Fuck Paella.

So for the last while or so I have been off in the land of people with better things to do than blog. Turns out I didn't belong. For an alternative account of my absence from blogging and twitter, see this. I think it speaks to my particular brand of creative genius. I'm something like the Kanye of the food blog world.

Now that that's out of the way, here's a post which was actually written a while ago. It's filed under disasters.

14" Stainless Steel All-clad pans are BADASS. All-clad is the kind of stuff that makes home chefs (read: me) all bothered and hot. They're either a symbol of knowing way to much about cookware for one's own (wallet's) good, or a symbol of being hideously wealthy. I wouldn't have one if not for the fact that my parents inexplicably (i.e., they fall into neither of the previous two categories) had one lying around in our basement. And for the further fact that I decided I would rather leave clothes at home and stuff my suitcase with pans and books and socks (just under 40 lbs, thank you very much JetBlue). It is a perfect pan for paella. Not non-stick, so you can get a nice, caramelized sofrito going, great heat distribution, and plenty of room for a large paella (mine fed 7 happily). They love the oven heat. Which means that they are hotter than a raging den of iniquity when they come out of a 450 degree oven after half an hour. It's like someone has emblazoned on the handle: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate." Well, some of us fail to take notice of such elegant warnings. This is why we can't have nice things:



Panhandles != safe zones for touching. This I learned slowly as I held my hand in a pitcher of cool water which I kept in my crotch all night (or did I hold an opponent's wife's hand in a jar of acid? hard to say . . .). Now, lesson learned, I wear oven mitts everywhere. The Peter-Michigan-Hands jokes are getting pretty old. Not that they were funny in the first place.

There are a couple of interesting things about making Paella, the first of which is the sofrito. I picked up my technique form watching my main man Jose Andres on Made in Spain. Essentially, you want to get your onions just carmelized, degalze the pan with a touch of white wine, and then mix in some grated tomato. The Spaniards seem to be all about the juicy innards of fresh tomatoes in a way that no one else is. I'm not sure who first had the idea to rub tomato halves on toasted bread, but this catalan mainstay is shockingly good (especially with a little olive oil and garlic joined in the rubbing). Grating tomatoes is kind of a brilliant little trick if you're looking to really integrate the tomato flavor without canned tomatoes or tomato paste. Simply cut a tomato in half and rub it on the coarse side of your grater over a bowl. You'll get a thick, fresh, tomatoey liquid in the bowl and a to-be-discarded tomato skin in your hand. Anyway, this goes into the pan with the caramelized onions and some slivered garlic and you've got my take on a sofrito. It's a fresh start for paella, soups, and light sauces.

The other interesting thing is that it requires no stirring. This is only interesting if you've been in the habit of making risotto for large groups of people.

{+} Paella Vegetariana

Burn-hand Paella
(serves 4 to 6)


1 large white onion
2 or 3 cloves garlic
3 tomatoes
10 cherry tomatoes (halved)
1 bunch asparagus
10 small mushrooms (I used cremini)
2 cups short grain rice
3 cups water (stock would be good too)
splash of white wine

Veggie Prep: Dice the onion and mince garlic, half the cherry tomatoes, cut asparagus into 1.5" pieces.

1. The first step is to get a healthy sofrito going. Take a moment to get your oven going as well. 450 is the target zone. Sofrito instructions are above, but here's a recap: caramelize onions and deglaze with white wine, add salt, pepper, and grated tomato innards.



2. Next, add the rest of your veggies (except the cherry tomatoes) and saute. I went for asparagus and mushrooms.



3. If you've got some saffron, warm the water that you're going to add to the dish and toss it in there. If you are both sneaky and concerned about your paella not having that healthy yellow glow, toss in some ground tumeric. No one will notice the flavor and the color is a decent saffron-approximator. Don't add the water/stock yet. Just get it ready.

4. Add the rice to the sauteed vegetables. Most cookbooks say to toast the rice until it is "shiny." Whatever that means. With the amount of olive oil in my pan, everything is shiny and that's the way I like it.



5. Add the liquid.



6. Put it in the oven!



Finally, touch the handle of the pan with your bare hand. Serve sizzling.

I'll sign off with a video of my two favs chatting food "policy." Long, but interesting.

Pleased to meetcha,
Peter

R2R March

As a man with a near boundless appreciation of acronymic abbreviations (current favorites: LOLLUVIT, FTFY, GTFO and ROTFLMFAO), I was happy to join R2R or Recipes to Rival, a loose association of food bloggers which is more or less the post-1998 equivalent of a web ring. Each month, the members of R2R all cook the same recipe and release their success/failure to the blogosphere on the same date. Today is that date. This is no April fools. This month's challenge was something called "Steak Diane Flambe." If we go ahead and take a quick look at the name of the recipe, we realize very quickly that this is something that is way out of my zone: steak? No. Flambe? Hardly, I'm a Francophobe. Diane? Never 'eard of 'er. Then it came to me: Flambe = open flames. OPEN FLAMES. This realization reawakened within me the pyromaniacal thirteen year old that lit a plastic monster truck on fire and then sprayed it flame-thrower style with a can of WD-40 (sorry mom, but the ten year rule on this one is up!). I've got to be honest, the pictures we took of the flambe are not nearly as cool as the ones that I took of the flaming monster truck (those must be somewhere, right?), but I decided that Jim Beam probably tasted better than oil-based multipurpose lubricants.

Anyway, Kibbee stepped up to do the original version of the recipe with steaks while I went the ol' portobello-substitution route. Rachel and Angel stood by, fire extinguisher at the ready (this is false). Safety always comes first in my kitchen (also, apparently, false as I nearly relived the near-catastrophic paella incident). At the very least we ended up with some smiling faces:



{+} Here's my FTFY version of the recipe:

Steak (and Portobello) Diane Flambé

recipe by
Frank Bordoni from Great Food Live

Ingredients

For the steaks
4 85g 1/4 lb. beef medallions
OR 3 Portobello caps
1 tsp Dijon mustard
freshly ground salt and pepper

For the sauce
1 tsp Butter, clarified
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp Shallots Onions, finely chopped
50g 1.5 cups button mushrooms, finely sliced
1 tbsp lemon juice
125ml 1/2 cup double heavy cream
1 tbsp Chives, snipped
50ml 2oz (1 large shot) Brandy Jim Beam

1. Rub the medallions of beef with the mustard, season with salt and pepper and set aside.
2. Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and when hot, add the clarified butter and Worcestershire sauce.
3. Add the shallots and mushrooms, and push to the centre of the pan. Arrange the medallions around the edge. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring and tossing the mushroom mixture as you go. If you prefer your steak well done, give it an extra minute or 2.
4. Add the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.
5. Turn the steaks over and pour in the cream and chives. Tilt the pan slightly (away from you) and pour in the brandy at the far end. Now turn up the heat to high so that the brandy ignites. Swirl the sauce around in the pan and turn off the heat.

Here it is with the 'bellos:


And now, with the steaks:


Enjoy!

If you're interested, the official R2R post is here. Also, I can't resist signing off with a few more pictures:

Kribs lights the steaks:

Flaming mushrooms:

The sprouts we had with it:


Flame on,
Peter