My last month has been a harried struggle to get things together before I leave for Antarctica to look for meteorites (you can follow our blog to see how it goes). Lots of preparation, but also an excuse to buy a new camera, which I've been using a lot this week.
So I took my dog on a last walk before delivering her to my friends' house, where she will get more attention, canine company, and table scraps than I usually offer her. She'll be happy to see me when I return, but I don't think she'll have time to miss me.
I fly out tomorrow, but I drove to Atlanta to stay with friends for Thanksgiving. It was a great meal and a great time. We had radishes from the garden.
Charlie cooked the turkey in parts on the grill. Great idea, and it turned out well. We had glazed carrots with cumin, homemade rolls, and I made Brussels sprouts with figs and bacon.
And beautiful desserts, including two kinds of blueberry tarts, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and a chocolate tart. We drank champagne and Burgundy with the meal and had Noval Black port with dessert.
Afterwards, there were group pictures, taken with Charlie's exotic cameras, and a walk with the dogs.
Then Charlie beat the hell out of me in both cribbage and backgammon.
Today, we had leftovers. Maybe the best Thanksgiving sandwich ever, inspired by a banh mi. Smoked turkey, Duke's mayonnaise, sriachi, cabbage, and pickled daikon and carrots.
I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. I'll be gone for a while, so I wish everyone Happy Holidays. Cheers.
I haven’t posted in a long, long time. I wrote here and on
my science blog until I realized I couldn't do that and meet my
other responsibilities. (Also, I’m a dilettante and I rarely stick with hobbies
for long.) Too bad, because I was just starting to get links from other blogs I
read and respect. I may post occasionally and mention it on Facebook.
I made paella Saturday night, and while drinking wine and
cooking, I listened to St. Vincent’s new album, Strange Mercy. I liked her previous album Actor well enough, but this one is great – my favorite of the year
so far. It’s interesting and complicated, alternately hard and ethereal, and
kind of proggy. She won me over in the interim with her badass cover of the Big Black song Kerosene,
which I watched online. As a wayward youth, that was one of my favorite songs,
and little Annie Clark owns it. Seriously, if you’re fan of Big Black, St.
Vincent, or just music, watch that. When I was in Chicago this summer for the
Pitchfork Festival, my friend Steve and I drank bourbon and watched it every
night. So, yes, Annie Clark is the best ever thing to come out of Dallas.
And on a free-association Dallas music tangent, there’s the Silver Jews
song, Dallas,
(“How’d you turn a million steers into buildings made of mirrors?”) and The
Mountain Goats song about its suburb, The Best Ever Death
Metal Band Out of Denton – someone, I don’t recall who, wrote than John
Darnielle spins whole short stories out of three minute acoustic punk songs,
and it’s true.
Paella
On the food track: Paella is a Spanish rice dish most
associated with Valencia on the eastern coast. Its name is from the Latin-derived
word for pan, and the shallow pan it’s made in is itself called a paella or a
paellera. Most recipes have chicken, shrimp, and maybe clams. Often they
include duck, rabbit, mussels, snails, or cockles. They always have saffron and
almost always Spanish chorizo. Some are especially heavy on the seafood, but mine
had chorizo, chicken, and shrimp only. Good paella should cook until the liquid
is completely absorbed or evaporated and it should have a nice crust on the
bottom.
Saffron costs more than gold by weight and Spanish chorizo
isn’t cheap, but you can make a less expensive version by substituting a bit of
turmeric for saffron and substituting chorizo with another sausage, or bacon,
and some extra smoked Spanish paprika (pimenton).
I mostly followed the recipe in The Essential New York Times Cookbook (which, if you haven’t seen
it, is awesome). I also wanted to use Mark Bittman’s technique of finishing it
in the oven from his Minimalist recipe, also in the book. Cooking it in the
oven yields some of the texture and crunch without needing the paellera or the
expertise. It’s not as pretty as traditional paella because you need to stir it
before it goes in the oven or the shrimp would be overdone. I used a 12” cast
iron skillet.
Modifications and improvements: I enjoyed the dish, and so
did my friends who tried the leftovers. The texture was right and the flavors
blended nicely, but I look forward to tweaking the recipe next time. You can
use whatever mix of stock, wine, and water you like; I mistakenly thought I had
homemade stock in the freezer, so I had to use low sodium organic chicken
stock. Homemade stock is always best, and next time I’ll follow Mark Bittman’s
recommendation to steep shrimp shells in the stock (I didn’t think of it, and I
was lazy and bought peeled shrimp). Also, I should have browned the chicken
with or after the chorizo and added it back in with the peas.
I drank a good, inexpensive Spanish Grenache (Garnacha) with
this. It held up to the spice, chorizo, and chicken. If I made paella with more
seafood I might’ve tried a white wine like Sauvignon Blanc, Alboriño,
or an Alsatian Riesling.
Recipe:
olive oil
4 oz. chorizo, sliced or diced
12 oz. chopped chicken thigh meat
1 lb. shrimp
1 cup each onion and red pepper, diced
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 cup peas (you could use up to 2 cups, I used frozen and
thawed green peas)
1 cup chopped tomatoes
2 cups arborio rice
3 cups chicken stock
½ cup white wine
½ cup water
Red wine vinegar
Pimentón (smoked Spanish paprika)
Saffron (1/16 to 1/8 tsp., you could use ¼ tsp tumeric)
Preheat the oven to 500°. Toss the chopped chicken with
red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper in a bowl and put aside. In a saucepan,
start the stock and saffron (and shrimp shells, if you have them) heating to a
simmer.
Put a 12” or larger cast iron pan on medium-high heat. Sauté
the chorizo in oil until it just starts to brown then remove it with a slotted
spoon.
Cook the onions and peppers until soft. Add a few dashes of pimentón.
Add tomatoes and cook for about a minute. Add the chicken and cook until it
changes from pink to white*, then add the rice and stir until it becomes
opaque. (Preferably, brown the chicken with or after the chorizo, remove, and
add back with the chorizo.)
Add the liquid (stock, wine, and water). Add the shrimp and
peas and stir no no shrimp are exposed. Add the chorizo back in. Put the pan in
the oven until all the liquid is absorbed and the paella browns a bit, about 20-25
minutes. Use a pizza stone and preheat longer if you want more bottom crust.
Garnish with parsley and lemons.
