Well, I’ve done it, folks — joined Daring Kitchen. This is the first recipe I’ve cooked for the site! The post started out with an intro from our host:

Hi all, this is Olga from Las Cosas de Olga and Olga’s Recipes and I’m pleased to be your host at August Daring Cooks Challenge. I’ve chosen a delicious Spanish recipe, Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes by José Andrés, one of the most important Spanish Chefs at the moment.

I have very little need for Lots of Food on my own, so I made this for my parents at their house. They both expressed grave doubts about the edibility of squid in general, and especially the squid I made after it had been cooking so long. But in the end, we all were pretty happy with the way it came out; they even asked for seconds.

My mom is on the “Sugar Busters” diet, so the one major substitution I made was to use brown rice; accordingly I left out the saffron/turmeric, since I’m not really sure what it would have been coloring.

As you’ll see, it came out looking pretty much like a big plate of glorp, something Calvin would stab at and make disgusted faces — but it tasted great! This was my first time making aïoli (I’ve actually made it since), and I’ll freely admit that I probably should have worked it up a bit more to try to get some creaminess going, or maybe used the more modern recipe with raw eggs. Ah, well — next time… here’s the original recipe:

Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes
Cooking time: 45 minutes

4 Artichokes (you can use jarred or freezed if fresh are not available)
12 Mushrooms (button or Portobello)
1 or 2 Bay leaves (optional but highly recommended)
1 glass of white wine
2 Cuttlefish (you can use freezed cuttlefish or squid if you don’t find it fresh)
Sofregit (see recipe below)
2 cups short grain rice (Spanish types Calasparra or Montsant are preferred, but you can choose any other short grain. This kind of rice absorbs flavor very well) – about ½ cup per person
Water or Fish Stock (use 1 ½ cup of liquid per ½ cup of rice)
Saffron threads (if you can’t find it or afford to buy it, you can substitute it for turmeric or yellow coloring powder)
Allioli (olive oil and garlic sauce, similar to mayonnaise sauce) - optional

1 ) Cut the cuttlefish in little strips.
2 ) Add 1 or 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and put the cuttlefish in the pan.
3 ) If you use fresh artichokes, clean them as shown in the video in tip #7. Cut artichokes in eights.
4 ) Clean the mushrooms and cut them in fourths.
5 ) Add a bay leaf to the cuttlefish and add also the artichokes and the mushrooms.
6 ) Sauté until we get a golden color in the artichokes.
7 ) Put a touch of white wine so all the solids in the bottom of the get mixed, getting a more flavorful dish.
8 ) Add a couple or three tablespoons of sofregit and mix to make sure everything gets impregnated with the sofregit.
9 ) Add all the liquid and bring it to boil.
10 ) Add all the rice. Let boil for about 5 minutes in heavy heat.
11 ) Add some saffron thread to enrich the dish with its flavor and color. Stir a little bit so the rice and the other ingredients get the entire flavor. If you’re using turmeric or yellow coloring, use only 1/4 teaspoon.
12 ) Turn to low heat and boil for another 8 minutes (or until rice is a little softer than “al dente”)
13 ) Put the pan away from heat and let the rice stand a couple of minutes.

Sofregit
Cooking time: aprox. 1 hour
(a well cooked and fragrant sauce made of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and onions, and may at times
different vegetables such as peppers or mushrooms)

2 tablespoons of olive oil
5 big red ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped (optional)
4 or 5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 cup of button or Portobello mushrooms, chopped (optional)
1 Bay leaf
Salt
Touch of ground cumin
Touch of dried oregano

1 ) Put all the ingredients together in a frying pan and sauté slowly until all vegetables are soft.
2 ) Taste and salt if necessary (maybe it’s not!)

Allioli is the optional part of the recipe. You must choose one of the two recipes given, even though I highly recommend you to try traditional one. Allioli is served together with the rice and it gives a very nice taste.

Allioli (Traditional recipe)
Cooking time: 20 min aprox.
Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves, peeled
Pinch of salt
Fresh lemon juice (some drops)
Extra-virgin olive oil (Spanish preferred but not essential)

Directions:

1 ) Place the garlic in a mortar along with the salt.
2 ) Using a pestle, smash the garlic cloves to a smooth paste. (The salt stops the garlic from slipping at the bottom of the mortar as you pound it down.)
3 ) Add the lemon juice to the garlic.
4 ) Drop by drop; pour the olive oil into the mortar slowly as you continue to crush the paste with your pestle.
5 ) Keep turning your pestle in a slow, continuous circular motion in the mortar. The drip needs to be slow and steady. Make sure the paste soaks up the olive oil as you go.
6 ) Keep adding the oil, drop by drop, until you have the consistency of a very thick mayonnaise. If your allioli gets too dense, add water to thin it out. This takes time—around 20 minutes of slow motion around the mortar—to create a dense, rich sauce.

