COOKING WITH NEW APPLICANCES!

My kitchen: new induction cooktop and electric oven!

Oh no! I burned the lentil soup! In an instant, the lentils and carrots at the bottom of the pot scorched, ruining lunch and a perfectly good pan.

This happened on my brand-new induction cooktop. I hadn’t intended to use it until learning more about how it works. But, as luck would have it, when I turned on the big old gas stove to heat up lunch, the burner sputtered out—an empty butane tank. Ben called some burly friends and they, unceremoniously, moved the old stove out. Bye-bye, bombonas (butane tanks).

I put the pot on the new cooktop, turned up the heat dial and touched “P” for power. By the time I turned to get the soup bowls ready, the soup had scorched.

I felt like a dolt. Or, anyway, a novitiate in the kitchen. There’s going to be a learning curve here, as I adapt to a new way of cooking. So, “P” for power is great for bringing a pot of water to a boil to cook pasta—but not for anything with solids that rest on the superheated bottom.

Smaller oven, but 11-pound turkey just fits!

My new eye-level electric oven presented no orientation problems, other than needing to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius for temperature settings. I put in an 11-pound stuffed turkey, basted it with olive oil and white wine every 30 minutes. The turkey was roasted in less than three hours. While I made the gravy, I popped mashed potatoes with pimentón and roasted Brussels sprouts in the oven to reheat.

Roast garlic under broiler/grill.

I’m using the oven way more than I did the oversize one on the old gas stove. It is radically more efficient. Plus, I need it to do a few things that I used to do on an open gas flame—like roast a head of garlic (to add to lentils or black-eyed peas) or roast bell peppers.

Cut peppers in half and flatten them to roast under broiler/grill.

And, I can’t use my clay cazuelas and earthenware tagine on the cooktop (only pans with ferrous content, that a magnet will stick to, work on induction), so, until I get a special induction plate, I am using the oven for clay-pot cooking too.

My first experiment—arroz marinero, seafood rice in cazuela—was a little off on the timing. Although I know from experience how earthenware holds the heat, I still managed to overcook the rice in cazuela!

Note to self: stand back when opening the oven to avoid an eye-level blast of steam.

Baked Rice with Seafood in Cazuela
Cazuela de Arroz Marinero al Horno

Rice and seafood, baked in an earthenware cazuela.

Bring cazuela right to the table to serve.

A touch of saffron gives rice a golden hue.

An earthenware cazuela takes a long time to come up to temperature, but once the liquid starts to bubble, the cazuela holds the heat for a long time. Take the rice out of the oven before it is completely tender and allow it to finish cooking in a 10-minute waiting time. 

 
Bomba is a variety of Spanish rice that doesn’t readily overcook and turn mushy. If not available, use medium round-grain paella rice or Italian risotto rice. 

If you can get whole shrimp with the heads on and you don’t mind peeling them, they’re best because the shells add flavor to the oil for cooking the sofrito. If whole shrimp are not an easy option, just skip the first step in this recipe.

Serves 4-6.

Par-boiled artichokes and frozen peas.

1 pound whole jumbo shrimp
1/3 cup olive oil
½ cup chopped onion
½ cup chopped red or green bell pepper
2 cloves garlic, chopped
¾ cup grated tomatoes (2-3 plum tomatoes)
¼ cup dry Sherry or manzanilla
½ teaspoon pimentón (paprika)
Saffron (optional), crushed
2 tablespoons hot water
2 cups round-grain rice, preferably bomba variety
½ pound cleaned squid, cut in rings
12 ounces monkfish fillet, cut in 1 ½ -inch cubes
5 cups fish or chicken stock
Salt
1 cup frozen peas
Artichoke bottoms, frozen or par-boiled
Sprigs of fresh mint or chopped parsley

Fry heads and shells to flavor oil.

Peel the shrimp, keeping the heads and shells. Reserve the bodies. Heat the oil in a skillet. Add the shrimp heads and shells and fry them on medium heat until they change color. Remove from heat. Tilt the pan so oil runs to one side and carefully skim out the shrimp heads and shells. When they are cool, discard.

Cook tomatoes until jammy-thick.

