Cooked this weekend:
Pasta with Chicken, Eggplant and Balsamic
from How to Cook Everything Fast
Another variation of the recipe with wine and mushrooms or wine and leeks from upthread. In this case, instead of mushrooms or leeks, you use chopped up eggplant, and instead of straight wine, it’s a half red wine, half balsamic vinegar mix. Which makes for very deeply colored eggplant, boy howdy.
Yesterday’s project was
Shrimp Jambalaya
from How to Cook Everything
Get some olive oil heating in a large ovenproof pot (not sure why this is specified as the oven is never involved)
over medium-high heat. Add some onion, red and yellow bell pepper, and ham (optionally), all chopped. The recipe specifies cups but I am too lazy to measure that so I just used two onions and two peppers. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook until softened and lightly browned (10 minutes or so). Add 2 cups of rice, a couple tablespoons of minced garlic, a half teaspoon of cayenne (or to taste) and some dried or fresh thyme and cook for a minute or so. Then add a couple cups of chopped tomato (or canned diced) and cook for a few minutes, stirring until the tomato is starting to break down (the rice was starting to burn before the time specified so I moved on). Add four cups vegetable or shrimp stock, or water, bring to a boil, then turn down to medium and cook for 20-30 minutes uncovered, stirring periodically (I think I didn’t do this enough as the very bottom layer of rice was burned and stuck to the pan even after just 20 minutes). The goal is tender rice with the liquid just absorbed. Once you’re there, add 2 pounds of shrimp, stir in with a fork, cook for a couple more minutes and then let sit, covered, for 10-20 minutes before serving. Garnish with fresh parsley or chopped scallions or both.
I had never worked with shrimp before and was leery of doing so, since seafood in general is not my thing. But I sampled a couple kinds of shrimp at a buffet and it was inoffensive, so I figured I’d try it at home. Sounds like they are by default a lot of work (peeling, deveining, trimming) but Trader Joe’s sells frozen pound bags where that’s all done for you already so I just thawed them and mixed them in at the end and it worked great. I don’t know that I’m sufficiently enamored of the shrimp to seek them out, in the end, and even the medium sized ones I used are $8/lb versus <$6/lb for most meats so the premium is probably not worth it for me. But it’s some good jambalaya, all the same.
