PAELLA: BUILDING FLAVOR

 

Arroz de carabineros. (Photo: Josh Elliott)

I´ve eaten a lot of paellas in my time, from the classic València version, with rabbit and snails, cooked on a wood fire in the rice fields of the Albufera, to a rustic Andalusian campo one where we picked the fava beans and peas from the nearby huerta to add to the rice with chicken and shrimp. I’ve made my share of paellas too, some pretty good.  

But the best paella rice I’ve ever eaten was at a beach restaurant on the Costa del Sol, a glorified chiringuito. We ordered arroz de carabineros, rice cooked in paella (the typical flat pan is called “paella” as is the rice cooked in it) with jumbo red shrimp. It contained almost no protein matter. The shrimp had been reduced to essence giving the perfectly cooked rice intense flavor. The arroz was served topped with a few pieces of the barely cooked carabineros plus their heads, for sucking. No baroque garnishes. No sauce. No lemons. Arroz in its purest form.

I vowed to try to make rice that good. Because it’s World Paella Day (September 20), today I took up the challenge. 

My arroz--rice in paella with shrimp. Flavor is fantastic, texture pretty good. I served cosas, accompaniments, as side dishes. 

What I learned about building flavor can be applied to any rice cooked in paella, including more elaborate ones with chicken, squid, clams, shrimp, artichokes, beans, etc. There are three steps—a sofrito, the foundation for building flavor; a fish/shellfish stock, and the cooking of the rice. 

Sofrito, first step in building flavor.

Sofrito 

This is where flavor begins so make the sofrito as intense as possible. If possible, cook shrimp heads, small crabs, squid bits, etc., with the vegetables, puré the sofrito, shells and all, then push the thick sauce through a fine sieve. Lacking crustaceans, add a few canned anchovies to contribute umami to the basic sauce. This recipe makes enough sofrito for three or four paellas. It can be prepared in advance of cooking the rice and refrigerated or stored in the freezer.

Makes about 2 ¼ cups sofrito.

2 ¼ pounds ripe tomatoes

Olive oil

2 cups chopped onions

½ to 1 cup chopped green peppers

4 cloves chopped garlic

¼ cup white wine

2-3 anchovy fillets, chopped (optional)

2 teaspoons smoked pimentón (paprika)

Sprig of thyme

1 bay leaf

Sprig of parsley

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Heat oven to 400ºF.

Place the tomatoes on a rimmed sheet pan, drizzle them with oil and roast them until very soft, about 30 minutes. (Alternatively, drop the tomatoes in a pot of boiling water until the skins begin to split. Drain.) When tomatoes are cool enough to handle, cut out cores and slip off the skins. You should have approximately 3 cups of tomatoes.

Heat ¼ cup of oil in a pan. Sauté the onions on medium-high until they begin to brown around the edges, 5 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of water and continue sautéing until the water cooks away and onions begin to sizzle again. Add the peppers and garlic and sauté 5 minutes more. Add the anchovies, if using. Add the wine and cook 1 minute to cook off the alcohol. 

Use kitchen scissors to cut the tomatoes into pieces. Add them to the pan with the thyme, bay, parsley, salt and pepper. Fry the tomatoes on high heat 2 minutes. Lower the heat and cook the sofrito, covered, 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover the pan and cook 10 to 15 minutes more until the sofrito is quite thick. Discard the bay leaf and parsley.

Puré the sofrito with a hand-held blender. Set aside ¾ cup of sofrito for use in the paella. Divide the remainder in half and store in the refrigerator or freezer for future use.

Fish Stock

Caldo de Pescado

Fish head for the stock pot.

Along with sofrito, a flavorful fish stock is essential for this rice dish. This can be freely varied, depending on what shellfish and fish trimmings are available. I lucked out, my local fish vendor gave me a whole mero (grouper) head that was lurking in her deep freeze. I made the stock with just the head, no shrimp shells. You can also use clam broth or store-bought stock. Use wine, lemon, herbs, aromatics and sufficient salt. Reduce the stock somewhat so that it’s a powerful cooking medium for the rice. Here’s a basic recipe for Fish Stock.

Rice with Shrimp in Paella

Arroz al Marinero

Unlike traditional paella, this arroz starts on top of the stove and is finished in the oven. If you want socarrat, the crunchy rice on the bottom, you will need to return the pan to the stove-top after the oven.

Size matters. I used a 34-centimeter (13.3-inches) paella pan for 2 cups of rice (400 grams/ 14 ounces), serving 6. This size fits on a large burner of an induction stove and into a normal oven. The cooked rice reached a depth of 1 ½ inches. The restaurant version was made in a similar size pan, but with half the quantity of rice and liquid, changing the timing, the texture of the rice and the yield. I’ll try that method next time, using a thinner layer of rice for the same pan diameter, and see how it changes the rice. 

Use a medium-short grain rice, sometimes called “round rice,” for paella. València varieties include Bahia, Senia, Marisma and Bomba. They are similar to Italian risotto rice, but, unlike risotto, paella rice is never stirred during cooking. 

Serves 6.

