Chori-pizza

I have been wanting to make this pizza ever since I wandered the city streets of Argentina.  It was an idea inspired by my many encounters with another hand-held food beacon, one that is served from street carts all around South America.  The one, the only, Choripan.

My rendezvous with choripan in Argentina were abundant and, more importantly, welcomed.  Your basic choripan is the simple combination of french bread, grilled chorizo (pork sausage), and different toppings of your desire.  Chimichurri sauce is the most native and renowned topping, of which I could eat by the spoonfuls if I knew no one was watching.  I expressed my love for chimichurri when I paired it with fish while living in Buenos Aires working at a wine school.  And then I put it in the guacamole.  And the rice.  And here I am again, finding more ways to incorporate this Green Sauce of the Gods into my life as much as possible.


But first, a few pictures to reflect on choripan in its natural habitat.

 

Ah, nothing better than a good photo reel of the glories of choripan.



So, the pizza.  It's summer, so the grill was the go-to cooking mechanism.  Within ten minutes, the chimichurri was made and the chorizo grilled and broken into pieces for pizza-topping purposes.  That's when you could find me standing over the food processor, eyes closed, taking deep breaths in of the just-made, herbacious, lemon-and-vinegar-and-olive oil bliss that wafted from below.  It's like a facial you get at a spa....only one million times better.

The other flavor components we wanted to add to the pizza came from crumbled queso fresco, caramelized shallots and garlic, thinly sliced tomato, and a final sprinkle of fresh parsley and cilantro.  Now it was ready for its ultimate creation.

As we sat and ate this pizza, we wondered.  We wondered how something so delicious could be so undiscovered.  Every bite was...awesome.  Satisfying, balanced, packed with flavor.   Chori-pizza...why have you not been discovered yet?  To the point where your existence is shouted over mountain tops and your name is on every trendy pizza menu worldwide?  We wondered.  And kept eating, mostly in silence, with eyes glazed over with satisfaction and accomplishment.

We paired our pizza creation with a 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon from Catena Zapata.  This bold, spicy, and currant/cassis fruit wine was not only an excellent pair to the flavorful pizza, it was a perfect way to celebrate the exciting news that I will be moving down to Mendoza, Argentina next month to work for the Catena Zapata winery!  There was a lot to celebrate, and the meal turned out to be a perfect celebration of the flavors, and future adventures, in Argentina all at once.

Make this pizza, drink this wine, and experience a trip to Argentina.  Then, after you're inspired to go to the real place, know there will be friendly face to greet you there when you arrive.


Salud!

Chori-pizza

Ingredients

1 ball of pizza dough, store-bought or homemade

1 batch of chimichurri sauce (recipe below)

1/2 pound bulk chorizo sausage

1 medium sized tomato, thinly sliced

1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco

2 large shallots, thinly sliced

2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
Freshly chopped parsley and cilantro (optional)

Method

Preheat your grill to medium high heat.  Form the chorizo into a patty and grill until cooked through.  When cool, break up into bite sized pieces.  Set aside.

Heat oil in a saute pan over medium heat on the stovetop.  Add sliced shallots and garlic to the pan and cook until softened and golden brown, stirring often to avoid burning.  Season with salt and set aside.

Assemble all toppings on a tray to be ready to top the pizza and bring to grill-side.

Stretch out your pizza to desired size and thickness.  Brush one side with oil and lay that side down first on the hot grill.  Put the top down on the grill and let cook for 1-2 minutes depending on strength of heat, monitoring it to make sure its not burning.  

Brush the second side of dough with oil and flip.  Add toppings to pizza in desired amounts - chimichurri, chorizo, tomatoes, shallot/garlic mixture, queso fresco.  If you can do this quickly you can keep the pizza on the grill.  If you are slower, take the dough off the grill, top it, and then put back on. 

Cook pizza on second side until done, 1-2 more minutes.   

Take off grill and sprinkle with fresh parsley and cilantro.  Slice and serve.

Chimichurri Sauce

Ingredients

3 garlic cloves

1 small shallot (or half of 1 large shallot)

1 cup packed parsley leaves

1/2 cup packed cilantro leaves

1 tablespoon fresh oregano, or 1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Juice of 1 lemon

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/2 cup to 3/4 cup olive oil

Salt to taste

Method

Pulse garlic cloves and shallot in a food processor until finely chopped.  Add parsley, cilantro, oregano, red pepper flakes, lemon juice, and red wine vinegar.  Process to combine and finely chop the herbs.

