Paella

We got a paella pan as a wedding gift last year, and I finally got around to using it this weekend. I've had paella in Spain, and on several other occasions in restaurants and made by people who specialize in it, so I knew what I was looking for in terms of flavor and texture. Did a survey of assorted paella recipes, and decided I (sort of) liked the recipe on spanishtable.com best. What's good about that one is that it gives measurements for each serving, so you can customize it to what you need. I did it for four, and it filled my 15" paella pan all the way to the brim. So I might make three portions next time. I substituted a blend of fish and shrimp stock for the chicken stock, and used calamari, clams, and shrimp for the seafood. Also changed around some of the seasonings etc. You don't have to use a paella pan, of course -- a big saute pan will work just fine but isn't as aesthetic. So here is my version: Per person: 1 chicken thigh, skinned and boned, cut into bite-size pieces 3 medium shrimp, shelled (tail on) and deveined 4 small clams (manila) 1 calamari tube, cleaned and sliced into rings 5 saffron threads 1/2 C valencia rice (or other short to medium grained rice) (Do not rinse!) 1 C chicken or seafood broth 1/4 C peeled, seeded, and chopped tomato 1/2 t smoked sweet paprika 1 soft Spanish chorizo, 1/3" slices 1/4 C chopped onion 1 garlic clove, minced 1/8 C frozen peas Optional: green beans (1" pieces), canned artichoke hearts, halved Per pan: 1/2 C dry white wine 2 T olive oil Heat wine and put saffron in it to steep. Heat oil in pan over medium high heat and saute chicken until browned. Add onion and garlic, stir until translucent. Add sausage and stir for about five minutes. Add rice and stir until the rice is beginning to turn milky. Add tomatoes and paprika, stir, then add broth, wine/saffron mixture, and peas as well as optional vegetables. Stir just to distribute ingredients evenly, and bring to a low boil. Don't stir any more -- a crust is supposed to form on the bottom. Simmer for five minutes, then distribute clams evenly around the pan. simmer for another five minutes, turn the clams over, and distribute the calamari and shrimp evenly over the top. After another five minutes, turn the shrimp over. Let simmer about another five minutes, and discard any clams that have not opened. Serve immediately. A green salad with a caper viniagrette is a nice side dish.

Cooking radishes

Until the other day, I'd only ever eaten radishes raw. But Dave thought we should try cooking some. Since we had a bunch of them from our CSA basket, I decided to give it a try. Looking for recipes didn't give me a lot of help but there was some guidance. So I decided to braise/glaze them. Halved the radishes, put them in a saute pan with some butter, salt, and a little water. Browned them a little on the cut side, flipped them over to cook a little more, then turned back when the water had evaporated to glaze them. They were really good, and held their color well (some of ours were purple). Nice side dish with meats.

Onion jam

Lately the focus is on preserving things so that they don't all spoil before I get to eat them! I had four HUGE sweet onions in my pantry and as you know, they just don't keep. Thus, the onion jam experiment. This stuff is killer on bread with a little stinky cheese or goat cheese, or tossed into pasta with some capers. The hardware: 1 big saute pan (I used nonstick) and a wooden spoon The software: 4 lbs sweet onions, quartered and medium sliced 2 T sugar 1/2 C white wine vinegar 2 sprigs fresh thyme 1 T salt 1 t oil Put oil in pan, pile onions on top and sprinkle with salt. Sweat them over medium heat until the pile is reduced some so you can stir them around without them flying out on the stovetop. Stir in the sugar and about a tablespoon of the vinegar. Reduce heat and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions start to carmelize and stick. Stir in a couple more tablespoons vinegar to deglaze, and the thyme. Keep cooking and stirring until the onions are very thick and the mixute is a pale beige. Taste and add more vinegar (and salt) for balance if the sweetness is too cloying, and cook a few minutes longer to blend the flavors. The onions should not be browned, because you're stirring in any carmelization and redissolving it into the mixture. Take out the thyme sprigs (there should only be stems left, the leaves will be in the jam). Let cool, then put into a container. Keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge.

