Whipped Miso Butter: great on almost everything!

We had miso butter on good bread as part of selection of fancy butters at restaurant Tartaria: it was delicious, a little exotic, but still familiar. We whipped some up recently and found it was really tasty on just about anything: beans, steak, toast, potatoes, and as an ingredient in other dishes instead of plain butter. It's dead simple to make.

Recipes we've found tend to use 5:1 or 4:1 butter to miso, but I wanted to make the salty umami of the miso a little more forward, so I'm bumping it to 3:1; adjust according to your taste. Some recipes add garlic, sriracha, olive oil, or other flavors, but keeping it minimal makes it more versatile.  Some recipes melt the butter then whip in the miso over an ice bath, but that's needlessly fussy; this just takes a little planning ahead to soften the butter. You can use whatever style of Miso you prefer; we used a white miso for this because it's what we had from a local Asian market.

The photos show us using a mini food processor but I've switched to using a whisk attachment on a stick blender as it's easier. We have a little mini food processor attachment for our stick blender and it works well for this quantity. If you have a large processor, you'll probably need to scale up the recipe. If you have neither, a single beater on an electric mixer would probably work too.  If you're trapped on a desert island, you could just smear it together with a fork once the Miso and Butter are soft enough.

150 g Butter
 50 g Miso Paste

Cut the butter into cubes directly into the bowl of a mini food processor while measuring.
Likewise, measure the Miso into the same processor bowl.
Let the butter soften for 30 minutes or more at room temperature so it's easy to mix.
Whiz it, whiz it good, scooping down occasionally until it's uniform and smooth.
Store in a covered container, or wrap in parchment into a log shape, then refrigerate.

This amount only lasted a week in our house!

This firms up rather solid in the fridge; we may try adding a bit of Olive Oil so it's more spreadable.

Saffron Ice Cream: no churn

My favorite ice cream is saffron but here in Barcelona, I don't have my old churn. I'm basing this recipe on Leite's Culinaria no-churn vanilla ice cream, converting to metric, then scaling to match the common size of Cream we find here.

Saffron ice cream in cones, with sweet Moscatell dessert wine

This turned out well, though it was not as fluffy as my churned version. It was a little firm, so I'll let it soften a bit in the refrigerator before scooping. It was intensely saffron-y, probably because I can get good quality saffron here at reasonable prices. The Sweetened Condensed Milk gave it a slight caramel flavor which I'd like to reduce, but backing it out it would reduce the sugar which would make it even more firm.

0.2 g    1/8 tsp    Saffron Threads (1/2 of a 0.4 g jar)

 15 ml     1 Tbs    Brandy (or Rum)

200 ml   2/3 C      Heavy Cream, chilled

200 ml   2/3 C      Whole Milk, chilled

340 g     12 oz     Sweetened Condensed Milk

  1 pinch  1 pinch  Salt

Crush and infuse Saffron threads in Brandy for 30 minutes or longer.

Whip the Cream until small to medium peaks form, about 8 minutes.

In a separate bowl, combine Milk, Condensed Milk, Salt.

Mix in the infused Saffron Brandy.

Gently whisk in the Whipped Cream into the Milk Mixture.

Pour into a loaf pan or other container; I used a 500g plastic sorbet tub with tight-fitting lid.

Cover with plastic wrap or lid and freeze until fully set, at least 4 hours.

Serve directly from the freezer, or if it's too firm, let warm up a bit in the fridge until it's scoop-able. 

Butifarra con Garbanzos: Pork Sausage with Chickpeas

Butifarra (pork sausage) is omnipresent here in Barcelona, and we're using the basic mild form rather than negre/morcilla (blood), ous (egg), or other forms. Chickpeas are also super popular, like the many forms of beans and legumes. We've got plenty of both on hand, so wanted a dinner that combines these, not necessarily together in a stew, but as complements. 

I'm taking ideas from José Andrés "Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America": Moorish-style chickpea and spinach stew, and Butifarra amb Mongets del Ganxet "Daniel Patrick Moynihan" (so "inside the Beltway"!); and Penelope Casas "¡Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain" recipe Espinacas con Garbanzos a la Sevillana. Chickpeas combine synergistically with spinach: earthy, rich, and much more tasty than it sounds; it's a classic dish here, and there are many variants, including ones with bacalao around the holidays.

Irene cooked up a mountain of dried chickpeas in the Instant Pot: it makes fast work of the beans, so I'm using her pre-cooked beans and some of the left over cooking liquid here. 

Serves 2

 35 ml     Olive Oil (2 Tbs)
  2        Butifarra (225 g total)

  3 clove  Garlic

250 g      Chickpeas, cooked
 80 ml     Chickpea cooking water

  1 slice  White Bread, 1 cm thick, crust removed
  1 Tbs    Sweet Pimentón
  1 Tbs    Spanish Sherry Vinegar
250 g      Spinach, chopped
  1 g      Cumin, ground (1/2 tsp)

  1 g      Rosemary, fresh, minced (or 0.5 g dried)
to taste   Salt
to taste   White Pepper

Sauté Garlic and Butifarra in Olive Oil; when the Garlic is lightly browned, about 3 minutes, remove and reserve; continue the Butifarra until cooked, 8-10 minutes total; reserve.

