Mushroom Caps with Chorizo Stuffing

Chorizo is a spicy pork sausage that originated in Spain. Chorizo sausage is by far my favourite kind of sausage, and the spicier the better.

You can get chorizo fresh (chorizo fresco) - in which case you have to cook it - or cured so you just have to remove the casing, slice and enjoy.  I think this winter when we get back to sausage making after a 2 winter hiatus, we will have to make some chorizo.

As I said above, it is a pork sausage and it is spiced with Spanish paprika, garlic and salt.  The Spanish chop their pork and add chopped pork fat to the sausage to give it its distinctive consistency. To me, what makes a really good sausage is ensuring that you have the right ratio of pork to fat.  Too much and the sausage is greasy; not enough and it dries out when it cooks. We find the best cut for sausage making is pork shoulder.  Funny, but it is also our favourite for pulled pork and Jerk pork.  It has a great fat cap that imparts so much moisture and flavour into the meat.

Different countries have their own version of chorizo.  The Mexican variety uses very fatty cuts of pork which are ground and then spiced.  Portugal has chouriço, the same pork sausage spiced with paprika, but wine is added. And Goa has a version that uses pork, garlic, chili and vinegar.  Must try to track that kind down to try.  Goa has the most amazing food so it is sure to be good.

This is an easy stuffed mushroom recipe that makes use of chorizo fresco.  It is combined with the stems from the mushroom caps, onions, panko, parsley and, of course, Manchego cheese.  The result are some tastey bites that are just a little spicy and a lot flavourful.  For best results and most even cooking, I recommend cooking the mushroom caps a bit in butter and water in a non-stick pan ahead of time so they don`t take so long in the oven and they cook evenly.

Mushroom Caps with Chorizo Stuffing

3 hot chorizo sausages, casing removed

18-20 large white stuffer mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter
1 shallot finely diced
1/2 cup Panko or bread crumbs
2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley

1/3 cup coarsely grated Manchego cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Remove the chorizo from its casing and crumble in to a medium sized frying pan. Fry until browned about 6-8 minutes. Remove from pan and allow to cool slightly.

Remove the stems from the mushrooms, chop finely and set aside.  Peel and dice the shallot, set aside.

Sauté mushroom caps in a non-stick frypan for 2-3 minutes to partially cook.  I used a mixture of butter and water to `steam-fry` them.  Once cooked about half way, remove mushrooms from pan and set on a paper towel to drain.

Add the 1 tablespoon butter into a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chopped shallot and mushroom stems to the pan. Cook, stirring, just until soft, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the Panko or bread crumbs and toss and stir until toasted golden brown. Add chorizo back to pan and toss.  Remove from heat and set aside in a large bowl.  Once slightly cooled, stir in the Manchego cheese and parsley.  Add into a food processor and pulse a few times.  If necessary, add a few tablespoons of water to help the stuffing come together and bind.  This will make it easier to stuff the mushroom caps.

Use a teaspoon or measuring spoon to fill the mushroom caps, mounding the stuffing in the cavity of the mushroom cap. Bake until stuffing is lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Serve hot.

Culinary School Chronicles - Stuffed Pork Chops

Only one more week of Culinary school left after today and I am so ready.  While I really have come to enjoy the classes, leaving the house on a Saturday morning at 7:45 is not quite so easily enjoyed.  In fact, it downright sucks.  I have enrolled in my next class on a Thursday night, so I`ll get my mornings back and just have to suffer through one long day per week, and Friday night dinners will be in the bag!

In today`s class we made stuffed pork chops.  This class was really more about the technique of stuffing a bone-in piece of meat than anything.  It also marked the first time getting to use my brand new boning knife. Damn, that thing is sharp!  I thought my other knives were sharp but this thing is like a razor blade.  As instructed by Chef, we made tunnels inside our chops using our knives.

I had friends over for dinner, so I went to the market and bought myself some bone-in pork loin that had been ``Frenched`` to add to the 2 chops we got in class.  I didn`t win the extra meat lottery this week sadly!

