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Half-eaten paella
For some inexplicable reason, I was feeling adventurous today. Part of the impetus was a recipe for paella in Jose Andres’ bible on Spanish Cooking: Tapas, a Taste of Spain in America. As a former D.C. resident, I can speak in reverence of Jose’s skills with Iberian ingredients in the kitchen. His flagship Jaleo restaurant is, in my opinion, the end-all, be-all tapas destination in the United States.
So I decided I wanted to cook paella, even though I have never cooked it before. Culinary suicide, I know. Paella can be a finicky dish. If you eff up the rice, for example, it’s ruined.
Undeterred, I made a trip this afternoon to The Spanish Table, an Iberian specialty shop located on Western Ave. near Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. The shop focuses on Spanish goodies, but there’s also ingredients with Portuguese and Moroccan flavors. Basically, my head exploded. I grabbed a basket and loaded it up with gazpacho (chilled tomato soup), sofrito (sauteed sauce with tomatoes), smoked sweet paprika (staple flavor of Spanish dishes), Valencian rice and some European candy. The hallmark of my haul, though, was a cazuela. It’s a terra cotta dish, perfect for cooking one-pot type meals over low-to-medium heat.
Originally, I planned on picking up a paella pan, which is a large metal pan with a flat bottom. This is so the rice cooks evenly throughout. The problem is you can’t use a paella pan on a flat stove, which is what we have. Another problem is that it’s only good for cooking, you guessed it, paella. Not wanting to spend $150 on a specialty pan, I asked the lady at the counter what my options were. She recommended the cazuela, which is more versatile. Sold.
Now here comes the ingredients, which is where paella gets tricky. The dish is a freelancer’s dream, because you can essentially use whatever meat or vegetable is available/in-season. Andres’ recipe called for green beans, chicken thighs, jamon serrano and wild mushrooms. We decided to amp it up with fresh eggplant as well. All of which was available, btw, at both the Queen Anne Farmers’ Market, and the nearby Metropolitan Market.
Before hitting the markets, I soaked the cazuela for six hours in water. Because the dish is kiln-fired at 2300 degrees at creation, it needs to soften a bit before you toss it on a hot stove. But it worked perfectly.
We made a few other slight alterations to the recipe. Andres uses homemade sofrito and chicken stock. Not wanting to waste several hours in the kitchen, I stuck with the store-bought varieties.
We added the ingredients, one after another, according to the recipe, but the real test came when we were to let it sit, bubbling, for the rice to absorb all the liquid. Jose (and my mother) warn not to touch the rice with a spoon or finger while it’s cooking, or the delicate crust will break and the rice will cook unevenly. So we obediently let it sit until all the liquid was soaked up and the paella was finished, a cake-like crust on both the top and slightly-burnt bottom.
Success. It was delicious.
Chicken and mushroom paella
(Inspired by Jose Andres)
Serves 4, or 2 or dinner with ample leftovers
- 2 Tb. olive oil
- 2 chicken legs or boneless thighs, cut into small pieces
- 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms
- 1-2 cups other vegetable (we used 1 medium eggplant, cut into 1 inch cubes)
- 3 oz. green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 small garlic clove, pressed
- 2 slices chopped jamon serrano
- 1/4 cup dry white wine
- 1/4 cup sofrito
- 1 quart chicken stock
- 1 pinch saffron threads
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 Tb. salt
- 1 1/2 cups Spanish Bomba rice (or Calasparra or Arborio rice)
Heat the olive oil in a paella pan, cazuela, or 12-inch deep skillet over high heat. Add chicken and saute until browned on all sides. Set aside.
Add mushrooms and eggplant or other vegetable to the pan and saute until golden, about 3 minutes. Add green beans and garlic and cook 3 more minutes. Return chicken to pan, along with the ham.
Pour in the wine and cook about 1 minute. Add the sofrito and cook 3 minutes. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Crush the saffron and add it and the bay leaf. Season with salt.
Now add the rice, and cook for 5 minutes over a high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.
Reduce the heat to low and cook at a slow boil at least 10 minutes, until all the liquid is absorbed. DO NOT poke or prod at the paella during this time, or the top crust won’t form properly.
