Hummus and Baba Ghannouj

I am not a huge fan of the holiday potluck. I know, I know. It is good for institutional morale. It allows co-workers to socialize about their private lives. It gives the staff a few hours respite from an otherwise gruelling work year. All of that is very nice. The thing is, I don't want to eat other peoples' food.

Over the holidays, I do enough cooking as it is. Thus, I keep things very simple when it comes to workplace socials. Hummus and baba ghannouj are pretty much my standards. They are healthful, easy to prepare, and transport well. I also like to provide something that vegans can eat. The holiday party, I find, usually affords slim pickings for those who eschew meat.

This year, I also made up a batch of pita chips for dipping. Simply cut a pita bread in half, then run a paring knife around the edges to separate the two sides of the half moon. Then cut into triangles. Baste with olive oil and sprinkle with sesame and poppy seeds. Place on a baking sheet in a 350 F oven for 10 - 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Hummus (by Ina Garten)

• 4 garlic cloves
  
• 2 cups canned chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste)
• 6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemons (2 lemons)
• 2 tablespoons water or liquid from the chickpeas
• 4 dashes hot sauce

Not possessing a food processor, I make hummus with an immersion blender. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and blend until coarsely pureed. Taste, adjust seasonings, and serve at room temperature.
 
Baba Ghannouj (by Alton Brown)

• 1 eggplant
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 ounces fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• 1/2 bunch parsley, leaves only
• Salt and pepper

Pierce some holes in the skin of the eggplant and roast in a 375 degree F oven for about 30 minutes. In the summer months, one might prefer to implement a method labelled "extreme grilling" by BBQ Master Steven Raichlen. Fire up your charcoal grill. When the charcoals are ready, place the eggplants directly on the embers. Turn frequently until the skin is charred and blistering, about 20 minutes. This imparts a smokiness unmatched by the indoor oven.

Remove eggplant from the grill and let cool.  Peel away the skin and discard. Place the eggplant flesh in a colander and drain for 10 minutes. In a bowl, combine garlic, lemon juice, tahini and parsley and pulse with a hand held immersion blender to combine. If you have a processor, use it instead. Add the eggplant flesh. Season with salt and pepper and pulse to combine. Adjust the flavor with more Tahini or lemon juice if you prefer. If it's bitter, add a little honey to taste.

Squash Risotto with Roasted Chestnuts, Sage, and Pancetta

Big score at the antique store today. We have a high end Vestax turntable awkwardly rigged via the lone audio output to an aging, leftover boom box speaker. It's not pretty, but it let's us listen to music produced in the 1970s and 1980s in the manner that it was intended - on vinyl. I am always flipping through records in thrift stores and antique shops in hopes of adding to K's small collection of absolute classics from the 80s alternative scene - Depeche Mode, PIL, U2, REM, and New Order. Usually, I just end up searching in vain through seemingly-endless racks of polkas and Perry Como.

Once in while, however, I hit the jackpot. A dollar-a-piece record bin at a nearby antique store yielded some serious classic rock albums - Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, the Doors, the Police, Johnny Cash. The guy at the check out counter was groaning that he didn't get to them first.

What better way to celebrate the antique store score of the month than to crank out a classic risotto dish to the scratchy, folk country tunes of "After the Gold Rush."

It's a Jamie Oliver recipe. He's gotta be a Neil Young fan.

Squash Risotto with Roasted Chestnuts, Sage, and Pancetta

• One butternut squash
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes or 2 dried red chili peppers
• Salt and pepper
• 10 slices pancetta
• 3 1/2 oz chestnuts (or walnuts)
• 1 bunch sage
• Sea salt and freshly-cracked pepper
• Olive oil
• Mascarpone cheese
• 1 cup risotto
• 1/2 small onion, finely diced
• 2 tbsp white wine
• 4 cups chicken stock

Preheat oven to 375 F. Cut squash in half, scoop out seeds. Separate seeds from stringy pulp and set aside seeds in a small bowl. Crush coriander seeds and chili peppers in a mortar and pestle. Place squash halves in a roasting dish, drizzle with olive oil, and dust with coriander/chili powder. Roast for 30 minutes. While squash is roasting, put squash seeds and chestnuts* in a dry pan over low heat until aromatic - five minutes. When squash is soft, remove from oven and cover with the pancetta, sage, chestnuts and seeds. Return to over and roast for 10 minutes or until pancetta is crispy. Remove from oven. Remove pancetta, sage, chestnuts, and seeds and set aside. When squash has cooled slightly, peel and remove the cooked flesh. Chop half of the squash fine and the other half in larger a larger dice. Set aside.

Prepare the risotto according to package instructions. Heat 4 cups of chicken stock in a sauce pan. Finely dice 1/2 a small onion. Heat onion in 2 tbsp olive oil over medium heat on another burner until onion is soft, about 7-8 minutes. Add 1 cup of risotto rice and cook for 1-2 minutes until roasted and covered with oil. Add wine and cook 1 minute. Add 1 cup of warm chicken stock. Cook, stirring constantly, until the stock has evaporated. Continue adding stock, one ladle at a time, while stirring constantly and only adding more stock when the rice becomes dry. The risotto will be done in 20-25 minutes.

When risotto is finished, add all of the finely chopped squash to the pan and some of the larger pieces until the ratio looks right. You will have some leftover large pieces. Save for other uses. Serve the risotto topped with the reserved pancetta, sage, chestnuts, and seeds. Add a dollop of mascarpone cheese to each serving. Place parmigiano reggiano cheese on the table.

