Here it is, a few days late. For this month’s Daring Cook’s challenge Olga from Las Cosas de Olga and Olga’s Recipes chose the dish Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes from renowned Spanish chef José Andrés.

Although I was very excited to try this dish, I found that I wasn’t ready for another paella-type dish so soon after making tomato paella a few weeks go. I considered skipping the challenge all together, but I’m glad that I didn’t.

I have never cooked with cuttlefish. In fact, I didn’t know people ate them. When I was younger and had a parakeet I used to give him a cuttlefish bone in his cage and he would peck at it (for calcium I think). It turns out cuttlefish is similar to squid. I could have substituted squid for cuttlefish, but Shawn isn’t really a fan of un-fried squid, so I chose mussels instead. Because mussels cook very quickly, I added them at the end of cooking when there was still a bit of liquid left in the rice. I spread them over the top of the rice and steamed them with the lid on the pan for about 8 minutes.

I made the recipe with turmeric instead of saffron, portobello mushrooms, frozen artichoke hearts and I threw in some piquillo peppers for color. I also used canned tomatoes instead of fresh for the sofregit for several reasons: 1. My tomato plants haven’t produced anything worth mentioning for at least a month. Something to do with it being too hot here for the blooms to set; 2. I didn’t make it to the farmer’s market again this week because I had to go put a new battery in my car on Saturday morning; 3. I have been wary of most fresh tomatoes from the supermarket after being traumatized by this horrible story.

Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes
From Chef José Andrés’ TV show “Made In Spain” via Olga for Daring Cooks

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Equipment:

1 Chopping Board

1 knife

1 medium saucepan

1 Paella pan (30 cm/11” is enough for 4 people. If not available, you may use a simple pan that size)

1 Saucepan

Ingredients (serves 4):

4 Artichokes (you can use jarred or freezed if fresh are not available)

12 Mushrooms (button or Portobello)

1 or 2 Bay leaves (optional but highly recommended)

1 glass of white wine

2 Cuttlefish (you can use freezed cuttlefish or squid if you don’t find it fresh)

“Sofregit” (see recipe below)

300 gr (2 cups) Short grain rice (Spanish types Calasparra or Montsant are preferred, but you can choose any other short grain. This kind of rice absorbs flavor very well) – about 75 gr per person ( ½ cup per person) Please read this for more info on suitable rices.

Water or Fish Stock (use 1 ½ cup of liquid per ½ cup of rice)

Saffron threads (if you can’t find it or afford to buy it, you can substitute it for turmeric or yellow coloring powder)

Allioli (olive oil and garlic sauce, similar to mayonnaise sauce) – optional

Directions:

1. Cut the cuttlefish in little strips.
2. Add 1 or 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and put the cuttlefish in the pan.
3. If you use fresh artichokes, clean them as shown in the video in tip #7. Cut artichokes in eights.
4. Clean the mushrooms and cut them in fourths.
5. Add a bay leaf to the cuttlefish and add also the artichokes and the mushrooms.
6. Sauté until we get a golden color in the artichokes.
7. Put a touch of white wine so all the solids in the bottom of the get mixed, getting a more flavorful dish.
8. Add a couple or three tablespoons of sofregit and mix to make sure everything gets impregnated with the sofregit.
9. Add all the liquid and bring it to boil.
10. Add all the rice. Let boil for about 5 minutes in heavy heat.
11. Add some saffron thread to enrich the dish with its flavor and color. Stir a little bit so the rice and the other ingredients get the entire flavor. If you’re using turmeric or yellow coloring, use only 1/4 teaspoon.
12. Turn to low heat and boil for another 8 minutes (or until rice is a little softer than “al dente”)
13. Put the pan away from heat and let the rice stand a couple of minutes.

Sofregit
(A well cooked and fragrant sauce made of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and onions, and may at times different vegetables such as peppers or mushrooms.)

Cooking time: aprox. 1 hour

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of olive oil

5 big red ripe tomatoes, chopped

2 small onions, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped (optional)

4 or 5 garlic cloves, chopped

1 cup of button or Portobello mushrooms, chopped (optional)

1 Bay leaf

Salt

Touch of ground cumin

Touch of dried oregano

Directions:

1. Put all the ingredients together in a frying pan and sauté slowly until all vegetables are soft.
2. Taste and salt if necessary (maybe it’s not!)

Allioli is the optional part of the recipe. You must choose one of the two recipes given, even though I highly recommend you to try traditional one. Allioli is served together with the rice and it gives a very nice taste

Allioli (Traditional recipe)

Cooking time: 20 min aprox.

Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves, peeled

Pinch of salt

Fresh lemon juice (some drops)

Extra-virgin olive oil (Spanish preferred but not essential)

Directions:

1. Place the garlic in a mortar along with the salt.
2. Using a pestle, smash the garlic cloves to a smooth paste. (The salt stops the garlic from slipping at the bottom of the mortar as you pound it down.)
3. Add the lemon juice to the garlic.
4. Drop by drop; pour the olive oil into the mortar slowly as you continue to crush the paste with your pestle.
5. Keep turning your pestle in a slow, continuous circular motion in the mortar. The drip needs to be slow and steady. Make sure the paste soaks up the olive oil as you go.
6. Keep adding the oil, drop by drop, until you have the consistency of a very thick mayonnaise. If your allioli gets too dense, add water to thin it out. This takes time—around 20 minutes of slow motion around the mortar—to create a dense, rich sauce.

José’s tips for traditional recipe: It’s hard to think that, when you start crushing the garlic, it will ever turn into something as dense and smooth as allioli. But don’t give up. It’s worth the extra time and effort to see the oil and garlic come together before your eyes. Just make sure you’re adding the olive oil slowly, drop by drop. Keep moving the pestle around the mortar in a circular motion and keep dreaming of the thick, creamy sauce at the end of it all.

Allioli a la moderna (Modern recipe)

Cooking time: 3-4 minutes

Ingredients:

1 small egg

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil (as above, Spanish oil is highly recommended)

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 Tbs. Spanish Sherry vinegar or lemon juice (if Sherry vinegar is not available, use can use cider or white vinegar)

Salt to taste

Directions:

1. Break the egg into a mixing bowl.
2. Add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the garlic cloves, along with the vinegar or lemon juice.
3. Using a hand blender, start mixing at high speed until the garlic is fully pureed into a loose paste.
4. Little by little, add what’s left of the olive oil as you continue blending.
5. If the mixture appears too thick as you begin pouring the oil, add 1 teaspoon of water to loosen the sauce.
6. Continue adding the oil and blending until you have a rich, creamy allioli.
7. The sauce will be a lovely yellow color.
8. Add salt to taste.

José’s tips for modern recipe:
(1) If you do not have access to a hand blender, you can use a hand mixer (the kind with the two beaters) or a food processor. If you use a food processor, you must double the recipe or the amount will be too little for the blades to catch and emulsify.
(2) What happens if the oil and egg separate? Don’t throw it out. You can do two things. One is to whisk it and use it as a side sauce for a fish or vegetable. But if you want to rescue the allioli, take 1 tablespoon of lukewarm water in another beaker and start adding to the mix little by little. Blend it again until you create the creamy sauce you wanted.

Olga’s Tips:
(1) In Spain, rice is not stired as often as it is when cooking Italian risotto. You must stir it once or twice maximum. This tip is valid for all Spanish rice dishes like paella, arròs negre, arròs a banda…
(2) When cooking the alternative style you can change the cuttlefish or squid for diced potato.
(3) If you can’t find cuttlefish or squid, or you’re not able to eat them because of allergies, you can try to substitute them for chicken or vegetables at your choice.
(4) Sofregit can be done in advance. You can keep it in the fridge or even freeze it.
(5) For more information on how to clean and remove the heart of artichokes, please watch this video
(6) To watch how Jose Andres cooks this dish click here.
(7) For more information on how to clean and remove the heart of artichokes, please watch this video
(8) To tone down the taste when you do it by hand in a mortar, then add an egg yolk. If you want to tone it down in the alternative way use milk or soy milk. Anyway, the best alternative way is the original oil and garlic alone.
(9) Allioli must be consumed during the preparation day and preserved in the fridge before using it.
(10) For help on conversion on metric to imperial, visit this page.

Crispy Baked Egg Rolls

When most people think of egg rolls, they think of the kind that are served at the average Chinese restaurant: a blend of vegetables and meat all wrapped up inside a big fat greasy, doughy fried wrapper. Super. So the plan was to get as far away from that familiar object as possible. Instead of the American-style egg roll wrappers you can buy at the regular old grocery store, try asian spring roll wrappers. They are much thinner and not at all doughy. Once cooked, they crisp up sort of like an extra crunchy phyllo dough. And they are surprisingly easy to work with. Normally they are deep fried, but for a lighter version, these are baked in the oven. Serve them with sweet chili sauce for dipping.

2 tablespoons neutral oil

1 1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

8 oz white mushrooms, thinly sliced

1/2 head green cabbage, thinly shredded

3 carrots, grated

2 celery stalks, finely diced

3 green onions, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

1 package spring roll wrappers (about 25 wrappers)

Neutral oil for brushing

1. In a wok or large skillet, over medium high heat, heat the neutral oil and 1/2 a teaspoon sesame oil until it shimmers. Add the garlic and fry for one minute. Add the mushrooms and a small pinch of salt to draw out the moisture. Cook the mushrooms until they are browned and fairly dry.

