Saffron Chermoula Orzo with Shrimp

Image September 3, 2022 Tangie Holifield

Adapted from Chef Nargisse Benkabbou
New York Times, September 2022

Traditionally used to season seafood and vegetables, chermoula is a Moroccan marinade made of herbs and spices like cilantro, parsley, paprika and cumin. In this recipe, the orzo cooks in a combination of chermoula and stock, so the orzo is seasoned all the way through. In the last few minutes of cooking, just stir the shrimp into the orzo to cook, and you have a quick and easy, yet exciting, dinner. Feel free to use a protein of your choice instead of shrimp, but adjust cook times accordingly. Also, consider making a big batch of chermoula and keep it in the fridge to use as a marinade, a dressing on salads or a condiment for sandwiches.

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the Chermoula:
2 lemons
1 cup finely chopped cilantro
1 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley
¼ cup Moroccan olive oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
½ teaspoon granulated sugar

For the Orzo and Shrimp:
1/4 teaspoon good quality saffron threads
1/4 cup hot water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup orzo
1½ cups chicken stock
¾ pound peeled and deveined medium to large shrimp, tails removed

Directions:
Take one half of the 1/4 tsp saffron threads and put them in a spice mortar. Grind the spice with a pestle to a powdery consistency. Add a second pinch of saffron threads to the mortar. Do not crush these threads.
Ground saffron threads in a mortar and pestle.

Pour 1/4 cup of hot water into the mortar. Set aside and let the saffron soak for 5 minutes. This will open up the flavor of the spice.

To Make the chermoula: Finely grate the zest from both lemons and set aside for serving, then, into a medium bowl, squeeze 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Stir in the cilantro, parsley, olive oil, garlic, paprika, cumin, salt and sugar and set aside until ready to use. (You can keep the chermoula in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 5 days.)

Prepare the orzo and shrimp: Heat the butter and olive oil in a large pot over medium-high until the butter is melted. Add the orzo and keep stirring until the orzo is lightly golden, about 3 minutes. Pour the yellow saffron liquid evenly across the top of the orzo.

Add in the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cover the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until orzo starts to soften, about 10 minutes. If it looks like the orzo is too dry, add a couple of tablespoons of water to the pan.

Cover the pot again until the orzo is cooked through and most of the liquid has evaporated, 4 to 6 minutes more. Turn off heat. Gently stir in the chermoula and shrimp. Stir, cover, let stand 3 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and lemon juice if necessary.

Serve immediately, topped with the grated lemon zest.

Notes:

Moroccan olive oil has all of the health benefits of Italian, Greek, Spanish, Californian, and all other olive oils, including potential advantages for heart and brain health and cancer prevention. Made in the unique terroir surrounding the Atlas Mountains, Moroccan olive oil has a flavor all its own. Once you have some Moroccan olive oil in your pantry, it’s a perfect time to delve into the delicious world of Moroccan cuisine. Try making some salads, a tagine, or a sweet and savory olive oil cake.

Shrimp needs only 2-3 minutes @ 185°F to be perfectly cooked. Any time longer than that, you will get a rubbery protein.

Fresh herbs lose color and flavor when cooked. In this recipe, they are best when added at the end of the cooking time.

Nikki Giovanni’s Butter-Fried Chicken

Image December 21, 2020 Tangie Holifield

Great food, a bottle of wine and great literature go hand in hand…….

New York Time journalist Elizabeth Harris interviewed the poet Nikki Giovanni for an article that appeared in the newspaper during the week of December 14,2020. Giovanni, 77, whose 19th collection of poems, “Make Me Rain,” came out this Fall. In the course of their discussion, Giovanni told Harris about the butter-fried chicken she makes for dinner sometimes. That recipe didn’t make it into the final copy of the interview, but Harris did share Giovanni’s recipe with the rest of us in a .a brief excerpt found in the NYT Cooking column on-line.

