September’s round up

A little retrospective about last month.
In September, the readers’ favorites are :

Sprouted hemp seed bread, improved version
Simple 10 minute falafels
Milk your beans (make soy milk)
Eating like a queen : bouchée à la reine
Yaki ika, Ika yaki (Japanese calamari)
Kabocha and carrot kibbeh

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Sweets :

Farz fou ! Crazy pagan baking.
Guilt free chocolate cake
Kabocha polka-dot yokan

Hey, the kabocha is getting popular as Autumn is looming…

Some more :

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Desserts :

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Arròs negre, black is the new rice…

That’s another style, the black paella. But it’s called arròs negre meaning black rice. The color is of course calamari ink.

other paella posts

I’ve used brown rice and made it small size in a pie dish. That dish was too thin to go directly on my induction stove, it was starting to melt… so I have placed it on the cast iron plancha.

That’s how I made it. I used a dose of nero di sepia (bought) and the juice that got out of the seafood as broth.
That’s slow food… like 3 hours of cooking on low heat.

The rice is cooked. It didn’t take the color as much as polished rice would.

I added the topping put on high heat to get the bottom crust.

Sweet red pepper to contrast the color.

The seafood is nothing great, a frozen mix (shrimp, clams, calamari) so I’ve stir-fried in olive oil with paprika and turmeric till crispy.

Yummm…..

Chicken wing Summer paella

A healthier paella, with germinated brown rice. It’s just as delicious.

No seafood today. I’m back to the original paella with rabbit and snails… No wait, they don’t have that at the local butchers. So I settled for chicken wings.
I don’t need a pretext for a paella but :

Our Daring Cooks’ September 2012 hostess was Inma of la Galletika. Inma brought us a taste of Spain and challenged us to make our very own delicious Paella!

If you want seafood :

a black paella (click here)

Fideuà (pasta paella) with octopus
Fideuà with shrimps
Fideuà with calamari (recipe)
Paella with asari shells
Paella with shrimps

The rice :
So this time, I have used hatsuga genmai (read here how to prepare it), germinated brown rice. I’ve let it dry one hour before using.

The meat :
I salted and grilled chicken wings. Then I’ve added them and their juices to the broth.

Veggies : season’s greens.

Making it…

The rice is al dente… Last leg of the trip.

Final flavoring : red chili, saffron and rosemary.
I have added at the start a good amount of paprika and turmeric for the color. This saffron is for the taste.

Mmmm….

Fideuà con polpo – Octopus wide pan

Let’s take a culinary trip to the North of Spain…

A little fideuà, the Catalan pasta paella.

Fideos

Garnished with romaine salad, mini fava (broad beans) and jelly ear mushroom.

And small octopus (polpo).

All that in a huge flat pan on the barbecue… or a small one in a small kitchen !

Energizing, no fuss, saffron brown rice

Healthy brown rice, in a Spanish dress.

That’s made in the rice-cooker, the rice with left-over of chicken, harissa, garlic, one minced oyster, water from oysters, one chili pepper, turmeric and half of the saffron.

Later, when the rice was fully cooked, I added peas, ninniku no me (garlic sprouts), lots of oysters, more saffron, cooked cubes of kabocha pumpkin. Served with a little drizzle of fragrant olive oil.

A convenient one-dish meal. And that tastes joyful and warm. Just what is needed in this white season.