A Dinner Inspired by Spanish Paprika and Jose Andres

Gorgeous heirloom carrots, prepped
and ready

My husband and I rarely eat out at the same restaurant twice. When date nights are few and far between, and hundreds of delicious restaurants exist within a 30 minute drive, it's hard to justify revisiting a restaurant, regardless of how good it was. What if we miss out on something new/better/different? So that is why it's taken us 8 years to go back to eat at Jaleo, the Jose Andres staple. We ordered a variety of small plates to share, including the famous Patatas Bravas which had me stifling a moan with each delicious bite (after all, we were in public).

The finished dish - Braised Chicken Thighs
and Root Vegetables with Bravas
Sauce and Garlic Aioli

The key to this dish, as with many on the menu, is the Spanish pimenton - a sweet, smoky paprika. The tiny potatoes are fried twice to make them extra crispy - the first time at low heat (about 250) and the second at higher heat (350). They sit nestled on a bed of tomato sauce, cooked down with the pimenton and some sherry vinegar. Then, they are topped with the lightest, garlicky aioli and freshly chopped chives. Since I don't own a copy of Jose Andres' cookbook, a quick Google search yielded this recipe from a blog I love called eatmoredrinkmore.com. It was clear I needed to go out and get me some Spanish paprika.

Since fried potatoes does not a dinner make (at least that I'll admit), I decided to use up a little more of that Spanish paprika by dry rubbing it on some chicken thighs which I braised with chicken stock, onions, garlic, and the most gorgeous heirloom carrots, pictured above. I served the chicken thighs, carrots, and potatoes on top of the smokey tomato sauce, topped it with the aioli and chives, and moaned all I wanted. Whether you try the recipe yourself or get over to Jaleo, give this dish a try and let me know what you think!

Fresh Pasta for a Cold Winter Day

Even as I was asking my husband for the pasta making attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer last year for Christmas, I really didn't believe that I would actually use it more than once or twice. Pasta is the simplest of meals. It comes in a box, you dump it in boiling water, and then voila - 8-10 minutes later you have dinner. Measuring and mixing, kneading and resting, rolling and cutting...I mean, how good could fresh pasta be that I would be willing to go to such great measures for a meal when I could just dump the box of dried pasta in a pot of water and be done with it? Well, as it turns out, it is pretty darn good, and I have since gone to such great measures many, many more times. It does sound daunting to make pasta from scratch, but believe me when I tell you that it is worth it. So worth it. And honestly, it's a whole lot simpler than you'd think. Here's the best (read: easiest) recipe I've found for fresh egg pasta. It's from the cookbook The New Best Recipe from America's Test Kitchen.

Fresh Egg Pasta

Fettuccine with Anchovy, Red Pepper, Garlic
and Olive Oil

Equipment needed:

food processor

kitchen aid mixer with pasta attachment

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour plus extra for dusting

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Directions:

1. In bowl of food processor, add 3 cups flour and pulse a few times to aerate.

2. Add eggs to flour and process for 30 seconds. Dough should form into loose ball. If it's too wet and sticky, add a bit of flour. If it's too dry and won't form into ball, add a bit of water.

3. Turn dough out onto clean work surface and kneed for 2-3 minutes, or until dough is shiny and holds together well.

4. Cover in plastic wrap and let rest for at least 15 minutes and up to 2 hours.

5. Divide dough into 4 equal parts and follow pasta making attachment instructions to roll it out through level 5 thickness. Then use fettuccine pasta cutting attachment to cut pasta.

6. Store pasta dusted in plenty of flour on counter in heaps until ready to cook. 

7. Boil salted water and cook pasta until done - about 4-5 minutes. Pasta should be al dente with a bit of a bite to it. Serve with favorite sauce (like this anchovy, red pepper, garlic, and olive oil sauce below)

Anchovy, Red Pepper, Garlic and Olive Oil Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tsp. crushed red pepper (more or less depending on your spice preference)

5 cloves garlic, sliced thin

1 tin of anchovies, rinsed and chopped

1 tbsp. capers, rinsed

3 tbsp. flat leaf parsley, chopped 

Parmigiano Reggiano to taste (optional)

salt to taste

Directions: (Prepare while pasta is cooking)

1. Add olive oil and garlic slices to saute pan. Let sit for 15 minutes, or several hours if you have the time.

2. Warm pan slowly over low, then medium heat so garlic cooks through until soft, but not brown.

3. Over medium heat, add chopped anchovies, capers, and crushed red pepper. Stir until anchovies dissolve into sauce.

4. When pasta is finished, add a ladle of the pasta water to pan with garlic and oil. Stir.

5. Pour drained pasta into sauce and stir to coat. Serve with chopped parsley and grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Enjoy!

Bibimbap 'Til You Drop

My first attempt at bibimbap - pile it all together
on some rice and add a fried egg. Yum!

I am embarrassed to confess that my first taste of Korean food was not at the famous Woo Lae Oak in Tysons Corner, or even the Korean Deli in Fairfax. My first taste of Korean food was actually a frozen dinner from Trader Joe's. I'm not sure why Korean restaurants haven't made it to mainstream America the way that other Asian cuisines like Thai, Chinese, and Japanese have, but somehow it's taken me 30++ years to give it a go. The verdict? It was, um, actually pretty delicious. Delicious enough that it has spawned a temporarily all-consuming weekend quest for me and my husband to find the perfect NoVA bibimbap (traditional Korean dish of rice, mixed vegetables and meat, usually beef, topped with a fried egg).

Over the past few months we have eaten bibimbap at the mall, we have eaten bibimbap at a place called Myung-Ga Gim Bop (or as it says from the outside, "Korean Deli"), and we have eaten bibimbap at a place in Annandale that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week where the servers wear traditional Korean dress and the menus are 10 pages long and haven't been wiped down since they opened. We have asked every Korean friend and acquaintance we have for advice on where to go, and we have subjected our poor children to many, many difficult meals. For some reason, they are not as concerned as we are about finding the best bibimbap in driving distance from our house.

I wondered if we might have a problem, but then a recent issue of Bon Appetit had a feature on making bibimbap for a large group, so I knew that if we did indeed have a problem, at least we weren't the only ones.  The Bon Appetit recipe calls for grated Asian pear, which is not easy to find all the time unless you go to the Korean grocery stores, but the idea of making it at home had me hooked. I scoured my favorite food sites and came up with this recipe at Allrecipes that looked pretty simple and delicious. It was really easy to make, and the best part? The marinade of the beef has so much brown sugar in it that it caramelizes when you cook it, giving it a rich, sweet taste and perfectly crispy and chewy texture - a lot like the Szechuan Beef Proper at another favorite Asian restaurant - Peking Gourmet. Mmm... Now I'm thinking about Peking Duck. I wonder how hard it is to make a good Peking Duck at home?