Chuzos y Salsa

Latin American Street Food

We have developed quite a few holiday traditions -- including Christmas lasagna. The friends with whom we have enjoyed vegetarian lasagnas the past few years have moved away, so I asked Pamela whether she might want to make a lasagna -- something she is good at and enjoys when she has a day free to do it. She had already been thinking of doing that when our son and daughter-in-law visit just after the holidays -- a splendid idea for a dish that feeds far more than the two of us.

So I went into full Nueva Receta mode, and started browsing through our cookbook shelves. I stopped at Latin American Street Food by Sandra A. Gutierrez, remembering that the last time I looked at it, I decided that the dishes that looked most appealing also looked too complicated for that day, so I had reshelved it. 

The geography lessons keep coming: all workers should be respected, in part because no job is as easy as it seems from a distance. This is particularly true of a lot of work involving food, and especially in the informal sector. We think of street food as easy because it is made to be easy for the customer; it should not be surprising that this often means it is a bit complicated for those who make and serve it.

But this was to be for our main Christmas meal -- in a house with no kids -- so there would be time for something good from this volume. Because we had recently purchased some local stew beef, I quickly settled on the recipe for Chuzos de Carne -- beef kabobs in beer marinade. This recipe from Colombia called for soaking a pound (or so) of beef cubes overnight in a mixture of one cup (or so) of dark beer, mixed with the following:

• a quartered lemon
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 small white onion, roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1-2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• salt and ground black pepper

Because I was preparing this at night and would be cooking it at the other house, I sealed all of this tightly in a large mason jar. A non-reactive bowl would have worked as well.

Gutierrez recommend serving this with a Colombian hot sauce, but she also mentions that she sometimes makes this in a much larger batch and serves it with several different sauces; she says any sauce in the book would do, so I thumbed through the volume until I found a Peruvian Spice Onion Salsa, which she also calls Salsa Criolla. 

For this I thinly sliced a red (aka purple) onion very thinly on the bias (Pamela looked that up for me -- it just means at an angle) and covered it with cold water. After 20 minutes, I drained it an mixed it with:

• 1 small pepper (see below)
• juice of one lime
• 1 splash of red wine vinegar 
• salt and ground black pepper
• 1 glug of olive oil

As you can see, I don't consider such niceties as teaspoons and tablespoons important in the making of salsa. For those who care, Gutierrez did mention a tsp of the vinegar and 2T of the oil. I let all of these ingredients meld for a couple of hours and added a handful of freshly chopped cilantro just before serving.

As for the pepper, the author first learned about this salsa from fish carts in Lima, so it calls for a Peruvian pepper known as aji amarillo. I correctly guessed that even our big local grocery would not have this, so I looked up possible substitutions. On the heat-flavor-availability trade-off matrix, I decided habañero -- used judiciously -- was my best bet. I had to buy a whole little tray of them and a little goes a long way, so I'll be using it in other things as much as I can! 

To put this meal together, I began by draining the beef in a colander and discarding the rest of the marinade. I did not pat the beef dry. I had intended to cook this on skewers -- as the name kabob implies -- but the weather was frightful, so I availed of the other alternative Gutierrez provides: stir-frying over medium-high heat in an indispensable cast-iron skillet. This added to the wonderful aromas that were already filling the house from the preparation of the salsa and the mere opening of the jar of marinade. 

I served this with the Mendoza Malbec Agua de Piedra (among my very favorite Malbecs), some oven-roasted potatoes, and mushrooms I had prepared in a reduction of port. We topped the beef generously with the salsa. 

The result was a fabulous mixture of flavors and textures -- worthy of a feast day for two. A friend who saw this photo online joked that he could smell it from miles away, and I think this was barely hyperbole. Walking into the house hours after the meal, the aromas were still satisfying.

Lagniappe 

We have been reading a bit about the concept of recipe jump buttons, which some cooking bloggers are providing and some recipe seekers are demanding. Those will not be appearing here for a few reasons.

The most important of these is that we consider food a vehicle of culture -- along with language, religion, and music. Abstracted too extremely, the "how" of cooking misses the point of the "why" and we are big fans of both.

Also important is that we are writing about cooking in part to encourage those who are not yet confident cooks to take some chances with something more challenging. We also sometimes alert experienced cooks to possible pitfalls in the original recipe we are using. Finally, we often innovate -- especially if we are do not have a particular ingredient on hand. Providing the whole story of a meal gives readers a chance to consider alternatives we have mentioned, or to understand the meal better so that they can make adjustments of their own. 

In the case of these recipes, I can confess that I did my own visual jump to the ingredients list and then to the instructions -- always do this at least a day ahead of time if possible. I then took the time to read the stories of the chuzo and the salsa while they were melding and marinating -- I highly recommend the book just for these stories!

We also were thinking of this in terms of a recent homage to Fannie Farmer, a Bostonian and fellow Unitarian. She is famous for introducing standard measurements that democratized home cooking and certainly has made this entire Nueva Receta project possible. At the same time, we wonder, did she make cooking seem like something a bit too, well, cookbook?

And finally, speaking of stories, we think there are some good ones around our first and second uses of Street Food. They are Calle to Mesa (2014) and Quesadillas de Rajas (2017).

Vieja Black Bean Quesadilla Receta

I mentioned these quesadillas in two recent blog posts -- first when I posted about shrimp I made instead of these and next when I posted about the wine I prepared to serve with them. In the process, I realized that because we have been making this since before we started the blog, we never got around to post it. So herewith, a Vieja Receta we enjoy several times a year. (The recipe is old, not the beans or the quesadilla!)

The recipe came from a booklet -- long ago discarded except for this page -- of recipes from a honey company.

To prepare these, I heat a can of black beans in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. The original recipe calls for rinsing and draining the beans; I prefer to cook them a bit longer and reduce the liquid that way. We add a cup or so of commercial salsa, though home-made would be even better. I add a dollop of honey and mix thoroughly. Because salsa adds water, it is important to cook long enough for some reduction.

While it is cooking, I shred cheese -- usually a mix of cheddar for bite and Monterey jack for smoothness; queso fresco would also be terrific. I either put the cheese on one half of each large tortilla or covering a small tortilla. Recent supply-chain issues pushed me to the latter this time. 

I then forget to include the called-for jalapeños and cilantro, because I have not looked at recipe in a long time. I heat the indispensable cast-iron griddle (on the other side of the stove) and put a bit of oil on it. I then spoon the bean mixture onto the cheese and either fold over the tortilla or place a second tortilla on top, as appropriate. I carefully place each quesadilla onto the griddle when it has reached medium-high heat. I almost immediately reduce the heat and when one side is done, very carefully turn each quesadilla.

