Start at the beginning...

"I get no kick from champagne, mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all..." Frank Sinatra

Having just returned from Argentina, I endeavored to re-create a dish that I had at Dan Perlman's home restaurant he's dubbed Casa Salt Shaker.

It is suppose to be a paprika chicken, but by the time I was done mauling it, it was something completely different.

I started by dicing half an onion, the other half was putrid or something so I tossed it. Dan's recipe called for some garlic and ginger as well and they found their way into the pan. Here's where things started to go a little south. Dan's recipe calls for smoked paprika of which I had none. So I cut off a small slice of Italian sausage and added to the sauteeing onion, garlic and ginger.

After the onion was browned I added in a liberal amount of plain paprika and half that amount of powdered bay leaf. Stir this around so that the onions are coated. I let this stay on the heat for a couple of minutes. By this point I was totally off of Dan's recipe I think. I added about a cup of chicken stock and let that come to a boil.

I did not have any chicken on hand, but I did have a piece of left over pork tenderloin that I had grilled the previous weekend. I cubed that up into about a half inch dice and added into the stock. I let the whole thing simmer for about half an hour, whence it began to emit a very pleasant aroma.

About five minutes before serving I added four dollops of sour cream to the pan and brought the heat up to a boil. Dan's recipe called for corn starch for added thickness, but I rarely use thickening agents that don't add to the overall taste of the dish. I stirred this until it was well incorporated and brought the heat back down to low.

I ladled a couple of bowls full and attempted to garnish with paprika, but since I didn't have the shaker top I tried to do it by hand and it ended up looking like a talcum powder accident. Oh well. It actually turned out to have a very nice flavor. The grilled pork in lieu of the chicken was a good match with the paprika and I think it turned out a little more succulent than the chicken.

The second dish, which actually came before the paprika chicken when we ate with Dan was a mushroom soup.

According to Dan's recipe, I put mushroom stems lemon thyme, and garlic in a pot with water to reduce down. I also added in some fresh oregano just because I needed to use some as it is growing wildly in my herb box.

I did not have a wide assortment of mushrooms only about a 1/2 a container of buttons that needed to be used.

As per Dan, I infused some olive oil with lemon thyme and rosemary. Then I sauteed the mushroom caps, which I had diced, in the infusion.

I let the stems and the herbs boil for about 30 minutes. Then I transferred it to the blender and pulverized it well.

Dan's recipe called for a small round pasta common in Argentina, in lieu of that I used orzo.

I put a cookie cutter in a bowl and filled it with the orzo. I then strained and ladled the mushroom stock from the blender into the bowl while the cutter was still in there. Then I added in some of the sauteed mushrooms around the edges. When I removed the cutter the orzo fell apart and didn't retain it's shape the way Dan's did.


This is Dan's dish. (hope he won't mind me using his pic)

I also added a little chicken stock that I had left over from the pork dish to the mushroom stock. I think it overpowered the mushroom flavor and made it a little too salty. The better half enjoyed it, but I thought it was a little bland. But it was getting kind of late anyway so I wasn't real concerned at that point.

We had a Kendall-Jackson shiraz that was about 12 bucks from Kroger. It was pretty good, with hints of cherry on the finish.

Cooking Music: A friend of mine dropped off a hard drive with an enormous mp3 collection on it. It included over 30 Frank Sinatra albums. So we listened to Frank during the majority of the cooking.

Distractions: The cats knocked the orchid off of the mantel and the pot shattered, think she cares?
Vivi...the likely orchid culprit..















Casa Salt Shaker, Buenos Aires, Argentina


Front left to right: Better Half, Andrea, Rhonda?

Standing left to right: Me, Dan Perlman