Final Tic Tac Recipe

Just when you thought the foolishness was over, I decided to post one last Tic Tac Recipe.  Truth be told, I did all of the recipes on my day off but thought y'all might be too overwhelmed absorbing them all at once.

I've never had any luck doing a brine for chicken.  I tend to forget I was brining and when I remember it's a salt lick.  These were chicken thighs that I put in a brine solution that was 1 cup orange tic tac simple syrup, 1/4 cup salt and a quart of water.  After 5 hours in the brine, I patted them dry and added the dry rub that I put on the lamb.  They then were baked at 350 for about 25 minutes and served with mashed potatoes and a big salad.

The brine did keep the chicken very moist.  There was a very faint orange Kool-aid type of flavor which was neither offensive nor awe inspiring.  The cardamom was very subtle...which frankly is a hard thing to do with cardamom since it has such a strong flavor.

I lost interest before I made anything with the green apple or wintergreen Tic Tacs.
Would I ever make any of these again?  Well, I would put cardamom in a muffin again.  I would also use the ground tic tacs as a sugar sprinkle on top of muffins or to rim a glass for a fancy drink.   Pardon me while I toddle off to make an orange-tic-tac-rimmed pineapple juice spritzer.

Tic Tac Soup

Squash Soup

1 large onion, diced
1 med butternut squash, diced
2 med apples, diced
1 cup mint tic tac simple syrup
1 quart chicken broth
cream (optional)

Caramelize onions in a small amount of olive oil.  Add other ingredients.  Cover and simmer 30 minutes until tender.  Puree.  Serve topped with cream.

We tried adding a little more mint syrup or some crushed tic tacs at the end on a couple samples, but it didn't really make it taste and better and reduced the chances of leftovers being eaten.

Muffins

3 c whole grain pancake mix
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 c orange tic tac simple syrup
orange tic tac powder

Combine all but the tic tac powder.  Pour into greased jumbo muffin tins.  Sprinkle the batter with the tic tac powder.  Bake 15-20 min.  Makes 5 muffins.

Alternatively, use your favorite muffin recipe.  I just had some pancake mix that no one at my house was eating.  Because it had been in the cupboard for ages, I did add an extra tsp of baking powder to make sure they rose.  

The squash soup turned out alright - could have been thinned with some broth.  Family rating was an 8.  The mint flavor was undetectable.  The muffins were a 9.5.  We all liked them.  Only thing keeping it from a perfect 10 is that the orange flavor tastes just like Tang rather than like oranges.

TicTac Lamb

One of my first ideas for Tic Tacs was to somehow pair it with lamb since mint jelly is a traditional accompaniment to lamb.  I'm probably automatically disqualified from the challenge on this one since I didn't have lamb at home, but here it is anyway. 

I ground up some of the Freshmint (white) tic tacs and gathered some spices for a dry rub.

Lamb Dry Rub

1 tsp freshmints tic tac powder
1 tsp powdered cumin
1 tsp powdered garlic
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp powdered cardamom

Lamb is surprisingly hard to find around here and the only thing I could afford was a shoulder cut with bones.  I figured it would be similar to ribs, so I baked it at low heat (250 F) for about an hour and a half. 

I made a bbq sauce with equal parts of catsup and simple syrup made with freshmint tic tacs.  If you missed it, process for making the tic tac simple syrup is on this post. 

As for rating this recipe, the flavor was amazingly good and rated about a 9 from my family.  The spice rub was no surprise, but the fact we liked a mint bbq sauce was a shocker.   The cut of lamb I bought was all bones and made it impossible to eat dropping the overall rating to about a 7.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment:  Mint Butternut Squash Soup and Orange Tic Tac Muffins.

TicTac Cardamom Challenge 1

Tschanztini

1/4 c Orange Tic Tac Simple Syrup*
Juice of 1 mandarin orange (1/4 cup)
1/2 cup club soda
Orange Tic Tac powder for rim

* Simple Syrup

1 oz package of orange Tic Tacs
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
20 small cardamom pods
zest of 1 mandarin orange

Bring all but the zest to a boil, stirring constantly.  Simmer 1 min. Remove from heat and add zest.  Cover and let sit for 1 hour.  Strain before using.

 I had a cute spiral of orange rind but it defrosted and unwound before I figured out the perfect set up for photos.  Time to work on my food stylist skills.  The TicTac powder was made by whizzing them in a spice grinder.

I cut the "twist" from the mandarin, then used a microplane to take the rest of the rind off before I cut it in half and squished the juice out.  I used the still-juicy rind for the liquid to rim the glass.



Time for me to scoot and make a tic tac brine for chicken.