From the Forest Park Cook book: Phyllis Orland's Chicken Paprika

Forest Park has had several birthday celebrations.  A hundred years since the area was settled (1856 to 1956), a hundred years since the town was founded as Harlem (1884 to 1984), and a hundred years since incorporating under the new name of Forest Park (1907 to 2007) were all milestones.  Unfortunately I did not live in town when any of this was celebrated, but as a member of the Historical Society of Forest Park I do have access to their archives, which includes a Centennial Cookbook, released in 1984.

I recognized names from the community such as Mohr, Marunde, and Orland. Phyllis T.M. Orland, MD was the spouse of Frank Orland, the founding President of the Historical Society of Forest Park. According to Diane Hansen Grah, Executive Director of the HSFP, "Phyllis was a pediatrician for over 40 years and worked out of an apartment adjacent to their home mostly and performed house calls.  She also was the head of the Pediatric Dept. at Macneal Hospital in Berwyn for many years.  Frank was a dentist and pioneered the use of flouride at a time when it was controversial and testing needed to happen."

She and her husband also raised 4 children. Huzzah, Phyllis. On top of that, she had many contributions to the cook book, including today's entry of Chicken Paprika. This was a charmingly simple recipe, and the end result was delicious if not particularly attractive. I'm looking forward to trying more of her recipes from the Centennial Cookbook, including Grandmother Orland's Christmas Cookies, which boast of a Swabian origin. As a Swabian gal myself, I can't wait.

Not a particularly pretty dish

There was so much onion. The collateral damage was huge. My husband's trust. My mascara. But I got it done. I made modifications to the original right off the bat, suspecting that we'd want more spice than Dr. Orland, and I'm glad we did. This is totally a dish you can pull off on a weeknight, especially if you did the anti-foodie thing we did and used boneless, skinless chicken instead of the chicken pieces called for.

2014 Chicken Paprika
Phyllis Orland's original available at the HSFP archives :)

2 lbs. chicken tenders
1 large yellow onion, diced finely
1.5 cups water
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon hungarian hot paprika
8 oz sour cream
2.5 tablespoons flour
dash cayenne pepper
1/4 cup butter

Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the onion and stir occasionally until soft and fairly brown. Remove the onion and add the chicken pieces in batches so as not to crowd the pan, browning well on each side. Add back to the pan the onion, chicken, paprika, cayenne, a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1.5 cups water. Simmer for approximately 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and tender. While the chicken cooks, add the flour to the sour cream and stir to combine. Set aside.

Remove the chicken and turn the heat down to low. Taste the broth for salt and adjust accordingly. Add the sour cream-flour mixture and whisk to combine. Add the chicken back to the pot and stir to combine. Keep the flame low and cook for 5 minutes, watching carefully to prevent boiling (boiling will curdle the sour cream).

Phyllis recommends serving with dumplings, which if she is Swabian, I suspect means spaetzle (Aldi! Represent!), which is what we did. We also tried it over mashed potatoes.

We could never be royals, but we shall eat like them

The raison d'être for this blog is to cook and bake recipes that have some relevance to Forest Park, maybe learning a little history along the way. The Historical Society has been very generous in opening up their archives (really, just a perk of membership) but have also encouraged digging into the Review archives, which is the basis for today's recipe. 

This receipt for Royal Eggs with Mushroom Sauce comes not from a crafty housewife or an area restaurant but from the recipe book of... musician Zez Confrey. Obviously. 

Questlove has his chicken, and Zez has his 'shrooms. Apparently, Zez's particular flavor of bachelorhood included playing line cooks for his musician friends during "midnight meals". Zez was just that kind of guy. 

Zez was also the kind of guy who named songs after kittens. 

And Zez is also the kinda guy who keeps mushroom bouillon on hand. 

What this has to do with Forest Park I have no idea (do you? If so, do tell).  Whatever the reason, it was included in the January 1, 1926 edition of the Forest Park Review, which goes to show that newspapers were always creative when they needed to find content. 

