Sheep, Sturgeons, and Caviar, oh my!

While my sister was here, we visited Río Frio, an area about 45 minutes away from Granada where there is a nursery for sturgeon, which has gained and is still gaining world fame for the quality of caviar being produced. Lucky us, at the restaurant where we stopped to have a cup of coffee, they had just received a sturgeon (male) which they use in their rice dishes. I believe it was several years old as they keep the females until they grow to be at least 16 years old at which point they remove the caviar. They can get to be between 80-100 years old from what I was told, and I believe they are able to get about 10-20% of their body weight in caviar. Another cool fact is that the sturgeon don't have any scales. As for the sheep, they just happened to pass by and my niece got excited about seeing them and we took some photos.

Orange Basil Ice Cream

I finally have an internet connection at home woo hoo!!! very happy about that, and it also means I have more time to update this blog and better keep in touch with people.

I found a Basil Ice Cream recipe on the BBC website a couple months ago and decided I would hold on to it a) in case I bought an ice cream maker and b) I love ice cream. A few weeks ago I ran across Harold McGee's article on how to make ice cream without a machine combining ice and salt in a bucket. Why not? The week I decided to make it, there was going to be a citrus festival in the valle de lecrin, an area close to where I live, where they grow lots of oranges and lemons, and they had a cooking competition. I decided I would enter altering the Basil ice cream recipe and turning it into an orange basil ice cream which, flavor wise seemed to make sense. However I didn't enter the competition because the prize was a ceramic plate, no thanks, and I had family over the day before, which meant I would have to ignore my sister, nephew, and niece to try and win a plate.... uh huh...

The recipe called for making a basil syrup by first boiling water and sugar and then after about 10 minutes adding diced basil, I added the basil, juice from one orange, and the zest/peel of one orange. After about another 5 minutes, I passed it through a china cap. While I was making the syrup I whipped up some cream, which I then added the syrup too and gently folded it in. To that, I added a mixture of condensed milk, vodka, and a little more cream, which I folded in and whipped up again. The reasoning for adding the vodka, is that alcohol is supposed to help prevent cream/water from forming large crystals and gaining an undesirable texture during the freezing process. I poured the mixture into a freezer ziploc bag, and here comes the experiment with ice. McGee says that by adding salt, it lowers the freezing point of the ice therefore making it possible to freeze the mixture in a shorter amount of time. I didn't have great results. I added the ice and salt into a bucket, put the ziploc bag in the middle and after about 4 hours, during which I moved and shaked the bucket and bag, it hadn't frozen. I decided it had gotten cold enough and it was midnight so I popped it into the freezer. The result was really good, the ice cream had a a great flavor, but I think it could definitely have been smoother if done by machine. It kind of came out in the shape of large notebook, and I had to let the ice cream melt a little bit before serving. For the photos, I accompanied the ice cream with some caviar I made combining orange syrup with sodium alginate and releasing into a calcium chloride bath, and a leaf of basil.

5 weeks... Time to catch up

I'm going to try and do a quick recap of the past 5 weeks, because I had some family in town, was sick for a brief period, and haven't had a lot of access to internet all combining into a lack of attention towards the blog, but I still took photos!

Last month, I decided to start a vegetable garden. I took out an 18 square meter patch of grass and went to town.

Before

And After...

I've had to wait a few weeks to buy plants because the temperatures have still been a bit too low, but in the meantime I added about 800 liters of compost, dirt, and fertilizer. It looks like the weather is improving and I'll be adding some tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce this week. I planted some spinach, eggplant, and squash seeds last week so hopefully those will begin to germinate and do their thing and hopefully we'll see some baby plants next week!

As for food, the highlights have been a braised pork tenderloin with butter sauteed artichokes, moroccan style roasted chicken, and basque style braised chicken thighs which I made the first night my sister was in town.

The pork tenderloin was inspired by the fridge, I had a lot of vegetables that needed to be used and I just started cooking. I served the pork on top of some polenta I cooked up with a little bit of garlic, olive oil, s&p. Afterwards I kind of felt like Will Ferrell in Old School after the debate scene,

Frank: What happened? I blacked out
Dean Pritchard: That was interesting. ha ha. Thank you very much. And, uh, your rebuttal? Mr. Carville.
James Carville: Oh... It... We... have no response. That was perfect.

I have been looking for a good spot to buy spices in Granada, and I finally found one a couple weeks ago, where I bought some Ras el Hanout, some Garam Masala, and mustard seeds. I have been wanting to use Ras el Hanout for a while now, and had found an interesting Roasted Chicken with Moroccan spices recipe off of epicurious.com, link to recipe.

I first made a paste with the spices, garlic, oil, and lemon juice, substituting spanish sweet paprika instead of the hungarian paprika. I then cleaned out the chicken, rinsed under some cold water and patted it down with paper towels. I covered the bird with the paste, which was really aromatic and smelled amazing, and stuffed it with the pierced lemons, rosemary, and thyme. I surrounded the chicken with potatoes, carrots, and quartered onions, and let it roast.

Pre-Roasting

ROASTED...

The chicken was really moist, really really moist, but I think the best part for me were the roasted potatoes in the pan juices which tasted phenomenal. There's something about the lemons which gives the chicken a sort of bitter taste that I'm not crazy about, but wasn't too noticeable in this version. Next time I may try to marinate the chicken with the spice blend for at least a few hours before cooking it, to let those flavors dig deeper into the meat.

I found the next chicken recipe on food & wine and it is by Daniel Boulud. It's a "Basque Chicken and Chorizo Sauté." This dish was a big hit with the family, but because the chicken thighs I bought were so huge I had to let it cook for about 45 minutes longer than the recipe called for.

Mise en Place

Browning the Chorizo which was a combination of spicy and one
I had bought earlier in the day made from iberico pork.

I then removed the chorizo and browned the chicken thighs in the same pan. They were so large, I ended up using a pan we keep for making paella.
I took out the chicken and sauteed the vegetables, added the manzanilla (sherry), and spices and then put the meat back into the mix.
It cooked covered for about 25 minutes, and then I added the artichoke hearts, and went for about an hour uncovered.

The final result.
mmm... chorizoey goodness

My nephew was a fan