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.

Isaan Sour Sausage "Sai Krok Isaan" from Night + Market

Dacha described her favorite Thai sausage and it scared me: raw pork and rice, left to ferment at room temperature for several days. I then saw the same in Kris Yenbamroon'g book "Night + Market" and decided to give it a try. He uses Jasmine and Sticky Rice, while Dacha wasn't specific. I'm trying Kris' first, because he gives plenty of details and the book has good pictures. It's fermented 2-4 days to develop a lactic tartness, then refrigerated to stop fermentation, and grilled. I'm augmenting his measurements with my metric measures as we made the recipe.

1     C     165 g  Cooked Sticky Rice

3/4   C     130 g  Steamed Jasmine Rice

2     Lb    900 g  Pork Shoulder, ground (80% fat)

3/4   C     140 g  Minced Garlic (2-3 heads!)

1     Tbs    13 g  Sugar

2 1/2 Tbs    30 g  Kosher Salt

2     tsp     6 g  ground White Pepper

6     ft      2 m  Sausage Casings

Cook the Sticky Rice and Jasmine Rice as appropriate to their style, then cool.

Peel the Garlic and mince in a food processor. 

Cut the Pork Shoulder into strips that fit your meat grinder's feed tube, chill it well, then grind.

Grinding the Pork; rice top left, minced garlic top right

Combine ground Pork, well-separated Rice, Garlic, Sugar, Salt, Pepper and make sure Pork and Rice are evenly distributed with no clumps that would prevent fermentation.

Chill again, then stuff into Sausage Casings; we use a Kitchen Aide grinder/stuffer attachment, but if you're a masochist, you could use a funnel or Asian soup spoon.

Filling the casing, top left; pork mixture in bottom right

We used more Jasmine Rice to finish the grind so it would push the last of the Pork mixture out of the feed tube into the casing. We then tasted the last runnings of the grind and rice after frying -- rather good, a bit salty, but promising.

Filled casings, fit to be tied

Tie with butcher's twine ever 1 1/2 inches or so: don't twist first, it stretches the skin so much it breaks.

This will be served in 4-5 link portions, but I didn't bother leaving gaps and using double-ties: it cut easily enough and held its shape once dried.

You should probably figure out how to hang them before you have your raw sausages ready to go as this can be a fussy process, and you don't want to screw around more than you have to with raw pork.

Let hang in a 75F/24C low humidity environment; it's winter when we did this so I hung them next to our boiler where it was 80F/25C and 15% humidity. Put a tray below to catch any fat that drips out.

25C @ 15% humidity, definitely not FDA certified

Hang 2 days, then Kris suggests trying one link. If not as sour as you'd like, try again in 12-24 hours, but he says more than 4 days doesn't improve sourness, only adds funk.

Pictures below are at 1, 2, and finally 3.5 days hanging. The skin and body become more tight, and the sausage loses its pink.

Grill on well-oiled medium grill until just a little pink remains inside, or a bit more. Since it was freezing rain outside, I cooked these indoors on lightly oiled cast iron, mostly covered so they heated through, and they browned nicely.

We served these with sticky rice, stir-fried cabbage, and a mixture of fried peanuts, citrus zest (tasty!), chilis, and thinly sliced ginger.

The interior was quite dense and uniform in texture. Surprisingly, it wasn't "sour", at least that's not how I'd describe it; maybe a little sweet but there was only a little sugar in the mix.

Comments

This was a lot more work -- and stress -- than the fragrant Thai Herbal Sausage we make from the Pok Pok book, and which Kris also describes in his book (Sai Uah).

The Sticky Rice was a bit of a pain to work with because... it's sticky, and clumps together more than the Jasmine Rice which is easier to distribute through the ground Pork.

When we do western sausage, we twist, alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise -- no need for tying. But here, since we'll want to cut off portions, so we use string. Just use a tight overhand with double-knot without twisting, so you don't stretch the casing so much it breaks; it's a pain to repair, and you don't want to mess with raw meat any more than necessary.

I'd like to make 4-5 link sections that are hung individually, because hanging 20+ links supported by one casing knot scares me: if it breaks due to the heavy weight, I'd lose my entire batch. Next time, I'd probably hang a pipe horizontally from the ceiling, then suspend several 4-5 link portions from it. When tying the links, leave some extra string so you can create a loop to hang them with a carabiner or other quick-connect clip to the pipe.

Tasting

Despite being known as "sour sausage" and Kris stating that many folks assumed the sausage included lime juice, this wasn't at all sour. While hanging, it had very little smell: a relief, for a presumption of food safety, but I would have expected a lactic aroma from the fermentation. Did I do something wrong? 