Getting the heat right takes some practice. The idea is to gently brown the tortilla without burning it, while giving the cheese enough time over heat to melt thoroughly. 

The result is Casa Hayes-Boh comfort food. I can prepare this in about the time it took to write these few paragraphs. This simple, vegetarian dish is always enjoyable and went very well with the Glüwein we had for our solstice dinner.

Sad Irony

Although I always picture the honeybee from the cover of the original booklet when I make this recipe, I forgot the honey this time -- remembering it only after eating a couple bites. It was still delicious, but differently so.

Glücklich Glüwein

For the solstice earlier this week, Pamela found a recipe we could prepare without returning to the grocery store -- we had not thought about it before my most recent foraging. I was especially grateful because I was still a bit annoyed by the abrupt transformation of our closest store from full service to garish self-serve, just in time for the holidays. I am not exactly boycotting, but I was certainly not ready to head back. 

As we often do on cardinal and cross-quarter days, she opened our Wicca Cookbook. Main-course recipes mainly involved lamb, which we tend to avoid. A beverage option was appealing both for its simplicity and the expected level of coziness: Glüwein.

I poured a bottle of delicious Carmenere into a large pot and since the recipe called for more than twice this amount, I did some quick kitchen math to arrive at this list of amendments:

• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 6 whole cloves
• some lemon juice
• some orange juice
• some orange peel

I slowly raised this mixture to a boil and let it gently simmer -- covered -- while I made quesadillas. Since this was to be quick dinner and the Glüwein was supposed to simmer for an hour, I just slowed down the dinner prep and compromised at about 45 minutes. The recipe does not specify this, but I poured the mulled wine through a strainer into a bowl before transferring it to a serving pitcher. Not very rustic, but elegant and still very hygge. 

It may be tempting to use a cheap wine since other flavors are being added, but it was definitely worthwhile to use a wine that was very good -- and full-bodied -- on its own as the base for this concoction. The Carmenere is from the Colqui Valley of Chile and is very comparable to the Malbecs we more often drink. 

As cozy as the wine itself was the presentation. A habit we have had for 35 years has been particularly valuable throughout these unprecedented times of forced togetherness: we set the table for each meal, with cloth napkins and the like -- even a candle or oil lamp at dinner. Our pitcher and mugs were perfect for this -- and I did not think of their sun motif until we were seated. 

Lagniappe

Those quesadillas are a household favorite that had not yet appeared on this blog. I will be adding the very simple recipe shortly.

Pre-Fried Shrimp

 Let's not think of this as a calendar malfunction, but rather as a public service. 

Followers of this blog (and we think there are some) will know that we are suckers for "National Day" entries as an excuse to try new things. We usually find these because Pamela remembers to check -- again, regular readers will know that this is often a "day of" realization, and that we sometimes impress ourselves with the alacrity of our mid-day pivots.

So today was not entirely unusual -- early in the day I heard that today was National Fried Shrimp Day. I mentioned this to Pam and we decided we should mark the day. We already had plans for black bean quesadillas (I'm realizing that this Hayes-Boh standard is not yet on this blog) and I also have never fried shrimp before. So when Pam sent me a couple of recipe links, I decided right away that I would try the simpler of the two, and that I would make a small amount as an appetizer. I was in Fairhaven for the day, so I would be able to pick up some shrimp at Kyler's (the only place we buy seafood) on the way back to Bridgewater. 

And then I remembered that this is Monday. Because it is so busy on weekends, Kyler's closes its retail store on Mondays -- this has caught me flat-footed (or flat-finned) a couple of times in the past. I had already committed, so I set my coastal snobbery aside and made the shrimp purchase at our local grocer. I also picked up some peanut oil and some cocktail sauce.

I followed the simply titled recipe Fried Shrimp by Jonathan Reynolds on New York Times Cooking. Although the title is simple and the directions are both brief and very clear, I have to admit I was a little nervous about this -- and not just because of that one time a friend started a small kitchen fire while trying to fry shrimp. I was more afraid of a breading failure than of a conflagration.

I did make two kinds of modifications to the the instructions Reynolds provides. The first kind was kitchen math. Because I was using a half pound of shrimp instead of two pounds, I used a saucepan instead of a Dutch oven. This allowed me to us a small bottle of peanut oil.  Similarly, I reduced the egg/milk mixture to a single egg and half the milk. The second kind of mod was for flavor. As I often do with any kind of breading, I added Tabasco to the wet ingredients and Old Bay to the dry. Plenty of each.

Only when the shrimps were sitting in a bowl coated with panko (in lieu of cracker crumbs) did I venture to begin heating the oil. I applied medium-high heat and checked the temperature frequently. When it was close to 365F, I added the shrimps one by one.

As they simmered, I could see the breading going from skimpy to skimpier, and I realized I had no easy way to test for doneness. After a couple minutes, though, I skimmed a couple of them and realized the color was not yet uniform, so I let them go about a half minute more. I quickly removed them all to a paper towel, using a bagel skimmer. 

We let them cool long enough to open a bottle of coastal-grown dry Riesling from Westport Rivers. During this time, I nearly convinced myself that this was to be a one-off project. The results were not photo-worthy and this was clearly a dish that would be cheaper to buy than to make. But the proof of te pudding (or shrimp) is in the tasting. These were quite delicious -- and also filling. We decided that what we prepared as an appetizer would serve as our entire meal.

And being somewhat agog at the unit cost of high-temperature peanut oil, I sieved and bottled it for my next frying project. 

That Calendar Malfunction 

And now for the calendar PSA. In the midst of my cooking, Pamela checked the National Day Calendar and reported that it did not list today as shrimp day. We joked about having an unofficial celebration, as if there were anything official about the many other National Day celebrations we have had. After the fact, though, I noticed that tomorrow is indeed National French Fried Shrimp Day. If you are reading this in time, you can honor the day as you honor the solstice -- on December 21.

National Cookie Day - Brownie Cookies (with coffee!)

Saturday (December 4) was National Cookie Day according to the National Day Calendar. For me cookies are homemade (or go home!) so I took a gander at the subset of cookbooks we keep at our weekend house and found a seldom used coffee cookbook which I assumed would include a choice of dessert items. Indeed it did, and I selected Brownie Cookies mostly because the ingredient list included nothing I would need to run to the store for. Although I did notice that it called for instant coffee, as did most of the other recipes. We never have instant coffee on hand, but since the instructions said to dilute one T. of instant coffee granules in 2 T. hot water James and I determined that brewing a small amount of super strong coffee would bring the same result - an excellent use for our Melitta single-serve pour-over brewer.

