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.

Now, when summer rolls around, yellow squash and zucchini play second fiddle only to the homegrown tomato. Since it came into season this year, I have made it every way imaginable. I’ve made grilled squash, mashed squash, baked squash, two kinds of squash pasta, squash pizza and squash quiche. I’ve even eaten squash in a taco. I have tried every semi-healthy squash recipe I run across, mostly to distract myself from wanting to prepare it this way. And I’m telling you right now, I’m about to give in. Dear lord sweet baby jesus, please save me because I can’t stop thinking about all that cheese.

So in an attempt to further distract myself with another semi-healthy squash preparation, I give you this delicious summer squash gratin, inspired by 101 Cookbooks. The squash comes out light and herby and gets a little bit of crispiness and tanginess from a topping of whole wheat bread crumbs and feta cheese. It was so good, it almost made me forget about that other squash.

Summer Squash Gratin Recipe

1 1/2 lbs of summer squash (yellow squash, or zucchini or both)

1/2 lb of yukon gold potatoes

Herb Mix:

1/4 cup minced fresh parsley

1/4 cup minced fresh oregano

zest of one lemon

1 large clove of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon kosher salt

freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

Topping:

2 slices 100% whole wheat bread

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt to taste

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Slice the squash into 1/6 inch rounds. Slice the potatoes into 1/8 inch rounds (a mandoline is helpful for these steps). If you can’t cut the potatoes that thin, saute the slices in some olive oil for a minute or two before tossing them with the squash. Since the squash cooks more quickly than the potatoes, the idea is to ensure that the potatoes get thoroughly cooked in the oven.

3. In a large bowl combine the ingredients for the herb mix. Add the squash and potatoes and toss well to ensure that the slices are well coated with oil.

4. Place the bread slices in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to create coarse crumbs. Pour the crumbs into a small bowl and use your fingers to combine them with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

5. Pour the mixture into an 8 x 8 glass casserole dish and top with the crumbled feta cheese and bread crumbs. Bake 50 minutes. The topping should be browned and there should be little to no liquid from the squash visible in the bottom of the pan.

This year was Mexican. My dad was making Soup Nazi Mexican Chicken Chili. No soup for you! And this year was the first year that I was asked to bring something. I decided on ceviche right away. But then as my supply of Meyer lemons began to expand to levels of grotesque proportions, lemon bars started to sound like a really good idea. For several days, I went back and forth between ceviche and meyer lemon bars. My mom loves lemon bars, but would we really need more sweets? The definitive answer was yes. So I did what any reasonable person would do. I made both. And those people I was talking about? You know, the special ones? They wolfed down the ceviche before my dad got to try it, so guess what we’ll be having for New Years? (If you can’t guess, see answer below):

Looks good doesn’t it? Well, you’ll have to make your own because we’re fresh out. Let me know when you’re done and you can have some lemon bars for dessert.

Mock Ceviche

Ceviche is sort of a Latin American fish cocktail. It can be made with shellfish, squid or almost any firm white-fleshed fish. Traditionally, ceviche is not cooked with heat. Instead it’s marinated in citrus juices, which chemically “cook” the fish. And contrary to popular belief, chemically cooked fish is not as safe as fish cooked with heat. You should always treat any fish used for ceviche as though you were going to eat it raw. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to take on that burden of responsibility. So I use this trick suggested by Mark Bittman: Cook the damn fish. Nobody will know the difference. I love ceviche, but I don’t love the idea of giving anyone a tapeworm for Christmas. Ho ho ho!

Ceviche

Dressing

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the scallops, turn the water off and put a lid on it. Allow the scallops to sit for two minutes. Drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Cut each scallop in half and set aside.

2. In a bowl large enough to accommodate the finished dish, combine the dressing ingredients. Add the scallops, tomato, onion, jalapeno, garlic and herbs. If there’s time, allow the ceviche to marinate in the refrigerator for several hours to blend the flavors. 

3. Add the avocados and toss gently just before serving. Serve immediately with a side of corn chips.

The photo for the December 12 delivery is only a little bad. Here it is:

I was sick for three days this past week with a stomach virus (ugh), so that’s my excuse for this photo. BUT just as I started to feel a little better, my Lowel EGO lights arrived. So I decided to break them out for a test run. This probably would have turned out pretty good if I had turned off the overhead light, which was causing all the harsh shadows on the table. Had I felt better I might have spent a little more time, but I didn’t so this is it folks. Sorry! Treats for this week included green leaf lettuce, arugula spinach blend, grapefruits, oranges, cilantro, oregano, another head of cabbage, lacinato kale, radishes, meyer lemons, apples and my personal favorite, green tomatoes.