Oven-Baked Spiced Tilapia

My list of favorite fish goes thusly:

1. Salmon- Unrivaled flavor

2. Whiting- Perfect for fried fish
3. Red Snapper- Great for baked fish dishes
4. Whiting- Easiest to cook, by far, plus very affordable. 

Tilapia is the unsung hero of the fish world. Unlike some fishes out there, it is hard to cook poorly. It won't dry up or flake and ruin your plating.   It's also very versatile. It can be deep fried, pan fried, or baked and can be seasoned a lot of ways. 

This tilapia is seasoned simply with salt, paprika, garlic and turmeric and baked. It takes no time at all to make, and is a healthy way to get your protein. You can up the proportions of this spice blend and keep it around to add West Asian flavor to your meat, poultry, fish, and vegetables. 

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INGREDIENTS

• 4 filets of tilapia
• 2 tbsp kosher salt
• I tbsp smoked paprika
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon tumeric
• 3 tbsp olive oil

COOK TIME

Total: 20 minutes 

• 5 mins prep
• 10-15 mins bake time

HARDWARE

• small bowl
• baking sheet covered with foil for easy clean-up

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METHOD

1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees

2. Mix spices in bowl. 

3. Drizzle olive oil over fish, using your fingers to ensure even distribution. Season with spice mix. Flip, and repeat. 

4. Bake for 10-15 minutes until edges beging to brown.

5. Do the macarena, cuz you totally aced the tilapia. 

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Coconut-Sweet Potato Souffle

I used to make sweet potato souffle one way. Then my one year, my younger cousin and I both made it and his was waaaaaay better than mine. I remember having a spoonful of his and my souffle on my plate and not even touching what I made after I tasted his. His had coconute which took the flavor to another level. The sweet potatoes here are baked, which allows the sugars inside of the potato to caramelize, which allows you to add use less sugar in the dish. 

This totally violates Heavy Spoon's "quick recipe" rule, but it is worth it! Promise.

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ingredients

FEEDS  8

Souffle 

• 5 cups of pureed sweet potatoes (8 small potatos, 5 large ones)
• 3 beat eggs
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup of white sugar (a cup if you want it desert-like sweet)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 tbsp of melted salted butter

Topping

• 6 tbsp of melted butter
• 1/2 cup of self-rising flour flour
• 1/2 cup of oats
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• optional- 1/2 cup of coconut + 2 tbsp of melted butter
• optional- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts + 2 tbsp of melted butter

Cook time

Total: 2 hours

• 45 mins potato bake
• 15 spud cool-out time
• 15 mins preparation
• 45 mins souffle bake

 

hARDWARE

• Food processor
• Large pot
• Cutting board / knife
• Two large bowls
• Spoon
• Whisk
• Baking Dish

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Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Scrub potato skin clean with wet paper towel and place on baking sheet line with tin foil or parchment paper.
2. Bake for 45 mins at 400 degrees.
3. Remove from oven, and place in bath of water to cool potatoes enough for peeling and cutting. 
4. Peel and cut potatoes into inch cubes. 
5. Add coconut milk, eggs, sugar, melted butter and vanilla extract to food processor and mix.
6. Slowly add in cubes of sweet potatoes and puree until potatoes reach smooth texture. Pour into baking dish and smooth the top with a spoon or spatula. 
7. In a bowl, combine butter, self-rising flour, oats, brown sugar and cinnamon in bowl. Mix until it resembles a loose dough. 
   • Using self-rising flour gives you more of a cookie-like topping, than a crumble. It's great.
8. Crumble topping evenly over sweet potatoes. 
9. Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes until top is browned. 

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Quiche with Smoked Salmon and Leeks

Quiche is one of those things that get's "ooh's" and "aah's" for no good reason. People see them as an advanced dish that are hard to make, but in reality they are surprisingly simple to put together and actually should be a go-to for quick-cook brunches. 

This quiche features smoked salmon and leeks. What it doesn't feature is Gouda or goat cheese or any other fancy cheese. We use Mozzarella. Why? There is no point in spending money one cheese who's flavor is going to be overpowered by smoked salmon anyway. A good, melty cheese like Mozzarella will do just fine.

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ingredients

SERVES 8

• Pie Crust 
  • 2 cups of dried beans to pre-bake crust
• 1 1/2 cups of half and half
• 6 large eggs
• 1  1/2 cup of grated Mozzarella
• two leeks sliced in half length-wise and chopped in 1/2 inch strips
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil
• 4 oz chopped smoked salmon
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of cracked ground pepper

COOK TIME

1 Hour

• 15 minutes preparation time
• 45 minutes bake time 

Hardware

• large bowl
• whisk
• cutting board / knife
• sautee pan
• pie or tart dish
• wax paper

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Method

1. Line pie crust with parchment paper and fill with beans. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees
2. Saute leeks in butter and olive oil for 5 minutes over medium heat
   • Season to taste with salt and pepper. It's important to season at every step.
   • Putting a little olive oil in the butter helps to keep it from burning. 
3. Add eggs to bowl and whisk. Add half and half to bowl and whisk. Stir in leeks, cheese, salt and pepper. 
4. Pour into pie crust and bake for 45 minutes. 
5. Impress the heck out of your friends and family.

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Heavy Spoon Fried Chicken

Fried chicken is hilarious to me because of it's pop culture / social significance in the Northern United States. As a black guy in the North with family roots in the South, I've seen both sides of an interesting story.

In New York, it is a "black food" that some of my sophisticated African-American friends won't be seen eating in public... I mean, imagine the scandal of confirming the stereotypes that black folks like fried chicken. 