As cookies often do, this recipe required two mixing bowls. I mixed the dry ingredients together, and then everything else except the eggs and chocolate chips in a separate bowl as instructed. However, I accidently then put the eggs into the dry, rather than wet bowl at which point it seemed that the better part of valor was to simply beat everything together. 

The cookies did have more of a consistency of chewy brownies than crunchy cookies. A bit on the sweet side. I usually cut the recommended sugar in a recipe by 1/3 to 1/2 which I neglected to do. It really is something I need to remember.

Measurements for flour are 2 1/2 c.

for cocoa powder 1/3 c.

for brown sugar 3/4 c.

for chocolate chips 1 1/2 c.

Bake at 325 for 9-11 minutes

6.28 or Two Pies

We were happy this Thanksgiving to get back to our usual tradition of having dinner with our friends Lisa, Rob, and their children. Last year's Thanksgiving "lite" was better than not getting together at all, but for us spending the day together cooking and laughing is just as important as the enjoying the meal. 

As is often my role in this annual celebration, I made dessert. I like lots of kinds of pies, but my favorite is key lime. However, I discovered from Atlas Obscura that in fact Sour Orange Pie predates  key lime as Florida's favorite. I don't think I'd ever heard of Sour Orange Pie before, and I don't know where I would even find sour oranges, but luckily the recipe explains that equal parts orange juice and lemon juice can be substituted for the sour orange juice. The pie is much like a key lime pie, with a citrusy-custard filling and load of whipped cream on top. 

This calls for a graham cracker crust "either pre-baked or store bought". I of course made my own crust. Luckily James found that our local grocery store actually sold graham cracker crumbs for just such an occasion. Whenever I've made a graham cracker crust in the past I've had to crush the crackers myself, and always wound up with rather inconsistent crumbing.

The pie was sweet and tart. It turned out that I liked it as much as I do a good key lime.

The very first pie I remember liking was a chocolate pie. I think I had only had store-bought fruit pies up to that point in my then-short life, and they were nasty. Pies of all sorts can make me happy now, as long as they are not store-bought (even bakery pies rarely thrill me). I like mine homemade. As an adult I have always enjoyed pecan pie (even though it is often cloyingly sweet). When I saw a recipe from the New York Times for Chocolate Pecan Pie it seemed like a perfect celebratory dessert that brought together two of my favorite types of pie.

This one has a flaky crust. Crust making always feels like a major project to me, but must needs and all. This recipe calls for putting the crust ingredients in a food processor, which I do not own. So, I did what I always do in this situation, I used my blender. The crust ultimately turned out flakier than any other I've made, so I may follow this process in the future. And my resolve not to purchase a food processor remains in tact.

Image: shamelessly lifted by James
from Texas Smokehouse

The filling calls for bittersweet chocolate "to give depth to what is traditionally an achingly sweet pie". James went to the store on Monday before Thanksgiving to buy the ingredients we needed, which included bittersweet chocolate. He called me from the grocery to ask if chips would be okay, to which I responded that if he could find bittersweet chocolate chips that would be great. When I was ready to make the pie on Wednesday I noticed that there was a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, and asked if he also bought bittersweet chocolate. No, he hadn't. Did it matter, he wanted to know. Of course it matters. We don't want our pie to be "achingly sweet" after all. Back to the store he went for the appropriately sweetened chocolate. The pie was very good not only because it wasn't too sweet, but the filling also included bourbon to give it a "grownup finish", plus more pecans than many recipes call for which gave it better texture as well as a better flavor.

Meat Loaf

 It would appear that we have never posted about meat loaf before. I'm a little surprised by this. But, I also know that we rarely have prepared this in our 34 years of marriage. The impetuous for the preparation of this ultimate of comfort foods was a bit of ground beef, a bit of spicy sausage meat, a bit of "bacon ends" and some leftover rice all sitting side by side in our refrigerator. Since I indeed had not made meat loaf in quite some time I turned to Amy Sedaris for some guidance. What I prepared was only loosely based on the recipe in her book I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. For instance, I, remarkably, had no garlic or onion, so I used garlic salt and onion powder as substitutes. She called for ketchup (no quantity given). I used a can of tomato sauce. I used one egg instead of two because that was all I had. I also threw in about a cup of the cooked rice. I topped the loaf with some of the bacon ends before baking - a suggestion Amy provides. The loaf baked at 350 for 55 minutes. It wasn't as firm as either James or I remembered our mothers' loaves to be, but it was tasty and made for some good leftovers for lunches this week.

The ingredient list as provided in the cookbook is pictured below.

Easy Spicy Chicken

Deciding to continue our recent success with recetas nuevas, on Sunday afternoon I took An Appetite for Passion from the shelf. For the long version of our interest in this book -- which has nothing to do with the author and everything to do with the writer of its forward -- see our 2014 Cooking in the Car post.

I include a photo of the book cover because it is much more attractive than a photo of the dinner would be. Delicious food is not always photogenic. 

Thumbing through the thin volume for dinner ideas, I noticed that many of the recipes are for seafood, but we would not have a chance to get to the fishmonger before Monday. And I no longer buy seafood at the regular grocery store. If there are not boats behind the store, I'm probably not buying fish there. I might be moving this book to the shelf of our ocean-proximate kitchen in Fairhaven.

The book has a lot of desserts and breakfasts, which could serve as a dinner. But I kept turning pages. At least two recipes call for venison, duck, or other meats that I am not set up to bring in, as it were. 

But then I saw a simple recipe for spiced roast chicken. I do often roast chickens, as readers of this blog know. But I decided that this recipe could succeed with the boneless chicken breasts that are part of our weekly dairy delivery. 

Preparation was very simple. In a small bowl, I combined brown sugar, ground cinnamon, cumin, red pepper flakes, fresh-ground black pepper, ground coriander, chili powder and just a little salt. I crunched these together thoroughly with a teaspoon. 

The recipe calls for rubbing this mixture under the skin of the chicken before roasting -- much as I have done with Thanksgiving turkeys in recent years. (In fact, I might just spice up next week's turkey just a little next week.) I knew that these chicken breasts would be delicious and tender, but with no surface fat to work with. So I turned them in a bowl with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil before rubbing on the sugar-spice mixture.

I then heated a mixture of oil and butter in an indispensable cast-iron skillet, adding the breasts when the pan was hot enough to sear them. After 2-3 minutes, I turned them, searing the other side. I then lowered the heat and began to prepare the side dish -- just leftover brown rice that I fried in another skillet, scrambling in one farm-fresh egg from our friend's chickens.