The good news is that it's been a few hours and we're not dead yet, or suffering the revulsion and convulsions of food poisoning. 

This was good, and unusual, but wasn't "insanely great" or unusual enough to do again, like I would do for the fragrant herbal Sai Ua sasusage we've made before.

Dacha's Isaan Sausage

This one sounds a bit scary to me -- uncooked meat and cooked rice left unrefrigerated for 5 days. But I've gotta try it!  We recently tried a similar recipe from the Night + Market cookbook which you can read about.

2     pound  Ground Pork
1     head   Garlic, chopped
1     cup    Rice, cooked
1 1/2 Tbs    ground Black Pepper
1     Tbs    Salt
             Sausage Casing

Mix everything together, stuff it in the Sausage Casing.
Tie the sausage every 1 1/2 - 2 inches.
Put the sausages in a closed container. 
Leave it for 3 days (I like leaving it for 5 days) in room temperature

Bake in 350F oven for 10 minutes then turn and bake for another 5 minutes.

There are other folks who are doing this, and living to talk about it:
http://www.blazinghotwok.com/2011/05/new-and-improved-isaan-sausages-now.html
http://shesimmers.com/2011/04/northeastern-thai-sour-sausage-sai-krok.html
http://ahungerartist.bobdelgrosso.com/2011/04/ferment-this-northeastern-thai-sour.html

Linguiça for Caldo Verde

I got kale at the farmer's market to make the Portuguese soup Caldo Verde, which requires Linguiça sausage. Irene used this recipe to make the linguiça, cut in half.

After smoking

• 5 pounds (2.25kg) pork butt, untrimmed
• 10 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons (55g) paprika
• 1 tablespoon (15g) salt
• 1 tablespoon (15g) ground coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon (5g) ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon (5g) allspice
• 1 teaspoon (5g) black pepper
• 2 teaspoons (10g) cayenne pepper (optional)
• ¼ cup (60ml)white wine vinegar
• ½ cup (120ml) cold water

Grind the meat, whiz garlic, coriander, cinnamon, and allspice together, add to meat with remaining ingredients, mixing well.

Stuff into pork casings, rest in fridge overnight.

Cold smoke for 4 hours.

We made Caldo Verde, loosely following the technique from Serious Eats, with a Spanish onion, and using good Spanish olive oil instead of butter. Irene thought the dish was a little bit too sweet (next time use a yellow onion) and could benefit from a splash of vinegary hot sauce.

The finished Caldo Verde

Spanish Chorizo Fresco

We wanted to make Spanish (rather than Mexican) Chorizo for a dinner we're planning. Since we don't have a curing chamber required to maintain the temperature and humidity for the authentic dry-cured sausage, we made a Chorizo Fresco with the same spices. Hard core recipes at Our Daily Brine and Meats and Sausages talk about the required molds and starter culture, but we just adapted their proportions of seasonings. We did use some pink salt to retain the porky color.

Chorizo after smoking 4 hours

100.00%  1800g  Pork shoulder butt
  1.10%    20g  Paprika, smoked, sweet
  1.10%    20g  Paprika, spicy
  0.22%     4g  Garlic powder
  2.70%    50g  Salt
  0.17%     3g  Sugar
  0.61%    11g  Pepper, black, ground
  0.17%     3g  Marjoram
  0.50%     9g  Pink salt (aka Prague Powder #1)
  5.00%    90g  White Wine

Grind the Pork coarsely. 
Mix spices together then sprinkle through Pork.
Add Wine and thoroughly combine.
Cook a sample of the seasoned meat and adjust spices: our spicy Paprika was tired so we bumped up the heat with some hot chile and more black pepper, and added a touch more salt.
Stuff pork intestine casings, twisting about every 10cm to create links.
Let sausages air-dry uncovered in the fridge overnight to allow flavors to meld and casings dry somewhat.

Chorizo drying before smoking

 The next day, cold smoke for 4 hours.

Chorizo on the smoker

These, unlike dry-cured sausages, need to be cooked before eating.

Redneck Roulade: hotdog farce

We were on a roll (hah!) with our ballotines and roulades, and had some extra chicken breast. For fun, we decided to do a "Redneck Roulade" -- a chicken breast stuffed not with a farce, but a simple hotdog.

It may look like a pig in a blanket, but it's a chicken blanket

We split one leftover breast with a butterfly cut, then pounded each half between cling film so they'd each accommodate a hotdog -- a Nathan's Jumbo restaurant style to be precise.

