5/4

In Bakersfield, most Basque restaurants serve what they call a setup with their meals which includes beans, soup, salad, and salsa.  The beans are eaten with the salsa.  The salad is usually a simple vinaigrette.  I made my own set up, but the salsa came out tasting like ketchup, so I will not even give you the recipe for that one.

Benji's Beans from Recipes from Basque Restaurants of the American West
serves 14 to 16

4 cups pink or pinto beans
8 to 10 cups water
5 oz. salt pork cut into 1/4 inch pieces (I used dried chorizo and it worked just as well)
2 onions, chopped fine
2 T.  olive oil
2 T. tomato paste
1 pinch thyme leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Sort beans and rinse them.  Place them in a large pot.  Add water allowing one inch for expansion.  (Keep a pot of water boiling gently so that you can add it to the beans should they start to become dry).  Bring to a boil and then simmer beans for about 35 minutes. 

Cook salt pork in oil over medium heat.  Stir until the hot bits release a little fat. Stir in onions.   Keep stirring mixture until it is a golden brown (careful not to burn).  When the beans are almost done, add the salt pork mixture.  Stir well and then add tomato paste, thyme, salt and pepper.  Cook together until beans are done.  The total cooking time is about one hour.

Woolgrowers Vegetable Soup

1 quart chicken broth
1 T. tomato paste
1 t. smoked paprika*
1/4 head cabbage
2 potatoes cut into 1/3 inch pieces
1 large carrot cut into 1/3 inch pieces
2 large leeks, carefully cleaned and thinly sliced

Heat up broth, paprika and tomato paste.  Cook ingredients for about 30 minutes and salt to taste.
*smoked paprika flavors a dish the same way as chorizo.

5/2

I made two dishes, with three recipes.  I was looking through some Basque cookbooks that were more oriented towards restaurants of the American West, and they featured multiple potato salads.  I learned how to make mayonnaise and created my own recipe for potato salad.  I also made sizzling shrimp that were called Jesus's Shrimp a la Pil Pil from Recipes from Basque Restaurants of the American West by Clara Perkins. 

Mayonnaise
(From The Art of Basque Cooking by Clara Perkins)

Crack an egg plus an extra yolk into an electric mixing bowl and beat well.  In a thin stream, beating continuously on a high speed, add two cups of olive oil.  When the mayonnaise is thick, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.  Beat in one tablespoon of cold water to keep it from separating.  Makes about 3 cups.




Rebecca's Spicy Potato Salad
Serves 4 


1 Slice of serano ham or prosciutto, chopped into small slivers
3 piquillo peppers, chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
1/2 an onion

3 T.  chopped parsley
1 1/2 T.  capers, chopped
1 T. Balsamic vinegar
2 t.  espelette chili (or other kind of crushed chili pepper)
1/2-1 cup mayonnaise
6 medium-small sized potatoes

Thinly slice the onion and sautee it until it is translucent and light brown.  Combine the ham, peppers, onion, capers, vinegar, and mayonnaise and set aside.  Boil the potatoes, take care not to over cook, and then slice them into 1/3 inch slices.  Toss in the mayonnaise mixture and serve.  If the salad is too strong, add more mayonnaise.

Jesus' Prawns al Pil Pil

According to Recipes from Basque Restaurants of the American West, pil pil means sizzling hot.  These are basically sizzling garlic shrimp.
24 shrimps
1/2 cup olive oil
3 T.  garlic, minced
1/4 t. red pepper, crushed
1 T. parsley, minced
2 T. butter
juice of 1/2 lemon

Have everything ready before you start cooking the shrimp.  Peel, devein, and clean the shrimp.  Place oil in a heavy 2 quart pot.  Bring the temperature up high and then stir in garlic.  Quickly add shrimp. Stir them gently for a few second and then reduce the heat as soon as they begin turning pink.  Stir in lemon juice, parsley, red pepper and butter.  Serve immediately, Jesus recommends serving it on heated plates.

Can't remember the date

For this dinner, I had a few friends over and served piquillo peppers stuffed with cod, oven fried fries (like I made in my first entry), a grilled leg of lamb, someone brought salad, and for dessert, flan. 

Stuffed Peppers
 These stuffed peppers are a bit more authentic new Spanish Basque cuisine.  They are absolutely delicious and are an example of one of the many uses of piperade.

From The Basque Table

1/2 pound skinned and boned salt cod
3 T. oil
1 T. flour
3 c. milk
12 canned piquillo pepper, canned pimentos, or roasted, peeled, and seeded red bell peppers
2 cups piperade, emulsified  (a food mill works well)

In a shallow bowl, cover the fish with cold water. Refrigerate the fish for 24 to 36 hours, changing the water every 8 hours or so.  Drain the fish on paper towels, and shred it with your fingers.