1 pound heads-on shrimp

¼ cup olive oil + additional if needed

¾ cup sofrito

½ teaspoon saffron threads

2 cups medium-short-grain rice

4 ½ cup fish or shellfish stock, heated (see note below)

Salt if needed

Finely chopped parsley

Cooked romano green beans (optional)

Alioli garlic sauce to accompany (recipe follows)

Shell the shrimp. Save the heads (clip off the antennae) and tails in a covered container. Save the shrimp bodies in another container. Refrigerate them until ready to cook.

Heat the oil in a skillet and add 1 cup (or more) of shrimp heads and tails. Fry them until they start to brown, crushing the shells with a wooden paddle to extract all the flavorful juices. Remove the pan from the heat, tip it so that the oil drains to one side and scoop out the shells and discard them. (If you do this step in advance of preparing the rice, the fried shrimp heads can be added to the fish trimmings to make the stock.)

Preheat oven to 425ºF.

Taste the cooking liquid for salt. 

Place the shrimp oil in the paella pan. Add additional oil to make 2 tablespoons. Heat on medium and stir in the sofrito. Cook it until it begins to darken slightly. Sprinkle the saffron into the pan. Add the rice and mix it until coated with the sofrito.

Bring the stock to a full boil and carefully pour it into the rice. Stir thoroughly. Taste the liquid and add more salt as needed. 

Cook the rice on medium-high for 5 minutes.

Very carefully transfer the rice to the oven for 10 minutes. 

While rice is in the oven, sauté the shrimp bodies in the skillet just until they turn pink. Remove from pan and sprinkle them with chopped parsley.

Taste the rice. It should be al-dente tender, with just a little kernel of resistance in the center. Remove the pan from the oven. (If you want socarrat, place the pan on medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes.) Scatter some of the shrimp on top. Scatter the beans, if using, on the surface. Let the rice set at least 5 minutes before serving.

Lettuce hearts with garlic.

How to serve paella rice. Arroz might be served in its pristine glory, as a primer plato, a starter, to be followed by a main  course of fish, meat or chicken. Or it can be preceded by an assortment of salads and shellfish para picar, to be shared amongst diners at the table. 

I chose to accompany the rice with side dishes to be eaten alongside the rice— sautéed shrimp, fried fillets of gallineta, red rockfish; tiny calamaritos; green beans, sliced tomatoes, and lettuce hearts with fried garlic, piquillo peppers and serrano ham. And, why not? a garlicky alioli sauce. 

Rice is minimally garnished, with side dishes.

Garlic Sauce

Alioli

This is not a true alioli, which is made with only crushed garlic and olive oil. It’s a simple blender mayonnaise with garlic added. Use an immersion blender with a narrow container. (This recipe calls for raw egg.)

1 medium egg, room temperature

½ teaspoon smoked pimentón (paprika)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 clove garlic

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup extra virgin olive oil

Wash the egg. Break it into the blender container. Add the pimentón, lemon juice, garlic and salt. Add the oil. Insert the blender blade to the bottom of the container and run the blender on high speed without lifting it until the egg and oil thicken. Then lift the blade to incorporate any oil on the top and move the blender up and down briefly until it is completely incorporated. If desired, thin the alioli with a little warm water. 

Store the sauce refrigerated and use within 3 days.

Finalists in the World Paella Day competition, which takes place annually on September 20 (time of rice harvest) in València with participants from all over the globe, came from Puerto Rico, Colombia, Japan, Romania, Mexico and China. The winner was Joe Padilla from Puerto Rico.

Where we ate the superb rice: Parador Playa, Benalmadena Costa (Málaga).

Where to get all kinds and sizes of paella pans in the U.S.: La Tienda.

THE MANY WAYS TO FRY

 

Samfaina con pollo is a dish of sautéed summer vegetables with chicken. The dish calls for three ways of frying--sofreir, saltear and rehogar. Easy steps that develop a lot of flavor.

Vocabulary tells us a lot about culinary techniques. And Spanish cuisine has almost a dozen words for different ways to fry food. 

Freir is “to fry.” But, sofreir is to pre-fry, or fry lightly. Refreir is to refry. Then there are saltear, sauté; rehogar, to brown; dorar, to brown or “make golden;” sudar, to sweat in oil; sellar, to seal or sear; pochar, to poach in oil, and caramelizar, to caramelize. All of these take place in oil. Olive oil, of course. 

Frying is the cooking process in which the food is immersed in hot oil. The verb comes with its corresponding nouns and adjectives—frito is, you guessed it, a fried food. Fritura means a plate of fried foods, such as fritura malagueña, Málaga’s famous mixed fish fry.  Patatas fritas, fries, are cooked in deep oil. Breaded and battered foods are fried—think croquettes, shrimp.

Fritura malagueña is a mixed fish fry, best when the fish are fried in olive oil. See the recipe here.

For Spanish fries, the potatoes fry in enough olive oil to cover them.  The recipe for how-to make Spanish fries is here. 

Deep-fry croquettes in olive oil. Recipes for three kinds of croquettes, mushroom, ham and cheese-potato, are here. 

Gambas rebosadas, batter-fried shrimp, are a favorite in tapa bars. The recipe is here.

Yes, you can deep-fry in extra virgin olive oil. Heat olive oil to a temperature of 360ºF/ 180ºC. This is well below the smoking point of olive oil, 380ºF to 410ºF.  At this temperature a crust forms on the surface of the food, so the oil doesn’t penetrate it, but it doesn’t brown too quickly, allowing the interior of the food to cook thoroughly.

