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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:30 CDT
Title: Atlantic Blend
Authors: Steph & Nathan
Categories: gastro-ph
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After an excessively long sabbatical, we came out of hiding and had a feast to celebrate! With Paella!
The ingredients in paella vary widely, but they generally agree that there should be a lot of meat and seafood. Some recipes suggest lobster claws; others octopus. Some even recommend sea urchins. We decided to go with one that used Spanish chorizo, chicken, squid, mussels, and shrimp.
Categories: gastro-ph
\\
After an excessively long sabbatical, we came out of hiding and had a feast to celebrate! With Paella!
The ingredients in paella vary widely, but they generally agree that there should be a lot of meat and seafood. Some recipes suggest lobster claws; others octopus. Some even recommend sea urchins. We decided to go with one that used Spanish chorizo, chicken, squid, mussels, and shrimp.
First step: get the seafood. So we went to a well-yelped fish market in the West Loop called Isaacson & Stein's to get the squid, shrimp and mussels. Upon arrival we saw two packed rows full of open-air fish, and dived into the shrimp, squid and mussel buckets. We didn't realize this at the time, but when it comes to squid, the purple ones are fresher than the brown ones. Since Steph is attracted to bright colors anyway, we managed to come away with some nice ones. The fish market also cleans fish (not other types of seafood) for you after you buy it, so we highly recommend it.
Next step: clean the seafood. Turns out that squid are gross. To clean them you have to remove the quill and ink as well as some unrecognizable goo. Mussels are a little easier; you just soak them in water as long as possible and remove their "beards" made of some sort of vegetation.
We served (Mexican) chorizo-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon as an appetizer while the paella was still cooking. Then we had Guinness floats and Guinness cake (made by the lovely Sophia & Ali) after dinner. It was St. Patrick's Day after all.
Intermediate step: calm a very confused cat. Casper was very patient all afternoon and spent the next 3 days trying to find the source of the bacon-wrapped shrimp-stuffed chicken.
Final step: cook paella! A yummy mixture of saffron rice, meats of all varieties and a few tomatoes, paella is not too difficult to make once you chop and clean everything. It's sort of like a more complicated version of risotto. One nice surprise is that as the chorizo heats up it oozes the most wonderful smelling fat into the mixture.
Final step: cook paella! A yummy mixture of saffron rice, meats of all varieties and a few tomatoes, paella is not too difficult to make once you chop and clean everything. It's sort of like a more complicated version of risotto. One nice surprise is that as the chorizo heats up it oozes the most wonderful smelling fat into the mixture.We served (Mexican) chorizo-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon as an appetizer while the paella was still cooking. Then we had Guinness floats and Guinness cake (made by the lovely Sophia & Ali) after dinner. It was St. Patrick's Day after all.
1 comment:
:D
yummmmmmm!!!!!
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