Caldeirada de Pescado a la Antonio

Serves 6 (or 2 with lots of left overs!)

Ingredients:

1 cup olive oil

I garlic head (10 cloves)

2 lbs fish of choice (traditionally, my family uses salted bacalao. If you choose bacalao,  make sure to let it soak in fresh water for 24 hours in a large pot and change the water 3 times during this period). In its absence (and the easiest thing to do) is to use fresh cod or other rich flavored white fish. In these pics, I’ve went out on a limb and experimented with tuna steaks…and it was good)

1 medium size cabbage

4 medium large rosette potatoes

1/6 of a cup red wine vinegar  

paprika

1 small onion

Salt  

Kitchen-ware: deep boiling pan and a large frying pan, soup dishes, forks.

Peel off the outer leaves of the cabbage and cut in half. Cut off the hard core. Take the leaves apart. Quarter the potatoes and cut the fish in nice medium size chunks. Note: thick fish is best so you can cut cube-like chunks. I would say that 2 lbs of fish should give you 10or 12 nice sized cubes. Peel onion but keep whole.

 

Fill the boiling pan with water and salt real good. Add onion (to flavor the water) Start boiling the potatoes. When you see them begin to soften just a little, add the cabbage leaves.  The idea is to

Paella Mentirosa ala Brighton

(My  quick (not cheap) rice and seafood dish for two that passes for real paella for the uninitiated guest)

Seafood- I usually choose 8 mussels, 8 clams, 12 scallops, small,  firm, mild flavored white fish (cubed), 1 calamari and 8 large shrimp

Rice (use brown rice at your own peril!. A nice Jasmin, basmati or any other good long grain rice will do…) use 1 large coffee mug measure cooked in two and a half mugs of water

Fish broth or clam juice (as back up!)

Half a small bag of mixed frozen veggies

Half a large onion (chopped medium)

4 large cloves of Garlic (chopped small by hand!)

Half a Red Bell pepper (chopped medium)

Paprika (Hungarian and bright orange)

Olive oil (extra virgin)

Vinegar (or white wine)

Saffron (or turmeric if you’re too chicken to steal a little saffron from your trendy local store)

Rice and Beans with Porkchops and Fried Bananas

This is a very tasty, exotic and cheap dish to make.

 

 (this picture is not quite how the bananas are supposed to look like served. This was after an experiment, where I fried the bananas with the peppers and cilantro inside of them...it was a bit tastier, but messier and not as handsome served. Also, serve with a pilsner or light ale, not wine! I had no beer and was hungry...)

Adrian's Pesto

Ingredients:

Basil

Parmesan cheese

Pine nuts

Lemon

Gralic

Salt

Olive oil

 GOOD pesto can not be made with those little ripoff bunches you buy at the supermarket for 5 bucks a piece. You need lots of Basil!!!! 

Plant some (it grows easily anywhere!) or find someone who grows it. Basil gardeners are often overwhelmed by their product as it grows like a weed and most people do not freeze their pesto, so a lot of the plants go to waste.

Use good extra virgin olive oil. You will use lots. So try to find a good deal somewhere for one of those large tin container.

For the love of Gawd! DO NOT make pesto in a food processor!!!! Blasphemy! You will destroy the experience of eating pesto. The magic of a good pesto is twofold: the combined taste of all of its ingredients and the individual taste of each…Ok? That is the trick. You must cut and mix these ingredients with that in mind.

Get a hold of a big cutting board like the one in the pic. Chop you basil leaves with a large stake/chopping knife (have someone teach you how to chop using the fat part of the knife that is closer to the handle, if you don’t already know how to do this) Chop into a paste. For this part you could use a food processor, but you will lose lots of basil stuck all over the damn thing…I hate those things! Forget I said you can use them!

Chop your pine nuts coarse. Bunch them up and crush them with the flat of the knife. Then chop some more. Make sure you don’t create too much nut "dust"…It will contaminate the pesto’s flavor.

No, you can’t use any ole nut. Most nuts, like walnuts or pecans are too bitter. Almonds are too sweet. Pine nuts are it for this recipe. Don’t get ripped off! People charge outrageous amounts for pine nuts,  but they can be acquired cheaply too…be creative.  They must be fresh. Pine nuts go rancid. Taste a couple before you buy them.

Do not use those silly garlic pressers. You are making oil then, not chopping garlic. Chop your shit you bums!!! You want your garlic chopped small, but not too fine.

Use good Parmesan from block-grate it  fine. NEVER buy pre-grated Parmesan. Lame.

Use good lemons. I add lemon to cut the thickness of an otherwise oily and overly rich sauce. I like the freshness it brings to the palate. If you don’t then don’t add it.