*You can use vacuum-packed, shelled chestnuts for this recipe. If you buy them in the shells, score them with a sharp knife and put in microwave for 10-20 seconds. Watch them closely or they will burn. Then open them up. The store where I bought mine sold me moldy ones, so I used walnuts instead.

Review - Jaleo in Washington D.C.

Jaleo, on 7th Street just north of the Mall, is consistently excellent. Ever since my first visit back in 2003, I always make a point to visit whenever I hit our nation's capital. This is where one goes to get real-deal tapas. It seems as if the word "tapas" is getting thrown around way to much these days. I don't like it. Sure, the word translates to "little plates." But real tapas should be the types of food that you can find in Spain. Small plates of buffalo chicken wings are not tapas.

Jaleo is the place for real tapas. Owner Jose Andres makes sure that all the authentic tapas are on the menu, but he also offers new and inventive little plates using seasonal American ingredients. Even better, his waitstaff always seem well trained. They don't rush you. They encourage you to hold onto the menu and order more tapas on your own schedule, not theirs. They bring out a dessert menu and offer you a coffee. Sometimes, they even make you ASK them for the check... just like Spain. I am sick and tired of being rushed out of restaurants by undertrained, uncaring waiters. Jaleo is a refreshing change.

But it is the food that keeps me going back to Jaleo. What was on the menu this time? Three absolute classics.

Pulpo a la Gallego

Few restaurants outside of Spain can make this quintessential Spanish dish famous in the verdant northwestern region of Galicia. They always mess it up. I think it is because Americans are skittish about eating an octopus and the places that offer it on their menus don't sell enough of it to perfect the preparation. At Jaleo, the octopus is fork tender - not burnt or rubbery - with just the right amount of garlic, oil, and smoked Spanish paprika. Save a piece of bread to mop up the oil and juices. That's how the Spanish roll.They probably learned it from the Italians.

Croquetas de jamón serrano

When I go out to eat, I always order things that I don't like to make at home. These little fried things called croquetas don't look like much, but they are one of the greatest of Spanish tapas. Deep fried in good-quality olive oil, croquetas are stuffed with a luscious filling of béchamel and small pieces (chunks or thin ribbons) of cured jamon serrano - mountain ham. They are such a pain to make at home. Deep frying always makes a mess and béchamel is sometimes a real bear. The benchmark of a good Spanish restaurant is how well they make their croquetas. If they are not on the menu, you are not in a Spanish restaurant.

Arroz cremoso de setas y Idiazábal 

As evidenced by the national dish of Spain, paella, the people of the Iberian Peninsula love their rice. I make risotto with abandon, and mushroom risotto with dried porcini and fresh crimini is one of my regular meals around the house. Jaleo knows how to make a great rice dish as well. This one, which I had never had there before, makes use of a medley of mushrooms and a sheep's milk cheese from the Basque lands. Awesome.

I went during a lunch break from a day-long marathon of archival research and therefore failed to order a glass of Rioja. No wine at a Spanish table. Inexcusable.

Moorish Chickpea and Spinach Stew

I'm riding the Amtrak. In general, I don't have much regard for them these days. American rail travel, especially along the closely-connected cities of the eastern seaboard, really should have a system like Spain and Italy. Over there, it's easy and affordable to take the train. Here, Amtrak likes to play this game where one minute a city-to-city ticket costs X. Then, when you check again five minutes later, that very same ticket costs X to the third power. It's almost as if our rail system is designed to dissuade rail travel.

Not a surprise, I guess, considering that General Motors once bought up all of the nation's highly-efficient street car lines and ripped them out in order to sell more cars.

Today, Amtrak is at least saving me the headache of negotiating the traffic around DC. I need to visit for some research at the National Archives, Smithsonian, and Library of Congress. But DC is not just the land of museums, it is also the realm of King of José Andrés. Andrés' restaurant, Jaleo, is among the best Spanish restaurants in the United States. A native of Asturias, in the north, Andrés knows his stuff. I like him, too, because despite his celebrity status, he does not appear to have let the fame go to his head. He also does work on public television. Kudos José!

In advance of my visit to Jaleo later tonight, I made one of those quintessential Spanish dishes that Andrés includes in his book, Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America.

Moorish-style Chickpea and Spinach Stew

•  9 oz dried garbanzo
• Pinch baking soda
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 6 garlic cloves
• 2 oz sliced bread, no crusts
• 2 tbsp pimenton, Spanish paprika
• 1 pinch saffron
• 2 tbsp sherry vinegar
• ½ pound spinach
• 1 tsp cumin
• Salt and pepper

Soak chickpeas in cold water overnight. Drain and rinse. Combine chickpeas with 2.5 quarts water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer and cook for 2 hours. Every 10 mins add a cup of cold water to slow down simmering. By the end, the water should just cover the chickpeas.

Heat olive oil in small sauté pan. Cook garlic until brown, 3 minutes. Remove and set aside. Brown bread on both sides, one min per side.

Remove bread and allow to cool. Add pimento, saffron, and cumin and then sherry vinegar to deglaze pan and prevent pimento from burning. Leave pan off heat

In a mortar, mash garlic and bread into a thick paste.

Reheat chickpeas to a boil and add spinach, reduce heat and cook for five minutes. Add pimenton mixture and garlic paste. Simmer for another five minutes and season to taste.

This recipe can be done with canned chickpeas. Substitute one can of chickpeas for the dried, rinse well, and place in a medium sauce pan. Add one cup of water. You could use stock instead to make up for the loss of flavor from not simmering the dried chickpeas, which produces a fine broth.