Time-Life: Spain and Portugal

The Spain and Portugal volume of Time-Life Foods of the World was a much more satisfying read than the Quintet of Cuisines. The writer Peter S. Feibleman actually lived in Spain, knew the people, and could write great descriptions of landscapes and cultural events. I think I'd like to read some of his other books, such as his biography of Lillian Hellman, with whom he had a long friendship.

I found the recipes I tried less successful, whether it's because they were simplified too much or whether the food itself is less appealing, or perhaps just poor technique on my part.

I've been to Andalusia and had wonderful home-cooked meals with fresh produce at a lovely B&B (Villa Matilde near Anjar), but I found eating in restaurants frustrating. Oily, mass-produced paella, monotonous salads of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, boiled eggs, tuna, and ham. The overwhelming emphasis on meat, the lack of vegetarian meals, or even vegetables that were not served in oil, made lunches particularly unappealing. It's hot, you want a light lunch and the only vegetable choice is that same old salad! The consequences of mass tourism, perhaps. However, I do remember a delicious supper of sea bass baked in salt in Malaga, and I loved Seville and would like to go back there.

Anyway, back to this book. In general, they call for at least 2 times as much olive oil as I would use, and I cut the amounts whenever I thought it appropriate. Ingredients are simple with very few extra flavourings beyond salt and pepper. In some case, I adapted a couple by adding some hot peppers to give them a bit more kick.

I've not provided the recipes, but will be happy to post if anyone wants them.

Spain

From Spain, I made:

• Truchas a la Navarra (Marinated trout with red wine and herbs. This was tasty, but I found the choice of red wine odd and the resulting sauce yielded an unappealing color. If I make it again, I will use white wine.
• Spinach with pine nuts and almonds. I didn't have pine nuts and have grown tired of the flavour, so I just used almonds. I really liked this dish and will put it into rotation. The nuts provide a crunchy contrast to the soft spinach, and the garlic and serrano ham add depth and umami.
• Pollo a chilindron (Sauteed chicken with peppers, tomatoes, and olives. This was very good, although I did add some red pepper to give it a bit of a kick.
• Ternera a la Sevillana (Sauteed veal with sherry and green olives). I enjoyed the sofrito at the heart of this dish, but it rather overwhelms the delicate veal scallops. The sauce is a mixture of onions, garlic, olives, tomatoes, mushrooms, and ground almonds. The olives are quite dominant and I think this would work very well with pasta. In fact, it reminded me of past putenesca. 

Portugal

From Portugal, I made the Bolinhos de Bacalhau (Salt cod fish cakes, with parsely, coriander, and mint).

Salted cod is apparently the national fish of Portugal. Traditionally, that cod came from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. I remember the early 70s when Canada started enforcing a 200 mile offshore limit to prevent the factory fishing boats from Spain, Portugal and other countries from fishing these waters dry, and then Canada's own mismanagement which led to the total collapse of the cod fishery in the 1980s. Thirty years on and the cod has still not recovered.

The only bacalhau I could find was actually salted Alaskan pollock and I think it does not require as long a soak as the original cod. However, the fish cakes it produced were very tasty. I made half a recipe and served with a poached egg.

If you just finely flake the fish, I found the cakes fell apart when you tried to term them. So after trying one, I briefly processed the mixture in a food processor. The resulting patties looked more like the ones in the book and stayed together better when frying.

And All the Trimmings

Although I had guests to dinner for both Christmas and Boxing Day, the turkey event was on Boxing Day. I had ordered a free-range bronze turkey of almost 4 kilos and dry-brined it for three days before cooking. Since I discovered this technique several years ago, it's my go-to method of roasting poultry. The result was the best turkey I've ever eaten—moist, well-seasoned meat with lots of flavour.

