Spanish Siesta

When asking a Spanish friend of mine when they'd usually eat a hearty meal like paella they told me usually in the late afternoon on Sunday with their friends and family. Since I have no family out here and my friends are all the family I got out here, I invited some of mis amigos cercanos over. If you're unfamiliar with paella, as I became aware of as I asked dozens about it this past week, it's a Spanish one dish meal consisting of saffron-flavored rice, meat/poultry and seafood. Saffron is one of the most expensive spices as the flowers it comes from, a crocus, only produces 3 threads. It is very hard to describe the flavor as it is so complex but many describe it as either bitter to semi-sweet and earthy. You'll want to buy it as threads, but it also comes powdered and if you live near a Cost Plus World Market, buy them there because that store sells insanely cheap spices that are of very high quality. (Also, when there pick up some smoked paprika, you'll need that as well.) Do not use a wooden spoon as it will absorb the flavor of the saffron. The dish calls for Spanish Valencia (Valencia is the region paella was born) rice which is a high starch short grain rice that I couldn't find so I replaced it with a sweet chinese rice which met those requirements. A short grain with high starch will make a mushy, sticky consistency. Since saffron is pricey, you may opt to use little (a couple of pinches), but since I was cooking a large serving of rice and I wanted it to taste extra scrumptious I used quite a bit.
For my recipes I would be using red bell pepper, tomatoes, and a jalapeno pepper which I sliced open and mixed with chopped basil and thyme, all fresh from my garden, and dredged with extra virgin olive oil, which I then marinated together overnight in my fridge. After dicing up the tomaters I sauteed them 

with fresh oil and the marinated basil. Make sure all the juice of the tomaters are used because you wanna cook the whole thang until all the liquid burns off and you get a syrupy collaboration of flavors. That will be added to the dish later.

Go ahead and saute a medium sized onion with shallots, all diced, in oil (the oil I marinaded in before, with the bits of thyme still in it and some of the basil) and add your water which will be used for the rice and bring it to a boil. This will make a broth for the rice to soak up all the flavors. If you were using chicken (which is a very traditional ingredient), I didn't, you'd want to cook the chicken in the oil as well to make it a chicken broth. I wanted to make sure I had a lot of food for everyone and leftovers so I made 6 cups of rice to 12 cups water. As long as you do a 1:2, w/v (rice:water) ratio you should be fine. The rice can cook for a long ass time because it's so starchy which is good because I had to cook it forever to tenderize the chorizo. Chorizo is something I haven't cooked before and apparently the good stuff, like I bought, is very tough and uncooked. If I do this again, I'm going to cook the chorizo on the side first and then add it to the rice after it's well cooked. 

Now, traditionally you're supposed to use a paellera, a round shallow cooking pan designed specifically for paella. They range from 25 to 100 bucks depending on quality. But I'm a college student so, yeah, fuck that. However if you're a purist, go for it and serve your guests out of it.
For seafood I steamed mussels which should come closed (denoting their alive) and open (denoting their fully cooked/dead) when steamed. Just steam them in a covered skillet with water for about 5 minutes. I recommend cutting them free from their shells and drizzling some fresh lime over them. There is a lot to consider with mussels so you may want to do your research on them. Speaking of which I have a side note. Although they're supposed to be closed, I bought them at a respectable market where I got all my seafood (99 ranch market, an asian market) and they were sold in a water bath and they were all fully open. Which struck me as odd but even after sitting in my fridge overnight (make sure to put them in a collander covered with a wet paper towel or in the bag w/ a hole cut in it so they can breath) they still smelled one hundred percent fresh. And after cooking them, they tasted - again - fresh. So I guess if they were dead they weren't for too long and kept for a good time, which I hear is what 99 Ranch Market is known for. So I highly recommend them. 
Also, for seafood, I was recommended red snapper. A friend I was cooking for wanted a whole fish in the dish so the fish's essential oils and flavors would soak into the rice. I rarely cook with fish, but fortunately the fishmonger knew that snapper was the right choice - it was by the way - very light and creamy, perfect for this dish. They took care of the gill situation, degutted, descaled and removed the tail. I kept the head though because with most seafood that's where all the flavor is and also the cheeks are the best part. I placed the fish, whole in, into the rice when all the top water disappeared (which should be when it's pretty hot). (This is also when I added the smoked paprika - which was from Spain! (a couple of tablespoons), saffron, and the tomatoe mixture) Apparently it was hot because the sucker was fully cooked in about 10 minutes. 

Getting it out is tricky because the heat will practically dissolve it and you'll probably be fishing out fish bones. Scrap out all the meaty bits including what you can scrounge from the head, as the paella keeps cooking. Now I didn't do this because I was kinda in a flurry from all the millions of things I was doing at once, but you can serve a guest(s) the eyeballs and cheeks.
I also bought a pound of large shrimp (technically not prawns, but you can get those instead if you want something really big). There are tons of ways to prepare shrimp. I like to remove the shells by pinching off the tail at the tip and peeling off the 2-3 panels that remain. Then I devein the poop, only because some get squeamish about that shit. But in their defense that shit can get pretty murky/sedimenty tasting and throw off the dish's flavor so it's probably best to just remove it. Then I gently pop off the head shell, but keep all the head gunk because like I said that's where all the flavor is. Yummy! I marinaded that for about 2 to 3 hours in chili garlic sauce (rooster sauce) and 

oil. Yeah, there's a LOT of oil in this recipe. Sautee for about 5 mins or until the shrimp are fully cooked. Set aside the cooked shrimp, fish and mussels. Add them when the rice is to your liking and the chorizo is just right. Then just add all the seafood, mix it up a spell and you're ready to serve. I recommend a peppery or fruity red wine that has a bold flavor to compete with the dish. Many recommend Spanish wines from the Rioja region. But no one seemed to care about the wines (me neither). Everyone was pretty syked about the sangria concotion I invented. So here's the recipe for that fan favorite:
1 part Madria Sangria 
2 part Hawaii's Own Paradise Punch (follow the instructions on the can)
1/2 part Perrier Lemon
I kept that in the freezer for several hours to make it into a slushie which I *highly* recommend.