With the food processor running, slowly pour in the olive oil until the chimichurri reaches your desired consistency.  Season with salt to taste.  

Take a moment to smell the magic wafting from your creation below.  

Chocolate Loaf Cake

I really enjoy baking things in loaf form.  A loaf is compact, sliceable, unpretentious.  It can be given free of any dish or serving platter and does not need anything more than two hands to consume it.  Almost any delicious batter can be put in a loaf pan and baked off.  A humble presentation that can still be full of divine flavor...    It's the perfect package.   

I made this chocolate loaf recipe for the first time this past weekend to give to a dear friend for her birthday.  The preparation of the batter is simple and the end result is a moist, chocolatey bread (...cake) that is fantastically pleasing.  There are no bells and whistles, no frostings or decoration.  You can slice away and enjoy it with a cup of tea, or dress it up with whipped cream or ice cream and take it to the elegant level that it can still stand up to.

It's like that perfect dress (or, I guess suit or shirt if you're a guy?) that you can dress up or down, and that always seems appropriate for any occasion that comes your way.  But in this case you can eat it instead of wear it.  Your taste buds will like that part.  And so will your friends.

Happy Simple Baking!

Chocolate Loaf Cake

from one of my favorites; Smitten Kitchen

An important note from SK: Although I was thrilled with the result when I used Dutch cocoa and 1 teaspoon baking soda (in the original published recipe, 8/4/10), the cake rose and sank slightly in the baking process, a sign that the leavener was off. I retested this the next day with different levels of leavener and two different types of cocoa, in hopes to keep the cake aloft. I’ve updated the recipe below with the suggestion of Dutch cocoa, a reduced amount baking soda and the addition of baking powder. I found that the version with Dutch cocoa was darker with a more appealing chocolate flavor. But fear not: If you only have a natural or non-Dutched cocoa, you can still use it, but you’ll want to use 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and no baking powder. Here’s a photo of both versions side-by-side. Both were gleefully received.


Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (6 7/8 ounces) firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (4 ounces) granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (2 5/8 ounces) Dutch cocoa powder (see above for a natural cocoa adjustment)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter and lightly flour a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan, or spray it with a butter-flour spray. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat well, then the buttermilk and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt together right into your wet ingredients. Stir together with a spoon until well-blended but do not overmix. Scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 to 15 minutes, at which point you can cool it the rest of the way out of the pan. Serve with whipped cream and fresh berries, if you’re feeling fancy.

Moroccan Tagine Chicken with Preserved Lemon

I was able to experience two very exciting Firsts this past weekend.  One was cooking in my friend's tagine for the first time, and the other was using my new digital camera for the first time (RIP old Olympus, lord knows how many food photos passed through you over the last three years...)

A tagine is an earthenware cooking vessel that is very widely used in Morocco and northern Africa.  Its unique shape creates the perfect, moist atmosphere for whatever is cooking inside; keeping all juices in a rhythm of evaporating, condensing on the inside of the lid, and then dripping back down into the base to continue to baste the deliciousness that is stewing below.  That evening we decided to go with a very traditional tagine combination of chicken, green olives, and preserved lemon.

Preserved lemon is the ingredient that really makes this dish special.  Like so many other delicious I-never-knew-I-could-make-this-myself foods, making preserved lemons is head-scratchingly simple.   They are as simple as putting lemon halves in a jar with a lot of salt.  That's it.  After some time and patience, the salt will encourage the juice out of the lemons, and a natural curing liquid will appear and envelop the citrusy domes of flavor.  We were lucky enough that day to be able to use my friend's homemade preserved lemons.  Their slightly bitter acidity pairs beautifully with the briny olives, caramelized shallots, and the sweet raisins we put in the couscous.  

We cooked mostly from the hip last night - pulling what we wanted from the shelves as we went and not knowing exact ingredient amounts - but I've included a guided recipe from Simply Recipes below that reads very close to how we made our tagine creation that night.  Below are more pictures from the first round of camera use as well.  Taking on all of these Firsts never looked or tasted so good!