2. Add the cabbage, carrots, celery and green onion. Cook until the cabbage just begins to wilt. Add the powdered ginger, sugar, oyster sauce, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, soy sauce and rice vinegar. Cook until the flavors start to become absorbed into the vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Place the filling in a fine mesh strainer to remove excess liquid. You want the mixture to be fairly dry so that the wrappers don’t become too soggy.

4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. For each egg roll, place one wrapper in front of you on its point so it looks like a diamond. Lay about one and a half tablespoons of filling across the bottom of the wrapper horizontally. Fold the point over the filling, then fold the left and right points over so it looks sort of like an envelope that is ready to seal. To close the egg roll, grasp the filling and roll tightly upwards toward the remaining point. Be sure that the filling is completely and tightly enclosed in the wrapper. Lay the roll on its seam on a cookie sheet and proceed with the remaining rolls.

5. Once the rolls are made, brush them on both sides with neutral oil. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until golden and crispy, flipping them once after 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

Here is my delivery for this week. I think it’s even better than last weeks. We got: avocados, mushrooms, red potatoes, meyer lemons, oranges, cilantro, apples, radishes, arugula, beets, bok choy and salad bowl lettuce.

I was really excited to see collard greens in the box. I really enjoyed the ones in the last box, and when Greenlings Mason Arnold and Devon Haire came to talk about the service at my office this week, they brought a sample box and let everyone take something home. I, being the greedy little produce hoarder that I am, grabbed the collard greens, two meyer lemons, two onions and a bunch of fresh thyme.

I cooked the collard greens up that night with a slice of bacon cut up really small and some garlic. We ate them all. I suppose olive oil and garlic would be almost as good. Or maybe olive oil, garlic and mushrooms. Mason says the key is not to cook them too much and apparently he’s right.

Another happy discovery was beets. I have been eating tons of beets lately. My co-workers expect me to turn purple any day now. A lot of people don’t know that the best way to cook beets is to peel them, cut them up, toss them with salt and olive oil and roast them in the oven without foil. They get so sweet they’re almost like candy. If you wrap them in foil, they’re still good, but you’re essentially steaming them. When you leave the foil off, the flavor of the beets gets more concentrated and they taste so much better.

Here are my beets all cut up and waiting to go in the oven. Once they are roasted I like to eat them immediately, right off the pan put them in a green salad with this vinaigrette:

I don’t make beef stew more than about once a year. It’s one of those things that I just don’t really get excited about. Don’t get me wrong, I like beef stew, but there are beefy things I like better, like delicious, melt-in-your-mouth braised short ribs or oxtails. It just seems like with most beef stews, the initial browning of the meat is very exciting, but then in goes the liquid and the vegetables which eventually turn to mush and, well, it’s all downhill from there.

Despite my feelings about beef stew, I bought beef chuck on sale so when the cold weather came and the baby carrots arrived in my Greenling box I knew I had to make it. Most beef stews (the french ones anyway.. i.e. beef bourguignon) are flavored with red wine and I actually have a recipe that uses an entire bottle of red wine. I refuse to pour an entire bottle of perfectly good wine into a pot of meat. I like the flavor of red wine and beef, but I tend to prefer the flavor of Guinness and beef—more hearty, less sweet and less acidic (and also less expensive). So I used a cup of red wine and a bottle of Guinness Stout. And as far as beef stews go, this one came out pretty darn good. I might even make it again before this time next year.

Guinness Beef Stew

3 lbs beef chuck, cut into 2 inch pieces

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

3 tablespoons of flour

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup red wine that you would drink

1 bottle Guinness Stout

2 carrots, sliced

1 onion, sliced

4 cloves of garlic, smashed

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, or 4 whole cloves

1 teaspoon peppercorns

1 lemon, juice and zest

3 medium turnips, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

10 ounces crimini mushrooms, cut in quarters

1 bunch baby carrots

1/2 cup green peas

parsley, chopped

1. Salt and pepper the meat and dust with flour. Heat the oil in a large dutch oven until it shimmers. Brown the meat in batches until sufficiently caramelized and then add water to cover scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen the bits of browned meat and flour.

2. Add the onion, sliced carrots, garlic, lemon juice and zest and seasonings, red wine and beer and bring to a simmer. Cook slowly over low heat for about two hours or until the meat can be easily shredded with a fork.

3. Add the turnips and mushrooms and cook for another half hour adding the baby carrots and peas in the last 15 minutes of cooking. Sprinkle with fresh parsley. Serve with a side of garlic mashed potatoes.