Cookbook Club Results & Reminder #6: Three Recipes Following the Halal Cart Chicken Blueprint (Patreon)

Hi Cookbook Club,

Community Vibe Manager and Frienji-in-Chief Erin here with our monthly dispatch of results and your final reminder to test out this month’s recipe(s).

This month, we tried something a bit different as we allowed all Frienjis here on Patreon to get a taste of the cookbook club. As promised, feedback from the Cookbook Club was collected separately so we could continue to track your results without compromising the data!

The Report

73 Frienjis have submitted feedback, including 14 dedicated Frienjis who tested more than one recipe variation! Thank you for going above and beyond, Michael M., MonkeyChemist, Dave, Laura S., Porcini, Brittany G. Bridget, Dave H., Max B., Michael D., JD, Robert H., Sarah, and Tony L. We appreciate you!

We had a pretty even split between the variations you all chose to make but variation #3, Peruvian-style chicken, ultimately came out on top with the most testers. As mentioned in the preliminary results in the Alt-Weekly, the main pain point with this version was sourcing the aji amarillo paste. This recipe also saw the most controversy in the "tasting components" category, with every single category receiving demerits as both “not enough” and “too much.” We’re working with some complicated flavors here!

Harissa chicken was the second-most tested recipe. For this dish, your pantries were heavily stocked with the ingredients and the dish was well-received with plenty of excitement. Nut allergies and raisin aversions led to the most ingredient substitutions:

Jane P. says there's "too many raisin haters in [their] house" and substituted the same amount of dried cherries in place of raisins.

Porcini used sultanas instead of raisins—as it's what they had on hand—and reports they added a nice juicy element to the dish!

Aurora D. substituted pepitas for the almonds due to a nut allergy, as well as dried currants for the raisins due to personal preference.

Ivo used koolzaad oil (rapeseed oil) instead of olive oil for the sauce, a mix of hazelnuts and walnuts instead of almonds, and pomegranate molasses instead of lemon juice for the salad. Yum!

Finally, we have the lemony herb variation. This recipe was not initially received with excitement unlike the other two variations, in large part due to the non-traditional salsa verde. For the Frienjis that took a chance on a dish they expected not to like: Thank you for inviting this dish into your test kitchen! In the end, a higher percentage of Frienjis actually reported being happy with the final dish compared to the harissa chicken. This variation, like the others, also had issues with confusing steps in the written method. Those are being noted and worked on as these cookbook recipes are refined. The feedback from you Frienjis on all components of these dishes—where your interests and aversions lie, what’s confusing and frustrating—make this club so valuable. Thank you!

Dispatches from the Frienji Frontier

Typically, we see trends in the feedback you all provide on these dishes: this was too salty, this ingredient was hard to find, etc. But this time, a trend appeared in a totally different way. Frienjis fought tooth and nail to produce these recipes as there was bad luck in the air!

There were multiple stories submitted from your test kitchens that included dishes breaking, bad weather, and more bad omens. Luckily, it all worked out… but let’s maybe collectively throw some salt over our shoulders to be sure.

Clean up in the test kitchen with Pascha:

The truth is that I was marinating the chicken in a glass bowl and it slipped off the counter and shattered in a million pieces. After I cleaned up that big mess, I bought another 3 pounds of chicken because I had already made the green sauce and bought the aji amarillo, and was looking forward to these flavors. So glad I persevered—worth it!!

Brittany enjoyed a well-deserved meal.

I cooked this on an evening where we had multiple tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, flash flood warnings, and golf ball sized hail that broke one of our windows and dented my car. It took like 4 hours from start to finish since I was huddled away from the windows during the hail, wrangling cats to get downstairs during the tornado warnings, etc. By the time I finished, all the warnings (except a flash flood one) were finally over and I've never been more ready to relax with a plate of home cooked food lol

Dave got to the light at the end of the tunnel!

I had another rough experience with Amazon. I couldn't find aji amarillo paste locally so I ordered it. Came broken and a mess. Ordered a 2nd bottle and it was delayed twice. Looked up some substitution options but couldn't find anything close. Thankfully the 2nd bottle arrived in one piece. Totally worth waiting for! Both my wife and my son thought it was the best dish I have made for the cookbook club so far. My wife even said I should cook this every month!

Better vibes are coming!

Thanks for continuing to cook with us, despite fighting weather, cats, and broken glass, Frienjis! The next Cookbook Club recipe will come out next Friday, May 8. As always, you can find previous recipes, their feedback forms, and results in the Cookbook Club collection here on Patreon.

The Cookbook Club Team.