in praise of sardines

Follow the trail of crumbs...

...into the kitchens of Spain.

Leave it to the frugal Spaniards to elevate a simple dish of stale bread crumbs into the gastronomic stratosphere. Migas, the Spanish word for crumbs, is so beloved throughout much of Spain that the residents of Torrox, a town along the Costa del Sol in Andalucía, annually host a Fiesta de Migas that draws tens of thousands of people.

At its most basic, migas consists of leftover bread torn into small bits, slightly moistened with water, and then fried in olive oil with garlic and pimentón, the Spanish paprika. Every region seems to have its own variation on the theme, most of which call for the cook to add healthy doses of cured pork products, such as chorizo (dry-cured paprika-laced sausage), morcilla (blood sausage), jamón serrano, and bacon (hungry yet, Biggles?). The dish also often includes peppers and onions in the mix and, surprisingly, may be garnished with a handful of green grapes. Typically, migas serve as the base for one (or two) of the glorious fried eggs I recently wrote about. They can also be topped off by many other humble delicacies, including, I feel obligated to add, sardines.

This weekend, I made a dish of migas con huevos for my entry in the 25th edition of "Is My Blog Burning?," Give Us This Day Yesterday's Bread, hosted by Derrick of An Obsession with Food.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, like all rustic, straightforward dishes, the key to making the most delicious rendition of migas con huevos resides in the quality of your ingredients. Use the best available loaf of country bread, farm fresh eggs, and, most importantly, authentic Spanish chorizo (in the US, there is only one brand, Palacios, available at specialty grocers and on line here and here), jamón serrano, and pimentón.

After N and I scooped up every last bite of our migas, we decided that the point of the humble main ingredient - day old bread - was to soak up every bit of precious pork fat that rendered out of the chorizo, jamón serrano and bacon in the dish. It was like breakfast hash, substituting bread crumbs for potatoes!

No wonder that I was surprised, then, to read that the dish seems to have originated with the Moors, the Muslim occupiers of the Iberian peninsula from the eighth to the fifteenth century. From what I read, it seems that buried beneath the avalanche of pork bits, migas shares a common, if distant, ancestor with North African couscous, steamed semolina.

Regardless of its mysterious beginnings, today a hearty plateful of migas con huevos will load you up with enough calories to keep you going out in the vineyards all day. If you won't be working the fields, you can reduce the fat somewhat (such as by poaching the eggs, as I did), but you lose some of the authentic flavor that makes this belly-buster so quintessentially Castillian. Spoil yourself and eat it for brunch or lunch on a special occasion. Next birthday or anniversary, skip the foie gras, oysters, and caviar, and beg for a plate overflowing with migas con huevos!

Oink, oink! Le pied de cochon is French for...

...pig's trotters, of course!

It's startling how our tastes change as we age.

As a college student in Washington, D.C., in the 1980's, many a late night ended eating at a mediocre 24-hour French bistro in Georgetown called "Au Pied de Cochon." The name paid homage to the famous {and presumably better} bistro in Paris. The red walls of the Georgetown bistro colorfully depicted a mad chef waving a cleaver whilst he first chases then eventually catches a squealing pig, triumphantly grabbing him by the foot. At that time, the thought of actually ordering the namesake pig's feet never so much as crossed my mind, regardless of the number of drinks that preceded my visit there. Rarely did my 3 am order stray from the comfortable oasis of eggs benedict and French fries.

Fast forward to tonight. In the ensuing 20 years, I have apparently become that mad chef.

I now not only sample odd bits like pig's trotters, tails, ears, snouts, bellies, and what not, I actually relish and even crave them. So I figured it was about time that I learn to properly cook some of these parts, especially as this Tuesday the 17th is the feast day of San Antonio Abate, Patron Saint of Pigs and Butchers {pictured left}. In celebration of this event, Diva in Italy and Kate in Gascony created Some Pig Blogging Weekend, an event I could hardly miss!

These off cuts, innards, and extremities are the sardines of the meat world. We cooks, particularly in America, are often guilty of only paying attention to the sexier cuts of meat. Go to any mid-scale restaurant in San Francisco, for example, and you'll invariably find a menu full of roasted half chickens, flatiron steaks, pork loin chops, braised lamb shanks, and short ribs. I, for one, have had enough!

Though all of the kitchens I have worked in have received at least 3 stars from the local critic, I have not often been afforded the opportunity to work with these lesser used parts of the animal. Like so many American cooks, I have had to look further afield for expert advice on how to cook these forgotten cuts. My main guide is, of course, the gifted Fergus Henderson, the author of The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and chef/proprietor of St. John, his restaurant outside of London. I also look to other British food writers, Anissa Helou and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a few Spanish cooks, and some intrepid Americans, including Paula Wolfert, Anthony Bourdain and Thomas Keller.

For my first attempt at cooking pig's trotters, I trusted this last chef, Mr. Keller {who I'll call TK, just for fun}. I used his recipe from the book/Yountville bistro, Bouchon. I'd share it with you, but I admittedly don't yet own the book. I just read the recipe in a bookstore and {hopefully} committed it to memory.

If you've never had pig's trotters before, there is one adjective that perfectly describes them: unctuous. Unctuous is not a word I use often, but it is perfectly apt here. Like so many innards and off cuts, they are all about texture and mouth feel. The part that you eat is essentially gelatin with a little bit of fat. To provide a crisp textural contrast, TK has you bread and pan fry the boneless disks of pork trotter.