Sofrito, though, is more than the act of frying. Sofrito is procedure, technique and result. It means gently frying ingredients in olive oil to give new flavors and complexity to a finished dish. 

Sofrito usually begins with slow frying of onions, garlic, sometimes peppers, in just a little oil and often finishes with the addition of chopped tomatoes. The tomatoes, too, are “fried” until their liquid cooks away. Sofrito, if sieved, can become a sauce in its own right. But usually it is the first step in a more complex dish. Paella, for instance, starts with sofrito, to which are added chicken or rabbit, other vegetables, seafood. Rabo de Toro, braised ox-tail, starts with a more complex sofrito with leeks and carrots as well as the onion and garlic to which the pieces of meat are added.

Sofrito builds flavor for paella. Start with garlic and peppers, add vegetables, brown chicken or rabbit, then add tomatoes, rice, liquid. Paella, step by step, here.

Pochar and hacer sudar are subcategories of sofreir. Pochar is a word poached from English. In Spanish, the word for poaching an egg is escalfar, not pochar. Pochar is used specifically to mean cooking something, usually chopped onions, in oil at a very low temperature without letting it brown. Figure 20 minutes. It’s okay to cover the pan. Sudar is similar, meaning “to sweat” the onions in oil until softened. Not exactly frying, although it does take place in the medium of olive oil. 

This brings me to the subject of sliced or diced potatoes destined to be incorporated in the famous Spanish tortilla de patatas. While a Spanish cook would probably say, “freir las patatas,” I tend to say, in English, “poach” the potatoes in olive oil. Because, although the potatoes are immersed in lots of oil (which is drained off),  you definitely don’t want high frying temperatures. You want the potatoes to cook slowly and never brown. (Don’t worry, if you use olive oil, they do not soak up a lot of oil.)

Saltear just means sauté. Writing recipes in English, I invariably use the word “sauté” when I mean for you to fry cut-up food in some oil. Sauté comes from the French word, sauter, meaning “to jump.” The idea is to keep the food moving around in the frying pan. The Spanish equivalent is saltear, which doesn’t actually mean “to jump,” (that is saltar), but “to skip over.” If you’ve ever watched an experienced cook flip a pan full of chopped onions with a jerk of the arm, you know what saltear is. Salteado de champiñones is a sauté of mushrooms. Salteado de guisantes or habas is a vegetable sauté of peas or fava beans. Either could be topped with a huevo frito, egg fried in enough olive oil to nearly cover it.

Salteado de champiñones, mushroom sauté, is the perfect side dish with grilled steak. Recipe is here.

Salteado de guisantes, a dish of fresh peas sautéed with ham, topped with an egg.  See the recipe here.

The Spanish way to fry an egg, immersed in olive oil. Directions for how-to are here.

A word that doesn’t exist in Spanish is for Chinese stir-fry. The technique of quickly frying cut-up foods at extremely high temperatures seems, well, foreign. I think this is because expert wok frying really does reach the smoking point of olive oil. If this is your thing, use sunflower oil, aceite de girasol. I do a lot of stir-frying. I do use olive oil, but I keep the temperatures below the smoke point. Basically, a Spanish salteado with soy sauce. 

Rehogar means "to brown in oil." Chefs sometimes say to “sellar” meat or chicken in a hot pan with a little oil. Although sellar means “to seal,” what they really mean is “to sear,” to rehogar or brown the surface, which develops the Maillard reaction, converting proteins and starches to deep, savory flavors. 

Brown chicken pieces in oil--rehogar--with a few cloves of garlic before adding liquid to finish their cooking. (Recipe below.)

A refrito of garlic.

Other terminology for frying includes refrito, which means refried, as in that Mexican dish, refried beans. In Spain, a refrito often is a quick fry of garlic, perhaps with ham, that is added to a cooked dish as a finishing touch. Spoon it over cooked vegetables, baked potato, grilled fish or lentil soup immediately before serving. The recipe for garlic refrito is here.

The recipe below for Samfaina con Pollo, a Catalan dish of sautéed vegetables with chicken uses three of these frying techniques. It starts with a sofrito, continues with a salteado, or sauté, with eggplant and zucchini. The chicken is rehogado, or “browned” before being added to the vegetables. Each step contributes flavor and complexity to the finished dish.

Sauté of Summer Vegetables with Chicken, Catalan Style

Samfaina con Pollo (Samfaina amb pollastre)

Ready for the sofrito, salteado.

You can vary the quantities and proportions of the vegetables. 

2 medium onions (10 ounces)

3 cloves garlic

2 frying peppers (8 ounces)

1 red bell pepper (8 ounces)

1 large zucchini (14 ounces)

1 medium eggplant (14 ounces)

4-5 tomatoes (1 ½ pounds)

3 + 2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Red pepper flakes (optional)

Sprig of fresh thyme

For the chicken

½ chicken, cut up (1 pound 10 ounces)

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Thyme

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons Spanish brandy

Water, if needed

For the samfaina:

Chop the onions finely. Slice the garlic. Cut the peppers into ½-inch pieces. Cut the zucchini and eggplants into ½-inch dice. Remove cores from the tomatoes. Grate them, discarding the skins.