But this blog is about a couple of the trimmings, specifically the gravy and the cranberry sauce. I stumbled upon Jamie Oliver's recipe for Get-Ahead Gravy and thought "that's a good idea"—less palaver before serving and knowing there is enough. I didn't have bacon and forgot about finishing with cranberry sauce, but even then, it was terrific. When making turkey gravy just before serving, it never gets to cook long enough and it doesn't get the extra vegetable flavour that this gravy gets. The recipe makes lots and there are leftovers that I'm going to freeze in small containers for those times I want a bit of gravy with the mashed potatoes.

The cranberry sauce was another hit. I made it last year too but made no notes about it. I paid special attention this year and I now declare my search for the perfect cranberry sauce at an end. This is lovely stuff, not too sweet, with a fairly pronounced citrus component, which I really like. In fact, it's actually a cranberry cumberland sauce.


Make-Ahead Poultry Gravy
This is slightly adapted from the original recipe. Based on comments and my own gut feeling, I reduced the amount of star anise. I also added a couple of garlic cloves. I think it was a good call. The resulting gravy has a hint of fennel/anise flavour but more would be overpowering. An alternative might be to include a quartered fennel bulb, but I didn't try this.

2 celery sticks, coarsely chopped
2 carrots,coarsely sliced
2 onions, peeled and quartered
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
5 bay leaves
5 sage leaves
4 sprigs of rosemary
1 star anise
2 rashers of bacon (I didn't have any, but I'm sure it would be great)
8 chicken wings
2-4 tablespoons olive oil salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons flour
2 liters hot water
60ml sherry optional:
2 heaped tablespoons cranberry sauce, for finishing

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (400F)
2. Break the chicken wings open and pound them with a meat hammer or rolling pin to crack the bones open. (I put them in a plastic bag and used a rubber mallet.)
3. Put the chopped vegetables, herbs, star anise,  bacon (if using)  and chicken wings in a roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with the olive oil, and stir it around to coat. 
4. Bake for an hour until the meat is tender and falling off the bone.
5. Put the roasting pan on low heat on top of the stove.
6. Use a potato masher to mash everything up, squeezing as much flavour and juice out of everything as you can.
7. Gradually add the flour, and continue to mash, stir and brown for 5-10 minutes.
8. Add 2 liters of hot water to deglaze the pan, scraping all the browned bits up.
9. Transfer everything to a large pot, bring to a boil for 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened, and then simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. The liquid will reduce by about half. 
10. When it has reached the desired consistency, add the sherry, check and adjust the seasoning, then strain through a sieve into a large bowl. Mash as much stuff through the sieves as you can, then discard what remains.
11. Let the gravy cool, pour into plastic containers or freezer bags, and freeze until the day you need it. 
12. You can heat it and use it as is, or if you have roasted a bird, remove as much fat as you can from the roasting pan, and use the pre-made gravy to deglaze the pan. 
13. Optionally, add some cranberry sauce and transfer to a pot to keep warm on low heat until use.

Cranberry Cumberland Sauce

• I adapted this recipe, mostly by adjusting the seasonings to suit the quantity of one 375 gram bag of cranberries.
  
  
  375 grams  fresh cranberries
• 200 ml ruby port
• 90 grams sugar
• 90 ml fresh orange juice
• 3/4 tsp corn flour
• 3/4 tsp English mustard powder
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• pinch of ground cloves
• 50 grams dried cranberries or raisins
• 40 grams flaked almonds
• 2 tsp grated orange rind
• 1 tsp grated lemon rind

1. Grate the peel of a large orange and juice the orange.
2. Combine the cranberries, port, orange juice, and sugar in a pan and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes until the berries burst.
3. Mix the cornstarch, mustard powder, and ground cloves with a small amount of the cranberry liquid to create a paste. Stir into the cranberries.
4. Add the dried cranberries or raisins, almonds, orange and lemon rind
5. Simmer for five minutes, season, and then chill. 

Basque Chicken (Slow Cooker)

I made this thinking it would be a good alternative to coq au vin and a way to use a small organic soup chicken that I had in the fridge.

Despite the small size of the chicken, it was too big for all the pieces to fit easily in the slow cooker. Not to worry, I made a light chicken broth with the back, neck, and other bits that wouldn't fit.

