Paella with Xavi

Our very good friend Xavi from Spain visited us this weekend and we had an incredible time showing him around Seattle. We went out to see Eldridge Gravy - which was a kick ass energy packed show - on Friday night. On Saturday we went to Theo Chocolate in Fremont and down to the Pike Place Market for groceries and to have lunch at Uli's Sausage. I'll digress for just a minute to give a little plug for Uli's. If you haven't checked out Uli's for a while you may not know that they turned what used to be the sausage factory into a nice little eating area where you can get grilled sausages and have beer from the Alpine Brewing Co. Uli's is so fricking great; actually the whole market is just amazing. On a different path of digression; I get annoyed when Seattleites dismiss the Market and proclaim it to be for tourists. I love the market. It is touristy, but that's because it's great. It's one of the last of its kind in the US and a true treasure. I try to walk down to the Market at least a couple times a month. OK enough of my digressions. We got what we needed and headed home to cook up one of the gastronomic highlights of the weekend, seafood and chicken paella. It was done with a lot of Spanish intuition so I tried to take notes as Xavi cooked but this is kind of a rough recipe.


Paella Recipe

ingredients

• Olive oil
  
• 2 dried ancho chilies - with the stem and seeds removed
• 1 head of garlic
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 chicken - pieced
  
• ~20 shrimp, shells left on
  
• ~20 calamari, cut into rings
  
• ~20 mussels
• 1 tsp of Chiquilin Food Colourant (optional)
  
• 28 oz can whole tomatoes - lightly puree in blender
• 1 bag of frozen peas
  
• ~3.5 cups paella rice
• ~10 cups of 50/50 chicken stock and water
  

This recipe if for a 22 paella pan. This is the size that conveniently fits on a Weber BBQ. Starting inside on the stove add ~ 1 cup of olive oil to a large frying pan and fry the dried anchos over medium heat until almost burnt. They have done their job and imparted the oil with the necessary flavor so just discard them at this point (keep some that aren't blackened if you want a stronger chili flavor). Next, with the skins still on, fry the garlic cloves until very cooked and starting to blacken. Reserve these. Then fry the bell pepper until it's well cooked and reserve. Now on med-high, fry the chicken with the intention of browning it. It's not necessary to fully cook the chicken since it can finish cooking in the paella pan. The pan is nice and hot now and you can cook the shrimp - with their shells still on - very fast and finally the calamari rings will cook in literally just a flash. Add your canned tomatoes and fry untill reduced and thick. OK now your done inside.

You will have to work out the timing but meanwhile you will have started a nice hot charcoal fire. I used one full chimney of mesquite charcoal plus a couple extra pieces to fill out the grill. Set your paella pan over the fire and add ~ 1/2 cup olive oil and all of your rice. Stir it making a nice even layer over the pan and cook stiring frequently untill the rice begins to smell nice and sweet, a little popcorney. Make a nice uniform layer with the rice; at this point you will not stirr the rice again. Place on top of the rice your chicken pieces and all of the other fried yummies except for the tomatoes. Carefully, but quickly taking care not to burn your rice, add half the stock water mixture. In the remaining stock mixture stir in the tomatoe sauce and add to the paella. Finally add the muscles to the paella pushing then down into the liquid. Now all you have to do is make sure you have an even fire and rotate the pan if necessary and wait. DO NOT STIR. If you are running out of water and the rice is still not done you may need to add a small amount. You want to run out of water just as the rice is finishing and then leave it on the heat for a little while longer to brown the bottom. This crackly bottom is extra yummy.

I hope this is clear enough. If you have questions feel free to ask me.

la Boucherie

Tarah and I have been enjoying chatting with and buying food from Sea Breeze Farm at the farmers markets. Their farm is on Vashon Island and they sell milk and cheese and wonderful meats. A few weeks ago at the market we found out they also run a restaurant on the island; of course we have to go to that!!

This last Friday I called up the restaurant for reservations and said we would bike out and asked if we could just camp on the farm. Our friend Matt invited us to stay at his intentional community, Vashon Cohousing, instead. This place was totally great. It's 18 family houses plus a large communal house with a huge kitchen, dining, living, kids play area, and a number of rooms all to share with the community and for guests, like us. The community also has a large garden, some goats, communal landscaping, and they are planning to build a cob style oven this summer.

La Boucherie is small and comfortable. You walk in and are greeted by a mouth watering meat display case. It's almost like you're in a butcher shop/restaurant; but not in a bad way, it's definitely a nice feeling restaurant. The menu has a prefix, a mini prefix plus you can order al la carte from the prefix. Normally I would be ecstatic to have zero choices and just let the art of the chef, and in this case the far, shine through, but in this case Jerusalem artichoke soup was one of the courses and although both of us love the flavor, those little fuckers (AKA Fartachokes) wreak havoc on our digestive tracks.

