Soul Food: Fried Chicken, Braised Collard Greens, Corn Bread & Mashed Potatoes

 Ok, so we went all the way on this one.  Twice fried chicken, collard greens, corn bread, and mashed potatoes.  That sauce you see in the photo is a sriracha honey that I nicked from Michael Symon. I recently saw him mix honey with a little sriracha hot sauce on his new show.  I just added a little rice vinegar for a little more tang and thinned it out with some water.  We also had a side of roasted brussel sprouts that didn't make it onto this plate.  Did I mention I fried the chicken in duck fat?  Oh, cause, I fried the chicken in duck fat.

"Filet Mignon". Blueberry Reduction. Polenta. Spinach.

 I stopped in at the grand opening of Prime Butcher Baker yesterday, the brand new kosher butcher and bakery on 2nd Ave. and 83rd St. brought to you by the owners of Prime Grill, Solo & Prime KO.  The place is really nice, clean, well lit and has a wide selection of interesting cuts that you don't usually find at most butchers.  With all the interesting variety of meats offered at Prime, it looks like the focus of the store is going to be their dry aged beef, so of course thats what I went with for this little Valentine's day dinner for me and my wife.

I noticed a "filet mignon" in the butcher case, which I found odd considering the filet is an inherently unkosher cut as it comes from the tenderloin - located in the hindquarter of the cow.  All cuts from this region are deemed unkosher by Jewish dietary law.  The butcher attempted to create a kosher version of the filet by cutting out the "eye" from the ribeye in order to mimic the shape and texture of the tenderloin and then dry aging it.  It's a bit expensive, but it was really flavorful and tender.

I pretty much knew immediately that I was going to sear off the beef and finish it in the oven, but I had no idea what I was going to pair it with until I got home and started digging around the fridge.  We had some blueberries, so I figured I might as well make a sauce out of it.  It was a total experiment, but the sweetness and acidity really complemented the beef nicely and I think it looked really dramatic on the plate.  The spinach and polenta were a complete afterthought, but they really rounded out the dish.

Tile Fish Curry with Glazed Rainbow Carrots

A couple times a month we'll order in from our favorite Indian restaurant here on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and very often, I'll hit up Kati Roll for lunch (If your in Midtown Manhattan, try the Paneer and Unda Aloo rolls and thank me later).  My point is, I love Indian food and it wasn't until pretty recently that I was able to get my wife into it, which is great for me, because I get to eat it more often.

This dish is a little bit of a riff on the popular "Tikka Masala" sauce that is very often paired with chicken, lamb or paneer (cheese), here I paired it with a tilefish filet, which is very mild flavored firm flesh white fish.  Next time, I'd probably use a fish that is a little stronger in flavor, like a sea bass, in order to stand up to the mildly spicy sauce.