Friday, March 26, 2010

Garlic Fried Rabbit


garlic
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo
This is my mother's recipe for fried rabbit marinated in garlic and herbs. While she was visiting she mentioned that my brother Eric likes this dish and since he and his wife where coming in a few days we decided to prep the dish. She cleaned two heads of garlic (she wanted FOUR, but I only had two at the time.)

zulma y ajo

I crushed the garlic with two tablespoons of salt and 4 black pepper corns in my favorite mortar.

mortar

We added about a:
tablespoon of fresh rosemary,
teaspoon of fresh thyme
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/8 cup of sherry vinegar

We marinated two rabbits cut into pieces (marinate at least overnight and then freeze if needed)

marinade

I asked my mother whether I should deep fry or pan fry and she said either was fine... I went deep as it presents less cleanup.

frying

I fried in batches till golden brown and kept them warm in the oven

ready

We served it up on a platter, with rice and beans or garbanzo stew, and bread. The rabbit remains moist with the quick cooking with great flavor.

on the table

Try it it's easy.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Hot Pot


Hot Pot set up
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo
I wanted to plan a fun meal, but also one where everyone in the family would and could eat what they wanted. We settled for a hot pot. I took my mother to Tan Am where we bought most of our ingredients.

Peas and beans

beans and sprouts

spinach and seafood

Spinach and some chopped mixed seafood

seaweed and sausage

chinese suasage and kelp (kelp cooked in the broth first)

bok choy

baby bok choy and sliced tilapia

egg noodle

Egg noodles (I boiled them then rinsed to cool)

pork meatballs

Precooked pork meatballs

Hot Pot 004

Mushrooms (sauteed with garlic and sesame oil)

Hot Pot

The stock I had previously made and frozen pork bone stock to which I added some shrimp shells, then flavored with lemongrass, lime, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce. sugar and salt to taste.

Hot Pot action

I had lent out our single electric burner so I placed the hot pot on a griddle. Everyone chose ingredients cooked or warmed them, armed with baskets.

baskets

The bonus of having the pot on the larger griddle is that you can also cook on the griddle teppanyaki style

Hot Pot and grill

At the end of the meal the stock has taken on more flavor and the noodles are added to the pot and eaten. We had great fun and discovered what is likely to be a new standard meal in our house.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Stewed Garbanzos - Cocido de Garbanzos


embutidos
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo
This is actually a rather simple dish that requres patience and planning. It is a take on galician and madrilenan stews. The first step is to soak your beans overnight. I used garbanzo beans but you could also use large white beans. I used one bag of beans, which pretty much will feed a small army (I'm thinking around 12 adults).
The next day, I drained the remaining water and refilled the pot (large pot) with water and added two onions, one whole head of garlic,

pig tail

and a pig tail, you could add trotters here as well. I also tied up a large bunch of parsley stems and hung them in the broth. I let the broth cook for 4 hours. I removed the parsley midway through this cooking.
After 4 hours I added one large blood sausage, two chorizos a generous hunk of cured pork loin and a slice of my head cheese.

morcilla de burgos

embutidos

head cheese

I let this cook for another 2 hours then added salt pepper and one teaspoon of pimenton (smoked paprika)
After the next 2hrs (6hrs so far)
The tips of the legs of two rabbits along with its livers, heart and kidneys

cocido conejo

As well as some blanched collard greens and one small cabbage


collard greens

cabbage

This cooks for the remaining two hours, taste for salt. It really doesn't need a side other than some good crusty bread and a nap afterwards. The leftovers keep well. Somehow after 8 hours of cooking and everyone smelling and tasting we missed out on a final shot as we were ravenous. (I'll update with a shot when I heat up some leftovers)
UPDATE
here it is done

cocido

and served

cocido served


Friday, March 19, 2010

Fried Pig Ear


oreja de cerdo
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo
This is a followup from my pig head post.
I braised some pig ears in soy sauce, brown sugar, salt and garlic

ears

I cooked them for a good hour

braised ears

ears cooked

I then cut it into strips

fried pig ear

I salted and peppered it and let it sit as I heated the oil to 375 deg. the boy stared at the ears...

checking out the ear

Once fried they are crispy and tasty, they fry down to a much smaller volume. Options for use include topings for salad or other dishes in need of cruch. try it.

