Chorizo, garlic and mushroom soup

Easy soup if you have left over chorizo, the kind that comes in a tube and is soft.
I had half a tube leftover.
This was going to be lunch so I did not have a lot of time. Still it was delightful starting at 9am and by 11am it was done.

Ingredients:
Soft chorizo
garlic sliced or crushed
mushrooms
puree tomatoes
chicken stock
paprika
salt and pepper
thyme
oregano
olive oil

I like this chorizo. Comes from Sunset Farms.

Put soup pot on the stove and turn up the heat. Add olive oil. Add chorizo and mix around a bit.
Add garlic slices, mix some more it should sizzle.
Add mushrooms. Mine were frozen leftover mushrooms so they were soggy. That was fine it will be a soup. I chopped them up before adding to pot.
More stirring.
Add chicken stock. Mine was frozen so I just added a bit at a time as it thawed. Once I had enough liquid I just put the rest in the fridge.
Add the herbs. Stir. Should be boiling by now. Turn the heat down.
Let it sit and simmer or turn it off and heat it up later.

Note:
There are no amounts here. I use what I have and I know what we like. If you like more mushrooms add them. Rather use veg. broth that will work. Want a thinner broth add more water or stock.
Prefer a soup that is not spicy, add another kind of sausage.

In the end you will have a delightful soup. Best part is you can add a small can of tomato paste to thicken it and use it as pasta sauce. I put the remainder in containers and freeze them for another day.

This soup is all about using left-overs and items that would normally go bad in fridge and have to be thrown away.

Homemade Flat Pancetta

I have no interest in rolled pancetta. I simply want a product that I can use on pizza and pasta. When you stop thinking about rolling you can easily create a perfect pancetta in about 2 weeks. All of that is just waiting for it to cure.

Porkbelly- This recipe calls for 3 to 5 lbs. But if you have less just measure accordingly.

Pork belly from Merchants.

The Cure Rub

4 garlic cloves, chopped and minced

¼ cup sea salt or kosher salt

2 tablespoons Dominican sugar I used a bit more

4 tablespoons cracked black pepper

4 bay leaves, crumbled

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

4 or 5 sprigs fresh thyme

Optional, chose 1 or none:

1 teaspoon whole allspice, smashed

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 cinnamon stick broken

2 tablespoons juniper berries, smashed

mini food processor

Note: Since this is all an experiment to me, I tried this rub with Tamarind paste added. I found it did not change the flavor but I thought I would try it.

So blend this mix using a mini food processor or a mortar pestle, anything to grind everything together, it will be a crumbly mix but not a paste.

Pork belly comes with skin. It must be removed before you can make pancetta. You can use it for other things.
A really sharp knife works great, leave as much fat as possible. It takes time to do this but it is the only part of the process that is not pleasant.

Rub all over the pork belly.

Place in a plastic bag or a vacuum bag try to get air out. Place in fridge for 5 days turning it a couple of times during that time.

You will know when it is ready to come out of the bag. If you feel it before you start you will notice the fat is soft and so is the meat. Once it has been in the cure it will get firm.

Wash all the cure off but if it doesn't come off it doesn't hurt it. If you can eat it you can leave it on.

I use a bread cooling rack but anything where air can pass all around and place it back in fridge for 5 more days. The pork belly must be exposed to the cold air of the fridge.

Before putting it in the fridge sprinkle with black pepper. I just bought a big container of course ground black pepper, works great.

Once again you will notice when it is done. The meat changes color to dark red like bacon. the fat will be very firm like there is no more water in it. The fridge has sucked all the moisture out of the meat and fat. Now it is pancetta.

You can at this point use it. It will slice very easily. It will be dry and firm. It even smells good.

bag sucker

I have this device that sucks the air out of a bag. That is what I do to store it in the freezer. I also cut it into usable sizes. It also keeps better in fridge if the air is sucked out of the bag.

