Paella (with chicken and duck)

 

My in-laws live in Spain and they are hardcore paella connoisseurs.  The American side of the family decided to try to make a pre-Thanksgiving paella, knowing we would be diving in as the blind, American amateurs that we are.  Considering how sunny and warm it was outside, it really was not a problem slaving over the grill throughout the afternoon.

What you'll need (all amounts are approximations since it's really a matter of taste):

• Paella pan
  
• Olive oil
• Salt
  
• 4 duck breasts, cut in half (so 8 pieces)
  
• 6 small- to medium-sized chicken legs (Rabbit and snails are traditional ingredients, but we stuck with what we could easily get from the grocery store)
  
• Bell peppers (we used red ones since that's what we had in the fridge)
  
• Parsley
• Garlic (a couple cloves)
  
• Tomatoes (we probably could've used more, but we were relying on what the garden provided)
  
• Red Onion
• Leeks (we added these since they were growing in the garden -- we cut down on the red onion because we were adding these)
• Rosemary sprig (or whatever delightful sprig you happen to have growing in the garden)
  
• Chicken broth/Water (Note: the chicken broth/rice ratio should be about 2:1 -- this is the tricky part since the amount you let evaporate can really change and then change how much water should be/could be added)
• Paella rice ("bomba" rice; italian-style arborio rice will also work just as well).
• The rule of thumb is one handful of rice per person dining.  We went with ten generous handfuls of rice.  Then we measured that in pitcher, and matched the volume with water later on.  (It was probably something like eight cups of rice, but the handful rule is the best way to go!)
  
• Saffron (a couple of pinches at most -- my family has collected saffron over the years and has been too cheap/afraid to use it, so we have way too much already!)
• Canned butter beans (or fava beans)
  

First, fire up the grill!  Traditionally, it's best to use aromatic wood like cedar, orange, or lemon.  At least according to the Spanish.

Once you have a good fire going, put olive oil in the paella pan.  Heat.  Sprinkle some salt in and allow it to heat up.

When the pan is hot, add the chopped up bell pepper and stir.  Once cooked, put the bell pepper on a plate and set it aside.

Next add the chicken and duck and let them brown, flipping them every few minutes.

CAUTION: that oil/grease can splatter something awful from the paella pan.  Make sure you have a long set of tongs and a long cloth to shield yourself with; plus some solid backward-hopping skills.  

The duck breast will cook faster than the chicken so, when it is sufficiently browned, set the duck breast aside, and continue cooking the chicken alone.

Meanwhile, you should have already prepared your tomato/vegetable/herb sauce.  In a blender, add your tomatoes, chopped parsley, onion/leeks, garlic, and a little bit of chicken broth.  Make sure to leave the red peppers aside, as they will be added at the end for decoration/flavor.  

When the chicken is well-browned, add the duck breast back to the paella pan, and then add the blended sauce over the mix.  Ours was very green because we did not have a lot of tomatoes to work with.  Saute briefly and then add the rest of the chicken broth.  Stir.  Add the rosemary sprigs at this time. 

Apple Crisp

This dish is such a classic and, especially for those of us in New England who are swimming in apples from over-enthusiastic excursions to our local orchards, it is an excellent way to use up a solid batch of apples.  I only varied from the traditional recipe a little.  Instead of rolled oats, I used some toasted granola.  Also, we had a couple kiwis from our Boston Organics box and I thought it would be fun to add them to the recipe.  It came out good!

It's easiest to think of it in two steps: the apple layer and the "crisp" topping.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.


The apple layer.  You'll need:

• 4-5 large apples, peeled, cored and chopped (adds up to a little over 6 cups)
• 2 kiwis, peeled and chopped
  
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (just a little to bring out the flavor)
• 1/2 lemon, to sprinkle over the apple mix

 

Throw everything into a bowl and mix.  Layer into the bottom of well-buttered 8" baking pan.  Don't worry if it takes up most of the space, since the crisp won't take up too much room.

 The crisp layer.  You'll need:

• 2/3 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 c. granola (can also use rolled oats)
• 1/2 c. chopped nuts (I used walnuts)
• 5 tbsp cold butter, chopped up into small pieces. 
  

Throw the crisp ingredients into a food processor or blender and blend lightly.  Don't let it get too smooth (the cold butter should help prevent that from happening). 

Pour the crisp over the apple/kiwi mix and stick in the oven.

Let bake for about 40 minutes and done.

Pork Chops with an Apple and Maple Sauce

Okay.  So we have been living up the fall over here.  We picked up some fresh maple syrup while we were in Vermont, got a ton of apples from an apple-picking excursion a couple days ago, and Boston Organics has been filling our box with squash and yams.  Combining maple and apple in a dish made a lot of sense, and I found a ton of recipes on-line as well as some basic tips from the recipes in http://vermontmaple.org/recipes.html#meats. 





