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When I was a young man I was aggressively attached to all things hot, but these days I tend to favor subtle and savory depth…
Same here. Pretty common story I think. (Any parallel to musical tastes?)
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I go with the oregano since, as far as herbs go, it seems to have a bit of spiciness to it.
Sure, it's good. But thyme is my most commonly used herb.
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I try to use cumin sparingly, as I really overused it during my sad, lonely days of veganism twenty years ago, and it brings up some pretty dark feelings.
Ay, pobrecito! But cumin and coriander are made for each other - when cooked gently in the oil with the onions after the onions have softened.
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And a little too much can make the kitchen instantly smell like a hippy group house, which is also an unwanted trigger.
No problem, just overwhelm it with this:
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Yes! I was an habitual abuser of thyme for a long, uh, time. It was the first herb that I took a real shine to when I started cooking, but I try not to rely on it too heavily these days. And don’t worry, I still use cumin all the time, and almost always with coriander, I just try not to let it get too much of a foothold in a given dish and start up a drum circle…
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No problem, just overwhelm it with this...
Careful, there. I'm this close to hitting the "block this guy and hide his messages" button!
Lightly brown a thick chicken breast in olive oil, toss in a half cup of sliced black olives, a chopped medium small tomato, crushed garlic to suit, cumin, basil, oregano and a little ground coriander seed. Cover and simmer until the chicken is done--maybe 15 minutes or a little more.
Serve with lima beans and a salad, orange juice or mint tea to drink if you're being Moroccan, a light fruity red wine if you're being an evil and decadent westerner.
Also Chicken Pimenton: Go in the kitchen wearing your finest Col. Sanders outfit and pull the pimenton from the shelf. Rub a few chicken breasts in olive oil and then put them in a cast iron skillet and turn on medium heat.
After the chicken starts to spatter grease on your white suit, flip the chicken and dust it quite liberally with pimenton and flip it back over for a minute. Then rub some lemon on it and add a pinch of kosher salt. Turn your breasts and do the other side. Cook until done.
Your welcome.
This bad mouthing of cumin is falling on covered ears over here. I feel for you that some stupid hippes abused the cumin and ruined it for you.
This bad mouthing of cumin is falling on covered ears over here.
Alright, just to be clear: cumin’s great. I use it all the time. I got nothin’ bad to say about cumin. I just try to keep its use with reasonable bounds. Let’s not let this turn into a PDL/Juan Martin : cumin/no cumin thread.
That Moroccan chicken sounds killer. I was doing something similar a while back with olives, capers, and sundried tomatoes, basically using the fixin’s of a tapenade, but chopping it more loosely into a saucy sort of deal and smothering some chicken with it.
Alright, tin of pimenton acquired. El Rey de la Vera. With a name like that it has to be the best, yes?
This is some fine off topic stuff, folks, so keep the recipes coming. I cook alright, but I'm fundamentally lazy, and I tend to get stuck in ruts and just make the same few things over and over. So all this is inspiring me to try out some new stuff, find a few new ruts to get stuck in...
It could be said that an entire generation of Spaniards has learned how to cook from watching him on television. Positive vibe, sound work methods and interesting recipes that normally call for common ingredients.
It could be said that an entire generation of Spaniards has learned how to cook from watching him on television. Positive vibe, sound work methods and interesting recipes that normally call for common ingredients.
That looks good - normal food from an internationally non-famous Spanish chef, and not a can of liquid nitrogen in sight!
ORIGINAL: constructordeguitarras If you ordered spinach it came mixed with olive oil and lots of garlic.
There used to be a restaurant in Madrid called Callejon, said to be Hemingway's next favorite after Botín.
The most popular order was roasted shank of lamb and spinach. The espinacas were stewed with whole cloves of garlic and served with multiple lemon wedges for the juice to be squeezed over the greens.
For a generic place, there was, may still be, a restaurant in a side street not far from the Union Musical Española, near the Puerta del Sol. They seved a delicious hotpot of merluza (hake, a white cold water fish) with pimiento choricero topped with molten cheese. Great cheap white wine, too. I wandered in on a cold winter's day and returned more than once.
Yo, is this pimenton stuff engineered to cause some crazy chemical reaction when you sip tempranillo between bites of your chicken/cauliflower/tomato stewed rigatoni sauce?!?!?! There was a serious party in my mouth last night....
Actually, it was a tempranillo/shiraz, so I think it had something to do with that shiraz white pepper spiciness.....
Anyway I just made that Moroccan Chicken and just put in amounts of stuff I thought would be OK. Also added a few cloves + bit of smoked paprika + bit of tumeric and a teaspoon of whole peppercorns for luck.
Just scoffed it....
Yeah! OK! Good! Would make it again!
Had with Fine Beans & Salad.
(This thread should be in GastroFlamenco.com maybe? )
Now, can anybody tell me how you make proper Judias Blancas á la Madrid?
( con Garlic and Tomato...kinda soup style with a slight "hammy" flavour ...[kudo def no likee.. ].... I lived on that stuff, (con Pan) for 3 months once!)
cumin, basil, oregano and a little ground coriander seed.
How much of each do you normally use? (I've only got the dried herbs)
Enough I don't measure. I scatter the dried herbs around until the surface of the chicken, tomatoes and olives is well sprinkled. More than a pinch, less than a handful.
