Tapas: Stuffed Piquillos and Catalonia y Champignones

These tapas dishes are all about the ingredients--piquillo peppers, catalonia sausage, spanish tuna. All these can be purchased at the Spanish Table. Draeger's foods in Los Altos also carries the piquillo peppers.

• Bajamar Piquillo Peppers -- piquillos have a distinctive flavor and aroma & the ones from Bajamar are always really good.


• Hijos de Jose Serrats White Tuna in olive oil with piquillo peppers. Wouldn't have to use the kind packed with a piquillo pepper, but why not? This is *great* tuna.


• La Espanola Catalonian Sausage--a flavorful spanish white sausage, also great with with white beans.

Catalonia y Champignones

1. Slice 1 catalonia sausage & quarter slices.
2. 
   
3. Quarter small mushrooms.


4. Mince 1/4 of a small white onion.


5. Saute sausage, shrooms & onion in olive oil in a small cazuela.


6. Season with salt, pepper, red chile flake.


7. Crack 2-3 eggs over the top.


8. Garnish with parsley.


9. Bake until the egg is cooked to taste.

Stuffed Piquillos

1. Mix diced onion, high-quality white tuna, capers,diced piquillo, mayo.


2. Stuff piquillo peppers with tuna salad mixture.


3. Place in baking dish & bake until heated through.

Poblanos Coloradito, Take Two

Okay, goal this time is to actually stuff the poblanos. (Last time they were too cooked from the roasting & we had to resort to sort of a high-brow mexican pizza.)

Did a few things different in the preliminary phases:

• Used salt pork instead of bacon


• Cooked dried pinquito beans instead of using canned


• Added some white wine (actually did this the last time & forgot to document)


• Remembered to move the rack up to broil the chiles--goal is to separate the skin from the flesh, but end up with chiles that still hold their shape.


• Avocodo cream (garlic, cilantro, aguacate, cumin, salt)

To serve:

1. Spread avocado cream on plate as a base


2. Sprinkle beans over cream


3. Stuff chiles with beef


4. Top with chile sauce


5. Top with sour cream & queso


6. Broil chiles to melt cheese


7. Server over avocado cream & beans


8. Garnish with minced onion and cilantro

Chicken in a Pot

We normally cook this dish in a large clay pot (cazuela), but used the le Creuset pot this time. (Clay pots are neat, but tend to have hot-spots & it can be hard to saute the chicken before it goes in the oven.)

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken leg & thighs


• Chorizo


• White onion


• Shallot


• Garlic


• Piquillo peppers (2)


• Bay leaf

Process:
This is pretty straightforward chicken stew...

1. Trim the excess fat of the chicken & season with salt, pepper, and spanish paprika


2. Saute the chicken over low heat to render


3. Add chorizo


4. Add fresh veggies


5. Add piquillos & bay leaf


6. Add water to cover


7. Bring to a boil, cover, and transfer to 425 deg. oven for 40 mins


8. Return to stove & uncover


9. Add minced shallots


10. Season to taste (salt, pepper)


11. Reduce to desired consistency & serve

Wine:

• Failla 2003 Syrah

Poblanos Coloradito

Inspired by a dish at Villa Creek Restaurant in Paso Robles and the Coloradito sauce in The Food and Life of Oaxaca : Traditional Recipes from Mexico's Heart.

Ingredients:

• Roasted Poblano Chiles


• Tri-tip (cut into large chunks)


• Bacon (1 strip, diced)


• Posole


• Canned "Poquito" beans (small red beans)


• Canned Tomatoes


• Ancho & mild new mex chiles (resuscitated & peeled)


• Veal stock


• Onion


• Garlic


• Cilantro


• Thyme, Oregano, Ground Clove, True Cinammon (and salt, pepper, & crystal sauce to taste, of course)


• Monterey Jack cheese (shredded)

Process:

1. Blenderize the chile flesh w/2 cups stock


2. Saute beef in pressure cooker with bacon (don't over-brown, do in batches if needed)


3. Add chile sauce, chopped tomatoes, posole, crystal sauce, and aromatics (onion, garlic, thyme, oregano) to pressure cooker


4. Pressure cook for 30+ mins (until meat is shreddable)


5. Remove meat & return sauce to blender and process until smooth


6. Return sauce to pan, add a small amount of cocoa powder & reduce to desired consistency


7. Place roasted peppers on plate, add a layer of beans, arrange meat over beans, cover with sauce and then sprinkle with diced onion and cheese.


8. Put in broiler to melt the cheese, garnish with cilantro & serve

Serving the dish in layers was a hack to get around the fact that I over-roasted the poblanos. Ideally, they should be blackened enough to peel, but not so cooked they lose their shape so they can still be stuffed. Although it didn't look as pretty as Villa Creek's stuffed version, layering the ingredients worked pretty well.

A few things to note:

1. No Cumin!


2. The posole added a lot of great flavor--30 mins was not enough time to thoroughly soften them, but the blender took care of that & the result was a nice, thick sauce


3. The milder chiles worked well--the sauce was intense, but not intensely hot & distinctly different from our standard jalapeno-laden chimayo chile sauce.


4. Ingredient amounts are conspicuously lacking because it's hard to document & cook at the same time. We prepared this to serve two and used maybe 3/4 lb of beef, about 5 oz of tomatoes, 8 or so dried chiles, a couple small handfuls of red beans, and maybe a handful of posole. Not totally low-carb, but the beans & posole were really just accents. We ended up with a fair bit of leftover sauce, but probably could have happily eaten more meat. All in all, though, we ended up with about the right amount of food--satisfied, but not stuffed.