Here's what you'll need:

• 4 small-medium pork chops (you'll want to be able to stick them in a skillet at the same time)
  
• Olive oil
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 1/4-1/2 c. bourbon
• 1/2-1 c. chicken broth
• 1/4 c. maple syrup
• 3 medium apples
• Herbs and spices to taste (I used thyme, salt, pepper, some oregano)
• [Side dish suggestion: roasted butternut squash, see below; you will want to start this before you start the main dish]
  

Start by frying up the pork chops.   Oil up the skillet, and cook the pork chops on medium heat until brown (this should take about 10 minutes). Once the pork chops are done, remove them to a separate plate, cover with tinfoil and keep warm.  (I like to put a cloth over the tinfoil to keep the heat in.)

In the skillet, add the garlic, bourbon, and a little bit more oil.  Make sure to scrape the bottom of the skillet to collect the pork chop bits that were left behind.  This will add flavor to the sauce.

 

Immediately after, add the maple syrup, the apples, and the chicken broth.  Add your herbs/spices at this point as well, including (at least) the salt.  Now just stir and let reduce until it reaches a thick consistency you are happy with. 

That's it.  Now just serve up the pork chops and pour the apple-maple sauce on top.

I added a roasted butternut squash as a side dish.  This was pretty simple, but it takes awhile, so you will want to start it before you cook the pork chops.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Cut the butternut squash in half. Put a thin layer of olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Add a tablespoon or so of cold butter to each (I cut the pieces of butter in half for each piece of the butternut squash).  Place face up on a baking sheet (preferable one with ridges, in case the butter/oil oozes).  Cook for about 40 minutes.  (No harm in going a little longer, just make sure not to burn it!)

Salchipapas with Sweet Potato Fries

Salchipapas is a Peruvian dish (or Ecuadorian or Colombian dish, depending on, you know, who's talking).  It is a street food that consists of fried potatoes and sliced hot dogs.  As simple as it is, it's delicious!  Hard to meet a Peruvian who doesn't love salchipapas.

I had some leftover hot dogs to work with and my Boston Organics box had brought in 3 sweet potatoes, so I decided to experiment by trying to substitute the normal potato-fries with sweet-potato fries in the salchipapas.  I also decided to bake the sweet potatoes instead of frying them, to be a *little* bit healthier, and also to warm up the apartment since it started snowing today! (Wtf?!)

So the big chore here was really baking the sweet potato fries.  Then I fried up the hot dogs, whipped up a sauce (basically ketchup, mayo and a dollop of sriracha), and improvised salchipapas!  Oh yeah, you also need plenty of salt and seasoning.

Ingredients:

3 sweet potatoes, thinly sliced (approx a quarter inch by 3 inches; basically, keep it thin)
Olive oil
Salt, paprika, cayenne, oregano, salt
Hot dogs
Ketchup
Mayo

The Sweet Potato Fries (the "papas" part)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  After chopping the sweet potato up into thin slices, toss in a bowl with olive oil, salt, and spices (cayenne, paprika, oregano, salt, and whatever else you think would go well -- I like plenty of paprika).  Make sure to add plenty of oil and salt.

Place fries on a thin layer on a baking sheet, lined with aluminum foil.  Since the fries must be in one layer, you may need two baking sheets (or cook them in turn).  The less they touch each other, the crispier they'll get; but it's hard to get sweet potato fries particularly crispy.  (On the other hand, I overcooked one batch that definitely burned to a crisp, so beware if you dare to find the perfect crispy sweet potato fry.)

Put in oven and let bake for about 10 minutes.  Check in on it and turn the sweet potato fries.  The thinner you slice the potatoes, the quicker they will cook.  I like them very thin and had to be careful not to burn them.  If you like them thicker, try upping the temperature to 400-425 degrees.  But keep an eye on them and keep turning.  The total baking time should be closer to 20 minutes, but it may be less, depending on how thinly cut the fries are. 

When the fries are fully baked, lay them on a plate with a paper towel to soak up the grease and begin working on the hot dogs.  Transfer the fries to a large bowl.

The Hot Dogs (the "salchi" part)

Cut the hot dogs into thirds or quarters.  On each open end, slice in a cross about half an inch deep.  The edges from the cross will expand when the pieces heat up.  This "flare" is essential to bonafide salchipapas (but then again, sweet potato fries are antithetical to bonafide salchipapas, so do as you will).