It’s not so much a recipe as it is a no-recipe recipe, like the one’s our Grandmothers would hand down by word of mouth, and it results in an excellent chicken dish. The texture of the outer layer is crispy and the inner part is juicy and tender. And in Giovanni’s own words:

“I’m a Southern cook so I use whatever is around. Cut the chicken up or if you are lucky and working purchase wings. There is no such thing as too much butter. A half stick is usually good, though. Put a couple of cloves of garlic in the skillet to let them simmer. I like to rub the wings with ginger but I forgot to tell you a shake or two of nutmeg really helps. If summer, get your rosemary from the garden or your tarragon or whatever is green growing. Do not roll a lot of flour on them. Just enough to cover then shake off. Do not batter them. You are not, after all, a chef trying to stretch your money.”

“Cook that floured chicken slowly,” Giovanni emphasized. “If you don’t have time to slowly fry,” she wrote, “then remember the old blues song: ‘Come back tomorrow and try it again.’ ”

It really takes the hand of an experienced cook to fry chicken in butter as it is a slow and tedious process. Scientifically, it is possible to cook boneless, skinless chicken breasts in butter, provided the temperature is kept below the 350° F frying point without danger of burning the chicken and the milk proteins found in the butter, as you find in Italian cuisine. As for bone-in chicken with the skin on, butter helps the skin to go brown because the milk solids in the butter brown, but it doesn’t make the chicken crispier by any means. Butter is used for colour and flavor. For that very reason, we adapted Nikki Giovanni’s recipe and we recommend frying the chicken in a combination of vegetable oil and butter, after thoroughly drying your bird, and reducing the temperature while frying the chicken to a slow simmer. This slow simmering of the chicken in butter is reminiscent of the term, à la meunière, which can be roughly translated as, in the manner of miller’s wife, in reference to a French cooking technique in which a whole fish or fish fillets are lightly dusted in flour and then sautéed in butter. The technique is easily adapted by replacing the main ingredients or incorporating additional elements.

Try it for dinner and see if it doesn’t suit your taste. We think it’s delicious, warm and fragrant, and is most excellent when paired with a nice Chardonnay!

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:
One 3-4 lb chicken cut up, or 3 pounds of thighs, drumsticks and wings
1 cup all purpose flour
Salt, to taste
Ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
3 garlic cloves
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 stalk of celery
Vegetable oil, for frying
1 stick of unsalted butter

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 175 º F.

To prepare a draining station, set a wire rack in a rimmed baking pan. lined with paper towels; set aside.

Using clean paper towels, pat the chicken dry. Season with salt and pepper and set aside on a clean plate.

In a large bowl, add flour, salt, pepper, paprika, nutmeg, allspice and oregano. Mix them well until it is all incorporated.

Dredge the chicken in the seasoned flour mixture. Shake off the excess flour and set aside on a rack to dry. Repeat the same dredging process for the remainder of the chicken pieces.

Add the vegetable oil to a cast iron skillet or Dutch oven to a depth of 2 inches. Heat the oil to 350 ºF. Add the butter, garlic cloves, rosemary and celery stalk. Add the chicken, and shallow fry for 3 to 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Continue to fry the chicken for 15 to 20 minutes. Using tongs, turn and rotate the chicken pieces every few minutes to ensure even cooking and prevent the skin from burning, until the chicken is golden brown in color and the internal temperature of the chicken is 165° F (See Cook’s Notes Below).

Transfer chicken to the prepared paper towel lined tray, and drain the chicken. Transfer the chicken to the oven to keep warm and repeat frying the rest of the chicken.

Serve immediately with your choice of tabasco sauce and side dishes, like potato salad, coleslaw, collard greens, or green beans.

Cook’s Notes:

As an alternative to using a mix of vegetable oil and butter, you can also use Crisco Butter Flavor Shortening. For the record, Crisco shortening has 50 percent less saturated fat than butter and 0g trans fat per serving. It is excellent for frying, and great for baking – giving you higher, lighter-textured baked goods, in addition to adding a rich buttery flavor to foods.

While frying the chicken, cook slowly of medium-low heat, just about to a simmer, to prevent the flour from burning.

