Posts Tagged ‘chorizo’

Ok, title aside, I have nothing but love for D.C.’s favorite celebrity chef and adorable PBS personality. And,while this “paella” is probably neither authentic nor avant garde enough to meet his standards, I’d hope that Señor Andrés would at least find it palatable. We thought it quite tasty–as is anything that starts with chorizo, my favorite power ingredient du jour.

Randomly, the Yes! Market that serves as the grocery store of last resort on my walk home from the Metro stocks super delish Spanish chorizo–the dry, cured kind, not the fresh Mexican kind. And I take advantage of this regularly. It is, for lack of a better word, the bomb: meaty, fragrant, and full of gorgeous spice and fat. Of course, a little goes a long way, and I’ll usually slice or dice it up and throw it in my pan to crisp up and render out before having my merry way with it. The chorizo makes for a wonderful frittata, adds spicy nuance to pasta sauce, and–at it’s most basic level–is great fried up and offered as part of a tapas spread (in moderation…).
Of course, this kind of foodstuff is supposed to be consumed in moderation anyway. This is meat-as-flavoring as opposed to meat-as-main ingredient, which is generally a nice thing to do, I think. Here, I used about a third of the chorizo as the base for a one-pot dinner redolent with the warm spice I associate with paella (never having made or consumed real paella, I’d take this claim with a rawther sizeable grain of salt, btw). The chorizo was followed into the pan by onion, garlic, and coarse-grained bulghur. I boosted the flavors with a bit of smoked paprika and saffron and towards the end stirred in some peas, cannellini beans, and parsley. It made for a great supper with a bit of salad on the side, and made for some seriously tasty lunch leftovers the next day.
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As you’re undoubtedly aware, we here at the PassionFruits have opinions. Lots of them. Sometimes they’re expert, sometimes they’re nebulous, and sometimes ill-informed, they’re strongly held nevertheless. One of MY opinions, which may fall into all of the above categories, is that non-stick pans are the work of the devil. And not in a good way. Ergo, I do not own a non-stick pan. This became a challenge last time I tried to make a frittata/tortilla. It wasn’t a disaster, by any stretch, but I’m not the “not-a-disaster” guy so that didn’t quite work for me.

And, since I had a lovely piece of cured Spanish chorizo and a serious yen for a nice little frittata for dinner on Friday, I felt the need to revisit and vanquish this little problem with the help of my beloved parchment paper. Of course, the ever-helpful Mr. T opined that people are much more likely to have a non-stick fry pan than they are to have parchment paper. Moving on from that minor distraction, I went ahead and made my chorizo frittata, sauteing the filling ingredients before wiping out the pan and fitting it with a round of parchment and pouring everything back in, heating it back up, and heaving it all in the oven. The resulting disc of potatoe-y, eggy, sausage-y goodness was very tasty indeed, and slipped from the NOT non-stick pan like a champ. The smoky, meaty chorizo was an excellent foil for the sweet onion and the parsely’s green pungency was lovely.

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