Eat The World- Paella

Living back in the city definitely has its benefits, like great big grocery stores with everything I could possibly want to cook, for one thing. Book stores, because there is always room for more cookbooks, right? Gourmet shops and spice stores with literally hundreds of spices. All this access to ingredients and inspiration is really helping to drive my Eat The World theme and getting me to cook, and eat, foods from cuisines I have never tried before, like Spanish cuisine. Sure, I have had tapas before, who hasn't? I really wanted to get into something traditional and paella is widely regarded as the national dish of Spain. Rice has been a staple food in Spain since the 15th century, and with beautiful coastal regions, it's just natural that the Spanish combined rice with seafood and other meats in this delicious one-pan dish that gets its name from the vessel it's cooked in.

I highly recommend slicing your leeks lengthwise and then

rinsing under running water to remove all the grit. They can

be quite sandy and gross inside.

Back in the 18th century a typical paella might consist of rice, chicken, snails, duck, rabbit, beans, tomatoes, artichokes, fresh herbs and of course, saffron. In coastal regions there was usually more seafood and less meat in the dish. Modern paella is usually made with chicken, shellfish, and often a sausage such as chorizo. Regardless of region, there is one constant in all paella- good olive oil. 

A mezzaluna makes quick work of mincing herbs and it's
a fun little gadget to have around.

When I finally decided to go with paella, I started researching recipes. Paella can easily be a hundred dollar dinner, if not more. Imported rices, imported olive oils, and pricier seafood can drive the price up in a flash. I wanted to find ingredients that fit not only into my budget, but into the average family's budget as well. I also thought that the techniques and equipment needed to prepare the dish should not be too "cheffy" and should be so that the home cook can easily prepare this dish. Substituting chicken for more pricier fish options was a no brainer, especially since many Spanish cooks also use chicken. Choosing shrimp was a fairly reasonably priced option for seafood and using kielbasa instead of chorizo kept some of the flavors familiar but not too far from the original. As for the traditional paella pan, from which the dish gets its name, I don't own one, but I do own a wok-like pan from IKEA that will work perfectly. The lid has been broken but I've used a pizza pan many times for bigger skillets, and it did the trick again this time as well. I also did not need to stock up on exotic spices. Most cooks have paprika on hand, right? Saffron was the only spice that not everyone has on hand, but small bottles are relatively affordable. I've had a bottle of saffron on the shelf for a while, waiting to find the right dish. This version of paella is quite modern and I FINALLY get to use that saffron I have been hanging on to. 

Looks like a "big pinch" to me! Saffron has a very unique
fragrance and brings a gorgeous color to your recipe.

Easy Paella

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 pound medium shrimp, cleaned

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts or 3 thighs, cut into chunks

salt and pepper

8 oz kielbasa, sliced
2 leeks, cleaned and sliced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 1/2 cups rice 

2 tablespoons butter

generous pinch of saffron

2 cups chicken stock

1 cup frozen peas, thawed

small bunch scallions, sliced

handful chopped fresh Italian parsley

lime wedges

In a large skillet heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium high heat. Cook the shrimp until pink and cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add more oil to the skillet if necessary. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to skillet, cooking until browned on all sides. Remove from skillet. 

Add the sliced kielbasa. Cook and stir until browned. Add the leeks and cook for one minute. Add the garlic and paprika and return the chicken to the pan.

Take the skillet off the heat and add the wine; return to high heat and boil until almost evaporated. 

Add the rice, butter, saffron and chicken stock. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook about 30 minutes until the rice has absorbed the liquid. Stir the shrimp, peas and sliced scallions into the rice; sprinkle with parsley and serve with lime wedges and crusty bread.

Now that I have one paella under my belt, I plan to try several versions. Many of the recipes I've seen had ingredients such as lobster, claims, snails, duck, legumes such as butter beans and other similar beans and vegetables of all kinds. Maybe a vegetarian version? Marinated and seared tofu as a protein? Scallops? This is going to be fun!

Dinner, French style

I knew this would happen. I just knew after seeing The Hundred Foot Journey a while back that I'd not only want to live in France but I'd be dragging out the French cookbooks and reading the recipes, cooking the food, dreaming my dreams. As predicted, the first thing I wanted to do was bake crusty, artisan bread like those you might find in a boulangerie. Then I wanted to drag out all the herbs, smell them, taste them, crush them between my fingers and release the aromas. I want to chop up vegetables, saute the mirepoix and roast something fabulous.

