Ropa Vieja in Carolina Red Rice (SP)

• 2 pounds flank steak, cut into 4-inch-wide sections against the grain [$14.99/pound at Whole Foods versus $5.99 at Mckinnons?  It's a no brainer.]
• 4 cups beef or chicken stock
• 1/4 cup sherry vinegar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 3 stalks celery, thinly sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, chopped (with the seeds) [I swore I bought one and am more or less certain that I managed to get him home with me.  But I couldn't find it.]
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 cups Carolina rice [I'm not about to special order this, but Edward Lee Jr says any long-grain rice is fine and that doesn't mean you should be using arborio rice here, dummy.  Maybe I was being kind of a dummy for using brown basmati rather than the white Jasmine I have around.]
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes [I used diced tomatoes because I couldn't find a small can of crushed tomatoes.  Although when I went to the new Whole Foods on Beacon St in Inman they had smallish aseptic San Marzanos.]
• 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and sliced into ribbons
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan (1 ounce)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley [Nope]
• Kosher salt [Everyone's got their own opinion on the proper salt to use and Lee Jr's being pretty straight-forward about his choice.  As for me I'll leave it in the cupboard and use the grey sea salt I've been using since I read Michael Chiarello.] and freshly ground black pepper

This version has quite a bit more depth than Mark Bittman's take on this.  I cooked that version in early May I presume.  Late April, who knows what my posting habits were like.

Throw everything up to the freshly ground pepper in a pot and simmer, covered, for 2 hours.  Uncover and simmer for another 40 minutes.

Transfer meat to bowl, cool for twenty minutes, and then shred into bite pieces.  Pour over the cooking liquid and vegetables.

Home stretch mise en place.  I did this the second day.  If I hadn't used brown rice, this probably would've taken a lot less time.

Toast rice in butter for two minutes.  I had already added the water by this point.

But everything but the Parmesan was going to make it in.  Mark Bittman's recipe: no Parmesan, no rice...

The rice suggested in the recipe was supposed to cook through in 12 minutes which seems kind of crazy to me.  It took me a good amount longer than that.

Add meat and vegetables to the rice.  Stir in Parmesan and that green stuff people use sometimes in cooking...

Really, really satisfying dish.  At least at first kiss; I can't say it was the same experience after taking a trip in the microwave in subsequent days, but not every dish makes it.
You guys should compare the ingredients list between this and the Bittman dish.  It's also a full dish with the added grains instead of being served on top of rice.

Chicken and Bean Stew (EP)

• 4 pounds meaty chicken bones and parts (including backs and necks and, if available, gizzards and hearts)
• 1 pound (about 2 1/3 cups) navy beans, picked over and rinsed
• 2 medium onions (about 12 ounces), each studded with 3 whole cloves
• 3 medium to large carrots, peeled
• 1 celery stalk [Oops, didn't have it.  Recipes use so little celery and I didn't check to see if mine had gone bad before shopping; it had.]
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 4 bay leaves
• 8 cups cold water
• 1 cup canned diced tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped (2 teaspoons)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

"Mise en place" at the outset of me starting to cook the stew.  In the pot, there's the beans, onions, carrots, salt, thyme, bay leaves and water.

I was sort of freaking out about buying chicken backs.  When I needed to buy them for ramen I found them at the Charles Street Savenor's, but apparently they don't carry them anymore.  Mckinnon's in Davis (another go-to meat shop) also didn't have them.  Super 88: nope.  But I did read that chicken wings could be used although the ones I saw in Allston looked way sketchy.

At Symphony's Whole Foods, I spend a while wondering if I was really willing to spend $16 on chicken wings when one of the employees pulled some backs from the depths of the freezer.  Total meat cost: $4

Simmer all this for 1 1/2 hours and pour the mixture into a roasting pan to cool.  Pick the meat from the bones and coarsely chop the vegetables.

Peeling a thoroughly cooked onion: Difficult.

Throw it all back in the pot (Yeah, $4 in chicken bones provides a sufficient amount of meat for the stew) and then add the 3 last ingredients.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

Right after I poured the stew out to cool, I tasted one of the beans and thought it tasted exquisite (even with the missing celery stalk).  Did I think the stew was exquisite?  No, but I thought it was very, very good.  It's great in its simplicity, but not fun to eat 6 servings of.

