Demi-Moussaka

The first time I came to Greece I was 15. We had a book- Greece on $5 a day, and maybe a let's go. Although this was not uncharted territory, there was a remoteness then, something exotic, something closer to the lost world captured by Robert McCabe than to now. The guidebook had all kinds of advice- one thing was that printed t-shirts, of literally anything- were the most welcome of gifts. 

There was a rich, fully realized culture- one of centuries instead of just decades like my own- but it remained for us, probably largely because of this, impenetrable. Even the cuisine was impenetrable- a tremendous variety of dishes, of cuisines within a cuisine, but we could not access them. We had moussaka, almost every night. I sometimes ordered a pepper steak, maybe on the menu for French people?- to add some variety, if not authenticity. 

You shouldn't think we didn't eat well- we had strained yogurt with honey every morning, melons and nectarines, the juiciest tomatoes, and I at least had a couple of chokofreta every day- the package, unchanged, reminds me still of wandering around Kos in the shade while my parents sketched. The kiosk kept them in the refrigerator next to little bottles of bold cloudy lemon soda that was nothing like the virginal 7 - Up I grew up drinking. Crisp, airy, not too sweet, there is no finer candy bar than a cold chocofreta in the shade.

But it was years, actually decades, before I would order a moussaka, and still more years before I would make one. 

In truth, despite the forced start, this is one of my favorite dishes- all the comfort of red sauce Italian with the sweet exotic spices of the east, a thick layer of puffy bechamel, yielding eggplants. Assembled of slabs of fried potato, more slabs of salted, drained and fried eggplant, a long- simmered sauce, and the bechamel, and the layering of everything and the baking, it takes all day to make. The last time I made one was for a dinner- the "composed dish" was much praised.

The flavors and texture are captured in this very approachable shortcut. We dispense with the deep frying (don't worry at all- the dish is lush with oil), and alas with the potatoes too (I have tried roasting them but it is not the same as those golden, fried slabs). 

For a nice large dish, we will need:

6 eggplants

lots of olive oil

For the filling:

2 onions

2 cloves of garlic

500 g/ 1 lb. of ground beef

1 can of whole tomatoes, pureed in the blender (not sauce, not diced tomatoes- the richer flavor  is worth the step)

cinnamon

cloves

black pepper

a bay leaf

some strong red wine

For the bechamel sauce:

Scant liter/ 3 1/2 C whole milk

60 g/ 1/4 C butter

60 g/ 1/2 C flour

salt

nutmeg

2 eggs

This is a much easier dish to put together than classic Moussaka because we have just 2 hands-on things to do in succession. The eggplants will be taking care of themselves while we make the meat filling.

1. Slice the eggplants in half lengthwise and score them deeply end to end, concentrating on the tough area near the stem. Salt them like crazy and let the moisture seep out.

2. Chop the onions, saute them in olive oil, add the garlic, let it soften, then add the meat, salting it and seasoning with pepper, and let it brown, stirring occasionally. 

3. Rinse the eggplants, given them each a squeeze, and massage them with oil, making sure it goes into the slits and especially the stem end. Arrange them cut side up in rimmed dish and bake them at 170 C/ 350 F until they are quite soft and have collapsed a little- about half an hour, maybe 45 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, add wine to the browned meat- a small glassful, and the tomato, and a pinch of clove and a pinch of cinnamon and the bay leaf. Simmer until the oil floats free.

5. Stuff the eggplant halves with the meat.

6. Melt the butter, add the flour, and whisk over medium heat until it turns loose and puffy. Add the milk all at once, whisking fast and hard to break up any lumps, and keep whisking, bringing it  to a full boil- it will be thick and the whisk will leave lines in it. Taste and make sure it is silky with no flour texture on the tongue. season with salt and (gently) with nutmeg). Beat two eggs, temper them with a little sauce bit by bit, stirring all the while to not scramble the egg.

7. Pour the sauce over the eggplants. It would be nice to keep them separate with a tidy pool of sauce atop each one, but I have never been able to do this.

Bake until the top turns golden and blisters in one or two places. Since the components are warm, this will take just 20- 25 minutes.