Stir or flip the onions.

Sofreir the onions and garlic.

Place the garlic in a skillet with 3 tablespoons of the oil on medium-high heat. When garlic begins to sizzle, but before it browns, add the chopped onion. Sauté the onions, stirring or flipping them frequently, until they are completely soft, 10 minutes. Regulate heat so the onions don’t brown. 

Raise the heat and add the two kinds of chopped peppers. Continue to move the onions and peppers with a wooden spoon or paddle until the peppers lose their liquid and begin to sizzle. Turn down the heat and continue sautéing until peppers are sofritos, fried until soft.

Add remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Stir in the diced zucchini and eggplant. Add about 1 teaspoon of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes, if using. Continue sautéing on medium-high heat until all the vegetables are softened, 5 minutes. Add the tomato pulp and juices and sprig of thyme. Turn up the heat until tomatoes begin to splutter. Lower heat and cook the samfaina, uncovered, until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes more. 

Samfaina, ready to serve, is vegetarian. Add chicken to it, if desired. 

For the chicken:

Season the chicken pieces with salt, pepper and thyme. Allow them to come to room temperature. 

Heat a heavy skillet on medium-high. Add the oil. Lightly crush the garlics, without peeling them. Add them to the skillet. Place the chicken pieces in the skillet, skin-side down. Let them brown very slowly without moving the pieces around in the pan, about 5 minutes. Turn the pieces and let them brown on the reverse sides. When chicken is nicely browned, carefully add the brandy and cook until the alcohol is cooked off. 

Either add about ¼ cup of water to the pan to finish cooking the chicken or else transfer the pieces to the samfaina pan to finish cooking with the vegetables. 

Add chicken pieces to the samfaina vegetables. 

Samfaina is quite similar to Pisto, a summer vegetable dish that has appeared in various manifestations in this blog, vegetarian and with meat or fish added. Here’s one of them: Pisto with Pork.

TOFU, OLÉ!

I’m trying to get tofu to speak Spanish. The truth is, I eat tofu on average every couple of weeks. It’s a way to not eat meat, poultry or fish. I always turn to a few favorite Asian recipes—Stir-fry with Snow Peas, Seared Tofu with Green Beans and Coconut Sauce, Noodle Salad with Tofu and Peanut Sauce.

Now I’m trying to figure out how to use tofu in some typical Spanish recipes, turning them, not just vegetarian, but vegan as well. In Spain, where even vegetable, legume and grain dishes usually contain a little ham, pork fat or salt fish, vegan is not an easy call!

Mushrooms to make a typical Spanish tapa, sautéed with garlic and, in place of ham, diced tofu, on the right.

Tofu—a non-dairy “cheese” made from pressed curds of soy milk—has long been available in Spain in “health food” stores. Now it’s also common to find it big supermarkets, in several “flavors.” Besides plain, there are smoked tofu, tofu with Italian herbs and olive-almond tofu. The plain one is almost tasteless, but soaks up flavors with which it cooks. I particularly like the bacon-y smoked variety.

Tofu is a fresh and perishable product. Keep it refrigerated and use by expiry dates. 

Here are a few of my tofu Spanish interpretations.

Mushrooms and tofu al ajillo--sautéed with lots of garlic.

Tofu and black-bean burger with red-pickled onions and piquillo pepper ketchup.

Fideo noodle paella has tofu instead of seafood.

Mushroom and Tofu Sauté with Garlic
Champiñones y Tofu al Ajillo

Serve the mushrooms and tofu as a tapa or side dish. Serve with bread to soak up the juices.

Garlicky sautéed mushrooms are a favorite tapa bar dish in Spain. It usually includes diced ham or bacon. Smoked tofu, diced and fried, is the perfect substitute.

Serves 4 as tapa or side dish.

6 ounces smoked tofu
1 pound mushrooms
1/3 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic, sliced crosswise
Red pepper flakes or sliced chile
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup dry Sherry
Chopped flat-leaf parsley

Cut the tofu in 3/8-inch dice. Spread it on a layer of paper towels. Cover with additional paper towels and press to remove as much moisture as possible.

Clean the mushrooms in running water and pat them dry. If they are large, cut them in half through the stems, then slice them thickly. Small mushrooms can be quartered.

Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the diced tofu and fry it, turning, until golden. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté until garlic begins to turn golden, 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and continue sautéing, about 5 minutes. Add the salt and Sherry and cook 6 minutes longer. Stir in the parsley. Serve the mushrooms hot. 

Tofu-Black Bean Burgers
Hamburguesas de Tofu y Alubias Negras

Flecks of tofu, black beans and vegetables show in this juicy burger.

Tofu is especially suited to grinding up with garlic and frying in olive oil, as if it were ground beef. With the addition of smoked pimentón (paprika), it’s a perfect stand-in for chorizo. Cook it with tomato to make a Bolognese sauce for spaghetti. Here, the ground tofu is combined with black beans to make really good burgers.