Remove the paella from the heat and let sit 3 minutes. Then serve. Buen provecho.
Burnt tomato, goat cheese and anchovy bruschetta
We would love to make this amazing bruschetta dish from our newfound love, Seven Fires, for a cocktail party. But some people don’t like anchovies, one of the key components of this dish. Said people are also sadly misinformed and missing out, but try convincing the average eater that an anchovy is worth trying. Jeremy gave that a shot when he brought a single-serving tin to work for a snack, and was rewarding with horrified looks and pinched noses from his co-workers.
It’s really too bad, because as my dad pointed out the other day (as he drizzled anchovy oil atop a pizza), unless you’re eating anchovies plain, all you taste when they’re added as an ingredient is umami, that savory oomph that is one of the five basic tastes recognized by the tongue.
In this dish, it’s part of a roller coaster of textures and flavors that twist your tongue in knots as you munch through it. You bite down and taste the crunch of the toasted bread, then the smoky burnt tomato bursts and oozes into a juicy mess, combining with the melting goat cheese and garlicky parsley sauce, while the anchovy sneaks up at the end for a salty, savory kick.
Probably this was too messy for a cocktail party, too. Sorry folks, you’ll have to come over chez nous to try this one.
Burnt Tomato, Goat Cheese and Anchovy Bruschetta
(adapted from Francis Mallmann’s Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentinian Way)
Serves 2 hungry people for dinner, or 4 as appetizers
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes
- dried oregano, or fresh if you have it
- 1/8 cup olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 1/2 a baguette, a day old, preferable one with a large circumference
- goat cheese
- 1 two-oz. can anchovy fillets packed in oil, drained and halved
- Parsley, Olive Oil, and Garlic sauce (recipe below)
To make the POOG sauce, mince 1/2 cup parsley and a couple cloves garlic together. Alternatively, throw it all in a food processor. Whisk in 1/2 cup olive oil until blended, and season with salt and pepper. Put in the fridge until ready to use.
Cut up the baguette into 8-10 slices and put on a pan for toasting. You can do this under the broiler, or in a toaster oven, or wherever. Just try to time it so they’re done when the tomatoes are.
If you have really big cherry tomatoes, cut them all in half. Otherwise, cut off the top so they have a base to rest upon. Toss them in a bowl with the oregano, olive oil, S + P to taste.
Heat a cast-iron griddle over high heat. When hot, place the cherry tomatoes, cut sides down, on the griddle, trying to keep them one inch apart. DO NOT MOVE THEM, or they will lose their juice and shape.
Cook for at least 4 minutes, until the tomatoes are charred and almost black on the bottom. Then remove to a platter, burnt side up, an inch apart if possible.
Arrange the bread (which you toasted by now, right?) on a platter, and spread some goat cheese on each slice. Place three tomatoes on each piece. Garnish with anchovies and then drizzle the POOG sauce over everything.
If you don’t like anchovies after this, I don’t know what to tell you.
Francis Mallmann's crisp sweetbreads with criolla salad. And Malbec, of course.
Ever since I made this wondrous decision to purchase Seven Fires, the end-all, be-all guide to Argentine grilling by Francis Mallmann, I’ve been hooked on the idea of cooking sweetbreads. And why not? This man is an expert: raised in Argentina, but trained in France and now owns three of the best steakhouses (including Patagonia Sur, a Mecca for carnivores in Buenos Aires) around back in his native land. Needless to say, the book is total food porn.
Of course, for many this decision has been met with disgust. You see, sweetbreads are beef or veal glands, and to some people that’s just gross. Organ meat tends to have that effect. To others, it’s heaven. They’re a staple at Argentine restaurants. When seared perfectly, sweetbreads develop a crunchy exterior and a creamy inside that has the consistency of flan (Mallmann’s words, not mine).
Turns out, sweetbreads are hard to find in Seattle. I called several reputable butchers from Queen Anne to West Seattle, and came up empty. So I turned to Don & Joe’s, the butcher shop in the touristy yet charming Pike Place Market. This meant a trip downtown, finding a parking spot and weaving my way through market booths slammed with out-of-towners packing video cameras and giggling at the flying fish.