Put the basil in a large bowl. Add your oil, garlic, salt and lemon, but not the cheese yet. The cheese absorbs too much oil so you want to let the oil work with your base ingredients first. 

Mix it all up nicely. The mix of the ingredients is up to you. Cheesier? Nuttier? More lemony? experiment.  No matter how you do it, you will continue to have to add a criminal amount of oil as the ingredients absorb it. It will feel like a lot, but it is THE WAY.  Pesto is an oil “informed” sauce! It swims in oil! Now, if you want, you can make it thicker and then add more oil later before serving. The advantage of this is that you can freeze more of it if you are making a huge batch after a basil harvest, like I usually do. Anyhoo, put that damn oil in there until it floats above the ingredients. Add the cheese and put more oil still when the cheese thickens the sauce too much. The pic below lacks oil. The cheese has over-thicken it. So add more.

This Pesto freezes great. Its a mess to make, so make a nice huge batch. Invite the tribe. Make it a social event. Send everyone home with some. 

Pasta wise...use good fresh pasta please! As a last resort, use frozen. never dry. This pesto is good with rather neutral stuffed pastas, like mushroom, beef or ricotta ravioli. Not so great with spinach  seafood or stinky cheese stuffed pastas...Red wine, of course. Serve with a good Greek salad and good white flour bread fried in olive oil and butter. Then have sex!

Uruguayan Chivito ala Spring Branch

For two-

1 large, thick-cut, ribeye steak (as you will need to slice in two)
2 slices of Black Forest ham
4 strips of bacon
Mozzarella (2 large slices)
Green olives (6 to 8)
Eggs (2)
Sour dough bread (4 large thick slices)
Mayonnaise
Olive oil
Lettuce
Tomato
Onion
Red bell peppers
Red wine or Pilsner beer

This is a calories bomb, but perhaps the tastiest and most popular steak sandwich you will ever make or taste.

  Some idiots on the web are saying to use ketchup...this is sheer madness and it shows how pathetically culturally colonized some Uruguayans have become...This is one of Uruguay's most popular fast food specialties served with many different variants, but adding ketchup is out of the question!

You can indeed tweak any of the traditional ingredients, take some out add some. The Spring Branch version is with "the works". The addition of sour dough bread is due to the poor quality of most hard crust white breads in the US, if you can find them. Sour dough making takes a bit of care and art, so you often get a good product. Besides, I feel it is an awesome flavor variant. I also specified Black Forest ham as the US ham, which in flavor, is closest to Uruguayan ham.

Preparation:

Timing is everything. Everything needs to be placed in the sandwich just right. Don't let your guests ruin all your work by failing to eat when you serve this...it is not something that takes screwing around with cell phones before dinner very well...Make sure you tell everyone this before hand, so you wont seem like some sandwich nazi freak when they fuck up...

1-Wash and dry all vegetables. Slice tomatoes, peppers, onions and olives. Hard boil eggs and slice (place in oven on lowest possible setting to keep warm)  Using a sharp, long bladed knife, slice rib eye horizontally in half to make two thin steaks out of it and put back in the fridge.

2-Sautee the sliced onions and red bell peppers in olive oil and salt to taste until well done and set aside.

3- Cook Bacon. Cook it thoroughly but not too crispy, as it over bitters the flavor. Dry and put in the oven with the eggs to keep warm.

4-Slightly brown white side of bread in some olive oil or butter in a large non stick frying pan. Place in oven with the rest of the stuff.

5-You can choose to brown the ham a bit or serve it uncooked. If served uncooked, take out of the fridge to allow it to warm to room temp bedore serving.

6- You are ready to cook the steak now. Preferably on a cast iron skillet with a few drops of olive oil and also put the salt onto the skillet and not onto the meat. If no iron skillet use a good nonstick pan on high heat.

7-Remember, the meat is very thin. It wont take long to cook. You want to get both sides seared quickly on high heat, and that's about all you will need to do to cook it.

8- Remove the meat and place in the oven, Lower heat on skillet, let cool some, and place the mozzarella on it to melt it and mix with the juices released by the meat. It could be tricky to keep from sticking and to spatula out, but the flavor is worth it.

9- While the cheese is melting remove the bread and spread the mayo onto one slice. Place the meat on top of the other slice. Put the melted cheese on top of the steak and the warmed up onion and peppers mix onto the cheese. Place the bacon and ham on this side. On the other slice with the mayo place the lettuce, tomatoes, sliced hard boiled eggs and olives...

10- Close the sandwich and slice into two triangles. Damn it! Eat it before it gets cold, I told you!!!!

11-Serve with vino or cerveza like I said. No bitter ales...Also if you're up to it, serve it with some home fries...a bit too much work though. Not worth risking the serving perfectness of the sandwich worrying about some fucking fries coming out right...

12-Have sex.