Serve with french baguettes to soak up all the juicy flavors. I refuse to slice bread so my friends can break bread with me.


I served this with a side dish commonly used in Spain: ham, veggies and oil. Yeah they like their oil and meats in case you haven't figured that out yet. I marinaded a cubed Virginia ham (Serrano is prefered) in oil and garlic. 

VIRGINIA HAM!!!!!

I also marinaded the sliced red bells mentioned earlier with sugar snap peas and thrice sliced asparagus. 

Apparently it's common to steam and then skillet cook veggies in Spain so I did that. I have good days and bad with asparagus because the tip cooks so readily and the fat part takes forever and has a hard, waxy, slivery texture when uncooked. And I don't want to overcook the tips just to get the fat parts edible. So let me know if you have a special way to cook these bastards. I think the ham was smoked (even though it wasn't labeled as such) because it cooked super quick so be very careful if you use Virginia *smoked* ham. It will be super salty, fatty in parts, but oh Lordy so flavorful. I added the water from the steaming part of the recipe because as I mentioned the asparagus butts were being stubborn and I was afraid of overcooking the ham. That way the ham would stay moist and the asparagus could boil. No one seemed to notice and it came out nice. I debated about adding walnuts to the dish, so that may be a consideration.

For dessert I did something very light because everyone's gonna be exhausted and super full from the food. I had a bowl of strawberries, sour cream, and brown sugar. You dip a strawberry in the cream and then dip it in sugar. My family used to do this alot. I'm glad I did that. I almost served blueberries in milk with sugar. A friend recommended nuking the brown sugar for like 15 secs if it gets clumpy. So that's a pro tip.


I wanna thank all my friends that I invited. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to post your thoughts, questions, advice/pointers. You can post as Anonymous if you so desire.

¡Buen provecho!

Catering for a Crowd

This is a modification on the cheezy tater-filled dog recipe that has been repurposed to serve as an hors d'oeuvre. The cheese and taters obviously stay the same, but go ahead and replace the dogs with cocktail weenies and the buns with crescent dough. Cocktail franks usually come in a package holding about 30 to 40 dogs so keep that in mind if you're entertaining guests. Slice the lil doggies lengthwise again, about halfway into them. You're going to want to boil them for about 10-15 minutes because the weenies will come uncooked and the baking process will be too short to actually cook the pork properly. This will also help puff out the sliver you made so it's easier to stuff the mashed taters in there. This time I cooked the taters with garlic and creole seasoning (I ran out of Tony Chachere's *tear* so I used some other name brand) to lend a mild spicy kick. A sliver of cheese is all you need, the size of which is up to you. It's best to use block cheese though to make it easier to handle when wrapping it up. When using the crescent dough to wrap up the dog, I have found it best to try stretching it out fairly tightly around the hot dog so it's a thinner crust. It may not cook evenly if it's thick, so making it thinner is best. You can always roll the dough out more with a pin prior to wrapping if you so desire. Each crescent piece should be enough to wrap 3 stuffed weenies. So if you're doing the math, 2 crescent dough rolls (each holding 8 crescent pieces) were enough for a bag of 40 weenies. The mashed taters were cooked for a serving of 2 and that was just enough for all of the dogs.

Once you have them assembled they only need to bake at 375 for 4 to 8 minutes until puffy and evenly golden brown. Really fast. Prep time is where most of the time is consumed. They're surprisingly lighter than I expected despite using fatty ingredients. Here's hoping they're a hit at the party!

Garden Fresh One Dish Meal

Hanging out with some of my buddies we wanted to make some grub using mostly fresh ingredients from the garden. My homie suggested an old family recipe mixing ground beef into a hollowed out summer squash. This is a one dish meal that can be modified around these two base ingredients. From the garden we used onion, garlic, habanero, bell pepper, arugula, and kale mixed in with the ground beef which was browned on medium heat in a skillet. We also added a healthy amount of bread crumbs to soak up all the greasy flavorings exuded from the meat.

Since this meal can be effectively baked for an extended time in the oven, it isn't an issue if you are dealing with an over-ripe squash, which we were dealing with. To prepare the squash, just slice it lenghtwise and scoop out the majority of the innards, but leave a decent amount of the flesh covering the rind. You will need that squash flesh later in the recipe. Go ahead and slather that bad boy with olive oil and place the beef/veggie mix into the core.

Sprinkle cheese over the top of the stuffed squash and bake at 350 for at least 20 minutes. You can always cook it for longer until the squash is tender if it's over-ripe. You may just need to lower the heat down to 300 or lower and bake for an extended period. You may also want to cover it in this case to prevent the meat from drying out too much, however the bread crumbs should prevent this from happening. When the dish is done you can scoop out that flesh you didn't remove along with all the stuffed ingredients and set them aside.

Just put all the scoopings back into the squash shell and enjoy! Removing more of the squash and mixing it in with the beef will make it more moist and add a nice stringy texture to the dish. It's very filling and has an outstanding savory flavor.