Use thermometer to check the internal temperature of the chicken, being careful not to touch the bones. Don’t be afraid to break the chicken’s crust to take the meat’s internal temperature; it should read 165 ° F. Drumsticks/thighs are also done at 175 ° F. Being on the safe side, a broken crust is vastly preferable to undercooked chicken. Plan on the whole process of frying chicken to taking around 15–25 minutes, keeping in mind that white meat will cook faster than dark.

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Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose by Nikki Giovanni

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Italian Minestrone Soup

Image November 28, 2020 Tangie Holifield

This hearty minestrone is easy to make and totally worth the effort.
The recipe calls for seasonal vegetables and affordable pantry ingredients you can find in any local grocery store, making it budget friendly. Like an Italian minestrone soup, this recipe is loaded with vegetables, beans, spinach and ditalini pasta. The soup packs great for lunch, and tastes even better the next day. You can make this dish dairy free, gluten-free and vegan friendly. Just see the following Cook’s Notes. This recipe calls for about 24 servings, so just know that it also freezes and defrosts well too. It is extra nice to have on hand in the freezer on during those days when you feel like being a lazy cook in the kitchen, especially during the winter months.

Serves 24

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 cup of small diced pancetta bacon
2 peeled and small diced yellow onions
4 finely minced cloves of garlic
2 thinly sliced leeks, optional
4 medium diced stalks of celery
4 peeled and sliced carrots
1 peeled and medium diced turnip
1 peeled and medium diced parsnip
½ small diced bulb of fennel core removed, optional
3 peeled and large diced russet potatoes
Three 28-ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes in juice
Three 15-ounce cans of drained cannellini beans
128 ounces of chicken stock
3 parmesan cheese rinds (See Cook’s Notes)
2 cups of frozen peas
2 cups baby spinach, chopped kale or chopped collard greens
juice of 1 lemon
2 pounds of cooked and cooled ditalini pasta (See Cook’s Notes)
Salt, to taste
Fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
Parmesan cheese and fresh oregano and rosemary sprigs, for garnish

Directions:
In a very large pot or stockpot over medium heat add in the pancetta and cook until browned and crispy. Set aside the pancetta lardons.

Add in the onions, garlic, leeks, celery, carrots, turnip, parsnips and fennel to the pot and sauté for 10 to 12 minutes.

Add in the potatoes, tomatoes, beans, stock and cheese rinds and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Add the peas, spinach, lemon juice, cooked pancetta, salt, and pepper.

To serve, ladle into bowl and garnish with parmesan, oregano and rosemary, if desired.

Cook’s Notes:
Minestrone soup is subject to change based on what you have and what’s in season. This minestrone soup recipe may look completely different in the summer since things like zucchini, yellow squash and squash peak in are that season. For the Spring, you might want to use peas, green beans and leeks for the soup. As for autumn seasonal vegetables, potatoes turnips, butternut squash, also work for this recipe. Basically, whatever vegetables you have on hand will work in this recipe. Left over vegetables will also work in a pinch too.

Grains or Pasta: Italian minestrone soup can also use things like farro or cous cous as the grain or pasta in the soup, such as orecchiette, elbow or small shell pasta. To make this soup gluten free, you can also substitute your favorite sturdy gluten-free noodle, such as DeLallo’s Whole-Grain Rice Shells.

Parmesan Cheese: The Parmesan cheese rind is not a necessity, but it will add some delicious umami flavors to the soup. You can add grated Parmesan to the soup as a substitute, or shredded Parmesan can be added as a garnish.

However, if you want to make the soup dairy free and vegan friendly, do not use Parmesan cheese or the pancetta. Most Parmesans are not technically vegetarian because they contain animal rennet. As a reliable substitute, Whole Foods 365 and Bel Gioioso brands do offer vegetarian Parmesan cheese, and both will work really well in this recipe.

How to Reheat: To reheat the minestrone soup simply add your desired portion to a small sauce pot and heat over low heat until hot. You can also simply add your desired portion to microwave safe bowl and heat for 2:30 stirring after 1:15.

How to Store: Minestrone soup will hold well in the refrigerator covered up for up to 5 days. It will also freeze well covered for up to 3 months. Simply pull it out as you need it and reheat following the directions above.

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