February | 2015 | wayneyoshidakh6wz

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Hot Italian Giardiniera (Hot Mix) Leave a comment

Homemade Hot Italian giardiniera (hot mix)

I discovered hot Italian giardiniera while on a business trip to Chicago several years ago. It was served as a condiment for an incredible Italian beef sandwich. I like to use this on hot dogs and sausages.

Here’s my version of this tasty and easy “hot mix.”

Nothing in this recipe is critical – choose vegetables that are either on sale or with nice color, or what you like best. You may slice, dice or chop them in large or small pieces. If you are short on time, or don’t like vegetable prep, you can take advantage of pre-cut carrot chips and similar items.

Vegetable Mix
2 green bell peppers, diced
2 red bell peppers, diced
2 yellow bell peppers, sliced
8 jalapeno peppers, sliced – adjust for hotness level
3 celery stalks, diced
3 medium carrot, diced
1 small onion, chopped
1 head cauliflower
1/4 cup salt

For the Dressing
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1 (5 ounce) jar pimento-stuffed green olives, chopped or whole
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup canola oil

Chopped jalapeno and other peppers for hot Italian giardiniera.

1. Chop and dice all vegetables and put them into a big non-reactive mixing bowl.
2. Mix salt with about 2 cups of water until it dissolves and add it to the bowl. Add water to cover the vegetables.
3. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
4. The next day, drain and rinse vegetables. Add the olives.
5. In a separate bowl, mix together garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, black pepper and celery seeds.
6. Add the vinegar and oil, and stir well.
7. Blend the dressing with the vegetables.
8. Cover and refrigerate / store in jars.

This is a great side dish for beef and beef sandwiches. Put it on pasta or hot dogs instead of pickle relish.

Posted February 15, 2015 by wayneyoshidakh6wz in Vegetables-Fruits

Tagged with beef, beef roast, bell peppers, Chicago, condiments, hot dog, hot Italian, hot Italian giardiniera, Italian beef sandwich, Italian hot mix, jalapeno peppers, pasta, pot roast, sausage, vegetables

Ono Ono Chicken Thighs on the Big Green Egg Leave a comment

I made some “shoyu chicken” a while ago.

(ONO ONO means – VERY delicious.) It starts with a simple marinade, the ingredients look like this . . . .

Marinade ingredients for the Ono Ono Chicken

I decided I wanted to try trimming the thighs “competition style.” I need more practice, but this is what I did. It took a long time to do all this surgery, but it was worth it, since there is a lot of un-needed fat that you can throw away.

Thighs from the supermarket had this weird flap of extra skin. Yeah, I do love eating that stuff, but I decided to trim it off.

Chicken thigh from the local supermarket – all kinds of extra skin.

After trimming the excess, pull the skin away from the meat. If this process bothers you, you may want to think of this as a biology lab session. All this surgery is not for the faint of heart – and stomach.

Pull the skin away from the meat, and scrape the pasty fat away.

I used a spoon and a paring knife to scrape the fat from the inside surface of the skin.

Use various tools to scrape the fat away.

Keep scraping, but try to avoid damage to the skin.

Once the excess is scraped off, stretch and wrap the skin back on the thigh meat. I removed about a tablespoon or so of this excess stuff from each thigh. This is what it looked like. The guy performing the demonstration made his thighs look like little pillows, almost like a perfect, puffy rounded rectangle. Amazing.