Drink wine. 

Some other very simple Mediterranean dishes-

Briam- Roasted Ratatouille a la Greque-

Mussels with Ouzo in Spicy Red Sauce

Mediterranean Roast Chicken-

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Fish Soup, Greek Style (Like a Velvety Lemon Bouillabaisse)

These rough looking fish that look like a Dutch still life are delicious boiled. They are as large as a large man's hand, and have one sharp point on their back fin that has some poison in it (not enough to kill you of course- just enough to make your hand itch). Pavlos the fish guy says he'll clean them for me to be safe, but he says it under his breath because they are 3 eu a kilo and he just told the woman ahead of me he of course would not clean them. They only clean the 5 euroes and up fish- the cod, the striped bass, the red snappers, and so on. I appreciate it- a sink full of spiky fish, and something is could to go wrong.

Greek style fish soup is a simple matter- there is no shellfish, just fish, but of course variety and quantity count. But if you have a good boiling fish the one kind is enough. The soup is thick and filling, thanks to being thickened with potatoes and  rice, and avgolemono. The flavors are clean and simple- we just use a little European style celery, parsley, onion, maybe some dill. A carrot is nice.

Like all the nice fish soups, this is traditionally a simple meal. We get what we can out of the humble ingredients- nothing is wasted and it is delicious and virtuous.

We will need:

1-2 K boiling fish- one kind, or a mix- cleaned

3 potatoes

2 onions

5 or 6 carrots

1/2 bunch parsley

a few fronds of dill, plus stems

a couple of stalks of celery

a handful of rice

a few peppercorns

2 lemons

2 eggs

As soon as you get the fish home, salt them well and bury some lemon slices among them.

Scrub the potatoes and carrots clean. Peel them, and put their peels in a pot with the outer layers of the onions (but not the papery skins), the celery, parsley, and dill, and a few whole peppercorns. Add a spoonful of salt, and bring to a boil, boiling about 20 minutes. 

Chop the onions finely, cut the potatoes into large dice, and the carrots into large pieces. Strain the broth into a bowl, pressing on the boiled peels and herbs. Put some olive oil in a large soup pot (I used the same one I had made the broth in- we just have the one) and saute the onion until clear, add the rice, and the broth. Give it a head start of five minutes, then add the potatoes and the carrots, and on top of this the fish, which you have tied into one or two packets with cheesecloth or sterile gauze

Simmer just until the vegetables are tender- the fish will need no more time than they will.

Remove the fish carefully and open the packets. The fish, no matter how careful you have been, will be a mess.

The skin of a tasty boiling fish is sticky. Take the flaky meat from the bones carefully if you can, or just leave it on the platter and let everyone work on their own fish, with mayonnaise on the side. You can put the fish into the soup, but we usually have ours plain with mayonnaise and enjoy the rich fish flavor of the soup's broth- it is like two dishes this way, and more of an activity.

To finish the soup, add a couple spoonfuls of flour mixed in cold water to thicken it slightly, then beat 2 eggs with the juice of a lemon, add hot soup slowly to bring it up to temperature, then pour this mixture back into the pot, off the heat now. It will become opaque and velvety.

Test for lemon, probably adding more, and test for salt. Serve with a drizzle of oil and some chopped herbs

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Briam- Roasted Ratatouille a la Greque

Briam is the Greek Ratatouille. Ratatouille is worth standing around and adding things to the pot in their turn. But the first good eggplants and tender zucchini and affordable tomatoes coincide with the first warm spring days- there's urban gardening to see to, balcony furniture to repaint, and long afternoons in the shade on the veranda with stacks of old New Yorker magazines. This is a lunch you set the table for, open a bottle of wine for, as it fills the house with the scent of herbs and tomatoes. 

If it only took you four minutes to get it into the oven, that is nobody's business. 

We will need:

2or 3 eggplants

2 or 3 zucchini

2 or3 potatoes

a dozen or so cherry tomatoes, or 2 or 3 large tomatoes

2 onions

4 or 5 long peppers, any color

2 or 3 cloves of garlic

salt

pepper

fresh herbs- thyme, majoram, or oregano

olive oil- about a wineglass full
A lemon

This makes an enormous pan of food, but it is very good the next day, cold, at room temperature, or warmed. If you still think you need less, make less.