The result was tasty but next time I will make some changes:

• Use only chicken legs. This was a soup chicken, and with the long cooking it still remained fairly tough and stringy. And chicken breast always dries out.
• Remove the skin from the chicken after browning and before adding it to the pot. I always remove the skin before eating anyway and wonder how much extra flavour it imparts.

Basque Chicken

4 chicken pieces (breast and legs), bone-in with skin
1 yellow onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 bell peppers, yellow and red, cut into large pieces
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoon peanut oil
1/2 cup  wine (red or white)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teasoon thyme
1  bay leaf
300 grams mushrooms, halved, whole, or in thick slices, depending on the their size

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon oil

1 green onion, green and white parts, sliced

1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat the butter and peanut oil in a large heavy frying pan over a medium-high flame.
2. Brown the chicken, about 7 minutes per side, frying in batches to avoid overcrowding. Put the chicken pieces in the slow cooker.
3. Now turn the heat down to medium and sauté the onion and garlic for a minute or so. Deglaze with the wine, stir in the tomato paste, then add it all to the slow cooker. Add the herbs and bell pepper pieces. 
4. Cook on high for 6 hours.
5. About 15 minutes before serving, heat the butter and oil in a large heavy frying pan, until the foam of the butter subsides.
6. Add the mushrooms and stir and shake to get all of them  covered with the fat. All the fat will be absorbed, but as the mushrooms cook, they will release it again and start to brown.
7. While the mushrooms are browning, transfer the chicken to a serving dish., then add the browned mushrooms and garnish with green onions.
8. Serve over potatoes or noodles.

Garlic-Saffron Roast Chicken

Several weeks ago I put a gift certificate towards a new cookbook: Moro: The Cookbook. Moro is a restaurant the focuses on flavours from Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East. I'm not that keen on Spanish cooking as experienced in restaurants, at least the ones I've been to in my one trip to Spain. It's very meat-heavy and they don't understand that ham should not be part of a salad for vegetarians. (In contrast, the home cooking at Villa Matilde , where we stayed, was fabulous.) But I love North African food and would like to discover Spanish food that I like, hence the new cookbook.

All this is leading up to a recipe that was not in the cookbook! I started out seasoning a chicken a day in advance to make Zuni roast chicken, but on the day decided I wanted to do something new. Moro had a recipe for Chicken Stuffed with Garlic and Coriander. I didn't have coriander, but the rest of the recipe sounded intriguing so I made it without and served it to my guests that evening, followed by Casablanca Oranges (Jane Brody's Good Food Gourmet) for dessert, made with blood oranges and clementines.

Garlic-Saffron Roast Chicken

Besides omitting the coriander, I also left out the olive oil from the garlic paste. I reserved the milk to make a gravy, and followed the Zuni method of cooking the chicken in a preheated cast iron skillet. The dish was tasty and looks lovely, but I actually found the saffron flavour too strong and the garlic not intense enough. Worth trying again with coriander though.