Frenching meat refers to the technique of removing any meat or fat to expose the bone for presentation purposes.  Most commonly you see this with rack of lamb, but it is often done with pork also.

So I cut my loin into chops, then layed them flat on my cutting board, which I pulled to the edge of my counter.  As Chef said, your inclination naturally is to angle your knife downwards when cutting, so it makes it a bit easier to keep your knife straight if you have extra elbow room to manipulate your knife, and having your board at the edge of your counter gives you this.

The technique is the to slip your knife in at the point where the bone becomes exposed, blade to the inside on the bone.  You lay your hand on top of the meat to act as a guide for your knife as you can feel it moving below you.

You slide your knife inside the meat to about 1/2 inch from the outside of the meat.  Then you flip your knife over and move the knife on an angle to create a pocket inside the chop. The trick is not to make your insertion point too big or your stuffing won`t stay inside, yet big enough that you can get your fingers inside with the stuffing.  If you end up with a big lump of stuffing in the middle, you just use the palm of your hand to flatten it for cooking.

There was no great magic to the stuffing recipe we made, so I modified it a bit at home to make it more interesting.  My friend France also gave me a massive bag of French tarragon from her backyard, so I decided to add some to the stuffing I brought home from school for my additional chops.  I also added in some Stilton cheese and golden raisins.

The recipe is pretty straightforward and after the chops were cooked, while I let them rest, I made a pan sauce by adding white wine, chicken stock, shallots and more tarragon to infuse a second layer of that slight licorice flavour that tarragon gives.  Tarragon is one of the four fines herbes in classic French cooking, the others being parsley, chives and chervil.

This recipe asks you to `sweat` your onion and celery. That basically means cooking in oil over heat to soften the vegetables but not add any colour.

Roasted Pork Chops Stuffed with Apple and Stilton

2 pork chops, thick centre cut, Frenched2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 stock celery, finely diced
2-3 stems tarragon, chopped
2 teaspoons parsley, chopped
2-3 ounces Stilton cheese (depends on how much you like blue cheese)
1/3 cup dried apples, finely diced
1/3 cup golden raisins
1 slice day old bread, diced
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Sweat onions over medium heat until just tender. Add celery, dried apples and raisins, and sweat for a further 5 minutes.  Add bread cubes, tarragon and parsley to the pan.  Add a small amount of wine to the pan to deglaze and to help bind the stuffing together.  Add more if required to help stuffing bind.  Add in cheese and combine. Remove from heat and set aside to cool so it can be easily handled.

Meanwhile, using your boning knife or paring knife, cut a pocket in each chop, being careful not to puncture the sides.  Fill with stuffing.

Heat remaining oil in a sauté pan, add chops and brown the chops about 1-2 minutes per side.  How long will be determined by how hot your oil and pan are.  Transfer chops to a roasting pan and place in preheated oven.  Roast until internal temperature reaches 175 degrees, approximately 15-18 minutes.

Make your beurre manie - combine 1 tablespoon flour with 1 tablespoon butter.  Combine until the flour absorbs all the butter and looks like a thick paste.

Deglaze your browning pan with white wine.  Add shallots (and optional tarragon) and chicken stock and bring to a low boil, scraping up any nice brown bits from the bottom of the pan.  Cook for 2-3 minutes so the alcohol evaporates from the sauce.  Add your beurre manie a little bit at at time until desired thickness is achieved.  I used about half of mine.

Serve with sauteéd vegetables and a side such as wild rice or a savoury bread pudding.

Double Chocolate Cherry Clafouti

Ontario cherries are in!  Yay!  Now what to do with them!  I need a dessert for dinner tonight since my Compliance lady friends Joanne and Shannon are coming over, so I thought I would combine my love of cherries with the wonder that is chocolate and come up with a Double-Chocolate Cherry Clafouti.  The batter in this clafouti is quite similar to the ones I made with strawberry and rhubarb in June, the only difference really being the fruit and its preparation method, and the addition of wondrous chocolate.  The addition of the cocoa powder did change the consistency of the end product a bit - it was less custardy in the centre - but it was still wonderful and a total keeper for cherry season!