The wine list had an old version of the menu on the flip side which included kidneys in a cream sauce. I ask Matt if we can get some; he thinks for a second and then replies that he will have to check. In a few minutes he comes back with two glisteningly fresh kidneys and tells us they just came out of the animal. OH what a treat!! Just a few seconds later he returns to show us the still fresh kidneys now cut in half. The next time he returns they are browned, but still pink, and drizzled with a cream sauce. The taste is dark and complex almost woodsy like a mushroom but with a sense of the barnyard and mildly reminiscent of other organs like liver. Delicious to say the least.

For the main dish of the night you could choose between either roasted lamb or roasted pork with sides of broccoli and potatoes. The sides may sound like cheap diner fare but the broccoli was long and thin and very tender (almost more like rapini) and the potatoes were mashed to a perfect creamyness with a complexity of taste that I can only imagine came from some meat broth or freshly rendered lard; both delicious and nothing like the frozen broccoli and tasteless mashed potatoes that you had in your head.

"I feel like being dazzled by just a little something more; anything you like; maybe another organ." I said to Matt. By that time we had drank the better part of bottle of delicious red house made wine (Cock's Red) which brought out the silly in Tarah who kindly pointed out that I had just asked Matt to dazzle me with his organ.

Matt thought about it for a second then said "yes I have something in mind" and headed to the kitchen. He returned shortly to tell us he had discussed it with a friend in NY and that it was going to be good.

And oh how it was! It was fresh seared pork belly with a very light herby cream sauce. He informed us they had made a trial run first that they consumed in the kitchen and loved.

We finished with a couple of bites of a warm flowerless chocolate torte.

MMMMM I love food!!!

Green Fairy, Absinthe

Tarah and I have been learning about absinthe since the ridiculous ban on it was lifted in 2007 but really our interest has peaked lately since we learned that the Pacific Distillery in Woodinville, WA is producing the delicious spirit and that Liberty (on 15th in Seattle) is serving it. Absinthe is made from a host of herbs and spices (including the infamous wormwood) and is served by slowly dripping cold water out of a specific absinthe pitcher over a sugar cube that is held above the glass of absinthe using a special slotted spoon. The spirit is typically diluted with the cold water to range of 3-5 to one, water to absinthe. Some of the flavor and aroma compounds that are extracted from the herbs and spices are soluble in the high alcohol concentration of the absinthe but are not soluble in water. This results in the drink clouding up and changing to a beautiful light green once a certain water concentration is reached. At the moment that the clouding begins it is said that one can see a green fairy in the swirling liquid.

We took my mom to Liberty this last weekend; and keep in mind that my mom has possibly never, or at least not in many decades, ordered a mixed drink. I had told her about the local absinthe and about the green fairy. When it was her turn to order she slyly looked at the bar tender (Michael) out the corner of her eye and said "I want to see the green fairy." I was so proud! It was really adorable. Thrown off at first he then responded equally as slyly "Oh you want some Absinthe." She did end up seeing the green fairy and loved her drink.

Le Gourmand - Birthday

There's no Food Service of America trucks here.

Chef-owners Bruce and Sara Naftaly of Seattle's Le Gourmand restaurant have, in the true spirit of the food movement, been creating local - so local in fact that many ingredients were sourced from backyards in Ballard - organic and seasonal cuisine for the last 25 years. Tarah and I recently took part in one of Bruce's monthly Sunday dinner classes. We thought of it as a treat - considering its $75/person price - but it turns out the class is mostly regulars, some of which have been attending nearly every month for 15 years. We (~14 people) sat around the kitchen precariously perching our wine on whatever surface we could wile trying to take notes and eat as Bruce described in detail and cooked a delicious four course meal from first principals right before our eyes. Well not totally from first principals, he used chicken and fish stock that he makes fresh daily. There was a paired wine with dinner that went into 3 of the 4 courses and was available for bottomless pouring. I definitely recommend the experience.

Art Walk

We had a great night tonight at the First Thursday Art Walk. We ended up running into a number of people we know, bought some great art - Janet Miller http://www.plantejanetart.com/ - and just had a great time.

We tried Collin's Pub in Pioneer Square for dinner. It has a great beer selection, with tons of local and interesting brews; we split 4 schooners - one of which was from the new greenwood brewery, Naked City - and the food was good to great, with a significant amount of interesting game on the menu - I had the elk. This brings up a good point that it would not be a great choice for a vegetarian. It's definitely a gastropub, which I like, but it has multiple TV that are viewable from most any seat in the house which makes it feel kinda like a sports pub. I'm not at all into TVs so this would be my one significant complaint about the place.