Add the onion, pepper and garlic to the oil and sauté on medium heat until softened and beginning to brown, 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes. Turn up the heat and cook until reduced to a thick sauce. Add the Sherry and cook until evaporated. Stir in the pimentón.

Dissolve the saffron, if using, in the hot water. Stir it into the sofrito tomato sauce. Scrape all of the sauce into a 12-inch cazuela. Add the rice.

Add the cut-up squid and cubes of monkfish to the skillet and sauté them very quickly. Add to the sofrito and rice in the cazuela.

The cazuela can be prepared up to this point at least 1 hour in advance.

Preheat oven to 425ºF. Bring the fish stock to a boil. Taste it and add enough salt to season the cooked rice. Stir the hot stock into the cazuela. Add the peas and artichoke bottoms.

Bake the rice uncovered. Careful of escaping steam when opening the oven!

Carefully place the cazuela, uncovered, in the oven. Bake until the liquid just begins to bubble, about 20 minutes. Carefully slide oven rack partially out. Add the reserved shrimp to the cazuela and stir the rice. 

Lower oven temperature to 350ºF. Return the cazuela to the oven and cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed, but rice still has a kernel of hardness, about 15 minutes. Remove the cazuela from the oven and allow it to set 10 minutes. Garnish with sprigs of mint. Serve the rice from the cazuela.

Earthenware cookware holds the heat for a long time.

Complementary recipes:

Simple fish stock.

Black-eyed peas with roasted garlic.

"Before" pictures of the kitchen. http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2016/12/my-kitchen-in-spain-gets-revamp.html 

 

BYE-BYE, BOMBONAS!

Lined up by my front door, they are a stumbling block. A dull orange eyesore. These butane tanks, bombonas, have been part of my life in Spain forever. Now, I’m phasing them out. Replacing, first, the butane-gas hot water heater that took up space in my kitchen with a solar hot water installation. 

I used to haul these gas bottles in my car from the village and hump them down the steps to the house. Now they are delivered to my door. But, as I get older, I really don't need to be moving these tanks around anymore. So, I'm making changes--first, solar hot water heater, next, perhaps an electric stove. (I have no idea when the butane became propane, as is printed right on the bottles.)

Next to the stove, a butane hot water heater that was installed when I built the house 44 years ago. It's a "demand" heater, that heats the water as it moves through the tube (no deposit tank). It's worked just fine all these years--but I am tired of hauling those heavy tanks. The orange gas tank--just visible next to the stove--fuels both the stove and water heater. Will that ancient Magic Chef stove be the next to go? I don't really want to cook on electric cook-top---

Kitchen is topsy-turvy as crew begins installation of cables and tubes for solar hot water system. I won't be cooking dinner tonight.

Up on the roof--it takes four guys to place the water deposit cylinder. The solar panels, facing south, will be mounted in front of it.  Broken roof tiles get replaced the next day by a separate crew. Note: overcast skies--will there be enough sun to heat my water? (Yes, plus a back-up electric boosts the temperature.)

Selfie! My reflection in one of the solar panels being carried up to the roof.

The two-day installation has left my kitchen pretty topsy-turvy, as a work crew knocked out the old heater, installed cables and water tubes through the wall and across the roof to connect to the solar panels and storage tank.

With the gas bottle temporarily out of the kitchen, I couldn’t use the stove. Son Ben brought home one of those delicious rotisserie chickens and a heap of fries. I made pisto—a vegetable mélange much like ratatouille—in the microwave to go with the chicken. We cleared a place at the table among the stacks of ceramic plates that were removed from the kitchen shelf. Oh yes, there was plenty of hot water to wash up after dinner!

No cooking tonight. Dinner take-out--rotisserie roast chicken and a heap of fries.

Eat those fries while they're hot.

Dinner's served. Exceptional roast chicken by la gallega (Galician woman). Liberally salted before being threaded on the rotisserie, the chicken is stuffed with fresh bay leaves, sprigs of thyme, whole cloves of garlic and a quartered lemon. Why do these taste better than roast chicken cooked at home?

This is the company that installed my solar hot water system http://www.energiasolarnovasol.com/en/

Next on the agenda--trenches under the olive trees to lay new cable so that I can contract for more kilowatts from the utility company and, maybe, put in an electric stove.