Market basket caponata

I was faced with a fridge and counter full of vegetables this week -- not quite keeping up with our CSA basket. So, after taking stock of the stock, so to speak, I decided to try my hand at caponata today. Everything was in the the pantry or the fridge. I am allergic to bell peppers, so I don't use them. But you could roast and peel a couple of green and red peppers, chop them and add to the pot with the rest of the ingredients. Dave always complains that I don't write things down when I cook good stuff, so honey, if you're out there somewhere reading this, this one's for you :) Market Basket Caponata 2 C eggplant in 1" cubes, unpeeled if skin is tender 2 C zucchini in 1" cubes Kosher salt 1 1/2 C carrots, 1/4" slices 1 C onion, rough chopped 1 C celery, chopped 5 cloves garlic, sliced thin 2 T raisins, soaked in hot water and drained 2 T small capers, drained and rinsed 2 T pine nuts 1/2 C peeled, seeded, and chopped chiles (like Anaheim or sweet Italian peppers) 1/2 C sun dried tomatoes, julienned (not oil-packed) 1/2 C black olives, pitted and chopped (I used Nicoise because I had them) 1 14-oz can diced tomatoes in juice 1/4 C red wine 1/4 C red wine vinegar 1/4 C balsamic vinegar 2 T honey 1/2 C chopped fresh basil 1/2 C water 2 T olive oil Salt and pepper to taste Put eggplant and zucchini in colander and toss with salt. Let drain while you're prepping the other ingredients. Then rinse with cool water and drain. Heat the olive oil in a pot or dutch oven, and brown the eggplant and zucchini. Add the onions, carrots, and celery and cook until onion is translucent. Add garlic and stir for a couple of minutes more. Then add all the rest of the ingredients except the water. Bring to a simmer, cover and simmer for 30 min. Check it -- it should be saucy, add some water if it is not. Cover and simmer another 30 minutes, or until the carrots are tender and the flavors have melded. It should be a little spicy, a little tangy, a little sweet with good texture from the vegetables. Serve with just about anything -- pasta, meats, bruschetta, fish steaks. Will keep for about a week, or you can freeze it for longer storage.

Fridge: finally ALL DONE

The repairman just finished replacing the nicked handle on the new fridge, and Whirlpool called me today to apologize for sending the check to the wrong address and assure me they were sending it out today. So I think the saga of the fridge is over. The trauma, of course, still lives on. I check the temp way too often, and actually have nightmares about the whole thing. But I don't think you can sue an appliance mfg for mental cruelty, so I'm just going to have to take the time to get over it. Bless Dave's heart, he came home this afternoon to supervise the handle replacement so I didn't have to worry about it -- because, as I was sure would happen, the tech got here and had never replaced a handle on this model. Sigh. But I went and hid at my computer while they got the whole thing sorted out. The funny thing was that this was the same tech who had come to "repair" the fridge in the first place, so I got the pleasure of telling him that his repair lasted all of 48 hours and then I made them replace it. Dave told him that under the circumstances, he hopes we never have to meet again! Let's hope now that Fridge and I have a long and happy life together :)

Gypsy Dinner

We got to attend our first Gypsy dinner last weekend. What a great experience! (What's a Gypsy dinner, you ask? I can't really tell you, but a Google search might help...) Peche, Peche, Quack, Quack was the theme -- all about peaches and duck. Well, who can argue with that? A couple of memorable dishes, including a duck taco with spicy peach taco sauce, which matched marvelously with a nice spicy Argyle Pinot Noir. (Now I think I'm going to serve Pinot with tortilla chips and fruit salsa, just to confirm that the toasted corn goes as well with it as I thought that night.) The first course -- a peach-scented consomme with a poached quail egg, a couple of little cubes of smoked duck, and a preserved-lemon tortellini -- was a marvel of textures and tastes. It was fun to watch the faces of diners who were unfamiliar with preserved lemon. Boy, were their mouths surprised! I knew what to expect but it was still such a great counterpoint to the quail egg. And the wine pairing, a Scheurebe, was very interesting. With all the different tastes going on, the wine seemed to be different with every sip. Too bad these dinners are seemingly always oversubscribed -- I sure hope we're able to get in on another one. It was so great to be at a communal table where everyone else cared about food as much as I do.

