Spanish

Chickpea and Spinach Soup (Potaje de Garbanzos y Espinacas)

~ lisaandfrancescook ~ Leave a comment

img_2820For my father’s 60th birthday back in 1973, I made this incredible Turkish Moussaka that was cooked in a Charlotte mold, with a lamb stew stuffing and served with a tomato coulis. It was unmolded for serving and was both stunning and delicious and I swore NEVER to make it again because it was soooooooo much work! For some reason I was thinking about that dish on a nasty day when I was stuck inside and decided to search for the recipe. I thought that I recalled it coming from one of the 12 years of bound Gourmet Magazines that I had inherited from my mother. I started looking through 1973 and did not find the recipe for Turkish Moussaka; however, I did find an article with recipes for soups from Spain. Several looked delicious and I plan on working my way through them, but this Chickpea and Spinach soup from Catalonia also sounded easy so I decided to start with this one. Catalonian cuisine borrows a little from the French across the Pyrenees, Valencia to the south, Aragon and the Mediterranean. I mostly followed the recipe but I did make a few tweaks of my own. I will garnish this with the traditional hard-boiled egg and parsley and will serve it with a good toasted farm bread and an aged Manchego cheese. There is so much spinach in this dish that you don’t even really need a salad, but having one never goes amiss. Of course, you should also serve this with one of the many hearty Spanish red wines that are both affordable and delicious.

Potaje de Garbanzos y Espinacas adapted slightly from Gourmet Magazine, February 1973, p.28-29

Yield: 8 to 12 servings, depending on if this is a first course or dinner

Ingredients

1 pound dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in cold water to cover (Do not use canned beans here. There really is a difference in the final texture of the soup.) IMG_2813.JPG

1 quart of stock (chicken or vegetable)

2 quarts of water

2 dried or fresh bay leaves

2 small dried red peppers (I used Arbol. Choose a pepper according to your tolerance and preference for heat. Ours is minimal.) img_2815

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 Tablespoons EVOO

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

28 ounce can of whole, peeled tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)

1 pound of fresh spinach, well washed and coarsely chopped unless you are using Baby Spinach

For the Garnish

1 hard-boiled egg per person if serving as dinner, chopped or sliced

2 to 3 Tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley for garnish

EVOO to drizzle

Directions

  1. Drain the chickpeas. In a large stockpot, bring the stock, water, hot peppers, thyme, salt and drained chickpeas to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 30 minutes.
  2. In a skillet, saute the chopped onion in the EVOO until it is soft. Add the garlic and saute for 1 more minute. Add the tomatoes and their liquid, breaking up the tomatoes with a spoon or by hand. Cook the mixture for 3 more minutes.
  3. Add the tomato mixture to the chickpea mixture and simmer the soup for 30 minutes more until the chickpeas are tender but not mushy.
  4. The soup can be made ahead up to this point. When you are ready to serve the soup, return the mixture to a boil and plunge in the spinach. Cook the soup, covered, for 6 to 8 minutes, just until the spinach is cooked. Adjust your salt. Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil, chopped parsley and the hard-boiled egg. img_2819

 

Arroz Con Pollo – Chicken with Rice

~ lisaandfrancescook ~ Leave a comment

img_2654I have eaten many wonderful versions of paella in my lifetime – those that others have made and paella that I have made. It was a favorite dish from my mother’s repertoire. But sometimes I want something just as good but a bit simpler – no seafood and no sausage. I turn to Arroz Con Pollo or Chicken with Rice. This is a dish that can easily be made for a weeknight dinner and the only exotic ingredient is saffron. Most everything else you would have in your pantry or could easily pick up at most grocery stores or a good bodega. When you think you have just about had as much chicken as you can stand, give this wonderful dish a try. To turn any weeknight special, serve this with a hearty Spanish red wine. It just might renew your love for that old clucker!

Arroz Con Pollo

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

4 chicken thighs, bone-in but skin removed (This is easily accomplished using paper towels to grab off the skin in one good pull.)

4 to 5 chicken drumsticks, skin removed

About 3 to 4 Tablespoons of EVOO

1 Spanish onion, peeled and coarsely chopped

8 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

1 large Cubanelle pepper cut into large dice (If you cannot find this dark pepper you can use a banana pepper)

8 to 10 large green olives stuffed with pimento

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Kosher Salt and cracked black pepper to taste