For those of you who are not squeamish, after the jump I've included pictures and descriptions which illustrate my adventures cooking this succulent, wonderfully sticky and unctuous cut of the pig.

In praise of Kashmir: Rogan Josh

In my lifetime, I have made many versions of what is commonly referred to as lamb "curry." Of them all, this Kashmiri Rogan Josh is the new undisputed champion.

To me, the genius of Indian cuisine is the way it highlights the role aroma plays in whetting our appetites. While other cuisines, notably French and Japanese, have taught us that we eat with our eyes, Indian cuisine reminds us that we also eat with our noses. In fact, compared to our schnoz, the tongue is deaf and mute as a taster. Something like 90% of our ability to taste comes from our olfactory senses, which is why we can't taste much when we have a cold.

This version of Rogan Josh is probably the most aromatic dish I have ever placed under the old sniffer.

Each inhalation of its heady aroma reminds me of all that we have learned about the Kashmiris these past 2 weeks. I cannot avoid thinking about Kashmir's central position on the ancient Spice Route that flowed between China, India, and the Middle East. The combination of fennel and ginger brings to mind Chinese star anise, while cinnamon and smoky black cardamom brings me squarely back into the Malabar coast of southern India.

I do not exaggerate when I say that no dish is more emblematic of Kashmiri cuisine than this recipe for Rogan Josh. It features the favorite meat of the Kashmiris, mutton and lamb, and it is braised in yogurt, in the fashion typical of the region. In addition to the spices I already mentioned, the dish includes ample amounts of Kashmiri chili powder, which contribute its scarlet color, gentle heat, and the name of the dish, as rogan literally means "red."

This recipe for Rogan Josh comes from the Hindu Brahmin community, or pandits, of Kashmir. It is a dish that undoubtedly often found its way onto the tables of the family of Jawaharlal Nehru, who was of Kashmiri lineage, as well as that of his daughter, Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi. True to what we learned in my post on the Kashmiri kitchen, this Hindu version of Rogan Josh uses asafetida, a pungent tree resin, instead of garlic and onions.

In fact, you won't find any of the members of the "Indian mirepoix" of onions, garlic and fresh ginger in this recipe. Neither will you find any of the spices and herbs commonly used in "Indian cooking," like cumin, coriander, black mustard seeds, turmeric or cilantro.

If you are accustomed to the heavy, cream laden dish that goes by the name "rogan josh" in almost every Indian restaurant, you will be as surprised as I was by the complexity and subtleness of the version presented here. I hope you enjoy it as much as N and I did.

This is my last post on Kashmir, her people, and their cuisine. I hope you have enjoyed reading this series as much as I have enjoyed writing it! I had fun becoming acquainted with the people of Kashmir through learning about some of the tasty treats that bring them joy.

All of you who have supported Pim's Menu for Hope II campaign with your donations to UNICEF should be proud of yourselves. You have made a difference in the lives of the survivors of the earthquake that struck the Kashmir region of Pakistan and India. I just learned that we have raised over $15,000!

There are still a few hours left to buy a raffle ticket for a chance to win the Kashmiri Cooking Kit (pictured below) or any of the brilliant gifts that my fellow food bloggers have donated to the Menu for Hope II campaign. To help you decide which gift tickles your fancy, check out Pim's visual menu with pictures of all the prizes and links to their full descriptions.

I wish you all the best of luck. Cheers!

Edited on Dec. 30th: I forgot to mention when I posted this that my recipe for Rogan Josh is my contribution to Meenakshi's (of Hooked on Heat) inaugural edition of "From My Rasoi." The theme this month is appropriately "winter" and I cannot think of a better dish to take the chill off.

An alliterative supper: Pork, Pimentón, Peppers, Polenta and Parsley

When you sit down to write a menu for a restaurant, you hate to see combinations like this. It's just too difficult to work around the fact that everything on the plate begins with the letter P (including the plate itself!).

But, thankfully this is not a restaurant.

And you are the kind of people (sorry, another "p") who probably (oh no) won't be perturbed (somebody stop me) by this preposterous post (let's just roll with it).

I prepared Pimentón-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Parmesan Polenta, Peperonata (peppers- perhaps pasillas, pimientos and jalapeños- and purple onions) and Pounded Parsley Pesto (with neither pine nuts nor parmesan can I proclaim it a pesto? Perhaps I should pass and pronounce it a positively perfect salsa).

Please don't presume that the plethora of P's means that this pleasantly pink pork should not be a priority for your next party.  Permit me to plead: print this prime prize of a recipe. Consider yourself as privileged as a pasha to peruse such a precious and particularly plum piece of passionate poetry.

Pardon me, but this playfully plucky post is becoming a pathetic and pathological parody! (Per chance, my past posts about pears, persimmons, pomegranates, puffed-up puddings and even poached prunes have made me positively potty).

Hopefully a pleasurable picture will pique your appetite.

Porky Pig would be profoundly proud!

(If you read all that aloud, you may want to pause to wipe the spittle off your screen).

Th-th-th-that's all folks!

For those of you who are still reading (all, rather both..., no just you now), I've included the basic directions to reproduce this meal, my favorite of the past week or two. I honestly didn't even notice it was full of P's until I sat down to write this!

I especially enjoyed the complementary interplay of textures and flavors: creamy polenta, spicy peppers, smoky Spanish paprika (pimentón de la Vera), juicy tender pork, all topped with a piquant and crunchy hazelnut-parsley sauce. Hurry up and make this while you can still find fresh local peppers in the market.

I promise you'll be pleased!