A baker at heart, I also wanted to bake. Dessert, that is. Tarts and gateaux, profiteroles and eclairs, palmiers and macarons. Meringues filled with creme anglais and beautiful fruits. I have so many cookbooks with beautiful pastries and cakes and tarts, inspiring pictures, amazing techniques and ingredients, some complex, some very simple and homey. Of course, the typical French cook wouldn't bother with making such things. They would buy dessert and put their focus on the rest of the meal. 

I might be tempted to host a dinner party, French style. We would start out with a nice glass of wine and some light nibbles- olives, some nuts, maybe a dip and some crostini for dipping. Dinner would be spectacular, of course. Like the French, we would follow dinner with a salad course, and then that amazing dessert from the patisserie. Just because I'm not throwing a party right now doesn't mean I won't still make the perfect French dinner. We will just have leftovers. Lots of them.

Tonight's French dinner is utilizing a BIG shortcut- canned beans. While you certainly CAN soak, simmer and use dried beans, canned beans are a super quick way to get that long, slow cooked flavor and appeal with a minimum of fuss. I would normally choose cannellini beans for this dish but I grabbed the wrong cans so small white beans it is. I also highly recommend fresh herbs for this dish. I do use dried in a pinch but really, fresh rosemary that's just cut moments ago from the garden just cannot be beat with a beautiful piece of pork and those rich and hearty beans.

French-style Herbed Roast Pork

• 1 2-3 lb boneless pork loin roast
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 bottle dry white wine
• 6 cloves of garlic
• one yellow onion, cut into chunks
• 1/2 lb carrots, sliced
• 2 bay leaves
• good sized sprig of thyme
• small hand full parsley
• a couple stems of rosemary
• 2 cans white beans, drained and rinsed

Preheat a large dutch oven. Rub the roast all over with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Sear the meat on all sides over high heat. Remove to a plate.
Add the onions and carrots to the pot. 

Cook, stirring every once in a while, until onions begin to sweat. Add the garlic; stir and cook one minute. Add the herbs and give them a good stir until they are fragrant. 

Add the entire bottle of wine to pot, scraping up the crusty browned bits on the bottom. Return the meat. Cover and roast at 300 degrees for about 3 hours, adding the beans for the last hour, and roasting uncovered.

If you don't want to use wine, just use some chicken broth or stock instead- it's just as delicious, about 3 cups is what you need.

To put this all together, carefully remove the roast from the pot and place on a deep platter. Cover with foil to keep warm. Scoop out the beans and vegetable with a slotted spoon, discarding the bay leaves, thyme and rosemary. Place the pot over high heat and cook down the pan drippings until reduced and flavorful; stir in a bit of butter if you like. 

Surround the roast with the beans and spoon a little sauce over the meat, pass the rest at the table. Serve with crusty bread for soaking up the sauce. The roast will be tender and juicy, the beans flavorful and substantial. Great food for chilly autumn days, or semi-chilly rainy gloomy summer days like today, and daydreaming......about a quaint village with cobblestone streets, shutter-clad windows and window boxes filled with flowers and herbs.....and me.

Exploring Polish Cuisine- Stuffed Cabbage Rolls with Cucumber Salad

Exploring different types of cuisine is something we really enjoy here at The Little Lake House. It's virtually impossible to get stuck in a rut when you are constantly exploring new lands, unique food stores and reading ethnic cookbooks for ideas. Polish food is generally not something that comes to mind when you talk about a "cuisine." In fact, I'd be willing to bet not many people could even name a traditional Polish dish, and for far too many that think they know Polish food- it's frozen premade pierogies. That's sad to me!

Having a mother who was born and raised in Germany, I was exposed to so many different styles of cooking during my life. While she was not Polish, she did make some pretty killer cabbage rolls, which is a traditional Polish dish. The thing about Mom's rolls- the filling was the same basic mixture as her meatloaf and meatballs with a little rice added, and I've said it before- she was no Julia Child and she did the unthinkable- made the sauce from canned tomato soup. When I decided to reinvent Mom's cabbage roll recipe I knew I'd be skipping that horrific ingredient!

In order to get a beautiful, perfect little cabbage package you need a nice, firm, smooth and heavy head of cabbage. Look for a bright green head that weighs about three pounds and you'll end up with 12-20 rolls. I was shooting for 12 rolls so I'd have plenty to freeze for later too. Prepping the cabbage is super easy. Use a sharp knife to cut out the core (or as much as you can) and remove the outer leaf or two if they are beat up. 