I served this with some chilled cranberry sauce -- a delicious mix of flavors, temperatures, and textures. We often write that our meal paired well with Malbec from Mendoza, but this time it was an exceptional pairing. Highly recommend. 

Chowdah de Crab

Our weekend house is only beach-proximate, but it is close enough that careful readers of this space will know we have added The Beach House Cookbook by Mary Kay Andrews to the small collection of cookbooks in the galley at Whaling House. It is full of fun, flexible recipes -- some of them involving seafood.

We turned to this volume when we finally got around to inviting some friends over who live full-time near the same waterfront. Pamela found a suitably maritime recipe: crab chowder.

Followers of this space may also have noticed that we are somewhat finicky about all things crab. Being from Maryland, we are cautious when our national crustacean is prepared by non-Chesapeake folks, even if they are good with other seafood. But we would be in charge of this dish, and we would get our crab, if not from the Great Shellfish Bay itself, then at least from a trusted Maryland.

The location of the cookbook ends up being consequential -- we looked over the recipe and jotted down some ingredients but not others. The result was more than the usual number of substitutions. One of those was fortuitous -- I replaced all of the called-for chicken broth by doubling (OK, more than doubling) the half-and-half. And I don't regret that!

How I made this -- as executed, not exactly as written:

I heated some olive oil, and added some chopped up bacon. We had bacon ends rather than slices, so I coarsely chopped them. Once crisp -- after about eight minutes -- I added finely chopped onion, in lieu of shallots. I then added a bit more oil and a pound of tiny red potatoes, each quartered. I added a seafood seasoning mix and I sautéed these for about 5 more minutes before adding most of a bag of frozen corn (of course I would have used local corn a few weeks ago) and close to a quart of half-and-half.

I brought it to a simmer -- actually, I covered it and walked away at the wrong time. It boiled over. But it did not get overheated on the bottom, so I moved it to another burner and controlled the heat more carefully. I kept it on a low simmer for 30 minutes. 

Near the end, I added a full pound of Phillips lump crab meat (from Costco, rather than our local fish monger; again, it's a Maryland thing). I then added a tablespoon of flour I had whisked together with just a splash of reserved half-and-half. I also stirred in a glug of port (in lieu of sherry) and kept simmering until the crab was gently broken up and heated through, about 10 more minutes.

We served this with Pamela's famous skillet cornbread and a fruit salad. This all paired quite well with two different unoaked Chardonnays and was followed by a sweet, tannic punsch from Sweden.

This was not a meal made for photography; hence the iconic crab above rather than the chowder itself. 

Seedy Salmon

We've gotten a bit lax in our dinner planning the past few weeks. At the height of the pandemic we had all three daily meals planned for 7-10 days out. This week we've found ourselves asking "what's for dinner?" at least twice. Last night was one of those nights, but fortunately we had plans to be in Fairhaven for  Veteran's Day which meant that we could make a stop at our favorite fishmonger Kyler's Catch where we picked up some salmon to make Crispy Salmon with Mixed Seeds from the New York Times Cooking page. 

The unseasonably warm weather here in New England meant that we still had fresh mint growing on the side of our house, we also still had a bit of parsley growing on our back porch, which was good since this recipe called for fresh herbs. 

I chopped some of the herbs and mixed them with a cup of plain Greek yogurt, along with some lemon zest and salt. A small bit of this was placed in a separate dish and then mixed with 1 T. of sesame seeds, 1 t. cumin seeds, and 1/2 t. fennel. I spread this mix onto the flesh side of the fish and placed in our indispensable cast iron skillet with some lemon-infused olive oil, skin side down, over medium heat. It cooked for about 12 minutes, and then I flipped it, which caused the skin to peel off the bottom. It still took a few more minutes to cook through. Salmon often has a thick spot in the middle that takes longer to cook than the rest of it. I cut the fillet in half to help it cook a bit faster. 

This was served with brown rice, lemon wedges, and the rest of the herbs and yogurt on the side.

Chicken Saltimbocca

Sometimes we just want to use what we have in the house without doing any big shopping. We had some chicken breast in the freezer and some soft queso blanco and sliced ham in the refrigerator, so we did some searching on The New York Times Cooking Pages and found this recipe.  A fairly easy dish, but be sure you cover the chicken before flattening with a meat mallot (or in my case a big spoon), and it does need time to marinate, so even though it is easy enough, you will want to start at least 90 minutes before you plan to eat.

The recipe says to brown the breasts in a skillet and then transfer to a baking dish to broil. Of course if you use your indispensable cast-iron skillet, you will be able to brown and broil in the same dish. The sage gives this not only a nice flavor but texture as well. I don't like prosciutto, so plain ol' ham was substituted.

Salmon in cream sauce with tomatoes

We do love our fresh scallops from Kyler's Catch Seafood. Usually James is in charge of cooking them, but I gave it a try last week with this lovely recipe from the New York Times Cooking page. James demonstrated to me how to remove the "foot" (a chewy muscle) from each scallop before cleaning.

I started by sauteeing the onion in butter in our indispensable cast-iron skillet, and then added the seasonings. Fresh chopped tomatoes procured from the Fairhaven Farmer's Market were added. These cooked for about 8-9 more minutes. Next I added some white wine and cooked for about 5 more minutes then added Worcestershire sauce and heavy cream. I continued to cook until it thickened. Scallops were added last and cooked for about 5 more minutes.

This fairly easy, although it did require a bit of stirring and watching. Scallops can be easily overdone and then become too chewy.

Our new "house" drink

National Mead Day is the first Saturday in August, and I do like my Mead. I determined that since we were celebrating Mead, that we should make a Mead cocktail rather then simply drinking a glass. After an online search we and decided on A Cure for What Ails You. Off we went to our local liquor store, only to discover that they had no Mead! As we were about to give up we noticed a bottle of something called "Brandymel" and decided that we could be flexible.

The original recipe we found calls for 2 1/2 parts Mead; 1 part lemon juice; and 1 1/2 parts ginger beer, but since we were using liquor instead of "wine" we cut back a bit on the alcoholic portion. I adapted by using one six-ounce bottle of ginger beer, two ounces of lemon juice, and two shot glasses full of the Brandymel (for two servings). I mixed everything together in a measuring cup then poured over ice into two glasses. So refreshing for a hot summer day! We have dubbed it our new "house drink".

Corny Corn

We picked up some corn at the local farmers' market yesterday and decided to cook it on the #BigGreenEgg. But how to do it? (Our usual approach is simply to bring a big pot of water to a boil before putting the husked ears in for exactly ten minutes.)