Breast butterflied and pounded to enclose the dog

We added a bit of mustard figuring it's a typical condiment for a dog, and not too uncommon in chicken preparations. We laid the breast and dog on the skin which we'd carefully saved from boning out chickens, then wrapped them tightly in a couple layers of cling film to give them shape.

Season with mustard, wrap everything with chicken skin

Shaped with cling film before bagging for sous vide

An hour in the sous vide bath between 60C and 70C cooked them through, and we chilled them in an ice bath and kept 'em in the fridge until we wanted them for dinner.

They came out of the sous vide bag is fine shape, chicken flesh firmed up around the dog as we'd hoped.  We trussed them in classic style with butcher's twine to keep the skin in close contact with the flesh, in hopes of preventing it from shrinking or separating.

Classic trussing, serious overkill

We browned them in a bit of chicken fat in a skillet, then served them with roasted winter veggies. Since they were already cooked we just needed to heat them through for serving and try and get some crispness in the skin.

Brown the skin, but don't overcook the chicken breast

As in our previous adventures, the sous vide technique kept the chicken moist and tender, definitely a good technique for such dry and mild-flavored meat. The skin didn't get nearly as crispy as we'd like, but that's been a problem in our last roulade/ballotine adventures too, whether we used a broiler or Searzall blowtorch.

Served with the trussing, like a package to unwrap

Daily Dinner #5

We embarked on Shannon's challenge four weeks ago: post a month of daily dinners, not just the fancy stuff we do. We're still in Barcelona living in a flat that in its entirety is smaller than our kitchen at home; needless to say, cooking can be difficult. But we're up for it, and really like shopping at the markets frequently. We may not bother posting dinners we have out so there could be some gaps.

2015-08-09

After a weekend in London, we didn't have anything in the house so we headed out for something local, simple. We ended up on Paral·lel which has a ton of cafes, but many were too noisy to sit outside on a great night -- it's a main street. Just off, we found Cachitos which had an appealing menu.

First, I noticed the price of one of my favorite Spanish wines, a Muga Reserva at €24, which would be thrice that at a DC restaurant.

There was a starter that sounded odd, intriguing, so we got the Broken Potatoes Anna with foie gras. It didn't look like much, but imagine a pommes anna as grated potatoes fried together, topped with a soft-cooked eggs, then a sauce of foie gras.  Rich? You betcha.

Irene ordered goat (Espaldita de cabrito al horno hecho a fuego lento):

and I had a Spanish pork tenderloin that was delightfully flavorful.

2015-08-10 Fideuà

Everyone knows about Paella, the rice dish from Valencia, but we first had fideuà with local friends in Barcelona. It's similar, in that a starchy base is cooked in a tasty broth, with various vegetables and proteins added. But where paella uses short-grain rice, fideuà uses pasta, shaped like regular old straight spaghetti. The ones I've had used a fairly fine noodle, and they're always short, like an inch long. In paella, the the individual rice grains should be separate when cooked, not a creamy mush like risotto; fideuà is the same here.

At the grocery store, we found bags of three different thicknesses of the noodles, and we chose a fairly coarse one so we wouldn't accidentally over cook it.

We also had some dried cod roe from the Mercat that we'd been trying to use; it's intensely fishy, fairly salty, but had a somewhat wax-like texture. It seemed perfect to provide a big hit of flavor. We froze this to firm it up then grated it on a box grater. Ick, the color here's awful: picture a lime-green cutting board with dark rose colored shaved bits.

We cooked the fideuà in the last of the flagon of white wine we had, and a bit of liquid exuded from some tomatoes we cooked down. Then we added the grated roe once the noodles were al dente; below, it's turned a pale white color.  Fideuà is cooked in a low, wide paella pan, and broiled to finish to crunch up the top.  We only have a Teflon skillet and these can outgas toxic PTFE fumes when heated to very high temperatures, so no crust for us. :-(

 We served this sautéed Spanish peppers that act like Padróns but are long and slender.

2015-08-11 Butifarra and Mushrooms

Irene picked up some Butifarra (what a great name for a sausage!) that included mushrooms, and also some wild mushrooms. Sorry, no finished photos of the dish, but it was simple and very satisfying. 

2015-08-12 Monkfish and Leeks

Irene picked up some monkfish (here the name is "rape", pronounced RAH-pay) at the market on her way back from Spanish class.  This fish is exceptionally popular here, all the fish mongers and grocery stores carry it; it's usually displayed on ice without the head, because it's a bit ugly and fearsome.  It's got a good meaty texture and fine taste. Not the best photos here, the lights in our flat are pretty dim.

Irene sautéed onion then added the fish, then tossed in some leeks and their greens.