4 ounces firm tofu (plain, smoked or with herbs)
¼ cup parsley
1 clove garlic
1 carrot
½ medium onion
1 cup chopped zucchini
1 cup chopped mushrooms
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon smoked pimentón (paprika)
¼ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon oregano
Red pepper flakes, to taste
2 cups cooked black beans, well drained
¼ cup fine dry bread crumbs or oat bran
Oil for frying the burgers
Buns for serving
Condiments such as Piquillo Pepper Ketchup and Red Pickled Onions to accompany the burgers (see below for links to these recipes)

Process tofu until crumbly.

Pat the tofu dry. Break it up and place in food processor with the parsley and garlic. Process until the tofu is crumbly. Set aside.

Process the carrot, onion, zucchini and mushrooms until finely chopped. Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the vegetables until they are somewhat softened, about 8 minutes. (Carrots should still be a little crunchy.) Stir the tofu into the skillet and sauté it with the vegetables for 1 minute. Season the mixture with 1 teaspoon salt, pepper, pimentón, cumin, oregano and red pepper flakes. Scrape the vegetables and tofu into a bowl.

Process the black beans, leaving them a little lumpy to give the mixture texture. Add it to the bowl with the bread crumbs or oat bran. Mix well with the hands. Chill the mixture.

Shape the tofu-bean mixture into patties. These are before cooking.

Shape the tofu-black bean mixture into 4 large or 6 small patties. Heat oil in a heavy skillet or plancha and cook the burgers until they are browned on both sides and heated through.

Fideo Noodles with Tofu and Vegetables
Cazuela de Fideos con Tofu

This noodle dish, usually cooked with fish and shellfish, is also known as “pasta paella” or “fideuá.” It occurred to me to make it with tofu because the chewy, white tofu sort of reminded me of pieces of squid or cuttlefish. To give it a taste of the ocean, I made a vegetable stock using kombu, edible sea kelp. (Spain has become one of the world’s top producers of algae and seaweed products.) If you like, cut the cooked kombu in thin strips and add it to the noodle dish. If you don’t want to bother with the kombu, just use any vegetable stock.

Fideos (fideus in Catalan) are thin, round noodles, like vermicelli. They range in thickness from threads of angel’s hair to spaghetti-like cords. I’m using short ones that have a pin-hole through the middle. If you haven’t got fideos, use spaghetti broken into two-inch lengths.

Fry the noodles in oil until toasted.

Spanish fideos are cooked differently than your usual pasta. For one thing, the dry pasta is first toasted in olive oil. Next, instead of cooking the pasta in a pot of boiling water, then saucing it, the fideos cook right in the sauce, soaking up the flavors, much as rice is cooked in paella.

The starting point is a good sofrito—onions, peppers and tomatoes fried in olive oil. This can be prepared in advance or all in one go.

For the sofrito:
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green pepper
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon pimentón (paprika, not smoked)
¼ teaspoon cumin
1 ½ cups chopped tomatoes
¼ cup white wine or Sherry
½ teaspoon salt

Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onion, pepper and garlic until onion is softened, 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the pimentón and cumin. Return to heat and immediately add the chopped tomatoes. Cook on high heat for 3 minutes. Add the wine or Sherry and salt. Let the sofrito simmer until thickened, about 15 minutes. 

For the tofu and noodles:
8 ounces firm tofu
¼ cup + 3 cups kombu or vegetable stock (kombu recipe follows)
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar
1 clove crushed garlic
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups fideo noodles (14 ounces)
1 ½ cups shelled fava beans or peas
Sofrito
3 cups kombu or vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Sprigs of mint to garnish
Strips of kombu to garnish (optional)

Cut the tofu into strips about 1 ½ X ½ inch. Pat them dry. Place the tofu in a small bowl with the kombu or vegetable stock, salt, vinegar, and crushed garlic. Allow to marinate 30 minutes.

Heat the oil in a paella pan or cazuela. Add the noodles and toss them in the oil until they begin to turn golden. Drain the tofu and add the pieces of tofu to the pan and fry them briefly. Add the fava beans or peas. Stir in the sofrito. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until pasta is al dente. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and allow to set 5 minutes before serving.

Garnish with sprigs of mint and thin strips of kombu, if desired.

Kombu comes dried.

For the (optional) kombu stock:
2 ounces kombu (dried kelp)
8 cups water
¼ onion
1 stalk celery
1 carrot
Bay leaf
Sprig rosemary
½ teaspoon salt

Wash the leaves of kombu. Place them in a pot with the water, onion, celery, carrot, bay, rosemary and salt. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for 40 minutes. 

Add strips of cooked kombu to the noodles if you like.

 

Strain the stock in a colander, saving the cooked kombu, if desired, to add to the fideo noodles..

To accompany the burgers:

Scarlet-Pickled Onions.

Piquillo Pepper Ketchup.

More vegetarian recipes:

Chard and Cheese Pie.

Brown Rice Paella with Vegetables.

Millet and Carrot Pilaf.

Don Quixote's Friday Lentils.

Zucchini "Pizza".

Recipes for the non-vegetarian originals: 

Mushrooms al Ajillo.

Fideuá (Seafood Pasta Paella).

THE SOUL OF SPAIN? SAUSAGES!