José’s tips for traditional recipe: It’s hard to think that, when you start crushing the garlic, it will ever turn into something as dense and smooth as allioli. But don’t give up. It’s worth the extra time and effort to see the oil and garlic come together before your eyes. Just make sure you’re adding the olive oil slowly, drop by drop. Keep moving the pestle around the mortar in a circular motion and keep dreaming of the thick, creamy sauce at the end of it all.

This is a family recipe, but I’m really not sure where it’s from. I’d sort of assume The South, but who knows? From a random sampling of my friends, though, I’ve determined that it’s not exactly a common dish… or one that they think sounds even remotely tasty… but once I’ve cooked it for them, they agree: it’s absolutely delicious. And it can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or your midnight snack. It’s the every-hour meal!

Fried Egg Sandwich

Two slices sourdough bread
1 Tbs Mayonnaise
2-3 garlic pickle slices
2 eggs
1 Tbs butter

1) It’s pretty simple, really. Fry the eggs in the butter over medium heat. Break the yolks, or you’ll have one messy sandwich! Make sure it’s firm, but not brown at all. Flip it if you need to; grind some pepper in if you feel like it.
2) Toast the sourdough; spread mayo on one piece.
3) Place the pickles and eggs on the bread. Make a sandwich. Eat it.

I’ve probably eaten about a hundred of these in my life, and I never regret it. It’s tangy, savory, wheaty, salty… entirely satisfying.

Mmmmmmmmm, cheese. I’ve always liked nibbling on various sorts of cheese, but it’s only recently, as I’ve become significantly more gastronomically adventurous (I blame Anthony Bourdain), that I’ve become really interested in trying and enjoying cheeses that I previously would’ve found too stinky or scary-looking. Oh, I’m not abandoning my old favorites: fresh mozzarella, a simple swiss, and a soft chevre all have permanent places in my heart. But I’ve found some others that are pretty excellent contenders. Here are some recent, favorite discoveries:

Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam - probably the best Triple Cream I’ve had. I couldn’t get over this stuff. It weighs in at a somewhat balk-worthy $18 for a small round, but a little goes a long ways, and every bit is worth it. It’s buttery, nutty, and subtle, and has a flavor that somehow blossoms as you let it melt in your mouth. It’s also got an extremely creamy, soft texture (even moreso than your average brie). Slice up a good baguette with it, open a rosé,* and you’ve got yourself a delicious meal. If you like creamy, brie-style cheeses, you’re going to love this.

Cypress Grove Midnight Moon - This is an aged, firm goat’s milk cheese with a lot of zingy, goaty flavor. It’s better with fruit or preserves than with bread or crackers, because the sharpness of the flavor and drier texture plays well against sweet, juicy things; I could see it going well in certain types of pasta sauces or in salads, though.

Beecher’s Blank Slate (Honey) - From Beecher’s (Seattle shout-out!) comes this very soft, very mild honey-flavored cheese. It’s really spreadable, and goes beautifully with sourdough, though I’ve also used it in salad (see recipe below). It’s remarkably friendly, and will go with practically any fruit or soft bread… and I’d like to try making a cheesecake of it one day.

Blank Slate Salad
This is a sweet, summery salad, which makes a nice end to a meal.
Makes: 4 side salads | Prep time: 30 mins.

1 6 oz. tub Beecher’s Blank Slate (Honey) cheese
2 medium red onions
2 soft, semi-firm peaches
1 head green-leaf lettuce
1 1/2 Tbsp champagne vinegar
3 Tbsp walnut oil
2 Tbsp almond slivers
1 Tbsp olive oil
dash of salt
salt and pepper to taste

1) Heat olive oil in a large frying pan on medium-high heat. Slice onions into semi-thick rings, and throw them into the pan. Throw a dash of salt on top of them. Break up the rings and let them start to fry; keep moving them, but give them plenty of time to cook down. The goal is to cook them until they’re cooked through and don’t have too much spicy-onion flavor, but not to the point where they’re limp and browned all over.
2) In a separate, small pan, heat about 1/2 Tbsp of the walnut oil on medium-high heat and roast the almond slivers in it. These will brown fast, and you want them to get golden-colored on the outside, but not to smoke or have any burnt flavor, so make sure to have a small bowl ready so that you can get them out of the frying pan as soon as they have reached the right color.
3) Wash and tear lettuce; wash and slice peaches.
4) Mix together the remaining walnut oil and the champagne vinegar as a dressing.
5) When the onions are done cooking (it takes 20-30 mins), assemble salads: a bed of lettuce, then the sliced peaches, then the onions, and the almonds. Crumble the cheese on top of each, dress them, and salt and pepper them to taste.

* This post wasn’t supposed to be about wine, but I can’t let this go without mentioning that I’ve recently fallen hard for rosés of pinot noir. Pinot’s such a meaty grape, but dry enough that when you make a pinot from it, you get a light, friendly, but entirely tasty (and not too sweet) lunchtime-y wine. In this field, C.R. Sandidge makes a reliably good Great Gams, although earlier years have been better. This weekend, I also tasted a lovely pinot rosé from Elk Cove, which makes such an amazingly fine reserve pinot (warning: that one’s not a $20 bottle) that you know they have a good feel for the grape overall.