Cuban food and whacking your bread (flour on my face)

Another excellent Culinary Communion class this past weekend: five hours of intensive immersion in Cuban cuisine. Including roasting a whole pig -- I guess you could say we went whole hog on this one, couldn't you ;-) A couple of really good things: ropa vieja ("old rags") made with flank steak instead of some of the other cuts I've seen for this dish. Really flavorful, and great with the Cuban white rice, which was made in a manner I'd never tried before, boiling oil and water together with the rice, not sauteeing it first for nice fluffy grains. And an incredible lamb picadillo stuffed into empanaditas, using puff pastry for the dough and then deep frying them. The pastry was a little greasy for me, but that picadillo was great! Which brings me to the Pan Cubano (Cuban bread). It was made with a different kneading technique: "whacking" the dough on the counter by picking it up in one hand, swinging it over your shoulder, and slamming it down on the counter. Fold it in half, give it a quarter turn, and do it again. Takes about 12 minutes to knead the bread, and takes out a few agressions to boot! HOWEVER!!!! It is very important to manage your bench flour carefully. I decided to bake bread today because I have starter that needed to be refreshed. So I tried the whacking method. Needless to say, I had a light dusting of flour pretty much every where in the kitchen and on me after doing this. Good thing my counters are pretty slick and I could cut down on bench flour. But still, a bit of a mess. Sure did turn out pretty though.

Simple things for summer

Maybe my favorite thing about this time of year is that there are so many good things that can be simple: - really fresh corn - a fresh peach sliced over cottage cheese - tiny new potatoes roasted with olive oil and a little garlic - grilled shrimp with baby zucchini - just-picked cherry tomatoes, pop them in your mouth before you get in the house - beet greens shredded into chicken stock with fresh green beans, carrots, and zucchini - greens sauteed with a little duck confit (okay, maybe not so simple unless duck confit is almost always on hand like it is in my kitchen!) - just-grilled sliced bread rubbed with a cut garlic clove and a cut tomato, with a little coarse salt All of which I've eaten in the past week or so.

Yogurt cheese and tomatoes

I'd drained some Greek yogurt for several days and was trying to decide what to do with it. Minced some fresh dill, added some shredded lemon zest and lemon juice, some salt, and voila! Lemon-dill yogurt cheese. It's really good on top of tomato slices. I'm sure of course that it will be a good topper for fish, too.

I could eat corn every day

At least at this time of year! Just lightly cooked, on the cob. Sometimes naked, sometimes with basil butter, sometimes with a squeeze of lime. And swiss chard, with balsamic vinegar and garlic. Think I'm making a dinner of that tonite. Dave will want meat, of course, so probably some grilled shrimp. Mmmmm.

Back to cooking again!

Funny how you don't know how much you need some things until you can't have them. I learned over the past month that the title of this blog is more than a little true. Last weekend I finally got to start cooking again -- new working fridge and a little trust in it meant I got things restocked and could cook again. It felt like someone took a huge weight off my shoulders when I started puttering again. Nothing really significant, some great meatloaf (notes below), stone-grilled pita bread, tandoori chicken breasts, roasted cod with greek sauce, bean soup...well, maybe I did cook a lot! Meatloaf can be humdrum and I really think that putting an egg in it dries it out (and that's kind of why the egg holds it together). So I tried instead making about a cup of mixed ground carrots, celery, onions, zucchini, and garlic and adding that plus 3/4 cup of fresh breadcrumbs, a tablespoon of worcestershire, and 1/4 cup of water to 1.5 lbs of regular ground beef. It made a nice tender, not quite crumbly loaf. Glazed it with a mixture of ketchup, brown sugar, worcestershire sauce to be a little traditional. I roast my meatloaf on a broiler pan so all the fat drains down, which I prefer to get a firmer but not fatty loaf. The pita bread was so good on Saturday that I made it again on Sunday. Easy enough recipe: 1T yeast, 1t sugar, 1.5c water, 1t salt, 1t oil, and 3.5-4.5c of bread flour. But it is just amazing that it really does puff up! I put a baking stone up on our gas grill and baked the breads on it (heated to about 550 degrees). It was fun and very rewarding. Stuffed with that tandoori chicken and yogurt sauce it made a very nice dinner that went well with a bottle of Spanish tempranillo rose.