Brown the Bread on both sides, a couple minutes each; remove.
Let the pan cool then add the Pimentón, then Sherry Vinegar to prevent Pimentón from burning; remove pan from heat.
Smash the Garlic and toasted Bread in a mortar to make a thick paste.

Add the Chickpeas, Chickpea cooking liquid, and Spinach to the pan and simmer to lightly cook the Spinach, about 5 minutes.
Add the Garlic/Bread paste, it should be a thick stewy sauce.

Season to taste with Salt and Pepper

Add more Chickpea Liquid if it's getting too dry.

Reduce heat to low; place the cooked Sausage next to the stew to warm it through and let the flavors combine, 5-10 more minutes.

Plate the Sausage then ladle the Chickpeas stew next to it.

Salsa Crujiente de Chile: Spanish "chili crisp" sauce

We made a variation of Laoganma’s Chinese Chili Crisp sauce in Arlington, guided by Serious Eats (watch the video): it was excellent -- intense, rich, crunchy, very fiery, and had the "Málà" numbing affect from the Szechuan chilis. Now that we're living in Barcelona, I wanted to make a variation using local flavors: tasty chilis that aren't so hot, garlic (of course!), pimenton, olive oil, etc. I'm taking inspiration from that recipe, plus The Kitchn's (which references Chinese ingredients by proper names), and this Guide to Herbs and Spices in Spain. 

This turned out well: plenty of crunch, rich flavors, and mild enough you can put it on anything; I could just pile it onto plain rice or couscous and eat it for dinner. 

The chilis, olive oil, and almonds here are obvious Spanish substitutions; the ginger and fennel are more in line with the original, and should be amicable flavors. I have no intention to be authentic, only zesty and crunchy! 

Served on fried egg on top of boniato (sweet potato)

After deseeding and grinding the chilis, it's easier to measure the other mostly-dry ingredients directly into the bowl, rather than using a dozen mis-en-place dishes. A mandolin will speed slicing the Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic thinly and consistently. After slicing the Shallots and starting them frying, you can prep the Fennel, then Garlic while the previous one fries.

Makes about 500 ml

 25 g      Chili Choriceros

 25 g      Chili Ñora/Nyora

0.5 g      Chili Cayenne (Pimienta Cayena, 30-50K Scoville)[5 small]

 25 g      Almonds, sliced (use good quality)

 15 g      Ginger, fresh, sliced into thin match sticks

  1 g      Anise seed

  6 g      Dried mushroom powder (grind dried mushrooms into powder)

 10 g      Sugar

 15 g      Coarse Salt

  1 g      Black Pepper

 12 g      Pimenton

  8 g      White Sesame Seeds

  1 g      Rosemary, minced

  1 whole  Orange Zest, chopped fine or coarse grate

1/2 stick  Cinnamon, whole [1 g]

  1 whole  Bay Leaf, whole

300 g      Olive Oil (doesn't need to be extra virgin)

100 g      Shallots, sliced 1mm thick

100 g      Fennel, sliced 1mm thick

 50 g      Garlic, sliced 1 mm thick [8 clove]

Mise en place isn't necessary

Deseed the Chilis by slitting and shaking out seeds (gloves are a good idea here); discard the seeds.

Grind the chilis in a spice grinder (in batches) until about 2-4 mm chili-flake sized, not a powder.

Place in heatproof bowl large enough to accommodate boiling oil, at least 2 Liter.

Add the other (mostly dry) spices and herbs: Almonds, Ginger, Anise Seeds, Mushroom Powder, Sugar, Salt, Black Pepper, Pimenton, Sesame Seeds, Rosemary, Orange Zest, Cinnamon, and Bay Leaves.

De-seeded chilis, herbs, spices wait for hot oil

Now for the crunchy bits!

Make sure the Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic are fried until fully crisp to remove all water; they should crisp up once they are removed from the oil for a minute.

Set a fine-mesh strainer over a 1 L heatproof bowl.

Add Olive Oil to a 2 L saucepan.

Add Shallots and cook over high heat until they are light golden brown, about 15 minutes; strain and retain; return oil to pot.

Add Fennel and repeat the process; it may take a bit longer to remove the water from the Fennel.

Add Garlic, cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until barely golden brown; strain, retain, return oil to pot. 

Reserve the crunchy fried Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic.

Heat the flavored Oil to 190C (375F).

Pour into the large heat-proof bowl containing the Chilis, spices, herbs and other seasonings; it will bubble up ferociously!

Stir well so the hot oil cooks everything evenly. 

If you think everything isn't quite browned enough, you can put it back on the fire (a metal bowl can go directly on an induction burner) but be careful not to burn things. 

Let cool about 30 minutes.

Remove the Cinnamon stick and Bay Leaves. 

Mix in fried Shallots, Fennel, and Garlic.

Pour into jars and store in fridge; it should last at least 3 months.

Served on plain white rice, makes for a zesty side dish