Paella

Tonight, I made paella. It's wonderful and easy and cheap and it makes everyone happy. I used shrimp and andouille sausage, but lots of things work. Combinations of seafood are common (like, maybe shrimp, clams and mussels) and they look really striking. I think having a few shrimp (maybe like 2 or 3 per person) and a decent amount of sausage is a good way to stretch it out. Chorizo or spicy Italian sausage are good as well. Or, you could do chicken and sausage, or chicken and shrimp. A quick epicurious search pulls up vegetarian paella (white beans and swiss chard, asparagus and sugar snaps), a turkey paella, even rabbit and artichoke. Snails are another traditional component.

Paella is a Spanish rice dish that is supposed to be cooked in a very thin, some would say very cheap, pan. Purists will insist that the title "Paella" requires a crunchy, almost burnt crust on the bottom of the pan. It's become a recurring theme in Top Chef (the TV show) for a contestant to make what they call paella. In most cases, they've used the high quality pans provided for them, and thus have produced a nice, evenly heated, perfectly cooked pan full of rice. This angers Chef Tom Collichio. In a few cases, the contestant has pulled this off (see: Ilan, Season 2, individual paellas, cooked in serving dishes, and not actual cookware. Clever, or lucky?). When this has happened, all the judges basically get off on this magnificent burnt rice. Padma Lakshmi, judge and host, delights in proding the crunchy bits with her fork, like an ethnic, stoner version of Amelie cracking the top of her creme brule, and she looks up and informs the viewers at home "the rice is soooo crunchy, you guys!"

But anyways. My "paella" did not have the crunchy bottum. I don't care for burnt rice, myself. I chopped up about 1 cup of onion and sauteed that till it was a little browned. I added in minced garlie (2 cloves), a big pinch of saffron and about 1/2 teaspoon of smoked spanish paprika. I used roasted red peppers from a jar, so I diced them and added them after the spices. (You'd add diced fresh bell pepper with the onions.) I poured in 2 cups of chicken broth (fish stock is good too), 1 cup of short-to-medium grain rice and an andouille sausage, halved and sliced. You bring the broth to boil, then lower the heat and cooked with the lid on for 15 minutes, till the rice is mostly cooked. Then I added the shrimp- I just layed them on top of the rice and pushed them into it so they were in the rice but not covered. If the rice looks dry, add more broth. Cover again and cook on very low heat till the shrimp are pink.

If you were using chicken, you would brown in in the pan before doing anything else, cooking it about halfway. Then, you'd add it with the rice and broth, letting it cook the rest of the way. Clams or mussels you'd add with the rice and broth. If you're using uncooked sausage, cook it with the onions and peppers. If (like I did) you havve cooked sausage, just add it with the rice so the flavor will infuse.

Saffron and Spanish Paprika are pretty strongly associated with paella. Saffron is amazingly expensive, and if I hadn't helped myself to my mom's supply, I'm sure I would not be using it in my own kitchen. I've made this with a little tumeric in place of saffron and been quite happy with the results. I think I even called it "Paella", not "Seafood and Sausage Rice Dish with Eclectic Blend of Spices and Without Bottom-Crust". It's very flexible- a 2:1 liquid:rice, as much meat or seafood as you like (or, as much as you have), and whatever vegetables seem appropriate (red or green bell peppers, tomato, green bean, peas, artichokes, asparagus...) This is a good dish for using vegetables that maybe aren't as great as they could be, whether they're canned or frozen or just leftover, because they'll be cooking in a really flavorful broth.

Roasting

I love making roast chicken, especially when it's cold outside. It looks gorgeous and it makes my apartment smell yummy. And you can do plenty of stuff with the chicken, including making stock. I got a chicken at the Christmas farmer's market yesterday. This is my first local chicken. I've been buying the organic free range chickens at the grocery store, even though it's a little more expensive, but considering I get like 4 or 5 meals out of it, it seems worthwhile to start with better quality chicken.

I rubbed the inside and outside of my little chicken with salt and sat it in my fridge all day. I rubbed it with canola oil and roasted it at 425, upside down for half an hour, then flipped back over for 15 minutes.