Note: The reason I do not roll it is because I don't see the point. We use the pancetta for pizza, pasta, this last batch I was able to slice like bacon but it tastes better. So for me the roll gets in the way.
Since this process is so easy and is just a matter of less than 2 weeks, I don't buy bacon anymore I just use this.
Buying pork belly. That is really the major issue with this product. I was buying the frozen porkbelly from BB but it is in small pieces. So I bought a porkbelly from Merchants. I bought it because I wanted to render lard. Aside from the fact that the people that produce it cut off all the fat, the actual pork belly is lovely. I did get some fat for lard but it is gigantic so I cut it is half, stored some in freezer and made two nice big pieces of pancetta.

One more thing. Most recipes call for the curing salt. It as nitrates. Many say that nitrates cause cancer but studies have proved that they don't they are actually in lots of food we eat. I did not use curing salt because it never leaves the fridge. Also I used the flaked salt from Anguilla Sand and Salt, it is nice salt.
Any salt will work and you can use the curing salt.

I scoured the internet for recipes and tips, I was looking for a simple way to make this without a bunch of stuff I don't have.

It is delightful, come over anytime to give it a try.

on the rack

A leftover lunch

This is it!

Today I have leftovers I hate to waste.
Roast Greek chicken thighs
little tomatoes that need to be eaten
mushrooms
leftover chicken fat and chicken jello from the chicken thighs
I made French bread from leftover pizza dough
that should be enough but I will add a pack of brie cheese baked because we are piggies.

I started with melted oil in skillet, added chopped garlic and basil and added whole tomatoes, don't cut them up.
When skins started to wrinkle they were done. I added shredded chicken to the mix and some paprika sprinkled on that.
Next sliced mushrooms to a new pan. Butter in pan, add mushrooms and fresh thyme and let them go until brown. Don't have to stir them, just tip them over a bit to brown.
Next using the chicken jello and additional mushrooms made soup. The chicken jello was loaded with garlic and lemon. I added a piece of hot pepper and called it hot and sour mushroom soup.
Brie, stuck some rosemary and garlic in the top and baked it until soft.
So all of it could go on the bread or get dipped in bread and eaten separately. It's really nice to have leftovers.

What was left.

Pizza on the Road

Fresh mozzarella is best!

Can't make pizza without a pizza oven, don't like most pizza in restaurants, I am from New York so I gots to have pizza... what's a girl to do?
We are in Dominica on a job. We are housed in the currently closed university housing and they just so happened to have a kitchen on the grounds we can use.
It has a big commercial stove and a couple of inexpensive counter top ovens electric.
But until I found a recipe for really quick dough and a very cheap Chinese made flat steel pan I had to go without.
The pizza dough recipe is so simple and so fast I am kicking myself for not knowing about it sooner. It came from www.ricardocuisine.com. It is called homemade pizza dough. It is fabulous.
Dough
1 cup warm water
1 tea yeast
1 tea sugar
1 tea salt
2 cups flour

Don't judge my stove.

Mix the yeast the water and the sugar and let sit to proof 5 minutes.
add the flour and the salt.
I mix by hand, no mixer here.
Let it sit for an hour, Ricardo says a half hour so that works if you run out of time. You can also store in fridge till ready to use that day or freeze it, I did that, it works too.
Note: I would not double this recipe. Flour gets funny when you add more. So either cut back on the water and add till you are happy or do them in batches.

simple but effective

Flour board or table and spread your dough gently as usual. Oh, you should have already heated your counter top oven that has an exposed element and put your dry steel skillet on the stove and cranked it up but not too much, commercial stove gets really hot really quick. This might work on a regular range I will give it a go.
Have some corn meal ready and sprinkle on skillet.
Pick up your spread dough and gingerly place it on the already hot skillet.
Use a squirty bottle to add olive oil to the top. This keeps the sauce from wetting the dough.
Then spread sauce. Don't put too much. That is really for any pizza, don't add too much sauce.
Add cheese and toppings. Once again don't get carried away. Overloaded pizza becomes something else. Pizza is a delicate balance of flavours, if you load it up it is more like an open faced sandwich.
Have a spatula handy and shove it under the dough which is already well on its way to being done. You can see it bubbling on the top.
Move the pan around on the stove, shake it and look underneath. If the dough is getting brown in spots it is ready to transfer to oven. The oven is hot, make sure the top element is red.
Get the pizza as close as possible to the top even if you have to put an additional pan to lift it a bit.