The EGGhead forum offered many options; we settled on a simple one. We removed the husks and soaked the corn, while heating up the Egg to about 400. (Since we were essentially using it for a quick, direct cooking, we did not worry too much about the exact temp.)

Then we put the ears directly on the grill, turning every five minutes with our indispensable kitchen tongs. Giving the corn a 5-minute head start, I then put some burgers on the griddle insert.

When the burgers were done (perfectly, I might add!), I could not tell if the corn was done. I asked Pam to look with me, and we agreed that we really had no way to know. So we took the burgers in for condimentage, which in our house is always a process. At this point, the corn had 20 minutes of regular turning over high heat, so we decided to declare victory.

Photo shamelessly stolen from EGGhead Forum
member bitslammer

And a victory was had! I did not think to try a photo until too late, but the corn looked a lot like the image above, taken from the forum. We were skeptical -- it looks tough and we like our corn-on-the-cob tender. Somehow, though, it was -- tender and delicious. I think the soaking must have played a big part in this. I applied nothing but Amish butter and a little black pepper to mine.

Lagniappe

This simple story is not a recipe story in the traditional sense, but it is a good example of what happens as we build cooking experience. Once we decided on a goal, Pam and I each consulted a wide variety of informed opinions. We did not follow any one of them as a script, but as a group, the other #BigGreenEgg users gave us key things to consider as we figured this out. 

Some of those ideas require considerably more time and effort; following this success, we might just revisit those and keep exploring the world of grilled corn. Local corn, that is, not the King Corn stuff.

FTE Air-Fryer Potato Wedges

Note: This is one of those long posts that people who do not like cooking blogs like to complain about. Read from the bottom up if you only want the recipe. But stories are what makes civilizations, so ...

So we accidentally ended up being air-fryer people. We cook a lot, as readers of this blog know. And since we often try new things, we are tempted by all kinds of cooking tools (aka gadgets). But we are also relatively frugal and can envision just about anything we buy landing up at a yardsale, landfill, or ocean plastic patch. As quick as we are to try a new recipe, we are slow to try new equipment.

We've been hearing about air fryers -- because how could we not -- for a few years, and had only the vaguest notion of what they are. We had heard some encouraging testimonials, but not enough to spur us to serious research.

And then the electric range at our weekend place died. Well, it did not die completely, but it was in need of enough serious repair that we decided to put it out to electronic pasture. Somewhere, it is probably refurbished and serving someone else just fine.

As food snobs, we had thought we would need to "upgrade" to natural gas when replacing this range, especially since we are in the process of making this weekend place our retirement place. 

But the house has a surplus of solar power and natural gas is a bridge to nowhere. So we decided to invest in an electric oven as -- we hope -- our last oven purchase.

Following advice from friends, we located an independent appliance dealer (one we used for years ended when its owners retired, and big-box is not the way to to go for these big boxes).

We found the folks at Yale Appliance to be excellent, allowing us to select an oven through consultation with a knowledgeable salesperson by smartphone and to schedule delivery quickly and conveniently. The crew who brought the stove were amazing -- while two of them removed the old range, the third team member readied the new unit. They had it installed, leveled, and tested within minutes.

After choosing what we thought was a fairly basic model, we of course learned of its features. They include WiFi (that's a hard "no" Hal), two kinds of convection and air frying. Everything we read about air frying is that it is a kind of convection, so we are still not quite sure what makes it "frying" rather than "really even cooking" but it seems to be just a matter of degree.

Further research suggested that one other distinction is that we could not "air fry" something unless it was suspended in the air; that is, we needed some sort of basket. Between the two of us, we have worked at the Big Three frying places (McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King -- we have tales to tell), so we know what a fryer basket is. An air fryer basket is much different -- called a "crisper tray," it looks something like a little dish rack. I spent way too much time reading reviews because I could not really envision how this would work. We were already $1500 into this project, though, so I plunked down another $30 to see for myself.

Pretty confident that none of our printed cookbooks would address this topic -- all of them being published more than 5 minutes ago -- I turned to AllRecipes, which regular readers know as one of our favorite places for food advice on the Interwebs. I found a 5-star recipe with the perfect title for my first time frying air: Air Fryer Potato Wedges provides guidance on cutting, coating, and cooking potatoes. 

My approach differed slightly from the recipe -- because some sources cautioned against using oil at all, I decided to combine oil and spices in a bowl and dredge the wedges in that paste. Kitchen tongs made this much less messy than it might have been. 

Because I was preparing this for Pamela to do while I was rowing, I thought that some of that oil might drip onto the tray. So I placed paper towels between the basket and the tray, to be removed when these were ready to cook. Pam did the honors -- cooking an uncrowded trayfull for 20 minutes at 400F. She did not interrupt for turning, as that is the whole point of the rapid air movement.

These turned out PERFECT. A very similar flavor to what I have been making for years -- very Old Bay-forward -- but with a much lighter texture. These were soft on the inside and crispity on the outside, with no heavy oiliness. Win-win-win!

Regarding the reviews for the tray: most were 4-5 stars, with some very interesting and angry 1-star reviews. I concluded that these were posted by people who did not read the directions about cooking and/or cleanup. Our results were terrific and the tray/basket combo cleaned up easily.

Oeuf Mayo (Egg Mayo)

In honor of Bastille Day James and I had a simple French dish for lunch. Oeuf Mayo showed up on my Facebook feed from the New York Times Cooking Pages. According to NYT the description "it's so beloved in France that it has a society to protect it." As with so many recipes from the New York Times the name of the dish tells the ingredients. In this case eggs and mayo. The recipe says you can use either store-bought mayo and spice it up or make it yourself. I made mayonnaise one time many years ago and decided not to do it again. Vegetable oil (rather than olive oil) seems to be especially important when making your own mayo, and I only had olive oil. I added some fresh parsley and basil from my garden to a few tablespoons of Hellmann's along with a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper. I spooned the mayo over the eggs and then added paprika as an additional seasoning. It was a super easy dish to make, but I think I prefer my eggs and mayo as egg salad. We had some mozzarella slices on the side and a crusty french bread (made fresh in our bread machine) to complement the eggs.

Those who have read my very first post know that this blog was inspired by one of my Spanish professors. I was a Spanish major as an undergraduate, and also have a Master's degree in Spanish literature. However, we both also know a bit of French. I learned the language by attending French classes up through the advanced level in college. James has learned mostly by the use of the Duolingo app over the past year - a pandemic project. We actually met in French 101 back in college. It is still a wonder to me how we ever ended up together given James' super poor attendance record in the class.