I also love roasting vegetables. Someone reminded me that, maybe a few months ago, I said cauliflower was the last thing I had yet to developed a taste for. I love roasting cauliflower; I love the browned, slightly caramelized outside that brings out that nuttiness. At the farmer's market, there was a spread of broccoli, white cauliflower and purple cauliflower. I am a sucker for heirloom-y, different looking vegetables. In the summer, this mostly concerns tomatoes- I love the wonky looking ones with weird protrusions and stripes. But i absolutely had to get a little of each, so I'd have a pile of green, white and purple roasted veggies. Thanks to my P.O.S oven, they ended up a little more roasted than planned. Still delicious, still kind of awesome looking-


I mean, seriously! That purple is insane! I was worried the color wouldn't be vibrant and awesone after blasting the shit out of it in a 450 degree oven, but that weird Cauliflower From Neptune color just got better.

(Random aside- on Top Chef, four teams had to prepare dishes based on "Old", "New", "Borrowed" or "Blue". Obviously blue is the hardest. How bad ass would it have been if they'd found piles of purple cauliflower and made some blue-violet cauliflower puree, and maybe a blue-cheese stuffed piece of meat? Really, they should have called me)

Oranges! So many oranges! 400 ORANGES!!!

I have, somehow, managed to acquire a huge box of oranges, the kind sold by high school fundraisers. There are So. Many. Of them. In 10 days, I'll be going home for about 3 weeks. It is my goal to make as big a dent in this stockpile of citrus before then. One orange has about 65 calories, some fiber, and all your vitamin C. I don't think it would be possible to eat too many oranges. I guess I'll find out.

First up, my new favorite drink- the Bronx Cocktail
1 1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz both dry and sweet vermouth
1 1/2 oz fresh orange juice
dash orange bitters

Next, some kind of salad. I really love cutting oranges or grapefruit into sections (or "supremes") and I'm going to get a lot of practice. I want to make a salad of orange supremes, mache, sliced radicchio and toasted pecans. I'll make up a dressing of orange juice, sherry vinegar and olive oil.

I've also found an interesting salad on Fine Cooking- thinly sliced red onion, fennel bulb, and orange segments are tossed with olive oil, lemon juice and mint. Or, stacking in pretty little layers could make for a glamorous presentation. Stay tuned.

Next I'll try this recipe where you throw whole slices of oranges, pith and peel and all, into a pot with chicken thighs and broth, where they cook down and thicken the broth.

This weekend, I'm going to make some version of duck a l'orange. I'm pretty excited about it. It's such a classic, and I don't think anything can go wrong with duck.

Another wonderful thing to do with fresh oranges is Orange Chicken, the fried food-court staple with the syrupy coating. When this has just been made, and the coating is still crisp and hot and the sauce has that fresh-squeezed goodness, it's pretty mindblowing.

I just can't think of any desserts....

caramelized onions

So, yesterday, I made one of the tastiest things I've made in a while. I made a personal pizza with caramelized onions, baby spinach, gruyere and parmesan, and prosciutto. No I'm really serious, it was the best pizza that I can remember having. And I used some shitty store bought crust, and my grocery store doesn't even have Bobili.

Caramelized onions are fucking amazing and they make everything better. It's especially nice when you cut the onions radially. Peel, cut in half, cut of the ends, and cut parallel to the core at different angles to make lotrs of long thin strands. Cook with just a little bit of oil and some salt over medium-low heat, stirring a lot. Don't be afraid of carring them a little as long as they don't actually burn.

And seriously, they make everything better. Dice them up and stir them into rice or pasta, even. Every sandwich is improved with caramelized onions. My brother loves homemade philly cheesesteaks with caramelized onions. Grilled cheese with provolone, mustard and caramelized onions is the greatest drunk food ever.

Thanksgiving comes with a conflict for foodies- the menu is characterized by traditionality, simplicity, and by its unchallenging appeal. Cooking magazines and Food Network shows have been showing reinventions of Thanksgiving and I really can't get behind it. Roasting a whole bird is a pretty wonderful thing, almost impossible to mess up unless you are actually retarded, and you can't beat the visual appeal.

That being said, I had a lot of fun putting together a Thanksgiving menu. (all recipes from or inspired by Fine Cooking)

Champagne-Rosemary Cocktails
Stuffed Mushrooms
Turkey Pate Crostini with Fried Sage
Smoked Trout

Local Farm Raised Roast Turkey
Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Gratin
Maple-Glazed Carrots and Shallots
Roasted Brussels Sprouts in Brown Butter-Dijon Dressing
Homemade Dinner Rolls
Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans

Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie

Friday night, I wanted to make Turkey Shepard's Pie. I'd been looking forward to it all day, especially after running around in the cold. I heated up some of the turkey stock with some flour to thicken it and threw in a pile of shredded dark meat, the leftover carrots and shallots, and some chopped up green beans and cooked it on the stove till it looked thick and yummy. I moved it to two large ramekins and spread mashed potatoes on top and baked it for 20 minutes, till the stew was bubbling and the potatoes were starting to turn golden brown at the edges. It was kind of amazing.