I made this for Monday night dinner in what turned out to be a stressful scene due to toddler teething. I think Zez would have handled things better. Perhaps because he would've been a bit sauced himself. This meal screams post-drinking repast and was pretty durn simple to put together. Good for parents. Good for drunken musicians.

This was a nice change of pace from other egg preparations we tend towards that are more acidic. It was comforting and rich but not overboard on calories. We had this atop toasted homemade white bread the texture of velvet courtesy of my mother-in-law. If I made it again I'd be looking to pair it with a bright and acidic salad or perhaps some hot sauce. I could also see this paired with biscuits or a sourdough bread.

Royal Eggs with Mushroom Sauce

4 Eggs

Salt & Pepper

1 lbs mushrooms, approximately (we used a mix of button and shiitake)

1 sliced pimiento I forgot this!!!, but what is pimiento, anyway?

4 T butter (total)

4 slices toast

1 ½ cup evaporated milk

1 ½ cup mushroom stock (I used chicken)

1 T flour

Saute the mushrooms in 2 Tablespoons butter until browned. In a separate pan, melt 2 Tablespoons butter and add 1 Tablespoon flour. Whisk until the flour is cooked, which will mean a slightly tan color. Add the evaporated milk and whisk to combine. Add the stock and whisk again, continuously stirring as it thickens. When it looks like a thin sort of gravy, add pepper and taste for salt. Adjust as needed. Add the sauce to the mushrooms (or the other way around) to combine. Taste it all together for seasoning. 

Make toast. Top with eggs fried, preferably over easy. Pour mushroom sauce over all. Top with chopped parsley. 

Try THIS on your hot griddle iron, fellas

We kick off with a griddle cake recipe found in the Forest Park Review from October 1, 1917.  It was prefaced by the statement that readers were living in an era in which "every housewife is entreated and implored to conserve food" and that "meatless and wheatless days have become a fixed habit". Hmmmm.

I'd follow this guy into battle

This stems, I imagine, from the Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917. The goal of this law as it pertains to the whole wheatless situation was to conserve bread and meat for soldiers fighting in World War I. Like veggie-paleo for the flapper era. Off-shoots of this law included all sorts of awesome things like something United States School Garden Army - armed, I presume, with pitchforks and carrots.

We made griddlecakes according to the recipe this past Sunday, topping them with (alternately) sorghum syrup, buckwheat honey and brown sugar. In other words, we were out of maple syrup. The sorghum syrup to add a nice hyper sweetness and depth of flavor that is reminiscent of molasses.

These griddlecakes were quite grainy, which would be off-putting for someone expecting a silken-textured pancake. But they were hearty and delicious in their own way. We were inspired to pour a little milk over the top, in a nod to both tres leches cake and Laura Ingalls Wilder who I swear did something similar. This made a lot of batter. More than we needed for 2 adults and one toddler.

Griddle cakes with sorghum syrup and brown sugar

Griddle Cakes

The link to the recipe can be found here, or via the digital archives of the Forest Park Public Library. Thanks to the Historical Society of Forest Park for the inspiration.

Notes of caution: for me, there was more of the milk-egg-oil mix than the corn flour could absorb. So act accordingly, adding half the wet mix to start. I didn't have buttermilk, so I just added a few tablespoons of vinegar to the measuring cup before I added the milk, thereby souring it a bit.

Two cups corn meal
Two cups sour milk or buttermilk
Two tablespoons fat
Two tablespoons sugar
Two teaspoons baking powder
Two teaspoons soda
One teaspoon salt
One egg

I typed out the numbers. Why did I do that?

Method:

Mix dry ingredients (corn meal, powder, sugar, soda, salt) in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg with the sour milk or buttermilk. Let the mixture sit for 5 minutes. Add more liquid as needed. Make the pancakes. :)