It was garnished with parsley the fishmonger gave Irene.

2015-08-13 Spinach, Raisins, Nuts

There's a simple classic Spanish dish made with spinach, raisins and pine nuts.  For some reason, only one of the vendors in market had it and it was pre-bagged; there were plenty of other fresh greens but we wanted something more tender than chard-like greens. We also bought some seriously huge raisins in hues from golden, through orange to russet. 

Instead of pine nuts, we picked up some Marcona almonds, a specialty of Spain to which we sometimes treat ourself at home. "Natural?" asked our fruit and nut vendor? "Si."  Oops, a mistake: "natural" meant undried and unsalted -- a yielding texture rather than a pleasing snap, and these really needed salt to make them interesting. I heated some water with salt to dissolve, then soaked the nuts in this for a few hours, then drove off the water in a skillet. Ah, much better: a crunch and a slight zing from salt.

We cooked the spinach simply, assembled the rest, and -- very untraditionally -- served it on some elbow pasta to give us a meal's-worth. The package seems confused: is it rooster (gallo) or shark (tiburón)??

A glug of good local olive oil and we're done. Not bad at all.

2015-08-14 Merluza, Green Beans, Potatoes

We hit the market on a Friday before a holiday here, and the place was packed with folks buying fish. We returned to the fishmonger from whom Irene had bough the monkfish earlier and asked her about a fish it seemed everyone was buying; she said it was merluza (hake), and gestured that it was line-caught. We asked her to filet and skin it which she did expertly with a scalpel-like knife the size of her head; it's a beautiful thing to watch.  We also got some deeply flavored black olives and chopped up some parsley.

We got a half kilo of attractive thin beans. Turns out a half kilo's a hell of a lot.  Our flat's tiny cooktop doesn't have enough room to cook the fish, the beans, and the potatoes we wanted, so we put them in a big glass dish and figured we could steam them in the microwave, covered with cling film with a couple vents.  Oops, the microwave's only big enough for a small pot pie.  We scrounged around the cabinets and found a smaller dish we could improvise.  Oddly, after steaming for about 15 minutes, the beans were still too crunchy; perhaps next time I'll finish them in a skillet.

 And the potatoes... simply sautéed in olive oil with salt and pepper.

I heated our good olive oil in the skillet, added capers and black olives for a briny flavor, then the merluza. I was able to get a slight crust on the fish despite the Teflon. Straight-forward prep, the fish was excellent.

2015-08-15 Chicken

We'd been seeing these beautiful, golden-skinned chickens in the market so we picked one up to roast on Saturday. It was supposed to rain all day so I figured we'd be trapped inside -- me working and Irene doing her Spanish homework. Surprise -- it turned out to be a beautiful day and we ended up walking a 10-mile circuit around the city, along the beaches, and by the waterfront. 

While I tried to focus on some nerd-work, Irene prepped and cooked the chicken.  We stole some rosemary from the plantings of a waterfront restaurant, and had a bunch of garlic that Irene stuffed the chicken with.

We found a skillet that we could remove the handle from and baked it in the oven. It turned out really well, a good flavor, a fine texture (not dried out and stringy), and a burnished skin. Sadly, the skin didn't stay crispy long and we missed the crunch it had when it first came out of the oven; professionals must have a technique to keep the crisp skin, probably involving unhealthy amounts of butter.

Daily Dinner #3

Our friend Shannon challenged us to post about our regular meals, not just the eloaborate ones we sometimes to. We're trying to do a weekly post.

2015-07-26 Sunday

I find rolling pasta therapeutic: after a long day of coding, it  helps me relax.  Irene makes the dough with half and half all purpose and a coarser semolina for texture and bite. You need to let it rest to hydrate, and it can happily live in the freezer.  I divide the dough into a manageable size and start running it through the roller, folding it over itself several times on the widest setting to knead it.

Then pass it through successively finer settings to thin it and stretch it out. Dust with flour if it tries to stick to the rollers.

For fettucini, we run it down #7; if we were doing spaghetti, I'd only go as far as #5 to give it some body.

 Dust the sheet well with flour and run it through the cutter.

We sauced it with a pesto made from garden arugula.

Irene made a salad of different varieties of garden tomatoes that have good acid, and some sun-dried tomatoes as a counterpoint, with bright tomato juice, some good oil, Maldon sea salt, and sumac.

2015-07-27 Monday

Irene's riff on a Salade Niçoise including the last of our cold-smoked pork loin and a soft-boiled egg, beans and tomatoes from the garden.