In the South, fried chicken is just "food". This is not a food anthropology blog (and I would like to note that I have done absolutely no research on the subject even though it is mere keystrokes away). That not withstanding, it makes sense to me that when blacks in the South moved north during the Great Migration, they took the cuisine they share with white Southerners with them. It became known as a "black food" to Northern whites and second-generation Northern blacks because black folks were primarily the ones eating it in the region. Or is that even true?

If you ask me, everyone likes fried chicken. Sure, with the renewed national focus on health, it is not exactly the most popular puppy in the kennel, but when we can't resist the urge, we will always find a good reason to get our hands on some. 

"It's Sunday!"

"Football is on!"

"I'm kinda hungry!"

Fried chicken is for the people and I guarantee you will love this recipe. It requires a buttermilk soak (of an hour or so) which means this isn't the quickest dish in the world to prepare, but boy is it worth it. Cook it in huge batches and share with friends with fresh squeezed lime juice and hot sauce. Of all of the things I make, this is one of the things I am most proud of. It could be one of the things you are most proud of too. It even get's the "Heavy Spoon" moniker in the the recipe title, so you know it's real.

Eating with a fork and knife is strictly forbidden. 

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INGREDIENTS

FEEDS 6

• 12 pack of assorted chicken parts 
• peanut oil (or another high smoke-point oil like canola)

BUTTERMILK SOAK

• 3 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 cup of hot sauce
• (for spicy chicken, add 2 tablespoons of Sriracha)

FLOUR MIX RATIO 

• 4 cups of self-rising flour
• 3 tablespoons oregano / Italian seasoning / herbs de province
• 1/2 cup of seasoning salt (like Lowry's)
• 2 tbsp cracked black pepper

EGG DIP

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup of hot sauce

COOK TIME

2:15 Hours

• 1:30 Hours prep time
• 0:45 Minutes cook time

hardware

• Four large bowls
• Oven rack 
• Chicken fryer (the pot, not like a Paula Deen branded electronic device)

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MARINADE

1. Mix buttermilk, hot sauce, optional Sriracha and chicken in a large bowl and combine with your hands. Cover and let marinate in refrigerator for at least an hour. 

BREADING PREPERATION

1. In a bowl, combine 4 cups of flour, herb of choice, season salt and cracked black pepper. 
   • Every seasoning salt is different so you are going to have to taste test here to adjust the salinity of the flour mixture. Weird, I know. It's should be a little saltier than you would expect from cooked fried chicken, but not of course too salty. You will know exactly what I'm talking about. Wet a spoon, and dip in in the flour. You only need to taste a teeny bit, don't be a wuss about it.
2. After you are done adjusting the mix, split it into two separate bowls and set aside. 
3. In a another bowl, beat egg together with hot sauce. 

CHICKEN FRYING

1. Fill fryer with at least 4 inches of oil and heat over medium heat.
   • You can test the heat of you oil by dropping a pice of bread in the oil and seeing how it browns. If the oil doesn't bubble at all, your oil is probably to hot. If the oil begins to bubble rapid or the bread burns quickly, you oil is probably too hot. I suggest doing a test batch of chicken (1 or 2 pieces) to get a feel for the heat of your oil and the taste of your breading, especially if this your first rodeo. 
2. Fry for 8-10 minutes for dark meat and 10-13 minutes for larger pieces. 
3. Remove from heat and place on oven rack placed over paper towels.

Serve hot or cold or don't serve to anyone and eat it all yourself.

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Best biscuits ever

We will throw the word "best" around here a lot for se purposes, but you have to trust me when I tell you that this is the best biscuit you can ever make. Seriously. 

They're buttery. They're flaky. I made a chicken biscuit with our fried chicken recipe, our biscuit recipe and a drizzle of honey, and I felt feelings that would be inappropriate to detail on a food blog.

Run, don't walk, to your nearest oven to make these biscuits

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INGREDIENTS

MAKES 12 BISCUITS

• 1/2 cup quality chilled butter
• 2 1/4 cups of soft self-rising flower
• 1 1/4 cups of buttermilk
• 3 tablespoons of melted butter
• Flour for working dough

Cook time

TOTAL TIME: 25-35 minutes

• 10-20 minutes preparation
• 15 minutes baking

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Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Cut chilled butter into 1/4 inch thick slices. Toss with flour in a large bowl. Cut butter into flower with a pastry blender (or a fork if you don't have one like us). Do this until mixture begins to become crumbly. 
   • For extra flaky biscuits, you can cover the mixture and put it in the freezer for 5 minutes, which helps the butter remain cold which, in turn, helps your biscuits become flakier. Biscuit layers form when thin sheets of butter melts between within the flour during the baking process. Warmer butter during the preparation process mixes into the flour more which makes for less defined layers. For flaky-enough biscuits and quicker prep, continue straight to the next step. 
3. Add buttermilk to the flour and butter mix and stir until ingredients are just combined.
4. Flour your hands and and your kneading surface. Scoop biscuit dough out onto  floured surface and fold dough over onto itself 2 or four times. Flatten the dough out somewhat and sprinkle another 2-3 tablespoons of flour on the it before folding the dough on itself another 3 times. Repeat this process 2 more times.
5. Pad the dough out into a 1/2 inch sheet. Cut out biscuits with a 2 inch biscuit cutter (or a glass if you don't have one like us). Place biscuits either in a greased dish or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 
6. Bake for 13-15 minutes until biscuits start to turn golden. After removing biscuits from oven, brush with melted butter. 

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