Fideuà de Ravalistan

Fideuà is a Valencian dish similar to paella but made with pasta. We used thin Pakistani pasta and added Lebanese Toum garlic sauce for a cross-cultural dish as vibrant as El Raval in Barcelona.

This was thrown together with things we had on hand. We started with a  sofrito of onions, padron peppers, and red bell pepper.

We added super-thin roasted Pakistani pasta; apparently the pasta is used as a breakfast during Ramadan.

We broke it up a bit and added fish stock sufficient to cook. We stirred in some corvina fish we'd cooked before the sofrito, and some peas. To finish, we added dollops of Toum, and insanely garlicky mayonaise-like sauce where the only emulsifier is the garlic (no egg).

It was authentic in only in spirit, and tasted great -- bold, rich, and filling -- there were no left-overs.

Creamy Peanut Pralines a la Shirley Corriher

These pralines came out well, with a firm, caramel-like texture, rather than a grainy sugar toothache. We substituted dry roasted peanuts for the pecans and almonds Shirley Corriher uses for Creamy Pralines from her book Cookwise in order to fit a dinner theme we're working on.

As Shirley says, the corn syrup slows the crystallization, but requires a slightly higher temperature to set firmly. Since the peanuts were already roasted and salted, we didn't roast them with butter and salt like she does. I've converted her imperial volume measurements to metric to make it easier for us to reproduce.

250 g  Dry Roasted Peanuts (2 C)

 25 g  Butter (2 Tbs)

235 g  Light Brown Sugar (1 C packed)

155 g  Granulated White Sugar (3/4 C)

 80 ml Light Corn Syrup (1/3 C)

120 ml Canned Evaporated Milk (1/2 C)

  5 ml Vanilla Extract (1 tsp)

Set out two Silpat nonstick sheets, or lightly oiled foil or parchment.

Bring all ingredients except Vanilla to boil, and continue to heat until mixture reaches 115C/240F.

Remove from heat and let rest 5 minutes (our temperature dropped to 105C/221F); add Vanilla.

Stir with a stiff spatula for about 4 minutes until the mixture thickens noticeably, including the center. 

Immediately spoon out onto the Silpats in heaping tablespoon sized dollops. A #70 disher worked well, until the mixture in the pot became too thick as it cooled; I switched to pairs of spoons to scoop out then slide the mixture off the spoon. You might want two people doing this to work more rapidly, one on each Silpat.

Let sit until solid.

Octopus Terrine #2

In Octopus Terrine #1, we added gelatin to capture the juices from the cooked octopus, but we didn't like the texture. This time, we used large legs, strained the juice and wrap the octopus tightly to let it set in its own gel.

We found large Spanish octopus at a restaurant supply store for under $7/pound, usually we see $10/pound and up. It was a good sized beast, costing $55, and we used 4 legs for this. We added  the legs to a sous vide bag with about 1/4 red bell pepper, diced fine; a touch of pimenton; some lemon zest; a little salt and black pepper. Like before, we cooked this at 77C for 5 hours, which is what Chef Steps recommends for "silky but tender".

When done, we strained off the liquid (it makes for an excellent risotto), and were left with legs that were much smaller than they went in; we lost at least 50% by weight. Alternating thick and thin ends of legs, we wrapped them tightly as a cylinder in cling film, then rolled to twist the film as tight as possible. It rested overnight in the fridge to let the internal gel bind the whole thing together.

When we took it out, it was a bit more lumpy -- less cylindrical -- than ideal. As we cut it with a very sharp thin knife, the terrine started coming apart. The texture was excellent, tender but not mushy, a little bounce, and the taste was very enjoyable.

Next time, I'd season and cook the same, but try to find a better way to compress the terrine. Do I really need a spring loaded terrine press like these?

 

Mint Julep with Nitrous Oxide Cavitation

We use nitrous oxide cavitation to release the mint flavors without bruising or cooking, which would cause the mint to turn an unappealing brown and have some off flavors. I first heard of it from Dave Arnold (cited in Serious Eats); I borrowed the same technique to make a mint simple syrup from Gina Chersavani.

500 g White Sugar
500 ml Water
20 g Mint Leaves

500 ml Bourbon
20 g Mint Leaves

Heat the Sugar in the Water to dissolve, then let this simple syrup cool.
Using equal proportions by weight makes for a slightly sweeter simple syrup than doing it by volume (cups).
Put 500 ml simple syrup into an Isi whipped cream siphon with 20 g Mint Leaves;
charge with one Nitrous Oxide capsule and agitate for a couple minutes.
Release pressure, strain into container.

Put the Bourbon and its 20 g Mint Leaves into the empty Isi, charge with one Nitrous capsule, agitate for a couple minutes, release pressure, and strain into 750 ml bottle

Add 150 ml of the minty simple syrup and mix. Retain the extra syrup for other drinks.

To serve, pour a healthy shot over crushed ice.

I used mint from our garden and it's not as intense as some, so next time I'd bump up the mint in both the syrup and bourbon.