Old Bay Fried Chicken

I've written about Old Bay seasoning before - if you're American you are probably familiar with it but if you're British or from another country, probably not. Old Bay is a seasoning made in Baltimore for more than 75 years; it was paired originally with seafood but is popular particularly in the state of Maryland with all sorts of dishes. Read more about Old Bay's cult following.

This is a very simple and not particularly healthy recipe but probably OK in moderation; I'm sharing it because I'd forgotten how good fried chicken can be. You can find the Old Bay recipe here; you don't really need to follow exact quantities and can use whatever kind of chicken pieces you want - legs, thighs, even pieces of chicken breast. If you are using legs, which take longer to cook, I would advise baking them in the oven first and finishing off in the oil, to make sure the chidken is cooked through. You can do that with the other chicken pieces as well to be on the safe side.

Mix Old Bay seasoning and flour in a shallow bowl or a freezer bag. Beat an egg (one egg will do enough chicken for two people, roughly) in another shallow bowl. Dip the chicken in the egg and then the flour mixture, or if using a bag, place the chicken in the bag and shake until it is coated.

Part-cook the chicken in the oven if you wish; heat an inch of oil in a large saucepan until just bubbling and carefully place the chicken using tongs into the hot oil, turning as each side becomes golden brown. Remove from the oil with tongs and drain on kitchen paper.

Chesapeke Bay Stuffed Cod

Have you ever seen Funny Girl, the classic musical mocie starring Barbra Streisand? I hadn’t – but had heard a few of the songs – so when I acme to guest host Food ‘n’ Flix in September, I thought it would be a great choice. It isn’t a movie specifically about food, but there is all sorts of inspiration that can be taken from it and translated into cooking – at least I thought so!

The film is peppered (pun intended) with food references, for instance Fanny Brice, describing herself as something of a misfit, says: "I'm a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls!".

 

Food also serves to underline the naivety of Fanny in contrast with her future husband Nick’s worldliness and experience; for instance he takes Fanny to a restaurant in Baltimore for lobster, which she has never eaten before and falls upon with gusto, and in another scene they are eating dinner together and Nick orders filet de boeuf, sauce bordelaise.

Fanny: I would have ordered roast beef and potatoes.

Nick: I did.

The locations – New York and Baltimore, the era, the world of vaudeville and theatre, the cruise ship they travel on, their wedding and indeed any of the songs (including Cornet Man – you could make ice cream cornets!)- all provide a starting point.

 

I visited Baltimore last year so was keen to make something from that city, which is famous for its seafood, in particular crab, and also a seasoning called Old Bay. I have a large bottle of Old Bay that a colleague brought back when they visited our office in Baltimore (I used to work for the London office of a company that was based there, but I have since changed jobs). Old Bay seasoning – named after the Chesapeke Bay area around Baltimore, where it is made – is a blend of herbs and spices including mustard, paprika, bay leaf, red pepper, nutmeg and ginger, and is used as a seasoning for crab but afficionados use it on all sorts of things.

 

I have been very pushed for time recently, having moved house at the very end of August and spending the whole of September redecorating and unpacking. So I was in a bit of a hurry to find a recipe and had a hunt around on Google and found this recipe on AllRecipes.com for Chesapeke Bay Stuffed Rockfish. I used cod instead of rockfish and changed the quantities slightly as it seemed a lot of mayonnaise but otherwise largely followed the recipe as it was given.

This is what I did:

Mixed the cubed bread with fresh parsley, Old Bay seasoning, dried mustard, black pepper, lemon juice, 6 drops of Tabasco (I didn't think it was coming out and realised afterwards it was, and I'd used too much!), mayonnaise (I left out the butter) and a tin of crabmeat.

Mix all the ingredients well in a small bowl.

Lay out a piece of fish and spoon half the filling onto the fish (there is enough filling to serve two)
 

Roll up and bake in the oven
 

Serve with vegetables and a nice glass of white wine. This was a delicious dish that was very easy to make but tasted fantastic; I will definitely do it again. Hopefully it's a dish worthy of Fanny Brice!
 

This is my entry to the Food 'n' Flix challenge which I am guest hosting this month, you can see my announcement post here. The round-up will follow in October - I should do it by the end of this month but you will have to forgive me as I have just moved house, am redecorating and haven't even unpacked yet!

 

Baltimore-style fishcakes

I like to think I'm pretty good at using up leftovers and I recently decided to make my own fishcakes to use up some leftover mashed potato. I quickly cooked a white fish fillet I had in the freezer, and broke it up in a bowl with the leftover mashed potato

 

 

There was also another reason I wanted to make this or something similar: to try out my new Old Bay Seasoning. My company's head office is in Baltimore, Maryland, and one of my colleagues there came over to the London office recently and bought me this as a gift:

Quite a strange gift, you may think... I had seen a few of these dotted around the office on people's desks and always wondered what it was! Old Bay Seasoning is a blend of herbs and spices made in the Chespeapke Bay area of Maryland, that is popular all over America; my colleague told me that there was once a big factory in Baltimore and everyone entering the city was met with the smell of the spices. It's become such a symbol of Baltimore that tourists often buy a bottle of Old Bay seasoning to take home, so she decided to bring me one as a gift!

Old Bay seasoning is usually used on seafood (Baltimore is on the coast) but can really be used on anything, and is made of a mix of spices including celery salt and paprika. I decided that it would be a good addition to my homemade fishcakes!

After shaping the fish and potato mixture into patties, I added a generous sprinkling of the seasoning, and a little natural yogurt to bind it together, and then dipped each patty in breadcrumbs.



Here they are about to go in the oven

And now just come out!

I think I may have used a little too much of the seasoning (!) but the fishcakes had a really nice flavour. This was a very impromptu dinner to use up leftovers so next time I might see if I can find a recipe to use the Old Bay seasoning... in fact I've just googled it and one recommendation is to sprinkle it on popcorn!

As this recipe uses up leftovers, I'm entering it into Frugal Food Fridays, which I am guest hosting this month on behalf of Helen from Fuss Free Flavours. You can enter anything that's thrifty, uses up leftovers or an ingredient you bought for something else, or uses less energy when cooking.... have a look at the rules (see the first of the two links above) and why not see if you've got anything you can enter this month?