Blueberry Syrup

Blueberries from our garden!

 

We have had blueberry bushes for the past three years, but they didn't produce much the first year, and last year the birds got to them. This year our blueberry farmer friend covered the bushes with a net and they have been producing like crazy for about the past month. We have made good use of them in our morning smoothies, in waffles, fruit salad, and in reprising a seafood favorite - blueberry salmon. And yet there are still more berries, so I decided to make some blueberry syrup. I found this super simple recipe online which I doubled because I had so very many blueberries. This calls for equal parts berries, sugar, and water, and a bit of lemon juice. We have used it on french toast, and in lieu of jelly on our English muffins. James is going to try putting some in the waffle batter this weekend.

Honey Chicken

One lesson I have learned over my years of preparing new recipes is that it is not enough to simply ensure that I have all the ingredients (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) before starting; it is imperative to read the instructions as well. Woe has been begotten on more than one occasion when I discovered that I should have started preparing the food hours before I actually did. So I am pleased to report that I was successful in my preparation of this tasty recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages. A marinade of sherry, honey, line juice, crushed garlic, cinammon, salt, and pepper was easily mixed and poured over the whole, fresh, cut up chicken we'd recently procured from Maribett Farm. The chicken marinated in the refrigerator for about 8 hours and then was placed in the oven for 50 minutes at 350 degrees. As the recipe instructed I basted often and was pleased with the juicy, tender, savory, and sweet meal that resulted. I served this was mashed potatoes on the side and a Chardonnay to complement.

Gochugaru Salmon with Crispy Rice

When this recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages showed up on my Facebook feed along with a colorful photograph I decided to find out what Gochugaru was (a Korean pepper spice) and find out where I could get such in order to prepare this dish. My husband and adult child went looking locally, both online and irl but struck out, so we resorted to Amazon. The spice arrived just in the knick of time before we left for a long weekend at our near-the-beach house. The salmon was (naturally) purchased at our favorite fishmonger Kyler's Catch Seafood Market. 

This was pretty quick to make. The most time consuming part was waiting for the rice to cook. We only had brown rice, so it took a bit longer than the white rice that the recipe calls for. Once the rice was cooked it was "crisped" in the same pan that the fish cooked in, and then the same pan was used again to make the sauce.

As promised in the original recipe this had a sweet, fruity taste. We all enjoyed this meal and will definitely make again. We will also look for other recipes using this spice.

Eggs Benedict for Father's Day

On the rare occasions that I eat breakfast out I look for Eggs Benedict on the menu. It is one of those things that I (for some reason) believed I could not make at home. I had never even bothered to look up the ingredients to Hollandaise sauce, never mind how easy it was to make. It was a package of Canadian bacon in a recent Crescent Ridge delivery that prompted me to see what I needed to do to make Eggs Benedict at home. Turns out the answer is "not much". We already had the eggs and English muffins and the only ingredients needed for Hollandaise sauce are egg yolks, butter, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper. I used this recipe from The Kitchn to make it. 

Father's Day breakfast was a big hit. We recommend adding a dash of hot sauce when serving.

Zucchini Banana Muffins

What does one do when one has some extra-ripe bananas and a zucchini on the edge? Look for something to bake that uses both ingredients of course! A simple Google search using the words yielded me plenty of results from which I selected this recipe for Zucchini Banana Muffins from "Baked by an Introvert". Except for the optional banana chips (which I did not use) I had everything I needed to make these super moist muffins in my pantry. Beyond the oil (I used lemon-infused olive oil) and the eggs the liquid mostly comes from the water in the zucchini, so there is no milk or water called for.

The only change I made to the recipe was to use 1/2 cup of brown sugar, rather than 3/4 cup. I almost always use a bit less sugar than what is called for, especially when baking with fruit. I find that the rest of the flavors are more likely to come through this way.

We will be enjoying these treats for a few more days.

Very Local Chicken

Which came first, the chicken or the #BigGreenEgg? 

I really do not know, but they came together nicely for two dinners a few weeks ago. Our good friends at Maribett Farm recently offered chickens either whole or cut in the traditional eight pieces, expertly processed and frozen. Given the choice between the two, my immediate answer was "YES," by which I meant one of each.

Something about the restaurant industry makes it nearly impossible to find bone-in mole poblano in restaurants and something about the poultry industry makes it almost as difficult to find a whole chicken cut-up (as opposed to packages of a half dozen or more of the same part). So I used the pieces to make a scrumptious mole, following a combination of the many mole approaches described in this blog over the years.

For the whole chicken, I took an opposite approach: simplicity to bring out the flavor of humanely and sustainably raised poultry. I followed the recipe for chicken with lemon, garlic and rosemary from the Big Green Egg web site, with no variations. Following the temperature and timing guidelines, I did not open the Egg until the time I would expect for the somewhat larger size of the bird we had, and we were very pleased with the result. 

NOTE: Readers in southeast Massachusetts can check the Maribett Farm Facebook page for chicken availability. As of this writing (June 14), the farm is taking orders.

Lagniappe

It is difficult to believe how long it has been since I assisted the Maribett chicken operations by delivering chickens to the farm a couple of times. For a summer delivery of a couple dozen live chickens, the family station wagon was the ideal conveyance of new chickens to the farm.

Chicken Run Selfie: I'm James and I will be your driver today.

Super Simple Spicy Salmon

 On Thursdays we eat pink - pink salmon that is! 

When we bought our near-the-beach house six years ago we had the intention of going there together on Thursday nights when James had his rowing night, and then having a fresh, home-cooked seafood dinner together before heading back to our primary residence in Bridgewater. 

It has not always worked as intended, and this past year (plus) even less so as rowing was shut down. Last night we were back to business as (almost) usual with a stop a Kyler's Catch to pick up some salmon before James went off with his rowing buddies at Whaling City Rowing. Our super wonderful adult child is visiting so we enjoyed a family meal together. We selected an easy recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages: Four-Spice Salmon. 

We had all of the four spices called for (coriander, cloves, cumin, and nutmeg) in our spice rack, so once we had the salmon we were good to go. The only additional ingredients were salt and pepper and butter. I used lemon-pepper seasoning and some coconut-infused sea salt from Saltopia. I seasoned both sides with all the spices (although the recipe only says to do one side) then cooked on the stovetop in butter about 3 minutes per side. I served with super simple sautéed squash. This paired well with an oaky Malbec. 

Final verdict: Three thumbs up!

