Cooking Frenzy!

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 10

As Christmas approaches, the market stalls have begun to overflow with special ingredients and holiday treats.  And yesterday, it was jammed.  Everyone must be preparing to do their holiday baking and cooking.  The kiosk where we buy nuts, dried fruits, and spices is positively bursting with candied fruits, cocoa powder, and turrones. 

We had a lot to buy yesterday because we had invited two other families for Sunday lunch.  After shopping, we spent a few hours in the Parc Laberint—my favorite Barcelona park, which contains a real laberinth of 12 foot hedges—with Lisa, Jaume and their kids. 

Alec then cooked us a market dinner of unbelievably sweet little clams and gambas a la plancha (see photo below).  A woman standing next to Alec at the fish stall had tipped him off about the clams (berberechos), and she was right.  She told him to soak them for an hour in cold, salted water, and then steam them in nothing but water.  No wine, no spices, no olive oil after cooking.  They were fantastic.  Tiny and sweet and tasting of the sea.

I had been reading Thomas Keller’s cookbook Ad Hoc At Home, a gift from Jody and Matt, and decided it was time we dug deeper into it.  AHAH is Keller’s “casual” cookbook—I put casual in quotes because nothing Keller does is truly casual.  Even the most seemingly simple recipes require absolute precision.  Whenever I cook from this book I have a funny feeling that Keller is looking over my shoulder, scrutinizing my work.  And frowning.  But the thing is, the food is really good.  Top notch.

So we decided to cook a curried cauliflower soup, fried chicken, (which we had made before), and a salad of green beans, walnuts, potatoes, and radishes with a sherry vinaigrette.  But the mushrooms in the market also looked good, and we feared that the season could end any week.  So we made sautéed mushrooms with jamon on toasts with aliolli.  And since we would make potatoes for the kids, why not also make patatas bravas as a starter for the adults?  And because I’d promised the kids we would make cut out cookies, we made some of those as well—Christmas trees with red and green sprinkles.  Oh, and some pecans slow roasted with honey and sea salt, because I always make roasted nuts at this time of year.

All of which meant we had a lot of cooking to do.  After our market dinner, I made most of the soup, the cookie dough, and the nuts.  I turned in early because my throat had begun to feel scratchy, and Alec stayed up until the wee hours cooking carrots for the kids, brining the chicken and cleaning the mushrooms.  After several hours more cooking in the morning—it’s a good thing lunch here means 2 pm—we had a really nice feast.  Given that we did not have a thermometer to gauge the oil temperature, and that Alec did not put the chicken directly into the oil after dredging it, the chicken was not Keller-perfect.  But it was really good.

I also recommend the soup recipe, which you’ll find below. Keller recommends topping it with fried beet chips and homemade croutons, but I served it with just a few chives snipped on top.  I also added quite a bit more curry and salt after it was completely cooked.  I found that with only ¼ teaspoon of curry powder, the flavor was a bit too bland.  For curry, I used half regular and half hot, purchased at Fairway last weekend by Alec.

Cream of Cauliflower Soup (adapted from Thomas Keller)

2 heads cauliflower (4 – 5 pounds total)

4 T. unsalted butter

¾ cup coarsely chopped onion

¾ cup coarsely chopped leeks (white and light green parts)

¼ tsp. yellow curry powder

kosher salt

2 cups milk

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups water

Coarsely chop cauliflower and stems (but not core) into 1 inch pieces.  You need 8 cups.

Melt 3 T. of the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the onion, leeks, curry and chopped cauliflower, season with 2 tsp. salt, partially cover, and cook stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are almost tender, about 20 minutes. 

Pour in the milk, cream, and water, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a simmer.  Simmer for 30 minutes, skimming off the foam from time to time.

Puree the soup in a blender or food processor (I used a stick blender in the pot, which worked just fine) until smooth and velvety.  Taste for salt and curry and adjust accordingly.