According to this new cookbook, the soul of Spain is not found in its literature, poetry or music, not in flamenco, nor bullfighting, certainly not in the Church. The soul of Spain is its sausage! Charcutería, the art and skill of curing meat, is the soul of Spain, claims Jeffrey Weiss, chef and author of CHARCUTERÍA--THE SOUL OF SPAIN (Surrey Books-Agate; 2014).

Jeff discovered the Spanish soul a few years ago when he won a scholarship from the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) to spend a year in Spain getting to know Spanish products while working in the kitchens of top restaurants. One of Jeff’s most memorable experiences from that year was participating in a typical matanza, or hog butchering, in Extremadura. Inspired by traditional ham and sausage production, since returning to the US, he’s been pursuing Spanish sausage-making, which he declares is too little-known in America. The book grew out of that dedication. Jeff currently is chef at Jeninni Kitchen + Wine Bar in Pacific Grove, CA., where he serves Spanish-inflected snacks, charcuterie, small plates, entrees, sides and desserts. 

A sabia (expert sausage maker), tying off links. (Photo by Nathan Rawlinson.)

In the book, Jeff gets the sausage and dick jokes out of the way quickly. To hear him tell it, the sabias, the women who know how just how much salt and pimentón to add to the grind, are cracking wise about how small his sausage is, whether it needs massaging. When he gets down to the matanza at hand—an intense, draining and days long affair, he says, with sharp implements, the capacity to witness death and a good amount of blood required—there is no joking here, but much respect for the people and the animals involved.

Each chapter describes a curing process and its uses with recipes incorporating the cured foods. So, for example, under Salmueras y Salazones (brines and salt cures) are steps to produce your own panceta (pancetta or pork belly) or whole ham. Right down to the quantity of salt and the time to cure and air-dry them. Here, too, is absolutely everything about how the famed Ibérico ham is produced—from the pigs to the dehesa where they fatten on acorns to the slaughter and curing.  

The chapter on Embutidos (literally, anything stuffed in a casing, thus “sausages”) surveys just about all the regional variations. Some of these, writes Jeff, are vastly different and wholly unique compared to what you will find anywhere else in the world.

Butifarra, chistorra, botillo, bull, morcilla, patatera, fuet and, of course, chorizo are demystified. While you may never intend to make your own sausages, the recipes for cooking with them are fabulous—chorizo al infierno, flamed with orujo brandy; Barcelona canelones, with a filling that includes sausage, liver, chicken and veal; garbanzos with butifarra negra that includes raisins, sweet wine, spinach and mint; Nacho Manzano’s Asturian fabada; carcamusa, a pork “chili;” cocido madrileño, a grand one-pot feast, and Tolosa black beans with sausages.

This book should have been released in the fall or winter, season of hog butchering, when fatty, porky dishes are especially appealing. Nevertheless, the book surprises with its selection of non-meat recipes, included because they use many of the same techniques that are used in curing meat.

For example, in the chapter on Salmueras y Salazones (brines and salt cures) are recipes for salt cod in three classic Basque sauces, pil pil, verde and vizcaina; Catalan salads with salt fish, such as xató and esqueixada, and asparagus topped with mojama (air-dried tuna) and a perfect fried egg—“sexy, runny, crispy.” In the Adobo chapter is a take on cazón en adobo (marinated, fried shark), using chickpea flour. (I’ll be trying that one.) And, in Escabeche, recipes for mushroom or mussel escabeche alongside a classic partridge escabeche that Jeff learned to make at Restaurante Adolfo in Toledo, one of the restaurants where he interned during that year in Spain.

There are also chapters on Conservas y Confits, Pâtés y Terrinas (with a recipe for Arzak’s sensational pastel de cabracho, a fish terrine); Guarniciones y Salsas (including recipes for sweet-pickled garlic and for Almagro pickled eggplant), and Postres y Licores (including wonderful perunillas, cookies made with lard, a by-product of the matanza).

The professional cook or dedicated amateur will appreciate this book’s precision. The book describes the difference between European and American butchering, how a pig is broken down into parts. There are classifications—fresh, semi-cured, cooked and dry-cured sausages. Here are detailed instructions about types of knots for tying off sausages, equipment and the “secrets and science of charcutería “ (precise measurements and exact temperatures make a difference), with the curing salts needed for safe processing and where to get them.

But, Charcutería—The Soul of Spain has much to love for a home cook like me who may never attempt to make sausage from scratch.

The book has a forward by well-known chef José Andrés. Jeff worked for José early in his cheffing career and José helped him get the ICEX scholarship that got him to Spain. The fabulous evocative photos by Nathan Rawlinson shot on location in Spain capture authenic scenes of matanzas, kitchens, cooks, Ibérico pigs. 

Jeff will be cooking for an event at the James Beard House, New York, on 27 June. See the information about that dinner here .

Butifarra, a Catalan sausage.

I chose a recipe from Charcutería—The Soul of Spain for Trinxat, sausage-cabbage-potato cakes, that is satisfying, but light enough for warm weather. It calls for butifarra, a Catalan sausage, that is also good grilled over charcoal. (Yes, you can buy butifarra in the US.)

“This Catalan dish,” writes Jeff, “is part of a long line of European cabbage and potato mash-ups, including comfort-food favorites like the English bubble and squeak, Swiss rösti, Irish colcannon—the list goes on.

