Garlic Pan Fried Noodles, Take Two

Folks playing along at home might remember my previous excursion into garlic pan fried noodles, but for those just tuning in here's the short of it: I like them. The first time I made them was alright, but nothing really exciting. This time I tried doing it with garlic infused olive oil, thinking it would coat everything with a nice, even garlic flavor. It would also mean that I could brown up the noodles as much as I wanted without worrying about burnt garlic flavor, which is right up there with burnt eggs for nasty. I made the oil and it tastes great. I fried up the noodles, getting much better color and texture this time, and what do I get? Nothing. All the garlic flavor was completely gone. I've used garlic infused oils for cooking and I've never had this happen before. Although I'm sure it happens to a lot of guys...

But, now I'm in a bind. I got much better flavor with the minced garlic, but I couldn't brown up the noodles really well or else the garlic flavor turned burnt. But with the oil there was no flavor at all, so it clearly isn't the way to go. I wound up sprinkling some Szechuan peppercorns on it at the end just so it would taste like something more than plain ramen.

So what should I do? Maybe a mix of the two methods? Sprinkle the oil over the noodles after cooking them? Do I need to buy some of that spray bottle garlic juice and just spray the fried noodles with it? I don't even live near the restaurant I used to get them from, so I can't even get their less than satisfactory ones anymore. I need advice!

Grilled Chicken White Pizza

I think I've rhapsodized about my love of pizza before, but in case I haven't... well, I love pizza. All kinds really, but something about the simplicity of a white pizza just thrills the hell out of me. This pizza I'm going to show you guys today has a grand total of four parts: dough, infused oil, cheese and grilled chicken. That's it. Why don't we just do this thing.

First, preheat the oven to 450. If you're using a baking stone you should start this at least 40 minutes before you put the pizza on it. Then sprinkle some corn meal on your pizza peel. If you don't have a peel you can skip this step. Heh. I like to roll out the dough right on the peel, it makes for less transfer disasters (like what happened when I made my girlfriends pizza). Once your dough is rolled out how you like it (I like it medium thick myself) brush it with the infused oil. Don't be shy, this is good stuff here and gives a great flavor to the pizza. Now, cheese. Ok, I didn't have shredded cheese, only sliced. But a little thing like that isn't going to stop me from making pizza, so I just ripped it up. It worked out just fine. This is two kinds of cheese, mozzarella and provolone. Now chunks of chicken. I got this on a salad from a pizza place around the corner. I wanted to put some grilled chicken for the pizza, but don't have a grill so that seemed like a perfect solution. Now it's just into the oven for 10-15 minutes or so, then pull it out. And look at that. That's what I'm talking about. Nice brown cheese, good crispy crust on the bottom and delicious.So there it is, white pizza with grilled chicken. Sorry about the pics, the light in my apartment is terrible. I'm working on it, I promise.

Garlic and Rosemary Infused Olive Oil

Here's a quickie for you: infused oil. I love this stuff, it's great for so many things. In case you don't know what it is, it's oil that has had something left in it for some time so the oil picks up the flavor. You can do it with almost anything (as far as I know anyway), but today it's going to be garlic and rosemary.

This is all you need to do:

1) Put a bunch of garlic cloves, or half cloves, and rosemary into a container. I like to use glass, it doesn't retain the smell.
2) Pour some olive oil in, at least enough to cover the garlic/spice. You can do more if you want, but how much you add helps determine how long it takes to get good flavor.
3) Let it sit for at least several hours, many days is better (update: I have read that there is a worry about botulism with this kind of oil infusing. I don't know the specifics at the moment, but you should be careful and not let the garlic/rosemary sit in the oil too long) . The longer it sits the stronger the flavor.

And that's it. What do you do with it you ask? Well, dip some bread in it then eat it. Brush it on some roll halves and broil them to make garlic bread. Brush it on pizza before putting on the sauce to add a kick of flavor. Brush it on bread before you bake it, saute vegetables in it, use it in a marinade, brush it on food before you grill it, add it to rice when you cook it, anything you use olive oil for you can use infused olive oil for.

You can infuse oil with anything though, go nuts and try your own combos. What did I do with it? Stay tuned, you find out tomorrow. Heh.