The recipe that spurred my interest was a crispy sweetbread and baby lettuce salad. After I acquired the protein part of the meal, I met Lisa at the Queen Anne Farmer’s Market to gather the rest of the essentials. We found the lettuce from a local farm, but had to make due with hothouse tomatoes. A trip to a Metropolitan Market provided a punchy Malbec.
Now the hard part was actually cooking the sweetbreads. I’m by no means a skilled operator when it comes to the art of making food. I have a deep appreciation for food, but all I can really do is follow a recipe. I lack the flair and imagination of Lisa, who is supremely talented. [LK note: I am flattered but this is a vast exaggeration.] One of my goals this summer, though, is to teach myself the intricacies of grilling and master them.
Sweetbreads a-crisping
The sweetbreads were surprisingly easy. Rinse and pat dry. Coat in olive oil and sprinkle liberal amounts of sea salt and fresh pepper. Next, add to cast-iron skillet with lemon wedges. While I was doing this, Lisa prepared the salad. One of Mallmann’s points is that amateur asadors manhandle the food on the grill too much, constantly turning and massaging and poking. Wrong. The key, I’ve learned, is to let it sit and develop a crunchy crust. A few minutes and a flip later, the sweetbreads were done (and crispy!) and we plopped them on a bed of lettuce, tomatoes and red onions. Delicious.
Sweetbreads aren’t something you cook, obviously, on a regular or even semi-regular basis. But they’re a tasty alternative and unlike most meats you’ll ever eat.
I’ve noticed that recently, when I’m explaining events or news to people in conversation, I have the impulsive urge to hyperlink some of my words, rather than have to go off on a tangent to explain the reference. I think this is a sign that I spend too much time online…
Fortunately, we now have a blog, so I can just direct people here to explain the One Pot dinner we attended last week.
It’s hard to define exactly what One Pot is, but basically it’s a dinner served family style in a unique location with a discussion-worthy topic or person on-hand.
In this case, the visiting guest was Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham, discussing his book “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human”, about how his research shows that cooking, more than tools or a genetic mutation or anything else, was the major factor in the evolution of modern man.
Dr. Wrangham, coincidentally, also happened to be my professor in a large lecture class on human evolution my freshman year at college. So we knew we had to check this out.
The dinner was held at Caffe Vita on Capitol Hill, in their coffee warehouse next door to the coffeeshop. In the entrance was a massive Neopolitan-style oven, full ablaze, with chefs unhurriedly pushing and pulling trays of food in and out of it. There were burlap bags of coffee piled around tables set up in a sunlight-filled warehouse. As attendees arrived bearing alcohol, we were all given copies of the book.
Michael Hebb, the “food provocateur” behind One Pot (just read the story, easier than explaining), introduced the evening, and after a brief Q&A with Dr. Wrangham, the food started circling. The casually dressed chefs making the meal, by the way, included Mark Fuller of West Seattle restaurant Spring Hill, which meant one of Food & Wine’s top new chefs was essentially cooking a private meal for about 50 people.
Need I mention how incredible the food was, and all from the wood-fired oven? There was Macrina bread with raw butter, a baby kale salad with lemon and goat cheese, Israeli coucous with ramps, sausages, lamb chops, and for dessert, Theo chocolates and lusciously smooth Caffe Vita coffee.
The communal table led to easy conversation with the other diners, and Dr. Wrangham did end up sitting at our table for part of the night, so I was able to confess I’d been in his lecture class all those years ago.
And of course, this all happened because I learned about the event through Twitter — this and the other One Pot and Words and Wine events held in Seattle. It’s definitely on our agenda to go to some future One Pot dinners, as well as the Words and Wine sessions with people like soon-to-be-former-NYT-restaurant-critic Frank Bruni.
Chimichurri skirt steak and asparagus
When we walked through neighborhoods in Vancouver a couple weeks ago, we noticed every apartment had a deck. More importantly, we discovered these apartments also had grills. Funny how that works out.
There’s something about the sublime weather of late spring in the Pacific Northwest that is conducive to grilling food outdoors. So not long after we returned back to Seattle, we set out to research how we could join the modern age of charring food.