“These recipes have common ground. They’re an easy way to use up leftovers, particularly back in the days when refrigeration was scarce and food was never wasted. This Trinxat recipe is especially porky and delicious with the inclusion of butifarra.

“Also, I say, go big or go home—take the time to fry the cabbage cakes in foaming butter, like a real fine-dining cook. Worry about the calories another day.”

Rendered ibérico lard.

Uh-oh. Sorry, Jeff. I wussed out here. No butter has crossed my threshold in several years. So, instead of a “fine-dining cook,” I am a down-home olive oil and lard type. I bought a hunk of Ibérico pork fat (I live in Spain, so that was easy to source) and rendered it down to make lard to use in the Sofrito. I did take Jeff’s suggestion for serving the cakes with an acidic salad, of oranges and spring onions.

TRINXAT
Sausage-Cabbage-Potato Cakes

(Recipe excerpted from CHARCUTERÍA--THE SOUL OF SPAIN.)

Sausage-cabbage-potato cakes with orange salad.

Note: This dish is pretty heavy, so it goes well with an acidic salad to cut its richness. Otherwise, definitely serve it as they do in the mountains, with a garlicky alioli for dipping.

4 entrée servings

½ cup Basic Sofrito (recipe below)
1 head napa or savoy cabbage, cored and cut into medium dice
1.1  pounds medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into medium dice.
Water, to cover
Kosher salt, to taste
½ cup + 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, as needed
2  Butifarra Blanca or Negra sausages, removed from the casing and crumbled
White pepper, to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
All-purpose flour, as needed
Unsalted butter, as needed

In a large saucepan, prepare the Basic Sofrito, using manteca as the fat and including the garlic, bay leaf and panceta options from the recipe. Remove from the heat, transfer the sofrito to a mixing bowl and set aside. Wipe out the pan.

In the same saucepan, cover the cabbage and potatoes with cold water. Season with salt until the water tastes like the ocean, and bring the water to a rolling boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are just tender. Drain but reserve the veggies in the pot.

Return the saucepan to medium heat and stir the veggies until you see that all of the residual water has evaporated. Once the mixture is dry, remove from the heat. Transfer the vegetables to a large mixing bowl.

Make cakes and place on a tray.

Using a potato masher, mash the cabbage and potatoes and set aside to cool to room temperature (the more steam that is released, the less moisture will remain).

In a sauté pan over medium-high heat, warm the ½ cup of oil until rippling but not smoking. Add the sausages and sear, breaking them up with a spoon, for 8 to 10 minutes, until thoroughly cooked. Stir and add the reserved sofrito. Sauté for 8 to 10 minutes, or until simmering.

Add the contents of the sauté pan to the bowl containing the veggies. Mix well. Taste and season the mixture with the salt, white pepper and freshly grated nutmeg as needed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes, or until cool.

Set a baking sheet on the counter. Using a ½-cup measure, scoop out some of the mixture and form it into a ball. Place the ball on a clean work surface. Smash the ball down to form a cake-like shape (like a crab cake). Rest the cake on the baking sheet. Repeat until all of the mixture has been used. Lightly dust the Trinxat cakes with the flour and set aside.

In a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, warm the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil until rippling. Fry the Trinxat cakes in the sauté pan for 8 to 10 minutes, until seared on one side. Flip the cakes, add 2 tablespoons of the butter to the pan and baste with a spoon, “fine-dining style.” Cook for 6 to 8 minutes on the second side, until warmed through. Repeat as needed for the remaining cakes. Serve hot.

BASIC SOFRITO

Sofrito--fried onions, garlic, tomatoes.

Sofrito, one of the keys to Spanish cuisine, is a word that pops up in every language spoken in the country. Whether it’s called a sofrito in Castellano, a sofregit in Catalan, a rustido in Gallego, or sueztitua in Euskadi, it’s going to be some combination of onions, garlic, and tomatoes cooked in fat to varying degrees of jam-like consistency. Stemming from the verb sofreir, which means “to fry lightly,” the sofrito is an exercise in patience and finesse. It’s all about listening, smelling and slowly cooking the aromatics down in hot fat; about knowing when to add the various components and about understanding the depth of flavor you want to achieve.

Note: Sofritos are not just personal recipes. They’re typically tailored to their end purpose, so feel free to add any of the optional ingredients, depending on what goes best with the recipe your Sofrito will play a part in.

FOR THE BASE SOFRITO
Extra virgin olive oil, unsalted butter or melted manteca (pork lard), as needed
5 medium yellow onions, peeled, destemmed and cut into small dice
Kosher salt, as needed
3 plum tomatoes, halved and grated on the medium holes of a grater, liquid reserved
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste


OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS—GROUP 1
3 cloves garlic, grated on a Microplane
2 medium green bell peppers, seeded and cut into small dice
2 medium red bell peppers, seeded and cut into small dice
3 medium piquillo peppers, cut into small dice
1 medium chile pepper, such as Fresno or Anaheim, cut into small dice
2 medium leeks, cleaned and cut into small dice
3 ½ ounces (100 g) Jamón or Panceta Curada


OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS—GROUP 2
1 fresh bay leaf
¼ cup (65 g) tomato paste
1 tablespoon cumin seed, toasted and ground
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon fennel seed, toasted and ground

TO MAKE THE BASIC SOFRITO:
Cover the bottom of a medium saucepan with ¼ inch of the fat of your choice (basically, you want the entire bottom of the pan covered with a layer of fatty goodness). Place the saucepan over medium-high heat and warm the fat for 4 to 6 minutes, until rippling but not smoking and moving freely in the pan.

