WhimsyLand

Sure, my tag line says cuisine, but it's been months since I mentioned it.  I used to cook as often as Tony seems to, with his Asparagus flarf and plates full of delicious-looking stuff that isn't on anyone's diet.  I'm still a good cook, I just don't have anybody to cook for.  Junie has been on an admirable and healthy diet protocol, my kids are at work and college, and when we get together at Cath's, she usually does the honors (and she's a good cook, too).  I'll take a break from my monotonous diet of pasta and do up a good paella tonight.  Some kind of sausage, RedBird chicken thighs and big scallops will be in the mix.  Also, red peppers, asparagus, and peas.  First, make the sofrito:  tomato paste, diced fresh or canned tomatoes, onion, garlic and a little paprika, sautéed until the water evaporates from the tomato.  Then, add the short-grained rice, Arborio if you have it, Bomba brand Spanish rice if you can find it.  In a separate pan, sear some chicken thighs in olive oil until they're glazed on the outside but still underdone on the inside.  You can use wings and even breasts, though the latter is a bit extravagant for paella, since the chicken is actually standing in for rabbit.  I used to make the stock from the chicken parts I wasn't using, but now I just use Swanson's low-fat, low-sodium chicken stock which tastes great and is better health-wise.  Pour the stock over a couple of cups of rice and let it start to fuse at a temperature just under medium.  Like risotto, you will probably have to add more stock as time goes on.  Add a healthy pinch of saffron (threads if you can get them, but powder is OK), even though it will set you back $5-10, unless you stocked up at El Corte Ingles the last time you were in Spain like I did.  After about 10 minutes, you can add hearty vegetables like asparagus.  More fragile ingredients such as peas, shellfish, and shrimp should be added at the last few minutes. I've had vegetarian paella, seafood paella, paella with woodland mushrooms, so you're free to experiment (lima beans, even corn kernels).   When the chicken parts are done, mix them into the paella and bury them under the rice mixture a bit.  Now add some kind of sausage to provide a foil to the chicken that is pretending to be rabbit.  For an authentic paella, let the bottom crust up a bit, so that you get a socarrat, or caramelized crust on the bottom.  This is tricky, as you don't want to burn the paella, either.  If you have a traditional flat paella pan with sloping sides, great.  If not, a good heavy frying pan will do.  Spaniards eat as a family directly from the pan at home.  You can do anything you want, what the hell.

Cook's Illustrated showed up today, proving that I have no idea what their publication schedule is.  The editor, Christopher Kimball, tried to suck me in to one of his rambling, earthy, Vermont stories about how he fed Robert Frost's horses leftover apple pie while they were parked beside the wood, but I managed to ignore him.  Notes From Readers tells us how to turn bread into muffins (for example, "banana", and the answer is pour it into a muffin pan).  One reader submitted a question with a picture of some wacky contraption that turns out to be a device for extracting the meat from coconuts.  Quick Tips tells us:  if you have leftover brownies, blenderize them and put the remains in a bag in the freezer for future use as a topping for ice cream (OK, I have to ask, who has leftover brownies?).  An entire article is devoted to the problem of pan-searing thick steaks, which normally leaves a pink center, crusty outside and gray in-between (the answer is use your tongs and move the steak around a lot).  Blackened Red Snapper (which most of the country can't get anyway) is re-thunk.  Italian-Style Chicken with Sausage, Peppers, and Onion is a decent article but doesn't tell an experienced chef much that he/she didn't already know.  Best Vegetable Curry was interesting, although I can't imagine buying curry powder when you can make much better stuff with a coffee grinder.  Four-Cheese Lasagna was a good article, as was Hearty Asparagus-Stuffed Omelets.  I didn't care much about the Ultimate Crumb Cake nor An Easier Bran Muffin.  There were articles rating crushed tomatoes (Tuttorosso won), and $200 toaster ovens (Krups 6-slice Digital Convection Toaster took the honors), which I largely yawned through.  The back page, which is always some artwork of culinary necessities, was Latin American Vegetables, including the Tomatillo, Jicama, Batata, Plantain, Nopales, and Yuca.  I had the feeling that these food sources were to be viewed with the same wonderment as extraterrestrials. 

Poetry tomorrow, most likely.