Root Vegetables

I am a big believer in the "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants" approach. (Believer, not always a practitioner) It's not exactly hard in the summer, when farmer's markets and roadside stands are piled with vegetables that actually look more appealing than anything you see in a fast food commercial.

Winter is a little different. Not that I can't find tomatoes and eggplant and corn. And they're good. I mean, there's nothing wrong with them. They're probably 90% as good as the real thing, but the lacking 10% is noticeable. People got through winters before they had fresh spinach and tomatoes from Costa Rica, and they didn't do it eating starch and meat. What were they eating?

I had forgot about root vegetables! Yup, the botanical underground nutrient storage bin, the un-glamorous peasant fare unnoticed in the grocery store, rarely seen in a cookbook and never rearing its head on the restaurant menu.

Potatoes get such a bad rap. Yeah, carbs, glycemic index, whatever. It's almost miraculous, that you can dig this lump out of the ground and it's such an accessible source of nutrition ( alittle too accessible as for as blood sugar is concerned, but, you know, moderation....). Cool story- potatoes are indigenous to Urugay and Chile, close enough to the equator that there are basically no seasons, but mountainous (cold). Their indifference to the lengths of days, hours of sunlight, dramatic temperatures is unique- they grow anywhere, any time. Potatoes are a genetic rockstar. I think I've rhapsodized about my love of sweet potatoes before. It's like if you took a potato, carefully seasoned it, and added a multivitamin.

Carrots are the first thing you think of when you think of root vegetables. They're tasty, versatile, and full of vitamins. But there are these things, that look like carrots, except they're white, a fat.... Parsnips sound pretty lame and they looks like they couldn't possibly taste good.

I had dinner at a friend's house, and she made coq au vin with a parsnip purre. What a lovely healthy alternative to mashed potatoes! I thought. Jumping in to help peel, I realized that I haven't ever cooked and probably never eaten parsnips. Just peeling them, I couldn't beleive how aromatic they were- they smell like thyme, and fenel, and gin, and some kind of flower... How could some knoby sad looking root that grows deep underground taste so fresh and bright?

The puree was so much better than mashed potatoes. I had to investigate this. I had a recipe for a chicken braise with Brussels sprouts, carrots and parsnips. I meant to try it leaving out the parsnips (oh no!) but instead I doubled it up. It was great. I saw a few recipes for roasting parsnips. (I think all winter vegetables are better roasted, especially brusselss sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, squash...) I liked the idea of cutting it into matchsticks and eating them like fries. I cut the core out of a few parsnips, cut them into sticks about 2 inches long, 1/2 inch thick, and tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper and cayenne. Roasted at 425 for about 15-20 minutes, the sitcks got a little brown and caramelized around the edges. I curled up in an armchair with a plate of parsnip fries, a bit of balsamic vineagar to dip them in, and an episode of Mad Men. Best snack food ever.

Whole Grain Goodness

Cooking with whole grains seems to be increasingly popular. They have the reputation of being the stuff of vegan health nuts with eating habits that border on self-punishing. But whole grains seem more like an indulgence, like an elevated complex version of the same old starches.

But first- eating whole grains is so healthy! It doesn't seem to have picked up the popularity I think it deserves, maybe the low carb focus is to blame. But for glycemic index based diets like South Beach, the Mediterranean Diet, whole grains are perfect. Brown rice, quinoa, barley and bulgur all have glycemic indexes in the range of 40-50, while white rice and pasta are around 80, and a baked potato is 150. But more importantly, that whole-grainy-ness is loaded with vitamins and minerals and fiber. Diets high in whole grains were shown to reduce BMI, prevent heart attacks, prevent strokes, improve skin, pretty much everything you could want.

The best thing is that whole grains taste better than refined carbs. They have this robust chewey nuttiness, which makes every dish they're a part of more well rounded, with a more complex flavor profile.

Brown rice is the most familliar whole grain. It has the reputation of being hard to cook because it has to cook for much longer. It takes longer but no more effort. You can put a pot of brown rice on the stove and go take a shower, watch your tv show or whatever, and get together whatever else you're going to eat. I've recently realized that brown rice actually works quite well for a pilaf- just needs a longer cooking time. I also like to increase the rice:liquid ratio- I d0 1:2 1/2. I've been enamored of middle eastern/mediteranean flavors in rice pilafs. Two recipes from Fine Cooking are competing for the Pilaf Prize- one has saffron, roasted red peppers (from a jar is the way to go for this), fresh parsley and slivered almonds. The other has caramelized onions, allspice and cinnamon, dried cherries, orange zest and pistachios- it's not too sweet but it feels like a dessert. Brown rice works well for a pilaf because the grain holds together instead of getting soft and mushy, giving you that nice fluffiness.

