works of wanderlust

Tag: recipe

  • Cooking an Easy Stovetop Paella

    I want to tread carefully into the waters of writing about certain foods. Food always … always, always, always… has rich cultural roots that wrap around people and their own personal and shared histories. I respect that.

    I write this because I am aware that some (if not all) of the recipes I make and (often) write about online are steeped in the cultures of other people. And I share these recipes, writing about them here and other places, simply to express the joy I’ve been given in learning to cook those things (and then sharing the results with my family.) It is a way for me to attempt to honour and more deeply understand those cultures, and hopefully pass along that respect. It also makes me long to visit the homelands of these dishes and see how accurately the recipes have traversed time and distance to reach me here in the middle of the Canadian prairies.

    For example, Paella.

    To me Paella is a dish that feels like it has deep cultural roots, well-known and tracing back through Spanish origins.

    We inherited a paella recipe somewhere along the way that recipe has become a regular staple in our kitchen. It’s one we thoroughly enjoy making and eating even though I cannot lay claim to even a single drop of Spanish blood in my veins.

    Our Paella Recipe

    1mL saffron
    1mL salt
    1mL paprika
    500g boneless skinless chicken thighs (chunked)
    150g chorizo     sausage (chunked)
    1 whole red bell pepper (diced)
    1 medium yellow onion
    1 tablespoon of minced garlic
    2 tablespoons fresh parsley
    1 teaspoon tomato paste
    1 cup Arborio     rice
    125mL (cheap) white wine
    175mL chicken stock
    olive oil for pan

    The broth and the saffron need to come together for a start.

    The chicken then needs to be browned, and separately sweat the onion and pepper. I do this in batches in the same four quart braiser and everything turns out just a little nicer.

    The veggies all in the pan, the tomato paste and garlic should be mixed in and fried up together to coat. Shortly after drop in the rice and let that coat up and come together with everything else in the pan. These two steps shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes.

    The saffron broth, wine, water, spices, chorizo, and cooked chicken now all go into the pan, come to a light boil, and then are simmered while covered to let the rice cook. You may need to stir this every five minutes or so just so the rice doesn’t get too crunchy on the bottom of the pan.

    Stir in the parsley when the rice is cooked and let it stand for a few minutes to set up before serving.

    This becomes a rich and delicious one-pan meal and it definitely makes me hope that some day I’ll find my way to Spain to compare it to a more traditionally authentic version of the recipe.

  • Making Homemade New York(ish) Style Pizza for Pi Day

    The kid was determined to eat round for March 14th.

    We’d already made a pair of fruit dessert pies for later, but she decided that pizza was on the menu. What better way to make use of one of those specialty cast iron pieces that doesn’t otherwise see much day-to-day use: the 14 inch pizza pan.

    Sadly I didn’t give myself enough runway to make use of my sourdough pizza crust recipe.

    Some recipe research and light modification produced the following, which actually turned out fairly awesome from a “reminds me of that time in New York” slice perspective.

    recipe

    450 g all purpose flour
    1 tablespoon olive oil
    1 tablespoon sugar
    1 teaspoons salt
    1 teaspoon active dry yeast
    1 1/4 cups tap water

    1 cup tomato sauce
    blend of pizza spices, to taste
    2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
    assorted pizza toppings

    We blended the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a food processor, then drizzled in the water and oil until a shaggy dough ball formed. This was kneaded on the floured countertop to a smooth consistency, then divided into two smaller portions, rolled until smooth. We oiled these up and let them rest and rise on the counter for a couple hours.

    I heated up the tomato paste in my small cast iron melting pot, stirred in the spice mix, and let it bubble away for about fifteen minutes until everything was nicely blended.

    The proofed dough balls were hand-shaped to two fourteen inch crusts, docked, and baked at 450F for about ten minutes (or until I noticed they were starting to brown on the top.) Ideally you should crank your oven a little hotter, but I need to clean mine and 550F would have smoked us out of the house.

    The pizza crusts were topped and then baked back in the still-hot oven for about 12 minutes until the cheese was bubbly.

    She missed out on a school trip to New York city last fall thanks to pandemic lockdowns, but with a recipe like this… well it smoothed out the rough edges a little bit.

  • This is Pi Day

    Any excuse to bake something, my pie skills are not top game but with the assistance of my daughter we managed to bake a pair of non-standard cast iron pies to celebrate the dad-jokiest of days.

    We doubled the recipe below to make a six inch mini (or as the teenager would have it, personal) pie and a super-large double-dip pie in the big ol’ twelve inch lodge pan.