That, I admit, could be applied to even awesome things.

Mushroom Sherry Chicken (BRW)

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 chicken, 3 to 4 pounds, cut into serving pieces, or 2 1/2 to 3 pounds chicken parts, trimmed of excess fat
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
• 1 cup dry sherry
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves

Mise en place.  I did much of it while browning the chicken.  Note some browned chicken.

Here's a picture.

Cook vegetables until softened and lightly browned.

Add sherry and chicken back in and simmer until chicken is tender.  Unfortunately before I could had to pack up and head over to Brighton where Eric S lives and carry on over there.

I probably would've been able to finish the dish if I hadn't forgotten to buy mushrooms at Whole Foods and then spend a hour looking for the new Harvest Co-Op in the neighborhood when it could hardly be any closer to me than it is.

The chicken accompanied by a bit of mini baguette (also from Whole Foods) and perhaps the first appearance on my blog of food made by someone who doesn't cook professionally in Chicago.  Gotta love the Israeli salad.  Also the chicken, cumin, lima bean, and rice dish I recently shared on Facebook.

So Eric loved the dish (And who wouldn't love it if I invaded their kitchens and cooked them dinner?), but I, as always, thought it was just okay.  I felt the pressure to finish the dish since it took me until rather late to show up with an unfinished dish.  The thighs could've been more tender, but I dunno if that would've wowed me.

Gula jawa and Sichuan Peppercorn Cured Bacon

from Zak Pelaccio's Eat with Your Hands:

• 6 ounces Sichuan peppercorns
• 2 1/2 ounces whole black peppercorns
• 1/2 pound kosher salt
• 5 ounces palm sugar (3 1/3 rounds gula jawa) or 6 2/3 tablespoons brown sugar
• One 12-pound Berkshire pork belly, skin removed [I got my hands on an 8-pound slab at Whole Foods]

Lots of peppercorns. Toast and grind them in batches.
Sichuan peppercorns are actually not peppercorns at all but is a member of the citrus family.

Gula jawa is at least according to Pelaccio and Wikipedia is supposed to be palm sugar. I bought something labelled gula jawa at Super 88 since it appeared to be a better value. However what I bought is made of coconut and cane sugar.

I seem to be doing a bit better when it comes to skinning this time around.

Though I got a bit sloppier with the fat caps toward the end.

Applying the cure.

Stacking them in the fridge to cure. Zak Pelaccio suggests 5 days; I assume waiting until next weekend won't hurt.

 
Hickory and cherry wood chips.  I never opened the bag of cherry ones.

 

Getting the smoker going.

The pork belly after being smoked for 6 hours.  It was disappointingly jiggly while I handled it (adding more chips or flipping it skin-side down for the last 2 hours).  Unlike my initial experience I achieved negligible moisture loss even after applying the old leftover cure I had.



All of it resulting in meat that at its thickest points are still pink and a fat cap that hasn't really experienced the magic.  All of those spices are very vague and skin-deep.
Might just do it Tom Mylan's way next time, but there's $50 worth of pork belly in the fridge I have to work through.  Some bits of it are still quite good.  Particularly the smoked meat.  Not so much the fat.

Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs with Black Bean Tapenade (GK)

Marinated Chicken

• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 orange, sliced
• 4 or 5 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed with the back of a knife
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns, toasted
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, toasted
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 pounds chicken thighs with skin (about 8), bone-in

Bring all the ingredients and 6 cups of water to a boil.  Then brine the thighs overnight.

Draining a bit on paper towels.

Sauce

• 2 tablespoon blended oil(half vegetable, half olive oil) [Just now realizing that the recipe called for the same two lines in the list of ingredients for 1 tablespoon blended oil.  In its second use in my execution, I said "Screw it.  I'm just using olive oil."]
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 quart chicken broth
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 tablespoons butter

Mise en place.

Browned chicken.

Browning the onion and garlic.

I realize here that I messed up by omitting the step of reducing the white wine (or in my current case, dry vermouth).  I brought it and the chicken to a boil in the same sauce pan.

Pour the liquid and aromatics all over the chicken, cover tightly with foil and braise in the oven for 2 hours at 275 degrees F.

Crisping the skin.

Reducing the strained liquid until it coats the back of a spoon.  Then enrich the sauce with butter.

