I get asked a lot of food questions as a food blogger. Some are to be expected, like where I shop for specialty ingredients, what my go-to dishes are, and who my favorite chef is. But most surprising of all are all of the questions I get about potatoes. From making the perfect french fries, to creamy mashed potatoes and the just-like-my-mom's home fries and hash browns of their youth, people are looking for some serious answers about potato cookery. Potatoes are a big part of the Spanish diet and every woman in my family can make at least 5 awesome potato dishes off the cuff, from croquetas, to tortilla and french fries. I paid close attention when my grandmother fried potatoes on high heat in light olive oil, or when my mother added two egg yolks to her mashed potatoes. After years of watching patiently from the sidelines, I finally learned to make potatoes just like the other women in my family (even they're only half as good as theirs, they'll still be delicious).
Among the many tuber-related questions that make their way to me is a curious one: how does one make simple whole or halved potatoes? A few people tell me that they always encounter the outside being far too dark while the inside is raw, or that to get the inside cooked they end up with overcooked, mushy outsides. I must admit that I initially struggled with this type of dish as well. Why was it that every caterer, cruise ship and steakhouse in town could do it and I couldn't? I tried simply roasting on different oven temperatures, changing the temperature midway through, par boiling then roasting, simply boiling, pan roasting, and any combination in between. Nothing seemed to work, and then I encountered a new method for making mashed potatoes that involved steaming them instead of boiling. They cooked faster, more evenly, and softened without waterlogging. I figured if I applied this method to my potato dish, then quickly pan roasted them with whatever flavorings I wanted, I might stand a chance.
It worked perfectly, and shortly thereafter I learned that the steaming method is taught in culinary school, which explains why all of the professionals knew about it and I didn't. In fact, the potato recipe I made this week comes from the Culinary School of America and uses a number of my favorite herbs and spices, with an additional few that I thought would play nice. The first step was steaming the potatoes, which I do using your everyday cheapie metal vegetable steamer in a large pan with a lid. It took about 15-18 minutes for mine to cook through, but it's really the size of your spuds that determines the cooking time. After their steam bath I tossed them directly into a large non-stick skillet (very important with potatoes) with some melted butter and saffron. I added parsley, salt and pepper per the recipe, plus some fresh thyme, one of my favorite herbs to use with potatoes. I was far more generous with the salt and pepper than the recipe was, because the potatoes didn't have any of the salinity that they'd normally get from being boiled in salted water, so they were tasting a bit bland. The dish was quite tasty, and would make an excellent side for a grilled steak, a roast chicken (that's my choice for a main dish pairing) or even a nice piece of fish. At least give the method a try, and you'll never have burned or half done potatoes again!
Herbed Potatoes with Saffron
adapted from the Culinary School of America
1 1/2 lbs red new potatoes, scrubbed, halved, and peeled if you'd like
2 Tbsp butter
pinch saffron strands
2 Tbsp finely sliced parsley
1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
generous pinch of salt
generous grind of white pepper
1. Steam potatoes using a vegetable or bamboo steamer over a pan of boiling water, about 15-18 minutes (I like them to be just shy of cooked through so I can cook everything a little longer in the pan without overcooking).
2. Meanwhile, melt butter and saffron in a large non-stick skillet. Add cooked potatoes, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper. Toss everything to coat well and cook a few minutes until potatoes are hot and everything has cooked together, about 3-5 minutes. Enjoy!
-Laura
As these last dog days of summer slip through our fingers I find myself grasping at whatever delicious pieces of summer remain. In the last few weeks I've torn through the remnants of summer fruit and vegetables at the farmer's market and chased down the last few decent heirloom tomatoes. Although I'm looking forward to the bounty of fall produce, the change of pace and lovely sumptuous soups, it seems that I can't come to terms with a summer lost. I had no seaside vacation, no mixed grill or broiled lobster tail. The hurricane season this year stomped on all my hopes and dreams for stone crabs, forced me to cancel my vacation, and has left me with another year of embarrassingly pale skin. But the one thing it can't do is keep me from recreating my favorite summer and seaside dishes at home.
Not willing to let something minor like a class 4 hurricane hold me down, I decided to take the days off I'd set aside for my Miami vacation and put them to good use. In addition to doing the truckload of laundry taking up half of my bedroom, it was time to do some proper food shopping and spend the rest of the week making up for the summer food I missed out on. A quick trip to the fishmonger made it clear that there there would be crab cakes in my future, in addition to some sort of clam dish. I really love linguine with clams, so figured I could make my Spanish version of it. The base recipe is your typical linguine with clams sauce stuff, but I like to add a few of the ingredients that are more common in Spain and even Portugal.