Once sliced, fry up the hot dogs on low heat.  When fully fried, transfer the hot dogs to the bowl containing the sweet potato fries.  No salchipapas is complete without a sauce.  Even with the most sophisticated sauces, it's hard to beat out le ketchup.  If, in addition to le ketchup, you add a dollop of mayonnaise and sriracha, it's downright fancy.  Stir it all together to taste.  And done! (If you hate ketchup, you can do the same thing with le mustard, or, if you can get your hands on it, some real Peruvian Ají.) 

Dutch Baby Pancakes (a/k/a German Pancakes)

This is the perfect breakfast food for those of us who prefer salty over sweet. Apparently Dutch Babies are called "Dutch" because it was a popular dish among the Pennsylvania Dutch.

You can make them true "babies" by baking them in two separate six-inch cast-iron skillets or, if, like me, you only have one twelve-inch skillet, that works as well. The only difference will be the length of time it takes to bake (and also the way it looks when it falls -- in that regard, I almost prefer the bigger pancakes!).

I combined the recipes from Orangette and Ask Mr. Gold to come up with this. Since I'm not a big milk drinker, I only happen to have milk, cream, or half-and-half in my fridge if I've recently used it in a recipe. These recipes called for a half-cup of half-and-half or milk, but I only had heavy cream that I had used in my wild mushroom soup earlier in the week. Paranoid that using the cream alone would be too heavy, I watered it down a little, and it turned out OK!

Ingredients (per pancake - If you make two, double the quantities):

3 tablespoons butter (1 tbsp to butter the pan, 2 tbsps to melt and put in the batter)
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk/half-half/cream (which I watered down a little)
1/2 c. flour
1 tsp salt
1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Butter the skillet well with one tablespoon of butter. Buttering it is important so that the pancake won't stick. Melt the other two tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan.

Prepare the batter. Mix the eggs well. Add the milk/cream. Mix well. Slowly add the flour and salt, mixing until there are no lumps and the batter is smooth. Add the melted butter and mix well. Pour the batter in the now well-buttered skillet.

Bake it. Stick the skillet and batter in the oven. Let bake for fifteen minutes. Then lower the heat to 350 degrees and bake for ten more minutes (so it should bake for 25 minutes total). (Note: if you use two six-inch skillets, you'll only need to bake for the first 15 minutes at 450).


Then done!

Garnish. Sprinkle lemon juice over the entire pancake. The tanginess from the lemon was wonderful! That was enough for me, but it is traditional to then sprinkle with powdered sugar. Maple syrup also makes a lot of sense for this time of year.  We picked ours up from a sugar house in Vermont on a weekend getaway last week.  I put a little extra butter at the table to go on top of the pancake.  It went excellently with a side of hot apple cider that we bought in New Hampshire.

Wild Mushroom Potato Soup

I got the wild mushroom part of this recipe from Soups for All Seasons and the basic potato soup part from How to Cook Everything (loosely).

Soups for All Seasons is a lovely little book I bought while "leaf-peeping" in Vermont this weekend. We stopped at Taylor Farm in Londonderry, right outside of the Green Mountain National Forest. In addition to sampling local cheeses and checking out the cows, we stumbled upon this cookbook that is a collection of recipes by the "Green Mountain Gardeners," from Landgrove, Weston, Londonderry and Peru, Vermont. I haven't been able to find a website for them, otherwise I'd post the link!

I thought of adding potatoes to the recipe because I wanted it to be really thick (maybe it's the new cold fall weather that is driving this). Anyway, there were still potatoes in abundance to be had at the Farmer's Market, so I went for it.


What you'll need:

• Yellow onion, 2 cups, finely chopped
• Fresh mushrooms, 2 lbs., thinly sliced (any kind is fine; 1 used 1 lb button, 1 lb portabella)
  
• Heavy cream (about 1/2 cup - you can omit this as well)
• Large potatoes, 4, diced into small pieces
• Dried morels/chanterelles, etc.., 2-3 ounces
• Madeira or port wine, 1 cup (I actually used vermouth and some red wine since that's what we had, but I think it would be much better with port or madeira)
  
• Butter, 8 tbsp (= 1 stick)
  
• Salt and pepper
• 4 cups of chicken stock
• Herbs/spices to taste ( I used thyme)
  

Soak the dried morels in the madeira/port for an hour and remember to stir it around every now and then. I bought some delicious dried morels when we were in Spain and have been (too?) hesitant to use them in a less-than perfect recipe. This was pretty close to what I had in mind. We also had some dried oyster mushrooms, so I threw those in, too.








After the dried mushrooms have started soaking, you can dive into the rest of your food prep. Chop all the veggies and cut the fresh mushrooms up into thin slices.


Add half the butter (4 tbsp) to a large soup pot and add the onions. Cook on low heat (with cover) for about ten minutes, stirring. Add the rest of the butter (another 4 tbsp), then add the chopped potatoes. Stir for another 10 minutes. Make sure to keep stirring here, otherwise the potatoes could start to stick to the pot. Add the fresh mushrooms (5-10 minutes). These will release some more water to the mix, so you can stir for a while without worrying about burning.