Ceviche


ceviche
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo
I have been jonesing for some ceviche for quite some time now. It doesn't help that I'm addicted to a peruvian cooking show Aventura Culinaria that is availabe on You Tube, in spanish (as Aventura Culinaria or Giro Del Peru.)

I bought some peruvian aji amarillo on the internet (La tienda) then I bought some fish filets at the hanover fish market.
I cut it into small pieces and marinated it with
mandarin orange slices
onion
red pepper
fish sauce
cilantro
parsley
salt
pepper
lime juice (3 limes)
olive oil
aji amarillo (spicy peruvian yellow pepper)

ceviche

It really depends on your liking (heritage) if you eat it right away or in the next several hours. In peru they briefly marinade and eat almost like sashimi, in PR we let it sit longer (also cut it bigger)
Either way it is tasty, great citrus flavored fish.

mas ceviche

try it

Marty's Grill

I've been to Marty's twice and both times had great service and good food. The first time I went with my son for brunch and the place was packed. I was surprised as it had only recently opened. The staff seemed a little frazzled but they were very kind and attentive. We sat in the bar area (they have lots of room indoor, bar and patio) I had a corned beef and pastrami sandwich he had a loaded breakfast burrito (bacon and suasage). The sandwich was crisp and flavorfull, the boy totally dug the burrito.

martys

I went back on St Patrick's day with my wife, and again the restaurant was busy, but the staff were totally on their game, friendly, attentive and bright. I had the special sheperds pie and my wife had a hamburger. The food was very good, beers cold and the service excellent. I think we have found our neighborhood restaurant. Give it a try and check out the locally named dishes (neighboorhoods and teams)

Marty's on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

7 Links of Terror

It cracked me up today to find my blog listed on Sky Full of Bacon's (an awesome site with great video podcats) "7 Links of Terror"

I have been a fan for some time now, well written and fun posts covering mostly chicago food, but the video blogs are outstanding covering fascinating food topics.

My Terror links are
Pig head two ways part 1
Pig head two ways part 2

Olio and Eating Richmond


olio board
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo
We had a get together of Richmond food bloggers associated with the aggregator Eating Richmond. The venue was perfect, Olio is a European market with great cheeses, cured meats, and outstanding hot dishes, pizza's and cold beer (oh yeah and wine). They had very interesting oils, vinegars and canned/bottled products

olio oil and vinegar

The beer selection was great, and at least that night was grab what you want and have the counter open it for you.

olio beer

The cured meat section had some great selections

olio salumi

The olives where great as was the proscioutto

cheese olives and prosciuto

I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my favorite foods marinated white anchovies in the display

anchovies in olio

It was a very interesting and enjoyable night for me, meeting such a diverse, intelligent and pleasant group of people with a shared interest in good food.

bloggers at olio


Olio on Urbanspoon

Monday, March 8, 2010

arroz con chorizo


arroz con chorizo done
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo
I made myself a small rice dish in a paella pan tonight. I slow sauteed (on the lowest heat setting) three large cloves of garlic and one link of chorizo sausage for a good 30-40 minutes. I had punctured the chorizo so as to render the fat and the garlic gave up some aroma.

chorizo y ajo

paellita

You really have to patient as the smell permeates the kitchen. I wanted the chorizo to render without burning and the garlic to soften also without burning. Once the chorizo gives up a good amount of fat and is brown and crispy, I removed the garlic and chorizo and sauteed the rice in the oil. (One cup)

arroz

I then added some pimenton

pimenton

and quickly sauteed to mix and added 4 cups of water and adjusted for salt (in a paella pan you need much higher water to rice ratio 2nd to the surface area exposed)

I added the garlic and chorizo back to the pan and let it cook, watching the boil carefully and moving the pan to distribute the heat.

arroz

bdfore the water evaporated I added some chopped roasted red pepper, and some cantimpalo chorizo for garnish

arroz con chorizo

It ended up being fragrant and delicious

arroz con chorizo done