Wash all the vegetables. Cut the eggplant into quarter or half round slices. Salt them heavily and set them in a colander to drain. Cut the zucchini into lengths of about 2 cm (1 "), and cut these into halves only if the zucchini is very wide. Cut the onions into 6 wedges each- we will eat them as a vegetable, not an aromatic. Cut the peppers as you wish, not too small. Cut the potatoes in pieces the size of the eggplants. Leave the cherry tomatoes whole. If you are using large tomatoes, cut them into quarters- like the onions, we will eat them as a vegetable on their own. Leave the garlic cloves with their peel. 

Rinse the eggplant slices and shake them dry. Toss everything in a sheet pan with the oil, herbs, salt and pepper, and roast at 170 C/ 350 F for nearly an hour- All the vegetables should be tender, the tomatoes concentrated, the onions charred on the edges, the garlic mushy in its skin. 

Taste it. If it needs brightening- and it sometimes does in the early season when the vegetables have not hit their peak yet- scrub a lemon, zest it and juice it, and toss this with the vegetables. Even an orange if you like. This is not an element in classic briam, but it makes the dish.

Serve this with feta on the side. If you like it cooled down, try it with yogurt- not the thick kind but simple plain yogurt, as it is, or mixed with chopped fresh mint.

Smear the roasted garlic on bread and add some of the smashed tomato as you linger at the table. The flavors of the dish are so clean and simple you won't be at all tired of it when you have it again in the evening. You may find yourself making it often.

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Stuffed Cabbage Rolls with Velvety Avgolemono Sauce

The Greek version of this warming winter dish has an elegant, velvety sauce- avgolemono ("egg-lemon"). As cabbage dishes go, it's pretty fancy. As fancy dishes go, it's pretty easy. Other virtues? It makes a lot, and, being mainly cabbage and rice, it makes a lot for rather little money. It keeps well, and I've never met anyone who really doesn't like it. It is delicious, if a little less hearty, as a vegetarian dish.

Most stuffed cabbage dishes involve boiling a cabbage to soften the leaves, and truthfully so does this one. I prefer using pickles cabbage leaves- it saves a lot of wet mess, and adds a tang that balances the richness of the meat and the velvety sauce. 

We will need:

1 large fresh or pickled cabbage, or two jars of pickled cabbage leaves (available in stores that sell Russian and Eastern European foods)

1 big bunch of dill

1 big bunch of parsley

1 bunch scallions, or one large onion, or both

2 carrots

500 g/ 1 pound ground beef

2 C short grain rice

black pepper

1 or 2 tsp. salt. (If  you are using a fresh cabbage, use 3 tsp.)

About 120 ml/1/2 C olive oil

Note: for a vegetarian version, skip the meat and add another carrot or two, a potato, a half of a fennel bulb- anything to give flavor and bulk- the potato makes a nice texture. Pulse these along with the herbs

For the sauce:

60 g/ 2 oz butter

60 g/ 1/2 C flour

2 lemons

2 eggs

If you are using a fresh cabbage, boil an enormous pot of water. Core the cabbage, cook it a little, peel off some outer leaves, and boil again to soften the inner leaves. Drain them all. You can cut the enormous ones in half. Save the water.

Take the fronds from the dill stems, the leaves from the parsley, the peeled onion or scallions, the peeled carrots, and put them in the food processor, pulsing until fairly fine. Blend this with the meat and the rice, add the oil and a generous amount of fresh ground pepper, and some salt.

The mixture holds together nicely if you are using meat, and makes these a snap to roll. Also, if you are using pickled cabbage leaves from a jar,they are already rolled and have a perfect shape for making a tight bundle.Put a couple of large spoonfuls of the rice mixture at one end, fold in the edges, and make a tidy, snug roll. It is easier than rolling up grape leaves. These will also be larger than grape leaves- perhaps three times as large. 