So we started researching. Would we buy gas or charcoal? Big or small? There are tons of factors to consider for the first-time grill buyer. In the end, we went with an 18 1/2-inch charcoal grill, perfect for the small apartment dweller’s porch or patio. Having a charcoal grill was also important, because there’s definitely a noticeable taste difference between using briquettes and toasting a porterhouse with gas heat.
All in all, a grill plus accessories ended up costing us around $110 bucks from Home Depot. We made a mini-mistake of buying match-ready charcoal; we’re planning to use nothing but eco-friendly wood chips from now on. For those who have ever partaken in a South American asado (Spanish for cookout; popular in Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay), their grilling is all done on large outdoor pits with wood-laden fires. And if it was once living, they’ll salt it, grill it and serve it with a glass of Malbec on the side.
For the inaugural test run, Lisa went to the Ballard Farmer’s Market and bought the juiciest, choicest strip steaks she could find. Of course, this came at a hefty price (eating organic & local is not so cheap, sigh) but we wanted to christen our grill with something special. A couple of New York strip steaks were accordingly acquired, and Lisa put together the grill (Jeremy was “studying” for a “final exam”) which ended up being easier to build than most Ikea furnishings.
We heated up the coals (feeling guilty about the Ready-Lite chemicals in the charcoal, but oh well) and 10 minutes later had a scorching grill primed for steaks. Our bible in this endeavor has been Steve Raichlen’s “How To Grill” a nearly 500-page tome of recipes and barbecue techniques. We highly recommend it and want to make pretty much every recipe in the book. In this case, we went with the very simple strip steaks with herb butter. His recipe called for tarragon but we used rosemary, chopping it up and mixing it with room temp butter, salt, pepper, and lemon zest, then chilling it in a cylinder shape.
We tossed the steaks on the grill and about 15 minutes and a bit of anxious fussing later they were done. We topped them with a slice of rosemary butter and served them alongside fresh steamed asparagus. Simple and delicious. Maybe it was the quality of the meat, maybe it was because we put a lot of care into making them, but forget about leftovers — we scarfed down those strips and wiped the plate clean.
The basics covered, we moved on to a cuisine near and dear to Jeremy’s heart – strip steak marinated in chimichurri sauce. It’s a popular Latin American dish, and a staple of what you would see in Argentina, or some tacky themed restaurant ostensibly named “El Gaucho,” or “Tango.” A trip to Whole Foods in Pan Pacific Place (easily the yuppiest spot in the 206 area code. Valet parking? Really?), satisfied all of our prep needs. The chimichurri was easy to assemble: red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, cumin, crushed red peppers, parsley and dried oregano. The steaks then took a nice long bath while Jeremy went off to play softball in Interbay, and upon his victorious return, they were ready to be thrown on the grill. The result was a delightfully tender, yet flavor-packed steak that floored both of us.
The best part about having a grill is the endless possibilities. Next up is chicken wings, pizza, sweetbreads (veal glands…tastes MUCH better than it sounds). Plus it gives Jeremy an outlet to embrace his inner asador. Everybody wins.
Panko-crusted rockfish tacos with cumin black beans, slaw and avocado sauce — a reasonably local-sourced meal
We recently saw the film Food, Inc., at the Seattle International Film Festival. While we weren’t exactly expecting anything life-shattering, having read The Omnivore’s Dilemma and being obedient farmers’-market attendees, it still made an impression on us.
Namely, that while food in the U.S. has become incredibly industrialized and hyper-processed, the most basic thing you as a consumer can do to take a stance against it is to “opt-out” of that industrial system. It’s a familiar mantra: buy local and buy organic. And we already make an effort to read labels and avoid unpronounceable ingredients and high fructose corn syrup. But watching the movie inspired me to make more of a concerted effort to actually look at where our food is coming from.
Putting this into practice earlier this week at the vast and daunting Shoreline Central Market was another story. We’d go to grab some organic apples, wince at the $3 a pound price, then see they were shipped in from Chile. Isn’t this Washington State? Isn’t this where most of the apples in the country come from? The same thing happened with buying the fish for the fish tacos. I went to ask for my standby of tilapia, only to see it was farmed and from Ecuador. Foiled! Fortunately the fishmonger (great word, huh) recommended rockfish, which was wild and labeled as USA. (It ended up tasting better than tilapia, too.) Still, I guess we should feel fortunate that the store labeled origins at all, even if it was sometimes vague like “USA” or “Northwest”, which could mean anything.