2015-07-28 Tuesday

Packing for a trip, we raided the freezer for whatever we could find: home made meatballs, garden tomatoes, shaved parmesan, and (not home made!) spaghetti. The  tomatoes, fresh off the vine, had an intense flavor.

2015-07-29 Wednesday

Our stores are depleted so we went out to Kapnos in Arlington. Cocktails, the one in front was Don't Worry About It with rye, fernet and spices was a bit ... well, sweet-spicy for summer, the other, The Hannibal was  a mezcal marguerita with spots of harissa.

We've rarely seen navajas (razor clams, in the US called jack-knife clams) in the states so jumped on these. The were outstanding: fresh, vividly flavored, with a great texture. This was the stand-out dish of the evening.

Lamb tartar with smoked egg yolk, but we really couldn't discern any smokiness; the lamb was brightly seasoned, a good texture, and refreshing. Unfortunately, the grilled bread felt a bit stale, like it had been sitting around too long.

Octopus was tender was pleasantly charred, but not as flavorful as we would have liked.

2015-07-30 Thursday

My parents, who are staying at our house while we're away, took us out to Water and Wall (our choice) in Arlington and we were underwhelmed by the menu: the description of the dishes was intriguing but the food didn't live up to the promise. It was short but had two chicken dishes, and many were inappropriate for the season. The porchetta came with cold ramen, but it wasn't integrated into the dish in anyway. The duck confit was the only other adventurous dish on the menu, but too heavy for a hot July day. The steelhead trout was overwhelmed by a spicy sauce. 

On this quiet night, with less than half the tables occupied, the service was way too slow. We finished our cocktails and sat around for 10 minutes before the waitress returned to ask if we'd like another round of drinks: no, we'd like the appetizers, please! I can't imagine how this restaurant would fare on a busy night.

2015-07-31 Friday

Airplane food, baby!  An overnight flight from Toronto to Barcelona offered the usual "pasta or chicken".  My Mac and Cheese was OK, I figure pasta's a safe bet on an airplane: it had a bright sauce base, and was cheesy enough. Irene's chicken came with Israeli couscous studded with fava beans, sweet corn and carrots. The chicken was tender and juicy in a sweetish tomato sauce. The bread, as always, was too cold and gummy. The salad was made with cabbage rather than the usual iceberg lettuce, and the tomatoes were surprisingly flavorful. We were separated by 16 rows and I had to pay for my wine but Irene got away without paying. :-)

2015-08-01 Saturday

We picked a flat in Barcelona with a roof-top terrace and are really enjoying it. We hit the Mercat de Sant Antoni, about 5 minutes from our place, and picked up some sausage, and stopped for a liter of wine right from the cask and some bread for an alfresco dinner; since our body clocks were confused, we needed a pre-dinner much earlier than the Spanish 9-11pm time.

Since we'd spent the morning roaming the east side of Las Ramblas, we decided to wander the west side before returning for a dinner near our flat; that never happened :-). After drinks at a couple gothic bars (no, not the type with goth kids), we stumbled upon Bar Celta; this was a delight as it's the first place our friend Ann took us to on our first visit to Spain.  We knew it was a fish tapas place, but didn't realize it specialized in octopus (pulpo, so it's a pulpería).

So of course, the first dish was an outstanding octopus. They bring out steamed octopus, whole, and let them cool on the counter. When you select it, they take it back to the kitchen where they cut it up, sauté in good olive oil then anoint with lemon juice, garlic, and pimentón (smoked paprika). 

Woo hoo, we're in Spain, we can get razor-clams (here, called navajas). These were grilled in their shell, and were smoky and a little crunchy, again with good olive oil, garlic and lemon. They had a definite sweetness and a taste of the sea. 

More octopi, baby ones this time, cooked whole. They had a crunch to them, a little chewy, but not like rubber bands: a really pleasant toothsomeness then a yield as we bit through them. They also waited in the cool display case, and were grilled from raw (not pre-steamed) to order.

For a little variety, we rounded out the meal with a garlicky chorizo (sausage), redolent with pimentón. It was somewhat dried then sliced and cooked to order, it had an engaging chew to it.  Irene can't resist croquetas, so we had bacala (Catalan, "bacalao" in Spanish, salt cod) "fritters": creamy on the inside, with a thin shell -- not bad but not as stunning as the seafood dishes; something we should have expected from a pulpería, I suppose.

We ordered a couple glasses of a local rosé wine: you order a glass and they put the bottle on the bar and you fill up as needed; at the end of the meal, you're only charged for how much you drink. Of course we finished it. :-)

This was an outstanding casual meal, a steal at about $50, and I really enjoyed closing the loop with our first visit to Spain.