Black Bean Tapenade

• 1/2 cup nicoise olives, pitted and roughly chopped [JP's Whole Foods didn't have any and I wasn't willing to make another trip for this dish before cooking it since I had delayed enough.]
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon fermented black beans
• 1 tablespoon chiffonade [Basically one rolls up broad-leafed herbs and cut super-thin ribbons of them.] of fresh mint
• 1/2 teaspoon sambal
• 1/2 teaspoon honey

None of these things are prepped.  I figured I would have enough time considering two hours of braising to do the prep during that period of time.

The dish was really damn good.  True perfection the night I cooked it.  Very moist, flavorful, rich.  Nice to see a sauce get so silky with the addition of butter.
I was worried about prepping a side (I rarely make side dishes), but the posole I made recently didn't stand on it own and proved an interesting complement.

Adobo de Pollo, De Lujo (Red Chile-Braised Chicken)

Most likely my last Rick Bayless entry for a few months since I cooked through all the main course recipes from his iPad app. However, his Authentic Mexican cookbook is lined up for a few months from now.

• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
• 1 2 1/2- to 3- pound chicken, cut into quarters [I just used a bunch of chicken thighs. Chickens sold at conventional grocery stores that my parents take me to are twice as heavy. Someday I'll be able to afford real meat.]
• 1 medium white onion, sliced 1/4- inch thick
• 8 unpeeled garlic cloves, roasted in their skins, then peeled
• 4 ounces (about 8 medium) dried ancho chiles, stemmed, seeded, toasted and rehydrated
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried Mexican oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, preferably freshly ground
• 1/8 teaspoon cumin seeds, preferably freshly ground
• Scant 1/4 teaspoon cloves, preferably freshly ground
• 2 2/3 chicken broth, plus a little more if necessary (divided use) [I reserved a full 2-cup Pyrex of chile soaking liquid)
• 1 pound peeled sweet potatoes, boiling potatoes (like the red-skin ones) or chayote, peeled if you wish, pitted and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 4 cup sliced (1/2-inch-wide slices), full-flavored greens (choose chard, beet, or turnip tops, lamb's quarters, collard or the like), well-rinsed (optional) [At least I know now, that a bunch of collards is pretty much 4 cups and I really didn't need that red chard.]
• Salt
  

I got both of these packs of dried ancho chiles for about $4.50. Far less than what it would have cost me for one pack at Whole Foods.
I love my recent discovery of honest-to-god well-stocked bodegas in East Boston. Such places were ever present in my part of Brooklyn, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge. The former is one of the biggest neighborhoods for Mexican in NYC.


Cleaned according to Rick Bayless' direction which make somewhat more sense than those provide for Bittmans' Enchiladas with Mole a few weeks back.


Argh, I'm throwing out all this spicy goodness


The cleaned bodies of the dried chiles.


I toasted the chiles until they lightened in color and became more aromatic. I soaked them in hot water while I prepped everything else.


Unpeeled cloves of garlic.


I dry-toasted them in my cast-iron skillet, and in some areas, the skin and flesh fused together


I gave up at this point, figuring the sauce would be strained at some point anyway.


Spices.


Mise en place.


Browning the chicken.





The remaining fat was still so hot that it continued to sizzle even after I turned the burner off.


Frying the onions. Ten minutes at medium in such an amount of hot oil strikes me as a little excessively hot, but they weren't burnt to a crisp.


Garlic, chiles, oregano, black pepper, cumin, cloves, and 2/3 cup of liquid pureed in a food processor. Though the recipe only called for a medium strainer to press the sauce through my roommate had moved out with that, and at some point I did spend the extra money to get a fine one for purposes like straining sauce.
Which I had never done before and I now realize is totally worth it. Well I guess I always knew it but hadn't gotten around to buying the equipment yet.


Stirring the SMOOTH sauce into the onions. Cook down until thickened and noticeably darker.


Stir in broth and vinegar and simmer for 15 minutes.


Adding in the sweet potatoes and chicken and cooking for 15 minutes on medium-low.
I had to add a lot more broth that suggested to reach what I thought a normal height for braising.


Add in greens and chicken breasts (if I was using them) and cook for 20 more minutes.


Set aside the chicken.


And boil down the vegetables and remaining liquid to a medium consistency.


A good dish though still not quite what I had back in Chicago.