Birthday Scallops

Careful readers of this blog will know that on our birthdays, Hayes-Bohs get whatever they want for dinner and dessert. Or pretty close to it. They will also know that throughout the year, our culinary choices are increasingly influenced by the National Day Calendar. Pam's birthday dinner this year was a result of a confluence of these tendencies, though with a fairly flexible application of the calendar.

A couple weeks before the blessed event, Pam noticed that May 16 is National Coquilles Saint Jacques Day. Because it fell on a weekend this year and she noticed it ahead of time, we seriously thought about celebrating this heretofore unknown holiday on its actual date. But the recipe highlighted on the National Day site seemed a bit complicated and more worthy of a birthday celebration.

Bonus: waiting also meant that our visiting son could both be part of the celebration and part of the brain power needed to overcome one challenge we faced: this appetizer (or appetizer-as-meal in our case) is traditionally served on a scallop shell. I hoped our local fishmonger might have them -- as it is located in one of the world's premiere scallop-landing harbors -- but no such luck. Way too late in the planning, I realized that I could get scallop plates online. 

In progress but not in focus -- note
Harvey's skillful potato piping

Here is where our Harvey's creativity came in: the recipe calls for piping mashed potatoes around the edge of the shells, like icing at the edge of a cake. We could therefore use potatoes as the base of this appetizer. We essentially created a seafood version of twice-baked potatoes, following the recipe above to a tee, except that we began by slicing and partly baking potatoes, scooping them out, and then using that for an edge that our artist was able to create using his mad dexterity. He also rightly suggested brushing with olive oil and dusting with paprika before the broiling stage.

Grey-on-gray food made a bit more
photogenic by salad and cool nautical
pepper shaker

While I followed the rest of the recipe carefully in terms of ingredients, I did not do so in terms of sequence. I thought the sauce would take longer than the bouillon and the potatoes longer than either of these, so I did things in an awkward order this really complicated what should have been a very basic white sauce. If I follow this recipe again, I would still start the potatoes early, but I would complete the  bouillon starting the sauce.

Image: Holy Art

On May 16 next year, however, I will be prepared in two ways. First, I will have purchased the correct plates, harvested in the British Isles. Second, curious about the word "coquille" I found out that it means any appetizer of this sort involving a wine and cream sauce. I found several other recipes that do not involve potatoes, and I think they will be easier.  One of those recipes is in Scallops: A New England Coastal Cookbook, which also includes some remarkable information about the natural history of bay scallops. Incidentally, this was my first time cooking with bays -- I had always been intimidated.

DESSERT

We musn't forget dessert! Key lime pie is usually Pam's first choice and I have often managed to make a decent one including, apparently, in May 2017. (For the record, she has been to Key West just once; I have not yet gotten to any of the Florida Keys.)

For this year, however, enter another hero: we won a pair of key lime pies in our church auction, offered by McKayla, a fellow church member, my former student, and (most importantly for this post) a Florida native. Prepared and delivered with care the day before, it was PERFECT.

Lagniappe: That Saint

The adjectival form of James is Jacobian, and my name means "usurper" after Esau's greedy brother Jacob. So the conflation of Saint James and Saint Jacques are familiar to me. What was not familiar is the identity of St. James as the patron of scallopers -- he is sometimes depicted with shells around his neck and Crusaders sometimes adorned themselves with the shells as well. 

Quiche La Poodle

Notice: No actual poodles were involved in this dinner. Rather ... 

As regular readers of Nueva Receta will have realized, we often let the National Day Calendar inspire our culinary choices. The pandemic has affected this tendency in two somewhat contradictory ways. We are more likely to have spare time to browse the site, but we are also less likely to dash out to grab ingredients for a last-minute recognition of a made-up holiday. (Additional notice: all holidays are made up, but that is a discussion for, well, another day.)

Fortunately, Pam noticed National Quiche Lorraine Day before I set out for our weekly grocery run, so I I managed to get all the bacon and chives needed to do complete the main version found on the Simply Recipes Quiche Loriaine page. Writer Elise Bauer suggests several options for the crust (including a crust-free variation), so we of course turned to Deborah Madison's tome for a basic recipe.

The "we" in the previous sentence is a bit different this time -- our wonderful kid Harvey is here for a long visit. Since he watches British baking shows a lot, I pressed him into service! He made the pie crust with both wheat and white flour, salt, butter and a tiny bit of ice water. We put it in the fridge in our Pyrex pie plate, because I have learned that even on a mildly warm day, "room" temperature is the wrong temperature for a pie crust. I sat down to read the recipe with more care, and realized that we needed to put the pie in the oven earlier than I thought -- Bauer calls for it to bake for 40 minutes ahead of the filling. We came pretty close to this by the time we had other ingredients ready; we ignored the suggestions for pie weights, foil (which I do not even understand), and whatnot. The crust was beautiful, though Harvey thought it not quite as thin and uniform as he would have hoped.

I started cooking the bacon in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. In just the past year I have finally gotten good at this -- starting at medium high and gradually reducing the heat, removing each piece to drain when it reaches perfect doneness. While I did this, Harvey made the custard -- whisking five eggs very fresh from our friends at Maribett farm (the recipe calls only for three) and then adding the seasonings, milk, cream, and chives.

I shredded cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses together (Gruyere would have been even better, but we already had a lot of cheese in the house and decided we should use some of it) and put a small amount in the bottom of the crust. I then cut the bacon into 1/2-inch bits and distributed it evenly in the crust. We carefully poured the custard over this and put it in the oven. I turned around and discovered I had left most of the freshly-shredded cheese on the Gilligan (our kitchen island). I panicked a bit, because it should have been in the pan before the custard, so that the entire pie would be cheesy. Harvey advised calm, and suggested it might even be nice to have the cheesiness concentrated at the top. 

So I carefully added the cheese and set the oven timer for 30 minutes. At that time, the top looked perfect as Harvey had predicted, but I could tell that the custard was still a bit jiggly. Worried about over-cooking the top, I reduced the heat from 350F to 325F and set the timer for 15 more minutes. 

#RoundPieSquarePhoto

The ding-ding sounded again just as Pam finished a (rather dumb) Zoom meeting -- perfect timing! And this was the perfect meal to enjoy on our deck with some apple sauce on the side and Chardonnay in our glasses.

We followed this with some raspberry Entenmann's in honor of the attainment day of Pam's father Jack, who would have been 99 years old.

So what about that poodle, anyway?

I played the B52s song at the start of preparing this meal because it was not just a day to celebrate eggy custard pie (aka quiche), but also National Rescue Dog Day -- and this is a song about the singer's complicated relationship with his dog. As the people belonging to a rescue dog, we can certainly relate!