1 medium chicken
1 tablespoon salt
3 garlic bulbs
1 cup milk
1 generous pinch saffron
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1. A day or two before you serve, thoroughly dry the chicken. Gently slide your fingers under the skin and loosen it. Rub the salt in all over the chicken, then put in a plastic bag and let it baste itself in the fridge until several hours before you plan to cook. This is a dry brine that lets the chicken marinate in its own moisture and gets the meat well seasoned throughout.
2. Several hours before cooking, take the chicken out of its bag and let it air dry. 
3. Preheat the oven to 220 C/425 F.
4. Meanwhile, break the garlic bulbs into their cloves and put them in a small saucepan with enough milk to cover by about an inch. Cook gently for about 25 minutes until the cloves are soft. 
5. Soak the saffron in 2-3 tablespoons of the warm garlic milk.
6. Meanwhile, remove the garlic, and squeeze out the cloves from the skins. Mash the cloves into a purée, along with the ground cumin and saffron milk. (I used the small blender of my immersion blender.)
7. Using a teaspoon and your fingers, put the garlic-saffron paste under the skin. Try to get it around the thighs as well as the chicken breast.
8. Heat a cast-iron skillet that is large enough to fit the chicken. Put the chicken in, breast-side up, then put it into the oven.
9. Cook for 20 minutes, then turn the chicken over, breast-side down.
10. Cook for another 30 minutes and flip the chicken breast-side up again.
11. Cook for another 15 minutes or until the juices run clear or the thigh join is very loose. (I like chicken well done.)
12. Remove the chicken to a platter and cover with foil to rest for 10 minutes.
13. Drain all but a tablespoon of the fat from the skillet. Over medium heat, add a tablespoon of flour, stirring and scraping up the brown bits. When the flour is browned, slowly add the garlic-milk until the sauce reaches the desired consistency. You can add water if it is still too thick.
14. Cut the chicken into pieces and serve with the gravy on the side. I served it with a rice pilaf and roasted broccoli and tomatoes.

Chicken with Pomegranate

I recently acquired a new item for the kitchen—a lovely enameled cast-iron cocotte from Staub.

Of course, a new pot requires a new recipe, so I decided to break open a tome that has been sitting on my shelves for years and getting no use.

The Silver Spoon is supposedly the Italian bible of cooking, and it contains a huge number of recipes, but the layout and instructions are not inviting. The instructions are written in one long paragraph, which is a pain to follow when you're half way through and need to check something. Worse yet, instructions can be incomplete, unclear, and quantities imprecise. Even for someone who doesn't always follow instructions and quantities to the letter, this can be frustrating.

But it does seem such a waste to have it sitting there, not getting spattered by water, wine, and sauces. So I decided to make Gallina alla Melagrana. Well, actually, I adapted it. The recipe calls for roasting the chicken whole, but I decided to cut it into pieces and braise it in the oven. I also add the soaking water from the soaking the porcini mushrooms, which the recipe does not call for.

The pomegranate was an interesting feature. The seeds are both tart and sweet, and the resulting dish reminded me of having cranberry sauce as an integral part of the chicken. I liked it.

Chicken with Pomegranate

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 chicken, cut into pieces
2 small onions
20 grams dried porcini mushrooms
4 pomegranates
1 cup cream
4 leaves of sage (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Heat half the butter and oil in a casserole, Dutch oven or other dish that can go from stove-top to oven.
3. Fry the chicken pieces, turning them from time to time until browned.
4. Add one onion, whole, to the chicken, sprinkle a little bit of water on it, and roast in the oven for 50 minutes.
5. Put the dried porcini in a bowl and pour on boiling water to cover. Let it stand and soak for 15 to 30 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, cut the pomegranates into 6-8 segments and scrape the seeds into a pot or large bowl, using your fingers. 
7. Reserve some seeds for garnish and crush the rest with a potato ricer to extract the juice. (Since I don't have this, and my potato masher didn't do a great job, I ended by just squeezing the seeds with my hands and pressing them through a sieve. The seeds still retain a fair amount of flesh so they still look good when added to the dish at the end.)
8. After about 45 minutes, take the chicken out of the oven and add the pomegranate juice, pouring it through a sieve, and reserving the seeds. Return the chicken to the oven.
9. Chop the remaining onion, and sauté it in the remaining oil and butter for about 5 minutes.
10. Drain the mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid, and add them to the frying onions. Cook for another 10 minutes and then add them to the casserole.
11. After 50-60 minutes in the oven, the chicken should be tender, at which point you can remove it to a plate along with the whole onion. (I like chicken to be very well done and the leg meat to almost slip of the bone.)
12. Chop the onion, and return it to the casserole.
13. Put the casserole on medium heat on the stove, add the reserved mushroom soaking water, and reduce the liquid by about half.
14. Add the cream and sage and heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste. 
15. Pour the sauce over the chicken and garnish with reserved pomegranate seeds.