    Pi day also falls at the wrong time of year for some proper fresh fruit, so where we’d have a couple thousand baking apples to work with in August, in March we used our fallback: cherry and blueberry pie filling from a can.

    Recipe

    1/2 pound lard
    2.5 cups flour
    1 teaspoon salt
    1/2 cup orange juice
    1 can of pie filling

    The flour, salt and lard got mixed up roughly in a bowl, being careful not to overwork. Unlike with a good gluten-strong bread, pastry and gluten are cautious friends and too much gluten development makes for chewy crust where a flaky pastry is preferred. Blend lightly, my friends. Oh so lightly.

    When just mixed, the orange juice was combined in and the whole thing was wrapped tight for a couple hours of rest in the fridge.

    Rolled out, panned up, filled, and topped, we baked these at 475F for ten minutes then dropped the heat to 375F for a finishing bake watching for the desired browning. The filling was pre-cooked, so the cast iron pan on the bottom and the hot air on top ensure the whole thing is cooked through.

    Happy Pi Day. Enjoy something round!

  • Guinness Sourdough (Part Three)

    A little more than a week ago I ran a bread-making experiment involving a loaf of sourdough and a can of Guinness stout. The results of that experiment were a less-than-ideal loaf of sourdough with a strong taste that didn’t quite make the repeat list.

    I thought a quick follow-up was due.

    So, yeah… the family didn’t rush to make that loaf disappear, and sadly the bread went a bit stale as the week wore on.

    Yet, the bread did not go to waste. No. Not at all.

    In fact, I turned about half the loaf (or what was left after I’d made a couple cheese sandwiches for my lunches) into crunchy, tasty croutons.

    Here’s how…

    Recipe

    1/2 loaf of slightly stale sourdough bread
    3 tablespoons olive oil
    1 tablespoon garlic powder
    1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
    salt & pepper to taste

    I cubed the leftover bread into bite-sized bits and spread them on a baking sheet with a bit of parchment paper. Drizzle the olive oil and toss to coat. Sprinkle the garlic and seasoning and, again, toss to coat. Salt and pepper to taste.

    I baked the sheet of bread bits at 275°F for about 25 minutes (testing for dryness along the way) then cranked on the broiler and toasted them for a few more minutes until they were a lovely golden brown colour.

    I assume they will store for about a week in a sealed container, but honestly they didn’t last long enough to know for certain. Yum!

  • Guinness Sourdough (Part One)

    Six months before the pandemic lockdown began, we took one of our last major family vacations. The details of that trip are best left for another day, and another post, but the point is that on a rainy afternoon in August 2019 I found myself touring the Guinness Storehouse brewery tour in Dublin, Ireland.

    I’ve got a bit of Irish blood in me, so the trip was one part heritage trip and one part explore Dublin like a tourist trip. The tourist part of me drank a lot of Guinness.

    I drank a pint alongside a rich Irish stew and some bread the night before my half marathon and ran one of my best times of the season.

    I drank a pint sitting at the bar in Temple Bar Pub, while other tourists stood just outside the door snapping selfies in front of the famous pub.

    I drank a pint atop the viewing gallery of the the storehouse tour after learning how to pour, taste, and properly drink a glass of the rich brown stout.

    A year and a half later I can confidently claim I don’t go very long without a few cans of the precious brew stocked in my fridge.

    So, why not bake a lof of sourdough with it?

    As I write this, the following ingredients are hydrating in a bowl on my countertop:

    most of 1 can (363g) Guinness Stout
    500g white bread flour
    12g salt
    250g of active sourdough starter

    Regular readers will recall that just last weekend I baked an amazing loaf of beer-based sourdough with a can of honey brown lager. The result of this amber ale taking the place of tapwater in my recipe was a rich and flavourful bread that unfortunately seemed to disappear from the counter in less than 24 hours. (I strongly suspect hungry family members.)

    A week later, though I’ve only got a regular two-day weekend to work within, I’m repeating my beer bread experimenting with one of my precious cans of Guinness a much darker and richer beer than the honey brown lager from last attempt.

    The mixed ingredients are slowly hydrating on the counter as I wait out my gluten-building, hours-long folding efforts, killing the time writing this post.

    Compared to the honey brown bread dough last weekend, this batch is considerably darker and smells much more strongly of beer. It gives me hope for a final baked bread that has a more obvious beer flavour.

    The next steps will be a long, cool rise in the fridge, a final proof for most of Sunday, and a scruptious bake on Sunday evening … before samples and bedtime.

    Tune in Monday for the exciting conclusion!