

Well, one restaurant has finally done it right.  Is it really any surprise that it's West Seattle's Spring Hill?  Not to me, at any rate.  Spring Hill rarely disappoints.  At least when it comes to their food.  Their Fried Chicken Dinner for 4 -- by special reservation only and served only on Monday nights -- is something special.  It comes with two whole chickens (with the breasts cut in half, so there's a higher crunchy batter to meat ratio, which means you can get delicious skin and meat in every bite), which is more than you think it is.  It also comes with seasonal sides.  It was one of the most satisfying meals I've had in a long time.

And now, the pictorial.


A truly enormous platter of fried chicken, fried in peanut oil, that once you start eating, seems to grow in size.  We thought we'd be able to tackle it easily.  We ended up taking a box and a half of chicken home.


What's a fried chicken dinner without mashed potatoes and gravy?  It would be wrong.  Spring Hill doesn't leave it out.  Here's buttered russet potatoes with a light but intensely flavorful gravy.


Spring Hill calls this "herbed dumplings with Beecher's Flagship."  I call it upscale macaroni & cheese, made all the more delicious by the use of Beecher's Flagship cheddar.  Beecher's is another wonderful Seattle institution.


Then of course, there's cornbread.  But with a twist, or maybe a kick; these are jalapeno.  It came with a delicious honey butter (not pictured).


Caramelized broccoli; I like to call it oven crisped.  I like pretty much any preparation of broccoli, but there's something about the texture it gets when prepared this way that I just love.  I could have eaten five plates of this on its own, so really for four people it's quite small (especially in comparison to the chicken).


Put it all together and what do you have?  A PLATE OF HEAVEN, THAT'S WHAT.  Oh, the dinner also came with marinated cucumber spears, but I didn't have a chance to take any photos of that before it'd been passed around too much and was obliterated.


After dinner I went home and sliced up a mango, Thai style, because it was overripe and needed to be eaten.  Lord mangoes are good.  Fried chicken and mangoes ... life is good.

Hot Cross Buns

So apparently, hot cross buns are an Easter tradition. Who knew? Certainly not I, heathen than I am. ;) All I knew of hot cross buns were from the nursery rhyme. I might have eaten one at some point some years back, but if I did, it was obviously forgettable. But I've seen several recipes for them lately -- probably because it was just Easter -- and it made me want to eat them. Which meant I'd have to make them. But before I could do that, I had to decide if I was going to try to make a sourdough version from my starter ... which I decided against, both because it was going to be more trouble than it was worth (in my humble opinion), and because the sourdough might flavor it in a way that would detract from the final product.

I ended up using two recipes to make these, one for the dough and another for the crosses. I also went my own way when it came to the fruit used in the dough. For the dough, I used this recipe from Wild Yeast. I used active dry yeast rather than instant yeast, but it worked just fine (from what I understand of the difference in the two, instant should work faster, but at all the specified times my dough expanded exactly the amount it should have), possibly because I used my proofing box. For the fruit I used golden raisins and chopped dried mango from Trader Joe's. For the crosses, I used the one from this recipe, which uses a sourdough starter for its dough. The reason I did this was because I liked how the crosses looked in their final product, and because I wanted them to be a bit sweet (which the powdered sugar provided). I also used the method of having the buns touch one another in a baking pan, rather than be spread apart individually. The buns came out beautifully!

When they first came out of the oven, I wanted to wait until they were cool to pull them apart, as I wanted them to be aesthetically pleasing ... but then I thought, "Wait a minute! These are supposed to be hot cross buns." I wanted to eat them as you're "supposed" to, so I pulled them apart while hot, which did make them pull apart a bit messily, and they were so soft that some of them got smooshed, but all in all it didn't go too badly. And they were delicious eaten hot, so there's that.

And now for the pictorial...

Here the final dough has gone through its first rise with folds at 30 minutes.

These have been individually shaped into balls then flattened, and placed in a parchment-lined glass baking pan, evenly spaced apart:

After an hour, they've poofed out nicely and are now snuggling next to one another comfortably, like old buddies:

Here they are with the crosses piped on top (using a plastic baggie with a small hole cut in one corner):

Right out of the oven, after the glaze has been applied on top. Since I used a glass baking dish I lowered the temperatures suggested in the recipe by 25°F:

Close up of the crosses:

A lone hot cross bun, awaiting its fate:

A shot of the interior -- so soft and warm and filled with light spices and hints of sugar (but not too sweet):

Submitted to YeastSpotting.

Friday Dinner: Fish Tacos

You know what I loved about this Friday Dinner? Well, actually, I loved a few things. But you know what was the best thing? The fact that Trix and I both made fish tacos, and yet almost everything about them was different. We both used tortillas, salsa, and fish, but none were the same. The other things I loved: 1) it's a healthy meal; and 2) it was delicious, yet fast and easy to prepare.



Trix used corn tortillas; I used flour. She used regular cabbage; I used Napa cabbage. She added shredded carrot to hers; I didn't. (The recipe we were basing this meal off of used shredded carrot and jicama -- I didn't feel like using carrot and I couldn't find jicama at the store, even though I've bought it before.)

I pan "grilled" my fish (flounder) using my new Le Creuset grilling pan:



She broiled her fish (halibut) in the oven:



I made a traditional tomato salsa while Trix adapted an avocado and mango salsa to an avocado and pineapple salsa. Mine was OK; she said hers was excellent. I think when mangoes are in season I'm definitely going to be trying that salsa!



We both warmed our tortillas -- she in the oven, me in the microwave -- then piled on the goodies. Since there isn't much of a recipe for this, the recipes I'll share are the two salsas!



Mango Avocado Salsa

Ingredients

• 1 ripe and firm mango, peeled and chopped
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 tomato, diced
• 2 avocados, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• 1 dash garlic salt (optional)

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl. Cover and chill 20-30 minutes before serving.

Tomato Salsa

Ingredients

• 1 14.5oz can petite diced tomatoes
• 1/3 cup diced red onion (about half a small-sized one)
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp chopped cilantro
• 1 tbsp fresh jalapeno, diced (about half a medium-sized one)
• 2 tsp garlic, minced (about 2 cloves)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Method

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl.