Thursday, March 13, 2008

Food; chicken salsa

Tonight was chicken salsa. Melt lots of butter in a heavy wok. OK, a frying pan will do. We had a mix of cheap chicken drumsticks and thighs. Fry the chicken a bit to get it started but don't try to cook it through. When it's brown on the surface scoop it out and stick it in a bowl. The salsa sauce got a bit improvised. We used a red pepper, two cloves of garlic and an onion, all finely chopped. Add as much cumin as you like. We like lots. Some cayenne pepper was needed as we are out of chillies. Salt and pepper too. Ingredients got fried for a few minutes before pouring in a can of tomatoes. Once it's back to boiling put the chicken back in, turn the heat down, put a lid on and simmer for 20 minutes so the chicken cooks through. And takes up the flavour.

You can eat it just like that, but we like to lift the chicken out once it's had its time and let it cool a bit. We turn up the heat to reduce the sauce until it's really thick and tasty. Pour it over the chicken. There should be enough butter in the sauce that eating it with a spoon is still the only way to finish it. Use a bowl, not a plate!

If you have any fresh coriander chop some leaves over it as you dish up. We're out. It was great without.

Peter

I think we're a bit low on carbs as there was no time for added veg. Might have chips later.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great recipes. Keep 'em coming.

Have now been hyperlipiding and been in and out of ketosis for roughly two weeks. Pounds are coming and starting to feel differently.

Wanted to ask you a question, if you think that hyperlipiding (for lack of a better term) might promote at least some improvement in acuity and concentration. I don't know what it is, but I have been laser-like focused these days. Seems to overlap with my new change in diet.

Also, when I get hungry now, I get hungry and my stomach growls a bit, but I can always go on and grab something to eat later. Previously, when I was hungry and didn't eat, I would have MASSIVE headaches come on and would literally rush to eat to avoid them.

Any commentary on real (and/or perceived) mental, physiological and physical states one encourages while hyperlipiding you may have would be much appreciated.

Thanks again for a great blog.

Anonymous said...

Also, you have inspired me to whip cream, add some unsweetened cocoa and have at it. I like bitter/dark chocolate so this little dish works great for me. No need for sugar.

.^ said...

Watch out you don't get hyperlipidosis, the symptoms of which are: sudden growth of facial hair (you may wake up with a full beard); and catattractiveosis: cats will suddenly leap on your shoulder without warning.

Peter said...

The cat is part of therapy. He eats the beard.

Peter

Half Navajo said...

Awesome...Thanks for the recipes!! I was wondering your thoughts on Cream...I Get one gallon of fresh raw goat milk every week...but i have know access to raw cream. What are your thoughts on grass fed organic cream that is pastuerized but not homogenized...I just throw in some fresh raw pastured egg yolks in the goat milk to increase the fat and nutrient content.

Belisarius said...

My wife cooks a great chicken fricasee which also happens to be very palatable to kids. It contains some cheap chicken on the bone, a few bits of potato and other vegies, and lots of wine. When the wine reduces down the sauce is just delish.

Peter, I notice you eat loads of dairy, yet not much milk. Cordain and others have argued that milk itself is highly insulinogenic - something like three or four times what you would expect for its glycemic load. I've also read about a strong correlation between milk consumption (specifically type A1) and diabetes. (Interestingly, wheat is also implicated). For a discussion see http://www.nzfsa.govt.nz/policy-law/projects/a1-a2-milk/a1-a2-report.pdf

I drink milk and eat all forms of cheese. My wife and kids eat goats' and sheeps' cheese but can't tolerate cheese from cows.

Do you feel there is any legitimate grounds for caution when it comes to dairy products?

Peter said...

Hi varangy,

Yes, I can remember being hungry like that, back in the sugar days. You tend to forget how it used to be... I've got a post on neuropepetide Y and high fat diets sort of cooking. There are similarities between fasting and near ketogeic diets on brain growth factors which may well affect clarity of thought. Control of chronic hyperglycaemia can anecdotally improve poor vision very markedly too. Hasn't gotten rid of my glasses! You also get masses of lutein and zeaxanthin from egg yolks in a form you can absorb, used in the retina for free radical protection. Dropping the omega 6 PUFA and getting a reasonable amount of omega 3s may well help vision too. There are lots of things happen on Kwasniewski derived approaches....

Peter

Anonymous said...

I think that catattractiveosis is caused by the increased number of articles in one's own diet that cats consider worth scamming from one's plate.

Though I do have one cat who seems to think that he's a (rather sneaky) bunny. The only food he steals is lettuce - oh, and we sometimes find fang marks in tomatoes. We call him Bunnicula.

Varangy - Dr. Larry McCleary talks about why ketones are a better fuel for the brain than glucose. I think it is largely an issue of uninterrupted supply. Your body cannot store very much carbohydrate - I bet Peter could say how much - and so there's a limit to how much glucose your body can provide to your brain between meals. But your body (even if you are a fit body builder type) stores a lot of energy as fat, and there is seldom a shortage of ketones.

McCleary recommends a ketonic diet for conditions associated with glucose brownouts, like menopausal brain fogs and, nearer to my heart, migraines.

Peter said...

Hi blair,

I've come across the a1/a2 milk debate but never followed it in detail as I'm limited to UK dairy produce. I have to admit it is mostly the allergenicity of casein and it's tight junction effects that has me limiting my dairy to fermented products or protein depleted products like butter. The insulogenicity of milk was sorted out back in the seventies and certain amino acids, arginine was one (not sure but glycine may have been another), provoke an insulin response. Cordian was faffing around with skimmed vs full fat milk for some reason. There is no doubt that casein is insulinogenic. So is the protein content of cocoa! Meat isn't, as far as I can see. I certainly started my son on ewe's and goat's milk yoghurts but he appears fine on cow's milk yoghurt nowadays. Any full paleo person would avoid milk but I'm not too worried within the limits I set myself.

