Arroz con pollo

Black beans...



Yellow rice...




Holy cow, I haven't blogged in a year!

Okay, that is about to change.

This arroz con pollo turned out to be incredible. I took this recipe from Taste Of Cuba.com.


2, tblspn Annatto oil, (see below) Red onion, red bell pepper, 3 cloves garlic, 1 tomato, 1 cup dry white wine, 1.5 cups beer, 1 tspn tomato paste




Chicken thighs...


Marinate the thighs in :

1 tspn oregano
1 tspn cumin
1/2 white pepper (I used black)
1 tspn red wine vinegar





On the Annatto oil, I used achiote chile powder which I think is actually the same pepper. Dry it looks red, but it acutally turns the dish yellow, which is what the recipe said would happen. I whisked about a tblspn into about 1/2 a cup of olive oil.

This dish is practically idiot proof.

bon apetit!

Ode to the Gypsy

Clara, "What'd she do back in Lonesome Dove?"
Gus, "She did what she could."

Greek Chicken Pie, Andalusian asparagus, and crostini with tapenade

One of my favorite guitar player is Biréli Lagrène.

He is a gypsy guitarist in the style of Django, who is pictured on the left. If you don't know who Django is, you should find out.

What's this got to do with food? Well, it's inspiration. A certain style of music evokes a certain style of cuisine and even though I have taken some regional liberties I did what I could.

The first dish is very simple to throw together and is very good if you are having company over. The classic Kalamata olive tapenade is a staple across the Mediterranean though it varies slightly from region to region. This is the French version.

Kalamata olives - 8 oz
1 clove garlic
1 anchovy fillet
1 tablespoon capers
1 teaspoon dijon
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tblspn olive oil

Throw all of this into a food processor and whack it until it forms a paste. You're finished.

The store was out of baguette so instead I bought naan bread. Cut the naan bread up into bite sized pieces and bake at 400 for about 2 minutes. Transfer the tapanade into a bowl and arrange the baked naan bread around the bowl so people can spread it as they like. A little goes a long way.

Esparrago de andalucia
Andalusian asparagus

I like asparagus a lot and finding different ways to prepare it is a challenge, so when I ran across this recipe I had to give it a try.

1 lb asparagus
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
12 almonds
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 thick slice day old bread

Trim the asparagus. Heat the oil and sautee the bread, garlic, and almonds for 2-3 minutes. I used naan bread instead of regular bread only because it was all that i had.

Transfer all the ingredients into a food processor or whopper chopper, whatever is available. Add the paprika, cumin, vinegar, salt, and pepper and 1 tblspn of water. Process until a coarse meal is formed.

Sautee the asparagus in the same pan adding a little more oil if needed. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the bread mixture in with about 6 oz of water. Simmer for about 3-4 minutes. It doesn't look very good but it has an interesting flavor.

Greek Chicken Pie

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 cups chicken stock
2 oz butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
8 sheets filo pastry
7 oz Feta cheese
1 tblspn chopped dill
1/2 tspn grated nutmeg
1 egg lightly beaten
1 onion diced

heat the oven to 350

Cut up the chicken into bite sized pieces and poach in the chicken stock for 5-8 minutes. Remove the chicken and reserve the stock. I strained mine through a strainer.

Melt the butter in a sauce pan and sautee the onion for about 5 minutes. Add the flour to make a roux.

Add in the chicken stock and then the milk. Keep stirring it until it thickens slightly. Remove from the heat.

Pulse the poached chicken a few times in the whopper chopper.

Stir the chicken, feta, dill and nutmeg into the stock and milk. Lastly stir in the egg.

Here are some tips if you haven't used filo dough before. It will be frozen when you buy it. Let it thaw out before you are ready to use it. After it is thawed and you are about ready to use it, cut open the packaging and unroll it. After it is unrolled and exposed to air always place a towel over it unless you are working with it. It will dry out in a heartbeat.

You need a shallow casserole dish for this. Place one sheet of the filo dough on the bottom of the dish. Brush that sheet with melted butter. Continue this for 4 sheets.