Slow Cooker Chicken Ragù with herbed ricotta.

 

I rarely use the slow cooker. James uses it a few times a year, mostly to make chili, but I don't think I've used it myself more than a handful of times since we received one as a wedding gift 34 years ago. However, when this recipe showed up on my Facebook feed a few weeks ago I decided to give it a try. And I did so, once I remembered to get out the slow cooker early in the morning on the day after I remembered to thaw the chicken. I followed the recipe mostly as written, although I was surprised to discover we were out of tomato paste, so I didn't use it. The only tomato product was a can of crushed tomatoes. I also skipped the carrot. We didn't have any and it seemed unnecessary to go out just to pick up "one small carrot".

As with slow cooker meals once everything goes in, the cook's job is mostly to wait (and salivate) as the cooker does its thing all day. There was a little labor at the end shredding the chicken, but as the recipe suggests it was quite tender, so it wasn't difficult. Topping with the herbed ricotta, along with a sprig of fresh basil made for a lovely presentation. 

Another winner from the New York Times cooking pages.

There is just no end of stuff you can put in a frittata

This recipe fo Mushroom, Goat Cheese, and Herb Frittata showed up on my Facebook feed last week. I had some goat cheese leftover from making some goat cheese quesadillas (an old favorite) last month so I picked up some mushrooms the next time I went to the grocery store so I could make this tasty dish. The recipe calls for either fresh or dried herbs; I used dried. I also halved the recipe and used our smaller indispensable cast-iron skillet since I was only cooking for two. The other deviation I made from the recipe was that after I sautéed the onions, mushrooms, and herbs I left them in the pan and just added the egg/cheese mixture to it. I couldn't understand the reason for removing the veggies and adding them to the egg, wiping out the pan, adding more oil to it and then pouring everything back in. Maybe it would have been even better than it was if I had done it, but I'll never know.

Beer-Batter Shrimp

There are some dishes that I used to believe could only be eaten in a restaurant, as I had no hope of ever having the ability to prepare them myself. Beer-battered shrimp was one of those things. Until this weekend. 

I found a skinny little cookbook amongst my collection called Cooking with Beer. It is of the flimsy little type that one finds at the grocery store checkout. The copyright date on this one is 2012, but I do not believe we have ever used it before. There were two recipes for shrimp. I chose the Coconut (fried) Shrimp rather than the Baked Beer-Battered Onions and Shrimp, although I did take the idea of using panko crumbs from the latter and substituting them for the crushed ramen noodles (ick) in the former.

This was relatively easy, and they fried up pretty quick. The dipping sauce was tasty too.

Pilaf for MENA Awareness

This week is MENA Awareness Week at our university. That is to say, our Middle East and North Africa program sponsored a series of special events to bring awareness not only to the region but to our center that studies the region and our U.S. Department of Education grant that is enhancing those studies.

I was gratified to be invited to give a talk about coffee in MENA as part of the virtual festivities. (See Qahua to Coffee on my Coffee Maven blog for a recording of my presentation.) As we started planning the week's dinners, I therefore decided to check Yashim Cooks Istanbul for ideas.

The book fell open to page 78: Hazelnut and Lemon Pilaf (findikli ve limonlu pilav). I have never been quite sure what "pilaf" means, but I knew this meant rice-plus-something and decided to have a look. The combination of savory flavors and simple preparation were appealing, so I added it to the menu, and we added a few items to the grocery list.

Some of the key ingredients, plus a side of apricots.
On our cow cutting board from a favorite Wisconsin cousin.
As regular readers of this blog know, food does not
always photograph well, so I often snap shots
of ingredients, especially if they are colorful.

I do not always put the full ingredient list on a blog post, but it seems worthwhile this time. The list as published:

basmati rice, 250g/8oz, well rinsed 
salt, 1 teaspoon
olive oil, 1 tablespoon
butter or ghee, 1 tablespoon
corriander seeds, 1 teaspoon
cumin seeds, 1/2 teaspoon
lemon peel, sliced into 3 "julienne" strips
fresh red chile, sliced into thin strips, 1 teaspoon (I used one jalapeño)
blanched hazelnuts, 4 tablespoons
parsley, bunch, chopped

I did not attempt to measure any of these, except the rice and water. I used 1 cup of the rice since we don't have a food scale, and used 1-1/4 cups of water (following package directions) even though it called for an "equal amount" of water. 

The instructions on lemon peel were especially confusing for me -- all of the peel or three little strips? I used about half the peel, making a couple dozen little strips. I do not regret my choice. 

I made a few minor substitutions as well, and completely overlooked the parsley. I will include it next time. Of the spices, we had one in seed form and the other already ground; this was fine. When I could not find hazelnuts in the store, I did that thing we now do instead of asking a grocer: I used my phone to Google substitutions and found that walnuts would work. When I got home and mentioned this to Pam, she reminded me that we had not only walnuts but also pine nuts. I was sure that this was getting farther from the author's intention, but it sure sounded good to me. (Note: after I wrote this, I read the page after the recipe, assuming that it was something about the cultural context of the recipe. It was ore about possible substitutions, and these included both orange for lemon and pine nuts for hazelnuts.) 

I am glad I followed the somewhat unusual preparation steps. I measured the water and brought it to a boil in a kettle while rinsing the rise in a sieve. I placed the rice in a small saucepan and poured the water over it. I added salted, put the lid on and was able to bring it back to a boil immediately. I lowered the heat and set the timer for 10 minutes. (I had gotten white basmati; the brown "Tex-Mati" we usually use has a much longer cooking time.)

While the rice cooked, I melted butter and oil over medium-low heat in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. I then added the spices, followed in a couple minutes by the lemon peel, pepper, and nuts. I continued to sautée these gently while the rice cooked, stirring frequently. I then "tipped" the rice into the pan, stirred while scraping the bottom, and then returned it all to a bowl (should have been the pan, but I had managed to scorch some of the rice). I gently fluffed the entire mixture and covered it with a dish towel, followed by the pan lid. I let this sit for 10 more minutes so that the flavors would meld.

The result: savory rice with perfect texture. We topped with delicious plain yogurt (Stonyfield Greek), the lemon wedges as called for, some apricots, fresh mozzarella, and some delicious basil muffins Pam had made a few days earlier, and which I grilled for this meal. Later, I learned from the page-after material that the author recommends apricots, currants, or other fruits as possible amendments.

We found that a chilled Chardonnay in place of our usual Malbec was a perfect pairing for this meal.