Once the mushrooms are cooked, transfer soaked morels to the soup pot. Then add the remaining port/madeira, leaving the settled sediments out (I used a serving spoon to get the liquid and leave the sediments). Stir. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and let simmer for about half an hour. Remember to keep stirring all the while.










Strain the soup with a strainer, and add all solids to the blender to puree (add some of the soup liquid to help it puree). It's probably better to do it in two steps, since there is so much. Return the blended contents to the soup pot with remaining liquid. Reheat (on low heat) and add cream as desired.


Like I mentioned before, I think this would be better with port wine to soak the mushrooms in. Also, I might add more chicken broth and/or salt next go round. Overall, though, it was a fun and tasty recipe, with lots of room for variation in the future.

Lime Chicken with Black Bean Sauce

I love tangy dishes. Food with a touch of lemon, lime or vinegar always tastes a little better to me. Food with a lot of lemon, lime or vinegar is heavenly. This lime chicken dish is basically like a chicken ceviche that you then cook and throw beans on. In other words, delish. I found this recipe from Simply Recipes and made a couple changes and additions. If I'd had more time or energy, I would probably have made rice or a salad as a side, but we managed to leave the table full and with leftovers even. You'll either need to start pretty early on in the evening or give yourself a night to marinate the chicken (I recommend the latter for flavor purposes, anyway).


What you'll need:

• 1 1/2 lbs. skinless, boneless chicken (I used thighs because they're cheaper and I like dark meat) (should be about 4 pieces)
  
• One onion
  
• 5 limes
• Olive oil (a couple tablespoons' worth)
• One bunch of cilantro
• Dried oregano
  
• Salt and pepper
• Black beans (32-ounce can - you may use less; would probably be even better if you made the black beans from scratch, but this is a time saver)
• 1 quart of water (4 cups, for those of us who are conversionally challenged)
• Bay leaves
• Garlic (4 cloves)
• Extra herbs/spices for the black beans: for example, cayenne, paprika, thyme, saffron (whatever's lying around that would taste good)

Marinating the chicken

Squeeze all the limes into a large bowl. Chop up the cilantro leaves, leaving the stems (should be 1/2-1 cup). Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil and a couple dashes each of oregano, salt and pepper. Stir, then add the chicken to the marinade. Either let the marinade sit for 2 hours at room temperature or stick in the fridge to marinate overnight. Remember to turn the pieces of chicken occasionally.


Preparing the bean sauce

It's almost better to conceptualize this as a bean soup. Empty the can of black beans (or fresh black beans, if you're good) into a large pot. Add a quart of water (4 cups) and start heating (on high heat). Finely chop the cilantro stems and add to the beans. Add 4 or 5 bay leaves, 4 cloves pressed garlic, and whatever herbs/spices you choose (I added cayenne and paprika, which made it pretty spicy). Stir.


Once it comes to a boil, bring it down to a simmer for 1-1.5 hours. Remember to keep stirring as it reduces and be especially careful to keep parts of the bean sauce from crusting on the sides.


Once the beans have reduced to a level you're happy with, add them to a blender or a food processor and mix. I actually might have tried mashing the beans if I had a masher, but I settled for blending since mashing is something we don't partake in enough to warrant buying yet another kitchen gadget. (Not that we don't love them.)


Baking the chicken, onions and marinade

Preheat the oven to 350 (the standard meat-cooking temp, I am learning). Slice up an onion (so that you have several long pieces) and make it a bed in the bottom of a baking dish. Add the marinated chicken thighs and drizzle the marinade over everything. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove.


Place the chicken thighs on a separate plate. Bake the remaining onions and the marinade by placing them back in the oven to soften the onions (and also allow the onions to absorb some more flavor).

Grilling the chicken

Pretty self-explanatory. This would probably work much better with an outside grill. Our little grill pan leaves a lot of smoke. It would have tasted better to slowly add (now-baked) marinade over the chicken as it cooked, but I only added a little bit to prevent smoking out the apartment. Cook the chicken on each side for about 5 minutes each. I have a tendency to overcook because I am still learning the ropes and prefer over- to undercooking and really don't mind a well-browned piece of chicken.


Once the chicken is done, put a thigh on each plate, add a spoonful of onions as a side and drizzle everything with the bean sauce. And done. I'm not going to lie: this was messy and a little labor-intensive. But I was happy with how it came out. It was not too sour, not too salty, and filling. Just right.

Probably the best validation was people at work the next day remarking upon how good it smelled, even though by then the leftovers looked more like a soup than a main dish. Spicy black bean soup with lime chicken.