Ode to my little artichoke

In spring 2005, I planted some artichoke seeds in a pot on the deck. Those seeds came back with me from Hawaii in about 2003. So I had little hope that anything was going to happen. And it didn't, for a rather long time. Finally, some plants came pushing up. Hoping against all odds that I'd get something edible, I tended those plants lovingly. However, so did a lot of bugs (they like artichokes, too!). Insecticidal soap didn't make the artichokes any happier than the bugs, so I resorted to tomato leaf tea to get rid of aphids and gave in to the fruit flies (or at least that's what they looked like). All 2005, nothing but leaves. Several plants died. But two held on over the winter, still teasing me with the potential of producing my first artichoke. Finally, in about May, one plant got a little bud. Glory be!!! If I could save it from the critters, I might have something there. Keep in mind, we have a small balcony and so this much time (and real estate, it is a big pot) is a pretty big investment when I could be doing something like banging my head against a wall trying to grow tomatoes. (More on that later.) Anyway, today the artichoke, still only about 3" across, started behaving like the flower it is and looked like it was about to bloom. Time for harvest! Simple preparation here -- make sure all the critters are gone and steam it in the microwave for about 2.5 minutes. Usually, I use artichokes as an excuse to eat rich sauces -- I love them with mayo, or hollandaise, or melted butter. But today, nothing was getting between me and my produce! It was very nice, and all I did was put a little bit of salt on the heart. Of course, ten minutes of artichoke ecstasy is a rather meager return on an investment of 18 months :) But sometimes I can be persistent.

Florida seafood and the best meal

Sure was toasty down in Florida. As they say, it's not the heat, it's the humidity. Tried amberjack for the first time. It was very good. Place called Rick's Crab Shack. They grilled it, and it was done perfectly. Just as good were the fried shrimp -- just lightly coated in flour and fried, so no bulky breading. Later in the week I went back there and tried their grouper nuggets with hush puppies. Also perfectly cooked, and a huge portion for lunch. More grouper at RumRunners. One of the best pieces of fish I've ever eaten. Coated in ground pecans and coconut and sauteed. Nice and firm, with a lobster-like texture, but not rubbery or dry. Served with a beurre blanc. I was in heaven. AJ's in Destin claims to have originated chargrilled amberjack. It was okay, a little dry. But still a nice assertive flavor without being fishy. Also had assorted fried fish sandwiches, and a grilled striped bass sandwich. The latter was served as two big chunks of fish, which I kind of had to mash up to make it a sandwich. That was a little fishy for me but not bad. My biggest complaint about the grouper sandwiches was that the grouper filets were too thin, so there was as much breading as fish. But my best meal down there wasn't seafood, it was prime rib. And really prime. A place called Callahan's in Destin, where they have a butcher shop and a bunch of plastic picnic tables (with umbrellas!) inside the shop. You choose your steak from the case, or in my case choose to have a (massive) slice of medium rare prime rib. That was one of the best pieces of meat I've eaten in a long time. Beefy, very velvety, none of that graininess that can show up. Perfectly seasoned, it had no need of the au jus or horseradish that came with it. Strange little place, but one I'd go back to if I'm ever in Destin again.

Refrigerator postscript

New fridge got delivered on Monday -- seems to work. But they gouged the new kitchen paint in the process, and the door handle is scratched. So we're not quite past this one yet. And...they sent us yet another compressor! That makes three compressors and assorted refrigerator parts sitting in my dining room. I know that Whirlpool would like them back, but we are having a hard time getting the dealer to pick them up and I'm certainly not going to go through the hassle of packaging them up and shipping them out. Come to think of it, we never did get that check from Whirlpool, either. Guess there's more to this story.