Get a big stockpot of water boiling, and go ahead and salt that water too. Carefully place the cabbage head (yep, the whole thing) in the pot, cover it, and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, then carefully again, remove the whole head and place it on a rimmed baking sheet until cool enough to handle. Save that water and keep it simmering- you might find some of the inner leaves are still too crunchy and you might need to simmer the cabbage a little bit more. Plus, you will need a little water for later. Carefully peel off the leaves and set aside. Sounds easy right? Lets make some cabbage rolls!

Polish Cabbage Rolls (Golabki)

3 lb head of cabbage
1 lb hamburger (get the lean grind for this recipe)
1 small onion
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup chopped carrot
olive oil
3/4 cup uncooked rice
salt
pepper
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
Italian seasoning, if desired
3 cups tomato sauce, divided  (1/2 cup in the meat, the rest as sauce)
1/2 cup water

Finely dice the onion and garlic. Chop the carrots into small dice. In a large skillet heat a couple tablespoons of oil. Add the onions and carrots and saute over medium heat until onions begin to caramelize. Add the garlic. Continue cooking until the garlic softens but does not brown. Remove from heat and set aside to  cool.

Prep the cabbage as above. I'm shooting for 12 rolls so I am going to peel off leaves until I have enough. Now sometimes I get most of them peeled off and they are still too crunchy to roll- so pop them back in the pot of water for a few minutes. We have to deal with that hard rib, so grab a paring knife or vegetable peeler and shave it off. You don't want to cut through the leaf, we want to keep it whole. Set the leaves aside.

Save the rib shavings- you can chop them up and toss
in the meat filling too- no waste!

In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, the sauteed vegetables. rice, salt and pepper, the parsley and one cup of the tomato sauce. Get in there with your hands and mix that up like meatballs- and then divide it up into enough portions for all the leaves you have. Then, roll em up!

To roll them, place the bottom of the leaf closest to you. Put the filling on the leaf, then fold the bottom over the filling, fold the sides in, then roll up. Place the rolls seam side down in a large baking pan. They will hold together well and you won't need toothpicks or anything like that. 

Sprinkle the rolls with Italian seasoning if you're using. Combine the remaining tomato sauce with 1/2 cup of the cabbage water and pour over the rolls in the pan. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until cooked through.

Typically in Poland the rolls are allowed to cool after baking, then covered and chilled- to serve brown in olive oil and serve with sour cream. You can also serve them straight from the oven with a little tomato sauce spooned over if you like.

Some potatoes with parsley and butter were perfect
with the cabbage rolls.

Now the typical Polish farm wife might serve these rolls with a side of tluczone ziemniaki (mashed potatoes) and falsolka z migdalami (green beans sprinkled with buttered and toasted bread crumbs and sliced olives) or maybe a cold cucumber salad. Sounds like a perfectly delicious and homey meal to me. Let's eat!

Frozen scoops of tomato paste- pop in the microwave
with water and you have tomato sauce in minutes.

Helpful hint-  I buy tomato paste in bulk- the big #10 cans, scoop it out onto waxed paper in 1/2 cup portions and freeze. When solid, I bag them up and store. It's easy to pull out a couple portions and thaw in water to make the sauce I need for this recipe- I used 2 scoops of paste and 3 cups of water (my rolls are a little saucy). This way I always have tomato sauce pretty much at my fingertips for very little money.

Want to have some fun with food? Let's make a quick cucumber salad to go with the rolls- and we're going to use a fun tool- a spiralizer. I have had a lot of fun playing with this thing and decided this would be a great night to break it out. They come in all price ranges from an inexpensive hand held one (like mine) to a $$$$ automatic thing I just don't need. It's not something I think to use very often, it's just fun. So for our salad I have two medium cucumbers. Gotta love farmers market day! There were literally picked an hour before I bought them. I used the spiralizer to cut long strands of cucumber- kind of like noodles, and then used a knife to cut through the pile of strands to make bite size pieces.

Into the salad bowl they go along with some slivered red onion. I had a few sprigs of herbs leftover from the night before so I added some thyme leaves and a handful of chopped parsley, some salt and freshly ground black pepper and gave it a toss.

A little vinegar and oil- simple and classic, like our European style meal, and it's ready to serve.