Pour the chicken mixture over the filo dough. Level it all out and layer the filo dough over the top in the same manner as before.

Bake for 45 minutes. In the interim drink wine and listen to gypsy music.

This probably has no semblance to anything that Django and Grapelli ever ate but I like to imagine that they did and it isn't hard to imagine when you are listening to swinging gypsy guitar. The point is that these dishes are far removed from anything I would normally cook. Sometimes it takes a little inspiration to get motivated in the kitchen and changing up the music is as good an inspiration as any, or rather its all I need.

Winter and the kitchen are conducive to each other, at least they are for me.

Bon apetit!

Wine:
Ridge Santa Cruz '04 $37

Music:
Django
Bireli Lagrene
Rosenberg Trio
John Jorgenson Quintet

Green Eggs and Ham

Over thanksgiving i had an opportunity to try cooking on a big green egg with my dad.

This was the first time for me using one of these smokers.

After retrieving a medium sized pork shoulder aka Boston butt, I lightly salted and peppered the pork.

We started a fire and let the egg get very hot, 500 or so.

Then the butt was "seared" for a few minutes on each side in the smoker/grill.

After that was finished we let the egg cool down to around 250 or so and threw on, I believe an oak chunk for smoke.

After a few hours the internal temperature was reading 160.

The big green egg rendered some of the most succulent and flavorful Boston butt I have had in quite a while.

The big green egg is all it's cracked up to be...

Tierra Restaurant Wine Pairing

Tierra is an Atlanta restaurant that serves South American cuisine. They recently had a wine pairing that we were lucky enough to attend. When we arrived at Tierra we were immediately greeted with a pisco sour, the South American cocktail that seldom rears it's head above the equator. No sooner did we have drink in hand, a white haired middle aged man in a black shirt and coat introduced himself as Alfredo.

Alfredo is the owner of Billington imports, who sponsored the tasting. Alfredo is Chilean, and has spent the last thirty years bringing some of the best South American wine to the United States. We chatted for quite some time over a couple of pisco sours. Alfredo was unpretentious and totally approachable for a man who’s been in the wine business for as long as he has.

The first pairing was a roasted duck breast over julienne vegetables in piloncillo-ancho pepper sauce with a 05’ Dona Isadora Riesling from Chile. The Riesling was sweet, yet dry which lent itself to comparisons to Viogner. The duck was cooked perfectly, but the piloncillo-ancho sauce I found to be a bit on the bitter side. It could have certainly been a bit sweeter and still have worked well with the duck and Riesling.

The second pairing of the night was a crab empanada, cilantro aioli and greens with an 04’ Catena Alta Chardonnay from Argentina. The chardonnay was the highlight of the night. Not too dry, the Catena had a good balance of crispness and sweetness. The $30 price tag might be a little steep for an Argentine white, but I would definitely pick up a bottle. The crab empanadas were good, though a bit pedestrian, but served a greater role by steering the table’s conversation to the pursuit of the ever elusive North American empanada. Much to the credit of the folks at the table, everyone had actually been to South America and knew what a real empanada entailed.

The main pairing was a petit filet over tacu-tacu with onions-pancetta demi glace with an 05’ Antiguas Reserva Cabernet. The steak and tacu-tacu turned out to be the real stand out of the evening. Tacu-tacu is a Peruvian dish that roughly translated means “left-overs”. Jorge, a native Peruvian, was one of our table mates and gave us a run down on the dish. The Antiguas Reserva tasted like motor oil to me. I couldn’t drink it, but others enjoyed it.

Dessert consisted of fruit compote, cheese and alfajores with an 03’ Catena Atla Cabernet. The combination of the fruit compote and the cheese was excellent. The Catena cabernet was quite good though not inexpensive at all at $50. Of course by that point we were all pretty much drunk and everything was tasting good.

Alfredo began the evening with a short speech in which he said, “People spend their lives pretending to be what they’re not, but after a bottle of wine people become what they really are” or something to that effect. He was right.

www.tierrarestaurant.com