Hi again, everyone. Hope you are doing well. I spent the first part of this past week in Miramar, helping the Corporate Executive Chef Fred Scherger do an opening for Morrison at North Shore Medical Center. This is 357-bed facility with a full-service Morrison Café.
I have enjoyed going on these trips to help with the new Great Living Menu rollouts and look forward to going on more on them.
As for the Heartland Division, we are doing great and getting ready for our holiday parties that we do at each property for all of the staff. This year, we hope to knock it out up the park with food service to show our appreciation for all the hard work put in by the staff.
During my 20s, I spent nine summers on Mackinac Island, Mich., and there are about 900 people from Jamaica that work on the island during the summer season.
Over the years, I became very close with the staff at the yacht club where I worked and I ate Jamaican food just about every Sunday. On Sundays after brunch was over, the club was usually pretty quiet so we would turn the kitchen over to our Jamaican staff and they would prepare authentic Jamaican dishes for all of us to enjoy on Sunday afternoons.
At first I thought most of the dishes had too much heat from the Scotch Bonnet peppers that they used, but as I got used to the heat I started to really enjoy those dishes.
So this week, I have a Jamaican comfort food dish for you called brown stew chicken. It can be made super spicy or as mild as you'd like -- just go light in the peppers. Cheers, Chef.
Brown chicken stew
2 cups cold water
4 oz. dry black beans
2 tsp. canola oil
1 tbs. chopped garlic in oil
1 cup fresh, diced yellow onions
2 fl. oz. non-alcoholic red wine
8 oz. canned, diced in juice, no-salt-added tomatoes (including liquids)
2 lbs. chicken thigh, bone in and skin on
1 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. thyme leaves
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp. black cracked pepper
Soak black beans in water overnight. Drain well before use.
In large brazier heat oil over medium heat.
Add onion and garlic, sauté for three minutes or until tender
Combine chicken and remaining dry ingredients. Add this mixture to pot and sauté for 15 minutes. Stir in wine and drained black beans.
Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 60 minutes or until chicken reaches 165 degrees internally and beans are tender.
Add tomatoes and return to simmer an additional 15 minutes. Ladle 6 oz. of chicken and beans onto plate, serve with rice.
Tim Spain is System Executive Chef with Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Center and Morrison Healthcare Food Service. He can be reached at tim.spain@ahss.org/. Guest columns are the opinion of the writer, not necessarily those of the News-Sun staff.
Wednesday, December 05, 2012 - www.newssun.com/col-120512-spain