Add the onions and any of the optional ingredients from Group 1 to the saucepan. Season liberally with the salt.

Lower the heat to medium and cook the sofrito, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 45 minutes (depending on how far you wish to brown the onions: At 15 minutes, they’re wilted, and at 45, they’re wonderfully browned). Add small amounts of water as needed to keep the browning consistent, or just adjust the heat accordingly.

Once the onions have reached the desired color, add the tomatoes and their liquid and any of the optional ingredients from Group 2. Stir to incorporate.

Cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until all the liquid has evaporated and the mixture has a jam-like consistency. Taste the sofrito and season to taste with the salt and black pepper. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Chill in the refrigerator overnight. Once chilled, the sofrito can be refrigerated for a week or held frozen for up to 4 months.

BEYOND PAELLA

Arroz con pollo--rice with chicken--an easy dish.

Do you have a favorite go-to dish, one that you can whip up without too much planning and feel good serving to guests?

For me, that dish is arroz con pollo, rice with chicken. Like paella, it is generous and festive. Everything cooks in one pan, so it’s an easy dish for entertaining. But, unlike paella, it requires little prepping. No shrimp to peel, clams or mussels to steam open, squid to prepare.

Sofrito--garlic, onions, peppers, tomatoes and mushrooms.

Like paella, this rice dish starts with an easy sofrito of onions, garlic, peppers and tomatoes to create the flavor. You brown the chicken pieces, add stock or water, then the rice.

Unlike paella, this dish can be cooked in almost any pan—an earthenware cazuela; a deep, lidded casserole; a big skillet; a paella pan or a perol, a deep two-handled frying pan. The proportion of liquid to rice is slightly more than double, so it isn’t a “dry” rice, like paella, but meloso, or slightly juicy. That’s pretty forgiving—but you still have to take care not to overcook the rice. And, unlike risotto, the rice is not stirred while cooking.

Arroz con pollo is a dish easily stretched to feed last-minute guests. Just cut the chicken into smaller pieces. This is rice with chicken, after all, not chicken with rice!

I like to use one chicken piece per serving (legs, thighs, wings, breast cut in quarters). I use the backs and wing tips to make a quick and easy stock. But, even this is not necessary. You can use canned low-sodium chicken broth or—water!

Arroz con pollo is a dish that, except for fresh chicken, can usually be put together with ingredients in the pantry or freezer. In the spring, fresh habas (fava beans), peas, artichokes and asparagus are perfect additions. In this season, I’m using green beans from the garden. Zucchini, mushrooms, canned butter beans are other options.

Medium-short-grain rice.

Use Spanish medium-short-grained “round” paella rice for this recipe. If you can get it, the bomba variety is best, because it does not swell up and “flower” when cooked with lots of liquid. In Latin-America they make arroz con pollo with long-grain rice. It’s good, but the rice doesn’t soak up the flavors the way it does with Spanish rice.

Saffron is optional in this rice dish. Use it if you’ve got it. In any case, use enough sweet pimentón (paprika, not smoked) to add a slight ruddy color to the rice. I like to add a pinch of smoked pimentón as well. It gives a hint of sausage to the rice.

Flavorful rice, chicken and vegetables.

Rice with Chicken
Arroz con Pollo

Serves 6 to 8.

3 pounds chicken pieces
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup peeled and diced tomato
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1 cup fresh or frozen fava beans or lima beans
1 cup fresh or frozen green beans, preferably romano, cut in short lengths
5 cups chicken broth or water
¼ teaspoon saffron threads (optional)
Pinch of ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon sweet pimentón (paprika)
Pinch of cayenne
1 bay leaf
1 cup diced potato (1 medium potato), optional
2 cups short-grained rice

Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and allow to stand for 30 minutes.

Heat the oil in a large cazuela or skillet. Brown the chicken pieces in the oil, turning to brown all sides. Remove the chicken as it is browned.

Sauté the garlic, peppers and onions 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and sauté on high heat for 2 minutes. If using fresh peas, fava beans and green beans, add them now. Add 1 cup of the broth and 1 teaspoon salt. Return the chicken pieces to the pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat so the liquid bubbles gently. Cover the pan and cook 15 minutes.

In a mortar, crush the saffron, if using, to a powder. Mix it with a little of the remaining broth or water.  Add the saffron water to the pan with the pepper, cloves, cumin, pimentón, cayenne and bay leaf.

Turn the chicken pieces and add the potatoes, if using. Cover and cook 5 minutes more. Add the remaining 4 cups of broth. Bring to a boil and stir in the rice. (If using frozen peas, fava beans, and green beans, add them now.) Taste for salt and add additional if necessary. Reduce heat so liquid bubbles gently. Cover the pan and cook 15 to 17 minutes, stirring only once during this time. The rice should be al dente. Not all of the liquid will be absorbed.

Remove pan from the heat and let stand, covered, 10 minutes before serving.