Tale a large pot and place the rolls in, fitting them snugly but not tight. 

Try to have them in as flat a layer as possible on top, and cover them completely with a the cabbage water or fresh water and some of the pickling brine from the jar. Put a plate or a lid from a smaller pot on the rolls to hold them in place. The liquid should cover the plate or lid as well. Cover the pot with its own lid, and put on medium low heat. After about a half an hour, check for water and keep checking- they absorb a lot and we want to end up with plenty of leftover liquid for the sauce.

A cousin says hers are ready in about 45 minutes. Mine take over an hour and a half, slowly. Take one out and cut into it, making sure the rice is tender through to the middle. You will see that the filling with the rice will have expanded, making for full, tight rolls.

The hardest part is pouring off the broth- it is a heavy pot, filled with now quite heavy rolls, You may need a hand-someone to hold them in place with the plate while someone else pours off the broth into a bowl. There should be 3 or 4 cups  of liquid. Top it up with water or broth if you need to.

The sauce:

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and stir over medium heat until the paste loosens and sounds drier. The roux may take on some golden color. Add the broth all at once, whisking all the while, and keep whisking gently as it thickens and comes to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat.

Juice the lemons, beat the eggs, and add most of the juice. Very slowly, stirring all the while, add the hot sauce in spoonfuls  to the egg/lemon mixture. Keep adding until you have incorporated almost half of the sauce, by which time it will have come slowly up to temperature. Add it back to the sauce in the pan, now off the heat. It may look like you have a lot of sauce. It's never too much. The sauce looks and tastes like tangy lemony rich velvet. 

Serve the hot or warm, with the sauce, and with feta cheese.

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Pad Thai that's Quicker than Take - Out

This well-balanced fresh/hot/tangy Pad Thai is a nice break from the heavy holiday flavors of the season. It is also the most reliable recipe for anything I have ever made. Is it perfect? I don't know- but it tastes like really good take-out every time. Writing recipes for savory dishes, especially for people who may not have grown up eating a certain dish, I measure meticulously and assume nothing. That's the idea with recipes- they can just give nudge, an inspiration, if you are comfortable with the dish. If you're not, they can give you a reliable paint-by-numbers result. I never actually measure and follow to the letter Western, Middle-Eastern, and South Asian recipes. Any further east, and my intuition blanks out completely. The balance of flavors is elusive. Fortunately, my mother has this very tattered and treasured cookbook-

 - do exactly as the directions say, measure with measuring cups and spoons, and it will be as good as take-out. I have made this dish dozens of times and it always comes out exactly the same- less tempermental than an all'arrabbiata. The only changes to the original recipe are that I have removed things that I cannot easily get and have learned to live without- the dried shrimp and the fresh bean sprouts (too bad!)- If the dish is poorer for that I cannot tell. It is always fabulous. Also, I put on way more crushed peanuts than she calls for- they make the dish. And I left out the pork too, and added fresh or frozen shrimp. I wouldn't dream of tampering with the sauce or anything else. I have had no trouble finding these ingredients in Thessaloniki, and none of them are particularly expensive.

We will need:

1 package of wide rice noodles- "rice sticks" 400 g/ 14 oz.

500 g/ 1 pound shrimp (cleaned and tail-on are nice)

60 ml/ 4 tablespoons oil

4 cloves garlic

1 yellow onion

2 small dried chiles

30 ml/ 2 tablespoons fish sauce 

30 ml/ 2 tablespoons lime juice

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground black pepper (measure- it's a lot and provides some heat)

45 ml/ 3 tablespoons ketchup

1 bunch cilantro, leaves only, chopped

4 green onions, chopped

2 handfuls salted roasted peanuts, crushed with a rolling pin

This dish is not difficult- it comes together all at the last minute though, and a mis en place makes it a lot more fun to assemble:

In other words, get everything ready like it is a cooking show-  prepare the fresh things, make the sauce, crush the peanuts, and soften the noodles.

