Chef Taegun Break-Fast Recipes

Chicken or Cod Marbella
Potato Salmon and Leek Tart

Chef Taegun”s Chicken or Cod Marbella

Aunt Bonnie introduced our family to this dish and it is adapted from the The Silver Palate Cookbook.  I’ve been making many different variations of this dish 2-3 times a year for 15 years.  The Marbella marinade is great with any white meat, even meaty white non-oily fish like cod, halibut, catfish or tilapia.

Cooking instructions:  

Deep marinading overnight is very important for chicken or pork.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

The Full “Patchke” (Yiddish for puttering around)

Fresh Chicken

For best flavor, use:

4 quartered young chickens

For quicker prep time, use:

3-4 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts

2 lbs. boneless chicken thighs – skin on for schmaltz.

Wash in cold water, dry, the chicken inside out with paper towel.  

Place whole chicken on its back and cut down the middle of the breast cleaving and cutting through the breastbone, cut out the back and neck bones, and divide into legs and breasts.  For more manageable sizes cut again into drumsticks, thighs, and cut each breast into two roughly equal pieces.  Trim fat, grizzle, and extra skin.

Rinse skinless boneless chicken breast in cold water and dry with paper towel.  Cut each breast into three ½ to ¾ inch slices.  Start with a slant cut away from the triangular tip of the chicken breast then one more cut parallel and about equal thickness to the first.

Place each piece between two sheets of plastic wrap or parchment paper and pound with a small cast iron skillet.  Two or three whacks and one or two on the flip side will even out the thickness and tenderize chicken breast.  This method ensures the chicken is consistently cooked and tender.  Be careful not to pulverize the chicken. 

Trim boneless chicken thighs of excess skin.  Chicken thighs do not need pounding.  Leave skin on chicken thigh, which is important for the schmaltzy (umami) depth of flavor.

For Cod

Rub kosher salt all over fish and rinse with cold water until there is no smell.  Dry with paper towel.

Marbella Marinade

½ cup of best available extra virgin olive oil

½ cup red wine vinegar

1 cup pitted prunes roughly chopped

1 cup pitted Spanish green olives: ½ roughly chopped ½ whole

½ cup capers with some juice

6 bay leaves

6 cloves garlic finely chopped

¼ dried oregano

1/3 cup fresh Italian parsley chopped

1 cup dry white wine

½ cut honey or brown sugar

Mix chicken and marinate bone in skin on chicken overnight with all of the marinade in large baking or glass pan.  

Boneless skinless and pounded chicken need 4 to 6 hours in the marinade.  Cod needs to marinate for 1 or 2 hours.

Bake at 350F for 1-1 ½ hours until brown on top. Boneless / Skinless will cook on the faster side of this range.

For no patchke and if you have no time to marinate mix all ingredients and start cooking at 300 for the first hour, turn up to 350 for 45-60 minutes.

Chef Taegun’s Smoked Salmon, and Leek Tart

Breakfast for Yom Kippur is my favorite Jewish holiday cooking after Passover.  If the Passover seder is the most celebrated meal, cooking for Yom Kippur Breakfast can be a subversive experience for the Jewish cook.  It is considered holy for Jews to congregate far from kitchens to fast, pray, and think nothing of food.  Preparing food for feasts following fasts does not seem less sacred to me, but a necessary balance to heal the self-induced starvation and melancholy of our Jewish family and friends.  We bring them back to life from the repentance of Yom Kippur with comfort food: bagels and cream cheese, and, since 2010 at CHJ Break-fasts, Chef Taegun’s original “Smoked Salmon and Leek Tart”.  