Reflections on my last day of class (for now)

Last day of the preserving class series. Chef Gabe told us today that over the course of the class we made 38 different things. Wow! Ranging from pancetta and bacon and ham to mustard, ketchup, sauerkraut, and foie gras and confit. A very strange thing happened today. When we went around the room to talk about what our favorite part of the class was, I got all teary-eyed. Felt pretty silly about that, but not really embarassed. It was honest emotion. This has been in many ways a life-changing experience for me. I feel more comfortable with knowing what I do know, and not knowing what I don't. And it has confirmed how much passion I have for cooking. Maybe I'm also sad for the years (and maybe career) lost when I didn't know that this was where my passion and skills were. Ah, but better late than never. As I said when I started the class, I felt kind of like an outsider. But by today I didn't. At least I felt comfortable talking about what I might do with certain ingredients without being afraid that Chef would think I was an idiot -- in fact, I was able to talk that way without the little voice in the back of my head telling me to shut up. That's when I knew that my confidence has expanded. Today's agenda was fresh sausages. I got to work with caul fat today, something I've always wanted to do (It's funny how many things in this class dealt specifically with things I've always wanted to learn more about: foie gras, caul fat, terrines, cured meats...). Anyway, the caul fat went around some very lean greek lamb sausage. They were just plain great. All the sausages were great. So the meal today was a buffet of most everything we made. Scary huge table of food. I was so tired I really couldn't eat a plate of food, but I did sample most all of the sausages. Including trying the blood sausage, another of those things that I really really didn't want to eat. So that list goes like: blood sausage, gizzard confit, sweetbreads, raw foie gras. Not bad to get past all of those taboos for me. Can't say I liked everything but at least I tried! Our cured sausages were yummy, and cooking the collards with the cured pork shank was quite great. The Camembert got kind of funky, and the rind got very bitter. But it looked kind of neat. I won't be posting for a while, since I'm off to join Dave in Florida for a week. Gotta go eat grouper and amberjack, and try to forget the refrigerator trauma :)

%&(*#!! Refrigerator

Well, I thought it was fixed. But it died again last night, leaving me to schlepp frozen food to a borrowed freezer at 12:30am. AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! So I sent a heavily-edited flame mail to my dealer, and v-mail directly to Whirlpool (Whirlpool makes KitchenAid, in case you didn't know -- I didn't). I explained that they were going to replace the appliance, no further debate on the subject allowed. By 9am this morning they were all marching to my drum. Of course, I'm leaving town tomorrow night and not returning for a week, so the new one doesn't get delivered for a week. But I've re-purposed the wine coolers for the condiments, and I have an electric "cooler" that now has my undying loyalty. Have pressed that back into service to keep the duck confit, pork rillets, and cheeses fresh until we have the real thing again. This has been an amazingly stressful experience, I think because I felt completely out of control of events. But defective units leave manufacturing facilities all the time, I just lost the "lemon lottery" this time.

Dontcha just love potatoes and onions this time of year?

New potatoes -- the skin is so tender you can rub it off with your fingers. They are so darn sweet if you cook them simply. I'm talking 1/2" dice, parboil them until they are nearly done, then browning them in butter or olive oil. A little bit of minced rosemary can't hurt, or a little tarragon, or thyme... But pair them with the wonderful sweet onions you get this time of year, Walla Walla or Vidalia, then it gets really special. In fact, the contract of the sauteed potatoes with some diced raw sweet onion is great, or you can put the onion in at the beginning of the saute to get some nice caramel notes from all that sugar in them. Finally, to gild the lily, pour a few beaten eggs over them and make a Spanish torilla, or an Italian fritatta. Today, I added a little blanched and chopped mizuna -- the mixture toned down the bite of the mizuna and it stayed really bright. Yummy.