Quinoa is my big indulgence- at $6 for a little box, I can't use it as a substitute for rice like I'd like to. Quinoa is mind blowingly healthy- not actually a grain, but a seed, quinoa is 20% protein by mass, making it nutritionally more like a bean, or maybe flaxseed. But quinoa has the taste and texture of couscous (couscous has the nutritional value of pasta). For no paticular reason, I love quinoa with Indian food, to soak up the great sauces. And quinoa cooks in less than 10 minutes, faster than white rice and pasta. I mean, it's a miracle food. And that's probably why it's $6.50 for 12 oz.

Barley is a winner. Again, cooks up fast (10 minutes), has that sweet, nutty flavor and just the right chewiness. It's great in any soup in place of pasta or rice. But barley risotto is a discovery that has improved my quality of life. I will probably make this like twice a month. I saute some mushrooms (I use cremini and shitakes), while I'm cooking some barley in chicken broth (1:2 ratio). I tear up a big pile of kale and mix that in with the barley just before it's done, before all the broth is totally absorbed. I pile that in a big bowl and top it with the mushrooms. Parsley or parmasean would be great additions. Barley cooked this way, with baby spinach and lemon juice would be really nice with a piece of fish.

Offal!

For someone who makes an effort to eat vegetarian most of the time, I really love playing with meat. When I worked in a restaurant, during prep I'd try to trade with the other line cooks to get the raw-meat handling jobs that no one else wanted to do. Most people seem to be turned off by food that looks like a part of a dead animal. I'm totally cool with it. It is a dead animal, and there's nothing wrong with that.

My first significant culinary memory was when I was 8 and I made a roast chicken with stuffing. I wasn't just helping Mom by stirring the sauce, it was my meal from start to finish. (At least that's how I saw it at the time. I was 8, I'm sure I had a lot of help.) I learned that there were lots of parts of chicken- there were the obvious structural components, and then inside there were these slimy bloody organs. Seriously, that's a heart! That I just pulled out of a chicken! With my hand!

While I was standing on my little stool, gleefully elbows deep in my dissection, my little friend from down the street had ridden his bike over to hang out. I couldn't wait to show him what I found in the chicken. "Look, that's the heart, and that's the...what is it, mom? The liver. you can eat it." And that was enough to send him running out the door.

When I went to France this summer, I was lucky enough to have a very authentic gastronomical experience. Really traditional European cuisine seems to feature more offal, or at least more of the animal that you see in the US. Always inclined to order the thing I haven't had before, I ordered tete de veau (head of veal) at a restaurant, much to the delight of my European travel companion. Our waiter played the roll of arrogant frenchman to a tee- "Do you know what zat eez?" After delivery our meal, he checked back periodically to see if that Americainne knew what she'd gotten herself into. I think tete de veau is primarily the thymus glands, or sweetbreads. They're so soft and savory, the unctuousness that you'd expect from an internal organ is barely there they practically melt in your mouth.

Today I bought a little roaster chicken and I was very excited about it. I forgot that I was going get a handful of organs when I reached into the little guy. I set that aside and put my chicken and veggies together, with the intesnsion of making a stock out of all of it. But while my chicken roasted, that liver was calling my name. I'm not sure I've ever eaten liver. I don't think I know anyone who likes liver. But they look like they'd be kind of amazing, right?

Ok, that might not be a universal reaction. But in spite of never having eaten liver that I or anyone else prepared, I had to fry it up and see what happened. I chopped in up and spread it on crostini with sauteed onions and it was amazing. And, I have all the iron I need for a week.

And like they were reading my mind, Iron Chef America picks offal as the secret ingrediant. Well played.

Soup!

It was unseasonably warm and sunny the past two weeks and I was not feeling it. In mid October, I don't want to have to deal with highs of 80 and constant sunshine. I'm looking longingly at leather boots and big sweaters. I'm so over sundresses.

