My Lesson with Spanish Culinary Arts

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Cooking: Lesson 1

Today, I became a student in the culinary arts. None other than Catalina, the world’s best cook, led my lesson. For my first lesson: Cocido Madrileno, croquettes, y seafood paella.  As Catalina would prepare and add the ingredients, she would instruct me in Spanish. As I observed, I also wrote down the ingredients and the recipe. The recipes are as follows:

Cocido Madrileno : Garbanzo Stew

Ingredients: garbanzos, carrots, celery, pork/bacon fat, ham bone, white salt bone, thigh/legs of chicken, onion, and potatoes.

Directions: Night before, soak garbanzos in hot water and salt. In the morning, clean the garbanzos with hot water, drain, and add to pot of hot water. Add the vegetables to the hot water (carrots, celery, etc). Also add the bacon fat, white salt bone, and chicken.  Start to boil.

Peel and cut the potatoes into thick wedges. Add the cleaned potatoes to the boiling water. Cover the pan with the lid and let boil.  Watch every so often and remove the foam as desired. Boil for at least 30 minutes and check periodically.

[Remove some of the meat from the pot and let cool. When cooled, pick apart the meat from the bone. Save this for croquettes]. [You can take out some of the broth (2 jars worth) and some of the chicken and put it in the fridge for another soup in the future.]

Continue to heat on low setting. Serve in bowl with some broth, garbanzos, carrots, celery, and chicken leg.

Croquettes:

In a pan, add olive oil and put on low heat. Dice one onion and add to pan.  Do not let it burn. With scissors, cut up the chicken that you put aside from the garbanzo stew. Cut up very finely and add to the onions and olive oil. Mix and stir on low heat.  Next add 2 large spoonfuls of flour to one side of the pan. Heat until a little golden.  Add 2 or 3 ladles of the broth from the stew to the pan and mix until smooth. Next, empty the pan into a big bowl and let cool.   Use it to make croquets.  Break a few eggs in a bowl and mix. Add clump of mixture to eggs and immediately cover in breadcrumbs. Continue until you have covered all of the croquettes.  Put in pan and fry in olive oil.  

Seafood Paella:

Ingredients: Rice, wine, chicken, seafood (shrimp, calamari, clams, etc), vegetables (onion, garlic, tomato)

Directions: Peel the shells off of the shrimp (picture shows the shrimp with the shells) . Put in a pot filled with water, rice, and the shrimp. Next, in a frying pan, add olive oil and turn on low heat. Add the chicken to the pan first. Cook until it is golden. Peel the onion and garlic and add to the pan. Fry everything in the frying pan. Heat until the onion is a little golden. Add some “tomate crudo” and fry a bit. Pour in a cup of wine into the frying pan and let boil. Next, add the rice, shrimp, and other seafood to the pan.  Mix everything in the frying pan. Cook until tender.

Rule of thumb: for every cup of rice, include 2 cups of water.

Serve hot!    

Que aproveche!