Moroccan Tagine Chicken with Preserved Lemons

from SimplyRecipes

Prep time: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour

This recipe shines with preserved lemons. If you don't have access to any, you can use thin slices of regular or Meyer lemon, and you'll likely need to add quite a bit of salt to the dish at the end. If you use a tagine, you will likely need to soak it in water over-night before subjecting it to the heat of the stove. Doing so will help keep the tagine from cracking.
Ingredients 

2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 chicken, 3-4 lbs, cut into 8 pieces (or 3-4 lbs of just chicken thighs and legs, the dark meat is more flavorful)
Salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
The rind from 1 preserved lemon, rinsed in cold water, pulp discarded, rind cut into thin strips (if you don't have preserved lemon, use whole thin slices of regular lemon)
1 cup green olives, pitted
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Method

1 Combine all the spices in a large bowl. Pat dry the chicken pieces and put in the bowl, coat well with the spice mixture. Let the chicken stand for one hour in the spices.

2 If you are using a clay tagine (if you have one, you must soak the bottom in water overnight before using), place it on a heat diffuser on the heating element to prevent the tagine from cracking, and place the olive oil in the tagine and heat it on medium heat. If you do not have a tagine, you can use a thick-bottomed, large skillet with a cover. Heat the oil in the skillet on medium high heat. In either case, sprinkle the chicken pieces very lightly with salt (go easy on the salt, the olives and preserved lemons are salty) and place skin side down in the tagine or skillet for 5 minutes, until lightly browned. Lower the heat to medium-low, add the garlic and onions over the chicken. Cover and let cook for 15 minutes.

3 Turn chicken pieces over. Add the lemon slices, olives, raisins, and 1/2 cup water. Bring to a simmer on medium heat, then lower the heat to low, cover, and cook for an additional 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and quite tender.

4 Mix in fresh parsley and cilantro right before serving. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Serve with couscous, rice, or rice pilaf.

Keep-Beet-A-Secret Chocolate Brownies

Wait...before we go any further, let me tell you what you're thinking;  Why? Why would you ever try to completely ruin something as decadently delicious as a chocolate brownie by putting something healthy like beets in it?  Are you mad?  If you're going to have a brownie, have a brownie.  Save the beets for your salad, you crazy, crazy woman.

I know, and I hear you.  Believe me, I had very similar thoughts when I came upon a recipe like this as to why someone would introduce something like beets to a brownie mix.  What's the point?  But then, I started thinking...

These beets are added into the brownie mix after you grate them raw.  And if you think about it, that's exactly what we do when we make, say, a carrot cake or zucchini bread.  You take a healthy vegetable, grate it up, and add it to a cake/muffin/quick bread batter to add moisture, sweetness, and texture.  So, if that's the case for carrots and zucchini (and even fruits like apple and pineapple), why can't we do the same for beets?

Determined to find out, I went to my kitchen to test it myself.  This specific recipe I tried was unique in particular because it has no refined sugar, and with two heaping cups of grated raw beets, I honestly had no idea what kind of monster was going to come out of my oven.  But, lo and behold, I tasted the first bite and it was....delicious...?

Yes!  Yes it was!  I kept chewing and tasting and confirmed that what I was eating was in fact enjoyable, flavorful, and with a tender crumb to boot!  "There are beets in my brownie," I said kept saying out loud, to remind myself of the level of discovery I had stumbled upon.

With a true - not muted - chocolate flavor coming from both the melted chocolate and cocoa powder, it paired beautifully with the earthiness and natural sweetness of the beets.  It was moist but not dense, and did not feel weighed down by either too much sugar or oil.  It was practically begging to be paired with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to be enjoyed outside on a summer evening.

It is indeed a dessert you should at least try out during these summer months - particularly because it brings the added X-factor of a secret ingredient that you can quiz your friends about when they taste it for the first time.  You can ultimately decide if you want to tell them or not, though, since they may be too busy enjoying their decadent brownies to care anyway.

To keep-beet-a-secret or to not keep-beet-a-secret, that decision is up to you.



Keep-Beet-A-Secret Chocolate Brownies
This recipe was inspired by the Decadent Beet & Chocolate Cake recipe found on the fantastic blog Green Kitchen Stories.  Although the original recipe is for a cake, and these brownies are very cake-like, you can make these more dense by using less egg if that's your desired style of brownie.  