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Also do you add any stock or water, or just braise in the oil at a low heat?
cheers,
Ron
The sliced black olives come in a 3.8 ounce (108 gram) can. I tip in about half the liquid in the can. It's pretty salty.
I failed to say that when the chicken is done, the stuff remaining in the pan is still pretty soupy. Put the chicken on a heated plate, and reduce the soupiness of the tomatoes and olives by bringing to a vigorous boil over high heat. It won't get really thick like gravy, but it will get less soupy.
The sliced black olives come in a 3.8 ounce (108 gram) can.
See... there are a lot of things that Americans talk about as just "off the shelf", but are not so readily available here. Anyway I got whole Black Olives in a jar, but only used about a dozen of them.
For ages I've been looking at recipes with Black Beans.
In every Supermarket here you can get tins of Red Kidney Beans, White Beans, Black-Eyed Beans, Butter Beans, Mixed Beans etc etc...but never Black Beans.
Sure, plently of Chinese pre made Black Bean sauces and stif fry stuff...but no actual ready Black Beans.
So today I looked around in the dried pulses section and found a packet of dried Black Turtle Beans???
As I was waiting at the checkout, the lady in front of me had an American accent and was musing with the operator that she was from California.
I excused myself and interrupted and asked the lady if this is what I needed.
She examined them (actually she looked like an old ex 60's hippy) and said "Oh Yeah...that's them, you just soak them overnight and boil them, then simmer....Enjoy!"
I could see from her expression and sudden thoughtful hesitation when holding up the packet, that her mind had suddenly and unexpectedly drifted off to her younger self in a commune somewhere, wearing a mini skirt and T shirt and cooking the black beans in a pot over a wood fire and reading Jack Kerouac whilst others in the background sang Dylan and Baez songs to an untuned guitar...
Ah well, I'm sure you have things we don't. Bought a can of black beans at the supermarket yesterday. They had at least six different brands, plus some others that were spiced up different ways. There are a lot more Mexican people in Austin than there were 30 years ago.
Speaking of Mexico, two friends and I spent the summer camping in Mexico in 1961, about a month of it in the high jungle in Quintana Roo and northern Guatemala. We stocked up on provisions in the market in Merida, Yucatan before heading out to the jungle. Couldn't find any red beans so we bought quite a few pounds of black.
In a Mayan village no more than three days' walk from the road it was my turn to cook. I set about preparing the fat little partridges we had shot on the trail, beans and rice. A crowd gathered to watch the strange habits of the gringos. Some of the kids had never seen beans of any kind. I suspect that most of the adults hadn't either.
It didn't surprise me that rice was foreign to the Yucatecans, but beans are a staple in central Mexico, and were throughout North America among the agricultural tribes when the white people showed up.
Jorge, our guide and translator was a kid our age, early twenties. We became good friends. Occasionally he would sample a few bites of our exotic cooking, but mostly he stuck to corn tortillas. I watched him for a full week while he ate nothing but tortillas and water.
In the 1930s while the excavations were going on at Chichen Itza, the Carnegie Institution sent a group to Yucatan to set the poor benighted Indians on the right path. They arrived at two conclusions. The Mayan method of agriculture was far more efficient than anything the Carnegie people proposed, and human life could not be sustained on the diet of the Mayans.
Jorge is about 5'2" (157.5 cm). The last time I saw him, 8 1/2 years ago, he was still going strong at age 67, working in his cornfield every day except Sunday. During our walkabout fifty years ago, on the rare occasions we had to cut brush to get to some interesting set of ruins, he could wear me down in an hour, and keep swinging his machete for another four hours.
I just read yesterday that when Cortez landed on the east coast of Yucatan in 1519, he asked the name of the place. The best the Spaniards could wrap their tongues around the reply came out to be "Yucatan". In fact their informant was saying, "I don't understand you."
the reply came out to be "Yucatan". In fact their informant was saying, "I don't understand you."
BTW: Texan/Scottish joke...
Hamish was digging peat at his croft when a passing Texas tourist stops and asks, "How much land you reckon you have here buddy?" "Och... maybe aboot two acres," he replies. "You know, back home in Texas, it takes me a whole day to drive around my farm!", the Texan boasts... "Aye", sighs Hamish, " I once had a car like that too..."
That's funny - it was a Texan/Jewish joke when I heard it...the Texan was driving through some rural part of Israel and stopped for a drink of water at some old guy's little farm, same set up, and the punchline of course is "Oy - I used to have such a car!"
(And then - in this thread - He says "are you hungry? You look hungry. Come, eat - we have arroz a la cubana!")
When the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport opened, the chief pilot of Air France flew the Concorde there for the ceremony. The Time Magazine reporter asked him what he thought of the fact that the airport was larger than Manhattan Island.
The Frenchman replied, "Land must be cheap in Texas."
Texans in Australia:
My brother and some other NASA guys were in Western Australia checking out the telemetry tracking station for the Apollo moon landing program. After a hot and dusty day they ate at a local restaurant. One of the Texans ordered iced tea.
"We don't serve iced tea," said the waitress. Her demeanor brooked no discussion. She went away to turn in their orders.
When she returned, the Texan, having thought it over, said, "Could you please bring me a cup of tea and a glass of ice?"
The waitress responded, "What are you going to do with them?"
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