Get out a large strainer and have it ready in the sink. Boil a large pot of water, drop in the rice noodles, stir at once to make sure they are all submerged, and keep stirring for just 60 seconds. Drain and rinse with cold water- the  noodles will be pliable but by no means ready to eat. Blend the sugar, salt, pepper, fish sauce, lime juice and ketchup and set aside.

Saute the garlic, onion, and red chilies in the oil until they just begin to soften, then add the shrimp, stir-frying for a two or three minutes- test one to make sure it is opaque inside. Add the noodles and the sauce, stir frying for another 2 minutes, until noddles are soft. Shower with the scallions, cilantro, and peanuts, and serve hot.

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Coq au Greek Vin.

For my mother-in-law, each turn in the road to her late husband's village (Mikrokleisoura) brings with it a story to share as we make the drive. "This is where we saw the hare!" she exclaims. Returning to the city after nightfall, their trip was once halted by this hare- he had become frozen in the headlights. They honked and honked, but the dear thing could not move for fear and shock. Finally she resolved to get out, but just as she reached the him, he snapped out of it and bounded off into the shrubby oaks. I'd never had her for an animal lover! It is wonderful how you can know someone for years and years, and still they can surprise you. "How kind!" I said. She turned, blinked twice, and patiently explained: "No, dear ...."

Stifado, a dish of stewed meat with wine, a little tomato, pearl onions, and gently sweet with allspice, is, apparently, so tasty that a sensible matron in a top-coat and beehive (it was the '70's), given the chance, will jump out of a car, wring a hare's neck, pop it into the trunk next to the 10 k tin of feta, and be on her way. (My second favorite mother-in-law story involves her inviting a neighbor over for coffee in the hopes she might offer to slaughter a chicken for her on the rooftop of their apartment building in downtown Thessaloniki. How do you not like a story with the line: "Put on some coffee. And bring me a knife." ?) I need hardly add that she is a wonderful cook.

It's a good dish, one of the more elaborate and slow iterations of the meat + onion/wine/tomato to be had. Coq au vin, faster but with a lot more ingredients, is another. Today's lunch combines the speed of the French dish with the simplicity of flavor of the Greek dish- not much stuff, not much time, everyone's happy. Just the thing for the chicken thighs in the freezer. All you need for them is an onion, the rest of last night's wine, a little tomato (fresh, canned, paste....) and some seasoning.

A warm steak has kept sauced rich foods from our table- it has been fresh fish and salads for days, and no complaining. After a week of this summer reprise, a softly overcast day- and a look at the calendar - made this warming hybrid just the thing:

We will need:

4 chicken pieces, with or without the bone

3 T olive oil

2 onions

a large glass of wine

a cup of pureed tomato, or tomato paste and water to make the equivalent

bay leaf

seasoning- either allspice and a clove, or sage and a little thyme

Thinly slice the onions and start softening them in the olive oil. After giving them a brief head start, add the chicken pieces, salt and pepper, and turn them until the chicken is no longer pink and the onions are softer and the pan has browned a bit. Add the wine, a little water, the seasoning, and simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes. Add the tomato and keep simmering, uncovered and adding water from time to time as needed, until the oil floats free and the sauce changes from dirty-pinkish to a rich mahogany. If the chicken was on the bone to begin with, it won't be any more. The sauce will have benefited, but you may want to fish out the bones for more elegant serving.

If you go with the sweet seasoning, it is perfect on rice or on egg noodles, or- as here- the time-consuming, heavy, and absolutely delicious classic accompaniment of fresh french fries. With the more savory options, mashed potatoes, or a soft polenta are a good choice. I won't deny a frozen chicken does not have the flavor of wild game, but you cannot always count on running into a hare when you need one.

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Squash Gnocchi Glow Like Topaz- Two Ingredients, Fifteen Minutes.

To be honest it is four ingredients, if you count the butter and the sage we will use to sauce them. And five if you count the wine - they're not a tuna sandwich. This is restaurant lunch, in no time at all. You'll want the time for lingering at the table. 

We'll need:

500 g/ 2 C pureed roasted squash (simple directions here)

250 g/ 2 C flour (we may not need all of it)

salt to taste, and pinch of nutmeg

Make a sticky dough that holds nicely together by adding the flour gradually, using just as much as you need. Season it to taste, going light with the nutmeg but using enough to underscore the sweetness of the squash.

