Andy Rathbone's Other Stuff

I shot this photo of the moon's full eclipse December 10 at 6:05 am here in San Diego.

 

Ran across this Ferruginous Hawk while birding in the rain Sunday with Tina and Sue.

This morning Tina and I headed to the sighting of a female Bobolink, a rare bird for California. At 8:30 am, we joined the crowd of spectators and photographers to grab a shot.

I've cooked with fava beans quite a bit, but I've always used dried ones. But when our local market picked up some fresh ones for the first time, I snatched about five pounds.

Unlike other beans, fava beans have a creamy texture on their own, without needing any lard, butter or other oil. That makes them a natural for sausage stews, where the sausages already add plenty of fat.

This time, though, I wanted to cook a Moroccan lamb "tagine" I'd seen while paging through the "Lamb" volume in my Time Life's "The Good Cook" series.

To make the stew, I grabbed a few pounds of lamb, six artichokes, olives, and a few other ingredients, including some tasty preserved lemons my wife had made awhile back. Then, I set about preparing the fava beans.

Fresh fava beans come sold in the pod, looking much like swollen English peas. But when you've finished shelling the beans from their husks, you're still not through. Next, you must pry the beans out of their thick skins.

With dried beans, this is easy. Soak them overnight, then snap your fingers with a bean placed between them: The bean flies out of its shell.

But with the fresh beans, the skins stuck to the bean. And, unfortunately, many of my fava bean pods were small, making the treasured beans downright tiny. Once I'd painstakingly peeled the skins from all the beans, my five pounds of fresh fava beans were reduced the the net result: a meager 7 ounces. And about an hour's work, as well.

The book taught me a fast and easy way to cut the chokes from the artichokes, as you'll see in Steps 2-3 in the second photo. And the final stew, poured over some couscous, was delicious.

But if I ever buy fresh fava beans again, I'll only buy them when there's a huge pile, so I can cherry pick the fattest pods.

A simple dinner tonight, but one we always enjoy.

I picked up a pair of New York steaks from Costco, an organic potato from the Ocean Beach Peoples' Coop, and some tomatoes grown by my mother-in-law.

I left a few dabs of blue cheese to melt atop the steaks as they sat on the grill for the last minute or so. Finally, a splash of Balsamic vinegar enhanced the tomatoes.

Simple and satisfying.

(Posted from my Droid X phone)

A few months ago, I picked up a complete set of the Time Life: "The Good Cook" cookbooks on eBay. Richard Olney, a cook revered by Alice Waters, edited the 28-book series. Time-Life did quite well by selling it mail-order from the late 70s to early 80s.

Although it's more than 30-years old, the set has been dubbed the "desert island" cookbook, and for good reason. Sandwiched into those 28 volumes are full-color illustrations that show how to cook pretty much everything, from lamb’s brains to, well, paella.

For example, the paella recipe came in the “Dried Beans and Grains” volume. Its 17 steps were stuffed between photos detailing authentic Brazilian feijoada and an Indian rice pilaf with yogurt-marinated lamb. Oh, and the step-by-steps started with detailed photos for French cassoulet, a recipe which starts with goose confit. (If you don’t have any goose confit on hand, dig out the series’ “Poultry” book, which explains every step of the method.)

So, I roasted the red peppers and peeled their skins. I sautéed the artichokes. I cooked the squid until tender. I steamed the clams and mussels over a broth of white wine, sautéed onions and garlic, parsley, a bay leaf, and thyme, saving the broth to pour over the rice.

I cooked up a cubed pork shoulder, with more onions, more garlic and tomatoes, along with a blood sausage. I fried four chicken thighs.

Finally, I added a 1¾ cup of Bomba rice to the paella pan, layered the other ingredients on top, and poured over the clam/mussel broth. (That wasn't enough broth, so I added some duck stock I’d made and frozen a few months earlier.)

I’ve forgotten the rest of the steps, so I’ve included photos of the book’s 17 steps.

It was much better than the paella I’d made last year, and good practice for the one I’ll be making later this summer: My wife bought me a 28-inch wide paella pan, complete with a propane burner. It holds enough paella for 30 people. Hopefully, I’ll get up the nerve to cook with it.

I wanted to make paella for my 49^th birthday, but I needed an accompaniment.

So, I turned to an old favorite straight from Jose Andres’ Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America.

The recipe itself is easy: Heat up some olive oil, and keep the heat high. Toss in some cubes of peeled Golden Delicious apples and let the apples brown for about a minute or so, then toss in some pine nuts to brown, as well. Add a handful of raisins, a bit of salt, then toss in some spinach leaves for a quick wilting session.

Maybe 15 minutes of prep, and a rapid three minutes of cooking. Done. The key is to keep the heat high so the apples brown, and don’t turn into mush. Then keep shaking the pan to keep the pine nuts from burning.

 

 

This weekend, I pulled some ribs out of the freezer, and put them on the rotisserie, where I've always had good luck. I used the Rotisserie BBQ Baby Back Ribs recipe from the Dad Cooks Dinner Web site, as well as his recipes for rub and BBQ sauce.

Not surprisingly, they turned out great! Moist and flavorful, they had only one flaw: There weren’t enough!
The ribs will definitely stay out of the oven next time, and stay on the rotisserie. Here, the rotisserie had just started turning: Ninety minutes later, I slathered on some BBQ sauce and let them cook for another ten minutes.
Finally, here are some before and after shots:

Since I'd made the curry paste for the Hor Mok Talay Ma-Praow On from scratch, I didn't want it to go to waste. And I didn't want the frog legs in the freezer to get too old.

 

So I combined the two with an adaption of this age-old Curried Frogs' Legs recipe that's been floating around the Internet for umpteen years.

Most large Asian supermarkets carry frozen frog legs, usually for around $10 a pound. After marinating the frogs’ legs in the curry paste for 30 minutes (and simultaneously soaking the bean thread noodles to soften them), I cooked up a chopped onion and tossed in the frog’s legs to brown. The cooking legs gave new definition to the word "food porn."

I added a tablespoon or so of fermented fish sauce, and a cup of chicken stock I’d made from chicken feet a few months earlier. (I’d frozen the chicken stock in ice cube trays for later reuse.) After the dish simmered into a gooey mass, I poured it over the noodles, and sat down to dinner.

So, what do frogs’ legs taste like? Well, mostly like chicken and fish sauce.

But what really surprised me was the amount of bones. Hip bones, knee joints, and tibias/fibias created quite a pile.

I washed them off and saved them for an arty type like my wife to turn into Halloween cards.