This recipe makes THREE (3) TARTS. I always serve this with cucumber yogurt sauce.  This freezes and travels well and can be served for outside gatherings at room temperature.  A quick microwave blast bring cold slices back a comforting and warm breakfast.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Flaky Pie Crust for 3 tart pans

• 3 cups of unbleached white flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ¾ cup of shortening
• ½ cup butter
• 2 Tbls chopped fresh dill (optional)
• ½ cup of ice cold water

Tart Crust instructions (or can use pre-made crust)

1. Chill butter and shortening 
2. Mix flour and salt in a large stainless steel bowl
3. Cut butter and shortening into small cubes and add to the flour and cut into pea size using two butter knives or a pie crust cutter
4. Add drizzles of ice-cold water and toss (do not mix), the flour mixture until doughy enough to form into a ball but with some loose flour mixture at the bottom of the bowl.  Do not over mix into a dough
5. Divide the mixture into three loose balls and place each ball on plastic wrap and cover with another piece of wrap and press down with a plate and chill in the refrigerator for 30 min.
6. Gently roll out the flattened refrigerated dough to fit the tart pan.  I sometimes lift the plastic wrap if it is a little sticky at the start and sprinkle and pat some flour over those sections

Tart Filling for 3 tarts

• 3 bundles of Leeks
• 2 large yellow onions
• 2 medium white or 3 golden potatoes
• 1 lbs. smoked salmon
• 5 Tbls butter
• 1/3 tsp. ground white peppe
• Pinch of Salt
• 1/3 cup half and half
• 15 eggs

Cooking Directions

1. Refresh leeks by trimming yellowing outer leaves and shaving the roots and placing in a shallow pool of water for 15 minutes (this step strongly recommended to “refresh” them); use as much of the green parts of the leek as possible for this dish
2. Set oven to 375 F
3. Peel and chop onions
4. Peel and cube the potatoes
5. Slice the leek down the middle from the roots to their long tips.  Hold the leeks with one hand with the flat part of the leaves vertical and cut vertically into the root bulb and move the knife down the vertical center of the leek switching the direction of the cut and hold from the leafy end to the cut root end. 
   Keep the root bulb intact to keep the leaves from scattering while washing and slicing.
6. Wash between each leaf of the vertically halved leeks focusing on the muddy mid sections and checking and washing traces of dirt under cold running water
7. Drain leeks and dab them with paper towel
8. Cut across leeks into half rings. Start by removing the remaining root bulb.
9. Heat butter in a large heavy pot and cook the onions for 3 minutes, add potatoes and cook for 10 minutes or almost done and add leeks and garlic. Cook until leeks are just tender
10. Remove from heat into a large mixing bowl and fold in the chopped smoked salmon
11. Mix eggs, half and half, fresh ground white pepper, and dill
12. Fold the egg and herb mix into the potato salmon and leek mix
13. Ladle one cup at a time with measuring cup into tart pans; spread evenly in pans
14. Float slice rounds of cocktail tomatoes around the tart and sprigs of fresh dill in the center
15. Bake for 45 minutes or until cooked and lightly toasted.  When pies on the top shelves look brown, switch them with ones from the middle shelf
16. Cool on a rack, slice, and serve with lemon slices and cucumber dill yogurt sauce

Cucumber Dill Yogurt Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cup plain yogurt
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 3 small or half of a large thin cucumber
• 2 shallots
• 1 small clove garlic
• Salt and fresh ground white pepper
• 1/3 cup fresh dill

Cooking Directions

1. Refresh cucumbers and a bunch of dill by cutting a sliver of the stem end and standing them in shallow pools of water in tall containers or propped against a window or wall with lots of light.  Leave dill tied in the bundle but cut carefully to avoid your knife from trying to cut metal twist ties or dirt from on intact root ends.
2. Wisk yogurt, lemon juice, and garlic paste together in a medium bowl
3. Cut cucumber into ¼ inch or smaller cubes.  I peel and cut the seedy harts from larger cumbers with tougher skin.
4. Sprinkle salt ½ salt over the cubed cucumber and add to the yogurt
5. Add minced shallots, chopped fresh dill, and fresh ground white pepper and adjust salt

I also make this sauce with green onions, or fresh parsley and serve with grilled salmon.