In my previous post about clafoutis, I mentioned that traditionally the French leave the cherries unpitted in the batter to add an almond flavour to the batter, but I just can`t do that.  I don`t really see how you can enjoy your dessert biting into a cherry pit every few seconds.  So I got a cherry pitter and removed my pitts.  Let me say, this task is the pitts!  HaHA! But the result is worth it.  

Double Chocolate Cherry Clafouti

1/2 cup chocolate chunks or semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 cups fresh cherries, pitted

1/3 cup brandy (optional)

2 tablespoons butter

3 eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup homo milk

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pit cherries and place in a medium sized bowl, reserving about 1/2 a cup in a separate smaller bowl.  Add brandy to small bowl of cherries and allow to macerate for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350º.  Sift together the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt.  In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, milk and vanilla.

Using 1 tablespoon butter, generously butter the inside of a 10" pie plate - a deep dish plate works best. Gently combine the batter ingredients until smooth. You can do this by hand, using a stand mixer or in your food processor.  The batter will resemble a thin pancake batter.

Pour a thin layer of batter (about 1/4") on the bottom of the pie plate or round baking dish. Set in the oven until the thin layer has cooked about 5 minutes.

Arrange the cherries and chocolate in the bottom of the baking dish.  Pour the batter over the cherries and chocolate and bake for about 45 minutes, until the clafouti is puffed and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool for at least 15 minutes before serving warm or at room temperature.

Serve with whipped cream, spiked with a little brandy and your reserved macerated boozy cherries.  For mine, I put them in an non-stick pan, added the remaining tablespoon butter, and let it cook for a few minutes.

It was all I could do to hold myself back from setting it aflame but I managed to control myself.  Might get to Cherries Jubilee this season at this rate!

Curried Couscous Salad with Orange and Mint

Many people think that couscous is a grain, but it really is a very tiny pasta made with semolina flour.  The name is derived from the from the Berber word "seksu" and it most often is used as the starch in North and West African dishes, and sort of surprisingly in Italy - particularly in the regions around Sicily.  

I guess I shouldn't really find that surprising since, as I just said, couscous is actually a pasta.

A couscoussière

Most of what we get today is mechanically produced, but in days gone by the village women would gather together and make couscous by sprinkling the semolina with water and rolling it with their hands to form small pellets, which are then dusted with dry flour and then sieved. After the couscous was made it was left to dry  in the sun.  The couscous is traditionally cooked in a couscoussière, which is a two-level steamer pot.  Far more labour-intensive than boiling a pot of water, opening and adding a box of instant couscous, and letting it sit for 5 minutes!

Couscous is most often use in dishes where meat or vegetables are spooned over it - probably the most famous is the Tagine.  In Lybia, however, it is also made into a dessert called Maghrood, which combines the grain with dates, sesame and honey.  Egyptians make a similar dish using butter, sugar, cinnamon, raisins and nuts.  

This is a long way of me getting to the fact that couscous is a flexible starch and has many uses, including being used in a salad.  This salad has a nice subtle flavour of curry and the raisins, orange and mint add a sweetness and zing at the same time.

Curried Couscous Salad with Orange and Mint

1 1/2 cups couscous
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups boiling water

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 orange, zested and cut into segments (a can of oranges can do in a pinch)
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 cup chickpeas (canned are fine)

Directions

Bring the water to boil in a medium sized pot.  Add butter and allow to melt.  Add couscous, stir and cover tightly remove from heat.  Allow the couscous to soak for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Whisk together olive oil, curry, turmeric, salt, and pepper. Pour over the fluffed couscous, and mix well with a fork. Add the chickpeas, parsley, raisins, orange zest, orange segments and mint, mix well, and season to taste. Serve at room temperature.