Flour a gnocchi board if you have one, otherwise flour a work space. Pinch off small pieces of dough and roll into a tapered length the width of a lady's ring finger. Roll over the gnocchi board, or the tines of a fork, to make decorative ridges to hold the sauce.

Put water on to boil, salting it like we do for pasta. Put half of the gnocchi in, wait until they all rise to the surface, then boil another two minutes. Test one to make sure they are cooked through to the center, and take them out with a slotted spoon or a small strainer. Repeat with the other half of the gnocchi. Keep the starchy cloudy salty water they cooked in- we will need it.

Five minutes before you are ready to sit down to lunch, make the sauce -

80 g/ 3 oz butter

sage leaves, fresh or dried

Pour off the top half of the cooking water, leaving the thickest, cloudiest part- this will bind with the butter to make a silky, unctuous sauce. Melt the butter in a large skillet large enough to hold all the gnocchi and let it turn a rich golden brown. Add the gnocchi, brown them a little here and there, and ladle in a little cooking water to make sure they are all nicely coated and to give them some gloss.

These need almost nothing- just a light shower of Parmesan if you like, and a glass of wine.

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Fresh Corn, Risotto Style- As Decadent as Vegetables Get.

Fresh corn on the cob has returned to the market for a fall encore. Its crisp sweetness is just as nice in October as it was in June. But with the busy season in full swing, we are less likely to be grilling for lunch. The pic-nic barbeque mood has given way to the sit-down lunch. Never skimping on glamour, we sometimes do skimp on time. This is such a dish.

We will need:

6 ears of fresh corn

50 g/ 4 T butter

200 ml/ scant 1 C heavy cream

salt and pepper 

grated fresh parmesan, for serving

Shuck the corn and slice the kernels off into a large basin (it is a little messy). With a serrated knife, like a bread knife, scrape the cob to get all the tender bits of corn and rich corn milk. This second step makes the dish. Put the corn and its pulp and milk into a pan and add a half glass of water and a little salt. Cover and simmer for about ten minutes to let the corn start to get tender. Add more water if necessary. When it seems nearly as soft as you'd like it, add the butter, and then half of the cream, plus salt and pepper to your taste, stirring all the while, until the cream turns golden with the corn. Taste again. Like a risotto, it will continue to absorb moisture on the plate and we will want plenty of sauce. Depending on how rich you want it, add water or the rest of the cream, or a little of both, aiming for a little saucier than you ultimately want it to be.

Just like for risotto, make everyone sit down before you serve.This is delicious very hot! Serve in mounds on plates or shallow bowls, top with a tangle of parmesan, and more fresh ground black pepper. It is sweet and creamy and rich and can take the drama of a lot of heat if you like, which we do.

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Arroz con Pollo (Nostalgia Chicken)- A Dinner Party with a Handful of Rice.

Think of this as an easy chicken paella, a way to stretch four thighs into festive dinner for eight, or in my case a nostalgic trip to a six floor walk-up on the lower east side (St. Mark's Place and Avenue A), 1973. It's just chicken and rice, like the name says, but with the lively zing and piquant verve of Puerto Rico, the same verve that seasoned everything else in the old neighborhood, just like the salsa and soul drifting up from the street below. 