In a skillet or saute pan, heat the oil over medium heat.  Add the fish, and saute it for about 5 minutes, until lightly browned.  Add the flour, and mix well.  Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, adding the mild a little at a time and stirring until the cod bechamel is smooth. Set the pan aside, and let the bechamel cool.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Using a teaspoon, stuff the peppers with the bechamel.  Arrange the peppers in a casserole just large enough to hold them snugly.  Spoon the piperade over the peppers, and bake them, uncovered, for abut 5 to 10 minutes, or until they are heated.

Grilled Lamb

 To prepare the lamb, I trimmed the fat, poked holes with a paring knife, about an inch and a half apart, and inserted a sliver of garlic into each one.  I inserted the garlic right after I poked the hole, because it is hard to locate it later.  I then marinated the lamb in olive oil, extra garlic, salt and pepper for about 3 hours.

  

To grill a leg of lamb, cook for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side over high heat.  Reduce the coals to produce medium heat, cover the grill, and cook for another 7 to 15 minutes.  The internal temperature should be 125 degrees Fahrenheit for medium-rare.
http://www.ehow.com/how_18214_grill-leg-lamb.html

Flan

This was my great-grandmothers recipe, but was recorded by my great aunt Orelie.

For a large flan:

Heat the milk
2 qts milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 orange peel
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large sauce pan or pot, place all of the above ingredients.... and stir.  Heat milk but do not boil.  Start warming the mild and medium heat and then turn to low heat as you caramelize the sugar in the custard pan.

Caramelize the sugar
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup water

Fill the sink with cold water so it will be ready for cooling the caramelized pan.  In the custard pan, put in the sugar and water. Using a wooden spoon, stir water into sugar.  At high heat, boil and continuously stir sugar until it is golden brown- watch closely.   Justa s soon as the sugar turns, immediately remove from heat  Do not let the sugar turn brown because it will be bitter.  Set caramelized pan in cold water for 30 seconds- just long enough to stop the cooking.  Remove pan from water.  Caramelize the sides of the pan.  Careful! Hot sugar really burns!  Hold the pan with tow potholders and slowly tilt and turn the pan so caramel rolls around inside of the pan all the way to the rim.  Continue until sugar no longer moves.  Place caramelized pan upside down on sink to harden for upwards of 5 minutes.  When sugar has hardened, place pan in sink water to shatter the caramelized sugar.  Careful not to get water inside the pan.  While waiting for the sugar to shatter, just leave the pan floating in the water and start to prepare the milk and eggs.

Milk and Eggs

10 eggs
1/4 cup sugar

In a large mixer bowl, crack the eggs and add the sugar.  Mix at medium to high speed until eggs are beaten together but not whipped.  Get the heated milk, remove orange rind and cinnamon stick.  By the cupful, gradually add heated milk to eggs that are beating at low speed.  Get bath pan and put about 1 inch of cold water in it.  The water is to be no more than half way up on the custard pan- so water won't bubble up into the custard.   Get the caramelized sugar pan, place foil handle under it.  Place caramelized sugar pan into bath pan so that foil handles hang out of the bath pan.

Strain Milk and Add Liquors

Place strainer in caramelized pan and pour milk/egg mixture through it into the pan.   Add vanilla and all the liquors shown below and stir. If pan not quite full, add a little milk.

1 T. Vanilla

4 T. Bourbon or Rum
2 T. Brandy
1 T.  Grand Marnier or Cointreaux

Place the custard/ bath pan in the oven and cook for 30 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  When its done, the top will be browned, the custard will be starting to pull way from the edges of the pan and a toothpick or fork comes out clean when stuck in it.  Lift the custard out of the bath pan and let it cool for several hours.  When cooled, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night.  To serve, run a dinner knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the custard.  Place a large serving bowl over the custard pan, hold tight, and flip over.  Scrape the caramelized sugar out of the bowl.

4/30

This dinner was not so exciting.  I made saffron rice, shrimp, and a failed attempt at croquettes.  The shrimp were simple but cooked to perfection (as the recipe had promised).  They are not heavily flavored, so they made good leftovers on salad.


The croquette recipe called to make a mixture that would act as the filling.  It was not the most instructive recipe (I will not name names) and it came out as a disaster.  Other recipes I have read since say to refrigerate the mixture overnight...which may have helped in hindsight.  No use crying over spilled milk... or in my case oddly congealed milk.






Theresa Barrenechea's Langostinos a la Plancha (grilled shrimp)
From the Basque Table

 3/4 cup olive oil
juice 1 lemon
2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 pounds large shrimp

Marinate the shrimp in the ingredients listed above for one or two minutes.  Cover the bottom of a heated skillet by carefully placing the shrimp. One each side, cook for one minute on high heat and one minute on low heat.


Bonus Recipe!

In one of my other entries I made piperade. Piperade can be made into a meal by cooking eggs in it and serving it with toast.  Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.   Heat the piperade in a skillet, make holes for the yolks and crack in the desired number of eggs. Spread the whites around and put it in the oven once it starts to simmer. Bake for 8-10 minutes in the oven, until yolks are set.

*note: eggs can also be scrambled in and/ or cooked entirely on stove top.