Ingredients

2/3 cup (100 g) sunflower oil (coconut oil or olive oil)
1/2 cup (125 ml) either maple syrup or honey or a combination
50 g dark chocolate (70%), broken into pieces
2 full cups (250g) raw beetroots, grated
3 eggs
1 ½ cup (375 ml) spelt flour, (I used a combo of rye and whole wheat pastry flour since that was in my cupboard)
2 teaspoons baking powder
5 tablespoons cacao powder
Big pinch of salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 350F. Warm the oil in a medium size sauce pan on very low heat. Add maple syrup and/or honey and chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat. Pour into a mixing bowl and add the grated beets.

Whisk the eggs in a small bowl and then add them to the mixing bowl. Sift flour, baking powder, cacao powder and salt together and stir into the beet mixture. 

Grease a 9"x13" cake pan, bundt pan,  or12" circular casserole dish with oil or nonstick cooking spray. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the brownies are slightly dark and are slightly pulling away from the side of the pan.  An inserted toothpick should come out with some crumbs to ensure the brownies will be moist. 

Rock the beet!

Veggie Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

With the passing of Memorial Day last weekend, grilling season has officially commenced.  Oh, how long we've waited!  It's a time when the thoughts of long, warm summer nights and outdoor patios that danced in our heads all winter long finally become a reality.  I mean, is there really anything better than a cold beer in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other as you smell the delicious magic happening on the grill in front of you?  I think not.  Summer eating is an ultimate dining experience.  

We are often quick to think of all of the delicious cuts of meat we can doctor up to put on the grill during the summer.  Veggies, however, are the unsung hero of the grill.  Simply seasoned and tossed on the grates, vegetables can transform into a top notch summer grill-meal.

Portobello mushrooms are a great way to try out a veggie version of great grill contenders.  They can be just as savory and satisfying as a burger, or can be doctored up as a great side too.  Its bowl-like shape is practically asking to be filled up with as many things as possible to create an ultimate stuffed delight.  The possibilities are endless (my roommate has already asked my why I didn't put bacon in this recipe).  You could even think of it as a mini pizza - whatever topping you're in the mood for; blue cheese! arugula! walnuts! sausage! tomatoes! basil! asparagus! - throw it on, Grillmaster.


Merry Grill Season to all!

Veggie Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms 

Ingredients

8 large Portobello mushroom caps

2 large yellow onions, sliced

3 large red bell peppers, sliced

1 10oz package frozen chopped spinach

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

1 lemon

1/3 cup olive oil

½ cup crumbled feta cheese

2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Chopped fresh chives and a squeeze lemon juice to garnish (optional)

Method

Remove the stem from the mushrooms and remove the dark brown ‘gills’ inside the cap by scooping them out with a spoon.  Remove any traces of dirt with a damp paper towel. 

Whisk together the olive oil, juice of the lemon, garlic, and thyme.  Season liberally with salt and cracked black pepper.  Pour marinade over mushrooms and rub the mushrooms with your hands to completely cover them with the marinade.  Ideally you could have these marinate for an hour before cooking them.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium low heat.   Add onions and slowly cook until they become very soft and caramel colored (about 30 minutes), stirring every few minutes to avoid burning at the bottom.  Season liberally with salt.  I like to add a splash of red wine if I’m drinking some while I’m cooking, or a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce if I have it to add that depth of savory flavor.   Set onions aside.

Cook the red bell peppers using the same method as the onions, but for less time.  Cook the peppers for about 10 minutes until they become soft with slightly caramelized edges, but still have some body (think the consistency and texture of a roasted bell pepper).  Set aside.

Defrost the spinach and squeeze out any excess water (it will have a lot).  Preheat the broiler in your oven to high or heat the grill to medium high heat.

Grill or broil your mushroom caps for about 6 minutes on each side.  Remove from oven or grill to build your mushrooms.

Divide the filling ingredients evenly between the mushroom caps following this stacking order:  spinach, feta cheese, caramelized onions, red pepper, parmesan cheese. 

Place the now stuffed ‘shrooms back in the oven or to the grill to heat through and slightly brown the parmesan cheese on top.  Garnish with chopped chives and a squeeze of lemon juice, if desired, and serve.  

Got leftovers? They are excellent the next day on top of a green salad and topped with fresh chopped chives.