Happy Anniversary and memories of a European childhood

Probably the biggest benefit of being a well-traveled child has been acquiring an international palate at a very young age. My mother was born and raised in Germany and spending a lot of time in Europe exposed me to foods that your average American mac and cheese kid probably never tasted. Twelve different countries and several years spent overseas exposed me to so many incredible cuisines. The other kids in my neighborhood likely never heard of steak tartare or duck confit. Schnitzel Holstein with spaetzle would be another language altogether. Rouladen? Is that a video game? What in the world is lefse and lutefisk? What do you mean Italians don't eat Spaghettios?

It was especially fun as a child to order these dishes and watch the server squirm and try to direct me to a more appropriate selection, a burger maybe? Or spaghetti and meatballs, mac and cheese? They just couldn't grasp the idea that a kid knew exactly what Spaghetti Caruso is, and actually wanted it. Kids aren't supposed to like those kinds of things, right? I'm pretty sure more than a handful of servers were disgusted beyond belief watching my sister and I mix together raw ground steak, raw egg yolk, chopped onion, capers, pile it on crusty bread and munch it down. Think about it- do YOU know any 8 or 9 year olds who order and actually EAT steak tartare or tried carpaccio? 

Ready to mix and spread on crusty bread. Mmmmmmmm

As my Chef and I celebrated our 4th anniversary of coupledom we visited our favorite Italian restaurant, Riccelli's, for some old world, traditional family recipe Italian, and you will never guess what they have on the menu!! You got it- Spaghetti Caruso. So while I dig into my plate of deliciousness, I'll share the recipe I use when making this at home, a loose adaptation of my mother's version. She always made red sauce that cooked for hours, with dried herbs, and while that's perfectly fine, I like the freshness of herbs just picked from the garden. I'm not even going to ask for Riccelli's sauce recipe. I know how valued those secrets are. One thing you don't want is an angry Italian nonna chasing after you!

Sadly, in today's world the likelihood of finding these fantastic "raw" options such as steak tartare is very rare, and unless it's sushi, you're going to have a hard time finding raw anything. Improper food handling and fear of food poisoning makes it a risk most restaurants don't want to take. Even with sushi, so many people are concerned about "what's in the fish" and so many false stories make their way around the internet...... 

Finding some of these old-time foods can be a bit of a challenge, but if you find a non-chain, family-owned old Italian joint, you just might find.....

Spaghetti Caruso

3-4 cups tomato sauce

approx 1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup finely minced onion

3-4 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 tb fresh oregano, chopped

2 tb fresh marjoram, chopped

2-3 tb fresh basil, chopped

1 lb chicken livers, cleaned

1/2 cup flour
salt and pepper

1/3 to 1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup butter

1 lb spaghetti (I prefer THIN spaghetti or angel hair)

Parmesan cheese to taste

Combine tomato sauce with oregano and marjoram. Set aside. In large skillet heat the olive oil. Add mushrooms and onions and saute for several minutes until onions are soft and translucent and mushrooms are tender. Add garlic, cook and stir for a couple more minutes. Add tomato sauce mixture, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, make sure livers are free from fibers and dark spots. Cut each liver in half. Season flour with salt and pepper, dredge livers in flour. Heat vegetable oil, fry livers, half at a time, until browned and crisp, about 3 minutes. Remove to paper towel-lined plate.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in plenty of boiling salted water. Drain and set aside.

Remove oil from skillet, wipe clean. Add butter, heat until foamy. Add livers, and stir.

Place pasta in large bowl. Add chopped basil to sauce, pour over pasta and toss. Top with livers, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve.

Now I know a lot of people get squeamish at the thought of anything liver, but I hope you will give this recipe a try- with an open mind and an open palate. It really is delicious. Chicken livers are small enough- you can suck it up and try it! Crusty bread and butter or hot, crunchy garlic bread go amazingly well to sop up the delicious sauce too. 

I didn't really spell out the recipe for steak tartare, although I did snap a pic of the ingredients before I indulged in my tv snack. Very simply, you need HIGH QUALITY, very lean ground beef, about a pound- grind your own if you can. One raw egg yolk, some chopped onion, some capers, salt and pepper, mix it all up and spread it on crusty bread for an amazing taste experience. It is not "bloody" or gross or slimy. It's fresh and delicious and tastes amazingly light. The teeniest drizzle of extra virgin olive oil transforms it into something you might enjoy with a wonderful chianti at a sidewalk cafe in Italy, much like it's cousin, carpaccio. 

Be brave! Go forth and try new things!