The dish was great, chock full of smoky flavor from not only the bacon I added, but also the chorizo, which gave the sauce a lovely amber color and infused the whole dish with paprika. A tiny dash of saffron gave it a luxurious appeal and hinted at the flavors of a paella or seafood stew. It took less than 20 minutes to make, and the hardest thing I did was bring a large pot of water to a boil. I'll still need to make a few more summer inspired dishes to be fully satisfied, but this was a great start. Here's my recipe:
Pasta with Chorizo in Saffron Clam Sauce
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 slices bacon, cut into thin strips
1/4 cup chopped chorizo (cured, not fresh)
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced1 lb Mahogany clams or New Zealand cockles, scrubbed
1 cup bottled clam juice
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
5 strings saffron or 1/8 tsp powdered saffron
14 oz dried thin spaghetti or linguine
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
extra virgin olive oil
1. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add bacon and sauté until browned, then add garlic and chorizo, sauté, stirring until golden, about 30 seconds.
2. Stir in clams, clam juice, wine, and saffron. Bring to a boil and cook covered, until clams open, about 4 to 5 minutes (discard any clams that do not open after 6 minutes).
3.While clams cook, cook pasta according to package directions. Remove pasta from water with tongs and add to skillet with clam mixture. Toss pasta with parsley and a slosh of olive oil. Enjoy!
-Laura
Well friends, I've returned. I can only hope that there are still a few of you reading and that I haven't alienated everyone with my absence. In the past few weeks I've eaten many bowls of ramen (both packaged and homemade) and oodles of take-out. It's during these embarrassing lapses in gastronomic judgment (and long motherly visits) that it becomes clear how important it is that I cook for myself. Not only is it healthier for me, but too much time spent away from my kitchen appears to make me somewhat feverish. Every commercial break becomes an opportunity to visit my kitchen, even if that visit serves no purpose but to remind me that I have fabulous new pots and pans. By the next commercial I get up and survey the fridge, taking stock of my freezer's contents while nervously tapping my foot. The third visit is just embarrassing and involves a great deal of pacing and the opening and closing of a few dozen jars.
I won't go into the visits that follow, but rest assured, they are--as can be expected--increasingly pathetic. Now that I finally have the freedom and time to resume my regularly scheduled cooking, I've been craving various summer delights. More specifically, I've been craving the kind of food that reminds me of the exotic vacation destinations that I'll never get to because I'm so busy. I'd recently purchased some delicious fresh shrimp to make for my mom, but laziness ensued following a bout with torrential rain storms. So, I put them in the freezer and made a mental note to include them in my summer getaway fantasy meals. Yesterday was finally the day I got to re-enter my kitchen, and having gotten home early, I tried to tie myself to the couch until dinner time. It proved more difficult than I expected to sit still in the two hours before dinner. My frequent visits to the kitchen resumed, as did the pacing and incessant jar opening.
Finally, the time came to cook (albeit about an hour earlier than it should have) and I started planning my meal. I was in the mood for a pasta dish, the kind you might see on the menu of a seaside trattoria and wash down with a chilly glass of white wine. I originally decided on some kind of scampi, but found the idea boring, so I used it as a jumping off point for a saffron sauce. It all started as a basic scampi with lots of garlic and red pepper flake, but then I added the shrimp, some sun-dried tomato, white wine and pasta water. After that cooked down a bit, I added some saffron to the sauce for a lovely golden color and fragrant aroma, along with some lemon juice for some brightness. A few bits of parsley later and my kitchen smelled like a seaside paradise. I tossed in the angel hair, which quickly absorbed all of the sauce and topped it off with two lemon wedges for some extra summer pop. It was exactly the meal I was hoping for, and much to my waist's chagrin, I ate the entire two person portion. I just tell myself that even though I'm stuffed and saffron is an extravagance, I've saved several thousands of dollars in airfare to Italy. Here's the final recipe:
Saffron Scented Angel Hair with Shrimp and Sun-dried Tomatoes
1/2 package dried angel hair pasta
5 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup good extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp red pepper flake
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, slivered
10-12 shrimp, peeled
1/4 cup white wine
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup reserved pasta water
1/16 of a tsp (or 4-5 strands) saffron
2 tablespoons parsley
salt
pepper
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
2. Heat the olive oil, garlic and sun-dried tomato on medium low in a large, deep skillet. When the garlic become fragrant, add the red pepper flake and shrimp, seasoning with salt to taste.