The weather was throwing off my cooking as well. I have about 10 soup recipes I've been reading longingly at work, refreshing the Weather Channel page trying to see when it turns into fall. French onion soup, butternut squash with cumin and coriander, curried carrot soup, southwest tomato, miso soup, lentil soup.... And a recently bought an adorable little soup tureen-


Earlier this week I made a late-summer soup, an attempt to compromise with the weather. I made a bouillabaisse with tomato and corn. The recipe is intended to use fresh-from-the-farm heirloom tomatoes and sweet corn off the cob, which is lovely, but substituting two 14 0z cans of diced tomatoes and half a bag of frozen corn didn't do any harm. Cooked a little garlic in some olive oil, threw in canned tomatoes, a cup of white wine, a can of chicken broth, and a pinch of saffron. (Yeah, saffron is stupid expensive. I wouldn't recommend running out and spending your week's food budget on it to make this soup. If you have it, awesome.) Throw in a pound of some seafood- I used cod, cut up in chunks. You can use halibut, shrimp, bay scallops, mussels, or a combination there of. After the fish is cooked through, stir in corn.


And now it's nice and cold outside. Kinda rainy too. It seemed like a good day to try out my gorgeous new Wusthof chef's knife to chop up a big pile of vegetables for a minestrone. I diced up a medium onion, two stalks of celery, a big carrot and 3 cloves of garlic to make a standard mirepoix. Nice low and slow heat lets the onions caramelize a little, giving the soup amazing depth. The Fine Cooking recipe I was sort of following called for chopped savoy cabbage, but standing in the supermarket, the kale sitting next to the cabbage looked a lot more appealing. And I didn't have to buy a basketball-sized head of it. (And I freaking love kale.) After the chopped kale cooked down I added a can of diced tomatoes and 3 cups of chicken broth. Instead of pasta, I added some barley. I love whole grains, they have that dense chewy texture and nutty flavor. To pump it up, I threw in the rinds off of a wedge of Parmesan, a really cool way to give it more flavor. After simmering for a while I added in a can of kidney beans.



With vegetable broth, this is a really great well rounded vegetarian meal. Between the barley, the kidney beans, and the kale, this couldn't really be any more nutritious.

Recession Cooking (or, things I was already doing)

Everybody's seen these tips on how to spend less money on food, and being a poor student, I'll click on it every time. What do they say?

"Cook in your home instead of going to restaurants or ordering in" Check. I might not always cook the cheapest stuff, but for the price of pizza I can have a salmon fillet with roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach and have money left over for wine.

"Don't throw out food" Check. I've developed a complex about throwing out food, to the point where I will go out and buy 4 other ingredients to use up the cilantro or something like that.

"Make a big pot of something on the weekend to eat all week and take for lunches" Check. Almost everything I make.

"Eat less meat" Check. Beans are filling, and a can is like a dollar.

"Buy things like meat, chicken and fish when it's on sale and freeze it" Check for sure. I'm all about that; I'm looking at you, tilapia for $3.99/lb, Buy 1 get 1 free frozen shrimp, half-price organic chicken... This might be a better strategy for families. I have more meat and fish in my freezer than I am likely to eat in a month.

"Buy local produce" Check... but it's tricky. My yuppy heart melts as I walk into a place like Eastern Market in DC, the Ferry Building in San Francisco, Italian Market in Philly or even the Merchant Square Farmer's Market here in Williamsburg. You know, the kind of place with hand made fresh mozzarella and fresh picked lump crabmeat from the Chesapeake and homemade mushroom ravioli. The kind of place with lots of dogs and women in sundresses and heels, and there are children that beg their moms to buy lima beans and eggplants. No, I'm serious. The point is, you pay for this trip to crazy-puppy-baby-sundress-land. Or, you can find the guy selling produce out of his truck. That guy is awesome and he has the best peaches.

"Bring your lunch instead of buying it" Check...90% of the time. This is hard for the same reason quitting smoking is hard (well, almost). I miss taking walks to Wawa for lunch to get out of the lab, out of the air conditioning. Wawa salads are a good deal, but I can't get out of there without the biggest diet coke possible, fruit salad or a pretzel, and I can often be talked into a lunchtime beer. I make better decisions in the morning.

"Instead of buying pre-cut vegetables at the supermarket, buy whole vegetables and cut them yourself" Wait, people actually buy that shit? Why would anyone do that? It'll go bad immediately, if it hasn't already. Also, 4 times the price. That is some bourgeoisie shit.

"Bring coffee to work instead of buying it" ... I try. I just love those paper cups, and having one less thing to wash. And again, I just want an excuse to take an afternoon walk to the coffee shop. How about I just go 3 times a week? And I go to the cheap place? And I get a small coffee instead of large latte?

"Cut out non essentials, like desserts, wine, beer, and cocktails" Eh, I got most of others. Besides, I bought the wine for the soup.