Potatoes With Spanish Chorizo

One of our favorite Spanish dishes is a simple potatoes with chorizos.

Potatoes with Chorizos
1 pound potatoes, cut into chunks
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
½ pound Spanish chorizo, cut in half
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon spanish paprika
¼ cup each dry white wine and water
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

• Heat the oil in a medium sauce pan, fry the chorizo until brown. Add the garlic and onions and saute for 2 minutes, add potatoes, salt, paprika, bay leaf, and the wine. Let boil then simmer for 5 minutes. Add water and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 5 - 8 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.

These chorizos are semi-dry homemade adapted from my cookbook CHARCUTERIE by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. The recipe is a little bit different than these fresh chorizos I posted earlier. I dry them at a very low temperature in my small food dehydrator for 6 hours, not as dry as the recipe says, then store them in the freezer.

Spanish Chorizos
5 pounds boneless pork shoulder butt, diced and chilled well
2 ounces kosher salt
1 tsp Insta Cure #2
2 tablespoons dextrose
¼ cup Bactoferm F-RM-52 (live culture)
¼ cup distilled water
¼ cup smoked Spanish paprika (no substitute)
½ minced garlic
10 ft hog casings, soaked in tepid water for 30 minutes and rinsed

• Combine the pork with the salt, Insta Cure #2, and dextrose. Grind through the large die into a bowl of a standing mixer set in ice.
• Dissolve the Bactoferm in the distilled water and add it, along with the remaining ingredients, to the pork. With the paddle attachment, mix on low speed about 1 minute.
• Stuff the sausage into the hog casings and use string to tie into 6-inch links. Using a sterile needle, prick the casings all over to remove any air pockets and facilitate drying. Hang the sausage (ideally at 60°F) until it feels completely stiff throughout, 18 to 20 days.

Yield: About 3 lbs.

Jap Chae (Korean Noodles, Steak and Vegetable Stir-Fry)

I regularly cook Korean style dishes like steak or chicken bulgogi and this noodle dish, Jap Chae. Most Korean recipes have very strong garlicky, sweet and salty flavors that we absolutely love. This noodle dish is specially good, the vermicelli is chewy, very different from the Chinese and Filipino noodles although it resembles our mung bean vermicelli but is a lot thicker. It is made of sweet potato and cornstarch flour and the dry noodles have a greenish tint.

Jap Chae
3 ounces Korean vermicelli ( no substitution)
3 tablespoons light olive oil
1 large onion, sliced
½ pound sirloin steak, sliced into 3 x 1 inch strips
1 carrot, julienned
1 green pepper, sliced thin
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Korean sesame seed oil (no substitution)
¼ cup tree ears, soaked in warm water and rinsed well

• Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add the vermicelli and cook for 3 minutes, drain and rinse with cold water, set aside. The noodles should be translucent.
• Heat the oil in a large pan or wok, add the onion and stir fry for 1 minute. Add the beef and cook for 1 minute. Add the vegetables and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the salt, sugar, soy sauce, sesame seed oil and tree ears, toss the mixture then add the vermicelli, mix well. Serve while hot.

I didn't have carrots and tree ears, I used orange bell pepper for color instead. The taste is still the same though, it's the seasoning and the noodles that make this dish wonderful.

Extremely Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

This chocolate cupcake, my version of Black Forest Cake, was supposed to be my entry to Sugar High Friday # 27: Chocolate by Brand hosted by David Lebovitz. I missed the January 22 deadline but I am still posting the finished cupcakes. For the chocolate I chose Hershey cocoa mixed with black cocoa from King Arthur Flour Company. The black cocoa gives the cakes a really dark and deep chocolate flavor. The recipe I used for the batter is the one on the Hershey label because of its simplicity, does not use butter, and the cakes always come out moist. You can use your favorite chocolate cake recipe but substitute no more than ¼ cup black cocoa.

Extremely Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
makes 30 cupcakes

2 cups sugar
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup Hershey's cocoa
¼ cup black cocoa
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
cherry brandy
morello cherries

• Cupcakes: Heat oven to 350°F. Line two 12-cup and one 6-cup muffin pans with paper bake cups. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Fill cups 2/3 full. Bake for 22 - 25 minutes. Let cool on wire rack.
• Kirschwasser syrup: Boil 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water for 2 minutes, let cool a little, add ½ cup kirschwasser/cherry brandy.
• To serve: Peel off paper liners from cooled cupcakes, dip in syrup. Serve with slightly sweetened whipped cream and morello cherries.

You can also bake this cake using two 9-inch layer cake pans, slice each cake in half, moisten all 4 layers with syrup, layer the second with halved morello cherries, ice each layer, top, and sides with slightly sweetened whipped cream. Decorate all over with chocolate curls or shavings. Please do not use canned cherry pie filling, that would be awful. :=)

Prawns With Snow Peas

When we were still in Manila we ate in a Chinese restaurant very often. And it was a real treat when we went to Chinatown for authentic Chinese (Fookien/Fujian) cuisine. We consider Chinese food our comfort food, that is why I own more than half a dozen Chinese cookbooks, the most in my growing cookbook 'library'. Of course when you eat in a Chinese restaurant in Manila, fried rice is always a must.

Prawns with Snow Peas
½ pound prawns, shelled and deveined
¼ pound snowpeas, ends trimmed and washed
2 spring onions, sliced
2 tablespoons rice wine
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 egg white
1 tablespoon cornstarch

• Put prawns in a small bowl, add ¼ teaspoon salt, egg white, rice wine and cornstarch, in that particular order, don't ask me why. Mix well, set aside. In a frying pan or wok, on medium-high heat, add 1 tablespoon oil and saute snow peas with ¼ teaspoon salt, stir fry for 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Add another teaspoon of oil to the pan and saute green onions for 1 minute, add the prawns and stir fry until prawns turn pink, add a little wine or water if it appears dry. Put the snow peas back in the pan and stir to mix, about 1 minute.

Fried Rice

2 eggs, well beaten
3 cups cooked rice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
½ tsp salt
2 spring onions, sliced
1 cup diced ham
½ cup frozen petite peas
1 teaspoon sesame seed oil

• Cook the eggs on an oiled pan on medium heat, making sure it does not brown. Cut into chunks. Set aside. In a wok or deep pan, heat 2 tablespoons oil, add green onions and ham and stir fry for 1 minute. Add the rice and sprinkle with the soy sauce, add the salt. Stir fry to distribute the soy sauce evenly. Add the peas and stir fry for an additional 3 minutes. Drizzle the sesame seed oil, then add the cooked eggs, mix well. Serve hot. Adjust seasoning at the table.