Peter

Anonymous said...

Maybe milk is what caused the Masai to suffer atherosclerosis, although they never developed heart disease. Cordain may have a point if it were shown that hunter-gatherers did not have atherosclerosis in old age. Is there any evidence to support that? The Bear said that Eskimos were the only tribe without arterial damage. I have also read that they were the only tribe without medicine men.

http://zerocarbpath.blogspot.com/

Peter said...

Hi Bruce,

George Mann's work with the Maasai is just off of pubmed, so most of what I've heard is very second hand. There doesn't seem to be comparable data from any other group that I've come across. Stefansson mentions medicine men in his books of life with the Eskimo, and they certainly weren't disease free over all.

Stephan posted this and this interesting HG/subsistence farming information on his blog in the comments to this post. Heart disease seemed low but not non existent. Not had time to pick over the disease rates in detail from the cocoa paper.

Peter

Peter said...

Hi Troy,

Raw milk seems fine to me but raw cream better (more fat!). Organic is nice as an idea but remember that feeding organic wheat to organic cows gives them organic arthritis, just like it does to us. Grass derived fats, especially grass fed eggs, are something I envy!

Peter

.^ said...

I actually saw a book on A1/A2 milk the other day in a second-hand book shop. It was overpriced (being in good condition) so I didn't buy it.

It was written by a NZ agricultural academic.

If I can remember the title I might see if it's in the library.

.^ said...

Well, what do you know. It's not only available, but in my local library. I've booked it. I'll pick it up tomorrow. Aren't computers great?!

Anonymous said...

So, do you think atherosclerosis is unavoidable, Peter? Meaning, on any diet you will have some fat streaks and scar tissue as you age? Why are there some people eating low-fat or high-carb diets with clean arteries and others who have problems?

.^ said...

Well, I've read the A1/A2 Milk book now. Very, very interesting.

Here's a link to a review (on a blog) that sums it up nicely: Devil in the Milk.

I'll have more to say on the subject in my own fabulous blog at some later stage.

Peter said...

Hi Bruce,

It looks to me that arteriosclerosis is a part of life. My guess is that what really matters are the factors which convert fluctuating arteriosclerosis to frank atheroma. I suspect insulin and sugar are involved here. Neonatal arteriosclerosis. Full text comes as a pdf. As you've said elsewhere, they don't do studies like these nowadays.

Peter

LeonRover said...

I grew up on a farm and remember when my father acquired a cream-milk "separator". I recall that the best cream ever was when I drank the cream while it still had "those beaded bubbles winking" in the freshly separated liquid. Sometimes I would whisk a couple of teaspoons of Cadbury Drinking choclate into a glass of fresh cream! Shockingly extravagant.

I am minded to make ice cream a la your recipe, but staying "low carb" by using Splenda Powder. After all, I use Splenda with tart Loganberries and ..... CREAM.

Unknown said...

Hello Peter, How do you cook your chips? Deep fry in a pan on the hob or in a plug-in deep-fat-fryer.

I've been looking for a plugin deep-fat-fryer casually over the last few weeks (any recommendations?) and I've looked in every supermarket I have been in over that time and only found 1 supermarket that stocked 1 fryer! (Lots of appliances in all the supermarkets - toasters, blenders etc, but no fryer lol I wonder why).


Also, by the time I find a fryer, what should I use to deep fry? I heard olive oil is considered "too unstable". (Any idea why?) I guess lard would be an option but it kind of smells. Dripping would be ideal but I can't get it easily. I am also fancying coconut oil but I don't want to buy the expensive virgin stuff because a) it's expensive and b) I've heard it tastes of coconut. I've heard that the cheaper refined coconut oil is just as bad as refined vegetable oils but surely that can't be true? Is it good to eat or not? If you eat it, where do you get yours? Is some "refined" better than others?

Thanks for your blog and your hyperlipid wisdom! Nuts for the base of a cheesecake - genius! Now I can toss those digestives!

Unknown said...

@Varangy
Yes I have had a huge increase in concentration levels and energy in general. Concentration is better in the morning and late at night than when I was on the carbage.

Also, about your cream - I find that if I whip 300g of double cream then stir in 2 large square of 95% chocolate (which I had subesequently melted using 2 tbsp of the cream before I whipped it by popping it in the microwave) then it is better than cocoa because it is not so powdery. I use a teaspoon sweetner added to the melted chococolate (but my sweet tooth has mostly disappeared since I went hyperlipid).

Unknown said...

Also I noticed one guy on here talked about wine in recipes - is wine in recipes OK for low carbers? I can't seem to find an answer tho that question. I love making bologese with 1kg steak mince, 500g liver and bacon mixed, full head of celery, 3 onions, 2 x 500g passata and 1 full bottle of red wine but I don't know whether the wine is OK for low carbers or not...

Peter said...

Hi Bling,

I deep fry in beef dripping, we can buy it from routine supermarkets in the uk and I much prefer it over lard for this but I think lard would be my second choice, though it has rather more PUFA than beef fat. Coconut oil is good for frying and I have used commercial cheap stuff which has almost no flavour and is probably hydrogenated. Because it's fully saturated in the hydrogenation process there should be no trans fats and then it's then down to what you think about the hydrogenation process per se.

Beef fat is the easy option!

Wine, yes, I cook with this a lot. The carb count is quite low and if you allow yourself 50g/d it's not too crucial.

Nice recipe for the sauce!

Peter