make sure it has exposed elements to brown dough

It will not take long keep a watch. Move the pan with the pizza on top to the oven. Shift it if your oven gets hotter in some places.
It is done. It will have the nice brown spots, the crust will be chewy inside crusty outside. Perfect.
A word about sauce...
If you have nice fresh tomatoes and a blender or food processor there is no need to struggle with sauce that takes hours or something out of a jar or can. Just cut up tomatoes, dump in blender and blend. Add a small can of tomato paste. Add seasoning such as garlic, basil, oregano, make it your sauce. You don't need to cook it. Just put it in a jar and store in fridge. It works great and gives pizza nice fresh taste, not heavy or greasy. It is also vegetarian for all your vegetarian friends. If you want meat you can add it to the toppings.

Goat Water

I found organic mutton and lamb at Proctors so I made the goat water with that.

Goat water Montserrat style

PUT
Frozen cubes of mutton or goat 2 packs it has bones
enough water to cover the frozen cubes in a pot
put on stove and cook on high until the meat thaws and starts to cook and cook for a while
add more water if needed
keep pot open
skim off foam my organic lamb did not have foam. I think that is good

ADD
3 large cloves of garlic that have been mashed up
chop half large onion
chop 3 potatoes or you could use tania
chop 3 carrots
fresh thyme
a little hot pepper
pepper and salt

COOK
covered until the lamb is soft.
everything will be soft at this point

ADD
half cup bisto or flour with half cup cold water mixed in
stir

at this point turn it off and let it sit on the stove until ready to eat.
then reheat and eat.
very good with garlic bread

Chicken or steak Avocado lunch

Use
left over grilled chicken or steak, cold or warmed and shredded or sliced thin.
Cannelloni beans drained and rinsed then mixed with olive oil and vin of choice
avocado cut  in half or sliced
Put
beans and chicken in hole.
Place
on plate with mixed green salad with homemade croutons and oil vin dressing

Home made croutons

Slice and dice
stale loaf of french bread or any bread.
bread into bite size pieces

Saute 
in frying pan with olive oil and herbs of choice until a little brown on outside but soft on inside.
This takes only  a few minutes.

Use warm or cool

Crisp bacon crumbled is also good on this salad.
I cook the entire package of bacon when I get it then store it in fridge to use on salads etc.

Makin Bacon

Recently I had some super bacon at of all places Disney in Orlando. It was in a nice little restaurant at the resort and the food was superb. They had a pepper crusted bacon. So good
 I got it twice.

So naturally I had to make some. Got myself a huge pork belly from the local restaurant supply house and cut off a 6 lb. chunk. Then I cut that into 1 lb. chunks.

We don't have pink salt available on island so I settled for Mortons Quick Cure, figured it would be
the safest one for my new bacon experiment.
Following  directions on the bag I measured the correct amount of cure for each cube of belly and placed it all in a plastic bag in the fridge for what was originally a week but turned out to be 3 days because I ran out of time.

I did not realize I could add all the other stuff into the original brine bag so I waited until it was time for the smoke to apply the local brown sugar and course ground black pepper to the outside.
That was after I washed off the cure.

Now  I was ready for the oven.
We had chopped up some seagrape wood into small slivers and saw dust. I made a fire in the pizza oven and waited until it was down to almost nothing, under 200 F. before putting in the wet sawdust in an old cast iron skillet. I am sure we will perfect this method in time to come.

We use a tuscan grill in the oven for cooking steak etc. and it was perfect for the cubes of belly.
The skittle full of sawdust was happily smoking away so I put in the belly and shut the oven, not all the way and left the chimney open.
I checked it a few times and basically left it all night to smoke.
In the morning, the bacon was done. Even without pink salt it was pink. The fat was drawn down nicely and it smelled smokey.
Next the taste test.

Delicious.
It was no  longer pork, it was now bacon. I cut off the rind before putting the slices in the
skillet. I can use the rind to make cracklin.
This was a great experiment, the bacon is very good and I will certainly do this again.