This of course must be a very old recipe, but for me the dish was born in this most wonderful of my childhood's many buildings, the apartment building of my godmother Lynn. Tenements in the old neighborhoods were so beautiful and opulent- rich in detail, if poor in space (Lynn's boyfriend David's bathtub was in the kitchen!- not so uncommon for buildings of the time- he put a sheet of plywood over it to use as a counter when no one was taking a bath). The stairwell and landings were tiled with tiny white hexagons, just like the stairwell leading up to the former sweatshop on Lispenard St. that I lived in during HS (Stuyvesant- the old one on 15th st.), with banisters of ornate cast iron. The doorways to the very small apartments- five to a landing- were thick with moldings, their details softened from layers of oil paint as they were freshened over the years, this last coat a gleaming oxblood red. Laundry was dried on lines strung between the buildings on either side of a soot-walled courtyard, and if the line snapped you had to go over to the building on 9th street and retrieve your clothes. Even apart from the laundry, it was an intimately connected neighborhood, teeming with decades and generations of loud and very tasty life. The walls talked, and sang, and yelled, and the walls cooked- stuffed cabbage rolls, pierogis (these also from the coffee shop Odessa's on avenue A), black beans and tostones (salty hunks of green plantain fried, smashed between 2 paper bags and then fried again until crisp, unbelievably delicious), rich bustelo cafe con leche, and arroz con pollo. The neighborhood was mainly Ukrainian and Hispanic, and that's how we ate, plus slice pizza and technicolor Italian ices.

New York summers are hot and humid- we had ices almost every day to cool off. (Also there was not so much water pressure on the 6th floor on hot days- that was because someone would turn on the fire hydrants so children could run through them.)

This recipe is a lot of food and a lot of flavor from few and inexpensive things. It is also a lot of color- feels like party food. It is made with very Greek things, just put together in a not very Greek way: capers and olives are bright and lively in the rice, strips of roasted red pepper warm and rich.

We will need:

3-6 chicken thighs- the more the better- or breasts if you prefer them - plus salt, pepper, garlic powder, and flour for seasoning and frying the chicken

oil for frying the chicken

2 1/2 C/ 500 g long grain rice

1 large onion 

smoked or regular paprika, spicy or sweet, as you like

sazon goya or saffron, to make the rice yellow- not necessary but very pretty

a little oregano

a small handful of capers

a large handful of green pimiento-stuffed cocktail olives

3 roasted red peppers- ours we torched, like for the salsa and the gazpacho we made recently, but ones from the jar are just fine.

1. Rinse your chicken pieces and pat them dry with a paper towel, and season them- not timidly- with salt, pepper, and if you have it some garlic powder (fresh garlic, even as paste, will burn in frying). Coat them with flour, give them a shake, and fry in medium hot oil, turning every now and then, so that they become crisp and take on an even golden color. They will be spending some time in the oven, so there is no need to worry about the meat at the bone being completely done.

2. Frying makes things so delicious, chicken hardly the least of these. We can make the most of the oil rich flavor- Between frying batches of chicken, strain the oil through a fine mesh strainer into a metal bowl and return the strained oil into the pan- this prevents burning and smoking and also gives us a strainer full of a savory crumble of crisp seasoned golden chicken fat and flour to add to our dish.

3. When you have finished the chicken, strain the oil a final time, add just a little back to the pan, toss in the chopped onion, frying until it starts to take on a bit of color, and add the rice, sazon goya or saffron, a teaspoon of paprika, a teaspoon of salt (no more- we will add something salty later), and the golden crumbly stuff strained from the oil, stirring to coat the rice with the oil and seasonings.

4. Add the capers and olives to the pan.

5. Lightly oil a baking dish, spread the rice in, and add in twice as much water as rice by volume. Starch takes a good amount of salt to not taste flat. If it needs salt and it probably will, splash in some brine from the cocktail olives and even from the capers. This lifts the dish tremendously.

6. Arrange the chicken pieces on top, pretty side up, and the strips of red pepper decoratively among them.

7. Put in a medium oven, 170 C/350 F, for 30-45 minutes, checking from time to time and maybe adding a little more water, until the rice has swelled and is tender. 

Serve hot from the oven or warm, with bottled hot sauce and, if you have it, a handful of fresh cilantro.

I have made it for sit down dinner parties- festive and colorful and piquant and delicious and the capers making it seem fancy. But it is also one of the few things that is not less delicious from being eaten off of a paper plate, and no matter how many people show up it just seems to keep feeding them. 

A house filled with salsa and joy where people could show up and be fed belonged to Marta- my godmother's next door neighbor at 121 St. Mark's Place and dearest friend of four decades. A recipe like this one can be found in this much used and loved and tattered cookbook, given to me by Marta and her daughter Martita on my wedding day.

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