Lesson 13: Potpourri Miscellany

Thursday was a mish-mash of dishes, one a meaty Argentine riff on an Italian classic and the rest our further attempts to mimic classical French cuisine.

Question: how do you know how to match a pasta with a sauce?

Answer, from Marcella Hazan:

- for lighter sauce, like pesto or olive oil with tomatoes or chopped vegetables, use long, thin pasta like spaghetti or fettuccine

- for thicker sauces, like bolognese, use thicker pasta shapes like tagliatelle or funny-shaped pastas like orecchiette

- here's a nifty guide, cross-listed by both pasta shape and sauce: http://www.chow.com/stories/11099/?tag=main_body;feature_story

- and if you want to plummet into a food-induced coma, make cappeletti and agnolotti (both sort of like backwards tortellini) with the Argentine version of bolognese, which was really more like a hearty beef stew.

The pastas (filled with potato purée and crisped bacon):

The sauce- not for the faint of heart: pancetta, chunks of beef and pork, garlic, onion, carrot, boiled/peeled tomatoes, herbs, tomato paste, red wine and tomato purée.

The finished product:

And if you REALLY want to partake in death-by-over-consumption, go straight from pasta class to cooking technique class and make some creamy, buttery chicken dishes!

Mine: grilled chicken with maitre d'hotel butter (mix and then chill butter, parsley, lemon juice, curry, paprika, salt pepper) and french fries.

Gui with his masterpiece, stuffed chicken with mushroom sauce:

A chef's quest for perfection never ends:

Lesson 12: ORGANS

I tried my hardest not to be grossed out by this. But I decided that given that I'll be dissecting organs in a few short months, the last thing I want is for memories of sautéing them in butter to pop up in the anatomy lab. But just in case you were wondering what deep-fried brain looks like:

Or liver with port sauce:

Or kidneys with dijon sauce and a jaunty rice pilaf:

OR A WHOLE COW TONGUE!!!!:

Between Meals: Iguazu Falls

Go now, and avoid the lunch rush if you can:

Coatis! South American relatives of raccoons. They are quiteeee aggressive, but the babies are pretty precious.

Also, bring bug spray:

And a camera. Can you spot the pot of gold!?:

Special thanks to the guest photographer.

Lesson 11: Arroz (Rice)

As a child of the 1980s, the movie Beethoven played on a continuous loop in my house. Although Saint Bernards still hold a special place in my heart, my main takeaway point from the movie was that the name Ryce is synonymous with being a plucky teenage girl coveted by boys with extremely discriminating taste...

At 23, I've missed my chance to follow in Ryce's footsteps, but all is not lost: in honor of my childhood idol, I've now expanded my rice recipe repertoire!

Up first on the docket: paella. I know that this recipe- which uses (horror of horrors!) store-bought rotisserie chicken!- will disappoint the food snobs, but it's easily-scalable (I've tripled and quadrupled it to great effect) and a crowd-pleaser. So there.

For the gourmets out there (Dad, Jim), though...

Brown 1 inch-ish chunks of chicken in olive oil:

Remove chicken and sauté veggies (pepper, onion, garlic). Next, add 100 grams of rice to the veggies in order to "narcar" it (I can't find an exact translation of this word anywhere, but from our prof's description I think it roughly means "impregnate"...) with flavor. Add chicken stock so that it covers the rice by about an inch! Add salt, pepper, pimentón (paprika), saffron and curry!

Let it cook at medium-high heat for 15-20 minutes. Be sure to rotate the pan so all sides cook evenly, but try hard not to stir or otherwise jostle. Add chicken at the very end to reheat.

NEXT: dulce de leche arroz con leche.

Oh man. We ate this in class so fast that we had to teach my professor what "to scarf down" means (for the Spanish nerds, bufanda abajo!). I came home from school last night and made this again it was so fun and so tasty. BEWARE.

Pour some sugar into a pot and heat until caramel colored:

Like this!:

Add milk and bring to a boil. Add rice and boil for 20ish minutes, being sure to stir occasionally to keep the rice from burning:

Add lemon peel and cinnamon a few minutes before the rice is cooked through and serve!:

We also made...

Mushroom risotto:

Guiso (Really good and worth a try. The name means an Argentine stew, but technically this was essentially rice and chicken cooked in tomato sauce, though it can be made with sweet potatoes, peaches and beef instead):

And fried rice (with a wok!):

Happy noshing!

Lesson 10: Coq au Vin

What delightful concoction is this!?

Coq au vin with mashed potatoes: a hearty dish to come home to after a day of bouncing along cobbled Buenos Aires streets.

To make, wait in an insanely long and inefficient line at an Argentine grocery store and then throw things into a pot. Or use this meticulously researched and tasty Cook's Illustrated recipe.

More to come from the special guest photographer and mayhaps a trip to paradise...