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

1 cup long-grain white rice

1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled

About 2.5 cups of chicken broth or water

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

1 cup frozen peas, defrosted

1 roasted red pepper from a jar, rinsed and thinly sliced into strips

Directions

  1. In a large heavy skillet with straight sides and a tight-fitting lid (I like my cast iron Lodge pan) that will hold all of the chicken pieces in one layer, heat the EVOO until it just begins to ripple but not smoke.
  2. Generously salt and pepper the chicken pieces and brown them in the oil on all sides (about 8 minutes). Remove the chicken to a platter and keep nearby.
  3. Add the chopped Cubanelle pepper and the onion to the pan, adding more oil if necessary, stirring to soften. Add the cumin and cloves and the olives and some additional salt. (Remember that the olives have salt so go easy.) Once everything has begun to soften and the spices are giving off a lovely aroma, add the rice, tomato paste and the crumbled saffron, mixing well. You want all of the grains of rice to be coated with the oil and seasonings.img_2650img_2651
  4. Pour in enough liquid (stock or water) to cover the rice by a couple of inches. Add 1/2 of the chopped cilantro and mix through. Bring everything to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling rapidly, add back the chicken pieces, coating them in the liquid which has taken on the color of saffron. Cover the pan tightly and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 20 minutes and then gently stir through the defrosted peas and garnish with the strips of red pepper. Cover and allow to sit for 10 minutes with the heat turned off. This will be enough to heat through the peas and red pepper without over-cooking them. Garnish with the remaining chopped cilantro. img_2652

Chicken and Vegetable Paella

~ lisaandfrancescook ~ Leave a comment

Yes, I know, we’ve already posted on paella, but during the summer months there’s nothing like making paella in one of its many variations and having it outside on the deck with a nice glass of wine.

paella_usethis

After making our seafood paella last time, we couldn’t help but thinking that we’d like it much better in a former variation, with chicken and vegetables!  I think the variety of ingredients is what we craved, but in any case we made it again.

2015-08-23 00.29.04

It’s become a lazy Sunday afternoon tradition to eat this later in the day, after reading the paper or going to the gym in the morning.  We’ll start cooking around 1 and by the time it’s ready, it’s appropriately late enough for “Spanish” lunch, and reminds us of our leisurely days in Southern Spain when we first came encountered this lovely dish.

2015-08-23 00.47.20

You can really add whatever vegetables that seem good, which is why so many are optional in the list.  The other thing that makes this relatively easy to make is to buy some of the vegetables pre-cut or jarred (I know, it sounds like what do you mean you don’t buy it all fresh?! But honestly, it saves time and still tastes amazing.)  The real key to a truly good and authentic paella is to ensure that you let it cook enough at the end to get a true “soccarat” – or that crispy burned layer on the bottom.

Ingredients

  • 4.5 cups unsalted chicken broth (if using bomba rice, else use 3 cups)
  • 1.5 cups bomba rice (great for paella)
  • Pinch of saffron threads
  • 2 heads of garlic, crushed or just cook the cloves
  • 1/2 onion coarsely grated on a box grater
  • 1.5 lb chicken breast, cut into 1-2″ pieces
  • 6 oz chorizo slices into rounds
  • 12 oz green beans, trimmed
  • 1 tomato grated on a box grater (or just 1/2 cup of chopped or crushed tomatoes from box or can, I like the Pomi box tomatoes)
  • 1/2 12 oz jar of roasted red peppers (optional)
  • 1/2 can of chickpeas (optional)
  • 1 jar of artichoke hearts (optional)

Directions

  1. Saute the chicken in olive oil in the paella pan for about 8-10 minutes on Medium heat until it looks cooked through.  Remove chicken from the pan and place in a separate plate and cover with foil.
  2. Take the crushed garlic and let it cook for about 3 minutes, and then add the green beans and artichokes and cook until soft but not wilted, about 8-10 minutes.  Remove green beans from the pan and put on another plate and cover with foil.
  3. Make the sofrito: Reduce the heat to medium and saute the onion and garlic until the onion softens, about 5 min.  Add the tomato, season with salt, and cook, stirring often, until the mixture has darkened to a deep burgundy and is thick like a compote, 15-20 minutes.  If it starts to stick to the pan or burn, add a little water.
  4. Add the rice and cook: Bring the broth to a simmer.  Add the rice to the pan with the sofrito, and cook for 1 – 2 minutes.  Raise the heat to medium-high.  Pour in 3 cups of the broth (reserve the rest) and stir or shake the pan to evenly distribute the rice.  Arrange the chicken, chorizo, green beans, chickpeas , roasted red peppers and artichoke hearts (if using) in the pan, submerging them as much as possible below the level of the liquid.  From this point on, do not stir the rice.
  5. Simmer vigorously, moving the pan over one and two burners to distribute the heat and to cook the rice as evenly as possible.  When the rice is at the same level as the liquid, after 8-10 min., reduce the heat to medium low.
  6. Continue to simmer more gently, rotating the pan as necessary, until the liquid has been absorbed, about 10 min. more.  Taste a grain just below the top layer of rice; it should be al dente, with a tiny white dot in the center.  (If the rice is not done but all the liquid has been absorbed, add a bit of broth and cook a few minutes more.)
  7. Create the socarrat: Increase the heat to medium-high and, rotating the pan, cook for about 2 min., until the bottom layer of rice starts to caramelize, creating a socarrat.  The rice will crackle, but if it starts to smell burned, remove the pan from the heat immediately.
  8. Let the paella rest: Remove the pan from the heat.  Cover loosely with foil or a clean kitchen towel and let the paella rest for 5 min. to even the cooking and let the flavors meld.
  9. Serve: Set the paella pan in the center of a table, remove the foils and dig in!  (Optional: Squeeze lemon on pan for taste.)