I wonder, though, if we should give up on grocery stores all together and do more like we did living in Brooklyn, when we would often shop the old-fashioned way: one stop for bread, one for fish, one for vegetables. Each store does one thing and does it well, and gets their food from a source they personally know. It’s less convenient that way, but not necessarily more expensive: a hefty bunch of local asparagus at the Wallingford Farmers’ Market yesterday was $1.50, while at the Shoreline Market it was $3.99 a pound. But neither do we want to be the self-righteous windbags at a party proclaiming how we only eat food from our neighbors Joe the Farmer and Susie the Gardener.
What we’re trying to do is simply the livable option. Be aware of where our food comes from and whenever possible, make the effort to go for the local, organic, environmentally friendly option. But not kill ourselves over it.
Fish tacos with cumin black beans, slaw and avocado sauce
(Adapted from GQ, of all places, namely the slaw and sauce)
Feeds 2 people with leftovers for lunch the next day
For the slaw:
- 3 cups shredded green cabbage
- 1/3 cup chopped onion
- 2 limes
- 1/3 cup chopped cilantro
- 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
- salt and pepper to taste
Toss all ingredients together and taste for seasoning, then cover and chill. This gets better the longer it sits in the fridge.
For the sauce:
- 1/3 cup mayo
- 1/2 ripe avocado
- 1/2 cup cilantro leaves
- 1 or 2 limes, depending on preference
- 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
Blend all ingredients in a food processor. It may be on the thick side, depending on how much lime juice you used; thin with more lime juice or water. Taste for seasoning, and chill until the rest of dinner is ready.
For the beans:
Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a medium saucepan. Crush in 2-3 cloves garlic and a couple dunks of cumin. When garlic is translucent, add 1 can black beans, partially drained (Goya is best) and bring to a bubble. Turn the heat down and let simmer at least 10 minutes or until everything else is ready.
For the fish:
- 3/4 to 1 lb. white fish filets, like rockfish or tilapia
- 1 egg
- Flour
- Panko!
- Olive oil
Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Meanwhile, set up one plate of flour, one bowl with the egg, beaten, and one plate of panko. Salt and pepper the filets, then dip both sides in flour, egg wash, and panko in order.
Put filets in hot pan and cook about 4 min per side or until fish flakes and is no longer translucent in the center. Flake into manageable pieces and serve with small corn tortillas, black beans on the side, and slaw and sauce on top. With a nice Mexican beer, natch.
There’s a pain in my side, my lungs are begging for oxygen and I’m not sure if I want to throw up or not. This was a description of me earlier in the week as I came to the finish of a Crossfit workout.
Crossfit is not a new phenomenon, but it is for us. Per the recommendation of a friend, Lisa and I have been training at the location in Green Lake in order to get in better shape and improve our tennis game. But this is no ordinary gym or fitness class. You don’t go in and start doing your own workouts. Crossfit is 20-30 minutes of panic-induced hell, where the workouts are written on dry-erase boards, led by an instructor and everyone competes to see who finishes first.
An example of a workout is: sprint 200 m around the block, do 21 swings with a kettlebell weight, do 12 pullups. Repeat 3 times. This was what we did the first week — we didn’t even have to do REAL pullups, and we were still dying.
Most recently we did a workout alternating burpees and hang power cleans. 15 of one and 1 of the other, 14 of one and 2 of the other, and so on until it was swapped. Suffice to say we are still both sore a full 3 days later.
We feel this type of fitness is better than, say, paying $100 a month for health club privileges. In the past, when I’ve gone to gyms, I notice there is a lot of standing around, sipping water and fiddling with a few bench press sets. At Crossfit, it’s all business. You’re in and out in 30 minutes, give or take, but its an incredibly efficient ass-kicking workout.
We’re going to try out going once a week for now. The hard core devotees go 3 times a week or more. Not sure we can fathom that, physically or mentally. But from seeing the muscle tone on the Crossfit veterans, there’s no denying it gets results.
Lisa
Jeremy