3. Add pasta to water and cook according to package directions.
4. When the shrimp are pink but still raw in the center, add wine and cover with a lid for 30 seconds. Remove the lid and add pasta water and saffron (it will look like a lot of sauce, but the pasta will absorb most of it). Cook until shrimp are done, then add lemon juice, parsley, salt, pepper and angel hair. Toss to coat and top with lemon wedges. Enjoy!
-Laura
Although I now find him kind of creepy, my mother informs me that I once watched Mr. Rogers, the kind old man that changed his shoes and welcomed us into his home. And while I always found it a bit odd that the king and his magical kingdom were down by the train tracks, I always appreciated that Mr. Rogers brought us into his home and took us on exciting field trips to the crayon factory. As you may have noticed, I've been missing in action for the last few days due to my mother's visit. Despite there being less cooking in my kitchen, there's been action aplenty in my favorite room. So, inspired by Mr. Rogers and what was evidently quite the ghetto neighborhood, today I'm putting on my cardigan and welcoming you into my kitchen.
There's been a lot going on, starting with a few gifts from the east. Along with some new summer dresses, my mother's suitcase came bearing a number of culinary gifts. The first is one of my favorite spices of all time--and the much lauded "world's most expensive spice"--saffron. Although it is quite expensive everywhere, it is definitely more affordable in Spain where some of it is actually harvested. I was running incredibly low on my supply, so this was a very welcome addition to my spice rack. A little goes a long way with this fragrant spice, so inside one large container are 20 tiny capsules containing 25 grams of ground saffron, more than enough for one large dish. This will also cut down on cooking time since I won't have to grind or bloom it before use.
The second new arrival in my kitchen was spicy smoked paprika (pimenton picante). I routinely use what in Spain is called pimenton dulce, or sweet smoked paprika, but rarely use the spicy kind, which adds a good bit of heat and smoke to any dish. I generally use this spicy and smoky type of paprika in smaller quantities and in dishes like lentils and hearty chickpea stews. I wouldn't put it in everything, and would definitely use it sparingly compared to the sweet variety. It's not nearly as hot as say, cayenne pepper, but between the heat and smoke, it could easily mask the flavor of other ingredients. I generally find that good Spanish paprika is both hard to find and very expensive in the US, so I was very excited to receive this even harder to find version.
The most exciting new development to report was almost a week in the making and involves heavy duty machinery. Like a good daughter, I took off a few days from work to spend time with my mother. I figured we'd rest, relax, maybe even do some shopping. But it appears that I was cooking in a subpar kitchen (according to mommy dearest) and that was unacceptable, so instead we spent the last five days running around the city purchasing a set of pots and pans (which I actually really needed) and a lovely wall mounted pot rack. I've always dreamed of having one of these, and my mother insisted that due to the lack of storage in my kitchen, the time had come for me to have one. I warned her of the troubles I'd had with the walls in my Hell's Kitchen apartment, from foam filled walls to cement walls and everything in between, hanging something on my walls is a risk with perpetually unexpected consequences. She insisted that together we could figure our way through anything, and not wanting to burst her bubble, I caved and purchased the very heavy pots and their new wall mounted rack.
After several hanging attempts throughout the week and the weekend, it became clear that my girly arms would no longer cut the installation mustard. So, we made our way to the hardware store and purchased a heavy duty electric drill and the necessary bits. Two days later it became clear that what we were dealing with the likes of a very tough brick wall. I was downtrodden and disappointed, sure that I'd have to find an alternate way to organize the pots and pans (while secretly saying 'I-told-you-so'), but my mother was undeterred. She insisted that despite the Memorial Day holiday, we should visit a Home Depot and purchase a large brick and concrete drill bit and masonry anchors. Crumbling under the pressure after five days of hard labor, I agreed. After making the necessary purchases and demanding a small shoe shopping break, we got back to the house and got to work. I was ultimately able to get the rack up after sweating it out with the ridiculously large drill and drill bit (I haven't bought an AC unit yet). Check out the final product, which I'm actually very happy with:
And to wrap up the post, an update I kept meaning to post but never seemed to remember. I purchased a new teapot (R.I.P. electric kettle) that can be seen below. It's the Live Strong edition of the classic Chantal line of teapots (hence the yellow), and I absolutely love it. I'll be back in a few days with some more posts (hopefully more exciting than my new teapot), including a restaurant review that I've been holding onto for a while. In the meantime, check out my brand new teapot:
-Laura