(serves 4 or 2 very hungry people, based on a 14″ paella pan)

Adapted from La Paella of http://www.paellapans.com

Classic Seafood Paella

~ lisaandfrancescook ~ Leave a comment

We love visiting wine country in Northern California, and a recent trip took us to an open invite celebration at Vincent Arroyo Winery.  We’ve gone to the winery in the past as we loved their Tempranillo and also because the tasting included a very thorough and scientifically oriented tour of the winery and explanation of how their wines were made.  This time when we stopped by, they were serving up paella, and we’ve never seen such big paella pans!  Entire gallons of water were poured into these huge pans that were placed on top of pits that appeared to exist for the distinct purpose of serving up paella in heaping quantities, and tools that one usually only associates with gardening were used to move around, mix, and cook the delicious paella.

vincent arroyo paella

Inspired, we went home and used our shining new paella pan, albeit a much smaller pan, to cook a seafood version that was more reminiscent of what we had eaten on our Spanish adventure the year before.  They’re actually quite affordable on Amazon, the purveyor of all things, and stores fairly well underneath our oven.

paella_seafood

Ingredients

  • 6 oz shrimp, peeled (reserve the shells for broth)
  • 1 small bottle of clam juice
  • Pinch of saffron threads
  • Kosher Salt
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 6 oz dry scallops
  • 1/4 lb calamari, cut into rings (optional)
  • 1/2 onion, grated
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 1 tomato, halved and grated on a box grater
  • 1.5 cups medium grain rice (bomba rice is great for paella)
  • 8 small mussels, 8 small clams
  • 2 lemons, cut in wedges
  1. Make a seafood broth: In a medium saucepan, bring 3 cups of salted water to a boil (if using bomba rice, use 4.5 cups of broth). Add the shrimp shells and clam juice and simmer covered, for about 10 minutes.  Strain the broth, and return it to the saucepan.  Toast the saffron gently (in a skillet), crumble the threads and add to the broth.
  2. Saute the seafood: In a 14 in paella pan, heat the oil on high.  Saute the shrimp, scallops, and calamari until just cooked through, about 2 min.  Transfer to a plate.
  3. Make the sofrito: Reduce the heat to medium and saute the onion and garlic until the onion softens, about 5 min.  Add the tomato, season with salt, and cook, stirring often, until the mixture has darkened to a deep burgundy and is thick like a compote, 15-20 minutes.  If it starts to stick to the pan or burn, add a little water.
  4. Add the rice and cook: Bring the broth to a simmer.  Add the rice to the pan with the sofrito, and cook for 1 – 2 minutes.  Raise the heat to medium-high.  Pour in 3 cups of the broth (reserve the rest) and stir or hsake the pan to evenly distribute the rice.  Arrange the clams (if using) in the pan, submerging them as much as possible below the level of the liquid.  From this point on, do not stir the rice.
  5. Simmer vigorously, moving the pan over one and two burners to distribute the heat and to cook the rice as evenly as possible.  When the rice is at the same level as the liquid, after 8-10 min., reduce the heat to medium low.  Arrange the mussels in the pan.
  6. Continue to simmer more gently, rotating the pan as necessary, until the liquid has been absorbed, about 10 min. more.  Taste a grain just below the top layer of rice; it should be al dente, with a tiny white dot in the center.  (If the rice is not done but all the liquid has been absorbed, add a bit of broth and cook a few minutes more.)  Arrange the shrimp, scallops, and calamari in the pan.
  7. Create the socarrat: Increase the heat to medium-high and, rotating the pan, cook for about 2 min., until the bottom layer of rice starts to caramelize, creating a socarrat.  The rice will crackle, but if it starts to smell burned, remove the pan from the heat immediately.
  8. Let the paella rest: Remove the pan from the heat.  Cover loosely with foil or a clean kitchen towel and let the paella rest for 5 min. to even the cooking and let the flavors meld.
  9. Serve: Set the paella pan in the center of a table, remove the foils and dig in!  (Optional: Squeeze lemon on pan for taste.)

(serves 4 or 2.5 very hungry people, based on a 14″ paella pan)

From La Paella of http://www.paellapans.com