Heidi's Tasting Project

At the last minute last Saturday we got invited to an "event" at Culinary Communion (did I mention that's where I'm taking these classes?). Heidi, Gabe's wife, has an interesting project going on about how we think foods should taste and how they actually taste, over time. Like do in-season tomatoes really taste better, and if so, how? I took Dave along with me because I wanted him to meet Gabe and Heidi as he decides if he's willing to do the Provence trip with me (I really want him to). I thought it was fun though challenging. Dave discovered I think that he doesn't think about how food is supposed to taste, and what his vision of the "perfect" tomato or orange or asparagus is. So I think in the end, while it was kind of hard for him, that he was intrigued and wants to do it again (Heidi's intention is to do this monthly). I think it's a creative idea and it will be interesting to see where it leads for Heidi. Hardest thing for me about the evening was that I was there in class all day, got home after 5 and had to make something to take to the party at 7. Oh, yes, that was intimidating! Had some very new potatoes, fresh summer squash, and freshly shelled peas that I needed to use anyway (remember, I didn't have a much of a fridge!). So I steamed them all and tossed them with a vinaigrette and some fresh onions. Only problem? I didn't have any ice to chill the veggies with (no freezer at all!), and the vinaigrette sort of separated as the whole thing cooled. Rather, the veggies sucked up all the vinaigrette except for some of the oil -- curious thing, I'm working to understand why that happened. But the freshness of everything was great, so in the end it was fine since the oil I used was a very nice peppery EVOO. Another step of faith off of a cliff for me.

More cooking class thoughts

In all of my stress over the impending demise of my fridge (now repaired, finally, incidentally) I haven't talked about the latest coolness of my cooking class series. Last week, I learned how to bone a duck thigh as part of making confit. That was cool, because although I've made plenty of confit, I have not learned boning. So I am very happy about that, and because I then boned five hindquarters, I got to get some reinforcement of the learning. I also made tasso -- or at least did the curing and spicing of it before Gabe put it on the smoker. But because I went to an event there the same evening (more on that in my next post) Gabe had smoked it and we (Dave and I) got to try it the same day. Boy was it yummy -- thanks in much part of course to Gabe's recipe, which included allspice and marjoram in addition to cayenne and white pepper. But I was thrilled to have done the prep on this one. In fact, I just get very excited seeing the results of the things I've worked on in this class, since for the most part they are things I would never do/get to do in the normal course of life at home. I mean, making Camembert? Only in class. And it really looks like Camembert! And the prosciutto -- where would I have room to hang an entire ham? But there, oh, it's a thing of beauty. This weekend we will make some fresh sausages, and then eat all the stuff we've made in what seems to me to be an embarassment of riches :) and a surfeit of pork fat...YUM!!! What this cooking class series has done for me, though, is much deeper than just getting to make things I've never made. It has made me more confident in my knowledge, or at least made me aware that a lot of knowledge is living up in my head that I draw on instinctively. It's also made me (sometimes painfully) aware of what I don't know, and of how I am still lacking in confidence. But I'm going to continue on this journey, I've already signed up for another class and I think we're going to go to Provence with these guys next spring. I think Gabe has a lot to teach me, and I appreciate that he has the formal education that I don't and that he has a passion for sharing it. The first step was the hardest, now I have to keep myself from over-indulging in this.

AARGH!! Fridge meltdown

For the past two weeks I have been dealing with a steadily declining fridge. That's right, the oh-so-wonderful built in isn't so wonderful anymore. Finally tomorrow they are supposed to come and replace pretty much everything. Don't know why they don't just replace the whole unit. In the meantime, I've been struggling to keep things cold enough for health, and keep meat frozen. Today I'm going to have to reboil all of my stocks from the freezer and make more duck stock, even though it's not time to. Luckily there is a freezer in our rec room here at the condos so today I moved all the frozen food there, and then put the refer side of the food into my freezer since the refer side has completely stopped working. Not very fun. Funny how the dealer just doesn't want to know you anymore when things aren't going well...